Zhao Chen kept his eyes upon the interstellar war sand-table before him, and for a long while said nothing.
To speak truth, in this military plan.
From its beginning to the present, neither Zhao Chen nor Charlotte had ever been certain of it to the hundredth part.
Charlotte had even put it forward several times that in its later course this military plan carried an exceedingly great risk.
And above all upon the supposition that the Angel Race should look on from behind its wall.
The Owl Dragon Legion might then pay a grievous price in casualties.
But in the end it was Zhao Chen who settled it with one stroke of the hammer, and had this plan of battle carried out.
That Zhao Chen should hold to it so fixedly.
The annual mission, and the mission the Machine Race set off, are both parts of what made it up.
And there is this besides: that Zhao Chen understands the Demon Race's threat to be there always, and that though he supply the Angel Race with Owl Dragon-line warships without cease, he cannot turn the Angel Race's disadvantage about at the root, but only slow the speed of their dying.
And once it was made certain that the Mechanical Divine Church truly has a relation with the Demon Race.
This becomes a timed bomb that may go off at any moment.
Zhao Chen could not watch the fire from across the water; and were he truly to do so, it might even come to rearing a tiger for a calamity.
Weighing it all together, Zhao Chen determined to carry out this plan of battle.
Destroying the Mechanical Divine Church, and at the same time wrecking the Demon Race's picked fleets upon a great scale.
So that even if at the operation's end the Demon Race be not defeated, yet with its sinews hurt and its bones shaken it will hardly recover to that level at which it ground the Angel Race down before.
"Get word to Charlotte, and ask whether the plan of battle as first laid is still to be carried out.
"And whether there is anything wanting alteration." Having charged Lilith with this.
Zhao Chen looked toward the Little Dragon Girl. "Do you run the military operations to come through your reckonings again.
"Any question whatever, tell me at once!
"We must make certain that the military operations to come are without a flaw… or at the least, at the least, upon the condition that our Owl Dragon Legion is kept safe."
"Right you are!" The Little Dragon Girl set her mighty powers of computation to work at once, and began within her mind to model and reckon the course of the war to come, without cease.
Time went by, little by little.
And word after word from the front-line field came back to Zhao Chen.
But at this time a remnant roll of data gathered from that mechanical planet of the former Mechanical Divine Church startled Zhao Chen.
And even made Zhao Chen lay aside his concern for the campaign before him.
"Can it be made certain that this material is true?" Zhao Chen looked gravely toward Lilith and asked it.
Lilith nodded. "It can be made certain."
"Lilith, the business upon the field I put wholly into your hands!" Having charged Lilith with this, Zhao Chen without a word more ordered the Dragon Emperor to draw for the present out of the field, and out of this star system of the Mechanical Divine Church.
And to command the field from afar instead.
At which arrangement no few were perplexed.
But since it was the Commander's order, they had only to carry it out.
When the Dragon Emperor, a single interstellar warship alone, appeared outside that star system of the Mechanical Divine Church.
Before Zhao Chen there appeared a shape of light besides.
"You are splendid!
"You truly did it after all.
"I have heard it all from Ah-Yin.
"The Mechanical Divine Church's interstellar fleets sailed out of that compass of themselves.
"However in the world did you do it?
"It is simply past all belief!" The little girl circled about Zhao Chen, dancing with her hands and feet for joy, for all the world as if it were a festival.
"Now that I think of it, we have known each other so long.
"And I do not yet know what you are called?" Zhao Chen fixed his eyes upon the little girl.
The little girl checked; she put her head aslant, all innocence and simplicity. "Is my name of any importance?
"Among us mechanical lives, a name is much the same as a string of code."
"Then why did you give a name to that pair of mechanical sisters of yours?" Zhao Chen put it back to her on the spot.
At which the little girl was stopped short.
She marked besides that there was plainly something amiss in Zhao Chen's seeking her out this time; within the eyes he fixed upon her there was, as it were, a detective who had found his evidence at last.
"I remember of a sudden that I have some business I have not seen to…"
"Is it the business of the Gaia Empire?" Zhao Chen said it straight out.
At the words Gaia Empire the little girl's body went stiff; nor did she leave.
The smile faded from her face; she turned her head and looked at Zhao Chen somewhat helplessly. "How much… do you know?"
"It is I who should be asking you how much you have kept from me!" Zhao Chen came several steps forward, pressing close before the little girl.
Were the little girl a real person, at such a distance Zhao Chen could likely have heard the beating of her heart.
"It came out of the Mechanical Divine Church's database, did it not.
"In truth I had thought of that possibility too; and still you found it." The little girl shook her head at herself.
Then she hopped straight up onto the desk, set both hands upon its top, and swung her legs.
She seems to be particularly fond of this posture.
Even the chair she sits in herself is a high-legged chair wholly unsuited to her body.
"Speak, then; what would you ask?"
"The Gaia Empire!" Zhao Chen said the words again. "Within the information of the known universe I could turn up nothing whatever upon the Gaia Empire.
"Not even upon the Angel Race's side!"
"Of course there is nothing.
"For that was an interstellar empire out of a far-off age — an age of glory beyond all compare!" As the little girl said these words, there seemed to be little stars shining within her eyes.
Thereafter the little girl kept nothing back from Zhao Chen, but told him a story.
In that time all the powers of this universe stood yet in their planetary age; and upon a certain planet, with the building of a space station called the Moon Palace.
There properly came into being an interstellar civilization that could voyage far to other planets.
More and more interstellar technologies were developed.
The dwellers upon that planet began to migrate to their satellite, and to remake every habitable planet within their star system into their colonies.
And at a stroke their world entered upon a great explosion of technology.
From the first voyage across star systems, from the development of the warp engine, and thence to using the fluctuations of a star to build star gates and achieve star-gate travel.
Which brought the distances between star system and star system nearer and nearer.
A neighboring star system that had once wanted years of sleep to reach now wanted but half an hour — as simple a business as stepping out to buy vegetables.
And as they opened outward, they met with other interstellar civilizations besides.
Of which there were some that dwelt with them in peace, and some that went to war with them.
And in the end, over the passage of near ten thousand years.
Those interstellar races that dwelt with them in peace all joined themselves to them.
And those that stood their enemies were all destroyed.
The known universe came for the first time into a flourishing age of great unity!
And in the end that age of great unity was given a name — the age of the Gaia Empire!
Which means besides the birth of a vast empire.