Half a minute later.
Zhao Chen had his answer.
"Though the communications gear is damaged. We cannot make quantum communication at high frequency over long distances; but within a few star regions there is no difficulty."
Song Chen's words let Zhao Chen breathe easier.
As to that compass being narrowed, by Song Chen's tone there must be, within it, people of theirs set in this universe to spy.
"But the communications gear here is rather old. The transmission will take a little time. And we must put it under cipher besides. So it will take some twenty minutes." There was a heaviness in Song Chen's voice just then.
It could be heard that he knew very well himself how long those twenty minutes were at such an hour as this.
For upon this planet, word that they had struck here must have gone abroad by now.
And there was no knowing how many of the enemy were upon the road.
Zhao Chen at his end called up a count of twenty minutes running down.
"I understand. Twenty minutes. I have no wish to work overtime," Zhao Chen said mildly.
Song Chen, hearing Zhao Chen's tone, thought it sounded as though the man had some means in hand.
"Are you sure of it?"
"Within twenty minutes, I am sure. Beyond twenty minutes. I do not work overtime," said Zhao Chen.
At such an hour this fellow still had leisure to joke with him.
Song Chen drew a deep breath and said gravely: "Twenty minutes, then. And within those twenty minutes you may command every man of ours here."
"To speak exactly, it is nineteen minutes and twenty-two seconds now," said Zhao Chen.
This fellow.
Zhao Chen said nothing further.
Nor did he send any order at once to Song Chen's end, for he knew there were not many men left there either.
Thirty-odd to begin with; and after the fighting in the communications tower, likely no more than half were still fit to fight.
"Colonel Zhao Chen. What are we to do next? Presently the enemy will assuredly send a great many shuttles, and interstellar warships besides, in support. With no more fire than we have, it will be hard work to hold them. Had we known, we should have driven a few mecha out ourselves just now," Zhao Jie said, with some regret in it.
And in his heart there was in truth a little envy, that Zhao Chen had a mecha to fly now.
For that seat must surely be better than this very ordinary armored fighting car of his.
"In your records there is not much ability at flying combat mecha. To set you driving those great fellows would do nothing but make live targets of you," Zhao Chen said without ceremony.
Zhao Jie was somewhat put out of countenance.
But what Zhao Chen said was no more than the truth.
For the flying of mecha wants a study of its own; men such as they know something of combat mecha merely, and some among them might work a training mecha well enough to make it walk.
But truly to fight in one is another notion altogether.
The more so as these were combat mecha of the enemy's universe,
with which they were less familiar still.
Thinking of these things, Zhao Jie admired Zhao Chen's ability the more, and was the more puzzled by it besides.
How was it that Zhao Chen could break the authority of an enemy mecha in so short a time, and then handle it so freely?
This Zhao Chen, what manner of man was he?
Was he only a colonel?
Earlier, seeing Zhao Chen so young and a colonel already, Zhao Jie had been unconvinced.
But as he saw it now, the rank of colonel was not fit for a man of this kind.
"Whether we can hold off the enemy's attack. Depends besides upon whether the enemy will oblige us," Zhao Chen said sternly.
"Eh?" Zhao Jie did not take his meaning.
Zhao Chen at this moment had brought the quasi-T4 Lancer-class Medium Combat Mecha to the foot of the communications tower.
There were no few of the enemy's troops here still, but under the Lancer's attack.
These soldiers could not escape the fate of being butchered.
"There should be soldiers of the enemy inside the tower yet. Do you hold here; with those weapons you have scavenged, and this armored car, that should be no difficulty?" Zhao Chen asked Zhao Jie.
"No difficulty," Zhao Jie answered.
And then asked hard upon it: "And what is it you mean to do?"
"Wait." Zhao Chen came out with a word past all fathoming.
And thereupon, of all things, Zhao Chen worked the Lancer into climbing the communications tower's outer wall.
A mecha that by rights should be a clumsy thing; but under Zhao Chen's handling it was for all the world like some ordinary lover of rock-climbing.
Going up the outer wall as though he walked on level ground.
Zhao Jie raised his head and watched the Lancer grow smaller by degrees, and swallowed.
And wondered at Zhao Chen's skill all over again.
The man was simply a monster.
He can fly fighters, and be they ground-air or interstellar, his skill is an ace's.
And in the quality of his own body he is terrifyingly strong besides; and Zhao Jie, who had been an interstellar marine, owned himself the lesser man.
And if he could command interstellar warships as well, would he not be a talent complete at every point?
Zhao Jie dared not imagine it.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
Those within the communications tower's main control room felt at this moment a stirring like an earthquake.
"What is the matter? Where does that stirring come from?" Song Chen could make nothing of it.
And at this someone outside cried: "Report, there is a mecha climbing the communications tower's outer wall. It seems… it seems to be Colonel Zhao Chen's Lancer!"
So one of them cried out in astonishment.
Hearing this, Song Chen went at once to the wall, before a floor-to-ceiling window that had been broken in.
And with no thought whatever for the hundred meters of open air, put out his head and looked down.
And his pupils widened; the thing was past believing.
For it was indeed a mecha, climbing the outer wall of this communications tower for all the world like a spider.
And soon this mecha came up to the floor where they stood.
And Song Chen watched with his own eyes as this mecha passed the floor they held and went on climbing.
Song Chen could not keep from asking upon the communications channel: "Zhao Chen, what on earth is it you mean to do?"
"I am only completing my task," Zhao Chen said mildly.
Completing his task?
Completing his task by climbing a tower in a mecha?
"This is bad! The enemy's interstellar warship has come!" Someone or other cried it out.
A soldier set to keep watch pointed at a small dot in the sky far off, which grew larger and larger as it came.
And Song Chen's face began to change for the worse.
That was the enemy's T3 interstellar warship.
He knew the model of her.
Upon an interstellar battlefield she is a part fit for cannon fodder.
The T3 Fox-Hunter-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer.
But here!
To such as they, she was a thing of the order of a monarch among monsters.
"At this distance… in some three minutes the enemy's weapons can lock upon us! And should they wish it, the weapons upon that ship. Can destroy this communications tower we stand in outright. And to destroy this city besides would be the easiest thing in the world." Song Chen's heart sank to the very bottom.
For the interstellar warship is, in this age, the weapon that can drive men to despair.
And there is no other!