For now Zhao Chen set the T3 Phantom Assassin aside; if he couldn't handle the matter in front of him, talk of building any ship was so much empty air.
He glanced again at his data panel — tens of thousands of system points. With no real store of construction resources on hand, he'd never gotten around to redeeming any ship technology. Wonder if it's enough to upgrade to the T4 System Mall, he mused. If he could redeem T4-grade warships, then once he'd weathered the present crisis he could swiftly raise an interstellar force strong enough to protect himself.
T3 System Mall — upgrade requirements
1. Redeem three T3-grade goods (0/3)
2. Complete three B-rank system missions (2/3)
3. Spend 60,000 system points on the upgrade (14,720/60,000)
Apart from the B-rank missions, of which he'd cleared two, the other two conditions were a long way off. The first, because he'd never made time to redeem suitable T3 goods; the third was frankly absurd — 60,000 system points. He had no idea when he'd ever pile up that much. A near-term upgrade to the T4 Mall was plainly out of the question.
Beep, beep, beep.
Just as he was turning it over, Zhao Chen's handheld terminal chimed with a message. An unfamiliar account — but the single line of text made his pupils contract.
Heard from my granddaughter you'd like a word with me?
Beneath it was a link to a room.
Zhao Chen knew the thing he'd long awaited was about to happen.
"Hoo…" He drew a deep breath, seated in the chair of his bedroom-office — and the next second the scene around him changed. His bedroom became an antique-styled meeting room: before him a round table two meters across, and around it four bare, unadorned walls. There was no light source, yet the whole room was bright. The desk in Zhao Chen's quarters aboard the T3 Blizzard could project holographic video — a communications technology a step beyond ordinary video calls.
Zhao Chen sat and waited — for the one who'd sent the invitation to enter.
One minute… three… five… 10… He didn't know how long had passed, but he held the same posture, sitting there.
At last a figure appeared out of nothing in the chair across from him: an old man in antique dress, a full head of silver hair, a kindly smile on his face. Had Zhao Chen not known who he was, he'd have taken him for an ordinary old fellow.
"Zhao Chen — Baron and lord of the Owl Dragon Star System — greets the Governor of the Chu River Star Region, Your Grace the Duke." Zhao Chen laid a hand over his chest and bowed.
That was right. The man Zhao Chen now faced was none other than Chu Xuan's grandfather — Governor of Chu River, Imperial Duke, Five-Star Marshal: Chu Changhe.
Governor Chu looked Zhao Chen up and down and nodded with a faint smile. "The young are formidable — formidable indeed. I rather admire you, in truth. But there's one thing you did that I'm none too pleased about; I'd meant to call you to account for it. Except that girl of mine guessed what I was thinking, and swore up and down that going with you was her own choice, none of your doing — that if I blamed you over it, she'd fall out with me for good. Tsk, tsk… that girl. It's as they say: a grown daughter can't be kept at home."
"It was this junior's rashness at the time — I should not have taken Miss Chu into danger." She's the one who jumped aboard herself; what's it got to do with me? Zhao Chen thought it — but in a spot like this, only a fool speaks his mind.
"We'll set that aside. I hear that before you set out for the Water Lily Star System, you told my granddaughter you'd be willing to work with my Chu family? Now, that I don't follow — when did I ever say the Chu family wanted to work with you?" Governor Chu wore a look of puzzlement.
Wily old fox — still won't lay his cards down. But who was going to argue with the Governor of Chu River, an Imperial Duke, a Five-Star Marshal? Any one of those titles was enough to crush a man.
Zhao Chen smiled. "Your Grace, let's speak plainly, you and I. You went to no small trouble to bring your treasured granddaughter home from the North Wind Star Region — and then sent her off to the Northstar Starship Military Academy. To what end? Why should the two of us feign ignorance when we both understand perfectly well? If I'm willing to sit here today and have this heart-to-heart with you, it's because I've come in good faith."
"Then you'll have to let me see that good faith first." Governor Chu regarded him benignly, waiting for him to go on.
Zhao Chen fixed his eyes on the man. He'd never out-scheme this crafty old codger — so he'd go at him straight.
"Your Grace, I know you've doted on the eldest Miss Chu all these years because, in earlier days, your only son and his wife were lost in the war against the Mechanical Race. And not only your son and daughter-in-law — your father, and your two blood brothers, all died beneath the Mechanical Race's warships as well. I'm not wrong, am I?"
In that instant — virtual holographic environment though it was — Zhao Chen could feel the air around him turn cold.
"I don't care to have others raise my son and his wife, or the Chu family's affairs, in front of me. Boy — you have three minutes left to speak. You'd best come out with something to interest me, or… the Chu family has plenty of ways to work with a man." Governor Chu's eyes narrowed on him.
Zhao Chen shuddered head to foot, as though he'd plunged into an ice cave. This was more terrifying than facing three T3 Hive Motherships and that vast hive-race fleet aboard the Blizzard.
His face did not change. He went on: "The Chu River Star Region was named by your grandfather himself, when your family was enfeoffed. And the Chu family keeps a clan rule: so long as one Chu yet lives, no mechanical warship shall cross so much as half a step past the Chu River. Your father named you Chu Changhe — 'Long River' — with that same meaning in mind, it seems."
Governor Chu said nothing. Instead he closed his eyes.
Zhao Chen continued: "But I know that, all these years, you haven't merely wished to hold the Chu River Star Region, this frontier of the Starlight Empire. You've also wished to avenge the sons and daughters of the Chu family who died in the war with the Mechanical Race — and your own son and his wife. Yet the Starlight Empire's only two T4 warships are both types that can't be mass-produced. Take the T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship: ruinously expensive, and its construction calls for several scarce ores, which makes mass production impossible. And so the Starlight Empire, as things stand, has defense to spare but too little for a counterstrike."
"Your time's nearly up," Governor Chu said.
Calmly, Zhao Chen replied, "But what if I could research and build a T4 warship — one that can be mass-produced, and at extraordinary cost-effectiveness?"
Governor Chu's eyes opened. In that instant they blazed like candle-flames, as though they would swallow Zhao Chen whole.