"Then why didn't you first send these Owl Dragon Legion fleets to some other battlefield, and only pull them back here when the enemy fleet needed intercepting? Wouldn't that maximize the fleet's combat strength?" In the course of the waiting, Chu Xuan suddenly put forth a doubt.
Zhao Chen rolled his eyes; he shrugged and said: "My dear auntie, you think I've got a great many of those interstellar jump-ships? I don't mind telling you — the two T4 interstellar jump-ships that carried us over are already the last two on my hands! To use them again after this, I'd have to wait a week."
Because this data was no secret, Zhao Chen had nothing worth hiding, and laid his cards on the table outright.
"This interstellar jump-ship of yours — what's its build-cost, how's its output. Any thought of selling a few abroad?" Chu Changhe looked at Zhao Chen, his eyebrows working up and down without cease, his meaning about as plain as could be.
"Reckoned by the market rate, this T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump-Ship would sell for at least 100 billion star coins a piece. How many would you like?" Zhao Chen looked at Chu Changhe with a smile.
In this Zhao Chen wasn't spinning a tale.
Though at present T4-grade interstellar warships had no publicly stated price or profit share.
But think of it — the profit margin even on T3-grade interstellar warships ran to a dozen-odd times and up.
This T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump-Ship was a strategic starship besides; that its profit margin should climb higher still — wasn't that perfectly natural?
The more so as its per-ship build-cost alone came to 5 billion star coins!
Were Zhao Chen not so flush at present, he simply couldn't afford to build so many T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump-Ships.
Hearing this, Chu Changhe didn't feel Zhao Chen was fleecing him; but to truly have him lay out so much money to buy this warship — even with the mind for it, the Chu family's purse at present would not allow it.
Chu Changhe looked at Zhao Chen, smiling narrow-eyed: "Listen to you — what sort of relation are our two families, eh? Talking money only hurts feelings, no?"
So saying, Chu Changhe let slip a you-and-I-both-understand sort of expression.
Though he'd made no mention of her, how could Chu Xuan not know the meaning in their words; she rolled her eyes outright.
But truth be told, she herself was much taken with this T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump-Ship too.
Zhao Chen shot Chu Changhe a "look of scorn" as well — a dignified Imperial Marshal, and for the sake of one interstellar warship openly and shamelessly selling off his granddaughter.
Had he no shame at all?
But Chu Changhe minded none of this in the least.
Shame?
Was shame any use?
If shamelessness could win battles on the field, could destroy a few more enemy ships, could protect a few more of his own soldiers.
Then this old face of his, old Chu could have done without long ago.
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
Just then, within the operation-interface before Zhao Chen, the detectors of the 3,000 T3 Ranger-type Interstellar Warp Interceptors sent back a response all at once.
This meant they'd already caught interstellar warships in the midst of warp-voyaging.
"Come knocking," Zhao Chen murmured.
In that instant, Chu Changhe — grinning and joking a moment ago — went grave-faced, and said no more, awaiting the command Zhao Chen would next hand down.
"Lilith, relay my command. The Owl Dragon Third Legion and the First Legion's task-force form an ambush formation; have Baixue's interstellar missile ships ready for battle at any moment." Zhao Chen handed down the command, and Lilith began relaying it.
The whole bridge's command system now sprang into motion.
"What are we to do?" Zhao Ruyue could not help asking.
Beside Zhao Ruyue, Qin Xiaolei clenched her fists in tension.
The one to be ambushed here was Qin Ming — the very slayer of Qin Xiaolei's father, the arch-culprit who'd left Qin Xiaolei's "house broken and kin dead"!
To slay her own foe with her own hand here was, naturally, a thing Qin Xiaolei had long awaited.
"The Chu-family fleet and the Princess fleet serve as the reserve, holding to the rear of the two wings of the battle-line, awaiting my next command at any moment." Zhao Chen deployed.
Zhao Ruyue was startled — she'd never thought Zhao Chen would have them take the reserve.
Bear in mind, never mind their own Princess Legion fleet.
The other side was Marshal Chu Changhe's elite fleet, 20 T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleships among it!
And Zhao Chen would arrange it even so.
Nor did she know whether Marshal Chu Changhe would be willing to abide by such an…
While Zhao Ruyue fretted, in another video window Chu Changhe answered without a flicker of feeling: "The Chu-family fleet, at your command."
As a marshal, Chu Changhe could bend as well as stand tall; the more so as he'd seen the Owl Dragon Legion's combat power, and watched with his own eyes how the Owl Dragon Legion had grown so swiftly these years.
For an arrangement of Zhao Chen's sort, what he now had to do, as a "subordinate general," was simply to carry out the command.
As for Zhao Ruyue's worries — with some other general, one of Huang Zhixiong's ilk, they might well have come to pass.
But with him, Chu Changhe, they would not; whoever could lead him to victory, that was whose command he was willing to heed!
"The Princess fleet, at your command." Zhao Ruyue, too, now honestly carried out the command.
Soon, the positions of the various fleets were arranged.
Chiefly divided into four positions.
The main position was the forward defense-and-interception position, formed by the Owl Dragon Second Legion and the Owl Dragon First Legion's task-force — near 4,000 interstellar warships.
At present they took a three-dimensional half-moon shape; the moment the interception succeeded and the enemy fleet dropped out of warp-voyage—
—they would at once, by the enemy fleet's positions, form an "airtight" ring of encirclement!
The other three positions were small ones.
The two wings were the Chu-family fleet and the Princess fleet serving as reserve, 300 interstellar warships each.
The last small position was Zhao Chen's killing stroke.
Formed of some 300-odd interstellar warships.
50 T3 Judicator-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Ships, 100 T3 Virgo-class Heavy Interstellar Supply Ships, and 150 T3 Triceratops-class Interstellar Heavy-Assault Escorts.
"Here they come." Zhao Chen watched the display-cursors of the Ranger-type Interstellar Warp Interceptors go from blinking to steadily lit, and he knew.
The prey he'd awaited was about to appear.
As streak after streak of light burst suddenly forth, interstellar warship after interstellar warship appeared abruptly in this stretch of star-sky — and the gaps between them were exceedingly narrow, far below the standard interstellar-warship spacing.
5,000… 10,000… 30,000… 60,000!
A full 60,000 interstellar warships appeared in this stretch of star-sky, crammed into a cramped span of space.
The crews and commanders aboard these interstellar warships had none of them yet grasped just what was going on.
The destination they'd reckoned still hours away — how had the warp-voyage ended ahead of time?
The bridge of a Princes'-faction T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship.
The captain, an Imperial major-general, stepped out of the hibernation pod, and before he'd even come to himself, the first thing he heard was a dense clamor of alarms.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! A great mass of inbound interstellar missiles detected!"