"General."
Just then Zhao Chen's voice came over the channel.
It was somewhat hoarse; the weariness in it could be heard.
"I am here," the general said.
"Three minutes remain of the half hour. In three minutes our surviving fighters will begin to withdraw. I hope you can arrange some fighters to give us covering fire then," Zhao Chen said.
"Rest assured; I have already seen to it," the general said.
"I am obliged to you."
Hearing that, the general was himself taken aback.
It seemed the first time he had heard this man say anything like "I am obliged to you."
The man had been his subordinate all along, yet at every turn he carried himself as one who is neither servile nor overbearing.
And never spoke in the language of asking favors.
That he should say it now left only one likely reason.
He said it for those fighter pilots who had fought on to this moment.
He did not want their casualties added to at the last, for anything whatever.
It seemed this man never for a moment stopped caring about the lives of those under him.
Zhao Chen, for his part, did not know what others were making of him just then.
He was truly very tired.
The super-soldier serum aided him, and this body had largely come back to that state.
But two battles one after another, and this one directing a million fighters with no high-grade intelligent brain to help,
the strain was very great indeed.
"Pass my order. In two minutes the twenty clusters prepare to withdraw. But do not rush the withdrawal; do it as I instructed!" Zhao Chen did not forget the last reminder.
The twenty cluster leaders on the channel all answered at once.
For in the half hour's fighting they had felt this man's power of command for themselves.
However much they had resented it before the battle,
after that fighting, no one was left unconvinced.
Without this man, there would have been no chance whatever of carrying this out.
And there was what he had done before the battle: the extraordinary death benefits he had all but coerced out of the general.
They were no fools; they knew perfectly well that Zhao Chen had been forcing the general's hand.
With a smaller-minded general, such behavior would beyond doubt have buried his own future.
So they admired this young man from the heart!
At last the final three minutes were up.
Zhao Chen led the surviving fighters of this mission back.
The enemy's warships would hardly let it rest.
They came after them as though gone mad.
But the field was so littered with the wreckage of warships and fighters.
That this region had become an interstellar scrapyard, which indirectly hindered their pursuit.
At last, with covering fire from warships the general had placed in the rear.
The fighters got back safely.
And the enemy's warships could only watch these contemptible raiders enter the great meteorite belt.
For the belt's spaces are narrow.
Warships cannot enter.
They could only look at their ruined industrial base, and at the fellows making off.
And in their resentment could only fire into the belt to vent it.
"Zhao Chen…"
Once they had withdrawn into the great belt,
Zhao Chen said nothing for a long while, and gave no new orders.
In the end the general could not help speaking first.
"General, the mission is over. I return command to you. If there is nothing else, I would like to rest."
With that, without waiting for the general to speak, Zhao Chen cut the channel,
leaving those around the general exchanging glances.
The lad's temper had grown, to hang up on a general outright.
But the general did not much mind it; perhaps able men all have some temper in them.
What followed was naturally the flight home.
There was little danger in it, at most some deeply hidden enemy defensive base along the way popping up to harry them.
But they were few, and made little difference.
——————
The fleets waiting outside the great belt were waiting in agony.
For, to keep the operation from being exposed,
they had not contacted those fighters since it began, so they had no idea how things stood.
They knew only one thing.
That if the fighter force did not return by the appointed time.
Every warship here would withdraw.
For this was the enemy's universe.
The longer they stayed, the greater the danger.
Besides, what had been struck was one of the enemy's industrial bases.
The enemy would soon reason that the raiding fighters had set out from this end of the belt.
And would send fleets to hunt them down.
So they had to withdraw within the appointed time!
"Reporting, half an hour left. By the plan, if the fighters under the General have not returned within it. We withdraw," a staff officer said to the deputy commander, worried.
The deputy commander said regretfully, "I should never have allowed the General to go himself."
The General was of the Song family, the Star Alliance Leader's brother.
If anything happened to him, the blame would fall on them all.
But regret came too late now.
They could only pray the General came back safe.
"Reporting! Fighter energy signatures detected within the belt!"
At that report,
the whole bridge was as though keeping a festival!
"Quick! Quick! Order every carrier to receive the returning fighters!" the deputy commander ordered loudly.
"Er… sir, should we not first confirm the identity of those fighters?" the staff officer beside him suggested.
It was the proper procedure.
But at a moment like this, who cared about procedure?
"Look at the time! And besides, who could come back through that belt but our own fighters!" the deputy commander said without ceremony.
The staff officer said nothing, aggrieved; it was the proper procedure all the same.
And by now fighters had come through the belt and appeared before them all.
They were certainly Star Alliance craft.
Only, every one of them looked as though it had been through a storm.
The sight struck every waiting heart.
And filled them with solemn respect.