Several seconds passed, and neither the explosion she'd imagined nor the great roar of a hull struck home ever came.
Instead there came to her ears Liu Lili's voice, glad with surprise.
"It's Cadet Zhao Chen's carrier!"
Shen Bing opened her eyes; through the imagery the hull gathered in, she could see a T2 carrier now positioned above her T2 Hyena.
And a half-transparent star-shield, thrown up before both ships.
The Mechanical Race warships' attacks left only a few ripples on the star-shield, and nothing more.
Then five T2 Black-Rhino-class Interstellar Heavy-Assault Escorts leapt forth, driving up straight into the enemy Mechanical ships' fire!
Beep beep beep beep.
At this moment Shen Bing's handheld terminal buzzed a few times; she tapped it open to look.
Upon it was a message sent over by Zhao Chen.
It bade her ship pull out of the battlefield first — he'd take charge here — and closed with a reminder besides: was her communications system out of order?
"Our comms system's out of order?"
Shen Bing checked the comms system, and sure enough, the successive gunfire it had just taken had left the comms system now in a fault state.
Even the starship radar system had gone wrong.
No wonder she'd gotten no alert at all here of Zhao Chen's fleet's support.
"Whew, whew, whew… Shen Bing… I was scared out of my wits… scared out of my wits… just now I really thought I was going to die! And I've never even had a boyfriend!" Liu Lili suddenly burst into tears, the nerves drawn so taut a moment ago only now going slack.
Shen Bing looked at Liu Lili and the other crew on the bridge, each like one given new life; upon that once-cold face of hers, too, a trace of a smile surfaced.
She lifted her head, looking toward the carrier in the picture that had appeared above her ship like a rampart.
A sense of safety she couldn't put into words filled her heart.
"It's been less than 20 minutes — and Zhao Chen's battle over there is already over?" Curious, Shen Bing used the deep-space telescope to look at the state of the other battlefield, the one Zhao Chen's fleet had charge of.
She saw an astonishing sight.
Across that reach of cosmic battlefield, one could see scattered starship wreckage — some rent to pieces, some split in two, some lucky enough to keep the whole great frame of the hull intact but with hull armor bombed to a wreck everywhere, riddled through and through.
The Mechanical Race's 10 T2 warships, not one spared.
Wiped out, every one!
What manner of terrifying combat power was this — with only one T2 carrier and five T2 escort ships.
After all!
Whoever had seen a T2 carrier with a star-shield?
Or T2 escort ships that dared take a battlecruiser head-on?
"Where does Zhao Chen keep digging up these monster ships." At this Shen Bing too couldn't hold back a muttered word.
From that earlier Blizzard Zero, able to run to 100 star-knots and mounting a 1,200mm giant cannon.
To the T2 Black-Rhino that had made its name at the Northstar Starship Military Academy taking on a same-tier battlecruiser single-handed.
To this T2 carrier before her now, of name and model unknown, possessed of a star-shield.
This man… seemed no longer that noble youth who'd buried himself in books for three years.
Perhaps because he'd grown familiar with Mechanical Race warships' combat style, Zhao Chen had, this round, spent less than 10 minutes wiping out all 10 Mechanical Race warships!
Shen Bing, who witnessed it all, and the crew on her bridge, were left speechless — it was too staggering!
"Report — the second Mechanical Race group has been wiped out. The T2 Queen Bee has expended 67% of its ammunition and supplies, and lost over 30% of its interstellar drones! Star-shield energy at 41% remaining; the hull has taken no damage of any kind."
Secretary Lilith reported the fleet's condition promptly at his side; having finished the T2 Queen Bee's report—
—she then called up the five T2 Black-Rhinos' condition.
Zhao Chen swept it a glance.
The five T2 Black-Rhinos, after two battles, wore scars on their hulls, but none had taken any great harm.
The most heavily damaged of them showed only 37% overall hull-armor damage, and just over 50% at its worst point.
Add to that the fact that escort ships have the lowest combat-consumption rate, and every T2 Black-Rhino still had over 70% of its ammunition and supplies.
More than enough to settle the remaining Mechanical Race group.
"By the look of it, this battle is ours for the taking." Zhao Chen let out a long breath.
"Hey, little brother! Now you've settled things over by your little sweetheart, don't go forgetting your big brother over here. Big brother's already lost two ships over here — really about to buckle. And there's already a Mechanical Race warship threatening the escort fleet!"
The smoking uncle's voice sounded at this moment.
In the video window, the smoking uncle had dropped his foul earlier manner, chummy now with Zhao Chen as though they were old friends of many years.
"Uncle, I've not forgotten you," Zhao Chen replied with a smile.
This smoking uncle's temper might be a touch poor, but he was a decent sort all the same.
At the least, in this battle, he'd done his duty and done it fully.
The one who'd fled in a rout at the battle's start was, on the contrary, that leather-clad woman who'd earlier wanted to get up to something with Zhao Chen.
The smoking uncle gave a guileless laugh and put a thumb up at Zhao Chen. "Before, it was my eyes at fault, uncle's eyes — you're the real thing! Impressive! When we get back, big brother'll stand you a drink."
Zhao Chen smiled and said nothing, and began to look over the present state of the battlefield.
Chiefly the starship icons on the data panel.
Of the 30 T2 Mechanical Race warships, over two-thirds had gone dark, meaning they were destroyed.
The uncle's fleet had two icons gone black too; the rest were red, marking the degree and location of hull damage.
Ships whole and unharmed showed a blue icon.
Apart from Zhao Chen's T2 Queen Bee, there was scarcely a ship left whole and unharmed.
The Mechanical Race's 20 T2 warships had all been wiped out by Zhao Chen's fleet.
The uncle's fleet had crippled one enemy T2 Mechanical-Sentinel-class Medium Interstellar Escort and one T2 Mech-Hound-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer.
At the same time, the uncle's fleet had paid the loss of two T1 ships, with two more T1 ships crippled and one T2 Grey-Wolf-class Light Interstellar Cruiser crippled.
One might say this uncle's fleet had taken no small losses in this combat task.
And some Mechanical Race warships had broken through the uncle's fleet's blockade and mounted a direct attack on the interstellar transport fleet.
At present 12 T1 interstellar transports were destroyed.
This too had brought some change to Zhao Chen's task data.
Bonus Task: Preserve as many T1 interstellar transports as possible (288/300)
"Support the uncle's battlefield; end this fight as soon as we can!" Zhao Chen gave the combat order for the third battle of this campaign.
The interstellar drone swarm, resupplied, was launched again, made ready to throw into another fight.
To surround and wipe out the remaining 10 Mechanical Race warships.
Destroying this Mechanical Race group was far simpler than the round just past; among them, after all, were crippled Mechanical Race ships that simply couldn't withstand the harrying of the T2 Black-Rhinos and the interstellar drones.
In no time at all, the 10 Mechanical Race ships were down to seven!
But just then, on Zhao Chen's T2 Queen Bee's starship radar, there appeared a red cursor a size larger than any signal before.
"Report — detected the energy signal of a T3 warship! It's driving toward us; at its present speed, it will enter threat range in five minutes!"
Zhao Chen's heart sank — this was a Mechanical Race… T3 ship!