"As of now, our Owl Dragon Fleet has 35 interstellar warships in active service — 17 of them combat-type interstellar warships, 18 auxiliary-type. Active personnel number over 4,000: 650 front-line combat soldiers, and more than 3,200 in second-line logistics and aboard the industrial ships. Reserve personnel number over 5,000. By our present reckoning, the yearly upkeep of merely these interstellar warships we have now runs as high as 15 million star coins. The fleet's women-soldiers' benefits and wages and the like come to a yearly cost of 1,200,000 star coins. And that's still leaving uncounted the more than 50,000 dwarves working within the interstellar industrial factories." Lilith led off with a report on the Owl Dragon Fleet's present operating state.
"The fleet's yearly upkeep runs as high as 15 million star coins?" The figure gave Zhao Chen a start. "We've only got 35 interstellar warships!"
Lilith looked at the Commander. "Commander, of these 35 interstellar warships of ours, four are T3 warships. Those four T3 warships alone account for two-thirds of the upkeep cost."
At this Zhao Chen understood at last why those interstellar powers would sooner keep a heap of T1 warships than put even a single T3 warship into service. In peacetime, a T3 warship was a very ancestor to be waited on. A T1 warship, by contrast, needed only a bit of casual patching and maintenance, and was more than enough to patrol the systems below. Never underestimate these 35 interstellar warships of Zhao Chen's now — their upkeep cost might well far exceed that of the several hundred interstellar warships on some other interstellar power's books!
But what was to be done about it? These were ancestors Zhao Chen had built himself; keep them he must. And in the future there'd only be more and more of them to keep.
Lilith went on. "On our books we originally had 7,800 million star coins. After deducting the 5 billion in raw materials ordered from the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company, and the follow-on commission of 1,500 million, there remained 1,300 million star coins. On this account, we've already delivered the final payment to the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company; they'll deliver the last batch of raw-material goods before month's end, and at that time we'll pay them the 1,500 million commission. Your war income this time in the Reef Star Region was 1 billion star coins, but converted into raw materials at 800 million in market value — so on our books we in fact have around 2 billion star coins."
Having heard out Lilith's report on these financial matters, Zhao Chen had a rough picture in mind.
"Annie, have you got the coming construction plan drawn up?" Zhao Chen looked to Annie.
"This is the construction plan I've drawn up according to the requirements you put to me. August: 10 T2 Iron Hammers will carry on with the star-gate construction work in the Lion King System — barring surprises, it can be finished by the end of August. At the same time, the remaining 10 T2 Iron Hammers will build 10 more T2 Iron Hammers; by your requirement, this will likely be the last batch of T2 Iron Hammers we build. That done, our active T2 Iron Hammers will number 30. September: the production capacity freed up from building star gates and producing T2 Iron Hammers can be fully released. This month we'll build and roll off the line 10 T3 Prospector-class Heavy Interstellar Mining Ships, 50 T2 Black Rhino-class Interstellar Heavy Assault Frigates, five T2 Snow Mastiff-class Heavy Interstellar Battleships, one T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser, and one T3 Phantom Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber. These two months' ship-construction plan will consume raw-material resources worth 160 million star coins."
As he listened to Annie lay all this out, the blueprints of these construction plans surfaced of their own accord in Zhao Chen's mind. The T3 Prospector was a reward Zhao Chen had gotten from an earlier quarterly mission, and it happened that this time he had the high-quality resource asteroid belt. Building 10 T3 Prospector-class ships was precisely for the mining of the resource ore.
Though the value it produced fell short of what Zhao Chen made by waging war or by selling interstellar warships, these were the very foundation of the Owl Dragon System — its bedrock! Relying on selling warships and waging war alone was drawing resources and wealth from the outside; there had to be a capacity to make one's own blood. Don't put all your eggs in one basket — that was a principle Zhao Chen had understood since he was small.
"Do it just as you've said," Zhao Chen said, satisfied.
"Commander, that asteroid belt needs a name too," Lilith asked.
Zhao Chen thought a moment, then said off the cuff, "Then let's just call it the Owl Dragon Resource Star-Region."
"Yes."
In the construction plan, the greatest number by far was the T2 Black Rhino — fully 50 of them! The reason for building so many T2 Black Rhinos was, in the main, to take on in the future the task of protecting the Owl Dragon System and the Lion King System. In time, guarding the star gates and guarding the resource star-region would each require an interstellar fleet. For now they could serve as a combat supplement within Zhao Chen's fleet, and later, once he began gradually to phase out the T2 interstellar warships, this T2 warship of such extreme cost-effectiveness could, as a matter of course, step back to the second line.
With these matters settled, and Annie seen off, Zhao Chen sat by himself in the captain's chair, feigning deep sleep, and opened the System interface.
Host: Zhao Chen
Profession: Top-tier Starship Engineer
Special Attributes: Fleet Luck Bonus · Eye of Insight
System Points: 1,820 (single-month fleet revenue: 302 points)
Task points: 35
Ship count: 35
Mission: Quarterly mission (incomplete)
Warehouse: T4 Reviver-class Clone Ship technical blueprint · T3 Prospector-class Heavy Interstellar Mining Ship technical blueprint · T3 Phantom Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber technical blueprint…
Zhao Chen looked at his present System points and knit his brows slightly. Far too few.
One of the requirements of his quarterly mission was to redeem a T3 starship technology. The task points were enough — but on the System-points side he fell far short. True, leaning on his fleet's current scale, he could take in over 300 in passive income a month. But that was still nowhere near enough. Most of his System points earlier had gone toward redeeming the T3 Radiant Moon-class star gate technology, which was what had brought about his present shortage of System points. He could only hope that over the coming two months a few more point-farming missions might crop up — otherwise this quarterly mission of his could only be let slip.
In the blink of an eye it was early August.
Strange to say, the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company had originally been set to deliver the last batch of raw-material goods by the end of July, yet to this day the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company still hadn't appeared. A delay of two or three days was, admittedly, quite normal as a rule. But for some reason, Zhao Chen kept feeling that something was a little off.
"Commander, our first batch of trained recruits is about to graduate from the T3 Goddess Academy. The dean would like to invite you to preside over the graduation ceremony." Lilith reached Zhao Chen just then and raised the matter.
The T3 Goddess Academy-class ship. Come to think of it, ever since this ship had rolled off the line and entered service, he hadn't once gone up to have a look around it.
"Understood — arrange a time for it." He assented to the outing.