"What? Withdraw the whole system?" A certain system administrator sprang up, both hands upon his desk.
He looked past believing at the Owl Dragon officer in the video window before him.
This Owl Dragon officer was charged with conveying the Emperor's decree to the several systems.
"It is so; this is the Emperor's command. Every system must carry it out. You may take over all interstellar transports outright; their owners will be suitably compensated after the war," the Owl Dragon officer said in earnest.
The system administrator's face was full of conflict, and he clenched his fists.
To bid an administrator give up the system he governs is much like bidding a man give up what may be his life's work.
"The labor of evacuating a whole system is too great. Can we not…" The system administrator tried to bargain a little.
But the Owl Dragon officer said without ceremony: "This is His Majesty's command, and must be carried out. Though for those evacuated we shall give compensation in some measure. You shall not be made to sacrifice for nothing."
The Owl Dragon officer looked at the system administrator before her, and went on: "Let me give you a word of advice. Do not think too much upon it. When even the Emperor judges a matter so grave a threat. Do you believe anyone in your system would survive it? Or would you gamble every life in your system upon it?"
Hearing these questions,
the system administrator drew a deep breath, and raised his head to look at her: "Tell the Emperor to set his mind at rest. Our system will carry out my lord Emperor's command. I myself, as system administrator, will see that every planet's inhabitants are evacuated in the shortest time possible. And the loss of life lessened."
The Owl Dragon officer nodded, and closed the window.
She set a tick against one line of an electronic table before her.
At this she heard a clamor from a colleague beside her.
"To make us withdraw a whole system upon one order! Do you know how much our family has put into our system! Upon a word from you we lose everything of decades, of a century! Is your Owl Dragon Legion not supposed to be strong! Didn't you defeat the Demon King's legion fleets? And now you meet these undead, and it is withdraw the whole system! You will not even fight, how do you know you cannot win? Send out your interstellar missile ships, your T6 warships!"
Though the image opposite could not be seen, the words alone told that the speaker's face was anything but friendly.
She looked at her colleague in some concern.
That colleague had only just joined this Owl Dragon post.
But unexpectedly this Owl Dragon newcomer said, neither cringing nor overbearing: "Forgive me. Perhaps you did not hear what I said. None of this is a discussion. It is the Emperor's command. By the agreement you signed upon belonging to the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire, you must carry out the Emperor's commands without condition. Any unwilling to do so are held to have betrayed the Emperor. You understand what that means. Do you believe you and your race can bear the Emperor's anger?"
Perhaps it was that speech that brought the other to his senses.
In the end, unwilling as he was, he chose to obey the Emperor's command.
"Yes… we will withdraw from the system."
The window closed.
The Owl Dragon newcomer, whose face had been so firm, relaxed all at once, and patted her own chest without cease.
"That was frightening."
"Do not worry. For those whose attitude toward the Emperor is improper. There are others who will deal with them." A companion beside her pointed at another table before the newcomer.
That table was of a particular kind.
It was for recording those administrators whose attitude toward the Emperor and the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire was improper.
That system administrator of a moment ago, for instance, little knew that by that show of his temper.
Once this war was over, his place would be taken from him.
The Emperor will by no means suffer the disobedient!
The greatest loss of all fell upon one territory of the Angel Race.
The Judgment Angel star system.
This had been the Judgment Angel Queen's own territory, and the place of her holy temple planet.
It was naturally among the most flourishing systems of the Angel Race.
But none would ever have thought that this Judgment Angel Queen would one day seek to destroy her own homeland with her own hands!
And the Judgment Angel star system is a binary, a two-star system.
The Judgment Angel Queen knew that well; she had carried two seeds, and cast one into each of the system's two stars.
At this moment both stars of the Judgment Angel star system had turned wholly black.
And the whole system seemed at this moment a great deal dimmer.
Interstellar warship after interstellar warship crossed the Star Gate and came into this system.
It was the Angel Race's lord's fleet, the Holy Dragon Angel Legion, in Tilia's charge!
The whole fleet of a hundred thousand warships came through the Star Gate, one group after another, into this system.
"Report to the commander: the state of this system is somewhat bad!" a subordinate reported to the angel Tilia.
"What is it?" the angel Tilia asked, knitting her brows.
"Before this, several system fleets opened attacks upon the undead army of their own accord. And not only did they fail to destroy[1] the undead army; some of their warships were even converted by the undead into undead starships! And now those converted undead starships are all within the two stars, dividing without cease!" the subordinate reported.
Hearing this, the angel Tilia was greatly angered, and demanded: "We received the intelligence upon the undead that the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire shared. We told every system immediately of the undead's nature, and of the ways of fighting that must be guarded against. What is the matter with them? Why would they still do so stupid a thing!"
The subordinate hesitated, and then said: "It is said that the undead army had begun to attack a planet nearest the star. And upon that planet were a great many of the Angel Race who could not be evacuated in time. The system fleet had no choice but to attack, seeking to buy the angel people upon that planet a chance to withdraw. In the end…"
He paused, and went on: "In the end, eight parts in ten of the angel people upon that planet withdrew safely. But… the three hundred warships that carried out that action were converted, every one!"
Hearing this, the angel Tilia opened her mouth, but did not know what to curse.
She could only mutter: "Stupid!"
Then she asked on: "Have we data upon those three hundred warships? What models and grades were they?"
For a converted warship holds some of the qualities of what it was, so they must know what these converted ships are before they can make ready.
"We have the particulars here. Nine parts in ten were the Angel Race's own warships, and one part in ten were Owl Dragon-line. Of the Angel-line T4 and T3 series there were nearly all of them. And besides, of the Owl Dragon line: T3 Triceratops-class Interstellar Heavy Assault Frigates, T3 Flame-Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Destroyers, T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruisers…"
The subordinate read off a string of Owl Dragon-line names, broadly all of the T3 grade.
Had they been T3 Owl Dragon-line warships only, it would not have been so bad.
"A T4 Vermilion Bird-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser."
The angel Tilia's face stiffened somewhat.
"Why should there be a T4 Vermilion Bird-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser here!"
Never had she thought there would be an Owl Dragon-line warship of T4 grade here, and an interstellar cruiser at that!
"That… it seems to have been a warship lately withdrawn from service, and it happened to be posted to this system. But there is only one," said the subordinate.
One…
For an undead host that can divide without cease within a star, that one would very soon become two, and four, and eight, and sixteen!
So long as those two stars do not go out, undead starships will come forth without end.
At the thought of it, the angel Tilia felt her scalp crawl.
"Alarm! We have detected a great undead host attacking the surrounding planets, with the two stars for its center. The system's evacuation stands at only 40%. To evacuate the whole system is looked to need at least two days!" A secretary-officer came in haste to the angel Tilia's side and reported it.
Two days!
A stretch of time neither long nor short.
The angel Tilia drew a deep breath and said: "Pass my command. Against the undead host, begin to deploy a battle line. These undead attacks must be checked! And once they are checked, we shall choose how to answer, and destroy them!"
"Aye!"
The command went down, and the whole Holy Dragon Angel Legion's fleet began to move.
As the Angel Race's most elite legion fleet at present, it was fitted uniformly with Owl Dragon-line warships.
But the enemy it faced this time went far beyond anything they had imagined.
Undead soldiers like insects, guarded by spirit-energy shields and able to pass straight through a ship's star-shield, a very great threat to nearly every warship there is.
And the undead starships that appeared showed, for the first time upon a battlefield, how terrible their fighting power was.
Far beyond the warships they had been.
And upon this the angel Tilia suffered badly.
At one deployed line of defense, the defensive system had been set well enough, and against the undead host's attack that part of the line could be held entirely.
But with the sudden raid of one small undead fleet,
that balance was broken utterly.
It was an undead fleet of thirty T4 Vermilion Bird-class Medium Interstellar Cruisers!
The T4 Vermilion Bird-class was famed for speed to begin with, able to reach a very great velocity in a very short time.
And now, made undead, the T4 Vermilion Bird's speed was more terrible still; it need not even reckon with engine overload.
It had only to go at full speed!
And upon that astonishing speed these thirty T4 undead Vermilion Birds, at the cost of a few of their number,
broke through the Angel fleet's net of fire, and drove straight into the Angel fleet's position.
In the research report upon fighting the undead, it was set down plainly.
That close engagement with the undead must be guarded against above all.
Very soon, within this sector of defense,
through the breach those T4 undead Vermilion Birds had made, a great mass of undead creatures welled out of the ships and fell upon the Angel warships about them.
And those Angel warships' star-shields could not stop these undead creatures at all.
The undead creatures covered the hulls of the target warships as a sea of insects.
Very soon that warship was converted.
Every life within the warship became undead, and in the turn of an instant the warship itself became an undead warship.
And so, the first Angel warship being converted, there came a second, and a third.
And when a T4 Fallen-Angel-class Super-Heavy Carrier Starship was converted, undead drones and undead warships beyond counting came screaming forth, and began to contend with this sector's Holy Dragon Angel Legion fleet for command of the interstellar air.
And at this,
a most curious sight appeared upon the battlefield.
The Holy Dragon Angel Legion's fleet was plainly sparing nothing to clear away the undead fleet and undead army before it.
Yet in number, the undead fleet and army dwindled rather slowly.
Looked at closely, one would find why.
Each time the Holy Dragon Angel Legion destroyed a body of undead ships and undead troops, a body of their own warships would be converted into undead starships.
Comrades of before became the enemy of now.
Such an exchange is, upon a battlefield, no simple matter of one added here and one taken away there.
The Holy Dragon Angel Legion's commander, the angel Tilia, very soon marked this.
This way of fighting of the enemy's was terrible indeed.
And the greatest trouble of all was that they had besides two arsenals producing without cease, those two stars.
For one star in the undead's hold to be a great threat is one thing; here there were two.
Already the number of undead starships upon the field had passed ten thousand!
And was rising slowly still!
"We cannot go on fighting this way. Fight on so, and our warships will sooner or later be spent away by these undead!" The angel Tilia changed her strategy at once: "Take up the kiting strategy. Fight and withdraw together, and on no account close with the enemy. And remember one thing besides!"
The angel Tilia paused; her face was troubled, and at the last she said through set teeth: "Give the order to every warship of the Holy Dragon Angel Legion's fleet. Once a warship stands in danger of conversion by the undead, it is to detonate all its own munitions at once, and carry out… the self-destruct procedure!"
Just so.
Self-destruction.
Before one's own warship is converted, first make that warship a heap of scrap.
So long as a warship's soundness is brought below a certain degree, it cannot be converted into an undead starship.
Such a decision is cruel.
But against such an enemy it is beyond doubt the best means there is!