Thud.
This was the sound of a lollipop dropping to the floor.
"Wh… what? Build 120,000 interstellar warships within 20 months!" Annie's mouth was opened wide; her two hands, trembling and quaking, were placed upon the table, and in her two eyes was nothing but a look of terror.
"Don't be nervous, don't be nervous. The great majority of them are T2-grade interstellar warships." Zhao Chen soothed her.
Annie at once retorted, "Lord Commander, even if they're T2-grade interstellar warships — this is a full 120,000! A construction plan this vast, I simply can't marshal it all together! Even if you were to press a ship-cannon to Annie's head, it still couldn't be done!" Annie folded both arms across her chest, pouting, wearing a whole posture of I resign myself to my fate and play the rascal.
Zhao Chen said with a laugh, "It's not that it'll all be handed to you to take charge of. When the time comes, I'll get in contact with the Northern Goose Group's Li Yaqi. Over on her side, hasn't she 500 T2 Iron Hammers? When the time comes, I'll find a way to have her expand a batch of T2 Iron Hammers, and by these T2 Iron Hammers a portion of the interstellar-warship construction task can be undertaken. And, of course, on our side we'll expand another batch of T3 Furnaces too; reckoned up overall, to complete the construction plan of 120,000 interstellar warships within 20 months is, after all, no problem."
Zhao Chen naturally couldn't have Annie go do a thing that was, at bottom, impossible to complete; back when he'd nailed down this plan, he'd already, in his heart, roughly done the reckoning — and the possibility of completing it was very high.
"If you add in the Northern Goose Group, then it's passable." Annie's pouting lips deflated; she looked, with some ache of heart, at the lollipop dropped on the floor, as though torn over something, her hand reaching out and then drawing back again.
"This being so — as it happens, this batch of raw-material supplies the little Princess provides can ease our earlier predicament of lacking raw-material resources," Lilith said from the side.
360 billion star coins of profit.
When Lilith had heard this news, both her eyes had been patterns of money.
Annie went on to grumble, "But the difficulty of this is, after all, no small thing; for, after all, it means we'll need to expand a very large portion of technical work-trades…"
"If, when the time comes, all the construction tasks can be completed on schedule — then I'm considering retiring our T2 Bronze Eden, and using it as a reward. To reward and honor the most meritorious contributor," Zhao Chen said, as though musing to himself; he deliberately looked, besides, toward Lilith at his side.
"What do you think?"
Lilith nodded.
"No problem. We'll next be mass-producing the T3 Silver Eden; to keep that T2 Bronze Eden around is, indeed, somewhat unfitting."
The next second, Zhao Chen saw an object come pouncing, for all the world like a groundhog lunging at its prey — swift as a bolting hare!
It darted right up before him!
Zhao Chen at once leaned his body back.
A good thing his reaction was swift; otherwise this fellow's head would've made an intimate acquaintance with Zhao Chen's own.
And at this moment, a pair of burning-hot eyes were fixed straight and unblinking upon Zhao Chen.
"Commander, rest assured! Never mind 120,000 interstellar warships — even 200,000! Annie absolutely guarantees to complete every last one of the construction tasks!" Annie vowed with the most solemn assurance.
This girl — just now, when she'd heard the figure of 120,000, she'd worn a whole there's-nothing-for-it-but-to-burn-the-funeral-money air of doom.
And now, in the blink of an eye, she'd transformed into a model worker.
"Ahem, ahem… sit yourself back down first; sprawling on the table like this, what sort of look is that." Zhao Chen pointed at Annie's seat.
Annie meekly sat back down; but by this point her spirits were flourishing to a fine pitch, her body drawn up ramrod-straight, wearing a whole earnest posture.
And in her mind she was fantasizing about the scene of sitting in possession of a T2 Bronze Eden all her own.
The happy life was, just now, beckoning to the adorable Annie!
"First let's speak of the detailed construction plan. And, of course, all this is on the premise of not affecting our current quarter's construction plan!" Zhao Chen reminded her.
At present there was still a T4 Vermilion Bird under construction, along with a whole series of other interstellar warships.
And, moreover, the quarterly mission had its requirement too: the number of active-service T3 interstellar warships needed to reach 300.
These were all part of the originally set construction plan, and could not be affected.
"These are all no problem!" Annie said in earnest.
"Then give me an outline plan first." Zhao Chen spread open his hands, looking at Annie and Lilith.
Annie, without a second word, fully unfolded her handheld terminal; dozens of screens, large and small, were projected before Annie's eyes, and she pressed lightly by her own ear, whereupon an auxiliary-type spectacle-device popped out.
Thereupon, Annie entered a state of earnest concentration such as she'd never been in before, her short little hands editing data and calculating at a speed like lightning.
Lilith, at her side, was, too, coordinating along with her.
Lilith couldn't help sighing in her heart: the Lord Commander truly had grasped Annie's seven inches — he knew just how to make this thousand-li steed of an Annie run fast!
"Commander… hic… I seem to have nothing to do here?" Charlotte, off to the side, watched the busy Annie and Lilith; at this point it seemed she alone had nothing to do.
Zhao Chen said, "At present, our hypothetical enemy is the Starlight Empire's internal Prince Faction; the interstellar warships they directly control right now number 200,000. And so, what I need is for you to plan out, ahead of time, some feasible battle plans — to determine how many interstellar warships we'll need in order to meet this coming war."
"You still mean to go on building interstellar warships? Isn't there already a construction plan for 120,000 interstellar warships?" Charlotte was given a start; this Lord Commander of hers meant to carry the ship-spamming through to the very end.
Zhao Chen said with a laugh, pointing at Annie, who was working with all her mind and soul, "Squeeze a bit, and we can, after all, still build the interstellar warships we need. We must have faith in Annie."
"Then on my side I'll draft up a construction outline for the future Owl Dragon Legion fleet," Charlotte said.
"Very well. And the ship-type requirements in it needn't be fixed; for, after all, in the future there's no telling but we'll be commissioning some new classes of interstellar warship." Zhao Chen reminded her.
"Mm." As for the Lord Commander ceaselessly bringing forth new classes of interstellar warship, Charlotte had long since ceased to find it strange.
Time slipped swiftly by.
During it, Zhao Chen, too, would assist the three of them in their work.
Even the meals in between were, one and all, delivered by dedicated personnel into the meeting room.
It was the first time Zhao Chen had ever seen Annie, in the very face of fine food, of all things able to work on, forgetting sleep and neglecting food.
Annie paid not the least heed to the meal laid out at her side.
Though Annie was, at times, silly and simple, she could, all the same, tell clearly which was the weightier of the two: a single meal of fine and delicious food, and the future possession of a T2 Bronze Eden-class Ship.
Charlotte was the first to draft out the interstellar warships the Owl Dragon Legion would need in facing a campaign to come.
"If the hypothetical enemy is 200,000 imperial-army interstellar warships — then in a situation of full outfitting with T3 interstellar warships, with one full-establishment interstellar legion fleet, we'd have the ability to give them a fight!" Charlotte reported.
One full-establishment interstellar legion fleet.
That was 3,000 T3 interstellar warships, equipped besides with a small number of T4-grade flagships.
Zhao Chen closed his eyes; it was for all the world as though he'd already seen 3,000 interstellar warships bearing the Owl Dragon paint-scheme arrayed in ranks before him.