"Over there are several hundred T3 Furnace-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships besides." Zhao Chen pointed at the industrial park in the distance.
Had it been earlier, Spider Queen Iris would certainly have taken an interest in this T3 Furnace-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship.
But she had now seen better.
The T4 Gemini-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship!
At this moment what was mirrored in her pupils was, all of it, the image of this T4 Gemini-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship.
Too majestic!
Too magnificent!
Too great!
The Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth had interstellar industrial ships too, but the topmost of them were only T3-grade, and those were not even a match for the T3 Furnace-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship.
Still less for the T4 Gemini-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship before her.
They were not fit to carry its shoes.
"How many interstellar warships can it produce in a month?" Spider Queen Iris asked curiously.
"That is a military secret," Zhao Chen said with a smile.
Nor did Spider Queen Iris press him; instead she set to studying it herself, murmuring without cease to herself.
In the few short minutes while the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship drew steadily nearer to one of the T4 Gemini-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships—
Spider Queen Iris, her eyes blazing, put out a string of figures. "By the state of things as I see it, and the frequency of those interstellar transports coming and going, and the size of this interstellar industrial ship… then one such T4 Gemini can produce at the least 200 T3-grade interstellar warships in a month — or about 10 T4 interstellar destroyers!"
Zhao Chen looked at Spider Queen Iris in astonishment: in so short a time, from data obtained by eye alone, the figures she had analyzed out were, astonishingly, off by less than 10%!
Which showed well enough how strong this spider-woman's professional ability was — surpassing Annie's, indeed, in certain respects.
...
"Ah-choo." Annie sneezed, and her body shivered at the same moment, a chill sweeping over her.
"Have I got the temperature set too low?" Annie muttered, and glanced at the panel controlling the office temperature. Nothing wrong with it.
She tugged at the wool blanket wrapped about her, and thought no more of this little interlude.
"Little Chen-Chen. Fries," Annie intoned.
A mechanical arm appeared behind Annie, gripping a chip in its grasp, and delivered it precisely to Annie's lips.
Annie bit down on it without so much as looking, and set to chewing.
"Little Chen-Chen. Cola."
Another mechanical arm handed over a cup of cola with a straw stuck in it.
Annie took a sip, and belched.
"Little Chen-Chen. Peel me some crayfish."
A serving of crayfish appeared upon the dinner tray; two mechanical hands rapidly shelled them, after which another mechanical hand took up a crayfish in its grip and fed it to Annie's lips.
Annie chewed at the food, while her two hands never left her workbench.
And at the same time her two feet swung without cease beneath the desk.
"Report — the Commander-in-Chief is visiting, and is now on his way to your office, Chief Engineer." A video window popped open, the subordinate on the other side making his report.
"What? Little Ch— the Commander-in-Chief is here? Cough, cough, cough, cough…" Annie got a fright, and the food in her mouth nearly lodged in her throat and stuck there.
It was a good long while before she came back to herself.
She looked at once behind her.
"Little Chen-Chen! Disguise mode!"
There behind Annie stood a robot possessed of eight mechanical arms.
Upon receiving the order, this robot named Little Chen-Chen moved at once to the corner of the room, struck a pose, and disguised itself as a coat rack.
At this moment there came a knock at the door as well.
"Come in." Annie promptly opened several dozen work pages and set her two hands rattling rapidly over the virtual keyboard before her, without so much as a glance toward the doorway — for all the world as though she were very busy.
The door was pushed open.
Zhao Chen and the others walked in.
Annie at this point rubbed at her wrist with one hand while turning her head to say, "Commander-in-Chief, how is it you come without giving notice beforehand? My work here is…"
Annie saw the Spider Queen behind Zhao Chen.
The next second, Annie leapt three feet straight into the air.
"A spider! A big spider! There's a big spider!"
Annie clutched at a certain something with both hands, shrieking without cease.
"Would you kindly get off my face — and… stop yanking my hair!" Zhao Chen's voice came out from against Annie's chest. "That is the Spider Queen tribe; you may take her for a beast-folk of the same sort as Charlotte."
Only then did Annie calm down; she saw the ravishing woman above that big spider.
Annie let out a breath of relief; she lowered her head, looked at the Commander-in-Chief whose head she had clasped to herself, and laughed sheepishly. "Commander-in-Chief… it's been… it's been such a long time."
So saying, Annie let go — and at this point discovered, in some embarrassment, that there was an extra handful of hair in her hands.
Annie looked at the hair in her hands, and then looked at the Commander-in-Chief's head.
She placed the hair back upon the Commander-in-Chief's head with great care; but this hair very plainly would not 'stand' securely.
"Leave off — get down off me." Zhao Chen hauled Annie off himself with one pull, then cleared away all those loose strands from his head.
Annie promptly changed the subject. "Commander-in-Chief, I have been busy this whole while just now! Look at these projects of mine — it's truly exhausting. Every starship manufacturing project needs my going over and supervision, or I'm not easy in my mind about it!"
Zhao Chen looked at Annie skeptically. "Then how do you explain that crayfish broth at the corner of your mouth?"
Annie went to wipe at her mouth without thinking — but found not a trace of broth or leavings.
At this she looked warily toward the Commander-in-Chief; she knew this was the Commander-in-Chief taking her in, and that she had walked into it.
And just at this moment, a figure had at some point come to stand beside Annie.
Which gave Annie a fright, and she shrank straight behind Zhao Chen.
Though she knew this spider-woman before her posed no threat to her, Annie was all the same very much afraid of spiders.
Only at present this spider-woman's attention was plainly not upon her, but upon those several dozen electronic screens she had opened a moment ago.
"Those are our classified—" Annie was about to scold her.
Zhao Chen stopped her, signing to Annie that there was no need to interfere.
And next, Spider Queen Iris raised both her hands, and set to tapping over those electronic screens.
"Hey, hey, hey — don't you go meddling; that's important data and plan arrangements!" Annie said hurriedly.
"It's no matter; let her play with it." Zhao Chen folded his arms across his chest and said it indifferently.
Classified though it counted as, it was not core classified material, so there was no fear of Spider Queen Iris stealing anything.
He wished to put this Spider Queen Iris's ability to the proof.
And Annie soon discovered too that this spider-woman seemed to have some skill about her: on a mere few glances at those data materials of hers, she had begun to produce the next stage of the work.
"Tch. I could do that too," Annie said contemptuously.
But the next second, an astonishing thing happened.
Spider Queen Iris was working an electronic screen with each of her two hands — and editing on both at the same time besides.
And after that, four of Spider Queen Iris's spider-lances lifted up, and astonishingly began editing upon four electronic screens as well.
"This…" Annie's eyes went wide.
And this was far from the end of it.
Several eyes, astonishingly, emerged upon Spider Queen Iris's abdomen, which came near to frightening Annie out of her wits; but the sight that came next was more skin-crawling still.
Out of Spider Queen Iris's back there extended, astonishingly, a number of further spider-lances, and these spider-lances were as nimble as hands.
At this moment several dozen electronic screens all around Spider Queen Iris were at work simultaneously.
Were it not that Zhao Chen's body had been enhanced, he would not even have been able to make out the speed of Spider Queen Iris's movements.
And Annie was dumbstruck outright, for all the world as though turned to stone.