Zhao Chen at once called a halt to the order for the fleet's departure on campaign, having all the interstellar warships stand by where they were for the time being.
"Just what exactly is the situation? Is there any detailed news!" Zhao Chen looked at Lilith gravely.
The Starlight Empire's Crown Prince, the First Prince, fallen in battle. This was no small matter!
Lilith said in earnest, "I've already sent people back to the Owl Dragon System to make inquiries into the situation, but from the look of it now, this news within the Starlight Empire has, on the contrary, not yet spread — at least, not among the populace. And from the Starlight faction's interstellar fleet in the Reef Star Region, we have only a few one-sided fragments of the situation." As she spoke, Lilith gave Zhao Chen a detailed report of the battle intelligence the T3 Silver-Rat-class Light Interstellar Stealth Reconnaissance Ships had spied out.
After Zhao Chen had heard it through, he'd, in the main, sorted out the thread of it.
Because of the Mechanical Race's withdrawal, the regions where the three great empires had originally bordered the Mechanical Race had had a very great swath of unregulated star systems left vacant. After a brief spell of pondering, all three great empires proved unable to withstand the temptation, and each dispatched interstellar fleets to move in, one after another, and seize these star systems. Though the people of the Starlight Empire led by Governor Chu held that this matter of the Mechanical Race's withdrawal was no simple thing, and mustn't be taken lightly — the greater part of people merely looked to the profit right before their eyes. Even if there truly were some ruse within it — could you watch, wide-eyed and helpless, as those resource systems were snatched away by the other two empires? And so, the Starlight Empire, too, dispatched interstellar fleets and set the relevant plans in motion, with Governor Chu at the head, leading the border imperial army to begin controlling those resource systems. And, moreover, the Starlight Empire's high command dispatched, besides, some people to assist Governor Chu. This so-called "assisting" was, in fact, out of the thought that they might, from this pie, get a slice more to divide. For, after all, with so many star systems suddenly appearing — those were all resources!
And among them, there was, besides, the Crown Prince — the First Prince!
The Crown Prince, the First Prince, was the one who was in the future to become king of the Starlight Empire; such a great matter of opening up territory and establishing merit and achievement — how could he not take part in it? And so he'd brought his own royal fleet, 3,000 ships in number, and, following Governor Chu's imperial-army fleet, unfolded the relevant military action.
At the outset there was indeed no conflict between the three imperial powers; the resource systems to be controlled were too many, after all, and everyone was intent only on taking them over and arranging the construction plans that followed. But soon enough, this sort of balance was broken. Because over the interests of this pie, there began to appear "collisions." The maps of the star systems the three great empires controlled came to be adjacent to one another, and this dragged out the problem of demarcation. At the outset, everyone still spoke, by word of mouth, of peaceful handling and common development. But of each side's nobles, of 10 there would always be a few who stuck out their necks — fearless of death for the sake of profit. And so, friction arose — indeed, even small-scale local wars broke out. And at such a time, none of the empires could possibly publicly show weakness; would that not be slapping the very face of one's own empire? This being so, the problem of allocating the remaining several star systems ground to a deadlock.
And just three days ago —
The First Prince suddenly, personally led his own royal fleet and vanished from his own garrison-ground. By the time it was discovered, five hours had already passed — it was when Governor Chu's subordinate imperial-army fleet went to make its routine contact with the First Prince's royal fleet. At this point, they discovered they couldn't reach them, and sensed that something was amiss. They at once dispatched the nearest interstellar fleet to go and take a look — whereupon they discovered that, at the royal fleet's garrison-ground, not a single interstellar warship was to be seen.
The First Prince and his royal fleet's whereabouts unknown? This was a piece of news quite grave indeed! Governor Chu there and then handed down the order, sending out all the interstellar reconnaissance ships to scout and patrol, seeking the traces of the royal fleet. And at the last, after searching for five days, they truly did find the relevant traces. But it was a result that not a single one of them was willing to see!
Zhao Chen looked at the one panoramic image before his eyes — this was a stretch of cosmic star region; because it was the space at the fringe of a star system, it had, originally, been without any light. But after several interstellar reconnaissance ships had dropped illumination flares, they'd lit up this star region. And this panoramic image was captured under just such conditions.
Everywhere was the broken wreckage of interstellar warships — hulls rent into four and five pieces, the bent gun-barrels of interstellar battleships, interstellar destroyers blasted clean in half. One could even see some corpses of the already-dead.
The most horror-striking scene was, none other than, several huge interstellar-warship wrecks. Among them, there were four Zhao Chen was very familiar with.
T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleships!
Interstellar battleships that had once been awe-inspiring in their martial might had, at this moment, been reduced to wreckage and ruin drifting amid the star region, lending one a feeling of desolation.
And there was, besides, one interstellar-warship wreck even larger than the T4 Boreas — hovering within the star region for all the world like a "ghost castle." Its hull length was, at the least, over 10-odd kilometers! The "broken walls and crumbled ramparts," the "scars and wounds of shell-fire" upon it — all of them spoke, without exception, of everything it had suffered.
Though he'd never laid eyes on this class of interstellar warship in person, in Zhao Chen's Owl Dragon Fleet database there was some simple introduction to this interstellar warship. It was one of the only two classes of T4 interstellar warship the Starlight Empire had!
The T4 Starlight-Emperor-class Medium Carrier Starship.
Its publicly known data was scant in the extreme, because its number in active service was, so it was said, not even a tenth of the T4 Boreas's. It was a class of T4-grade interstellar warship developed and manufactured by the Starlight Empire's royal house. First equipped, of course, were the royal fleets, and the elite imperial-army fleet responsible for guarding the Capital Star. As for a border imperial-army fleet of Governor Chu of Chu River's kind, if it wished to possess one, it could do so only by way of purchase — and the price was absurdly high. And so, among the fleets under Governor Chu of Chu River and the imperial-army fleets, most of the flagships were T4 Boreas; the T4 Starlight Emperor was rarely to be seen! For, after all, this thing called a carrier starship — though its combat power was extraordinary — its build cost was quite exceedingly steep, and it needed, besides, to be equipped with corresponding interstellar fighters and interstellar drones before it could form effective combat power. Up to now, the T4 Starlight Emperor had never fought a single proper interstellar war; more than anything, it stood as a symbol of the Starlight Empire's royal house, now and again attending some important ceremonies of a star region and the like. And it was for this reason, too, that from its development and manufacture and entry into service up to now, there had never once appeared a situation of its being lost in battle.
But at this moment, so costly an interstellar warship — its build cost more than likely reaching 5 billion star coins — had, of all things, fallen within this unpeopled star region. This was something not a soul would have dared to imagine.
Zhao Chen knit his brows; looking at this piece of intelligence data, he murmured, "This is no small matter. And what's more — Governor Chu of Chu River, who arrived here at the first moment and took control of this area, after a detailed investigation of the battlefield ruins and those interstellar-warship wrecks, discovered, of all things, that the combat-recorder-instrument information of every single interstellar warship had all been wiped clean; the scene held not a scrap of the attacker's information left behind!"
Lilith nodded, and said, "To ambush a nation's crown prince, and, without a soul or a ghost being any the wiser, wholly annihilate a royal fleet. My guess is that, right now, the Starlight Empire's upper echelons have already been turned upside down."