T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser · bridge.
"Reporting, Commander — Blizzard First Squad has completed its task and returned! Please give your instructions!"
"Reporting, Commander — the Owl Dragon Fleet's second-batch fleet warships have all arrived! Please give your instructions!"
Zhao Chen looked at these interstellar warships of his, his heart brimming with a sense of security.
"Since everyone's assembled, then, Charlotte, you go ahead and lay out and arrange the coming combat task. We need to seize the time!" Zhao Chen said gravely.
Charlotte nodded. She set up a video-conference room, and the captains of over 100 interstellar warships all attended this meeting. In the meeting, Charlotte announced this combat task.
"The strategic objective is to hold fast until all the personnel on the Sapphire Third Planet are dispersed and evacuated. And in the present situation, to realize this strategic objective, we're to go on the offensive of our own initiative. In the Sapphire System there are three Hive fleets. We'll strike first, of our own initiative, and in an extremely short span of combat time, break them one by one!"
Charlotte began laying out the detailed combat task. Before this, Charlotte had been studying this combat scheme.
"You've all understood the combat task clearly, I take it? Rest and regroup in place for three hours; three hours from now, save for 10 T2 Black Rhinos, all the other warships make ready to hurry to the first battlefield!" Zhao Chen formally gave the order.
"Yes!" the women-generals said with one voice.
Having laid out the task, Zhao Chen rose from the captain's chair and, looking at Charlotte to one side, said in a bantering tone, "This seat I now return to its rightful owner."
The T3 Phoenix-class Heavy Carrier Starship had arrived, and Zhao Chen naturally had to return to his own flagship. He looked at the T3 Phoenix's crimson hull in the video display, upon which was a glittering golden "Chu" character. This was Zhao Chen's earlier arrangement. Though the present situation had left Zhao Chen with no choice but to bring out this somewhat conspicuous T3 heavy carrier starship, still, so as not to have others fix their attention upon him, Zhao Chen meant to fit it, for the time being, with a false identity, to muddy the sight and hearing of onlookers.
Zhao Chen and Lilith took a shuttle back to the T3 Phoenix-class Heavy Carrier Starship. They soon arrived at the bridge.
"Commander; Miss Secretary." Deputy captain Chitong, who'd long been waiting, looked at Zhao Chen. Ever since she'd removed her mask, when within the Owl Dragon Fleet she no longer wore the mask over her face, but set it to one side of her head, in the manner of an ornament. But should she leave the ship, she'd don the mask once more.
"How is the preparation for the next step over in the Owl Dragon System coming along? Is it going smoothly?" Zhao Chen sat in the captain's chair and asked.
"By the latest word, all is going smoothly," Lilith answered.
"Good, then; in that case, we can fight this coming battle with an easy mind," Zhao Chen said coldly.
This was, after all, the first time Zhao Chen's Owl Dragon Fleet had engaged the interstellar hive-race head-on in the true sense of the word. The first time fighting the interstellar hive-race had been together with Chu Xuan's Empire military; and though at the time it had been Zhao Chen's warships that played the important role, it had still been with the coordination of allied forces. The second time had been the combat task of rescuing the two-academy fleet — and that could only be counted as high-mobility combat: after saving the people, they'd withdrawn without a moment's pause, merely killing one T3 Hive Mothership and gravely crippling one T2 Hive Mothership in passing, and inflicting only a very small portion of casualties on the hive-race fleet. So all of the above could in no way be called the Owl Dragon Fleet's combat against the interstellar hive-race in the true sense. And this time was different — this time Zhao Chen would, relying on his own strength alone, annihilate this hive-race fleet!
Half a day later.
The Owl Dragon Fleet's interstellar warships were, by now, arrayed in orderly fashion, in a combat formation particular to facing the interstellar hive-race. Their gun-mouths pointed, one and all, in a single direction.
"Report — the hive-race fleet will enter our fire range in 10 minutes!" deputy captain Chitong said.
Zhao Chen's face didn't change; he raised a hand and opened the latest enemy-fleet data situation. Four T3 Hive Motherships, 42 T2 Hive Motherships, and over 450 T1 Hive Motherships. This was the strongest of the three Hive fleets. Since they were to fight, then fight the strongest first — this was the combat principle Charlotte had drawn up. This first battle, it would be best to be able to wholly annihilate this one Hive fleet. Doing so would not only be of enormous help to the Sapphire System Third Planet's evacuation task, it would at the same time establish the fleet's combat confidence for what came next.
"Commander, please give the order." Secretary Lilith looked to Commander Zhao Chen.
Commander Zhao Chen, using the fleet-wide command system, gave the order to every interstellar warship of the whole fleet. "Owl Dragon Fleet — begin the battle!"
In an instant, it was as though every one of the Owl Dragon interstellar warships had been infused with a soul.
"Charge-squad formed of the T3 Blizzards — make ready to interpenetrate and charge the hive-race fleet!" deputy captain Charlotte said.
T2 Lion King-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Ship · bridge.
"Five T2 Lion Kings — all interstellar missiles into launch-standby state!" The wolf-girl Baixue's breathing was slightly cramped, her gaze fervent. At but a single order from her, the five T2 Lion King-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Ships — 2,500 interstellar missiles — would fire out in an extremely short span of time, dealing enormous damage to the hive-race fleet opposite. At the mere thought of that scene, the wolf-girl Baixue felt her heartbeat quickening without cease, as though she could scarcely catch her breath.
T3 Phantom Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber · bridge.
"The five T3 Phantom Assassins have entered the projected voyage routes of the enemy's four T3 Hive Motherships, to ambush them!" Zhao Wan'er said in earnest. And an ambush was precisely the task their five T3 Phantom Assassins were on; at the very moment the battle began, all the interstellar torpedoes and missiles of their five T3 Phantom Assassins would come down, without the least ceremony, upon those four T3 Hive Motherships. This was, moreover, the first time they'd used the T3 Phantom Assassins to deal with a hive-race fleet — and it had to be said, they were a touch nervous.
The view returns to the T3 Phoenix-class Heavy Carrier Starship · bridge.
Zhao Chen looked to Chitong beside him. Though he was the captain of the T3 Phoenix-class Heavy Carrier Starship, in truth the task of command aboard this warship was, in the main, still the charge of Chitong, this deputy captain. He was more like a lucky mascot presiding here.
Chitong met Commander Zhao Chen's gaze, and thereupon began to give the orders. "T3 Phoenix, enter combat state; all interstellar fighter and drone units, deploy at the fastest speed! Form battle formation!"
The moment this order was given, dozens of gates opened along the T3 Phoenix-class Heavy Carrier Starship's hull, and one Phoenix-class interstellar fighter and T3 interstellar drone after another came swarming out!
For all the world like a crimson "swarm"!