Xu Yifan looked at the Owl Dragon Legion fleet that had appeared upon the interstellar holo-table, and the gloom in his breast thinned away a great deal at once.
And a good part of the weight upon him was lifted.
"Excellent! Relief has come!" Xu Yifan let out a breath.
"Report — the Northern Goose defensive fleet's flagship was caught in that last wave of the enemy Leviathan-Monarch's attack. The link is lost at present…" A subordinate reported it suddenly.
Which set something shaking in Xu Yifan.
The Northern Goose defensive fleet's flagship — that was—
Xu Yifan clenched his fists. He had supposed that over these last days of fighting he had grown used to these partings of the living and the dead; but the tangle of feeling within him betrayed what was in his mind.
"Arrange rescue teams to salvage the damaged warships, and the wounded before anything else. And tell every warship of the Northern Goose defensive fleet still able to fight that I, Xu Yifan, take over the commander's post. Every warship is to go on holding; the swarm opposite must not be let past us! We defend the Northern Goose Group to the death." Xu Yifan gave the order.
"Yes!"
The Leviathan-Monarch's vast bulk came slowly on, putting out great numbers of hive-race units to press the attack.
The Northern Goose defensive fleet could only lean upon its missile ships' suppressing fire to keep some hold on the situation.
But against the Leviathan-Monarch's bio-plasma cannon there was nothing to be done.
Whatever it struck, defensive satellite or warship, came apart without exception; and even to be merely caught at the edge of it was nine deaths against one life.
The Northern Goose defensive fleet's last line was compressed by degrees.
Until even the missile-ship fleet's own positions came under threat.
Xu Yifan looked at that colossus, and a thread of dread spread through him past his own control.
He noticed the Leviathan-Monarch's abyssal maw gathering energy particles once more, and the direction it was sighted seemed to be their own.
My turn, is it?
Something dropped in Xu Yifan; and yet at this hour he had no fear of death whatever, but rather a feeling of wistfulness.
He thought back on that man.
In truth, back in that earlier battle, he perhaps ought to have died.
It was only that man's appearing which had let him live to now, and let his family come through its hard passage as well.
"Damn you and your mother, you great stinking bug." The wistful Xu Yifan put up a middle finger at that distant Leviathan-Monarch.
The green plasma particles finished gathering; within 10 seconds it would fire.
A scene of this kind Xu Yifan had seen several times already in this campaign.
But just then, on one flank of that Leviathan-Monarch's body, a number of fireballs appeared out of nowhere.
Which set the Leviathan-Monarch's body tilting — and carried the bio-plasma cannon, as it fired, off its intended line of attack.
Xu Yifan felt the violent shaking of the hull, and caught the rail beside him to steady himself.
He looked in astonishment at that green pillar of light beyond the bridge's viewport, near enough to touch; had it not been for that sudden shift, the attack would certainly have destroyed his flagship.
This… what had happened?
Xu Yifan looked at once at the Leviathan-Monarch.
And saw that about that Leviathan-Monarch there had, of all things, appeared out of nothing above 500 warships.
And these 500-odd warships were attacking the Leviathan-Monarch from a very close range indeed.
Interstellar missiles, interstellar torpedoes — the whole of it brought to bear upon this Leviathan-Monarch.
"They're interstellar stealth bombers!" Xu Yifan looked at these warships in excitement, knowing the hull type at once.
And the Owl Dragon blazon upon their hulls besides.
These were Owl Dragon warships!
Every one of them the same class of stealth bomber.
He had read some material, public and half-public, and knew this stealth bomber's name.
The T3 Phantom Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber!
500!
A full 500 T3 Phantom Assassins.
Which left Xu Yifan stirred past bearing. In the Starlight Empire this hull type had never been much regarded, and no power whatever had the means to gather 500 T3 stealth bombers.
Never mind the Starlight Empire — presumably nobody in the Galactic Alliance had that means.
At T2 grade one could not say for certain.
Leaning on these 500, it might be possible to—
Xu Yifan looked in excitement at the Leviathan-Monarch, now bearing that furious bombardment, and hoped these 500 T3 Phantom Assassins might kill it.
For only so could the state of the battle be changed.
"Can those be the T3 Phantom Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bombers of the legends!" The adjutant beside him came back to himself and looked at those 500 stealth bombers in astonishment.
Xu Yifan nodded with pride. "They are!"
"So many… they may truly be able to take this Leviathan-Monarch down. I… I hear it carries a great many interstellar torpedoes?" The adjutant was so stirred that his words came out haltingly.
Xu Yifan spoke with light in both eyes. "The T3 Phantom Assassin, by the combat information I have from the past— carries 200 T3-grade heavy short-range particle torpedoes; bursting at very close range, their power can reach even that of a T4-grade charge. And it carries besides two kinds of heavy missile, 20 each, heavy cluster bombs, and one optical-mimicry missile for escape. 500 of them, then…"
"That comes to… 100,000 interstellar torpedoes!" The adjutant's eyes went wide in astonishment, and his mouth fell open.
"But… we cannot take it lightly either. Were it any other T4-grade Mothership, these 500 T3 Phantom Assassins could settle it easily enough. But… this is a Leviathan-Monarch… and by the intelligence, a quasi-T5 Mothership at the least. Quasi-T5 only, granted. But we have both seen its showing upon the field just now. A T2 warship's attack does its biological armor no damage whatever. And even a T3-grade warship's attack comes to next to nothing." Xu Yifan said it gravely.
"Can it possibly… bear even this?" The adjutant could not believe it.
For if so many T3 Phantom Assassins could not settle this Leviathan-Monarch, then there was truly no hope to be spoken of for them at all.
Xu Yifan fell silent.
"Let us hope it all goes as we would have it."
The T3 Phantom Assassins' assault went on a long while.
But not every attack was brought to bear upon this Leviathan-Monarch, for there were no few other Motherships about that had come to themselves, and swarm troop-forms besides.
So the T3 Phantom Assassins had to use their weapons to hold off those Motherships' attacks as well!