"Reporting."
Not long after, several petty officers, somewhat the worse for wear, could be seen coming onto the bridge.
And in the moment they stepped onto the bridge, they saw the scene of blood within it,
and swallowed in spite of themselves.
There were corpses everywhere.
And among the corpses, two people stood before the captain's chair.
Which made a very strong picture of it.
Forcing down their discomfort, these Star Alliance petty officers made their report to 'Song Chen'.
Zhao Chengcheng turned her head and glanced at these four petty officers she had called in.
Near enough all of them had served as bridge petty officers aboard her own flagship before this.
While the rest of the soldiers she had set, every one, to hold the important compartments within the warship.
"First get this place clean," Zhao Chengcheng said, pointing about her.
For though she might take no notice of such surroundings, who does not wish the place he stays in to be a little cleaner?
"Yes!"
And the four petty officers began at once to clean this bridge.
A bridge so large could not naturally be cleaned by their own hands; that would be work not done in ten days or half a month.
What they chiefly did was to find the half-intelligent cleaning gear upon the bridge, and, having set it going, clear away these corpses and this blood.
So that the greater part of the place, at the least, should not look so much of a shambles.
"And the next step, have you thought what we are to do?" Zhao Chengcheng looked at Zhao Chen; and by now she had begun asking Zhao Chen's thinking of her own accord.
"We cannot stay upon this planet. Though there may yet be some remnant of your people alive upon it. But to take this starship of ours and go to save them is not a practical thing. It might rather bring them into danger. For the enemy's notice will be laid the more upon us. My own opinion is this. The first step. That we fly this starship clear of this planet. And at the same time use those secret communications channels of your Alliance's, and send word to the Star Alliance's survivors upon this planet. And have them find means to lie low of themselves, and wait upon a rescue to come."
Hearing this first step of Zhao Chen's, Zhao Chengcheng nodded; it was near enough what she had thought herself.
And Zhao Chengcheng pointed thereupon at an interstellar holo-table.
This interstellar holo-table was laid out about this planet.
And belonged to this interstellar warship herself, which came very conveniently for Zhao Chen and the rest to use.
"Then the next thing to think on is how we are to get away!"
Zhao Chen did not take up her words, but looked at Yaya beside them.
"Yaya, can you break into the enemy's communications network, or else their network of command? And without being found out by the enemy, come at the dispositions of the enemy's interstellar warships, and at the command arrangements they mean to make?"
"Of course that is no trouble at all! Spy Yaya, activate!" Yaya spun herself about, and was suddenly dressed in black from head to foot, with a black hat upon her and black spectacles besides.
Zhao Chen and Zhao Chengcheng met each other's eyes.
Neither of them knew which had written the part of the program that had given this high artificial intelligence a character as endearing as this.
"Beginning to bring the enemy's data across. Yaya moves very secretly, you know. It is guaranteed they shall never find Yaya!"
And very soon Yaya's work bore its fruit.
Upon the interstellar holo-table before Zhao Chen's eyes appeared the enemy's interstellar warships one by one, and shuttles besides, and fighters, and space stations, and the places where every sort of weapon and strategic work stood.
And not upon this planet only.
For looking wider, there was every particular of the star system this planet stands in as well.
And arrows drawn upon it besides.
Such as that a fleet made up of thirty interstellar warships was on its way here, and should arrive in twenty minutes.
Zhao Chen glanced at Yaya.
And Yaya at this moment stood with both hands on her hips and her head tilted up, with every air of see how formidable I am.
And indeed.
Yaya's performance in this line, set upon a battlefield, is the equal of a master hand at an intelligence station who has an all-seeing eye upon the field besides.
Though this is also because, at present, the enemy has not the least expectation that Zhao Chen's end should simply have pinched a high artificial intelligence into being.
Which, told abroad, no one would believe.
For upon a battlefield in the ordinary way there are counter-measures made ready to match it, and the enemy is not suffered to break so easily into one's own networks of communication and intelligence.
To return to the matter.
"How long do you judge it will be before your relief comes to the rescue?" Zhao Chen looked at Zhao Chengcheng.
Zhao Chengcheng thought a moment, and said with a slight knitting of her brows: "In the ordinary case, my subordinates would, in the shortest time there is, use the T6 Phantom-Immortal interstellar jump-ships to throw a fleet across, and then draw off quickly. But earlier, for the carrying out of that plan of turning their own scheme against them, we put seven or eight tenths of the T6 Phantom-Immortals in at one stroke. And what T6 Phantom-Immortals are left are all set upon the front-line battlefield, ready to hand against any urgent case. And this place lies within the enemy's universe. And though the T6 Phantom-Immortals can, by reason of the two universes being joined, make a long-range jump and deliver a fleet. Yet considering that this is the enemy's own rear, they cannot merely send a few hundred or a few thousand interstellar warships across. Most likely they would want ten thousand warships at the least before they dared make the delivery at all. And that wants a certain number of T6 Phantom-Immortals."
Zhao Chen understood Zhao Chengcheng's thinking.
Which was no more than this: that the Alliance's end has at present no very full understanding of how matters stand here,
so that they do not know how many starships they ought to send in support.
Send too few, and they fear it is the sheep walking into the tiger's mouth; and then not only is the Leader not saved.
But a great many T6 Phantom-Immortal interstellar jump-ships are lost besides, and those are weapons of the strategic order.
Or send too many,
and that means a great many T6 Phantom-Immortal jump-ships are wanted before the task can be done at all.
It is a thing very hard to decide.
And what is more, no one knows how matters stand within the Alliance now.
Nor whether, since Zhao Chengcheng's 'whereabouts became unknown', anything sudden may have arisen.
"It is a pity we cannot use the warship's communications gear to reach across universes directly," Zhao Chengcheng said helplessly.
"Then let us reckon upon the worst. And suppose that we may, for a long while together, be unable to get any support at all," Zhao Chen said, with something deep in his eyes.
Unable to get support for a long while.
Zhao Chengcheng took Zhao Chen's meaning; and that was indeed the worst case.
And Zhao Chen had even left her a little face in it, and had not said outright that there is no relief coming whatever.
And by that, with one T3 interstellar warship alone in their hands,
to get out of this alive would be hard past all measure.
"Yaya, how long can this starship work upon her energy and her stores, with no resupply?" Zhao Chen looked at Yaya.
Yaya answered: "With no resupply, and in a state where there is no fighting, this starship can voyage sixty days. But where there is fighting, it must be reckoned otherwise. And of this starship's combat stores, her ammunition stands at sixty per cent remaining."