Galactic Star Calendar, year 3037, May.
This was fated to be a month the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire would remember.
For in this month came the first crisis the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire had faced since its founding!
The Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's northern border · former Demon Race territory.
Along the northern border now, sentinel posts could be seen hanging in the starry void at nearly every interval.
Together these posts formed a cordon of watch.
At the least stir beyond the cordon, they would sound the alarm at once.
Beyond that, the interstellar fleets' patrols had been tripled.
All to make sure that nothing whatever went wrong along this defense line.
At this time, the patrol of the defense line fell to the Fourth Legion's fleet under the Owl Dragon Third Legion Fleet Group, whose commander was Hu Xiner.
"Has the patrol fleet found nothing out of the ordinary?" Aboard the flagship, Hu Xiner raised her head to ask her secretary officer.
The secretary officer shook her head. "Nothing is wrong."
Hu Xiner lowered her head again to her official business.
Just then the secretary officer came over to Commander Hu Xiner's side, bearing an afternoon tea.
"Commander, you are asking every hour now. Aren't you a little too tense? And if anything truly happened, the patrol fleets and the interstellar sentinel posts we have placed would warn us at once," the secretary officer said.
"I am somewhat tense, yes. But I have a feeling. War will break out here very soon. War between us and those bugs," Hu Xiner[1] said in a low voice.
The secretary officer said, "Our staff has analyzed it too, the chance that those two Hive Nests launch an invasion is indeed very high right now. But with our experience of fighting the interstellar hive-race, and the defense line we have so carefully prepared, dealing with those stinking bugs should surely be no problem."
Hu Xiner looked at this subordinate of hers.
"How long have you been in the service?"
"Reporting, Commander: a year now," the secretary officer said proudly.
To have become the chief secretary officer of a legion fleet within a single year was proof enough of her ability.
"You have never lost, have you?" Hu Xiner asked.
The secretary officer paused, then said proudly, "Of course not. Since the day I joined the Owl Dragon legion fleets, I have never fought a losing battle. We Owl Dragon legion fleets have the finest interstellar warships, and T6 interstellar warships besides. And a great many powerful technological weapons, and a complete industrial system. In this universe, no enemy is a match for us. Wherever the guns of our Owl Dragon legion fleets point, every enemy is sure to be blown to ashes!"
Hu Xiner looked at the fervor and pride in the secretary officer's eyes.
She opened her mouth, but some things she still left unsaid.
An army that grows proud is sure to be beaten; that was the lesson her mother had taught her.
Those born to the Black Fox tribe had always kept themselves calm and composed at every stage.
And so they did not grow proud, nor complacent.
But of late she had noticed this very air of pride and complacency arising in the Owl Dragon legion fleets.
Much of it came from the Owl Dragon legion fleets having almost never lost a battle!
Add to that the founding of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire now.
It had bred this proud-army spirit in the Owl Dragon Empire's fleets all the more.
If even her own secretary officer thought this way, how much more the other crew of the middle and lower ranks.
And she said nothing because she knew that whatever she said now would do them little good.
She could only pray that this would not harm the Owl Dragon legion fleets on the battlefield.
And at the same time she wrote the matter down and reported it up to Medusa, supreme commander of the fleet group.
Commander Medusa had agreed with her on it, but it was a thorny thing to deal with, and she could only report it further up and ask the Emperor's view.
"Let me see the defense-line deployment again." Hu Xiner felt her heart suddenly quicken for a few beats; a restless unease was on her.
"The defense-line deployment was settled by the legion commanders and the fleet group's supreme commander, Lady Medusa. What could be wrong with it?" The secretary officer was somewhat puzzled.
But she called up the digital plan all the same.
Marker after marker made up the defense line, like a great wall laid across the stars.
And across from it lay the two Hive Nests.
Hu Xiner swept her eyes over it from end to end, and was sure there was nothing wrong with this defense line.
There were interstellar sentinel posts, patrol fleets, combat satellites, and military star ports, interstellar fortresses, and more.
She truly could find no fault in it.
And yet there was still a very uneasy feeling in her heart.
Had she been under too much strain these days?
Hu Xiner searched her own heart.
All of a sudden, red lights flashed across the whole bridge.
A video window appeared right before her: "Reporting, an emergency. In defense-line sector Y733, every interstellar sentinel post has suddenly lost contact! And a thirty-warship fleet patrolling that sector has gone silent too!"
Hu Xiner shot to her feet.
"Relay to every defense line, every department, every fleet: enemy attack underway, scale unknown. At the same time, order the interstellar stealth scout ship fleet nearest the affected sector to go and see. Find out what has happened in the shortest time possible, without fail!"
"Yes!" The secretary officer went at once to see it done.
Hu Xiner, for her part, stared hard at the defense-line star map and marked sector Y733 upon it.
On the star map, every defensive installation in this sector showed gray.
Gray meant contact lost; whether they survived, no one knew.
Under the defense line's arrangements, every interstellar sentinel post and combat satellite had to contact the rear defense-line headquarters once every ten minutes, to make sure that all of them were running as they should.
And now these sentinel posts and combat satellites had failed to do so.
Even the thirty interstellar warships patrolling the sector under the patrol plan could no longer be reached.
Something had most certainly happened!
The 'beacon fires' were lit by now, and every department of the Owl Dragon Third Legion Fleet Group received the word one after another.
"Reporting, radar shows a swarm of unidentified creatures outside our sector. They are expected to enter our field of fire in ten minutes!" a bridge petty officer suddenly reported.
Hu Xiner's pupils widened slightly.
So fast?
They were already appearing before them.
But… the distance was wrong.
From the sector where the line had lost contact to where they stood, even at grade-9 warp, nothing could arrive so quickly.
Unless…
"Reporting, they have appeared behind us too. We… we seem to be surrounded!" Terror showed in the bridge petty officer's eyes.