Someone in the Owl Dragon Star System was trying to kill him?
Zhao Chen frowned. This sudden piece of news had thrown his plans into disarray.
"This person is a hidden watcher our sister left behind in the Owl Dragon Star System; her identity is known only to me and to our sister. The word she's sent can't possibly be false. I think we'd better not go back to the fief after all!" Zhao Wan'er said, with some worry.
"Can you reach this person?" Zhao Chen asked.
Zhao Wan'er thought a moment. "I have a private channel for contacting her — but I can't guarantee she'll reply to me right away."
Zhao Chen fell to thinking. This return of his to his fief was no simple matter of a holiday trip home.
It was a step taken with an eye to his own future development.
To grow strong, to have the strength to protect himself—
—he had to have a foundation strong enough to support it, and the Owl Dragon Star System was one on hand.
But the Owl Dragon Star System, on account of these decades of decline, was a poor and tangled place within; and so Zhao Chen meant to seize this chance of going back to give the Owl Dragon Star System a thorough setting-in-order, and make arrangements for his own future.
Yet if he canceled the plan on account of this sudden news—
—then three months hence would be the start of the academy term, and the year's worth of coursework that followed would leave him hard-pressed to find the time to deal with Owl Dragon affairs again.
One such delay could well mean a year or more.
Zhao Chen hadn't that much time to squander.
"We're going home," Zhao Chen said with conviction.
Zhao Wan'er stamped her foot in agitation. "Hey — have you lost your mind? You know full well now that there's a pack of people in the Owl Dragon Star System coming for us, and you still mean to go back and hand them your head?"
"Who said we're going back to hand them our heads?" The corners of Zhao Chen's mouth curled up, and he said with a cold smile, "The state of our Owl Dragon Star System has always been a mess. On account of our Zhao family's weakness, no small number of the greater and lesser nobles within the system have never taken us seriously. If I truly mean to take the Owl Dragon Star System firmly in hand, then I must clear out those festering sores, those malignant tumors. I'd meant to go about it step by step — but now that they're the ones making me an opening, why should I let it go to waste!"
Zhao Wan'er made out Zhao Chen's meaning: he meant to seize this chance to tear out, root and branch, the powers behind the assassination attempt.
To give the Owl Dragon Star System a thorough reshuffling.
"I have no objection to your thinking, but you'd do well to take your own measure first. Right now we don't know a thing about how the enemy's laid out. And all we have in hand are the two T2 ships, yours and mine. To go back like this — isn't it lambs walking into a tiger's den!" Zhao Wan'er was still worried for the safety of the two of them.
"We're going back — but not this instant. You go and contact this person you spoke of, and find some way to learn more from her. Things like who's organizing this assassination, what sort of plan they've laid, and whether they've mustered an interstellar fleet!" Zhao Chen said gravely.
"That much shouldn't be a problem, but our strength…"
The corners of Zhao Chen's mouth lifted. "Rest easy. I'll be prepared."
Zhao Chen raised a hand and opened up a star-map.
On it he marked his own present position, and the position of the Owl Dragon Star System, and began to sift through the space between the two points.
At the last, he settled on a place.
Zhao Chen pointed at it. "We'll go here first!"
Arctic Fox Starport.
Zhao Wan'er looked at the place-name, and turned to Zhao Chen in bewilderment. "What are we going there for?"
"You'll know once we're there."
"Don't we need to bring my T2 Fire-Crow?"
"No need for that."
"Zhao Chen, just what is it you mean to do!"
"Build a ship!"
"???"
……
After a round of preparations, Blizzard Zero formally left the starport of the Northstar Starship Military Academy.
Before that, Zhao Chen had also received the two sums of funds into his two accounts.
Zhang Haoran's 500,000 star coins, and Li Yaqi's 3 million.
The former into his academy account; the latter into an account Zhao Chen had quietly opened before selling the ship technology — done precisely so that his identity could be kept hidden.
They'd originally planned to leave on the first of July.
But on account of the Owl Dragon Star System business, Zhao Chen wanted to make haste, and so set out two days early; he sent Li Wei a message of farewell, and Zhao Wan'er hurriedly took her leave of Su Lan and the others as well.
"The destination coordinates are the Arctic Fox Starport in the Arctic Fox star system. We'll first make for the star gate of the Northstar system, pass through it to the star gate of the Arctic Fox system, and at last reach the Arctic Fox Starport. The whole is estimated to take five hours." Deputy Captain Charlotte stood beside the captain's chair, reporting to Zhao Chen the route she'd worked out.
"Handle it as you see fit; all I want is to reach Arctic Fox Starport in the shortest possible time." Zhao Chen sat in the captain's chair.
Off to one side, a sulky Zhao Wan'er was still cross that Zhao Chen wouldn't explain plainly just what it was he meant to do.
"Next we'll bring the grade-3 warp engine online; during the warp phase, all hands will enter deep-sea travel mode. Every crew member will enter a hibernation pod," Deputy Captain Charlotte said.
Zhao Chen nodded his assent.
To reach the Northstar system's star gate as fast as possible, using the warp engine was a must.
A starship generally carried two or three sets of propulsion engine. One set was the conventional engine — the sort Blizzard Zero used to make its hundred-star-knot speed, for instance.
The other set, the one used most, was the warp engine.
The warp engine was generally employed on long voyages, and could drive a ship to extreme acceleration. When the warp engine was in use, most ships had to enter deep-sea mode — otherwise the side effects of warp travel would strike dead on the spot any crew not in a rest pod.
The human body couldn't withstand warp travel.
Nor could one fight during a warp phase.
Warp engines, moreover, were graded by speed. From lowest to highest, they ran from grade one to grade nine.
This Blizzard Zero of Zhao Chen's carried a grade-3 warp engine.
"Warp route pre-set complete; we now enter the acceleration phase, and will enter the warp phase in 10 minutes. All crew, enter deep-sea mode within 10 minutes! I repeat — all crew, enter deep-sea mode within 10 minutes!"
In that moment, Deputy Captain Charlotte's voice sounded across every post within the ship, and a soft violet light flickered along with it.
This was a kind of warning issued before entering warp travel.
Ssss, ssss, ssss.
Just then, several hibernation pods rose up beside Zhao Chen's captain's chair as well.
They were a sort of upright cylindrical transparent chamber.
Placing hibernation pods on the bridge was done so that crew leaving deep-sea travel mode could return to their posts and restore battle-readiness as fast as possible.
On a true battlefield, this was of vital importance.
Above all in behind-the-lines combat, it was a severe test of a ship's crew and their speed of response.
Zhao Chen, too, now stood within a hibernation pod. He looked at Zhao Wan'er in the pod beside him. "Don't be nervous — it'll be over in the blink of an eye."
"Please. I've carried out a fourth-year combat exercise; I hardly need you to teach me." Zhao Wan'er rolled her eyes, then started up her own hibernation pod.
A transparent hatch cover sealed off the whole pod, and then some pale-blue liquid was injected into it.
Within this hibernating liquid a person could breathe on their own, and would, at the same time, be lulled into sleep.
Zhao Wan'er had already closed her eyes by now, still as a sleeping beauty beneath the water.
Zhao Chen didn't enter the hibernating state at once. He looked at Charlotte, still waiting at her console.
By now most of Blizzard Zero's energy supply had been cut off, near enough all of it fed to the warp engine, while the ship itself was kept only in a low-consumption state.
When there were three minutes left of the 10, Charlotte turned her head to look at Zhao Chen, and reported, "Reporting — of the whole ship's 102 crew, 100 have entered the hibernating state. In three minutes we'll formally enter the warp phase."
"Our turn, then." Zhao Chen crossed his arms over his chest, drew a deep breath, and started up his hibernation pod.
That pale-blue liquid began to cover his whole body; there was no discomfort of any kind — on the contrary, it left Zhao Chen deeply relaxed, and at the last he sank into a heavy sleep.