The Morton Gate Battle.
The fifth hour.
All the interstellar warships of the Empire Military's 12th Corps fleet crossed the star gate and reached the battlefield, thoroughly taking over the star-gate defensive line. Under the garrisoning of this Empire-military corps of close to 3,000 warships, the star-gate defensive line was now, at last, as impregnable as a fortress of metal and a moat of boiling water.
The tenth hour.
The Empire Military's 22nd Corps hurried to lend support; with the reinforcement of these 3,000 more warships, the star-gate defensive line was able to fully recover even the defensive-line regions that had earlier fallen. And at this point, the Empire military's interstellar reconnaissance ships, too, discovered the positions of the other two T4 Hive Motherships. Happily, those two T4 Hive Motherships hadn't struck at the star gate, but had struck at the planets around it.
The fifteenth hour.
The North Wind Governor's Corps fleet, and the Empire's 25th Corps and 26th Corps hurrying from the Chu River Star Region, arrived one after another. At this moment, gathered in the Morton System already were four Empire corps fleets, one Governor's corps fleet, and a great many lord-fleets besides — a total number reaching close to 20,000 interstellar warships. Besides the three T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleships of the Chu family Third Fleet that had arrived first, three more T4 Boreas were subsequently added — these coming from the North Wind Governor's Corps fleet. With an interstellar fleet of such scale bearing down, this Morton System T4-Hive-Mothership crisis could be counted as brought under control. The Morton star gate's peril was lifted; what came next was merely to annihilate those hive-race fleets.
And before that, the several power-fleets that had held the Morton System to the death received a holographic-image audience with the North Wind Governor.
Zhao Chen opened his eyes. He'd appeared within the holographic environment of a meeting-room scene. In the main seat was, precisely, the North Wind Governor, with whom he'd had a few passing meetings before; and at the North Wind Governor's right hand was Chu Xuan. Present as well was that Xu Yifan. Set against Chu Xuan's and Zhao Chen's calm, Xu Yifan was plainly a touch nervous — after all, to meet both his newly minted idol and His Excellency the Governor at once, there was still some agitation within his heart.
"Yifan, I've heard of the matter of your father; restrain your grief and bear the change." The North Wind Governor first spoke of the matter of the Morton Count.
Xu Yifan sat bolt upright and said in earnest, "My father was of military background; he earned this Count's title by the merit of the military feats he laid down. Though, because we're newly risen nobles, the other nobles all regard us as 'nouveau riche,' my father often taught me: so long as we are the lords of this star system, we must protect our system well! Even if one day he were to fall before my very eyes, I… I…"
Speaking to this point, Xu Yifan's eyes finally couldn't help but redden. Over this stretch of time, it had been wholly on account of the high-intensity combat tasks that he'd kept himself from calling to mind the matter of his father's death. But now, his emotions couldn't help welling up.
"I will still uphold his duty… sworn, to the death, to defend the Morton System, and all our Xu family's domain systems!"
"Good boy — you did it." The North Wind Governor looked at this young man with appreciation. "You've brought your father no disgrace; old Xu, seeing you as you are now, would surely be much gratified."
Xu Yifan looked at the North Wind Governor, forcing down the tears welling in his eyes. "Did I… did I truly not fail in my duty?"
"You did not. You did splendidly!" the North Wind Governor said with resolve.
Xu Yifan bit his lip; in this moment it was as though all the pressure he'd borne was released, and the tears could no longer be held back, and streamed down.
"By the Empire's rules, old Xu's title will be inherited by you, his eldest son; though there's no inheritance ceremony yet, you must now take up this responsibility," the North Wind Governor said, looking at Xu Yifan.
Xu Yifan nodded heavily. "I understand."
"All right — go and rest first. There's a whole pile of matters awaiting your handling later," the North Wind Governor said.
"Yes." Before leaving, Xu Yifan looked to Zhao Chen and Chu Xuan and bowed deeply to the two of them, and then his figure dispersed.
After Xu Yifan had left, the North Wind Governor's grand airs vanished all at once. With a mournful face he looked at Zhao Chen and Chu Xuan. "You two little ancestors[1] — your nerve is no ordinary thing. A bare 400 interstellar warships, and you dared, before a swarm of tens of millions, to charge straight over at the front of another's T4 Hive Mothership. Yes! In the end you did knock out that T4 Hive Mothership. But did the two of you give any thought to the risk in it? Your two identities are no ordinary matter. With Xu Yifan here just now, it wasn't convenient for me to speak plainly. Set against the Morton System — I could accept the Morton star gate falling, the whole Morton System being overrun, rather than see the two of you come to danger!"
Chu Xuan was his own precious granddaughter on the daughter's side; were old man Chu to learn of this matter besides, then, by all estimates, he'd come knocking at his door to have it out with him. And this Zhao Chen kid was no small thing either — full to the brim with ship technology, and with some cooperation going with old man Chu's side too. Talent of this kind, were it lost here, would pain him as well.
"Grandpa, just listen to you. In the end nothing at all came of it, did it!" Chu Xuan at once set about soothing her grandfather's mood.
"I warn the two of you — next time, you're not permitted to do anything this risky!" the North Wind Governor reminded them sternly.
Chu Xuan at once put on the very picture of a good little child. "I promise! I promise I'll never take a risk again next time!"
Beside them, Zhao Chen couldn't help a private laugh — was a promise like that of any use at all? By all estimates the North Wind Governor, too, could see this granddaughter of his made an unreliable promise; but he could only look at his granddaughter with doting fondness, at a loss for anything to do with her.
"Governor, as for handling this hive-race crisis next — how do you plan to arrange it?" Zhao Chen asked.
The North Wind Governor said, "In truth, with the cosmic star-gates gradually vanishing, and with our response this time being swift too, the hive-race disaster hasn't run out of control. So it's projected that within a month, all the Hive Motherships can be destroyed; but the work of clearing away the ground-crawling interstellar hive-race on those planets may need over half a year. The Morton System is an important raw-material system of our North Wind Star Region; it'll be cleared as a priority. By my plan, taking advantage of these close to 20,000 interstellar warships now gathered, and the six T4 Boreas, we'll clean out all the hive-race fleets within a week, the ground-crawling interstellar hive-race on the main planets within a month, and the rest can be dealt with clean within the three months after that."
"Come to think of it, it's a good thing our response to this hive-race crisis was so quick — otherwise the consequences would truly be beyond imagining. Who could have imagined a tier-4 cosmic bug-nest of all things cropping up? Now that I think of it, wasn't it far too much of a coincidence!" Chu Xuan griped.
"In truth, for so very many cosmic bug-nests to appear this time… it is indeed very odd…" the North Wind Governor said, knitting his brows.
"Odd? Odd how?" Zhao Chen looked to the North Wind Governor.
The North Wind Governor didn't take up the thread, but steered the topic elsewhere. "All right. Both your fleets have had a hard time of it this round; rest and regroup well. The main task that comes next, just leave it to the Empire-military fleets."
Zhao Chen looked at the words the North Wind Governor had left unspoken, and in his heart he had some premonition.
Odd?
If one were to speak of what was odd — from the angle of conspiracy—
it would be that this hive-race crisis was no coincidence at all!
But this, for the time being, wasn't a matter Zhao Chen could concern himself with; better to set his mind at ease, do his System tasks, and develop his fleet first. Only when one's own strength was hard and firm could one meet any situation that might possibly arise; otherwise, the more one understood, the more it did but add to one's troubles for nothing.