A day later.
In the ready room of Zhao Chen's Eighteenth Squadron, the three green lamps turned amber.
Which meant the Eighteenth Squadron had gone to combat standby.
Just then Cao Zhenlong and Lieutenant Zhang arrived.
"Sir!" Seeing the group leader, everyone in the ready room stood.
"Sit down." Cao Zhenlong motioned them all to sit.
Apart from Zhao Chen, every soldier of the Eighteenth Squadron sat, but each of them bolt upright.
"For most of you here, this is your first battle. I know the strain on you is great. But you must trust your squadron leader; on the battlefield, only trust brings you home alive. And afterward I'll hold a proper baptismal banquet for your Eighteenth Squadron, to celebrate your rebirth through blood!"
"Yes!" came the answer from the room.
"Little Zhao, come out with me." Cao Zhenlong looked to Zhao Chen beside him.
Zhao Chen followed the group leader out.
Lieutenant Zhang stood by.
"Little Zhao, this is your first time leading a squadron in battle. I know the strain may be great. But everyone has this hurdle. I came through it once myself. Don't be nervous; just show what you can do," Cao Zhenlong said.
Zhao Chen nodded.
As for nerves, Zhao Chen in truth had none at all.
He had commanded great campaigns of hundreds of thousands of warships.
"About that request of yours. We put it up, and the lieutenant colonel has agreed," Cao Zhenlong said, of a request Zhao Chen had made to him earlier.
"Thank you, Group Leader; thank the lieutenant colonel for me," Zhao Chen said.
Lieutenant Zhang clapped Zhao Chen's shoulder and lowered his voice. "There's no hard rule about a squadron's first battle. But there is an unspoken test. If a squadron's losses in its first battle go over eight in ten, then after the campaign that squadron's leader is demoted to deputy leader of some regular squadron. And may not be promoted again for a long while. You must at least keep your losses in this first battle under six in ten!"
Zhao Chen nodded silently.
"If our two squadrons' battle zones are close, get in touch with me. I'll find a way to support you," Lieutenant Zhang said softly, leaning to Zhao Chen's ear.
Cao Zhenlong beside them could in fact hear it.
But he said nothing.
They were all of the same group, after all, and looked after one another.
Zhao Chen nodded.
After that, the two officers left.
Zhao Chen went back into the ready room.
He looked around at the faces there.
Some eager, some tense, some afraid.
Just then a boy who looked no more than sixteen held out a fruit like an orange to Zhao Chen.
"Squadron Leader, I brought this from home. When my dad knew I'd graduated from the academy and was joining a flight group. He put up a whole case of fruit for me; it's a specialty where we come from. Try some." The boy held out the peeled fruit in both hands.
Zhao Chen did not stand on ceremony, and put half of it in his mouth.
Juice burst in his mouth, the sweet-sour taste filling his palate.
Zhao Chen nodded. "It truly does taste good."
"Heh-heh, of course. My mum and dad and our relatives have an orchard under contract; they live on this fruit. With what they earned they managed at last to get me into the local military academy. They only meant for me to be an ordinary crewman. But I was picked to be a fighter pilot. When my dad saw me off, he said nothing. My mum was crying so hard she couldn't speak. Everyone knows the death rate in this trade is high. I… I…"
As the boy spoke, tears had begun running down without his noticing.
Zhao Chen patted his head.
"Obey orders, follow command. And you will get back to your parents' orchard," Zhao Chen said.
Just then,
the amber lamps above the ready room turned red!
Then the launch rosters appeared one after another.
Because it was their first real action, some still sat there dazed when the notice came.
"Feng Yongyi, Hua Wenbin, Pei Jun, Sun Yishan… board and prepare for combat at once!" Zhao Chen barked.
Only then did those called come to themselves, rising one after another to run for their fighters' bays in the combat hangar.
"Remember the orders I gave you. Do as I told you!"
"Yes!"
Zhao Chen's own name was called at around the hundredth.
He looked to the several veterans he had made deputy leaders. "I'm going first. When their names are called. Remind them."
"Rest easy, Squadron Leader; leave it to us," a deputy leader said.
Zhao Chen went to his bay.
It was the same fighter he knew.
DK9577.
By the mother ship's rules,
a fighter was generally bound to one pilot.
Unless that fighter could not fly, in which case a spare was assigned.
Or the pilot left the mother ship, or, in the extreme case, a pilot had no fighter at all.
In that case it did not matter whose it was.
One simply took it out and flew.
Zhao Chen worked this old friend of his into the air with practiced ease.
In a stretch of space beyond the mother ship,
a ring of fighters had gathered.
They flew in several circles, going round and round.
There were over a hundred already.
And still more coming.
The fighters gathering here were, naturally, those of Zhao Chen's Eighteenth Squadron.
This was the request Zhao Chen had made of his superiors.
That for the Eighteenth Squadron's first battle, all three hundred fighters might launch together.
Which was why they were all circling here and waiting.
After two or three minutes' wait,
all three hundred fighters had gathered.
"By the battle plan, take combat formation! Heading for combat zone L-123," Zhao Chen ordered.
"Yes!"
Zhao Chen's fighter took the lead.
Then the others each took their places and followed Zhao Chen at a fixed speed.
By degrees a combat formation took shape; from afar it looked like a great bird in flight.
Zhao Chen looked at the formation, now complete.
On the command channel he said in a low voice, "Remember what I taught you. In the fighting to come, those things may save your lives. And remember one thing. Obey orders, follow command!"
Zhao Chen stressed the words again.
It was what he had stressed again and again while training them.
"Obey orders, follow command!"
The flight's voices came back over the channel.
Soon.
That void battlefield in the distance came into view before them all.