Song Chen was much astonished at it as well.
She glanced at Zhao Chen beside her, and guessed that this golden finger of a System of his had been a great help to him too.
And calling to mind his astonishing power in fighting on his own account, guessed that this likely had to do with a System besides.
"Yaya, do you see to the business of this starship first. Take over every hold upon control within her, and keep the important modules and compartments safe so far as you may. And shut all those crewmen up within a compass we can govern." Zhao Chen looked at Yaya and gave the order outright.
"Understood, Papa. Yaya will go and do it." Yaya was as biddable as some little sprite, and set about carrying out the task Zhao Chen had given her.
And because there was Yaya, an artificial intelligence of the high grade, what Zhao Chen and Song Chen had upon their own hands was greatly lessened.
For otherwise, for two people to set an interstellar warship moving was not possible at all.
And not possible even counting in those few dozen souls below who were about to come aboard!
"Why do you trust me?" Song Chen asked suddenly at his side.
Zhao Chen looked at her with some surprise. "Why do you ask it?"
"Have you too some such thing as mine, that can tell the degree of another's hatred for you?" Song Chen fixed her eyes on him.
Zhao Chen felt that Song Chen likely had certain other abilities she had not owned to,
such as being able to tell whether what another says is a lie.
In any case, the other had a System too; and with that, all things are possible.
Nor had Zhao Chen any intention of lying.
From the moment he had resolved to be open with this person before him and hide nothing, he had not meant to lie.
At the least, of secrets that were not of great weight, he did not mean to keep any back.
"Because I want to go home," said Zhao Chen.
Song Chen looked at him with some surprise.
"The home you speak of? The place you were in before you crossed over?" Song Chen asked, curious.
Zhao Chen shook his head. "Though before I crossed over I had a home as well. But that is a thing of long ago now, seven or eight years it must be. If I could go back there, that would naturally be best. But the place I have the greater need to go back to now. Is the universe I was in before I came here. Where there are my wives, and my newborn child. And, as with you. A universe that I must guard."
Song Chen found that as Zhao Chen said these things, his gaze was soft, and full of remembering.
For all the world as though it pierced through space and through time, and were looking at something.
"Do you mean to say? That before you came, you were in another universe?" Song Chen caught the word in what he had said.
Nor did Zhao Chen hide it from her.
For though his venturing this time to make the secret of his System public came in part of chance and occasion.
The chief reason was still that he was anxious past bearing to get back to his own universe.
And as matters looked now, the likeliest ground of that opportunity lay with Song Chen.
So he must speak with Song Chen plainly and come straight to the point.
Or else a great deal of time would be spent for nothing.
And he had truly no time left to waste in this place!
"You crossed over a second time?" Song Chen was greatly startled.
For she had never supposed that Zhao Chen should have crossed over twice.
And hearing how Zhao Chen could not wait to be back at his own universe and home, Song Chen's trust in Zhao Chen grew by some degrees besides.
For she could see that Zhao Chen's heart was truly flying home before him.
"So. If you have any means whatever of getting me back quickly. I beg you tell me. I am willing to pay whatever price it is in me to pay!" Zhao Chen stopped the work in his hands and turned his head to look at Song Chen beside him.
And there was nothing but gravity in his face.
Song Chen looked at Zhao Chen, and said helplessly: "Though I pity you well enough. And would send you back if I could. But I am sorry; for a case such as yours, I know of no means of settling it either."
For which Zhao Chen had been prepared long since.
He said: "You will have heard the System's prompt just now as well?"
Song Chen nodded.
"If I have not guessed wrongly, our Systems appearing upon the two of us is no coincidence. And that may be bound up very closely with whether I can get back," said Zhao Chen.
"I am curious myself as to what the System is, when all is said," Song Chen said, knitting her brows slightly.
For a thing that had come up suddenly within one's own mind, like the working of some god.
Whoever it might be would be curious about it.
"Tell me of your world," Song Chen asked with interest.
And there was indeed time for it just then; Zhao Chen talked a little of his own world, and of certain of his own affairs, at least such of them as were no secret.
And in that while, this starship had not been idle either.
The guns without her and her several weapons were all of them working at speed.
And destroyed every drone and shuttle that flew near.
And the warship hanging above the communications tower stood there like a guardian god.
"Warning! Warning! Ten hostile anti-air missiles detected in flight."
The alarm sounded upon the bridge.
But at this moment there was no need whatever for Zhao Chen or Song Chen to put a hand to it.
For Yaya, being an artificial intelligence of the high grade, simply raised both her hands and made the gesture of firing a gun.
"Pew, pew!"
And thereupon the close-in guns upon the warship laid down several curtains of shot,
and intercepted and destroyed every one of those missiles, and very exactly.
And without the reckoning power of a high artificial intelligence, an interstellar warship of this T3 grade could not certainly have done it.
And at this, out of one of the warship's compartments, a transport ship under Yaya's control from afar came slowly out, and came down below the communications tower.
And the Star Alliance soldiers who had come through alive could be seen withdrawing from the communications tower, one after another, and going aboard the transport.
These transports would carry them back to the warship besides.
"Reporting, Leader. Our call for aid has been sent in full!"
"Very good. Once you are aboard, follow the directions the bridge gives you, and clear away what is left of the enemy within the ship. And then take over the important sections as you are instructed."
"Yes."
Song Chen, having given these instructions,
looked at the several alarms springing up upon the warship's radar.
"We have delayed too long in this place. And word that we have taken an enemy T3 interstellar warship must assuredly be known to the enemy's other warships by now. And next, we must run for it. We must hold out at the least until the hour our own relief arrives," Song Chen said, with nothing but gravity in her face.
Zhao Chen nodded, and looked at Song Chen. "Though we are not friends. Yet at the least, through the dozen and more hours to come. Without my leave, you are not to die!"
For Zhao Chen did not know whether the thing the System unlocked in the end might not have to do with this crosser-over.
So until that hour he would not suffer Song Chen to die.
Song Chen smiled slightly.
She looked at Zhao Chen. "I have heard your story. Would you like to hear mine?"
"I am all attention," said Zhao Chen.
And Song Chen's gaze began to sink into remembering.
"In truth it is not my sex alone that I have hidden. I have hidden my name besides. I do not like this name of Song Chen. I had rather people called me Zhao Chengcheng. Or else Zhao Cheng." Zhao Chengcheng looked at Zhao Chen.
And in that moment Zhao Chen's mind reeled.
Zhao Cheng… Zhao Chengcheng… could this too be a coincidence