The battle had all been laid out and assigned.
What came next, Zhao Chen himself had in truth no need to worry over much.
Zhao Chen ended the meeting.
He rose from his throne.
But the next second, all went suddenly black before his eyes.
He pitched straight to the floor.
This sudden happening,
struck everyone around him dumb.
The Panther-Girl and Tao Beibei had both watched His Majesty the Emperor end the meeting and rise,
and then, of all things, topple stiffly sideways.
It happened far too suddenly.
Tao Beibei could not react at all.
But the Panther-Girl, as the Emperor's Guard, reacted in the very first instant.
She rushed to the Emperor's side and first laid her hand on him.
No sign of anything wrong with his life signs.
By now some in the bridge's other departments had turned curious looks their way.
Without the least hesitation, the Panther-Girl tossed something like a button onto the throne.
At once a holographic projection of Zhao Chen appeared on the throne.
This 'Zhao Chen' sat upright with eyes closed, resting, so real it could all but pass for the man himself.
And the Zhao Chen lying on the floor the Panther-Girl simply covered with a blanket.
At the same time the guards of the Emperor's Guard came up one after another and surrounded the real Zhao Chen on the floor.
"Don't panic. Carry out the standby emergency plan," the Panther-Girl said in a low voice.
On hearing their captain's words, these guards of the Emperor's Guard kept their faces unchanged, every one.
Most returned to their places.
A few took up posts around the throne, closer to it than their usual places.
They looked no different now, but at heart they were as though facing a great enemy, quietly watching everyone on the bridge.
This was part of the emergency plan.
At the same time, several guards at once sought out the crew who had just noticed something wrong with the Emperor, led them off the bridge on one pretext or another, and held them for the time being.
Luckily it had all happened so suddenly.
Few had truly seen Zhao Chen fall.
"Captain Tao Beibei. From now on this interstellar warship is under secret emergency control. No one, yourself included, is to leave the bridge. Crew in the other departments are not to leave their departments or their present positions unless necessary. And no one is to go near His Majesty the Emperor on the throne!" The Panther-Girl put a little more weight on her last words.
Tao Beibei was very tense.
His Majesty the Emperor had collapsed aboard her starship; whatever came of it, she as captain could hardly escape blame.
She looked at the Panther-Girl somewhat blankly.
The Panther-Girl came close to Tao Beibei, her eyes sharp. "Captain Tao Beibei, this is no time to panic. No one knows what has happened to His Majesty the Emperor. Everyone here, you and I included, is in fact under suspicion. But by the planned procedure, we need your cooperation. There must be no disorder. So you are needed to stay here and keep control. My people will work with you here. This news is not to get out for now!"
Hearing the Panther-Girl, Tao Beibei only now truly came to herself.
She glanced at the 'Emperor' on the throne.
She nodded hard. "Rest assured, I will keep everything here under control. So long as I am here, I will let no one near His Majesty the Emperor."
With that, she paused.
She looked at the 'woman crewman' already helped up by a guard, whose outline no longer showed anything of Zhao Chen's looks.
It seemed the Panther-Girl had used some technology on Zhao Chen so that, to outside eyes, he looked like a woman crewman.
"I will now take His Majesty back to the captain's quarters. In the meantime I will have His Majesty examined. If… if His Majesty has not woken within ten minutes, I will set the emergency plan in motion and report this situation to Grand Marshal Charlotte and to Lady Lilith, the supreme secretary officer," the Panther-Girl said gravely.
This whole series of steps had been settled by Zhao Chen long before.
After all, anything at all might happen.
If some mishap truly befell him, there must be no leaderless confusion, nor the whole of the Owl Dragon thrown into chaos by his mishap.
Zhao Chen knew very well that the Owl Dragon was strong, ordered and united now.
In truth, a great part of the reason was that Zhao Chen was here.
It was because of him that the whole of the Owl Dragon held together.
But once he was gone, the seemingly mighty Owl Dragon might collapse in the shortest time.
So should anything of this kind happen, it had to be brought under control at once.
And every preparation made before the effects could spread,
to bring the threat down to the least.
When Zhao Chen had discussed this with the Panther-Girl and the others back then,
Lilith and Charlotte had both been very displeased.
They thought it far too ill-omened.
But Zhao Chen had said with a laugh: anything in this world may happen; it is not the ten thousand you fear, but the one chance in ten thousand.
So one must be ready for everything.
After all, Zhao Chen had been able to cross over into this world and gain a System.
What, then, could not happen?
Perhaps one day, in the blink of an eye, he would find himself back in his own world.
So Zhao Chen had arranged these things without the least reserve.
Who would have thought the time had truly come to put it to the test?
The Panther-Girl took the 'woman crewman' from the subordinate supporting him.
She looked to Captain Tao Beibei and spoke in her ordinary voice and tone: "Excuse me, one of my soldiers is feeling a little unwell. I'll take 'her' below to rest."
With that, she even bowed slightly toward the 'Zhao Chen' on the throne.
She glanced at the guards staying behind; her eyes had already given the order.
Then she walked off the bridge with three other guards.
Taking too many guards off the bridge would have looked rather out of the ordinary.
No one knew why the Emperor had suddenly collapsed.
Ordinarily the Emperor's health was excellent.
He had a simple checkup every week and a thorough one every quarter.
Zhao Chen had said once that it was wholly unnecessary, but at the insistence of Lilith and the others he had kept to the advice all the same.
So the Panther-Girl knew His Majesty the Emperor's health very well.
It was not merely healthy: the assessments even called it unprecedentedly robust, surpassing 99.99% of the males of every species in the known universe.
For him to faint suddenly now was surely no ordinary event.
He might have been attacked, or poisoned.
And either would, beyond doubt, be very grave.
So the Panther-Girl dared not be the least bit careless.
On the way to the captain's quarters, the three guards did their duty too, guarding Zhao Chen and their captain, the Panther-Girl, in a protective formation.
At last they reached the captain's quarters without trouble.
"Wait outside the door. Let no one come near. Anyone who defies this, whoever they are, shoot them dead!" Captain Panther-Girl fixed her eyes on her subordinates and said in a low voice.
"Yes!" the three guards said together.
The Panther-Girl carried Zhao Chen into the captain's quarters and laid him on the bed in the bedroom.
She began to take out the medical equipment in the captain's quarters.
As one of the Emperor's Guard, she had to have sufficient medical skill and the ability to deal with emergencies.