The route-map of those three courses had already risen in Zhao Chen's mind.
Left to find them himself, Zhao Chen would have come upon them in the end, granted.
But it came down to a question of time and efficiency.
Whereas set the Stellar Tavern's people upon it, and it was done in three days — for this, after all, was what they were good at.
After that Zhao Chen asked after some of the other intelligence he had set them to inquire into. Certain of it remained unclear — where, for instance, Qin Xiaotian's technology for controlling the hive-race had actually come from.
But in the end, Zhao Chen had at least come away with the great bulk of the groundwork he wanted to know.
With those three courses in hand, and knowing besides who in the Stellar Alliance was charged with helping Qin Xiaotian and the Holy Radiance Empire, Zhao Chen had all at once got a clear look at the cards in the other side's hand.
And that being so, he knew now how the next of his own cards ought to be played.
And on that list, there was a 'Qian family' as well.
By the intelligence, the Qian family stood on close terms both with Qin Xiaotian and with the Holy Radiance Empire's side; at the very beginning it had been the Holy Radiance side alone they were close to.
But over these last few years, for reasons unknown, they had greatly increased their trade traffic with the Snow-Swallow Star Region inside the Starlight Empire.
The exchange came to an end.
The three of them rose and walked out of the cabin.
"30 million star coins, and that's all we got out of them. I can't shake the feeling we came off rather badly on that." Xue Xiaoxiao pushed out her lip, and there was real pain in the saying of it.
Chu Xuan, for her part, said, "We spent no little money, true, but we've saved a great deal of time by it. Leaning on ourselves alone to get all this clear would have wanted half a year at the very least. And to the Owl Dragon Legion as it now stands, time is money."
Zhao Chen nodded. He cared nothing for how much was spent; to him as he now was, a few tens of millions of star coins came to no more than the profit on the sale of a single warship.
"Commander-in-Chief, that party across the way has been keeping us under their notice the whole while. I suspect they've marked us already. With your safety in view — if your business here is finished, please return to the ship at once." Panther-Girl said it gravely.
From the first instant the three of them came out, Panther-Girl had had her people close about Zhao Chen and the rest, so as to block the line of sight of that party outside the cabin opposite — which they did neatly enough.
"The looking-into is near enough done. It's time we were away." Zhao Chen let his eyes slide once toward the door of the cabin across the way. He was curious what that Saint Cana had come here for.
But for the present the thing was to press on and settle his own business, and getting back to the Owl Dragon System mattered more than anything.
There were, after all, a great many matters over on the Starlight Empire's side that wanted his own hand upon them.
Zhao Chen put both hands in his pockets and walked off toward the elevators.
They took an elevator down and came to the ground floor.
The formalities of checking out seen to, Zhao Chen and the rest took a private car away from the Stellar Tavern, meaning to go back to the hangar where the shuttle lay berthed.
"How do you mean to handle this business?" Chu Xuan asked.
Zhao Chen knew well enough what it was Chu Xuan was asking.
He thought a moment and said, "Leaning on ourselves alone, there's some risk in it. And besides, as the saying has it — to kill a snake, strike it seven inches down. Once we do move, the best of it would be to destroy every channel of traffic between Qin Xiaotian and the Holy Radiance Empire: the transfer stations, the interstellar transports, and those interstellar powers that assist them. For an operation of that kind, leaning on the 70-odd warships we brought with us… isn't quite the thing. Get word to the Owl Dragon System. Notify my sister, Zhao Wan'er: whether her end is ready or not, she is to come to the Stellar Alliance within 10 days without fail and make contact with us."
"Yes." Chu Xuan set about drafting the comm document.
And just then Xue Xiaoxiao, beside her, took note of an enormous floor-to-ceiling advertising window outside the car, with a line of writing printed on it and the images of two people, a man and a woman.
At the sight of it, the color of Xue Xiaoxiao's face changed on the instant.
Zhao Chen noticed the look about Xue Xiaoxiao, and his own eyes went that way — and he saw a hovering private car coming up from behind to draw level, and arriving just alongside their own.
Theirs too was a car of the transparent sort, and Zhao Chen could see the person inside. Which happened to be Saint Cana.
They could run into one another even here?
Too neat a coincidence by half.
Saint Cana looked over toward Zhao Chen just then as well, and the eyes of the two of them met square across the air between.
"Hold at first-grade combat readiness." Panther-Girl now quietly put her dispositions in order; she meant to have an answer ready for anything that could possibly happen.
Such as, for instance, the possibility that Saint Cana and her people might make a move against them.
Every member of the guard stood at a tactical position, holding at first-grade readiness.
"Our identities haven't been given away. That woman wouldn't go so far as to move against us at a time like—" Zhao Chen's words were not out before his brows drew tight.
Task triggered: protect 'Saint Cana's safety'. On completion, reward: the 'T4 Shadow-Demon-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber' technical blueprint
And at that same moment, Zhao Chen caught the sense of something wrong.
Along the forward stretch of their route, at a gateway position, a figure in black held a weapon after the manner of an infantry rocket launcher, sighted in their direction.
"Danger! Protect the Commander-in-Chief! Raise the defense field!" Panther-Girl had all but seen it herself, and gave a sharp cry.
Four of the guard crew stood at once at four points about the Commander-in-Chief, and each pressed a button on her forearm, whereupon an energy dome closed over Zhao Chen and the rest.
At almost that same instant, the weapon in that black-clad figure's hands loosed an infantry missile.
Trailing its exhaust flame, it came at them.
Or so, at least, it appeared to Panther-Girl and the rest.
But on account of the System task, Zhao Chen knew this was aimed at the Saint Cana next to them.
He looked toward Saint Cana's car alongside; within it, Saint Cana's own guards had made their answer to it as well.
And with the protective system the car carried besides, this one infantry missile ought to pose no threat to her safety.
But if this was an assassination, then the assassin would certainly not have made it so simple a business as a single missile.
Which meant that what came next was—
And as if to bear out Zhao Chen's thinking, that missile, on the point of striking home, had its warhead split apart of itself, and out of it came warheads by the several.
A cluster submunition, no less!
Boom.
Several great reports.
Though the target of the attack was Saint Cana's car, the wide reach of a cluster submunition meant that the car Zhao Chen sat in came in for its share of the harm as well.
The energy shields of both cars, with the striking and the shattering together, lasted the space of a single breath and no more; after which the outer structure of the cars bore the force of the blast.
And having lost their hovering lift, the two cars began to fall.
'The System has detected that multiple programs of this vehicle have ceased, and that it is descending. An emergency-landing procedure has been initiated. Passengers within the vehicle are asked not to panic; the nearest rescue squad is already on its way.'
The gentle woman's voice sounded within the car.
But that voice was very soon buried under the sound of a heavy impact against the ground.
Great clouds of dust went up all about them.
Happily, the two cars had not been very high above the ground a moment before.
On Zhao Chen's side there was not a single casualty.
"Watch all around — mind an enemy attack!" said Panther-Girl.
And at the same time she took an attaché case from a subordinate at her side, and the next second a suit of light exoskeletal combat armor had fastened itself over Panther-Girl's body, with a multi-barrelled Gatling-type autocannon carried in her hands besides.
The rest of the guard crew each had her own weapons and equipment as well.
Whoever the enemy might be, they would defend the Commander-in-Chief's safety to the death!