The Chu Wen system.
"Report — the hive-race assault is too fierce; our Number Seven defense zone has been torn open!"
Hearing the report, Chu Changhe snapped out in anger, "What is this! I gave it plainly before that the Number Seven zone must hold 10 hours more! Who had charge of the Number Seven zone!"
"The fleet charged with the Number Seven zone… has been destroyed entire. And to the very last, not one warship of that fleet fell back a single pace!" the adjutant said in a low voice.
Hearing this, Chu Changhe was brought up short.
He clenched his fists and cursed. "This pack of young devils — this old man never told them to die, and off they've all slipped. Wait till this old man gets down there; then see how I kick them!"
Having cursed it, Chu Changhe looked at the interstellar holo-table before him.
Upon the field, the hive-race fleets opposite were near enough packed against one another, pressing into his zones one wave upon the next, as though they would give anything to drown the Chu fleets entire.
And from the holo-table one could see that the whole line had been battered by the hive-race to the point of tottering.
"How many warships have we left?" Chu Changhe asked.
"Under 5,000…" the adjutant answered.
"5,000 only?" There was something complicated in Chu Changhe's eyes. "The 15,000 we brought… all spent?"
"Of Lieutenant General Chu Wenxiong's original 5,000, fewer than 500 remain! Of the warships that came in support from across the Chu River Star Region, leaving the T1-grade hulls out of the reckoning, 500 remain. And of our Chu family legion's five fleets… the Fifth and the Fourth are spent entire. The First, Second and Third have 4,000 warships between them all told. And of the defensive installations laid out beforehand, near 80% are destroyed. While of the hive-race fleets opposite, near 30,000 remain to this hour!" the adjutant answered.
Chu Changhe fell silent, looking at the holo-table before him. It seemed already a dead position.
And then he muttered one thing. "Near enough."
And just then a video window sprang open.
It was Lieutenant General Chu Wenxiong, who had originally had charge of the Chu Wen system's defense.
"Marshal Chu, the situation here is about to pass out of control. I… I am willing to lead the remaining fleets and go on holding, but I hope the Marshal will withdraw at once!" Lieutenant General Chu Wenxiong looked at him.
"You tell me to withdraw?" Chu Changhe heard it as though it were a joke.
Lieutenant General Chu Wenxiong said steadily, "The Chu River Star Region can do without the Chu Wen system, and without me, Chu Wenxiong, and without those Chu family fleets. But it cannot do without you, Marshal! I ask the Marshal to consider the larger picture — withdraw!"
Chu Changhe looked at him then. "Wenxiong, tell me… if those children knew I was using them for bait, would they hate me?"
Chu Wenxiong was brought up short.
"Hate me or not, I do not repent what I am doing now; I only hate that my strength falls short, and that I had no other choice. And if they truly do hate me, then this old man will make his apologies to them when he gets down there." And having said some things that to Chu Wenxiong and the others made no sense at all—
Chu Changhe tapped open a comm box — a text comm.
He made no concealment of it, but entered a few words in the box in front of Chu Wenxiong.
"You may act."
At which Chu Wenxiong was still altogether at a loss, having no idea what was happening.
"Marshal…" Chu Wenxiong said, bewildered.
"See for yourself." Chu Changhe shut his eyes, as though waiting for something.
A few minutes passed.
And then, of a sudden, the radar system aboard Chu Wenxiong's flagship gave its alarm.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! Interstellar missiles in flight detected!"
Chu Wenxiong looked at the radar display, and saw at its edge an astonishing number of red marks moving at high speed — and those marks meant interstellar missiles.
Ordinarily the radar system fitted to this T4 Boreas-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship he stood aboard could scan out the number of missiles in flight precisely.
But at this hour that figure was in confusion.
Or rather… that figure was such that he could not believe it.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, 10 thousands… 100,000… 1 million…
He looked at that rolling figure, and counted the digits again…
Above 1 million interstellar missiles?
How was that possible!
At the first instant he took it for a fault in the system.
But when warships on the forward positions sent him imagery taken through their deep-space telescopes—
he believed it.
There were indeed above 1 million interstellar missiles.
Thick past counting, like a shower of meteors.
And these missiles came from behind the hive-race fleets, from their flanks, from above them, from below — in short, from everywhere save the direction his own side defended, as though missiles were being loosed on every hand.
Missiles from all four quarters and all eight!
The hive-race Motherships caught the wrongness of it too, and at once began intercepting.
But most of the hive-race units they had put out were committed to the frontal field, and could hardly be drawn back over any short span.
And the great majority of the Motherships could only watch, wide-eyed, as those missiles struck home.
Had it been two or three missiles, a Mothership's own biological armor could have borne them without the least difficulty.
But this was not two or three. This was above 1 million!
Chu Wenxiong watched the deep-space imagery before him like a wooden chicken; there was blast-flame everywhere, and the far starry sky seemed itself to have been set alight.
And Mothership after Mothership was blown to pieces under missiles coming wave upon wave.
And a bombardment of that degree alone went on a full 10 minutes!
10 minutes of continuous missile bombardment — what does that come to?
Had Chu Wenxiong not seen it with his own eyes, he could not have imagined it.
And when this round of bombardment ended, the field, which had been all strife until then, seemed all at once to fall quiet.
An uncanny silence.
And only then could Chu Wenxiong look carefully at the state of the field.
Were these not hive-race fleets, Chu Wenxiong might have described it as too dreadful to look upon.
Those hive-race fleets, so vast in number before, were blown to pieces; and in the areas bombarded, only a bare few Motherships survived, standing alone like survivors in a sea of corpses.
And looking closely, Chu Wenxiong found besides that the strike points of that round seemed to have been arranged with particular care.
Chiefly striking the positions about the hive-race fleets.
While in the middle of the hive-race formation there was one area left unstruck.
Which meant that under the attack just past, near 10,000 Motherships remained, drawn into that area.
This was deliberate!
At the thought of it, Chu Wenxiong looked sharply at Marshal Chu Changhe across the video window, whose eyes had opened at some point.
And he knew now why the Marshal had said those things that made no sense.
Because the defensive action before had been wholly to draw the hive-race into massing their strength for a hard assault — to compress the hive-race's disposition of force within a certain range.
So that this dense missile attack could be brought to its utmost effect!
"It isn't over yet. That boy Zhao Chen said he'd give me a surprise. Something called… the Hell-Angel, I think…" Marshal Chu Changhe looked at the scene before him and said it mildly.
The Hell-Angel?
What an arrogant name.
"Report — our deep-space telescope has detected an interstellar missile ship of a kind never seen before!" A subordinate reported it now.
Chu Wenxiong looked at once at that somewhat blurred picture.
And there in the furthest reaches of space, several interstellar escorts came slowly out, shielding one interstellar missile ship.
And one could make out, faintly, that every missile-launching installation upon that missile ship stood open.
Could this be that so-called… Hell-Angel?