So saying, and without waiting for Leona to declare herself in any way, the window on Charlotte's side vanished.
Leona was blank a moment, and then said urgently, "Blanche, is the Owl Dragon Legion making ready to support us? Did I not say just now that there are above 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships here? Strong though the Owl Dragon Legion may be, against above 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships they cannot possibly be a match! Go quickly and persuade them. Let them not waste their strength."
Leona had been averse to the Owl Dragon Legion before, hostile to them even; but the present case, on the contrary, had opened her mind not a little.
The Owl Dragon Legion had now raised an alliance with her own sister Blanche; when the Demon Race fleets' attack must be met hereafter, the two sides could aid one another.
If the Owl Dragon Legion were now to be spent upon this battlefield, which as she saw it had become wholly without meaning.
That, past dispute, would be so much added to the guilt upon her.
But Blanche at this moment was watching Leona in earnest. "Leona, I trust the decision that lord has made. Since he has determined to support you, then I trust he will not offer a relief without meaning. So what you must do now is carry out his order. Hold fast and wait for relief!"
Leona would have said something further.
Blanche said gravely, "Leona, what you must do now is reduce your fleets' casualties as far as may be, and wait for the Owl Dragon Legion and our own reinforcements to arrive."
At the thought of these fleets that had come out at her back, Leona clenched her fists.
"Do you… truly believe…"
"This is the only choice you have now." Blanche said it in a tone that would cut nails and slice iron.
"I understand. I shall hold fast here and wait for your support. I shall reduce the fleets' losses as far as may be. I… will take them home!" Leona's mood was wholly altered from before; her eyes seemed for all the world to give off light.
In this moment she had a conviction again.
Slender though that conviction was, at the least she had hope.
"I believe in you. Wait for us!" As Blanche's words fell, the communication too came for the present to a close.
Leona drew a deep breath, and looked out over the bridge, where order had grown somewhat confused, and listened to the tangled voices upon her command channel.
Some calling for aid, some reporting urgent turns of the fighting — all of it in disorder past bearing.
Leona set her own state to rights. She pressed the communication key of the command channel, and shut off at the same time the communication privileges of every starship captain, so that within it there was only her voice.
"This is Leona."
As those four words rang out, everyone upon the bridge and upon the command channel was briefly silent a moment.
But this was very far from enough to drive out the fear within them.
"I know that our fleets stand at this hour in exceeding peril. But I ask you all to be calm. My sister Blanche, and our ally the Owl Dragon Legion, have sent word that they are shortly coming to our support. So I hope you will all hold fast to your posts, and carry out my orders. I promise you — I shall use all my strength to take you out of this place!" Leona announced the matter of the reinforcements.
This news, it must be said, was a shot of heart-medicine to men facing such a case as the present.
But so far as some of them went, they were unwilling still to believe there was any way to break the deadlock.
General Bolton was one such. He laughed loudly in self-mockery. "And what good are reinforcements? Opposite us are above 100,000 Demon Race interstellar warships, above 10,000 of them T4-grade. How is this battle to be fought? How is it to be fought? Were every interstellar warship of our Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth here, we could not win. We cannot win… agh—"
Amid the astonishment of everyone upon the bridge, a heavy fist landed square upon General Bolton's face.
Thereafter another heavy fist, an elbow, a kick.
And by degrees General Bolton's screaming stopped as well.
Under the beating of Leona, a Dragon-folk warrior, General Bolton passed out outright.
Leona looked at the blood upon her fist and shook it off in disgust. "Damn you, you undying old thing, yammer, yammer, yammer. I have wanted to thrash you a long time."
So saying, Leona made to walk toward her own command platform, and got several steps.
Then, unable to swallow her anger, she walked back and stamped a few more times, hard, on General Bolton's head.
Were there not important business to be done at this hour, Leona would assuredly have gone a few more rounds with him.
Huff, huff, huff.
Having let out the fury in her breast, Leona returned to the command platform.
She began to hand down her orders one after another, and to alter the operational dispositions laid down before.
And order upon the bridge, and order upon the command channel, by degrees came back as well under Leona's cool and steady direction.
Leona's whole mind now was set upon reducing her own fleets' losses!
As of this moment, on account of the near hour of fighting before.
Of their original 300,000 interstellar warships, near 100,000 were lost already!
The greater part of these were still the tribal fleets at the rim; being originally the reserve fleets at the rear, and coming suddenly under attack by the Demon Race fleets outside, they had naturally suffered grievously.
And the present case was that their fleets were caught between the enemy without and the enemy within; without proper direction from here on, the annihilation of the 200,000 and more interstellar warships remaining was only a matter of time — and would come very fast besides.
The disposition Leona made was to gather as many of her own fleets together as could be gathered, and form them into a policy of defense, by which her own losses could be reduced.
But because Leona's fleets had spread themselves very wide before, for the attack.
To insist upon assembling all these fleets together would on the contrary bring about exceedingly great losses.
So Leona made a certain alteration in this plan.
Those fleets which could not efficiently complete an assembly in a short time were to form small defensive positions where they stood.
By which there was presented this picture.
The fleet formation, a half-moon before, had become a scattering of defensive positions made up of several great rings and some scores of small ones.
But after this defensive policy was set up, the losses among Leona's fleets showed a marked trend downward.
"Your Highness, your defensive disposition is exceedingly effective! Our mean combat-loss figures have fallen by at least half against before!" A staff officer looked at Princess Leona in excitement.
Princess Leona gulped. She looked at the interstellar holo-table, at those scores of scattered small rings about the several great ones.
Her eyes were full of guilt.
She knew very well that this defensive disposition of hers.
Had indeed lowered the fleets' losses for the present; but it meant as well that these scattered defensive positions would, in all likelihood, every one of them fall hereafter.
These interstellar warships were Leona's discarded stones.
In truth she had known long since that these interstellar warships, by the relation of the ground they stood upon, could hardly withdraw into the great defensive positions any longer.
And so Leona had chosen to let them give out the last of their heat.
To use this form of scattered defensive squares to slow the enemy's advance.
"I am sorry."
Leona apologized silently in her heart; but there was nothing in her eyes at this moment but resolve.
She was a commander. For the whole of the fleet, she must do this!