T4 Reviver-class Clone-Human Starship.
The moment Zhao Chen boarded this interstellar warship, a virtual image surfaced before his eyes. At the same time, that soft, gentle female voice sounded at his ear.
"Welcome, Lord Commander."
"Have the life-signals been received?" Zhao Chen asked.
"The life-signals of 15 Owl Dragon crew have already been received."
Zhao Chen said, "Can the 'rebirth procedure' be carried out now?"
"So long as you hand down the command, it can be carried out at any time."
"Good — begin now. Send me the location of the cabin where this work-task is being carried out; I want to go and see it," Zhao Chen said.
"It's in Cabin No. 1."
Zhao Chen took the hovering elevator to Cabin No. 1. In fact, work of this kind did not require him to come here in person; he need only hand down a command remotely, and that would do. But this was the T4 Reviver-class Clone-Human Starship's first "work"; so as to guard against any mishap, Zhao Chen had to oversee it with his own eyes.
Soon enough, Zhao Chen arrived at Cabin No. 1. He lifted his head and looked at the chamber, spread all over with densely teeming cultivation pods. Among them, 15 pods gave off a dim, deep-blue radiance, the originally empty pod-bodies now brimful, injected with some kind of liquid.
At some point, in a pod that had held nothing but liquid, there had appeared a fist-sized ball of flesh. This flesh-ball began to grow at a speed visible to the naked eye, until, three minutes on, it first took on a human form. But its size was merely that of an infant. And after that, over a few more minutes, the originally child-sized body began, bit by bit, to grow. From infant to child, and then to the period of a young girl. And at the last, in roughly 10 minutes' time, one slender, fair-skinned woman's body after another was presented within the pods, in a posture like that of a babe within its mother's womb. Were one to look closely, one would find that these women's bodies were each wholly different from one another; and were there anyone who'd seen the roster of the fallen from this Snake-Sovereign Fortress campaign, they would, moreover, discover with a shudder that these 15 bodies corresponded, precisely, to those 15 Owl Dragon women-soldiers who had given their lives. Not merely very alike — quite simply, utterly identical!
Thereupon, the liquid within the pods began to give off a kind of white particle-radiance, which wholly covered over these women's bodies. This was the injecting of the "soul" — somewhat akin to the conceit of the "reborn." This process lasted about half a minute's time. And in this half minute, 15 smart nurture-pods had already floated to the exits of these 15 cultivation pods, as though awaiting something.
As the moment came, the cultivation pods opened. The 15 delicate, tender bodies within slid out, for all the world like ripe fruit, into the nurture-pods outside. Were one not to call to mind the process of the 10 minutes before, then by all estimates, the first thing anyone would think upon seeing these 15 bodies would be that these were merely 15 perfectly ordinary, unremarkable women. One wouldn't for a moment imagine what had just happened.
"Reporting, Commander — the 15 'fallen' Owl Dragon women-soldiers are all revived and complete. In accordance with their differing conditions, they will awaken within a stretch of time ranging from 15 minutes to an hour hence. Next, they'll be settled in a recovery room." The voice of the starship's smart system sounded at Zhao Chen's ear.
"Then send them to the recovery room first." Zhao Chen at this point, too, made ready to move to the recovery room.
Soon enough, Zhao Chen arrived at a recovery room, spotless and free of a mote of dust, done chiefly in a white style of decor. Within it, upon 15 bedsteads, quietly lay 15 Owl Dragon crew still amid unconsciousness, their fair bodies already covered over with quilts. Those countenances seemed for all the world merely to be in a deep sleep. At their bedheads, upon the personal-information data panels, there were, besides, three indicator lights: respectively red, yellow, and green.
Zhao Chen knew the meaning of these three indicator lights: they stood for the psychological condition of the revived. Green stood for very normal, without any negative emotion whatsoever. Yellow stood for the revived's psychology having been affected to some degree, needing an appropriate soothing and counseling. Red was the worst case — signifying that the content of the revived's memory before death carried a great deal of negative emotion, needing psychological soothing.
Happily, of the 15 Owl Dragon women-soldiers Zhao Chen had revived just now, 13 of them were green. Only two were yellow.
Zhao Chen stood beside the bedsteads of the two women-soldiers with the yellow indicators, and looked over the information of the two. One was a bridge crew member of a T2 Black Rhino; one was the pilot of a T3 Phoenix-class interstellar fighter. As for the detailed content of their memories, that could only be asked of the two once they'd awakened.
And it was just at this point that a squad of female medics, dressed in medical-personnel attire, walked in.
"Lord Commander." the medical squad's leader reported.
"Next, these women-soldiers are entrusted to your charge. Remember several of the points of your work regulations: don't ask too much, don't think too much; your work is, at present, wholly classified — you are not permitted to leak any information to the outside," Zhao Chen stressed to the several before him.
"Yes!" the medical squad's leader said in earnest; this was something they'd received the relevant training on before ever they'd come to this interstellar warship. Thereupon, these 15 Owl Dragon women-soldiers were each taken charge of by the various medical personnel; of them, the two Owl Dragon women-soldiers marked at the yellow level were arranged into a separate recovery room.
Zhao Chen, during this while, had all along been waiting.
At last, the awaited moment came — the first green-level Owl Dragon woman-soldier awakened.
Guan Tongtong slowly opened her eyes, a faint ache in her mind; she saw the white ceiling before her, and there was, besides, a faint, delicate fragrance at the tip of her nose.
Where was this?
Guan Tongtong's whole face was one of puzzlement; her earlier memories, at this point, began to well up. She remembered that she was the crew member of an interstellar warship; in the last 10 seconds of her memory-fragments, the cabin where she'd been had flickered with a red alarm, warning at the same time to withdraw at once. But at the time she'd been the farthest from the position of the escape pods, and, on account of the hull's shuddering, she had, too, carelessly tumbled to the floor. And in the end, she'd not made it in time to the escape pods, and in a single instant had lost consciousness.
Then she must have given her life, she supposed…
Over this matter of her own death, Guan Tongtong felt no great grief. For, after all, she was herself an orphan, born in the Owl Dragon System; it was at the time of the Owl Dragon Fleet's recruitment drive that, her various metrics up to standard, she'd been able to become a crew member of the Owl Dragon Fleet. Within the Owl Dragon Fleet, she'd truly come to understand what was meant by living. A comfortable bed, delicious food. She'd felt for all the world as though she'd come to paradise. And so, to die for the Owl Dragon Fleet — that she did not regret. The one thing she might regret was, perhaps, that she hadn't gotten to eat a few more meals of the starship dining hall's fine food.
Oh, right… that video in a certain favorites-folder of her handheld terminal — she wondered whether it might not get dug up. For within it was a little face-swap clip she'd made. The male lead was their Lord Commander; and as for the female lead, well… that was, of course, none other than herself. Because of these little clips, she'd had no small number of sweet dreams.
"Guan Tongtong."
At this point, a voice called out to her.
Guan Tongtong looked toward the direction the voice came from, and she saw the male lead of those face-swap clips of hers — looking at her, of all things, with a face full of concern.
Heavens above!
This paradise was all too thoughtful — it had, of all things, even satisfied her heart's wish, with the Lord Commander accompanying her.
"Since this is paradise, then what are we waiting for! Lord Commander, come quick… let's make merry together!" In one stroke Guan Tongtong found her spirits; she flung her quilt straight off and, like a ravening wolf, a hungering tiger, pounced toward the Commander.
A life of sensual bliss always comes so utterly out of nowhere.[1]
She, Guan Tongtong — she'd die without a single regret!