Mass cloaking?
Hearing the phrase, Leona felt her mind go blank for a moment.
She called up at once the imagery of the fleets to her rear.
Her pupils dilated.
She saw interstellar warship after interstellar warship appearing out of empty air in the sea of stars behind her, for all the world as though a curtain had been drawn back.
Starship cloaking technology!
But this was assuredly no ordinary starship cloaking technology.
Because what had lain hidden was not one ship, nor two, but every Demon Race interstellar warship there was.
In this moment, upon the interstellar holo-table before her, the light-points of Demon Race interstellar warships refreshed into being at an appalling speed, and all of them appeared outside her fleets, at the rear.
"Report. Outside our fleets. There have appeared… there have appeared near 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships!" The adjutant reported this emergency in haste.
Near 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships?
In this moment, Leona and the crowd of generals and staff officers about her felt for all the world as though the sky had fallen.
Before this they had believed they could carry off the victory.
Because they had judged their enemy to be only those 27,000 Demon Race interstellar warships — and indeed they had sent out no few interstellar scout ships, and had truly found no trace of any other Demon Race fleet.
Upon such a judgment Leona had arrived at her operation: to pay the price of 100,000 interstellar warships and annihilate those 25,000 Demon Race warships.[1]
But now!
Near 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships out of empty air.
What did that signify?
By the materials they had obtained before, the Demon Race fleets were T3 and T4-grade interstellar warships throughout, and the proportion of the two was 10 to one.
Which meant that among these hundred thousand Demon Race interstellar warships there stood a full 10,000 T4-grade interstellar warships.
10,000 T4-grade interstellar warships…
Every T4 that had ever served in the Galactic Alliance's history, the quasi-T4s included, all of them added together, would by any estimate not come to half that number.
And at this moment their own 300,000 interstellar warships stood caught between the enemy without and the enemy within!
A hopeless position!
In this moment Leona's head was empty. She turned about, close to breaking, and felt she must suffocate, as though sunk into the deep sea.
But wherever her eyes fell, there was nothing but the look of despair.
Even General Bolton, who a moment since had held his wine-cup up in celebration, now stood with his arm shaking; the cup he had raised had spilled, at what moment none could say, and the wine ran from the corner of his mouth, slid down into his clothes, and at the last ran down his trouser leg to the floor.
And at the last there was no telling what it was upon the floor there — wine, or some other liquid.
At this Leona despaired utterly.
She could see no hope whatever.
100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships… how was this to be fought?
She believed, indeed, that even that so-called alliance line of defense her sister had raised would be unable to hold against so terrible an enemy.
In the face of above 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships, above 10,000 of them T4-grade.
What manner of line of defense could stop this mighty invader?
Thud.
Leona sat down upon the floor outright, broken, and stared with vacant eyes at the interstellar holo-table, where her own side's warships were turning grey at an appalling speed.
For those at the rim were all of them the weak tribal fleets, which had scarcely any power of resistance.
Leona had brought them along before only to have them take up the work of intercepting fleeing Demon Race warships, and of clearing the field at the end.
Now they had become the objects of a slaughter.
Without any power of resistance whatever.
Her consciousness drifting and settling and drifting again, she could not say how much time went by.
Hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss.
And just at this moment a communication window appeared before Leona.
But this channel was not very stable; the far side was blurred throughout.
"Leona… Leona…"
Until that faint calling from the far side brought Leona back to herself.
The voice seemed to be that genius younger sister of hers, Blanche's voice.
"Blanche?" Leona looked at the communication window before her.
Thereupon she lifted the restriction upon long-range quantum communication with the outside, and only then did this window steady.
Blanche's anxious face appeared opposite.
"Leona, how does the fighting stand on your side! We are already on the road to you; from your present coordinates we are some 10 minutes off!" Blanche said it urgently.
Because of Leona's restriction upon long-range quantum communication, Blanche, having led her fleets through a space jump, had only with great difficulty reached Leona by short-range means.
At hearing that Blanche was coming.
Leona said hastily, terror over her whole face, "Do not come! Whatever you do, do not come! There are above 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships here. We have been ambushed…"
Getting so far, Leona had the light of tears in her eyes already.
She said, choking, "I am sorry… it is all my fault…"
"What? 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships?" Blanche, hearing that number, was dumbfounded as well, and for a while did not know what was to be done.
So grave a sudden turn as this was past her power to decide alone.
She could only contact one other.
What had been a two-way video call became a three-way video call.
Charlotte joined it, having learned from Blanche what had suddenly befallen.
"Leona, can you confirm that what you face is 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships? And are there other Demon Race interstellar warships besides?" Charlotte confirmed it gravely.
"I do not know. These Demon Race interstellar warships appeared for all the world as though out of empty air! It is hull cloaking! Every one of their interstellar warships appears to have this hull cloaking capability; they simply appeared. We can no longer break out. Whatever you do, do not come. Whatever you do, do not come." Leona rasped it out, broken.
Blanche's expression was torn; at this moment she too did not know what she ought to say.
Were it the original 27,000 interstellar warships, she might perhaps have had some confidence.
But now, 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships added at a stroke… much as she wished to save them, the initiative did not lie with her.
And reason, indeed, told her that this must not be done.
"Leona, set out the state of the fighting to Blanche in detail, and send it to me at the same time. I must consult with the Commander-in-Chief on my side." Charlotte broke off the video call for the present.
Blanche looked at this elder sister of hers, unable to bear it.
"Blanche, do you think… that I too am useless?" Leona said with a bitter smile. "I was foolish enough to bring 300,000 interstellar warships into this peril. I should think that hereafter the Dragon-folk tribe's histories will record this foolish princess."
"From another's standpoint, it is so. But… from a younger sister's standpoint, I hope that you may come back safe and whole." Blanche looked at Leona.
Leona lowered her head in guilt.
And just at this moment Charlotte's image appeared once more, and she spoke. "Leona — have your fleets continue the fight, and wait for our support to arrive."