The Hades?
"Is that… the Hades?" Chief Engineer Nana, standing at Zhao Chen's side, wore a look past all believing.
Yet they had plainly seen with their own eyes that the Hades had gone into the special-grade dock of Galaxy No. 1 Base.
How should she appear here?
"A ghost…" Annie leaped three feet in the air outright with the fright of it.
"Do not be alarmed. That is not the true Hades," Zhao Chen said, calm enough for his part.
"How is that not the Hades? This hull form, these weapon modules… it is simply the very same… Curse it, it must be that I have not rested properly of late, nor eaten properly. And so I have run into a ghost!" Annie said, comforting herself.
Zhao Chen shook his head helplessly.
At this moment a message came to Zhao Chen's handheld terminal.
"Shall old friends gather a while?"
It was from a contact that had not been in touch these better part of a year.
"Arrange a shuttle… no, there is no need to arrange it. Only make a shuttle ready for me; I will fly it myself," Zhao Chen said.
"You would board that ship of unknown provenance? You must not! It is far too dangerous!" Panther-Girl stood forth beside him in outright opposition: "At the least let us follow you."
"It is an order," Zhao Chen said in earnest.
Panther-Girl wore a look at once torn and helpless.
In the end Zhao Chen boarded the shuttle alone all the same, and flew it toward that Hades.
Being familiar with the Hades, Zhao Chen very soon found the hangar, entered it, and set the craft down.
The hatch opened.
Zhao Chen came down.
"Welcome, Lord of the Owl Dragon, aboard the Hades." A woman of tall stature, near two meters in height and dressed in a uniform, stood erect before Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen looked her up and down; this too should be a mechanical life.
"And where is your mistress?" Zhao Chen asked.
"She awaits you upon the bridge. Please follow me." This tall woman officer led the way before him.
Leaving the hangar,
Zhao Chen saw a Hades whose inner structure was altogether different.
Taking the hovering lift, he came very soon to the bridge.
This too was a bridge unknown to him,
and empty of any soul besides.
Come to that, Zhao Chen had seen no figure whatever upon the way.
Had it not been for the woman officer leading the way before him, Zhao Chen would have doubted whether the ship he had boarded were not a ghost ship.
"Where is your mistress?" Zhao Chen asked, seeing the captain's chair standing empty.
And at this moment the whole bridge darkened.
A dank and freezing air came from all about.
Zhao Chen even heard a sound as of specters whispering.
"I had not thought the mighty Lord of the Owl Dragon would be so wholly off his guard. So easily coaxed aboard by me. I tell you: today is the day that you, Zhao Chen, lose your life here! Wah-hahahahaha…"
The tall woman officer lifted her head and pointed her finger at Zhao Chen.
And spoke a string of words that suited her figure not at all.
Zhao Chen made no sound, and walked toward the tall woman officer.
"What are you about! I warn you, do not come nearer! Come nearer and I shall kill you!" The tall woman officer, seeing that Zhao Chen was not overawed, threatened again.
Zhao Chen made no answer, but only went on walking forward.
"I warn you…" The tall woman officer kept on talking.
But at some point Zhao Chen had already come right up before her.
The next second, Zhao Chen's body passed straight through the tall woman officer; then he walked directly to the captain's chair, turned, and sat down.
"Pray go on." Zhao Chen crossed one leg over the other and looked at the tall woman officer with a smile, as one watching a fine play.
The tall woman officer set her hands upon her hips and glared at Zhao Chen; her voice changed once more, into a young and childish one: "When did you see through me?"
"You can change your outward form and your voice. And you take care over your bearing and your gestures besides. But even mechanical life, over a long span of years, forms an air and habits of its own. You cannot keep to an assumed habit forever; the least slackening gives you away," Zhao Chen said with a shrug, light as a drifting cloud.
At this the tall woman officer was as a ball let out of its air.
A light flashed upon her body, and in the turn of an instant her figure changed from a grown and tall woman officer into the little girl Zhao Chen knew.
The lights about them returned to their ordinary state, and the cooling was shut off as well.
"This is the more familiar to look upon after all." Zhao Chen looked the little girl up and down.
"How very dull." The little girl put out her tongue.
"Why take that shape at all?" Zhao Chen asked in his curiosity: "Was it expressly to… play a joke?"
"That is another of my figures. Upon the battlefield, after all, the shape of a little girl is hardly fitting. So I have come to have several figures. There is one kept for the battlefield, and one for presiding over work of various kinds…"
The little girl's figure began to change without cease before Zhao Chen.
There was the tall woman officer in uniform of a moment since, and a young woman in gold-rimmed spectacles and a close-fitting skirt…
In the end she changed back into the little girl all the same.
"Then why is it this shape you wear before me?" Zhao Chen asked in his puzzlement.
"Because it is the shape I like best," the little girl said with a blink.
"Come to that, we have known each other so long. And you have never yet told me your name." Zhao Chen looked the little girl over in his curiosity.
All along he had had a feeling.
That there were secrets about this little girl that he did not know.
"Does a name matter?" the little girl laughed, and turned the subject aside once more:[1] "There now, let us speak of business."
"Business?" Zhao Chen looked at her with interest.
"I am preparing to leave this universe," the little girl said all of a sudden.
"To the Black Great-Wall Base again? Is it because the Pitch-Black Legion fleet's attacks have grown ever more frequent of late?" Zhao Chen thought without thinking.
But the little girl shook her head; she looked at Zhao Chen and said in a tone most earnest: "It is to leave this universe forever. And to take the whole Machine Race with me."
To take the whole Machine Race away?
These words were beyond doubt a considerable shock.
"Why?" Zhao Chen did not quite understand.
"Because the Gate of Gaia must be closed," the little girl said, her face grave.
Close the Gate of Gaia?
The little girl went on: "Haven't you noticed that in these last few years the stir Order makes within our universe has grown greater and greater? Yet we have redoubled our watch upon the Gate of Gaia many times over, and have never once found a trace of Order's infiltration. Then there is but one other possibility: that Order enters our universe directly by some other means. Going round the Gate of Gaia."
"Some other means? Then why could it not be done before, and can be now?" Zhao Chen questioned.
"Because of the Gate of Gaia's existence." The little girl raised her hand, and a phantom image appeared before Zhao Chen's eyes.
"Our universe has a warding barrier formed of energy. And it is by reason of this warding barrier that a balance of non-interference is formed between one universe and another. And the Gate of Gaia, built by the Gaia Empire ten thousand years ago, realized the technology of crossing between universes. But of late we have found that the Gate of Gaia is no true cross-universe technology; it has a most serious flaw. Its existence weakens the strength of our universe's warding barrier without cease. And when a certain critical value is reached, the difficulty of crossing this warding barrier from outside is greatly lessened. This is the very reason that the stir Order makes within our universe has grown greater these last few years. They have even set two hive-race nests within our universe. So the Gate of Gaia must be closed. Otherwise none can say what further means Order will use upon our universe hereafter!"
Zhao Chen looked at the little girl's resolute expression, and knit his brows slightly: "Then if the Gate of Gaia is closed. Will not your Black Great-Wall Base's connection with our universe… be cut off? You… will not be able to come back."