"Let's get to business. Didn't you come to have me look at the T3 Radiant Moon-class star gate?" Zhao Chen said.
"I nearly forgot the business at hand — wait for me just a moment." Annie took out a handkerchief and gave her face a wipe, scrubbing the "dark rings" off. All the while she muttered under her breath, "This onion's got far too much kick to it. Sister Bull said the stuff would make you tear up, but she never said it'd be this miserable…"
Annie walked over to Zhao Chen's side and pointed at the T3 Radiant Moon-class star gate in the distant starfield.
"This T3 Radiant Moon-class Star Gate No.1 of ours has already been built; today we'll run the activation trial. But since we're in a phase of secrecy for now, we can't link into the other gate networks, so the last item — the gate-linking test — can't be carried out. We'll have to wait a month, until the Lion King System's T3 Radiant Moon Star Gate No.2 is complete," Annie said.
Zhao Chen nodded; this he knew, and it was he who'd arranged it. Once he had strength enough in the future, then he'd link into the other gates and tap into the gate network.
"All right — I'm about to start the trial run now." Annie looked to Zhao Chen.
"Begin," Zhao Chen said.
Annie opened a video window; on the other end was Sister Bull, at her post and ready.
"Sister Bull, begin the trial run."
"Right — beginning the trial run. Energy system starting up… startup time estimated at 10 minutes…" On her end, Sister Bull set the whole operating sequence in motion.
Activating a star gate took no small run of procedures; start to finish, it cost half an hour. Ordinarily, once a gate was activated it wouldn't be shut down again — even with no warships using it, the gate would hold in a low-frequency running state. Because the resources consumed in activating a gate far outstripped those consumed by low-frequency running. Barring the direst necessity, a gate would never be shut off.
And over that half hour, Zhao Chen and Lilith watched with their own eyes as the T3 Radiant Moon-class star gate began, from its former silent state, gradually to glow. It was for all the world as though, in the pitch-black night, two new moons had begun slowly to shine!
"Energy system running normally, master-control system running normally, plug-in system running normally…"
As Sister Bull ran through the tests one by one, at the last there appeared, ringing that T3 Radiant Moon-class star gate, a "sky-curtain ripple." That was the T3 Radiant Moon-class star gate's all-around star shield! Like warships, star gates had star shields too. And an ordinary T3 gate's shield could defend only one range. But this T3 Radiant Moon-class star gate of Zhao Chen's could defend the whole range — and could, at the same time, close the shield over some given zone, handled at will.
"Report… this round of test items is complete. The T3 Radiant Moon-class star gate is fully normal; it will now enter its low-frequency running state," Sister Bull reported.
"Very good," Annie said.
Thereupon that distant T3 Radiant Moon-class star gate began slowly to dim, and the shield around it closed as well, settling at last into a low-frequency running state.
"Commander, what do you think?" Annie wore the look of a child who'd finished her homework and stood waiting to be praised.
Zhao Chen nodded in approval. "Very fine work."
Annie's face lit with a happy look.
"Have your mother and the others grown used to life here yet?" With the gate business concluded, Zhao Chen chatted idly with Annie.
Annie said happily, "My mother's taken a post on the T2 Iron Hammer No.5 now — a minor officer of a small department, even! And my sister has a post on the T2 Iron Hammer No.3; she's doing splendid work."
"Then aren't your younger brothers and sisters left with no one to look after them?" Zhao Chen recalled that Annie still had two younger brothers and two younger sisters.
"It's fine — our Number Three is already into his teens; he can look after the younger ones at home. They do a bit of factory piecework at home themselves too. If Number Three weren't tied up caring for the little ones just now, he could go work in the factory outright. The small jobs the other children do each day earn a nutrient ration apiece as well. Add to that the wages of me, my mother, and Number Two, Nana — a month's living is no trouble at all. Besides, these T2 Iron Hammer-class ships have opened up some shuttle-bus lines; pay a very cheap fare and you can ride back to your dwelling on the planet at fixed times. That's how my mother commutes to and from work every day." Annie recounted her family's life, a look of contentment on her face.
Zhao Chen said, somewhat moved, "But making that trip back and forth every day — isn't it terribly hard on your mother?"
"Hard? Set against how it was before, this is nothing at all. Before, not only did we go hungry, but sometimes, driven to it, we even had to hunt in the places on the planet where wild beasts lived. We could develop weapons of a sort, true, yet in hunting those beasts there'd always be injuries and deaths. Every time we watched our parents set out, our hearts were in our throats at home. Now it's busy, yes — but everyone's safe, and everyone's lives are full!"
All at once Annie bowed deeply to Zhao Chen. "Oh, that's right — my mother told me that when I saw the Commander, I was to be sure to convey our dwarf clan's thanks to you. Truly, thank you — it's because of you that we can have the peaceful life we have now. Thank you!"
Annie said this in dead earnest, wholly without her usual grinning, clowning manner, which left even Zhao Chen a touch unaccustomed to it.
"Then let's talk over what comes next. On account of the gate construction, part of the production plan we drew up last quarter ran into trouble. For instance, we were originally to have built 20 T2 Iron Hammer-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships by the end of June. It dragged on all the way till now, and only just have a full 20 T2 Iron Hammers formally entered active service. We'll need to draw up a fresh construction plan for the road ahead — and this time we've discovered a belt of high-quality-resource asteroids." Zhao Chen raised this matter of business.
At the mention of the high-resource asteroid belt newly discovered in the Owl Dragon System, both Lilith and Annie let a look of excitement show.
"Speaking of this resource asteroid belt — it truly came as a great surprise. Who'd have thought that in the border reaches of the Owl Dragon System there'd turn up a resource asteroid belt of all things! And by our own survey and assessment, it rates in the high-quality top tier. It covers 99% of the raw-material resources in use today. If it can be mined out in full, its yearly output is projected to reach 500 million star coins!" Lilith said, somewhat astonished.
Annie put in her analysis from the side. "This resource asteroid belt sits at the edge of the Owl Dragon System. That's likely because some altered celestial bodies out in the interstellar fringe space, drifting slowly along, made their way into the Owl Dragon System — and then came to rest in its border region. And because the Owl Dragon System is rather poor, basically no one ever went to check those edge regions, so it went undiscovered all this while."
Lilith, too, said happily, "Had the Commander not this time ordered a detailed prospecting survey of the Owl Dragon System, perhaps we ourselves would have missed this treasure right under our very noses. Now that the Owl Dragon System has a star gate, and a high-quality resource asteroid belt besides, the Owl Dragon System's worth is easily enough to reach the standard of the North Wind Star Region's top-10 systems!"
Zhao Chen watched Lilith and Annie's delight and put on a look of feigned pleasant surprise. In truth this was the very mission reward the System had given him — who'd have guessed it would turn out to be a belt of high-quality-resource asteroids.