Zhao Chen looked at the fighter rising before him.
T5 Dragon-Hawk-class Medium Interstellar Fighter.
By now Zhao Chen knew this fighter quite well.
It was very cheap to build, yet in this universe its performance ranked among the best.
Not first of all, to be sure.
But for its value for money it was all but the standard T5-grade fighter aboard every carrier starship in the Star Alliance.
And it had a great many production lines; however many fighters were lost in battle.
Replacements from the rear could be delivered within three hours.
Half a day at the slowest.
That was the advantage of this kind of interstellar weapon.
There was no fear at all of any war of attrition.
We simply have plenty to go round!
Zhao Chen climbed quickly into the fighter's cockpit.
And began checking each performance reading one by one.
And while he did.
The fighter Zhao Chen was in rose again, climbing upward.
In the course of it, Zhao Chen finished every item of his checks.
"DK9577, all normal. Ready to fight."
Having said it, Zhao Chen waited.
At last,
the pitch-dark surroundings opened out into a bright view.
Zhao Chen's fighter had been raised onto a flight strip.
The strip was in fact on the carrier starship's outer hull.
The flight strips carriers used were generally of a few types.
The commonest was to build strips at various points outside the hull, then raise the fighters that were to fly out onto them.
This way was cheap and quick.
Its one drawback was that a strip outside the hull was easily destroyed.
Next was the half-concealed strip.
If the first was wholly open to space,
this was half open,
with only one flight window for fighters to leave by, and a star-shield field to protect it besides.
Safety was greater.
But launch and recovery rates suffered somewhat.
At present most carriers used one of these two.
Zhao Chen glanced around him.
This was one of this carrier's flight strips, and even so.
This strip was very large.
By the figures, it could launch fifty fighters at once.
On average it could handle six thousand fighter movements an hour.
At its limit, over ten thousand.
And this carrier had at least ten such strips.
So Zhao Chen watched the fighter ahead of him start its engines and fly off toward the distant stars on a blue tail of flame.
"DK9577 cleared for launch. Complete launch within twenty seconds."
The voice of the tower crewman in charge of this strip came over Zhao Chen's channel.
"Received." Zhao Chen began his launch at once.
By the training standard, a passing time for this was twenty seconds.
Zhao Chen completed the whole sequence in under fifteen.
And that with a deliberate 'fumble' partway through.
Every fighter's launch and recovery data, and its combat data, were recorded.
So that each pilot's combat state, handling and battle merits could be tracked.
Zhao Chen did not want to appear too outstanding.
So he naturally had to keep a low profile.
Soon Zhao Chen's fighter was away.
At which a flight-formation window appeared before him automatically.
It already held the signals of a dozen-odd fighters.
This was the flight formation.
A flight squadron's pilots did not go straight to the battlefield on launching.
They had first to form up.
And waiting for all three hundred fighters of a squadron to launch would waste time.
So most often a formation of about thirty would be completed first, and then join the fighting.
And within such a provisional formation the pilot of highest rank was chosen as commander.
Soon Zhao Chen's formation was complete.
Thirty fighters had made up a provisional formation.
As it happened, a flight squadron's deputy leader served as its formation leader.
This deputy leader was Lieutenant Zhang's own second.
A warrant officer.
And the highest in rank among these thirty pilots.
"U-shaped combat formation. Proceed to combat zone K-761." This warrant officer and formation leader began giving out the combat tasks.
Which of the thirty would lead the attack, which would fly wing, and so on.
Zhao Chen, the newcomer, was naturally given the wingman's task,
to assist the attacking fighters, chiefly to give suppressing fire and draw the enemy's attention.
And help the attackers kill the enemy's fighters.
With this part Zhao Chen was in fact well content.
He need not worry about showing off too much.
After some minutes' flying,
Zhao Chen at last saw the zone of this interstellar void battle.
This was the battlefield's flank.
There were no warships here; it was wholly a battlefield of fighters.
It amounted to a flight corridor.
Whichever fleet took this corridor.
Could send its own fighters to harry the enemy's warships from the flank and rear!
So this corridor mattered greatly,
which naturally made for a vast air battle.
Zhao Chen swept his eyes over it.
This battlefield was very open; apart from a few small moons there were no other bodies at all.
So visibility was quite good.
At present at least fifty thousand fighters from both sides were locked in combat here.
Zhao Chen's formation of thirty joining it was like a drop of water poured into a pool.
But this was their task.
Soon Zhao Chen's flight was exchanging fire with the enemy.
Both sides gave and took.
Zhao Chen could hear all sorts of voices on the command channel.
Some calling out that they had a lock.
Some locked on by the enemy.
Some with their fighters surrounded, calling for support.
Some who had already killed an enemy.
As the fighting went on, fighters soon began to be shot down.
Zhao Chen glanced at the window beside him.
It had held exactly thirty names.
Three had now turned gray.
Which meant those three fighters had been destroyed.
And so far Zhao Chen had not truly destroyed a single fighter.
To look at him, Zhao Chen seemed to be playing a walk-on part.
But watch closely and one would see that Zhao Chen's fighter coordinated exquisitely with his friendly craft.
Those who flew with Zhao Chen would often come away with fine results.
One must not keep too low a profile, though.
Seeing everyone else's tally doing well, Zhao Chen took the chance to kill a fighter too,
so that he would not go back this time with a tally of zero.