This sudden move left this batch of the mercenary company's crew stunned. The captain, more than that, walked over and, knitting her brows, pointed at her own deputy captain. "What do you think you're doing? Put the gun down, quickly."
The deputy captain paid the captain's words no mind; her savage gaze fixed on Commander Chitong, who was watching her from the hangar's second floor, and she laughed in self-mockery. "Commander — though I don't know how I came to be exposed, even so, none of you need think you'll catch me. Now get out of my way this instant! This old lady's done waiting on you lot! I warn you — before I reach somewhere safe, if you dare fire on my shuttle, this hostage dies right alongside me! So long as I leave here alive, she can come back alive!"
The deputy captain, her hostage in her grip, made for the shuttle behind her. She knew her Commander's temper full well — that she cared deeply for her subordinate crew, and would never, ever sacrifice one of them. And just now, by the look of it, this deputy captain meant to pilot a shuttle and flee this place.
Commander Chitong looked at this confidant of hers, scarcely able to believe it. "Why? Was I not good to you? Why betray us — betray our Bloody Mary!"
Only now did those mercenary crew present come to their senses: this person was the mole among them.
The captain who'd been trying to talk her down a moment ago now glared at her in fury. "You wretch! So you're the mole. Do you know how many of us you've gotten killed!"
"Commander Chitong, you were good to me, that's true! But I want more. I'm not like you, you bleeding-heart saint, rescuing all those slaves and hauling them home. Making us split our resources with those damned slaves and useless children. We could've eaten better food, built a stronger mercenary company — could even have used those resources to found a domain of our own! But it's all been frittered away by that laughable kindness of yours!" the traitor deputy captain roared like a mad thing.
Commander Chitong stared at her, her eyes gone cold now. "Then you could have chosen to leave. I never held you back."
The traitor deputy captain gave a cold laugh. "Leave? Once I'd left I'd be nothing at all. I want a better life. I don't want to go back to being the lowest, basest trash. So I'll use you as my token of loyalty — those people made me a promise. As long as I help them destroy you, they'll give me wealth beyond counting, and a small fleet of my own to command besides!"
"Merely for a selfish craving of your own, you'd sell out the very comrades-in-arms who fought shoulder to shoulder beside you!" Commander Chitong said coldly.
"Enough of your prattle — let me go, now!" the traitor deputy captain roared.
Zhao Chen rubbed at his ear. "Sorry — we're rather pressed for time just now, so could we speed this stretch up and skip ahead?"
Just as Zhao Chen's words fell, the laser pistol in the traitor deputy captain's hand actually crackled with an electric current, and then seemed to malfunction outright.
"What — what's happening?" The traitor deputy captain stared at the laser pistol in her hand in terror.
Zhao Chen said with a light laugh, "Please — I'm afraid you've forgotten whose warship this is."
The T3 Blizzard still had a few small security features, and one of them was the ability, within the ship, to internally disable certain personal weapons.
Zhao Chen looked to Commander Chitong beside him. "We're pressed for time."
Commander Chitong said in a low, heavy voice, "Sister Zhou — carry out our mercenary company's rule." This Sister Zhou was that captain.
Sister Zhou glared with loathing at the traitor deputy captain opposite. "The one thing you should never, ever have done was make a stepping-stone of everyone's bones. If it was glory and riches you wanted, you were free to simply leave. Had you done that, the sisters wouldn't have blamed you — they'd have wished you well, even."
"You… you… don't come near me!" The traitor deputy captain backed away in a kind of frenzied terror, reflexively raising the laser pistol in her hand — but no matter how she worked the trigger, there was no response at all.
At the last, several of the mercenary crew stepped straight up and subdued this traitor. Captain Zhou drew her own laser pistol, her eyes shot through with red.
Commander Chitong turned around to face the wall. Zhao Chen looked at the Chitong beside him. This was, after all, the first time the two had dealt with each other face to face; and it had to be said, this girl's presence was colder even than that first meeting with Charlotte — enough to make a person involuntarily shrink back. And whether or not it was some personal quirk of hers, at her waist hung not a laser pistol but a sword. By the look of the material, though, it was no ordinary sword; it was forged of a special alloy. In truth, within the Empire's military there were some generals with a taste for the style of the ancient ages who'd carry a thing of this sort on them too.
Bang.
After a single gunshot, a pool of fresh blood splashed across the hangar floor — but it was soon washed clean by someone, and as for the corpse, it was cast out into space.
Thereupon Captain Zhou silently led her squad of crew back to the shuttle and departed. Though boxed meals were cradled in their hands, the sister they'd lived with morning and night had turned out to be a traitor — a thing they found somewhat hard to accept, their spirits somewhat cast down.
"How did you tell that she was a traitor?" Commander Chitong looked at Zhao Chen and asked.
"Can you let me see your true face beneath the mask?" Zhao Chen asked back.
Commander Chitong fell silent.
Zhao Chen shrugged and said with a light laugh, "Everyone has secrets of their own. Just take this as a secret of mine."
Commander Chitong pressed the question no further.
After this traitor, four more traitors were rooted out one after another — two of them, no less, holding posts aboard Commander Chitong's own flagship. Never in her wildest thoughts had Commander Chitong imagined that within the "family" she'd supposed so solid, among the people she trusted, there could be so very many traitors! It left her feelings a tangle of every flavor at once.
Zhao Chen watched the state of Commander Chitong and said nothing; a thing like this, one could only digest for oneself.
As for the reason Zhao Chen could pinpoint these moles so precisely, it was simple enough. He leaned on his "Eye of Insight." Under normal circumstances, the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company's crew, facing him — the man who'd saved their lives — would surely harbor gratitude in their hearts. Those turncoat moles, by contrast, would naturally bear hostility toward Zhao Chen, killing intent, even. Just haul those few out, put them to the question, and a result was certain to follow. The five caught this time had none of them much strength of nerve; basically, the very instant they were seized, they gave away their own traitor's identity. And so, as a matter of course, the traitors could be dragged out into the light.
A System prompt sounded in Zhao Chen's ear.
System Mission: Rescue the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company
Mission difficulty: B-rank
Content: Rescue the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company; ensure the safety of the mission target, "Chitong."
Reward: 10 task points and 6,000 points.
Bonus mission: Annihilate the enemy fleet pursuing the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company.
Bonus mission: Root out the moles within the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company.
System mission complete — please claim your mission reward.
Bonus mission one complete — please claim your bonus reward.
Bonus mission two complete — please claim your bonus reward.
Zhao Chen willed it, and claimed the mission rewards.
Congratulations — acquired 10 task points and 6,000 System points.
Bonus mission one, completion 92%. Bonus reward acquired: 3,500 System points.
Bonus mission two, completion 100%. Bonus reward acquired: 2,000 System points.
At a stroke, Zhao Chen's account took in a full 11,500 System points!
Before — System points: 1,820
Before — task points: 35
Gained — System points: 11,500
Gained — task points: 10
After — System points: 13,320
After — task points: 45
Hidden mission triggered: Recruit the Bloody Mary Mercenary Company's Commander · Chitong.
Oh-ho — the System was stirring up trouble.
This time it was with a rather different sort of look that Zhao Chen sized up this sword-at-the-waist masked girl, Chitong, at his side.