Mission: Accept and complete the bounty mission issued by the lord of the Arctic Fox star system.
Difficulty: C-rank
Reward: five task points and 1,000 points
Special reward: one random reward, issued according to the degree of mission completion
Special-reward completion: the safe evacuation of asteroid P331's populace counts as 100% completion.
Mission complete; one mission reward and one special reward available to claim.
By the look of it, this completion rating was judged against the evacuation data of asteroid P331's people — and since P331's people had all been safely evacuated, it stood at full marks.
At a flick of thought, Zhao Chen claimed both rewards.
Mission reward claimed: five task points and 1,000 points.
Special reward claimed: the technical blueprint of the T2 Black-Rhino-class Interstellar Heavy-Assault Frigate.
A ship's technical blueprint, of all things!
This was beyond Zhao Chen's expectations.
The ship type was an interstellar frigate — but by the name, this was no ordinary frigate.
Host: Zhao Chen
Profession: Master Starship Engineer
Special Attribute: fleet Luck-value bonus, Eye of Insight
Points: 1,780
Task points: 10
Starships: 2
Mission: Quarterly Mission (claimed)
Warehouse: T2 Black-Rhino-class Interstellar Heavy-Assault Frigate blueprint; T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser blueprint; T2 Bronze-Eden-class Starship blueprint……
Having claimed these two rewards, the figures on Zhao Chen's system page had grown a good deal "richer."
"Let's study this interstellar frigate first."
Black-Rhino-class Interstellar Heavy-Assault Frigate
Ship type: interstellar frigate
Tech tier: T2
Hull armor strength: 3,000 units – 5,000 units
Cruise speed: 35 star-knots
Warp drive: grade-4 warp engine
Length: 110 meters
Mass: 120,000 tons
Crew posts: 20
Weapons: 50 T2-grade 300mm-caliber heavy close-in guns (one shot at a time, no interval)
Special performance: short-range assault mode
The ship's model surfaced in Zhao Chen's mind: a hull rather like a rhinoceros curled into a ball, the whole shape something like an irregular ovoid.
And the hull was remarkably small; among the T2 ships on the market now, one would be hard put to find a ship smaller than it.
But small in size as it was, this ship's hull armor was forged from the hardest metals of the T2 tier, combined by a special method — its armor strength a full 10 times that of Blizzard Zero!
One could read as much from its very title.
"Heavy-assault" meant, in fact, heavy armor.
Its weakest patch of hull armor had 3,000 units of defensive strength; its most solid, a full 5,000.
If among T2 ships one could find none smaller, then among T2 ships one could still less find any with hull armor stronger than the Black-Rhino's.
And so this ship had but a single defining trait: sturdy and beating-proof — first choice for taking a licking on the road!
Ordinarily, carrying armor this heavy, a ship's speed was bound to suffer.
And indeed that was so; in its ordinary state the T2 Black-Rhino was not fast. But it had one special ability — the "short-range assault mode" — which could pour on speed in a very short span.
This let the T2 Black-Rhino appear, when needed, exactly where an allied ship needed it!
To put it plainly, this was a starship meat-shield!
And it had one more advantage besides: a single unit cost a mere hundred thousand star coins to build.
The build cost of a single T2 Queen Bee-class Heavy Carrier Starship could build a full 15 T2 Black-Rhinos!
It was economy itself!
Zhao Chen contacted Charlotte on Blizzard Zero in high spirits. "Charlotte — can Blizzard Zero make a warp voyage now?"
"A warp voyage? We're preparing to head back to Arctic Fox Starport, are we? In Blizzard Zero's condition, a warp voyage just to get back to Arctic Fox Starport is no trouble," Charlotte answered.
"Good, then — make ready. We're returning to Arctic Fox Starport!" Zhao Chen could hardly wait now to use the T2 Iron-Hammer-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship, still berthed in the ship workshop at Arctic Fox Starport, to build this T2 Black-Rhino.
"Yes." Charlotte set about arranging it.
Both ships' bridges began passing down the orders, giving notice to enter the warp state within 10 minutes, the whole fleet into deep-sea mode.
Captain, deputy captain, secretary — Zhao Chen and the two of them — would naturally be the last into the hibernation pods.
"Charlotte, this was a beautifully fought battle." Zhao Chen looked at the Charlotte in the video image and praised her again, without stint.
"It's chiefly down to this ship. Without such extreme speed, and an interstellar battleship's hull armor, those wild flights of tactics of mine couldn't have been realized at all," Charlotte said sincerely.
Lilith couldn't help but ask, "But why, at the end, did you choose to break out backward through the main battlefield, rather than simply keep accelerating and break out the other way?"
Lilith voiced a doubt of her own.
Charlotte explained, "With the engine limiter released, that state of extreme speed can't be sustained long. Had I kept Blizzard Zero running that other way, in under 10 minutes there'd have been trouble; and then the ship couldn't even have held its normal cruise speed. Being caught by the swarm behind would've been only a matter of time. So from the very start, Blizzard Zero had only the one direction to break out through."
Hearing this, Lilith understood at last: these seemingly mad moves had, in fact, all been arranged by Charlotte in advance.
"Though ramming that T2 Hive Mothership to death at the end — that I hadn't foreseen. That fellow's head wasn't very solid." Even Charlotte found this part beyond her expectations.
At the time she'd meant only to use the collision to knock it aside and keep fleeing; who'd have thought it would just up and die?
A T2 Hive Mothership rammed to death by a single ship — word of it, told among the hive-race, would likely leave them without a face to show.
Zhao Chen had a notion of it. There were no such coincidences in this world; more likely than not it was his "luck aura" again that had given Blizzard Zero so dazzling a showing.
"Captain, here's imagery of asteroid P331 the deep-space telescope caught," Lilith said suddenly.
Because Zhao Chen's Owl Dragon Fleet (styled the Black Dragon Fleet for the mission) and the imperial-navy fleet had both begun to withdraw—
—though the swarm still gave chase, it couldn't catch them now at all.
And asteroid P331, on the path they had to take, became the swarm's target; a great mass of the swarm came sweeping down, all in a rush, on the ground bases of that asteroid.
The ground bases' structures and facilities were destroyed, yet the swarm found not a trace of any human.
Zhao Chen watched this, his expression a touch melancholy; had they not stopped it, this asteroid would have been another scene entirely.
A hell on earth.
The whole asteroid would have become the hive-race's hatchery, breeding out more Hive Motherships and swarm combat-units, and from there sweeping across the whole Arctic Fox star system.
The interstellar hive-race were like a spark in the grasslands; fail to stamp it out in time, and the consequences would be dire beyond measure.
"Report — of the whole ship's 102 crew, 100 have entered their hibernation pods," Lilith reported to Zhao Chen on the dimming bridge.
"Let's ready ourselves for hibernation too." Zhao Chen lay down into his pod, the faintly fragrant liquid beginning to cover his body; and it was as though he saw himself set in the very center of a vast interstellar fleet, every ship's hull painted with the Owl Dragon crest.
And the two ships entered the warp-travel state, and in the direction they had come, vanished into the black deep of the cosmos.