Zhao Chen set out flying the quasi-T6 Rose Knight-class interstellar fighter.
Though this was the first time he had truly flown a craft of this class, he had gone over every part of its performance.
And had it clear in his mind.
Add to that the several turns of training in the simulator cockpit, and Zhao Chen found flying this fighter no difficulty whatever.
"Major Zhao, your unit's task this time. Is to guard the safety of the space about Black Rose No. 1. The enemy's fighters and drones are not to be suffered to threaten our airspace."
Zhao Chen heard the order come down from the bridge.
Unlike Song Qingshan's end, where interstellar fighters were valued highly, here the fighters and drones bore more of an auxiliary part.
"Understood," Zhao Chen answered.
Not to have to take the danger upon himself; and why should he not be glad of it?
"All squadrons, proceed by contingency C," Zhao Chen ordered upon his own command channel.
And at the same time gave an order to the department that had charge of the interstellar drones. "All interstellar drones are to hold at standby. Without my order, none is to move out."
"Yes."
And after that, what Zhao Chen and his people had to do was to wait.
While Zhao Chen, for his part, looked on at this ambush with an appreciative eye.
An ambush it was.
But Song Chen's end had in truth been ready long since, and in the first moment of it he put to use the plan of action he had prepared beforehand.
Three hundred interstellar warships, in a defensive formation shaped like the character for goods.
The important warships within, such as the carrier starships and their like.
The destroyers and escort ships outside, bearing the part of intercepting the enemy's attacks.
One must say it was indeed the best disposition to be had.
For though the enemy had a thousand interstellar warships, under a defensive formation of this kind it would be hard work to take these three hundred quickly.
"Send word of our being attacked out at once!" Song Chen gave the order without hesitating, there upon the bridge.
But a bad piece of news came very soon.
"Report: there are powerful long-range communications jamming devices about us. We cannot send any call for aid outward!" the officer of the communications department reported anxiously.
Communications jamming.
Song Chen's face darkened, but this had been within his reckoning all along.
"Give word to the interstellar stealth reconnaissance ships about us. They are to run clear of the enemy's jamming at once, and send the intelligence here outward. And the coordinates of the place where we were attacked!"
"Yes!"
The interstellar stealth reconnaissance ships lying hid in the dark began at once to draw away from the fighting zone.
But then a thing happened that no one had looked for.
Explosions burst suddenly in space that held 'nothing whatever'; and thereupon interstellar stealth reconnaissance ship after ship was laid bare.
"Report: all five of our interstellar stealth reconnaissance ships have come under attack from an enemy we cannot identify. They are laid bare now! The plan as laid cannot be carried out!" a subordinate said anxiously.
Song Chen looked at the star chart.
The five stealth reconnaissance ships were indeed laid bare.
And those who had attacked them had not hidden themselves either.
They were several interstellar comprehensive-combat counter-stealth ships, of all things!
"So the enemy was ready for this too," Song Chen said, his face darkening.
Though for such a case as this he had been ready long since.
One of his other resorts was this.
That over this period, at set intervals, he had been getting secretly in touch with Song Qingshan's end.
The two of them had agreed upon it.
That if no word came within the time appointed, then he had been set upon by the enemy and his communications cut.
Whereby Song Qingshan would learn that Song Chen's fleet had been attacked; and though, being unable to come by exact coordinates, he could make no precise delivery through space.
At the least he could settle upon a rough compass of ground.
And failing all else, guess blindly at a compass of coordinates, throw the fleet across, and then search the ground carpet-fashion,
until the place of the ambush was found.
Only that this would greatly increase the danger Song Chen stood in.
That was the worst case of all.
Song Chen said nothing further; it seemed matters must be handled by the worst case after all.
"Hold the ground and keep holding it. We shall assuredly last until our relief arrives!" Song Chen said, in words to hearten them.
At the other end.
Zhao Chen too had seen those interstellar comprehensive-combat counter-stealth ships.
Which are a very rare kind of ship, and possess a stealth of their own besides.
The difficulty of the technology is extreme, while the fighting strength is not great,
so that there is hardly an interstellar power that will develop the type.
It belongs to that sort where the cost of the investment is high and the return very low,
unless your enemy be one with a very marked ability in the technology of stealth,
such as Zhao Chen's own Owl Dragon Legion.
In the Owl Dragon's universe, when Zhao Chen first rose, it was not that no interstellar power developed this class of warship.
But at the outset they were no more than ordinary interstellar counter-stealth ships.
And the technology of them very low.
By the time Zhao Chen brought out the T5 interstellar stealth reconnaissance ship, those interstellar powers had commonly put no more than T4 grade into their counter-stealth craft.
Which is how the Owl Dragon kept a gap of technology open all along.
And later, once the whole universe had come under the Owl Dragon's control.
Zhao Chen simply bought up, at great price, every research institute that had been developing counter-stealth technology.
They would go on developing in that line, but they would develop for the Owl Dragon.
It is a fine technology, but one to be held in one's own hand.
To return to the matter.
Zhao Chen glanced at the back end he had set within the bridge.
And so learned that the long-range communications had been cut off.
He frowned slightly.
For by this the hour of the relief's arrival would be greatly delayed.
If the enemy had arranged no more than these thousand interstellar warships, there might perhaps be no great trouble in it.
But if…
All of a sudden!
Zhao Chen saw rings of light appear, one after another, far off upon both flanks of the field.
Curse it: the worst case had come.
Those rings of light were nothing else.
They were the engines of interstellar warship upon interstellar warship.
And these warships were not from the enemy's universe.
They were from the Star Alliance's own.
The types of these warships were familiar enough to the Alliance's fighting men as well.
And these warships had not so much as thought of covering their own unit numbers.
The ships' numbers, and the fleets they belonged to, were plain to see.
Zhao Chen enlarged the image.
And made them out.
They came from three great houses of the conservative faction, each in its turn.
And they were the most elite fleets those houses had.
Three hundred interstellar warships to each fleet; which is to say that here were near a thousand more.
The situation had turned sharply for the worse!
"This… this is the Murong family's Blown-Snow Fleet; and the Tang family's Tiger-Roar Fleet; and the Cheng family's Twin-Axe Fleet!" The deputy captain looked on the scene in astonishment.
But Song Chen was unmoved, and said with a mocking laugh: "This pack of fellows. They truly hide and cover nothing; they mean this time to have it out, the fish dying or the net breaking. How they do want me dead."
Two thousand interstellar warships, in ambush upon three hundred.
Though these three hundred were elite,
it would be hard work indeed to hold out.
Song Chen's three hundred interstellar warships stood in deadly peril!
"My lord… I… I have a thought."