"This is your interstellar warship, Wan'er? How's it so small? Is it a T2-grade one? And how's the shape of this ship-class so odd and peculiar?" Xue Xiaoxiao, aboard a shuttle-craft, followed Zhao Wan'er toward her flagship.
From a good way off, Xue Xiaoxiao had already caught sight of an interstellar warship hovering there.
The hull was long and narrow in its outward form, and its whole exterior bore no weapon modules whatever — not so much as a single bow cannon.
"Wait till later on, and you'll know just how mighty this interstellar warship is," Zhao Wan'er said with a mysterious little laugh.
Xue Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes.
"Still keeping me in suspense, are you. Come to think of it — how many interstellar warships does your brother's Owl Dragon fleet have now? 50? Or 100? Still with that T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser as the main warship, and the T2 Black Rhino-class Interstellar Heavy Assault Frigate as the chief part of the composition?"
Xue Xiaoxiao was, at this moment, for all the world like a walking book of 100,000 whys, chasing after Zhao Wan'er and questioning her without pause.
"The answers to these questions, you can go on and discover for yourself, little by little, later on." Zhao Wan'er deliberately withheld a straight answer.
"You!" Xue Xiaoxiao set her hands on her hips.
"Wan'er, you're doing it on purpose! Deliberately keeping me on tenterhooks!"
"And isn't this learned from a certain someone? Back in our academy days, whenever there was some matter only you knew, every time, in front of me, you'd tell but half of it," Zhao Wan'er said with a wicked grin.
The wheel of fortune turns; Zhao Wan'er, like her brother, was quite one to hold a grudge.
Xue Xiaoxiao pursed her lips; she looked at the starry-river scenery beyond the porthole, and could not help but sigh.
"You know, it was happier back in the days at the Northstar Starship Military Academy. Nothing to trouble one's head over — not like now, with us scattered across the whole breadth of the world, each with affairs of our own. In a whole year we might not manage to meet even a handful of times. And this time, Senior Su Lan's run into such great trouble besides. I truly don't want to grow up — I truly wish I could stay at the Northstar Academy forever."
Zhao Wan'er put her arms around Xue Xiaoxiao, and comforted her.
"There are always some things that, sooner or later, we've got to face."
…
Time flew; after New Year, order within the Owl Dragon Legion very soon returned to what it had been.
Those who built ships built ships; those who levied recruits levied recruits.
Within the academy, too, new recruits were trained without cease, making fresh blood for the Owl Dragon Legion.
And now and again, the interstellar transport-ship fleet Red Rose led in person would arrive at the Owl Dragon Star System, bearing the raw-material resources the little Princess had delivered.
In the blink of an eye, time had come to the end of February.
Zhao Chen, aboard the T4 Vermilion Bird-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser, arrived at the interstellar industrial zone — a region where a great mass of interstellar industrial ships lay docked, given over expressly to the starship industry.
And at this very moment, hovering here were a full 300 T3 Furnace-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships!
A vast, mighty stretch of them, one and all — from afar, for all the world like some boundless interstellar industrial cluster.
Ranged in neat, uniform order, and each engaged upon its own construction task.
A video window popped open; on the far side was Nana.
"Lord Commander, the new year's first-phase build task is complete; all 300 T3 Furnaces are finished being expanded. With the Northern Goose Group's help, the raw materials expended came, all told, to 15 billion star coins. Next, we resume the other interstellar warships' manufacturing plans, and speed up the expansion of the combat-type interstellar warships. This is the roster of interstellar warships we mean to produce over the next few months; please look it over, Lord Commander."
"How is it that it's you reporting this matter to me? Where's Annie?" Zhao Chen inquired, taken aback.
Nana's eyes cast a glance off to the side, and then, somewhat guilty of conscience, she said, "Sister Annie says she's not in."
Zhao Chen was stunned.
"Are you a fool or something! You say I'm not in — you don't say I said I'm not in!" A small fist knocked down onto Nana's head, accompanied by a very faint grumble of reproach.
Nana looked, all aggrieved, off beyond the video frame.
"I… I'm not much good at lying to the Commander…"
"Annie — is it that T2 Bronze Eden…" Zhao Chen was just beginning.
A figure sprang out into the video frame.
"Lord Commander, how is it you've contacted us at a time like this? I'd meant to wait until I'd finished being busy, and then report to you the news of our 300 T3 Furnaces' completion," Annie said, all grins and cheek.
Behind Annie, Nana muttered under her breath, "But you plainly just said you were worried the Commander would pile more production tasks on you once he saw you — that's why you had me report to the Commander."
The corner of Annie's mouth twitched; she shot a fierce glare back at her sister behind her.
This little cotton-jacket[1] of hers lets in far too much draft!
"All right — business first." Zhao Chen spoke up; toward a temperament such as Annie's, he'd long since grown inured.
"Go ahead," Annie said with a placating smile.
"Since the 300 T3 Furnaces are complete, then the interstellar-warship production tasks that come next mustn't stop either. I've had a look at the production tasks Nana reported up to me just now — the way it balances our own production plans against the plans for the interstellar warships sold outside is very good. But I have one interstellar warship here, and one other interstellar project besides, that I think you can fold in," Zhao Chen said.
Annie clutched at her own heart.
She'd known it!
The Commander was a very demon — he'd not rest until he'd wrung Annie dry.
This demon!
This great demon!
Though so she thought within, Annie cast a glance at that pink T2 Bronze Eden design blueprint pasted on the wall of the room.
She drew a deep breath, and said with a smile, "Go ahead! We, being the Lord Commander's engineers, have it for our very duty to build the Lord Commander more interstellar warships! We are willing to offer up our all for the Lord Commander!"
Behind Annie, Nana looked at her sister, aghast — as though this were not the sister she knew.
For one must bear in mind that, ordinarily, the one Annie grumbled about most was the Lord Commander.
In her bedroom there were, besides, a good several dolls of the Lord Commander; very nearly every night she'd ride astride them and let loose a whole barrage upon the Lord Commander doll.
Those dolls had been knocked about into something scarcely human anymore!
And when at work in private, on average, every half hour of talk would carry in it some words grumbling about the Commander.
Zhao Chen raised a hand, and two holographic projections appeared before Annie and Nana.
These were the holographic projections of one interstellar warship and one starport.
At the sight, Nana's two eyes lit up, for all the world as though she'd caught sight of a new toy.
Annie, meanwhile, was ashen as death, wearing the very look of one whose body and soul alike had been drained dry.
"This one is the T3 Storm-Fortress-class Large Star-Port; I'm hoping you can build one within the Owl Dragon Star System. Then accumulate the relevant experience, and in future deploy several, one after another, in the Reef Star Region." Having finished introducing the starport, Zhao Chen went straight on to introduce the other.
"This interstellar warship is named the T4 Gemini-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship."