The Snake-Sovereign Fortress defense battle.
By the fifth hour, the whole battle situation had, in the main, already reached its outcome; whether the Starlight faction's interstellar fleet or the Warhammer faction's interstellar fleet, all had begun to withdraw, step by step, from the battlefield.
In this battle, the Owl Dragon Fleet that Zhao Chen led — relying on the missile ships and its other elite interstellar warships' crushing, steamroller-style combat — had, in an exceedingly short span of time, launched the most ferocious of assaults. And had thereby caused the enemy fleet's morale to collapse and rout. In five hours' time, it had dealt the enemy fleet the most fatal of ruin.
"Medusa, the victory of this battle is, in the main, already in our grasp. Though the enemy fleet is routed and no longer an army, I hold that just now we ought not to press the pursuit and hammer them hard; apart from gathering in and taking control of those surrendered enemy ships, the remaining coalition of the two factions need only be driven out of the Snake-folk system. What do you think?" Zhao Chen looked at Medusa opposite.
"I'll do as you arrange." Medusa nodded, without any doubt or question. Her attitude toward this man before her was now already utterly unlike what it had been. Before, toward this man, what Medusa had held was, more than anything, appreciation and curiosity. And now, what filled her heart was a kind of awe — indeed, even… dread.
"Then good. The matter of sweeping the battlefield afterward, I'll leave to your Snake-folk interstellar fleet. My interstellar fleet will garrison beside the star gate for a stretch of time, and once it's confirmed that both factions' coalition within the Snake-folk system has fully withdrawn, my interstellar fleet will, too, pull out from here, and return to the Lion King System to rest and refit." Zhao Chen spoke out his arrangements for what came next.
"Very well; my fleet will take charge of sweeping the battlefield, clearing all the spoils of war, and will transfer all these spoils over to your fleet," Medusa said in earnest. Generally speaking, in a cooperative battle of this kind, the spoils ought to be allotted by a certain ratio. But now, Medusa dared not harbor the least designs upon these spoils. For, after all, in this battle, the one that truly struck the deciding hammer-blow had been, entirely, the other party's interstellar fleet; her Snake-folk interstellar fleet had merely occupied the finest "spectator's seat," that was all.
"These spoils needn't be transferred to me. If I recall rightly — isn't there, besides, a Lady Red Rose? Just let her Bramble Group deal with these spoils; I'll take 90% of them when the time comes. Best of all would be to convert them directly into raw-material supplies and the like," Zhao Chen said.
Medusa looked at Zhao Chen with some astonishment; she'd never imagined he'd, of all things, hand over the task of dealing with the spoils so readily, and with full authority, to herself. For one must know — this battle over — the wreckage of interstellar warships left upon the battlefield alone, along with the surrendered interstellar warships, could, however one reckoned it, come to a value of some hundreds of millions, or even 1 billion-odd. Only, to convert them into money or resources would take a bit of processing time. To hand it straight to Medusa and the rest to deal with was, beyond doubt, the fastest way of handling it for Zhao Chen.
"Very well; we'll deal properly with these spoils. And at the fastest speed, we'll deliver the supplies these spoils are converted into to your Lion King System," Medusa said. Zhao Chen was now the backing mountain of their Snake-folk; and since this was a task Zhao Chen had charged her with, then she had to see it brought to a complete and perfect finish.
"Ah, right — tally up, on your side, this battle's losses, along with the situation of the interstellar warships under your command. In a while, we'll hold a get-together meeting, and call that Lady Red Rose along as well." Zhao Chen enjoined.
"Yes."
The comm ended.
Zhao Chen opened his eyes and looked at Lilith, who'd been waiting at his side a good while.
"Is there something to report?" Zhao Chen said.
Lilith said, "All the interstellar warships of the Owl Dragon Fleet have now withdrawn to the star gate beside the Snake-folk Fortress; the battle-summary report has been tallied out." Saying this, there was a trace of an odd color in Lilith's eyes.
"Go on." Zhao Chen looked at Lilith.
Lilith said in earnest, "In this battle, the number of enemy ships we directly annihilated reached 35,000 interstellar warships; by preliminary tally, the interstellar warships captured by the Snake-folk number 3,000-odd, most of them T1 interstellar warships and a small number of T2 interstellar warships. The remaining enemy fleets have all withdrawn from the Snake-folk system. In this battle, the Starlight faction's interstellar fleet suffered the greatest loss: of the 30,000 interstellar warships that originally came, only 5,000 interstellar warships fled back — and all their T3 interstellar warships fell, one and all. Included among them were three leader-figures, along with a great number of high-ranking cadres. The Warhammer faction's interstellar fleet's situation was somewhat better; the interstellar fleet that withdrew numbered 15,000. In this battle, the enemy's estimated death toll reaches 1 million interstellar soldiers."
"And our losses, then?" Zhao Chen asked.
Lilith hesitated a moment, then went on. "In this battle, our combat expended 1.5 billion star coins of war resources. Several interstellar warships were damaged to varying degrees; and, besides, one of our T2 Black Rhinos was destroyed and fell amid the frenzied-revenge attack of the enemy fleet. The greater part of the ship's personnel evacuated…"
"The greater part evacuated? Which is to say, there were some who didn't evacuate." Zhao Chen caught the meaning within these words.
Lilith silently nodded.
Zhao Chen inquired, "Which is to say, then, that in this battle we've had personnel casualties."
"Yes." Lilith looked at Zhao Chen with some worry. By rights, for personnel to give their lives in an interstellar war was a thing as normal as could be. But one must know — within the Owl Dragon Fleet, this was, on the contrary, up to now a most abnormal thing. Because before this, of the wars, great and small, that the Owl Dragon Fleet had been through — every one had been without a single casualty!
"It's not only the loss of starship personnel; on the interstellar-fighter side, too… there have been personnel deaths as well… And besides, there are over 100 people wounded to varying degrees, but they've already been received by the T3 Andromeda and arranged for treatment," Lilith put in. In this battle, the enemy had 60,000 interstellar warships. Though most were fish-fleet warships, under the chaotic conditions of the battlefield it was hard to avoid some accidents arising.
"Is there a detailed list and account of the fallen personnel?" Zhao Chen asked.
"Here it is." Lilith holographically projected a list of the fallen personnel before Zhao Chen's eyes.
Zhao Chen looked at the list of fallen personnel before him — in truth, it was very few. The kind one could count up at a single glance. 15 personnel fallen in battle, in all. Of these, seven were personnel serving aboard the T2 Black Rhino-class Interstellar Heavy Assault Frigate, who, when that T2 Black Rhino was destroyed and fell, hadn't fled in time, and in the end were killed. The remaining eight were, one and all, interstellar-fighter pilots of the T3 Phoenix-class interstellar fighters, who, in the interstellar air-battle, had been targeted by the enemy ships' anti-air artillery, and, struck, hadn't fled in time.
"I know of this matter now." Zhao Chen passed over this matter in a light stroke, laying no weight upon it.
Lilith, on the contrary, looked at Zhao Chen with some astonishment; she'd originally thought that this first-ever appearance of a casualty situation would cause the Commander a great swell of emotion.
Zhao Chen's thoughts, at this moment, had on the contrary drifted off to the Owl Dragon System. To that T4 Reviver-class Clone-Human Starship lying at dock there.
This ought to count, after all, as its first "work."