"Your Majesty, look at this."
Lilith came with quick steps before Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen raised his head toward Lilith, hurrying over.
Lilith raised her hand outright and opened several electronic screens.
"Up to now we have destroyed nine suspect starships, and the strange creatures that welled out of them; and we have taken some samples, which are being sent to the research institutes concerned. But several suspect ships were not destroyed in time, and all of them appeared near the fixed stars of certain systems. We have images of these suspect ships casting some strange object toward a star."
So saying, a record was played before Zhao Chen's eyes.
Within it could be seen a suspect warship appearing suddenly out of empty space beside a fixed star; what happened to catch the sight was an artificial satellite fairly near that star.
A compartment of this suspect warship could be seen to open, and thereafter a thing much like a giant charge of explosive was cast toward the star.
Upon the star's surface it dissolved.
But it was not swallowed utterly by the heat, as one would suppose; instead a mass of black matter appeared, and this black matter, within the star, was not destroyed at all.
Rather it began to increase without cease, and covered the star's surface little by little,
until at the last the whole star had become a black star.
There were a great many such records.
"As to that black matter, upon enlarging it we found. That it may be some kind of creature!" Lilith said, her face grave.
"Can there truly be creatures that survive within a fixed star?" said Charlotte, who had come over at some point, in astonishment.
She too was following the intelligence now.
Among the Owl Dragon fleets sent to the several regions, reports of the same kind were coming in.
"By the scientific records of the known universe before this. In the study of fixed stars. Certain rare materials may endure for a time within a star's environment, but the end is always destruction; it is only a question of how long. So up to now, to say nothing of life, there is no substance whatever that can exist within a star for good!" Lilith explained.
Zhao Chen nodded; that was indeed how the matter stood.
Even a T6-grade warship of the present day can exist within a star only a few minutes; the end of it is that the star-shield's energy is spent and the ship's armor destroyed.
"Then how is this to be explained?" Charlotte pointed in her doubt at the material Lilith had displayed.
Within the fragments, traces of some object moving upon the pitch-black star's surface could already be faintly seen.
"This is the clearest image yet taken." Lilith called up another photograph.
Within it was a star wholly stained black; and by reason of the angle it was taken from, a creature much like a whale could be seen leaping upon the black star.
As a whale leaps out of the water upon the sea.
"And by our guess and comparison. This kind of creature is very like the black unknown creatures that appeared after the Black Wolf Princess Cynthia's warship destroyed itself!" Lilith explained.
Zhao Chen knit his brows: "Black creatures that can live within a star's environment… Fixed stars… Their purpose is to go to the stars…"
At this a bold guess had already formed in Zhao Chen: "Tell me, is there not this possibility. That Order gave these puppets a thing, which we shall call for the present a seed. And that these puppets carry these seeds to the stars of the several regions, and cast the seeds into them. And that this seed has a particular power. Which is that they can live within a star's environment. And even…"
Zhao Chen paused, and said with a grave face: "And even that they are borrowing the stars' own strength, and breeding by it… or rather, expanding the numbers of their race!"
Astonishment showed upon Charlotte's face and Lilith's.
Very soon Lilith grew calm and analyzed the possibility: "That is very possible. For those suspect warships we intercepted successfully would in the end destroy themselves, and these strange creatures would well out of them. Their fighting power is strong indeed, but in number they were few, and within the bounds of what we could control. Broadly, one Owl Dragon fleet of three thousand warships could settle it. But… suppose that the surfaces of these blackened stars are now all of them creatures of this kind. Then… the order of that number… would certainly far surpass what came out of those warships!"
The temperature of the place seemed to fall at that moment.
This was beyond doubt a vast crisis.
Past believing.
But at the thought that Order stood behind it, everything seemed possible.
"However it may be. Since such a possibility exists, we must reckon upon the worst." Zhao Chen's face was stern, and he said gravely: "Pass down our imperial command. Every system in which a black star has appeared is to begin its emergency evacuation plan at once. In the shortest time possible, all persons are to be evacuated; there is to be no coveting of the local wealth, resources or industrial equipment. Strive to evacuate every soul in the shortest time! Should any fail in this duty, we shall call that system's administrator to account! The neighboring systems are to support that system without condition; and should any fail to support it, or drag their feet. We shall punish them heavily! In every system where a black star appears, station one Owl Dragon fleet first, but it is not to attack without orders. If any movement is found, guard the fleet's own safety first and withdraw from that system; and if it may be done, leave a reconnaissance post behind! Remember: we know little of this enemy's particulars, and there must be no carelessness!"
"Aye!" said Lilith and Charlotte with one voice.
The Emperor's command was passed down.
Those systems where black stars had appeared were thrown one after another into a stir; and though they hesitated much at an order to evacuate an entire system.
With the Emperor's command standing there, none dared question it.
They lost no time in withdrawing.
In a little while alarms sounded through these systems, and the ports of every planet were crowded with people.
Transports loaded past their capacity carried the evacuated toward the Star Gates, taking them first to the nearest few great systems, and then returning for the next wave.
For every star system holds at the least several tens of billions, and at the most upwards of a hundred billion.
The interstellar transports such an evacuation requires are not a matter of tens, nor of hundreds.
Happily the Emperor now controlled and allotted them as one; otherwise so vast a task of evacuation could not have been accomplished at all.
Time passed, little by little.
The unknown creatures upon those black stars still made no threatening move whatever.
"Report! There is word from the research institute!" a bridge petty officer cried in haste.
"Speak!"
"The professors of the institute have examined the unknown life we captured. And they hold that it is very like a creature out of legend!"
"What creature?"
"The undead!"