The Owl Dragon Star System had, all told, one star, 12 planets, five dwarf planets, 400,000 asteroids, 77 moons, and better than 400 periodic comets.
By their habitability coefficient, these were sorted into three categories: high-quality habitable worlds, low-quality habitable worlds, and sub-standard habitable worlds.
A high-quality habitable world was, as the name said, one whose natural environment — whether by nature or by later terraforming — was highly suited to life.
A low-quality habitable world was one on which certain factors harmful to life existed, but which was habitable for life all the same.
A sub-standard habitable world was more complicated. Some interstellar races could live on such a world; the great majority of interstellar races needed to don special apparatus to eke out a bare living there, or else to build small artificial habitable cities beneath energy domes.
The Owl Dragon Star System was poor in resources.
It had but a single high-quality habitable world, seven low-quality habitable worlds, and 73 sub-standard habitable worlds.
These habitable worlds took in planets, dwarf planets, moons, and asteroids alike.
The Owl Dragon Star System had a population of 500 million, of which 99% were human, the remainder humanoid interstellar races.
The Owl Dragon Star System's primary world was called Owl Dragon Prime.
Owl Dragon Prime was the world where most of the Owl Dragon Star System's nobles lived, and the one high-quality habitable world here besides.
And on this day, the whole of Owl Dragon Prime was wrapped in a strange, uneasy atmosphere.
Every space elevator was halted; within the starport in Owl Dragon Prime's near-orbit, no ship was permitted to leave port.
These orders seemed, one and all, to proclaim that some great thing was afoot.
The Bao residence.
Patriarch Bao sat, at this moment, in a chair in the great hall, where a crowd of Bao children waited, on edge.
"Patriarch, can we move on the Zhao residence now!" one of the Bao children could not help but speak up.
Eyes closed, Patriarch Bao said in a low, heavy voice, "No rush. Until word comes back from Dragon-Tail Planet, not a single ship, not a single mecha, not a single soldier of our Bao family is to move!"
Watching the steady, unruffled Patriarch Bao, no few of the Bao family present thought him too cautious by half.
By now that good-for-nothing baron was surely dead past dying — why waste this bit of time here?
But without Patriarch Bao's leave, no one dared act rashly.
And at this moment, a few hundred kilometers from the Bao residence, at the finest spot in all Owl Dragon Prime, stood the Zhao residence.
The Zhao residence had none of that sense of the high-tech about it; on the contrary, it used timber-framed buildings, raised up amid mountains and streams, quaint and old in style.
And it was at this hushed, tranquil residence that, at this moment, every member of the Zhao family wore the ashen look of the dead, some already clutching their heads and weeping aloud.
"It's over, it's over. Our Zhao family is well and truly finished today."
"Had I known, I'd have moved out of the Owl Dragon Star System with my cousin back then. Better to drift as a stranger in foreign parts than to sit here waiting to die."
"My poor child — newborn, and already facing a fate like this."
An old woman leaning on a dragon-head cane came slowly out just then, and struck the ground hard with the cane.
"Every one of you with this sorry, defeated look — what kind of sons and daughters of the Zhao family do you call yourselves!" the old woman berated them.
Attending the old woman at her side was a red-haired woman.
"Old Madam Zhao, that lot led by the Bao and Cui families have already sealed off the whole of Owl Dragon Prime and taken control of the patrol fleet. And there's a rumor, too… they have… they've hired a pirate fleet to ambush Zhao Chen and Zhao Wan'er. This… this is nothing less than an attempt to wipe out our Zhao family root and branch!" a middle-aged man said helplessly.
"Every comm channel across Owl Dragon Prime has been locked down; even if we wanted to call for help, heaven wouldn't answer and earth wouldn't respond. Our Zhao family — today the whole clan is to be extinguished!" Another woman, clutching her child, wept bitter tears.
The old madam looked at these people and heaved with anger.
"Old Madam, your health is poor. Best go back inside and rest for now," the red-haired woman said.
"Jiang Hong — still no reaching Little Xia?" the old madam murmured.
The red-haired woman shook her head. "Still no reaching the Eldest Miss."
"And the second and third children? You said before that they insisted on coming back; did you warn them, whatever they do, not to come?" the old madam asked.
The red-haired woman hesitated. "I did warn them, but after that one contact there was no further word. There's no telling what the situation is now."
"Little Hong, you'd kept your identity hidden all this while. Now you've openly shown yourself at the Zhao residence; you…" The old madam felt some worry for the woman before her.
"My charge was to guard the Zhao family from the start; Jiang Hong's life was saved by the Eldest Miss, so of course I'll carry out this duty. Today, I live or die with the Zhao family." the red-haired woman said, her face unchanging.
This red-haired woman was Jiang Hong, the hidden watcher the Zhao family's eldest sister had left in the Owl Dragon Star System.
Knowing that the watcher's task no longer mattered now, she had come, resolute, to the Zhao residence, ready for a last fight to the death.
"Haah. Who could have thought our Zhao family would fall to such a pass? To think that in those days our late patriarch was… cough, cough, cough…" The old madam broke into a violent fit of coughing, and Jiang Hong made to help her back inside first.
Just then, a huge explosion came from overhead.
Everyone instinctively looked up.
There, a starship trailing flames was plummeting down from beyond the atmosphere, damage visible in many places along its hull.
"That's… a T1 Vulture-class Medium Interstellar Frigate!" Jiang Hong knew the falling ship at a glance.
This T1 Vulture-class Medium Interstellar Frigate went nose-first into the distant sea, the impact throwing up a vast surge of waves that formed a tsunami sweeping outward in every direction.
Mercifully, there was no populated area near the tsunami.
"What in the world is happening?" The Zhao family were astonished.
"Look, quick — there seems to be a fierce battle up in space!" A sharp-eyed member of the Zhao family noticed the red flashes appearing now and again beyond the atmosphere.
Who was fighting outside Owl Dragon Prime?
This was the question in every heart.
"Could it be the interstellar pirates have fallen out with the Bao and Cui families' people, and so they're fighting?" someone murmured.
"Activate the Zhao residence's energy dome! Combat mecha, to your battle posts at once." Jiang Hong stepped forward now and gave the orders.
Soon a screen of light domed over the whole of the Zhao residence.
Energy-dome technology was simple enough to deploy on the ground; but to move it onto a starship was an era-defining feat.
30 T1 combat mecha appeared around the Zhao residence — the Zhao family's last fighting strength, though against a starship assault they had, basically, no hope of winning.
"Look, quick — something's about to enter the atmosphere!" someone cried out.
A huge silhouette was slowly entering the atmosphere — a body so vast it ran a full 300 or 400 meters.
"Is that… a starship?" someone made out the shape.
"It looks like a carrier starship!"
As better than half that silhouette entered the atmosphere, they at last saw the thing in its true form.
But this only deepened everyone's bafflement — no one had ever seen this ship before, so why had it appeared over Owl Dragon Prime?
Suddenly a human voice rang out across this land, like a peal of thunder.
It came from that carrier starship.
"I, Zhao Chen, have returned."