After running it through who knows how many times,
Zhao Chengcheng, her face gone black, set both hands upon the table and looked at her own warship, hemmed about once again by the enemy's ships.
And not far off lay the border space between the star systems, black from end to end.
One step short!
One step short!
"Fifteen hours. A new record set." Yaya clapped her hands at the side.
But these figures could not satisfy Zhao Chen or Zhao Chengcheng.
"Whichever of the two of us has the commanding of this warship. The best record to this moment is fifteen hours. And we can never sail into the border space at all!" There was some stir in Zhao Chengcheng's feelings, and she clenched her fists.
And she stared at this star system.
For this star system is no great one, and such a warship as a T3 Fox-Hunter-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer, sailing from one end of it to the other, wants ten hours only at the farthest,
so that to the eye it is no very great distance.
But under the several efforts of Zhao Chen and Zhao Chengcheng, it could not be broken through all the same.
For all the world as though some unseen wall stood in the way of Zhao Chen and Zhao Chengcheng.
"We must think of a means. And though, in the time between, your relief may arrive at any hour. Yet we must think toward the worst. We cannot put our fate into another's hands!" Zhao Chen said heavily.
And at this a bridge petty officer not far off cried out: "Report, the voyage is safe. Are we to go on upon the present course!"
And having said it, the bridge petty officer looked at Zhao Chengcheng with worship in both eyes, and at Zhao Chen at the side with a look past believing.
For that scene of the two of them, which came near to a duel, they had all of them watched.
This man was a marvel indeed.
To be able, in a matter of this kind, to stand upon level ground with their Star Alliance Leader!
"Shall we go by the fifth plan from before?" Zhao Chengcheng asked Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen nodded. "That is the best solution we have at present."
"Alter the course of the voyage; here is the newest voyage data. Steer by what is upon it!" Zhao Chengcheng sent a record of the voyage to this bridge petty officer.
The bridge petty officer glanced at it, and began at once to set the course afresh.
"We have been out five hours now. Which may be counted the easiest stage got through. And next, the enemy's first relief will begin coming up. And if in the orders we give hereafter there should appear any grave error. It may well lose us the whole board at a stroke!" Zhao Chen said heavily.
"Go on!" Zhao Chengcheng stared at the holo-table with eyes like torches.
For at this moment her interest was truly roused by the state of this engagement.
Nor did she know whether she labored so because of whether this warship could run into the border space.
Or whether it were merely the wish to win working in her heart.
And there followed, again, who knows how many simulations of the field.
And in those simulations Zhao Chen and Zhao Chengcheng would set the best solution they had for this T3 Fox-Hunter-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer.
Which let this destroyer, through the first ten hours.
Go without being found out at all, of all things, under the enemy's blockade laid layer upon layer.
Which left no few of the enemy's fleet commanders in astonishment.
This star system is only so large.
And yet one interstellar warship could vanish within it as though into the empty air.
And were they not certain that this warship was still within this star system.
And had not the performance of jumping through space.
They would truly have begun to fear whether she were still here at all.
And at the last, when the T3 Fox-Hunter-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer had sailed into her eleventh hour.
Her whereabouts were at last caught in the pictures of an interstellar drone sent out from one of the enemy's carrier starships.
"Report, the enemy has found the traces of our ship, and is gathering the interstellar fleets about us to hem us in." Yaya made her report anxiously.
And the hearts of Zhao Chen and Zhao Chengcheng sank.
The worst case had come.
For in this fight of constables and thieves, the earlier the thief lays his own place bare, the greater his danger.
But this point of time was, by all Zhao Chen and Zhao Chengcheng had worked through, the best figure to be had.
Zhao Chengcheng at once set the course of her voyage.
And the flight that followed would be harder still.
And a little carelessness would see them hemmed about by the enemy's ships in chase.
The thirteenth hour.
The T3 Fox-Hunter-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer was laid bare again, and this time by running full upon an enemy warship.
"Curse it. If they had not changed their bearing at the last. Or if our own speed were a little greater. They would never have found us!" There was some bitterness in Zhao Chengcheng.
"It cannot be helped. This is a battlefield, and not a working-through. In a working-through we may knock it down and begin again a thousand times, but what happens upon a battlefield has happened. And anything whatever may happen there." Zhao Chen was the calmer of the two.
But looked at closely, Zhao Chen's brows were slightly knit.
And there were beads of sweat upon his forehead besides.
And thereafter the T3 Fox-Hunter-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer did shake off the chase of those several warships.
But at the same time, their ship's place being laid bare, the enemy began moving more warships into this region.
And set a great number of warships beforehand along the bearing that led toward the border space.
For the enemy's commander knew as well that this great fish meant to get into the border space!
And come what might, he would not have this great fish get its wish.
And though he took him later for it, he would pen him to death in this pond,
and not let him swim out into the open sea.
The fifteenth hour.
The T3 Fox-Hunter-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer was driven to engage two T3 interstellar escort ships that had come up in chase.
For the speed of these two escorts was fast.
And if they were not destroyed.
Then the whereabouts of this destroyer of Zhao Chen's would lie bare before the enemy's eyes without cease.
So they took the risk, and sought to destroy these two escort ships of the enemy's in a short sharp fight.
And in the end spent the greater part of their interstellar missiles upon it.
Under Zhao Chen's and Zhao Chengcheng's command, and the understanding between them, this one T3 Fox-Hunter-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer put out a fighting strength she had never shown before, and within a bare few minutes.
Destroyed one of the enemy's T3 escort ships outright, and crippled the other.
And ran clear again successfully.
But by reason of those few minutes lost, the enemy's warships closing about Zhao Chen grew more and more.
The sixteenth hour.
This T3 Fox-Hunter-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer was bitten onto from behind by an enemy T3 interstellar cruiser.
Which was the greatest crisis they had met with yet!
【System prompt.
The unlocking of the System's most secret information is complete】
And in that very moment, a thing Zhao Chen and Zhao Chengcheng had both forgotten all this while,
sounded in the minds of the two of them together.
And a stream of information poured into the minds of both.
And the look upon Zhao Chen's face, from the knotted care of the battle before him,
turned to astonishment,
and to a thing past all believing.
And upon Zhao Chengcheng opposite was the very same look.