Zhao Chen walked into the transport ship's compartment, where rank upon rank of soldiers were already dressed in order and seated.
In the latter half of the compartment there stood interstellar mecha besides, one after another, made ready.
"Report, Commander, the Hades First Interstellar Marine Corps stands ready. Three hundred and fifty in the whole corps; your orders, please."
Zhao Chen glanced at the woman officer standing before him in single-soldier exoskeleton battle armor.
He knew this was most likely the deputy captain's own arrangement.
She knew that what he had decided would not be changed, and so found means from another quarter to strengthen his safety.
"You will act together with the Panther-Girl," Zhao Chen said, pointing to the Panther-Girl at his side.
The Panther-Girl's guard was but fifty.
The Panther-Girl naturally did not mind the addition of such an interstellar marine corps, and stepped forward of her own accord to salute and greet the other.
Zhao Chen found a place and sat down.
At this moment a figure walked in, and sat silently at Zhao Chen's side.
Zhao Chen turned his head aside toward Ah-Yin.
"I go with you," Ah-Yin said blandly.
"Do you need weapons and equipment?" Zhao Chen asked.
Though his own body had been raised, yet he wore black single-soldier exoskeleton battle armor upon him still.
"Our bodies are composed of the hardest metals." As Ah-Yin spoke, she raised her own arm.
The hand drew back within the wrist, and a gun-muzzle appeared.
Several small missiles extended from the arm besides.
Thereafter a laser blade appeared as well.
"We are fitted with weapons of the combat mode besides," Ah-Yin related these things as lightly as cloud and wind.
"You… carry these small missiles about with you at ordinary times?" Zhao Chen looked in astonishment at those small missiles drawn back within her body.
He had not thought that for this half-month and more there had been such a walking magazine at his side.
"Yes." Ah-Yin nodded.
As to Ah-Yin's asking to follow along, Zhao Chen made no refusal either.
For this coordinate position had, after all, been given by her Master, that little girl.
Very soon, the interstellar transport started up.
It sailed away from the Hades' hold, and drove toward that vast Hive Mothership.
Because of the earlier work of the unmanned reconnaissance detachment,
Zhao Chen's party had long since laid out their line of march, and had fixed their point of landing besides.
"Begin putting forth the interstellar mecha."
A voice came within the compartment.
Thereafter the several Cerberus-class Interstellar Battle Mecha in the latter half of the compartment were put down, entering the boarding point first, and making sure of its safety.
Immediately after, the interstellar transport began to descend.
The landing platform spread open.
The interstellar transport settled safely upon the pitch-black outer shell of the Hive Mothership.
The hatch opened.
Zhao Chen pressed once at the neck of the single-soldier exoskeleton battle armor, and thereafter a half-transparent energy helmet covered his head, which could ensure his breathing in the environment of outer space.
The helmets of the other soldiers were mostly of the full-helm sort.
This was because Zhao Chen trusted his own bodily quality; set against the other soldiers, who wanted the combat strength and the defensiveness that the single-soldier exoskeleton battle armor gave.
Zhao Chen regarded rather that the motion of his limbs should not be hindered; his single-soldier armor was of the lightest and most portable sort.
"Marines, make ready to board!" The marine captain led her soldiers first, walking down out of the compartment and up onto this Hive Mothership wreck.
Three minutes after.
Then came Zhao Chen, and the guard led by the Panther-Girl.
When Zhao Chen walked up onto this Hive Mothership, he felt a buoyancy beyond all control; it was by the gravity-regulating device at the feet of the single-soldier exoskeleton battle armor that they could walk upon the surface of the Hive Mothership wreck as though they walked upon land.
Zhao Chen steadied himself and looked about him.
Had one not known this was the outer shell of a Hive Mothership wreck, one would truly have taken it in error for no more than an asteroid drifting within the universe.
"The route is confirmed again."
"Confirmation complete; the march is put at half an hour."
The marines' talk came over the channel at his ear, and at the same time there appeared before Zhao Chen's eyes a track of route, reminding them as it were a navigation whither they were next to go.
The final destination was that position where the unmanned reconnaissance equipment had all failed.
"Commander." The marine captain looked toward Zhao Chen.
"Let us set out," Zhao Chen said.
The order given, the whole party set out with it.
The interstellar marines divided into several fighting groups, posted severally to front, rear, left and right, which could ensure that any danger that might appear could be answered at any moment.
The guard led by the Panther-Girl closed about Zhao Chen, keeping watch upon every side.
Zhao Chen himself, on the contrary, walked as lightly as cloud and wind, looking now and again upon the broken walls and ruined ramparts about him, as though this were not an operation but an outing to the country.
Along the way, Zhao Chen saw some wrecks of T1- and T2-grade Hive Motherships already dead.
And some corpses of interstellar hive-race combat units besides.
Zhao Chen even saw vast culture-dish spaces, nests as it were a honeycomb, which by the look of them were used expressly to rear interstellar hive-race larvae.
Looking upon those things like so many silkworm cocoons, thick and close beyond all counting, one who suffered a horror of dense clusters would have felt his back turn cold at the sight.
The half-hour's road was soon walked through.
Zhao Chen and his party came to a position resembling a bridge platform.
"Lighting," the marine captain called.
At once soldiers took out a pistol-shaped weapon carried upon them, aimed about, and fired.
Glowing pillars of light were nailed one after another upon the walls, and the radiance they gave lit up this space.
One could see that here several gallery-bridges connected the platform in the middle, and that upon both sides of the gallery was an abyss whose bottom could not be seen.
Zhao Chen walked onto a gallery-bridge; he saw those reconnaissance devices that had lost control before, scattered upon the ground, not destroyed, yet unable to be started.
"Have a care; mind your watch."
Within the communication channel, the marine captain gave warning again.
The soldiers within the party had every finger already upon the firing position of the weapon in hand, ready at any moment to open fire.
Ah-Yin pointed suddenly at the position of the middle platform. "I hear a sound; someone is calling."
Zhao Chen stared at that position.
That platform was as a flower-bud not yet opened; but from within it one could see a red that flickered now and again, casting its reflection so that the bud seemed all blood-red.
This was the red seen within the image before.
The party crossed the gallery and came before that platform-bud.
At this moment the ears of Zhao Chen and the rest could hear an uncanny sound as well.
Thump, thump, thump.
As it were the sound of a heart beating.
"The Sixth Squad will remain here and keep watch about," the marine captain commanded.
The fifty of the Sixth Squad remained.
The rest stepped within through the passage in the bud.
Having crossed the bud, Zhao Chen and the rest saw a blood-red thing, round as a ball.
Joined with the sound heard before, it was truly very like a heart.
Just at this moment, the marine soldiers who had followed in covered their heads one after another, showing a look of pain.
"What is it with you?" Zhao Chen looked at them in astonishment.
Only he himself and Ah-Yin had nothing whatsoever.