Hearing this order Zhao Chen gave, the others reacted each in their own way.
Zhao Wan'er was startled. "They've all surrendered — why are we still destroying them?"
Zhao Chen's face was cold. "Surrender? From the moment they launched this battle, surrender was never among the fates open to them. If the ones defeated right now were us — have you thought about the kind of situation we'd face if we surrendered?"
Zhao Wan'er's expression turned complicated; she thought of that ending. Were they all to die in battle, that might be the better outcome.
Once taken captive, she and the crewwomen aboard would meet a fate worse than death!
Zhao Chen went on, "Just now I took a moment to patch into the Owl Dragon Star System's comm network. During the two months these interstellar pirates spent in the Owl Dragon Star System— —those nobles sent them at least 500 women from various planets. What sort of treatment do you think those women, delivered to those pirate ships, would have met with? You should know well enough."
Hearing this, Zhao Wan'er bit lightly at her lip.
But what the academy textbooks taught… was human rights…
"Charlotte — if Zhao Wan'er is unable to go on directing the battle, then command of the T2 Queen Bee passes now to you. Carry out the combat order," Zhao Chen said coldly.
Charlotte said, "Yes!"
In that moment the complicated look that had been in Charlotte's eyes vanished clean away; on the contrary, she was in full agreement with Captain Zhao Chen's decisive order.
Seasoned in war as she was, she knew full well: to survive on an interstellar battlefield, one had to be cold-blooded!
"Eldest Miss, Captain Zhao Chen's order is not wrong. On this battlefield, there can be not the slightest mercy — least of all toward scum like these, without a floor beneath them. They have no ties, no floor; if they live, there's nothing they won't do. The evil on them is enough to warrant 100 deaths; the filthy things they've done are beyond anything you could imagine." Charlotte counseled at Zhao Wan'er's side.
"But… there are still those captured wom— on those pirate ships…" Zhao Wan'er said, with some worry.
Charlotte said in a low, heavy voice, "For those women, death is, if anything, a release."
Zhao Wan'er drew a deep breath and looked to Charlotte. "May I go on directing the battle?"
Charlotte nodded.
Zhao Wan'er fixed her eyes on those six pirate ships across from her, and in that moment there was, in her gaze, an added trace of cold detachment.
"All interstellar drones, prepare for the final attack wave."
The bearded pirate captain was, at this moment, waiting for the enemy's ships to come take custody of their vessels — but what came instead was the interstellar drone swarm sweeping in from the distance, and Blizzard Zero's 1200mm cannon.
The shudder of the hull under attack brought the bearded pirate captain to his senses all at once.
"Zhao Chen! You bastard! You've gone back on your word!" the bearded pirate captain shrieked in fury — and these were his last words.
The next instant, his T2 Grey-Shark-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser was struck by Blizzard Zero's 1200mm cannon.
The other five ships likewise foundered under the fire.
By the time they thought to restart their ships, it was already too late.
Under Blizzard Zero's fire, under the bombardment of the T2 Queen Bee's interstellar drone swarm—
—the six pirate ships went down one after another.
At the last, they became, every one, so much starship wreckage strewn across this battlefield.
The battle was over.
"Hold position and regroup for 10 minutes. Charlotte, tally the combat expenditure on both ships. If there's no problem, in 10 minutes we make for the Owl Dragon Star System's core region," Zhao Chen said.
Those nobles mostly lived in the Owl Dragon Star System's core region; this business was far from over yet.
"Yes." Charlotte at once set about her work.
Zhao Chen sat in the captain's chair and let out a long breath.
This ought to count as his first true interstellar battle. His opponent had been only interstellar pirates, but it was a good deal more thrilling than that child's-play starship duel back at the academy.
Two ships, annihilating 35 pirate ships whole.
The result was quite a fine one.
Zhao Chen leaned back in the captain's chair and closed his eyes, as though resting.
In fact he'd opened the system interface.
He'd meant to wipe out this band of interstellar pirates root and branch, in truth, for another reason besides.
And that was the existence of a system mission.
Mission: Annihilate the interstellar pirate fleet in the Owl Dragon Star System.
Difficulty: C-rank
Reward: three task points and 600 points
Mission status: complete; reward available to claim.
That was right — it was for the sake of this system mission.
Zhao Chen tapped to claim the reward, and the three task points and 600 System points all went into his purse.
Together with the Quarterly Mission completed last time, Zhao Chen's "resources" were by now no small thing.
Host: Zhao Chen
Profession: Master Starship Engineer
Special Attribute: fleet Luck-value bonus, Eye of Insight
Points: 1100
Task points: 8
Starships: 2
Mission: none
Warehouse: T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar…
Eight task points, and a full 1,100 System points.
"After this I can think about redeeming another T2 item." A little flicker of anticipation stirred in Zhao Chen.
As his strength grew, he was, step by step, coming to have the foundation for building an interstellar fleet.
Charlotte's post-battle report broke into Zhao Chen's thoughts.
He opened his eyes and looked at the Charlotte on the far side of the video window.
"In this battle, the T2 Queen Bee's hull took no damage; drone losses were 107 T2 Baby-Bee-class Light Interstellar Drones, 39 T2 Killer-Bee-class Medium Interstellar Drones, and 5 T2 Hornet-class Heavy Interstellar Drones. Ammunition and materials expenditure, 67%; no casualties. Blizzard Zero's overall hull-armor damage is 7.5%, chiefly on the port hull armor; it doesn't affect the ship's sailing or fighting. Ammunition and materials expenditure, 46%; no casualties. Between the follow-up hull-armor repairs, the manufacture of replacement interstellar drones, and the ammunition spent — this battle's total expenditure comes to 8,000 star coins in market value," Charlotte reported.
A battle of a mere hour had burned through 8,000 star coins.
It was nothing set against the millions of star coins Zhao Chen had banked, to be sure.
But for an ordinary person, this was a fortune they couldn't amass in a whole lifetime.
"That said, in this battle we destroyed 35 ships, five of them T2. The wreckage of these ships we can later recover and put to use. We estimate it can yield 600,000 star coins in value." Charlotte offered another piece of news.
It delighted Zhao Chen beyond measure.
"600,000 star coins? That much?" Zhao Chen was startled.
Charlotte explained, "These 35 ships are all aged vessels, but taken to market they'd be worth 6 million star coins at the very least."
Put that way, it did add up: a pirate fleet worth 6 million at original price, its remaining wreckage yielding 600,000, was about right.
"Though the 600,000 star coins is what we'd get by smelting them down ourselves. If we sold them straight to someone else, we might only get 300,000," Charlotte added.
Come to think of it, the Owl Dragon Star System had no industrial facility to process starship wreckage.
Zhao Chen put a hand to his head, helpless. Whose fault was it that the Owl Dragon Star System was so backward, lacking every last thing? Its technological level was stuck squarely at the T1 tier.
"Leave the wreckage here for now; no one's going to come stealing it anyway. Blizzard Zero and the T2 Queen Bee, prepare to set out — warp-travel to the Owl Dragon Star System's core region. It's time I paid a call on those uncles of mine. They've laid on such a grand homecoming gift for us; I really must return the courtesy in kind." Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes, a cold detachment filling them.
The time to cleanse the Owl Dragon Star System had come.
Though this cleansing might well shake the very foundations of the Owl Dragon Star System — for a great many families were entangled in its interests.