The Lion King Star System.
The Owl Dragon Legion fleet crossed through a gate of light, returning here.
This scene left Chieftain Ted, there upon the bridge of the T4 Vermilion Bird-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser, utterly stunned.
Before the voyage, Chieftain Ted had been invited up onto the T4 Vermilion Bird's bridge to make this trip.
And he had, with his own eyes, witnessed a marvelous interstellar warship release a gate of light for all the world like a "star gate." Thereafter the Owl Dragon Legion fleet had crossed through the gate of light and come here.
"We… we've arrived at the Lord Commander's Lion King Star System just like that?" Chieftain Ted's two eyes were filled with a look of disbelief.
As for the secret of the T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump Ship, Zhao Chen had given some thought to whether or not he ought to keep it hidden from Chieftain Ted.
But earlier, Chieftain Ted's youngest daughter Midai'er had already seen it with her own eyes.
Add to that the fact that, once Chieftain Ted knew the coordinates of the Lion King Star System, a little turning of it over in his mind would bring him as well to notice the oddity in it.
So keeping it hidden held no great practical value.
And were Chieftain Ted to see it with his own eyes, it would shape, within Chieftain Ted's heart, all the mightier a standing for Zhao Chen — would make him all the clearer just what manner of person he was cooperating with.
"This is it! This! Before, sister Charlotte and I rushed to the rescue in exactly this way! Whoosh, and we were here!" Midai'er said in her excitement, off to the side.
"The one that worked this miracle is called the T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump Ship; as the name implies, its function is that it can create a temporary star gate, letting a fleet reach a designated set of coordinates," Zhao Chen said.
"Extraordinary! With an interstellar warship such as this, on the battlefield it's quite simply like adding wings to a tiger!" Chieftain Ted marveled again and again; he too was a fleet commander.
He knew full well just where the terror of an interstellar warship such as this lay.
Though it wasn't a combat-type interstellar warship, its worth was more important than that of the T4 interstellar warship he stood aboard now by no one knew how many times over.
"You have, of all things, two classes of T4-grade interstellar warship!" Midai'er looked at Zhao Chen with her eyes ablaze, all the more curious as to just what identity this lord of the Starlight Empire held.
She did not believe that a mere lord could possess so mighty a technological capacity.
Zhao Chen smiled and said nothing.
It was just at this moment that Lilith spoke up in report.
"Lord Commander — the battle statistics for the Black Wolf tribe home-star campaign are concluded."
The Black Wolf tribe home-star campaign?
Hearing this term, both Chieftain Ted and Midai'er were stunned a good long moment.
"Go ahead," Zhao Chen said mildly.
"In this Black Wolf tribe home-star campaign, we wholly annihilated the Black Wolf tribe's Eighth Legion fleet and Ninth Legion fleet, along with a Wolf-King Starport Fortress and their home star. Interstellar warships destroyed came, all told, to close to 8,000; a portion of the T1 interstellar warships and civilian interstellar warships we did not tally. Enemy interstellar soldiers annihilated came to close to 300 million, this including the estimated combat personnel within the Wolf-King Starport Fortress. As for the number of dead and wounded upon the home star, we did not conduct a tally. In this campaign, we lost one T3 Triceratops and five T2 Black Rhinos; five T3 interstellar warships sustained damage exceeding 30%, 13 T2 interstellar warships sustained damage exceeding 30%, and the rest all sustained no very serious damage. Personnel fallen: 478; gravely wounded: 30; lightly wounded: 138. In this campaign, we expended in combat 2.3 billion star coins' worth of strategic resources. Because the battle was hasty, we conducted neither surrender-persuasion nor the collecting of ship-wreck spoils, so there were no campaign gains whatever. Report complete," Lilith reported.
Zhao Chen nodded, satisfied.
To assault the Black Wolf tribe's home star would surely draw reinforcements to their aid; and though the Owl Dragon Legion was mighty, its munitions were, after all, insufficient.
Were they to be pinned down by the enemy, there'd still be no small danger.
And so the Owl Dragon Legion fought it out swift and decisive, took no prisoners whatsoever, did not sweep the battlefield — and so had no spoils of any kind to gain.
"You… you went before to raid the Black Wolf tribe's home star? And destroyed the Black Wolf tribe's home star, no less?" Midai'er was the first to fail to hold it in, and inquired in astonishment.
Zhao Chen said, mild and unruffled, "That's right."
"The Wolf-King Starport Fortress was destroyed too?"
"Yes."
"The Black Wolf tribe's Eighth Legion and Ninth Legion were wholly annihilated by you?"
"Yes."
"And you blew up the home star as well?"
"75,000 T3-grade interstellar missiles, in a ground-scouring bombardment."
Midai'er's mouth gaped wide in astonishment; a long while passed before she came back to her senses.
"This was a battle that you commanded!" Chieftain Ted was so agitated his very voice trembled a little.
Zhao Chen pointed at Charlotte, beside him.
"It was Charlotte who commanded this battle; under her command, the Black Wolf tribe's starport fortress, its two legion fleets, and that home star were, all of them, destroyed at a single stroke."
Charlotte looked at her Commander with some astonishment; she'd never imagined the Commander would, in these words and behind them, push the whole of the merit directly onto her shoulders.
But one must bear in mind — she was only a commander; the fleet itself belonged to Zhao Chen, and the campaign plan, too, was one Zhao Chen had laid out.
Had it not been for the Commander's orders, she, Charlotte, could never have brought this campaign off.
"Charlotte! You are the pride of our White Tiger tribe. The Black Wolf tribe are but the claws and fangs of the Black Tiger clan; they helped the Black Tiger clan persecute us, and after they had squeezed us out of the twenty great tribes, their Black Wolf tribe became one of the twenty great tribes! No small number of our tribespeople — and no small number of the revolutionary army's comrades-in-arms besides — died at the Black Wolf tribe's hands. This time, you have dealt the Black Wolf tribe so heavy a blow; you have vented the foul rage on behalf of those fallen comrades-in-arms." Chieftain Ted wept for very joy.
Midai'er, all the more, looked at her own sister in worship, and, agitated, threw her arms about her sister's waist.
"Sister Charlotte, you are the pride of our White Tiger tribe. I'm going to tell this to the tribespeople — and to tell the Warhammer rebels, too! Our great General Charlotte has returned!"
Within, Charlotte didn't know whether to laugh or cry; she seemed to have guessed the reason for all of this, and she looked toward her Commander, at her side — all of this was something the Commander had done on purpose.
Taking notice of the somewhat "reproachful" light in Charlotte's gaze, Zhao Chen clasped his two hands behind his back, wearing the very expression of one who knew nothing whatever.
In any case, this "god" that was Charlotte — Zhao Chen would forge her for certain.
"Rein in your feelings for the moment. I'll arrange a habitable planet within the Lion King Star System to settle you, and provide the most basic living equipment and resources. Of course, should your people be willing, they can also exchange labor for a bit of extra pay — for instance, by joining the work of my enterprises. As it happens, in my industrial park there are the dwarf clan. Or, again, they might join my fleet — though, as you've seen for yourselves the state of my fleet, it recruits only females; but the treatment, too, you've all seen with your own eyes. Of course, all of this is voluntary; I would never in the least compel it." Zhao Chen wore the very picture of a good and kindly man.
Off to the side, Lilith shifted her gaze away; she had the feeling that this scene was, truly, one she'd seen somewhere before.