The slaver starport.
Everything seemed just as on any ordinary day — but the five great beasts lurking beneath this calm had begun to bare their fangs.
Zhao Wan'er was aboard T3 Phantom Assassin No.1, commanding at the same time the whole of the five T3 Phantom Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bombers. She looked at the slaver starport before her, glanced at the time, and the moment the time reached 05:00 exactly, gave the order to act.
"Phantom Assassin squad — begin the operation!"
"Phantom Assassin No.2 understood!"
"Phantom Assassin No.3 understood!"
"Phantom Assassin No.4 understood!"
"Phantom Assassin No.5 understood!"
Two T3 Phantom Assassins suddenly appeared at the outskirts of the slaver starport.
"Bloody hell — am I seeing things? How is it a warship that's never once shown up before has popped out of thin air!" A staffer in charge of a starport berth looked at the strange warship that had appeared before him out of nowhere. His first thought was that his eyes were playing tricks — but he checked the port-entry data, and there'd been no warship scheduled to enter port at this spot just now at all.
"Hey, hey, hey! What's the situation with your ship — why have you shown up here in violation of the regulations, without notification! Please respond! Please respond!" The staffer at once used the comm device on his person to try, over the public channel, to reach this unknown warship of such unfit conduct.
But the other side gave no response whatsoever over the comm channel; instead, there was movement aboard that warship. One interstellar torpedo after another shot out, and along with them, one interstellar missile after another.
The comm device in the staffer's hand dropped to the ground, his pupils dilating, a look of disbelieving terror on his face. But before he could scream out, the spot where he stood was swallowed up by the flames of an explosion.
In an instant!
Violent explosions erupted at every important node of the slaver starport; and two docked T3 interstellar destroyers, moreover, received special attention — dozens of interstellar torpedoes and missiles all coming down upon them. Though these two T3 interstellar destroyers made an emergency start-up and tried to leave port, they had no such chance at all. They soon were reduced to two burning fireballs.
The commotion of the explosions throughout the whole starport alarmed even the Big-Eye King, resting in his own room within the port; he looked at the water in the cup beside him, sloshing without cease. Soon several video-comm requests appeared before him, and he opened those of Number Two and Number Three first.
"Boss, this is bad — our starport's come under attack by unknown T3-grade warships!" Skinny Monkey said in terror.
"Several of our starport's main channels have been destroyed; we have at least 500 warships blocked within the port berths, unable to leave. And two T3 interstellar destroyers have been destroyed!" Scarface said in a rush.
"What?" On hearing this news, the boss, the Big-Eye King, was shocked beyond measure. He walked swiftly toward the starport command room, ordering Number Two and Number Three at the same time, "Then what are the two of you standing about in a daze for? Hurry and dispatch the fleets to wipe out these attackers' warships!"
"We launched a counterattack too… but… but the other side has all-around star shields! We can't take them down in a moment or two." Skinny Monkey thereupon dropped another astonishing piece of news.
"Aren't they T3 warships? How could they have all-around star shields?" The boss, the Big-Eye King, was left stunned.
"We don't know either; in any case, this is what we're seeing. Damn it… my interstellar fleet has come under attack too, and those attacking us aren't just two of these T3 interstellar stealth bombers! Three… four… five…! They have five!" Skinny Monkey said, in a certain terror.
By this moment, the boss, the Big-Eye King, had reached the starport command room, and the whole command room was just now in a chaotic tangle, because a great many warships were blocked within the port berths. Those warships were for all the world like headless flies, every one of them wanting to leave port. In a situation like this, all manner of problems could arise all too easily — warships colliding with warships, or a ship going out of control and crashing straight into the starport, and so forth. In a word, every kind of chaos and disorder there was!
"Why haven't the starport's defensive weapons been activated!" The boss, the Big-Eye King, looked at the adjutant he'd left on duty in the command room and rebuked him.
A starport would generally be fitted with some defensive weapons too — indeed, the defensive weapons of some military starports were no less in the intensity of their firepower than several T3 warships!
The adjutant pointed at a virtual screen before them, on which one could see several hundred small boxes: two-thirds of them had turned black, and of the remaining third, basically all were red.
"The defensive weapons our starport is fitted with — when we took the enemy's first wave of attack, the great bulk of them were destroyed! The defensive weapons that remain are a single beam trying to hold up a house alone!" the adjutant said, at a loss.
Seeing this, the boss, the Big-Eye King, his face grim and sunken, raised a hand and at once opened the radar star-chart of the whole starport, including the port's surroundings. Five enemy warships marked in red could already be seen.
"These are the unknown T3 interstellar stealth bombers that attacked us, appearing suddenly around our starport. Two of them, right off the bat, launched a bombardment on our starport; the state the port's in is their doing! The remaining three are separately attacking the first, second, and third interstellar fleets we'd deployed in three directions, with our T3 warships as their key target. As of now, we've directly lost close to 10 T3 warships!" The adjutant reported an exceedingly dreadful piece of news.
"Lost 10?" The Big-Eye King's great eye went wide as a dinner plate. Mind you, his T3 warships, counting every last one, came to no more than 30! And that was an enterprise built up with no small difficulty, and only under His Highness the prince's funding. In this bare span of time, he'd lost a third of them?
"Don't panic! If the enemy is only five T3 interstellar stealth bombers, then their weapons and ammunition ought to be very nearly spent. Order our warships to surround these interstellar stealth bombers; though we have no interstellar anti-stealth ships or anti-stealth equipment, so long as we block off their routes of escape, we can force them out into the open!" The Big-Eye King soon came to his decision, thinking of the one method available just now to deal with these T3 interstellar stealth bombers.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! We've detected a great number of interstellar fighters and interstellar drones attacking the positions of our Fourth Fleet and Fifth Fleet!"
Suddenly, a subordinate reported an astonishing piece of news.
"Interstellar fighters? Interstellar drones? How many of them?" the Big-Eye King asked at once. By the look of it, the other side was not merely these five T3 interstellar stealth bombers — they'd come well prepared. By the look of it, there ought to be an enemy T2 carrier battle group in the distance.
"A total… a total of over 300 interstellar fighters and over 3,000 interstellar drones! By the deep-space telescope's scan, judged to be… T3-grade interstellar fighters and drones!"
The Big-Eye King's body went rigid, his expression filled with disbelief.
Was this — a T3 carrier starship that had come?