"Report — we have reached the coordinate area where the jump can be made! The Lucent-class Jump Ships required stand ready; pre-jump preparation may begin!"
Zhao Chen listened to these reports, his eyes on the interstellar holo-table.
At this hour his Owl Dragon Legion's fleets lay between the two stars, and at their backs the mutated hive-race still came on in dogged pursuit.
"Execute the plan as laid down: clear this area within 10 minutes, and let not one mutated hive-race unit in. Lucent-class Jump Ships, begin preparing the interstellar jump!" Zhao Chen said.
"Yes!"
15 T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump Ships hung in this stretch of starry space and started the black-tech programs carried within them.
This wanted 10 minutes of preparation.
And within those 10 minutes, the Owl Dragon Legion had to clear every mutated hive-race unit from the area, so that they could not interfere with the interstellar jump to come.
Happily, with two stars for the advantage of the ground on either side, the area the Owl Dragon Legion's fleets had to give battle across was much reduced.
Zhao Chen watched the interstellar holo-table, upon which stood a ring of red dashes — the safe zone the interstellar jump required.
Under the tacit, practiced coordination of the three Owl Dragon legion fleets, it took a few minutes to clear every mutated hive-race unit within that bound.
But they had still to clear a depth for defense besides, to open a safe distance for the span of the interstellar jump to come.
And at this moment every warship's radar system gave the alarm.
"Report — an exceedingly high-intensity energy reaction detected at the position of the Snow-Swallow interstellar fortress! And the spatial fluctuation of that area is most abnormal!" Secretary-Officer Lilith reported.
"Contact every Lucent-class Jump Ship and ask them whether this abnormal spatial fluctuation will affect the interstellar jump we are about to make!" Zhao Chen asked.
Lilith went to see to it.
The answer soon came back.
There would be no effect.
Which let Zhao Chen and the others breathe out.
"Do not take it lightly; no one knows what manner of black-tech that Doctor has researched out." Zhao Chen looked at the several video windows before him.
Those were the several stealth monitoring devices Zhao Chen had ordered deployed and left behind when they passed the Snow-Swallow interstellar fortress earlier.
Some of them would be destroyed by mutated hive-race by chance, but happily there were many, and some few would always serve.
Zhao Chen watched the window with the best line of sight, and saw that upon the Snow-Swallow interstellar fortress — which a moment ago had still been holding bitterly on under the mutated hive-race's attacks — there had appeared, of all things, fissures.
Cracks like a spider's web began to spread across the whole of the Snow-Swallow interstellar fortress.
And thereafter the whole fortress began to cave inward, as though some terrible force within it were drawing in everything about it.
The fortress collapsed at great speed, and in the blink of an eye was swallowed clean by a rift.
Just so!
A rift it was!
"Record every scrap of the data." Zhao Chen said it plainly.
"Yes." Lilith nodded; she understood well the importance of this material.
This was their first time facing a 'hive-egg'; to grasp as much intelligence data as they could would prepare them to think out a means of answering it in the future.
At this hour that rift was growing larger by degrees, and every mutated hive-race unit or warship that came near it was drawn inside.
"Is this… a black hole?" Chu Xuan knit her brows; the form of it much resembled a black hole.
"There is that possibility; to this day our research on black holes is not very thorough. We know only that a black hole, as a celestial body, has enormous pull — that not even light can escape from within it," Zhao Chen said, his eyes narrowed. "So one cannot rule out that a black hole in fact has the function of connecting to another universe."
Chu Xuan scratched her head; in military matters she was an expert, but such abstruse knowledge she did not follow.
This terrible rift was for all the world like the split mouth of an abyss, and within it one could see only an unidentifiable dense fog.
"This size is about the equal of a tier-2 cosmic bug-nest already." Charlotte said it plainly.
Zhao Chen kept his eyes on the video imagery.
The rift was growing still, and going on growing.
Some mutated hive-race that had no time to flee were, under the rift's influence, torn outright into pieces.
And those warships met the same end.
"Report — our interstellar jump start-up is 50% complete; five minutes more are needed," a subordinate reported.
But this report only made them take slight notice.
Their attention was still upon that cosmic rift.
In the span of a few short minutes, this rift had doubled in size again.
"A tier-3 cosmic bug-nest now." Chu Xuan muttered it; there was fear in her eyes already.
"Report — our radar system detects, within that rift, energy fluctuations very strong and very many and unstable… it's… it's as though something is about to come out!" a crew member reported in panic.
"Go on observing and recording."
A few minutes later, this cosmic rift at last ceased its expansion; its vast fissure, seen from afar, was for all the world as though a black eye without a pupil had appeared in the cosmos.
Merely to look upon it gave one a feeling of the deepest unease.
"How long yet before we can leave here!" Even Lilith could not help asking.
"A minute and a half more."
A minute and a half.
That minute and a half felt, in no few hearts, exceedingly long.
Longer even than those 20 hours they had spent under the mutated hive-race's siege.
"Report — our radar detects something about to come out, out of that rift!" the radar crew member shrieked.
Zhao Chen and the rest fixed their eyes on that cosmic rift.
Vast black shapes began to appear within the mist inside the rift, sailing slowly out, showing their true faces at last.
Interstellar hive-race!
T3-grade Hive Motherships.
And about them there were a great many T2 and T1 Hive Motherships besides.
They came sailing out of that black fissure, one after another.
"They truly… have appeared. Interstellar hive-race!" Chu Xuan covered her mouth.
These interstellar hive-race swarms welling forth pressed an attack upon everything around them at the first instant — mutated hive-race and warships that had survived by luck to this hour alike.
All of them slaughtered by these interstellar hive-race swarms without distinction.
"Interstellar jump preparation — 30-second countdown. All warships, return to your designated positions."
Secretary-Officer Lilith gave the reminder.
Charlotte now gave her final order as well. "Upon these designated areas, by the plan laid down, launch interstellar missiles — cover the fleets while they make the interstellar jump."
Because the Owl Dragon Legion's fleets were pulling back, the mutated hive-race naturally came pressing up once more.
But Charlotte had long been ready; the interstellar missiles struck several areas in blanket fire, stopping these mutated hive-race swarms from hindering their interstellar jump.
Ring upon ring of light began to appear, sweeping up the warships present, which vanished into thin air.
Aboard the flagship where Zhao Chen stood, in the moment before it went—
he kept his eyes on that cosmic bug-nest.
Whsh.
Of a sudden Zhao Chen's vision went black; and in the next second, when he looked again at that cosmic bug-nest—
alarm showed upon Zhao Chen's face.
For within that cosmic bug-nest there was a vast eye, and it was staring at him!
Several times larger than a star!