Compared with its peers — the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser and the T3 Phantom Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber — the T3 Flame Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer wasn't especially dazzling. It came across as rather "middle-of-the-road."
And indeed, middle-of-the-road was precisely this destroyer's defining trait: it was thoroughly well-rounded — sound in cruising speed, in combat power, in hull armor alike. Set against the several destroyers the Galactic Alliance fielded, at least, it would concede second place to none. Most important of all, it cost a mere 5 million star coins to build — a good 30% cheaper than the T3 destroyers on the market! With a warship like this, Zhao Chen was utterly confident he could win Governor Chu over.
Of course, while editing the ship technology, Zhao Chen tucked a very well-hidden backdoor into the ship's system software. On receipt of a set signal, any ship built with Zhao Chen's technology would seize up on the spot — self-destruct, even.
In dealing with anyone, one kept a card up one's sleeve. There were no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends. And as for how well this backdoor was hidden — Zhao Chen, a top-tier starship engineer, was fully confident that no one in the entire Galactic Alliance could uncover it within 50 years. And 50 years on? Zhao Chen could hardly bring himself to care about something that far off.
Old man Chu — if you truly mean to work with me, then in time we each take what we need. Should I really land a T4 destroyer of extreme cost-effectiveness, it's not as if I couldn't help you win this thousand-year war against the Mechanical Race. But… if you take me for a soft touch… then no one walks away happy. Zhao Chen's expression went cold and grim.
Chu River Star Region — Governor's Mansion
Governor Chu strolled out of his office into the grounds beyond — a courtyard laid out like a landscaped park — and behind him followed a short old man a few years his junior.
"My lord, do you truly believe that youngster has it in him to develop a T4 warship?" the short old man asked. The whole of the conversation just past had been known not only to Zhao Chen and Governor Chu, but to this short old man as well — for he was the one man Chu Changhe trusted above all save his own granddaughter, an old comrade-in-arms with whom he'd trade his very life.
"Old Ding, you know how it is. All my life I've had but two wishes. One is to see Xuan'er grow up happy, marry, and have children of her own. The other is to level the Mechanical Race — to end, for my son and his wife and all the Chu kin who died on the battlefield, this war our family has waged for close to a thousand years. I mean to shatter their Mechanical royal citadel, to blast those damned hunks of steel to pieces with my own flagship's guns! That boy had it right: relying on the two T4 warships in our hands alone, we have defense to spare but too little for a counterstrike — because neither of those T4 warships can be mass-produced! All these years I've run several starship research labs here in the Chu River Star Region, poured in who knows how much research funding. And for what? For nothing but the hope of developing a mass-producible T4 warship, so I could lead our fleet in a counteroffensive against the Mechanical Race!"
Governor Chu lifted his head and gazed at the stars. "Old Ding, I haven't long left to live. I'm willing to gamble on this boy — and if I win the wager, I could close my eyes content."
"Then we may as well have him brought here and pressure him every which way — if the hard approach won't do, try the soft: a honey trap! They do say no hero ever gets past a beautiful woman! I'll comb every interstellar civilization for women to set on him — two legs, four legs, eight legs, two heads even, I'll round them all up! I refuse to believe we can't bring him to heel!" Old Ding said viciously.
"That thought crossed my mind early on, but we can't do it now. Because of the way that boy handled the two-academy rescue with his T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser, the whole Starlight Empire has its eyes on him. If we simply spirited him away — great and powerful as the Chu family is — could we really set ourselves against the entire Empire? And in his words just now, he made a threat besides: dare to place him under house arrest, and he'd dare turn on us. To say a thing like that to my face — the boy's temper is rather to my taste, in fact."
Governor Chu raised a hand and called up all the material on this affair, along with the holographic imagery of that T3 Blizzard. "Old Ding, you've seen these files on him too. What's your read on this youngster?"
Old Ding pondered a while, then pointed at one passage in the records. "In this rescue he saved the teachers and students of both academies single-handedly — every one of them a top student of their academy. By ordinary reckoning, wouldn't now be the prime moment to build a network of connections with that lot? A debt of life saved, after all! And yet this boy? He goes and sells meals aboard his ship, splitting them into — what — triple, tenfold, thirtyfold, even a hundredfold prices. Without meaning to, hasn't he offended a whole crowd of people, all for a few tens of thousands of star coins? That's rather too foolish, surely. Though — taken together with how he carried on earlier at Northstar Academy, he does have exactly that kind of blunt, half-mad character. Which fits the odd temperament of those starship-engineer types well enough. On all these counts he poses no great threat to us; and this whole string of doings has, at the same time, earned him the enmity of many powers, Heaven's Glory Academy among them. This boy's narrowed his own road."
Governor Chu laughed aloud. "I rather think this whole string of things might be a play the boy staged!"
Old Ding started — then, mulling the Governor's words over carefully, frowned and shook his head again and again. "Impossible! Impossible! How could this boy possibly have that kind of guile and calculation?"
"Enough, enough. Xuan'er's on good terms with the boy; and since he has abilities like these, let's take a look at his so-called 'talents' shortly, and then decide. I hope the boy won't disappoint me." And so Governor Chu and this Old Ding fell to chatting and talking things over in the courtyard.
Several hours later, a packet of encrypted data arrived in the Governor's mailbox.
Governor Chu and Old Ding exchanged a glance. The Governor made no effort to conceal it — he opened the blueprint right there in front of him.
"The full blueprint, no less — nothing held back." A glance over it left the Governor somewhat astonished.
Then, as the two of them studied it closely, their expressions began to turn grave.
Governor Chu spoke sternly: "Old Ding, contact them at once — every starship engineer and starship scientist at the Chu River First, Second, and Fourth Starship Research Institutes, all of them, get them here! I want an assessment report on this ship technology in the shortest time possible!"
"Yes, sir!" Old Ding knew full well how much this mattered. He couldn't help murmuring the name of that ship under his breath.
T3 Flame Dragon…
Could that boy truly have it in him to develop a T4 warship?