"Then have you now any means to answer this enemy?" Zhao Chen asked without thinking.
But the little girl gave no answer, which brought Zhao Chen to himself; this was only an image left behind.
Perhaps the little girl had guessed at Zhao Chen's question.
She continued of her own accord, "Facing this threat that comes from Order. Up to the present our universe has had a first plan, and that is the Gaia Empire's expeditionary force. But of this plan, up to the present, beyond that information capsule there has been no other return; whether the expeditionary force yet exists there is no knowing at all. And if we do nothing but answer without cease those Pitch-Black Legion fleets Order sends, the enemy being undying and unperishing, and appearing besides at an ever higher frequency. We shall sooner or later be overrun, and our homeland fall with us. So we made ready a second plan. We essayed to seek out, of our own motion, such other universe civilizations as yet survive, and above all T6 technological universe civilizations. Wishing, through alliance, to face the threat of Order together. At the beginning of this plan there was no response whatsoever; the civilization-exploration fleets we sent out all sank as stones into the sea. For after all we had not mastered true T6 technology, and could not fix the position of other universes with any precision; neither had we any plan for cross-universe sailing. That we could come here at all we owe to the Gaia Empire's legacy, that Gate of Gaia. But not long since, we have at last found another civilized life within this space!"
Zhao Chen showed a look of curiosity.
Another technological civilization?
This was assuredly a matter of the first importance.
"This civilized life, perhaps you know very well besides. Because… they are the hive-race."
The little girl's words astonished Zhao Chen outright.
Zhao Chen opened his mouth in his surprise; had the little girl been before him at that moment, he might have asked her outright: what manner of companion is the hive-race?
Were he to ally with them, he would likely not even know how he had died.
"I know you will surely be much surprised at this result. For after all, in the common understanding of our universe, the hive-race is an evil existence, a natural calamity that destroys all things."
The little girl's words paused here, and she showed a trace of a sly look. "But have not we of the Machine Race appeared in just such a form before the several interstellar powers? And yet now, can we not still become allies, and work together. We can even fight shoulder to shoulder. There is nothing absolute in this world."
Hearing the little girl's words, Zhao Chen knit his brows.
Perhaps the case she stated was so, but for the moment his heart could not accept it.
For with Zhao Chen, there was yet a great difference between the Machine Race and the hive-race.
Though the Machine Race had been enemy to the several great interstellar powers within the universe, all that was of the time before Zhao Chen came into this world.
The only war Zhao Chen had ever broken out into with the Machine Race was in his days of study at the Starship Academy, when, to complete a vacation mission, he had his first clash with a Machine Race fleet, a small clash upon the scale of several hundred interstellar warships only.
So to speak truly, Zhao Chen's enmity toward the Machine Race was not so very great; rather than a foe, they were more like a competitor that posed a threat.
But the hive-race was another matter.
Since coming into this world Zhao Chen had clashed with the hive-race several times over, from contests as small as several thousand hulls.
To great pitched battles reaching above a hundred thousand interstellar warships, the field of battle covering several star systems and even star regions!
And Zhao Chen had witnessed with his own eyes those planets the hive-race had taken, the living souls in mire and charcoal, a scene as of the world's end.
Within the Holy Radiance Empire even now there were great stretches of star systems left riddled with a thousand wounds by the hive-race's assaults.
So the difficulty of working with the hive-race was, in Zhao Chen's view, tens of times over the difficulty of working with the Machine Race.
What was more, up to the present they had never once held communication with the hive-race.
In former days, facing the interstellar hive-race's assaults, it was not that none had thought of communication.
But the scientists had used a thousand ways and a hundred, and all had failed.
In the end it was concluded that they simply could not establish communication with the interstellar hive-race.
"Speaking of it, this was in fact their finding us. At that time I received a message from the hive-race."
The little girl's words brought an astonished expression to Zhao Chen outright.
It must be said that these few short minutes were more astonishing than all the news Zhao Chen had come by in the year before.
The hive-race communicating of its own motion?
"Only it was not a conventional communication, so no record was left behind. It was a manner of spiritual communication; I sensed it directly, and received it. The content was a coordinate position, and the message was this: 'Oppose Order. Signed: the Bug-Swarm.'" The little girl swung both her legs.
"Though that has already come, whether you go or not is yours to decide. But my advice is that we must now, to face the threat that comes from Order, find means to gather any force that can be gathered. However great your enmity toward the hive-race, you may well go and learn something of them. Whether as friend or as enemy, you may first go and look; perhaps you may come by some useful intelligence beyond all expectation? Having said so much, how you decide is for you yourself to see." The little girl's words stopped here.
The little girl's figure faded away with them.
Before Zhao Chen's eyes there appeared once more the Cherubim and Ah-Yin.
"What did you see?" Ah-Yin asked with concern.
The Cherubim, for her part, looked upon Zhao Chen coldly; by the look of it she must know what was within.
"Well? Will you go? If you have no wish to go. Turn back now to the Gate of Gaia, and there is yet time to take your fleet and roll back home," the Cherubim said coldly.
Ah-Yin at his side still wore a face of puzzlement.
She was now the only one who did not know the case.
"Where is the coordinate position?" Zhao Chen asked.
The Cherubim shook her head. "The coordinate position we do not know. We know only a direction, for the signal came from that direction. We do not know how far it needs sailing, nor what lies at the position from which the signal was sent. Whether there is truly an opportunity there, or only a snare. We none of us know."
Zhao Chen asked immediately after, "Then if I choose not to go, how will you choose to handle this matter?"
The Cherubim gave a cold snort. "The Master has said that it must be looked into, whatever befall. By the original plan, I was making ready to send a reconnaissance fleet. Only it is a pity that the Pitch-Black Legion fleets are come to raid us again, and for the moment I cannot draw off any great number of legion fleets to execute this mission. But once the fighting upon the line has eased, I shall execute this mission still. This is the mission the Master left me."
The Cherubim's tone was very plain.
"What in the world is this about?" Ah-Yin at his side could not master her curiosity, and cut in with the question.
Zhao Chen looked toward the Cherubim.
The Cherubim said blandly, "She has come; naturally she has the right to know as well. Yin, if you wish to know, then put your hand upon it."
As the Cherubim's words fell, Ah-Yin could not wait to put her hand upon it.
She fell into the same case Zhao Chen had been in a moment before, standing stock-still where she was.
"If you mean to go, best go early. Do not let your fleet take up our precious star-port berths and choke our channels," the Cherubim said, as though certain that Zhao Chen and his people would choose to leave.
"Do you so believe, then, that we will not choose to execute this mission?" Zhao Chen asked in return.
The Cherubim said coldly, "You carbon-based lives are pedantic, and are ruled by your feelings. Within your view of the world the interstellar hive-race is an evil existence; you will not lightly choose to work with an enemy of former days."
The corners of Zhao Chen's mouth rose slightly; he raised a finger and shook it gently. "I own that what you say is in part the truth. But at certain weighty moments we make the right choice as well. This mission, I have taken it, and there's an end! Three hours from now, I shall be ready to set out."
The Cherubim looked upon Zhao Chen with some surprise.
Just at this moment, Ah-Yin awoke.
Within her eyes there showed an astonished look, and she muttered, "Order… a spirit-body… undying and unperishing…"
This was near enough the same as when Zhao Chen learned that news.
"As for you, rather. How stands the Black Great-Wall line at present? Can you hold, or no? Do not let it be that when I return you have been swept away by them. By that time I could not go home though I wished to." Zhao Chen looked upon the Cherubim, smiling.
The Cherubim gave a cold snort. "The matters of the line need not trouble you. I have promised the Master that, until she returns. Both the Black Great-Wall line and the Black Great-Wall Base shall be under our guard. Facing these enemies, we of the Black Great-Wall Guard Legion Fleet shall not fall back a single step!"
The Black Great-Wall Guard Legion Fleet.
By the look of it, this was besides the name of the Machine Race interstellar fleet garrisoned here.
"Would it be convenient to tell me how the line stands? How many interstellar warships have those Pitch-Black Legion fleets brought this time?" Zhao Chen asked.
The Cherubim said impatiently at this, "This is no affair of yours to manage. The Master permitted you only to come and do this mission; the matters of the line have nothing to do with you."
A proud and prickly mechanical angel, this.
Zhao Chen shrugged, and thereafter asked, "Then may I move freely within your base and upon your line?"
The Cherubim eyed Zhao Chen coldly. "Do not get in the way."
Having said it, the Cherubim looked toward Ah-Yin. "He is making ready to execute the mission the Master charged him with. Do you stay here, or go with him."
Only now had Ah-Yin digested that news; she looked toward Zhao Chen. "You mean to go?"
"Having come all this way, I must go and see, whatever else," Zhao Chen said with a shrug.
Ah-Yin turned her head toward the Cherubim. "Then I shall follow them over. Within this space they are not familiar. I have at least lived here a while, and can guide them."
"Then let it be so. I have fighting to command besides; do as you please." Having said it, the Cherubim turned and left.
Ah-Yin and Zhao Chen, the two of them, were left behind.
"This compatriot of yours, her temper truly has… something of the angel flavor about it." Zhao Chen folded his arms, one hand rubbing at his chin, looking after this mechanical angel's retreating back.
And it must be said, those lines of hers had a fine charm.
"Ah-Zhi is just so." Ah-Yin turned her gaze upon Zhao Chen. "I had not thought you would truly accept this mission."
"Why is it that you all believe I would not accept?" Zhao Chen asked, unable to hold back a smile.
Ah-Yin said, "Because compared with us, your enmity with the interstellar hive-race is in truth the greater. And you have had many large-scale engagements with the interstellar hive-race besides. The Holy Radiance Empire has a blood feud with the interstellar hive-race, still more. If at this time the Holy Radiance Empire were to know that you go seeking the hive-race, and would even work with the hive-race. I do not know how they would speak of you. Or even how the whole society of the human race, the society of carbon-based life, would look upon you."
Zhao Chen was silent.
His gaze was deep as he looked out of the viewport beside the great hall, upon the starry sky.
"How others look upon me is of no importance. But now there is truly a strong power that would threaten our universe, our home. And if to plot with the tiger for its hide is the only way, then I am willing to sacrifice all that is mine, my good name included. Only to win that one thread of a chance!" Zhao Chen clenched his fist and said, cutting nails and severing iron, "Of course, I am not without a bottom line. If the hive-race cannot come up to the standard I hold in my mind, I shall still not work with them!"
Ah-Yin understood the meaning within Zhao Chen's words.
The meaning within the Master's video before was likewise a surmise: whether the interstellar hive-race too had some bitter difficulty of their own, just as they of the Machine Race had.
If it were truly so, then perhaps there was opportunity for cooperation.
Zhao Chen had thought of this point as well, and so he decided to give himself this one chance.
"When do we set out?" Ah-Yin asked.
For she had been listening to the message the Master left, and had not heard Zhao Chen's arrangement.
"Within three hours. Before that, I should like to have a good look at this base. And then to see the Black Great-Wall line. And those so-called Pitch-Black Legion fleets besides." Zhao Chen looked at Ah-Yin, smiling, and asked, "You will not mind playing the guide for me."
Ah-Yin smiled slightly, put out her hand to point ahead, and then led the way for Zhao Chen.
Thereafter, Ah-Yin as guide led Zhao Chen about this Black Great-Wall Base.
The first thing seen was naturally a great stretch of industrial base.
"This is our Black Great-Wall Industrial Base. It is at present the largest industrial base we of the Machine Race have. Because the Black Great-Wall line must not fall, we simply built the industrial base here. Above half of the strategic materials within the Machine Race's territory are transported here, to build new interstellar warships. Here, where production tasks are carried on after the saturation fashion. In a single month one million interstellar warships can be produced, and among them at least one hundred thousand T4 interstellar warships and ten thousand T5 interstellar warships! The Black Great-Wall Base keeps a garrison upon the scale of ten million interstellar warships the year round. Five million is the line of alarm. Once it falls below the line of alarm, it signifies that the Black Great-Wall Base stands at a dangerous stage, and has urgent need of great numbers of interstellar warships in supply. Half a year ago it was because the Black Great-Wall Base's garrison fell below five million interstellar warships that a call for aid was sent to the mechanical royal court. And so the Master led in person the greater part of the Machine Race fleets within the Machine Race's territory, to reinforce the Black Great-Wall Base. And this it was that brought about the want of fleets within the Machine Race's territory, and gave the Demon Race fleets their opening," Ah-Yin said, pointing to the stretch of industrial base far off.
Zhao Chen gazed upon these industrial bases.
Who would have thought that the Machine Race's greatest foundation should lie here!
This was enough to prove besides the firm resolve of the Machine Race to guard this line!