At the sight of this battlefield,
no few of the fresh recruits felt their hearts lurch.
For the scene truly was overwhelming.
'Space refuse' drifted everywhere in sight.
But a closer look showed it was in fact the wreckage of fighters.
And among it could be seen fragments of warships as well.
Presumably one side or the other had tried to bring warships into this battlefield.
Given the number of fighters gathered here alone.
Unless a fleet of tens of thousands had been sent in earlier, the situation could hardly be changed.
For here, counting both sides' fighters together, tens of millions were fighting at once.
And that without counting the drones.
Everywhere was their battlefield.
Every inch was fought over.
"Prepare to enter the battlefield," came Zhao Chen's voice.
At this everyone braced themselves.
Soon some enemy fighters appeared within their radar range.
"Remember, never mind the enemy in front of you; what matters is holding the combat formation. If you can hit, hit; if you can't, let it go. Remember what I taught you!" Zhao Chen stressed again.
Then Zhao Chen became a commander outright.
Order after order came from his mouth.
"Squadron left wing, advance three!"
"Squadron right wing, prepare to surround and destroy every fighter in the area ahead."
"Squadron dead ahead, mind your defense; enemy flights are closing!"
Zhao Chen watched a small holo-table before him and passed orders without pause, as though he were an intelligent brain himself.
In the fighting that followed,
this great bird of three hundred fighters,
began to show remarkable tactics.
Again and again they could make it many against few locally, surrounding and destroying.
When a strong enemy appeared in some area, they would defend and draw him out, waiting for friendly support.
Unless they had twice the enemy's numbers, Zhao Chen would not give the order to attack!
The tactic was thoroughly cunning.
It meant Zhao Chen's Eighteenth Squadron took no great losses at first.
But by the same token, their kills were not many.
They were always many against few, and the meat divided among so many mouths naturally left little each.
Time passed, little by little.
From joining the battlefield until their kills passed fifty, the whole Eighteenth Squadron had, of all things, still taken no casualties.
For Zhao Chen watched every fighter's condition closely; if one was in poor shape, Zhao Chen put it at the formation's center,
to come out and add its fire only when needed.
Under this tactic, though the kills were poor.
Fighting on so, at least Zhao Chen's Eighteenth Squadron would not lose heavily.
But Zhao Chen did not dare relax.
For he knew very well how many unstable factors there were in it.
If this were only a 'game', and Zhao Chen were commanding units.
Then Zhao Chen was wholly certain of winning.
But the trouble was, Zhao Chen was commanding living people.
Soldiers each with a wholly different mind.
And these soldiers meant great instability!
Sure enough.
Soon some problems began to appear in Zhao Chen's command.
Some fighters began to fall behind his orders, and even to hinder others.
Happily, these 'errors' had been within Zhao Chen's expectation from the start.
They were not so very bad.
But some things Zhao Chen could hardly prevent.
Some pilots, for instance, after that spell of fighting, might feel the enemy not so hard to handle.
And their comrades had fine tallies.
While their own luck was poor, and in this team fighting they had not downed a fighter.
At which they might grow restless.
And the moment they saw some chance, would rush off after it.
Some would take an enemy fighter that way.
But some, having left the flight, would find their own fighter alone in the midst of the enemy.
And then Zhao Chen could hardly save them however he wished.
He could only watch as those fighters caught in the enemy's ranks were destroyed.
And from then the Eighteenth Squadron began to take casualties.
And as the fighting ground on, the Eighteenth Squadron's casualty figures kept climbing.
"Don't panic. So long as you follow my command. I will bring you back!" Zhao Chen's voice came again over the channel.
Hearing their leader's voice, these pilots all felt, somehow, steadied at heart.
As though, so long as this man was there.
They truly could return alive.
At last,
Zhao Chen saw that the Eighteenth Squadron's overall combat figures had fallen to 20%,
which fully met the standard for returning.
But Zhao Chen did not order a retreat outright.
He drew off the battlefield by degrees.
Only when the threat had fallen did Zhao Chen tell them they could withdraw.
"Hold formation; prepare to return to the mother ship!" Zhao Chen said over the channel.
At the words, every pilot of the Eighteenth Squadron breathed a long sigh of relief.
Had Zhao Chen ordered a retreat outright before, some might have rushed the withdrawal, or let their guard down too soon.
"Squadron Leader… we lived… we lived." A boy's voice came over the channel, thick with tears.
And others laughing and swearing.
"Little Yang, a grown man like you, and crying?"
"Don't you laugh at old Yang, you old rascal; tell us you weren't scared!"
"Heh-heh-heh, I have to say, my shorts do feel a bit damp."
"Oh, good grief…"
Zhao Chen listened to the lads' laughing and joking.
And the corners of his own mouth turned up a little despite himself.
But in that very moment, Zhao Chen saw, behind a 'rubbish heap' of piled fighter wreckage far off, a fighter appear.
Three interstellar missiles slung beneath it launched.
Fired in exactly the direction where the squadron's formation was weakest.
There, one fighter's star-shield energy was wholly spent.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! Missile lock! Missile lock!"
The alarm sounded inside that boy's cockpit.
At which Little Yang frantically tried to fly his fighter clear.
Crying out, "I'm locked on by missiles! Damn it. My decoys and my star shield are gone. What… what… what do I do!"
Little Yang watched the missiles closing on the radar, and in that moment fell into deep despair.
There were anxious voices on the channel, but they could do nothing for him now.
Little Yang raised his head and looked through the clear canopy at the three missiles coming for him.
He seemed to see his parents' orchard.
But the next second, a fighter appeared from somewhere.
And placed itself squarely in front of Little Yang.
That fighter's number was.
DK9566!