The arbitration area.
Every mentor and every watching student was dumbfounded.
A single shot, straight home!
One shell from Blizzard Zero had, of all things, crippled the T2 Bald Eagle-class Light Interstellar Cruiser outright — left it a hair short of falling from the sky.
They could see it plainly: on the T2 Bald Eagle's starboard armor, a crater at least 10 meters across had been blasted open, and from within it the flames of secondary detonation could still be seen flickering now and again.
And Blizzard Zero's follow-up pursuit had gone on to batter the T2 Bald Eagle's frontal armor without let-up.
Fight on, and there could be only one outcome.
By now the referee group was already preparing to hand down a forced ruling — the victory, after all, was plain for anyone to see.
And it was just then that the T2 Bald Eagle surrendered of its own accord as well.
The chief referee promptly declared the winner of this starship duel to be Zhao Chen's Blizzard Zero — and at once raised Zhao Chen, ordering him to cease all attacks!
"This… this ship is simply too strong."
"Zhang Haoran… just lost, like that?"
"So this means… Zhao Chen won?"
A great many people were a long while finding their voices.
Among them was Jiang Shasha, her expression frozen, her eyes wide.
Zhao Chen… won?
That ragged wreck of a ship of Zhao Chen's had beaten Zhang Haoran's T2 Bald Eagle?
Thinking back on Zhao Chen's coldness toward her earlier in the cafeteria, Jiang Shasha felt, at this moment, a most disagreeable sensation stirring inside her.
The more so now that Zhao Chen had won this battle.
"Shasha… Zhao Chen actually won…" The friend who'd come along with Jiang Shasha looked at her with a strange expression.
"My eyes aren't blind." Jiang Shasha's face was dark. She took one last look at the strange ship on the broadcast feed, then turned and left the spectators' area to head back to the academy.
"Shasha… you're not waiting for Young Master Zhang…? Wait for me…"
There were those left in a poor mood, and there were, naturally enough, those in a very fine one.
"See that! Giant guns are the one and only truth! Wan'er, your brother's ship is amazing — when are you going to have a word with him and let me aboard for a look? Best of all if I could get my hands on that 1200mm giant gun of his!" The twin-tailed loli Xue Xiaoxiao looked to Zhao Wan'er, her eyes fairly glowing.
Zhao Wan'er's expression at this moment was one of pure shock, of sheer disbelief.
"This… it's over already?"
From the two ships entering firing range to the battle's end, all told it had been under five minutes.
And most of all, that single shot straight home was a thing no one had foreseen; that one shot had brought the battle to a close with such speed.
"The T2 Bald Eagle's hull armor is inherently weak, and the more so facing a T2 heavy 1200mm Devil-Croc cannon; any hit on its hull armor is bound to be a serious matter. To pierce clean through the armor and touch off a compartment's secondary detonation — that much may well be your brother's good luck. But it has to be said, this assembled ship is truly strong. 100 star-knots — inconceivable." Su Lan offered her assessment from Zhao Wan'er's side, then looked to her with a smile. "It seems your brother has no need of me stepping in to help after all."
At this moment, Su Lan's impression of her friend's brother had shifted enormously — and had given rise, on top of it, to a certain curiosity.
To assemble a ship like this out of three aged vessels in the span of a month — that third-year cadet named Zhao Chen was no small talent.
While Blizzard Zero was leaving the whole gallery astounded—
—Zhao Chen, up on his own bridge, was pumping his fist in excitement. "Holy crap — it really was a single shot, straight home!"
"We got lucky; we must have hit the enemy's ammunition room and set off a secondary detonation, which touched several of the hull's system modules," Charlotte analyzed at his side.
This was exactly why she'd ordered the immediate high-speed push and pressed the attack. So fine an opening as that — how could a seasoned old campaigner fail to ride the victory home and seal the win?
Luck?
Zhao Chen thought of that special reward the System had given him — the "fleet Luck-value bonus," the very thing that meant he could recruit none but female soldiers.
Put that way, this "single shot, straight home" was, in all likelihood, not unconnected to it.
If every shot from here on lands "a single shot, straight home" — wouldn't that be sweet as anything! Zhao Chen mused inwardly.
As for whether that was truly how it worked, only future battles would bear it out.
"Zhao Chen, you've won. Please cease all attacks at once!"
The chief referee's voice sounded.
"Understood," Zhao Chen answered.
He looked at the sorry state of the T2 Bald Eagle — that pierced-open stretch of hull now free of flames, though the thick smoke still came rolling out.
Sailing itself back to port was surely out of the question now; it would have to wait for an interstellar tug to come lend a hand.
"Chief referee — might I patch into the T2 Bald Eagle's video comm?" Zhao Chen put in a request.
The chief referee on the far side of the video window hesitated a moment, then in the end granted it — for as members of the referee group, they had the right to open video comms with either ship at any time.
Before long a video window appeared before Zhao Chen. On the far side was a bridge in utter ruins — rolling smoke, broken parts scattered underfoot — a scene worlds apart from the gleaming, resplendent bridge of earlier.
That Captain Zhang Haoran sat sprawled on the floor, his face ashen — and beneath his backside, of all things, there was a spreading puddle of wet.
"Pfft… Zhang Haoran, you actually wet yourself."
When Zhao Chen's voice sounded across Zhang Haoran's bridge, only then did he notice the comm window. In shame and fury he jabbed a finger at Zhao Chen. "Zhao Chen! You cheated! There's no way you could beat me! You must have cheated!"
"The chief referee's listening to every word we say. You accused me of cheating just now — is that a way of saying you doubt the fairness and rigor of the referee group?" Zhao Chen said teasingly.
The chief referee handling the relay of this comm said coldly, "Cadet Zhang Haoran, we monitored this starship duel from beginning to end; there was no irregularity of any kind. If you have any objection to our ruling, you may take it up with our superiors. Cadet Zhao Chen — if there's nothing further, then let's bring this comm to a close here."
It was plain enough that the chief referee thought poorly of this pampered lordling.
"Chief referee, one last word from me." Zhao Chen looked at Zhang Haoran and said mildly, "The duel's over. Young Master Zhang surely hasn't forgotten our wager. It was one the academy sanctioned, after all."
"Zhang Haoran, per the terms of your starship duel, you are to withdraw yourself from the Northstar Starship Military Academy. Is that clearly understood?" The chief referee, at this, didn't forget to twist the knife a little either.
"Understood… under… understood…" Zhang Haoran was utterly crushed. If he truly did withdraw from the Northstar Starship Military Academy, then he was finished.
That viscount father of his would surely kill him!
The video comm ended.
Zhao Chen had no mind to spare for this beaten opponent of his. "Let's head back." Sitting in the captain's chair, his mood was, in a word, splendid.
And the storm stirred up by this starship duel was, as yet, very far from over.
——————
Class 3-8.
"That's all for today's lesson," the teacher announced, bringing the class to an end.
At once, students set to feverishly searching for the starship duel's broadcast channel — only to find that it had, of all things, already been shut down.
"How come I can't turn up Zhao Chen and Zhang Haoran's starship duel anymore?"
A student beside them said with a light laugh, "Oh, come on — look how long it's been. I'd say Zhao Chen was beaten by Zhang Haoran ages ago. That's a T2 Bald Eagle, after all."
"Right. And it's Zhao Chen's own doing too — throwing an egg against a rock, biting off more than he could chew. Just as well, really. Next term we'll have one fewer eyesore to look at."
Cold jeers filled the room.
Li Wei, his face dark, had set to contacting Zhao Chen; he'd already begun turning over every manner of way to help him.
"Wait… something's not right… quick, everyone, look at the hot-search board on the academy intranet!" a girl fond of browsing the intranet forums suddenly cried out.
"Zhao Chen… seems to have won…"