Zhao Chen's aim in redeeming these three ships was, in truth, a simple one.
With his abilities as they stood, building the T3 starship the System had rewarded him with was flatly impossible.
But if he took the technical blueprint of the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser as his foundation, and refit and reassembled the three ships before him around it, then perhaps he could piece together a stripped-down, bare-bones version of a T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser!
In Zhao Chen's mind, now furnished with the skills of a "Master Starship Engineer," he ran the numbers over and over, and fixed the feasibility of the scheme at a full 80%!
"Take the hull of the T2 Devil-Croc-class Medium Interstellar Battleship, then mate it with some of the performance modules from the T2 Hyena and the T2 Grey Wolf…" Zhao Chen muttered, brimming with relish, a manic glint dancing in his eyes.
His assembly plan settled, Zhao Chen set to work at once.
He went to the operating station and personally worked the mechanical arms, beginning to cut into the three ships.
This was the first time Zhao Chen had ever refit a starship — yet from the very instant he laid hands to it, he felt as though he'd done this sort of thing countless times before. He knew the way as surely as an old hand knows his road; every movement of his hands fell exactly where it should.
Even the most senior starship engineer at the academy, set down here, would have marveled at this young man's craft and skill.
Without 50 or 60 years of practical experience, and a reserve of top-tier knowledge besides, no one could ever have worked with such flowing ease.
For one man to dismantle three ships was a very great load of work.
Engaging repairmen or engineers to assist would have helped enormously.
But Zhao Chen couldn't do that.
For one thing, he'd no academy credits left — every last one of them had gone into redeeming the parts.
For another, the process was one no outsider could be allowed to witness. To dismantle three different ships and assemble them into a single brand-new vessel — and to draw, in doing so, on some of the core technology of the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser — was a thing that, should anyone spot the telltale signs and pass word along…
There was no saying what consequences it might bring.
And so this entire process was one Zhao Chen could see to only by himself.
Zhao Chen reckoned it over in his head: a little over 20 days would be about enough.
Over the three weeks that followed, Zhao Chen skipped nearly all his classes. It helped that, the term being at its end, some of the assessments had long since wrapped up, and Zhao Chen's credits were already ample to see him passed into the fourth year — so his skipping lessons carried no great consequence.
Word of Zhao Chen's challenge to Zhang Haoran, however, had spread through the whole of the third year, and no small number of cadets took to dropping by Zhao Chen's classroom for a look at this fabled down-at-heel baron — only to go away disappointed, every one.
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
The great door of the ship workshop flashed with a red light, and there came the chime that signaled someone requesting entry.
For the first few minutes Zhao Chen paid it no mind, but the chime was a patient one, and kept up without a break for a good 10 minutes.
At last Zhao Chen could bear it no longer. He dragged his weary body out of the work bay, came to the door, and opened it.
The door had swung open no more than a crack — before he could make out who stood there — when a delicate cry rang out, and a slender, snow-white leg was the first thing to step through.
Zhao Wan'er came straight in jabbing a finger at Zhao Chen's nose and loosing a furious tirade, though Zhao Chen took in barely a word of it. He slumped against the doorframe.
"Wan'er… are you done scolding me? Because if you are, I need to get some rest. Ahh…" Zhao Chen said, eyes half-lidded, around a yawn.
The willowy, snow-skinned young woman before him was Zhao Chen's little sister, Zhao Wan'er.
She was also a fourth-year student at this same Northstar Starship Academy, and would be a fifth-year come next year.
Why was it that Zhao Chen, the elder brother, was only a third-year, while Zhao Wan'er was already a fourth?
Because Zhao Wan'er was a prodigy. A course of study that took three years, she had passed every assessment of in a single year, and so had overtaken her elder brother Zhao Chen to become a fourth-year.
With her striking looks, she had always been counted one of the great beauties of the academy.
At present she wore a white military-cut uniform — and, putting that together with the fact that this young lady had turned up to find him only now, a good half-month after the fact, Zhao Chen guessed—
—it was likely on account of the fourth-year end-of-term assessment, which called for piloting a starship through a live combat evaluation; she must have only just returned to the academy. And on her return, the first thing she'd done, the moment she got wind of the news, was come looking for him.
Zhao Wan'er took in the dark circles under Zhao Chen's eyes, his mop of disheveled hair, the smell that even clung to him.
Then she looked past Zhao Chen — and at the floor by the work bay's door there was a makeshift cot, and beside the cot a case of instant nutrient meals, the emptied packaging littered all around, giving off a sour reek.
There were a few changes of academy uniform, too, tossed on the floor and left in a heap.
Enough, all of it, to make plain just what sort of life Zhao Chen had been living this past half-month.
"You've still got the leisure to rest? Do you have the faintest idea how enormous the mess is that you've landed yourself in? Fighting a starship duel with Zhang Haoran over a woman — and staking a whoever-loses-withdraws bet on top of it. Have you gone out of your mind!" Zhao Wan'er, in the sharp exasperation of one who wants nothing but the best for him, reached out and took Zhao Chen by the ear.
By rights, that grip should have brought a fair bit of pain.
But sleep had by now swept clean over Zhao Chen's mind, and he pitched forward and toppled straight onto Zhao Wan'er.
"You—!"
Thump.
Zhao Wan'er dropped down onto the floor, Zhao Chen leaning against her like some overgrown child.
"This fellow!" Helpless, Zhao Wan'er could only haul Zhao Chen into the ship work bay first.
But when she raised her head and looked toward the ship-parking area within the work bay — that several-football-field expanse — she was dumbfounded.
A starship stood towering there.
The hull, plainly, was an old one, not new; here and there its surface ran uneven, and it even bore the scars of shellfire.
On the operating stations round about lay scattered parts of every size.
And yet, for all that, Zhao Wan'er could still feel the menace this ship kept coiled within it.
Most of all — Zhao Wan'er had the sense she'd seen this ship somewhere before, and yet she couldn't, for the life of her, place it among any of the vessels in the starship encyclopedia she'd studied.
"Wan'er…"
A call from behind pulled Zhao Wan'er back to the present.
Zhao Chen was awake now, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Though he'd slept only some 10 minutes, his state had improved a great deal.
"You… what is this?" Zhao Wan'er pointed at the unfamiliar ship before her.
"My starship, of course," Zhao Chen answered without thinking.
"Don't lie to me without so much as working out your story first! I heard from that Li Wei kid that you used your academy credits to redeem three old ships — this is nothing like—" Zhao Wan'er broke off partway.
She turned her head, and stared at the ship before her with a look of sheer disbelief. She seemed, all at once, to have grasped why the sight of this unfamiliar vessel had felt so familiar to her.
"Wan'er, aren't you usually the clever one? How is it you still haven't worked it out?" The corners of Zhao Chen's mouth lifted, and a teasing note came into his voice.