"This was originally the second deputy captain's quarters, but since I have only the one deputy captain — and since I'd already thought to bring you back with me this time — it's stood empty all along. You'll stay here these next few days." Zhao Chen carried his sister's luggage in a hand and pointed at the single-occupant deputy captain's room before them.
"Not half bad." Zhao Wan'er looked the room over.
"How's your own ship being seen to?" Zhao Chen asked. Zhao Wan'er was a fourth-year, and had a ship of her own besides.
"Sister Su Lan has a long-term rented berth at the starport, and she's going home this break as well, so my ship can just park at her berth. My crew are all academy cadets, and I've already given them the holiday off." Zhao Wan'er sat down on the bed.
"If I remember right, your ship is a T2 Fire-Crow-class Heavy Interstellar Battlecruiser," Zhao Chen said, casting his memory back.
Zhao Wan'er nodded.
When Zhao Wan'er had picked out her fourth-year ship back then, she'd faced the very same situation Zhao Chen had — no funds, and so no choice but to choose from the academy's starship warehouse.
But Zhao Wan'er had had the luck of being a top student, and so the academy had given her special consideration, laying aside for her this T2 Fire-Crow-class Heavy Interstellar Battlecruiser. A secondhand ship of 30 years' service it might be, but it could beyond question be counted a first-rate specimen among T2 ships.
Add to that Zhao Wan'er's renown as a top student, and there was of course a steady stream of students from other departments wanting to join her ship — though, mindful of the matter of pay, the ones Zhao Wan'er took on were all commoner cadets.
"The T2 Fire-Crow's decent enough, but it's an old ship, when all's said. In the future, big brother will get you a new one!" Zhao Chen muttered.
Zhao Wan'er rolled her eyes. "A new ship? Forget it. Don't go thinking that because you shook 500,000 star coins out of Zhang Haoran, you can play the big spender now. 500,000 star coins isn't even the loose change on a T2 ship."
Zhao Chen only smiled and said nothing. He hadn't told Zhao Wan'er that he'd closed a second deal besides — that by selling the technology for the T1 Wolf-Louse-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer, he now had a full 3 million star coins to his name!
And besides, he had no intention of buying a ship.
He had the System, with a whole trove of ship technologies inside it; wouldn't it suit him better to build his own? What need had he to buy?
"Listen to you go on. You've got to have some faith in your big brother! Just tell me what class of ship you want, and big brother will have it arranged before year's end!" Zhao Chen waved a hand, with the air of a man to whom it was all nothing.
Zhao Wan'er snorted a laugh. "If you've really got it in you, then get me a carrier starship!"
Carrier starships were the costliest class of ship there was, bar none! Because they carried a great mass of interstellar fighters and interstellar drones aboard — and the two together came at an eye-watering price.
The corners of Zhao Chen's mouth curled up. Well, hadn't she just walked straight into the gun barrel?
"No problem — it's only a carrier starship. Big brother will see to it! And I guarantee it'll leave you satisfied!" Zhao Chen said with a smile.
"All talk and no trousers." Zhao Wan'er, naturally, didn't believe a word of it.
A T2 carrier starship, one should know, went for no less than 10 million star coins even if it were a light one!
"All right — once you've settled in, let's go eat." Zhao Chen walked to the door.
He waited a while for Zhao Wan'er, and the two of them set off together for the ship's dining hall.
Reaching the corridor outside the dining hall, Zhao Wan'er sniffed at the air. "I think I smell something fragrant."
Zhao Chen smiled, and said nothing.
"Come to think of it, I've noticed those beast-folk crewwomen of yours seem a bit different from before… but… I can't quite put my finger on how…" Zhao Wan'er eyed Zhao Chen dubiously. "You didn't go and do something to those beast-folk crewwomen, did you?"
Zhao Chen rapped her on the head. "You little brat — what wild things are you dreaming up now!"
Zhao Wan'er stuck out her tongue and blinked up at Zhao Chen.
She'd noticed that of late her relationship with Zhao Chen had changed a great deal. The old Zhao Chen would never have dared touch her head, and had always been ill at ease around her — as though she were the elder sister, and Zhao Chen the younger brother.
Talking and laughing, the two of them walked into the dining hall — and in that instant Zhao Wan'er's feet came to a halt, and she took in the scene before her with astonishment.
Steaming hot noodles, fragrant bread, great white mantou buns — and, more than that, chunks of meat wafting their savor into the air.
There was even a kind of white, half-moon-shaped food — the legendary dumplings![1]
"This is your ship's dining hall?" Zhao Wan'er's eyes went round.
"Of course it is. Come over here and order." Zhao Chen pointed at Zhao Wan'er behind him and said to the kitchen staff behind the counter, "Hers goes on my tab."
"Captain… yours surely needn't be charged…" the kitchen staffer said, with a strange sort of expression.
By the rules Zhao Chen himself had laid down, when dining in the ship's hall, Zhao Chen too had a meal standard of his own.
It was only that, being the captain, his standard was three times an ordinary crewwoman's! And some officer-rank crewwomen naturally had a standard higher than the ordinary crew's as well.
This division into ranks was likewise meant to spur the crewwomen on in their work — perform well and you could be promoted, and then enjoy a better meal standard. It was, in a manner of speaking, a policy of incentive.
"Do it by the rules." Zhao Chen then set about ordering. "Give me the pork-and-cabbage dumplings."
Fully half the dishes on the menu here had been drawn up by Zhao Chen, and so one could find a good many Chinese dishes among them.
Dumplings, as a dish, did in fact exist in this world too, and were rather famous — said, by rumor, to hail from the ancient cuisine of a certain Blue Star. But later, on account of the dearness of natural ingredients, this dish too had gradually become a fare of the nobility — a thing of legend in the eyes of the common folk.
"Order up, quick. There are people queuing behind you." Zhao Chen urged on the stupefied Zhao Wan'er.
Zhao Wan'er hurriedly ran her eyes over the board, then ordered a fish-fragrant pork-strip rice bowl.
Then a hovering robot swept a scan across Zhao Chen's face. This counted as "payment."
"Please wait at your seat; a robot will bring the food out to you shortly," the kitchen staffer said.
Zhao Chen and Zhao Wan'er found an empty seat and sat down.
"What in the world is going on here — these are all natural ingredients?" No sooner had Zhao Wan'er's backside touched the seat than she was staring at Zhao Chen and pressing him.
Zhao Chen nodded. "That's right."
Zhao Wan'er pointed at the holographic electronic menu-board above the counter. "Those foods — ordinary crew can order any of them?"
"Everyone has their own meal standard; so long as they don't go over it and don't waste food, that's all."
"And what's an ordinary crewwoman's meal standard?"
"0.3 star coins a day, not to exceed 10 star coins a month."
"10 star coins?" Zhao Wan'er very nearly shrieked, and the sound startled the diners around them. She promptly ducked her head and dropped her voice to a murmur. "Have you gone insane! 10 star coins! Even the noble guard fleets of our Starlight Empire don't have a meal standard as high as this! The meal standard I give my own crew is only 0.05 a day!"
"They don't set theirs that high, so I'm forbidden to set mine that high? This is my ship — I'll set it however I please." Zhao Chen said it with a smile.
Zhao Wan'er put a hand over her face. "You… don't go thinking that having that 500,000 star coins means you can do exactly as you like. Carrying on this way, you'll land yourself in trouble sooner or later."
"Then we'll deal with the trouble when it comes." Zhao Chen shrugged.
Just then Zhao Wan'er's and Zhao Chen's meals were brought over. Fragrant pork-and-cabbage dumplings, and a fish-fragrant pork-strip rice bowl.
In the face of good food, Zhao Wan'er gave up arguing with Zhao Chen, and as she ate, a look of pure bliss came over her face.
A meal down—
—and just as Zhao Wan'er was preparing to go on "educating" Zhao Chen further—
—her handheld terminal chimed with the alert of an incoming text.
Zhao Wan'er opened it for a look, and her face changed abruptly.
"This is bad — something's happened in the Owl Dragon Star System!" The Owl Dragon Star System was Zhao Chen's fief.
"What's happened?" Zhao Chen asked.
Zhao Wan'er projected the text as a hologram. "This is from a trusted aide our sister left behind in the Owl Dragon Star System."
Someone in the Owl Dragon Star System has colluded with outside bandits, plotting to assassinate the Zhao clan! Second Young Master and Third Miss — whatever you do, do not return!