No. 3 starship duel zone · the arbitration area.
This was a small space hub, charged expressly with adjudicating the No. 3 starship duel zone — and it served, at the same time, as the foremost spectators' gallery. There were fewer than 100 people in it, but today the gallery boasted the loveliest scenery of all.
Because all three of the Northstar Starship Military Academy's famous beauties had turned up.
"Your brother really came?" said a playful slip of a girl — not quite a meter and a half tall, her hair done up in twin ponytails — covering her mouth in surprise.
Zhao Wan'er's expression was a complicated one. "He's got no other distinguishing trait — just this one pigheaded streak of his."
"So that's the ship you mentioned before, the one your brother assembled himself? It can actually move, no less."
Beside her, an iceberg-cold beauty — tall and willowy, her long hair falling to her waist — spoke mildly, arms folded across her chest. "One month to assemble three grand old relics of ships into a single vessel that starts up and sails without a hitch; your brother's quite the hand at starship engineering."
Zhao Wan'er looked to the iceberg beauty and bit lightly at her lip. "Sister Su Lan, if… if my brother really does lose… when it comes to it, could I trouble you to have a word with… that Zhang Haoran, and get the wager called off…"
Both of these young women were good friends of hers.
The twin-tailed slip of a girl was her classmate, Xue Xiaoxiao.
The iceberg beauty before her was her senior, Su Lan.
Su Lan's standing was a considerable one; word had it that even the dean of the academy showed her a measure of deference.
"If it were before the duel, perhaps it could be managed. But if it's after the duel…" Su Lan's brows drew together a fraction. She saw the pleading look on Zhao Wan'er's face, and it pained her a little.
She said, helplessly, "Keeping your brother from being expelled ought to be no trouble. But there'll be no sparing him a helping of humiliation from that Zhang Haoran when the time comes."
"So long as he isn't expelled! So long as he isn't expelled!" Zhao Wan'er nodded again and again and, delighted, hooked her arm through Su Lan's. "I knew it — Sister Su Lan, you're the very best."
"Wan'er, your brother hasn't even fought yet. How is it you already know he's lost — what if he wins?" the twin-tailed girl beside them murmured.
Zhao Wan'er said, "How could he possibly win? Look what my brother's ship is, and look what that is! A 7 million-star-coin T2 Bald Eagle-class Light Interstellar Cruiser. Among the ships owned by the students of our academy, when it comes to single-combat ability, that's a class that ranks in the top 10."
She looked at the assembled ship with a tangled gaze. In her heart, too, she wanted her brother to win — but… it was simply not a thing that could happen.
Just then, over on the referees' side, they'd begun raising the two ships' captains, and a pair of video windows appeared before the referee group.
On the one side was the bridge feed of the T2 Bald Eagle. Zhang Haoran sat in the captain's chair in a suit of gaudy military finery — not a proper uniform, but some outfit Zhang Haoran had, in all likelihood, dug up from who-knew-where.
At his side stood a middle-aged man of 40 or 50, whose bearing marked him at a glance for a retired officer.
The bridge scene on the other side looked a great deal shabbier by comparison. Zhao Chen sat in the aged captain's chair, wearing a faint smile.
And behind him stood a white-furred beast-folk girl, the savage scars still plain on her face, her expression cold.
"Is that a beast-folk?" the twin-tailed girl exclaimed.
Zhao Wan'er put a hand over her face and said helplessly, "After my brother assembled that ship, he hadn't much funding left — so all he could do was buy a batch of beast-folk slaves to serve as his crew."
"Beast-folk crew?" Su Lan knit her brows slightly. She was, by now, feeling more and more strongly that this brother of her friend's was truly a most unreliable sort.
"The duelists are Class 3-2 cadet Zhang Haoran and Class 3-8 cadet Zhao Chen. Save that you may not leave the duel grounds, the rules are those of an unrestricted duel. Victory and defeat are decided by one ship's surrender, by a ship's loss of combat capability, or by a ruling from the referee group. The moment the referee group announces the final result, combat ends at once; no attack of any form may be made thereafter. Do both duelists understand this clearly?" a middle-aged male chief referee announced.
"Understood." Zhang Haoran said it with a cold smile. He could see the Zhao Chen on the far side of the video window now, and he hadn't expected the fellow would actually dare to appear before him.
And in a junk ship like that, no less. This duel was his, and no mistake.
"Understood." Zhao Chen, for his part, was the very picture of calm — he even found time to loose a yawn, as though what was about to happen had nothing whatever to do with him.
"The referee group will randomly select a 'spawn point' for each ship within the duel star region; you are to reach your spawn point within 10 minutes, at which time the referee group will declare the battle begun."
His piece said, the chief referee pressed a control.
Soon two circles, one blue and one red, appeared on the star-map of the duel grounds — the "spawn points" of the two sides.
Both ships received the location data as well, and began sailing toward their designated zones.
At this, Zhang Haoran fell to mocking Zhao Chen across the video window, clapping his hands as he spoke. "Zhao Chen, I do admire your nerve — I truly never imagined you'd actually dare to come. Where did you dredge up this ragged wreck of a ship, anyway? That hull armor looks like it'll crumble at a touch. When the time comes and I blast your ship apart with a single shell — won't that be a touch cruel?"
A savage grin spread across Zhang Haoran's face. "After all, killing one's opponent in a starship duel doesn't break the rules."
Zhao Chen stretched lazily and dug at his ear. "Finished? Because if you are, you might want to think about booking yourself a flight home."
Zhang Haoran's mouth twitched, and he jabbed a finger at Zhao Chen. "You really won't shed a tear until you see the coffin. Fine! I'll soon let you taste what a gap in strength means. You, Zhao Chen, are a good-for-nothing baron — while I am a man destined to become a viscount, a count even!"
At this the two video windows were cut off by the referee group.
Zhang Haoran turned to the deputy captain his father had arranged for him. "Deputy Captain Wang — I want you to toy with that fellow's ship the way you'd toy with a mouse, and torment it to death!"
Wang Cheng was the deputy captain Zhang Haoran's father had engaged, once a starship captain in the imperial navy.
He lifted his chin and said confidently, "Young Master Zhang, put your mind at ease. I guarantee it — that ragged wreck of a ship will never make it back to port."
The ship he commanded was a T2 Bald Eagle, foremost among the high-speed ships of the T2 tier — and though it carried grave flaws on a true interstellar battlefield, in a duel like this, against a mere academy student in a junk ship besides, he had 1,001 ways to toy with the thing until it died.
Over on the other side, the bridge of Blizzard Zero.
Zhao Chen looked to his deputy captain, Charlotte. "Charlotte — confident?"
"10 minutes to end the battle. A minute longer, and I'll eat my hat." Charlotte said it mildly. Her expression was one of a woman who couldn't work up the faintest interest in this fight at all.
Zhao Chen, on the other hand, felt a small thrill of excitement. He ran a hand over the armrest of the captain's chair, worn with the weight of years. This would be his very first starship battle!