Chitong swept her eyes over the ship wreckage all around the interstellar space station, and at once said, "The number of ship wrecks here is wrong! I didn't leave anywhere near so few warships to guard the home base! This is only two-thirds of them — a part of them must already have escaped!"
Chitong turned her head to Zhao Chen and made her request. "Your Excellency the Commander, might I borrow the electronic comm equipment aboard your warship?"
"You may," Zhao Chen granted.
Chitong at once set to work, and after a run of operations, the ship's electronic comm equipment picked up a concealed signal. Within that signal was a message, and along with it a set of coordinates.
There are traitors… [redacted].
Zhao Chen looked at the message, then looked to Chitong.
Chitong said, overjoyed, "This is a secret sign we set up internally. Once the home base comes under attack, we're to find a way to withdraw at once. And we've reserved several withdrawal points in advance; those who evacuate leave a hidden comm code in this region, and by certain means, this comm code will persist here for anywhere from a week to a month! Only by using the corresponding channel can these comm codes be received."
"Is there any chance a traitor left it?" Zhao Chen asked.
Chitong shook her head. "No. You see this symbol at the end of the message? It stands for my mercenary company's vice-commander — the person I trust most of all. Anyone might betray me, but not her. And that pack of fellows have no need to deceive me, either; before this, they'd surely have reckoned their operation foolproof. In fact, without Your Excellency the Commander's rescue, there'd have been no escaping with our lives at all. So they have no reason whatever to go to the needless trouble of leaving this message behind."
With that, Chitong looked at Zhao Chen with earnest, imploring eyes.
"Since we've come this far, then we must see the living if living, and see the corpse if dead — isn't that so!" Zhao Chen at once gave the order, and by the coordinates named in the comm, they set off once more.
Before they departed, Chitong kept her gaze fixed on that stretch of the interstellar space station's ruins, her look grave — as though she were saying something to those who had fallen.
Some tens of minutes later, the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser arrived at the second coordinate point. Here, of all things, there was a small asteroid. Empty as the interstellar fringe space was, one could nonetheless run across the odd asteroid of this kind now and again. Upon the asteroid could be seen several docked interstellar warships, every one of them bearing on its hull the marks of battle come through. On account of the T3 Blizzard's sudden appearance, these warships at once went to combat-readiness status.
Chitong, with Zhao Chen's leave, at once used the public comm to make her identity known to the other party. The warships opposite soon laid down their hostility and quickly opened a video comm with Chitong. On the other end was a human woman, who looked to be somewhat older than Chitong.
"Chitong… I'm sorry, I… I failed to keep our base safe!" the vice-commander said, her whole face full of guilt.
"Sister Pei! First tell me how things stand now!" Chitong, by contrast, was very calm. Though no few things had happened over the course of this road, and though in the midst of it Chitong had been furious and had despaired, she could always right her own emotions again quickly. It was a fine quality! Above all in the matter of commanding an interstellar fleet in battle.
"A day ago, our home base came under a sudden attack by an interstellar fleet. At the same time, traitors turned up within our home base, working hand in glove with these enemy fleets to sow ruin, and we all but collapsed in an instant. All I could do then was lead out the few warships remaining, carry off the small number of people I could, and escape. Luck was with us, and we got away smoothly. We've been hiding here," With that, Sister Pei, the vice-commander, looked with some puzzlement at Zhao Chen beside Chitong. That Chitong should turn up here aboard an unfamiliar warship was a thing that puzzled her too.
Chitong thereupon recounted to Sister Pei, the vice-commander, what had befallen her, and the matter of Zhao Chen coming to the rescue.
"Your Excellency the Commander, I thank you most deeply for lending your hand!" Sister Pei, the vice-commander, had first been greatly astonished to hear that Chitong had come under attack too; then, hearing that it was Zhao Chen who'd saved Chitong, she at once spoke her gratitude.
Zhao Chen said, "For now, hurry and evacuate — this is no place to linger, either. If you don't mind it, you could take temporary refuge in my interstellar domain. On account of my domain having no star gate, it generally gets no outside visitors."
Chitong and Sister Pei, the vice-commander, exchanged a glance, and both assented to the proposal.
Afterward, Chitong also learned from Sister Pei, the vice-commander, some of the losses in detail. The home base had originally held close to 5,000 people; 500 of them were combat personnel, and all the rest were logistics staff, along with the slaves Chitong had rescued, and so on. In this attack, of those 5,000-odd, only 1,000 had escaped. Those several warships were, at this moment, packed full to bursting with people!
The thing to do next was to make ready to set off back to the Owl Dragon domain. But because Chitong and Sister Pei, the vice-commander, proposed returning to the home base to search a while for anything of value still worth carrying off — that place having once been their home, after all — Zhao Chen agreed.
The T3 Blizzard and these warships returned to the interstellar space station. Zhao Chen and Chitong, up on the bridge, watched the shuttles in the display searching through the ruins of the interstellar space station; the crews were also gathering up the bodies of some of their companions. They didn't want to see their companions, even in death, drifting like forlorn, wandering ghosts through this vast and hopeless cosmos.
"Come — let's go to the starship canteen and have something to eat," Zhao Chen said to Chitong.
"I'm not very hungry," Chitong murmured.
Zhao Chen laid a hand on Chitong's shoulder. "I know you're suffering badly right now. But a body's made of iron, and food is the steel that keeps it standing; at a time like this, you yourself have to stay well — that's the greatest thing you can give back to those companions who fell!"
Hearing Zhao Chen put it so, Chitong in the end followed him to the starship canteen after all. Because there'd be a spell of waiting, a portion of the T3 Blizzard's crew got to take a turn at rest as well.
Chitong looked at the clean, spacious starship canteen with some surprise — above all when she saw the sumptuous food set before those beast-folk crew. She couldn't help asking, "This is the food your crew eat?"
"That's right." Zhao Chen nodded, and using his own authority, ordered a portion of food for Chitong.
When Chitong looked at the fragrant, mouthwatering food before her, she was much surprised. "These are all foods made from natural crops?"
"Mm — the flavor's quite fine," Zhao Chen said.
Chitong took a bite, and a shift came over her look. This truly was nothing at all like those nutrient rations.
"Are you wondering about who they are?" Zhao Chen asked, eating as he watched Chitong.
Chitong hesitated a moment, then nodded.
A moment ago Zhao Chen had noticed that Chitong kept, now and again, glancing at the necks and ankles and wrists of those female crew members at their meal — for at those spots were the marks left by ankle-irons, handcuffs, and collars once worn over long stretches of time.
"You've guessed rightly. They were all once slaves; I bought them, and they became my crew. Looked at from the angle of 'where there's no trade, there's no killing,' perhaps I too am one of that lot you 'hate,'" Zhao Chen said, of his own accord.
Chitong was taken aback, and for a moment didn't know how to explain herself.
"If a body can enjoy treatment like this, then being a slave under the Commander isn't half bad!" a beast-folk female crew member at the neighboring seat cut in. Then she stuck out her tongue at Zhao Chen. "Sorry — I wasn't eavesdropping on the Commander, truly. If the Commander's angry, you're welcome to punish me!"
The beast-folk female crew all around, who'd been quietly keeping an eye on the Commander to begin with, cursed inwardly: this little minx actually meant to steal a march on them! Though her nerve was something, too — daring to tease the Commander to his very face!