The Star-Shark Interstellar Adventurers' Guild · the president's office.
An attendant set tea and refreshments before Zhao Chen, Chu Xuan and Xue Xiaoxiao.
"My lord." President Guiji's gaze fell on that squad of guards behind Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen understood what President Guiji meant, and looked round at Panther-Girl. "Wait outside the room."
Panther-Girl hesitated a moment — but then thought back on the Commander-in-Chief's own strength.
"We'll be just outside. If the Commander-in-Chief has need of us, call us at any time," With that, Panther-Girl took her subordinates out of the room.
And the room's door was shut by the attendant.
Within were left only President Guiji and Zhao Chen's party — four of them all told.
Xue Xiaoxiao was the first who could not hold it in, and asked straight out, "Mother, why must Sister Xiaoxiao marry that Qian family bastard!"
President Guiji said in a low voice, "Everything must give way to the larger picture."
"I don't recall any hour when our Star-Shark Guild needed to trade a woman away for the sake of some so-called larger picture!" Xue Xiaoxiao threw it straight back at her.
President Guiji looked long at this daughter of hers. Once, she would never have dared stand up to her face to face.
It seemed that over the time she had been away, she had grown a great deal indeed.
And more of it, perhaps, was courage this man before her had given.
President Guiji opened her mouth — but the words came as far as her lips and stopped there, and would not come out.
"Xiaoxiao, you've misjudged President Guiji in this." Zhao Chen spoke up now.
President Guiji and Xue Xiaoxiao looked at him together.
Zhao Chen said mildly, "The Star-Shark Guild's growth was well enough to begin with. But from the Mechanical Race's withdrawal, near enough two years ago, the Star-Shark Guild's takings fell away sharply. And if I've not guessed wrongly, the takings as they now stand come to under a third of what they were at their height. And the Star-Shark Guild is a great house with a great business, with far too many people to keep. By the rules your Star-Shark Guild lays down, any adventurer registered within the Guild who is injured in the carrying out of a task will have his living afterward provided for by the Guild, by a certain standard. Which does add to Star-Shark's cohesion — but is no small outlay either. In former days the Star-Shark Guild could still bear that outlay. But now… I'm afraid the pot is very near to going uncovered."
"But why?" Xue Xiaoxiao's head had not yet come round to it.
Chu Xuan said now, from the side, "By the intelligence we've gathered— in former days the Stellar Alliance's rise had, in truth, a great deal to do with the existence of the Galactic Alliance and of the Mechanical Race, and vitally so. And now the Galactic Alliance is an empty shell, and the Mechanical Race has withdrawn its forces for reasons of its own. Which has brought it about directly that the Stellar Alliance's industries have slid away fast these last two years. And of that, the Star-Shark Guild is the very type. Half of the Star-Shark Guild's tasks, before, in fact had to do with the Mechanical Race. Those star regions the three great empires have opened up now were, back then, still in the Mechanical Race's grip; and within those star regions there would sometimes be things the three great empires wanted. Raw materials, or starship wreckage, or technical data, and so on. For a business of that kind, sending imperial forces in on any scale would hardly have answered. And that was where an adventurers' organization like the Star-Shark Guild came in. The three great empires put up the money, the Star-Shark Guild did the work, and so a chain of industry was formed. And now that chain has collapsed, and the Star-Shark Guild has come to its own hour of crisis. And if I've not guessed wrongly, there are at present only two roads laid before the Star-Shark Guild to choose between. The first: cut away some of the Star-Shark Guild's inessential outlay — the provision for those wounded, for instance, and for the interstellar adventurers too weak now to carry out any task. The second: open new sources! Go looking for other openings in trade. And the Qian family may be exactly the new opening the Star-Shark Guild has gone looking for!"
Something shook in Xue Xiaoxiao's breast, and she understood the reasoning of it.
She looked at her mother in disbelief. "So… Sister Xiaoxiao is the stake in your bargain?"
Things having come this far, President Guiji knew there was no keeping it hidden further.
She set it out. "The matter is indeed as my lord and this young lady have said. The Qian family promised certain things that could carry our Star-Shark Guild through the hard passage. But they set out certain conditions too, and one of them was to marry my daughter. And before this, to protect Xiaoxiao, I had always kept the particulars about her from getting out. Those outside knew only that I had such a daughter; what she looked like, how old she was, nobody knew at all. Nor did anyone know that this girl had slipped off to the Starlight Empire years ago and enrolled at the Northstar Starship Military Academy. Perhaps that too was a kind of coincidence. And at the very time I was wrestling with the business, Gu Xiaoxiao — the girl of this marriage, that is, my adopted daughter, who grew up alongside Xiaoxiao and is as a sister to her; I gave the two of them near enough the same name— Xiaoxiao is a girl who understands things, and she said she was willing to pass herself off as Xiaoxiao and marry the Qian family's young house-head. She said that she counted as a daughter of mine as well, and so the compact with the Qian family would be kept."
"Xiaoxiao standing in for me…" There was something complicated in Xue Xiaoxiao's face; she had reckoned on it long since, but to have the thing truly confirmed—
it struck her hard all the same.
And it brought a great weight of guilt upon her: if she had not left, would not the leading part in this marriage have been her own?
She asked herself: with the life or death of the Star-Shark Guild set out before her, would she have agreed to marry that dead pervert of the Qian family?
She would not think further on it, because she had her answer already.
"Xiaoxiao, there's room still to take this back," Zhao Chen said.
"Where is Xiaoxiao now!" Xue Xiaoxiao asked her mother urgently.
President Guiji said, "By now she should be nearing the main planet of the Qian family's holding; she set out the day before yesterday. The wedding is fixed for five days from now, so the Qian family required the bride to go over early and make ready."
Xue Xiaoxiao swayed where she stood.
At the thought of her own dear sister having to marry a bastard on her account, the guilt in her rose up all at once.
She bit lightly at her red lip, and settled it at last. "Whatever comes of it! I mean to go and bring Xiaoxiao back. Xiaoxiao absolutely shall not leap into this pit of fire. And this crisis of the Star-Shark Guild's… I'll find a way… and if it truly can't be helped… then I'll go and marry him!"
President Guiji let out a long sigh, and sat down in her chair, working at her temples.
In that moment there was something in the air about her that gave one a sense of frailty, and roused a man's wish to shield her on the instant.
"Ah… who could have thought the Star-Shark Guild would come to such a step as this."
"Ahem, ahem, ahem."
Zhao Chen spoke up again now, and rose to stand between Xue Xiaoxiao and President Guiji.
He spread his hands and looked at the two of them with a slight smile. "Ladies — is it that you've overlooked something? To lift the crisis the Star-Shark Guild stands in now, the Qian family are not the only ones with the means. Why go far afield for what lies near at hand?"
Zhao Chen's meaning in this was plain enough already.
Looking for a strong leg to lean on?
Here — isn't there one on hand right here, and a good thick one at that?
What the Qian family could give, the Owl Dragon Legion could give as well.
What the Qian family could not give, the Owl Dragon Legion could give all the same.
Indeed, what the Owl Dragon Legion could give was beyond anything they had imagined!
President Guiji's eyes and Xue Xiaoxiao's fell upon Zhao Chen together.