T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser.
"Report — the enemy fleet shows signs of withdrawing!" Aili reported.
Zhao Chen watched the ship radar; Han Tianwang's fleet had indeed begun to retreat. It let Zhao Chen breathe a little easier too. On his ships alone, to wholly annihilate Han Tianwang's 3,000-odd warships was, in truth, not really possible. As with dealing with the Fire Salamander chieftain before, Zhao Chen's aim was to beat the enemy into fear — to make them know better than to press on.
"Execute the follow-on battle plan: drive them off as the priority, and change the hunting targets to the enemy fleet's T1 warships. At the same time, have the T2 Iron Hammer-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships begin at once resupplying interstellar missiles to the three T2 Lion King-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Ships and the T3 Phantom Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber. And have the T3 Andromeda-class Interstellar Medical Ship treat the wounded of every ship — the Snake-folk fleet's wounded included, and above all, rescue whoever can be rescued from the destroyed Snake-folk ships. Ours may be a relationship of mutual use, but this time, at least, they were comrades-in-arms who fought shoulder to shoulder." Zhao Chen instructed.
"Yes."
The fighting that followed was, in the main, Han Tianwang's fleet withdrawing slowly — he was no fool, at least, and didn't pull back in one headlong rush, which would have brought even heavier losses. And Zhao Chen's fleet and the Snake-folk fleet worked together, biting in from behind, taking a chunk whenever a chance offered itself. Zhao Chen's fleet, especially, changed its earlier doctrine of targeting T3 and T2 warships and went after the enemy's T1 warships in particular. The 10 T2 Black Rhino-class Interstellar Heavy Assault Frigates, above all, went positively mad — trusting to their thick armor, they simply rode right up in those T1 warships' faces.
Completion rate updated: enemy ships destroyed reached fifteen hundred — completion 65%.
T3 Andromeda — Medical Ship.
At the same time, Sis Ram led the T3 Andromeda into the earlier battlefield.
"Begin scanning for Snake-folk life signals; deploy the unmanned rescue pods! Medics, stand ready!" Sis Ram ordered on the bridge. What came next was her battlefield.
The first brought aboard the T3 Andromeda were the wounded of the Owl Dragon Fleet. No one in the Owl Dragon Fleet had been killed, but in the fighting there were, inevitably, crew hurt when damaged hull armor let a blast reach an interior compartment.
At Medical Corridor One, a squad of medics stood waiting. Soon an unmanned rescue pod was delivered in through a tunnel mouth; its hatch opened, revealing the wounded crewwoman within. A physician stepped up and scanned the patient with the medical instrument in her hand; the patient's information soon came up.
"A wound to the head, mild concussion; three fractures in the left arm; presently unconscious. To a medical pod for treatment at once!" The physician spoke, and the medics behind at once escorted this patient to a medical pod.
Hard behind came one unmanned rescue pod after another.
"My… my leg! My leg…!" a snake-woman cried in pain. Called a leg — it was, in fact, her tail. One look, and the physician knit her brows; the case was serious. A whole length of her tail was simply gone; had the unmanned rescue pod not applied cryo-agent to emergency-treat the wound, she'd likely have bled out and lost her life by now. "Arrange for her to go to a medical pod at once," the physician said without a word wasted.
Losing a tail wasn't even the worst of it. The gravest were those missing half a body, or half a head. But happily, with today's medical means, so long as the core of the brain had taken no irreversible damage, treatment was possible. The cost, of course, was quite steep. In any other interstellar power's fleet, a mid- or low-ranking crew member wounded to this degree could only wait to die. But here, every single one received treatment.
A snake-woman, treated, her wounds eased, looked at the beast-folk medic before her and asked, weakly, "Why… would you… save me?"
The beast-folk medic answered calmly, "Our Commander has said: whoever fights shoulder to shoulder with us today is our comrade-in-arms! We could never leave a comrade-in-arms to die."
A very simple principle — yet in this snake-woman's ears it sounded almost "inconceivable." She looked at the clean surroundings, the rows of beds, and said with feeling, "You have a great commander."
Back on the main battlefield.
Han Tianwang's fleet fled in disgrace back to the Lion King System's star gate, choosing to withdraw outright without even pausing to regroup. This wretched place — they didn't want to linger a moment longer. And with several of their systems under attack by the Snake-folk fleet, they now scattered, each scurrying home to save his own mother.
Zhao Chen watched the fleeing enemy fleet, somewhat dissatisfied — for he still hadn't hit the metric of annihilating 2,000 enemy warships.
A video window appeared before Zhao Chen just then; on the other end was that Snake-folk fleet commander, Qingman.
"Commander." Qingman looked at the man before her, her earlier proud unruliness gone, replaced by a kind of disbelieving worship. Had she not lived through it herself, she'd have found it truly hard to believe — this man before her, on a mere dozen-odd warships, had actually driven off 3,000. He hadn't annihilated the enemy fleet outright, but this result could already be called terrifying. She'd had her 500 Snake-folk warships in support, true, and yet, in some dim intuition, she felt that even without her support, the man could have won this battle. Ask her why, and — well, that was just her instinct.
"Little Qing, what is it?" Zhao Chen greeted her familiarly.
Hearing him call her name, Qingman showed the rare sight of a faint blush. Before, that "nickname" of his had struck her as an insult; now, instead, it brought a kind of shy warmth.
"Your fleet fought so valiantly — it truly left me lost in wonder. Please forgive my arrogant, discourteous manner earlier." Qingman apologized of her own accord. The Snake-folk were fiercely hierarchical, and worshipped strength to the extreme; in their eyes, even, right and wrong mattered little — whoever was strong, what they said was right! Which was why Qingman's attitude toward Zhao Chen had changed so utterly.
"I have still a few matters to see to; you take charge of clearing the battlefield here for now. And your wounded — my interstellar medical ship has already taken them in; once they're treated, you can come collect them. Thank you for your cooperation this time," Zhao Chen said with a smile.
In this battle, though by the original plan Zhao Chen was confident of winning even without the Snake-folk fleet, whether he'd have lost warships of his own was another matter. So he was grateful to this Snake-folk fleet all the same. And in this battle the other side had paid the price of over 200 warships lost — they'd done their duty faithfully enough.
"Yes," Qingman said. Hearing that her wounded had been taken in by the other side, she was inwardly astonished — and felt, too, a warmth she'd never known.
At the same time, Zhao Chen looked to Charlotte, the will to fight in his eyes not yet faded.
"How long will resupplying the T2 Lion Kings and the T3 Phantom Assassin take?"
"To resupply all of them fully, about a day. My advice is that 30% will do — roughly five hours," Charlotte answered.
"Very well, do as you say. And carry out partial resupply and repair on the other ships as well." Zhao Chen opened a star chart of the Reef Star Region; in a system adjacent to the Lion King System, he'd already marked a red dot. There lay the Fire Salamander clan's home base.
"In five hours, we'll go pay a call on the Fire Salamander clan. They've come all the way here twice, after all. A bit of reciprocity is only courteous — otherwise we'd seem far too ill-mannered." The corner of Zhao Chen's mouth lifted.