Song Qingshan paced back and forth upon his own flagship's bridge.
He knit his brows and looked at his adjutant. "Still nothing come from Song… from the Leader?"
"Nothing." The adjutant shook his head.
"What is the matter with it?" Song Qingshan walked over to the great interstellar holo-table.
Upon which red rings could be seen, one after another,
which were the relief forces already arranged and sent.
And yet to this moment no call for aid and no coordinates had come from Song Chen's guard fleet.
Which was not as it should be!
The one possibility left was that at the battlefield where Song Chen's guard fleet was ambushed, gear to interfere with long-range communications had been set out beforehand,
so that Song Chen's end could not send out the call for aid and the coordinates as the plan had it.
And if that were so, then matters had grown very bad indeed!
For though every other part of the plan should succeed, if anything happened to Song Chen it would bring a great change upon the Alliance.
"What if… we take the line of voyage the Leader's guard reported, and reckon out the path of it. And spread our fleets out, and find some way to search for the Leader's guard fleet that we have lost touch with."
So one staff officer proposed.
But he was very soon refuted by another.
"That plan will not serve! Though we may narrow this region down as small as we can by the time and the line of voyage. Upon the scale of the universe it is very large all the same. With luck we might chance upon the Leader's guard fleet, but the likelihood of it is very low. And what is more, once we have scattered our strength, then even should we find the coordinates where the Leader's guard fleet is ambushed. Our scattered strength would most likely be unable to break the siege at all. And the T6 Phantom-Immortals we use have been allotted already to every fleet. The T6 Phantom-Immortals being so scarce, each of our supporting fleets has one chance and no more."
And at this the several staff officers began quarreling, each for his own view of it.
"Hold your tongues, all of you!" Song Qingshan gave a great shout.
And went on staring at the holo-table.
Never in his life had he thought that a day would come when he should care so much whether this brother of his lived or died.
"Give me some word! I beg it of you, give me some word. Weren't you always the one who loved to kick up business that shook heaven and earth? How are you gone dumb at a time like this. Hurry and make me some noise." Song Qingshan muttered it to himself there, and both his hands were fists already.
It could be seen that he was very tense just then.
"Report: we have this moment received a communication from an interstellar fighter. The note upon it says Colonel Zhao Chen." At this a signals petty officer cried it aloud.
"What has he sent!" Song Qingshan's head came up with a jerk.
"It is all here." The signals officer set what had been sent out before Song Qingshan's eyes.
It was a call for aid.
With the coordinates, and how the Leader's guard fleet stood at this hour.
Hemmed in by the enemy, and the elite fleets of three families taking part in it.
More than ten thousand interstellar warships, falling upon Song Chen's guard fleet.
And communications jammed besides.
Support requested!
"Send these coordinates down at once. Make the space delivery ready at once. Go and support them! And at the greatest speed there is!" Song Qingshan roared it at his adjutant and his staff officers on the instant.
And thereafter that whole bridge of his worked at a speed it had never worked at before.
Every man there knew what hour this was, and not one of them dared take it lightly now.
Soon the T6 Phantom-Immortals, long since made ready,
threw fleet after fleet to the coordinates appointed.
And Song Qingshan's own flagship among them.
By the plan as laid, Song Qingshan was to bear the part of supreme commander, and to sit in the rear.
But after this business of Song Chen, the Star Alliance Leader, being lost from contact, he had no heart at all to stay behind.
He does not like Song Chen.
But this fellow must not die, and at the least must not die before his eyes.
After a brief swimming of the head,
the fleet he led completed its jump through space.
And came to the coordinates that were its mark.
And at this the starship's radar department sent word as well.
"Report: in the ** bearing from our fleet, an interstellar battlefield is found!"
Hearing this word his subordinate reported,
Song Qingshan said no second word, but ordered outright: "Pass word to the whole fleet, and support them at full speed. Never mind formations and no formations; first make certain that Song… that the Leader is safe."
"Yes!"
What had been left to Song Qingshan for the supporting of Song Chen was, as it happened, three fleets also, near ten thousand interstellar warships in all.
Three fleets, that went for the battlefield at their greatest speed like the three prongs of a trident.
The carrier starships gave no thought to combat distance either; so long as the fighters and drones could fly so far, they were all of them sent out at once.
The interstellar cruisers, which are fast, went a horse's head in front.
The escort ships and the battlecruisers followed hard behind them.
And the other warships, slower of speed, kept up as best they might.
It was for all the world like a tide sweeping in.
Under a rush of support such as this,
Song Qingshan very soon came up close upon this interstellar battlefield.
The fighting was fierce.
A great number of interstellar warships could be seen, besieging one region.
Where every warship of Song Chen's guard fleet was gathered, and where the wreckage and fragments of ships already destroyed could be seen besides.
The guard fleet, which should by rights have numbered three thousand,[1] had by now lost near half of them.
And it must be understood that these were T5 interstellar warships of one kind throughout.
And that there were some quasi-T6 among them besides.
From which one may judge how fierce these ambushers' attack had been just now.
And among them was the enemy fleet from the other universe.
And seeing those elite fleets of the three families, Song Qingshan ground his teeth.
"Let every gun open. Finish these fellows who eat from one bowl and scrape from another!"
Set against those enemy fleets of the other universe, Song Qingshan hated these traitors of the Alliance's own families far more.
The former are opponents, and enemies upon a battlefield.
And whatever means they use may be called tactics.
Just as he, Song Qingshan, fell upon an important base in the enemy's rear.
And the enemy's carrying out a plan to strike off the head of Song Chen, the Alliance's Leader, is reasonable enough besides.
But you, these three families, are families of the Alliance.
And for the sake of your own interest you sell the Alliance, and sell your own allies.
Which is the conduct Song Qingshan spits upon above all.
And thereafter those three family fleets naturally met with the fiercest attack of all.
And by reason of these relief forces of Song Qingshan's coming up, the state of the battlefield underwent a great change besides.
Song Chen sat in the captain's chair, watching Song Qingshan's fleet come cutting its way in.
He said with a slight smile, "This younger brother of mine seems to care about me well enough after all."