After this little interlude.
Zhao Chen looked toward the three at the rear.
"Forgive me, my lord. I may not find it convenient to shake hands with you just now." Consul Gilbert looked helplessly at the two fellows clamped under his arms.
"Er… you may set them down. I feel… they seem hardly able to draw breath." Zhao Chen pointed at the two Consuls under this big man's two arms.
One of them, the elder, seemed to be rolling his eyes back besides.
"Ah…" Consul Gilbert started, and let the two of them go at once.
The pair dropped heavily to the deck.
"Gilbert, how many days is it since you washed! Ohh, ohh, ohh…" Ernest sprawled on the deck, retching dry.
This fellow's armpits truly had a flavor all their own.
He had been unable to bear it before, and had wanted the fellow to shift his hold; whereupon the fellow, seeming to think he was struggling in resistance, had actually clamped the tighter.
To think that if word of it got out, he — an Imperial Consul, no less — should have died beneath another man's armpit.
At the thought of it, Ernest felt as though he had fallen into an ice pit.
"Here — are you dead?" Zhao Chen walked over beside the old man and gave him a few kicks.
"My lord, you had best take some care. A moment ago a certain fellow upon the Imperial Star had a miniature laser pistol hidden away, and meant to attack Saint Cana… the General," Gilbert reminded him.
"It is nothing." Zhao Chen waved a hand.
With a frame like his own, he had fought a great tiger; should he fear this undying old thing?
"Cough, cough, cough…" And at this Andrew came round as well; he opened his eyes and looked at the young man before him, and then looked about him.
"You are… that Owl Dragon lord?"
"I am. Have you nothing to say, now that you see me?" Zhao Chen looked at this old chieftain of the Disciple family.
"The victor is king and the loser bandit; do as you please." Andrew had thought it through by now: matters had come to this, and could not be altered.
"My lord, I… I… I am willing to submit! I can have my family serve you!" Ernest, on the other hand, showed a great deal of sense, and knelt straight down on the deck like a lapdog.
"When you went the long road to the Warhammer meaning to make war on me, were you not very high and mighty? I heard a great many tales of your might. Something about destroying my fleets entire, about making me know the price of provoking the Holy Radiance Empire. Now I stand before you. I should rather like to hear what price you can make me pay." Zhao Chen looked at Ernest with a smile.
He has one bad habit, which is that he remembers a grudge exceedingly well.
"It was I who had eyes and did not see; it was I who spoke wildly. I beg my lord to let me off this once. I shall assuredly serve you well," Ernest pleaded.
But by this time Zhao Chen had already walked back to Saint Cana's side, and said low at her ear, "I know you meant to make some showing before me. But I have no wish to see them. They may be your Empire's Consuls, and high in standing. But here with me they are not worth so much as a dog. Have them taken away; do not dirty my bridge."
"Forgive me." Saint Cana lowered her head, and made ready to take the two of them off the bridge.
"Fling them outside the bridge for now; we have matters to talk of first," said Zhao Chen.
"Yes," Saint Cana answered.
"Let me do it — I am good at this sort of thing." Gilbert volunteered himself, produced two lengths of rope from none knew where, bound them in a marvelous fashion, and flung them down at the bridge doorway.
Which had the crew going in and out of the bridge turning their heads one after another — a look-back rate of 300%!
With the irrelevant parties gone.
Zhao Chen looked at the two Consuls before him, at a woman general he had raised up himself, and at her father.
"What do you think the Holy Radiance Empire ought to do next?" Zhao Chen opened.
The question looks very simple, but not one person present dared open his mouth to offer counsel.
For though upon the face of it Saint Cana had driven this operation to overthrow the Imperial Senate, as to who truly controlled it from behind.
Everyone knew it was this Owl Dragon lord.
How the Holy Radiance Empire developed hereafter must depend upon this Owl Dragon lord all the same.
And were this Owl Dragon lord displeased with what they said, who could say what end they might come to?
"Since you will not speak. Then I shall speak. And when I have done, you need only nod or shake your heads." Zhao Chen looked at the four of them.
The four nodded.
"At present the Holy Radiance Empire's situation is complicated. The Disciple family are swept away; three Consuls are gone. Which amounts to cutting two thirds off the whole of the Holy Radiance Empire's leadership. And within the Empire there exists at present a permanent Grade-5 cosmic bug-nest besides, and that threat is exceedingly great. In such a case. The Holy Radiance Empire must have a unified command, and not be scattered as before. And so I propose that the Holy Radiance Empire's institutions be altered for the present, and that Saint Cana serve as the Holy Radiance Empire's Empress, holding all power. In such a case the Empire's resources can be moved to the utmost limit, and the crisis handled. What do you think of it?" Zhao Chen asked.
The four nodded as with one accord.
But in the next second Saint Cana cried out, "What? I, an Empress? No, no — how can I be an Empress? To be one legion commander is thorny enough; to be this Empress… I am assuredly not equal to it."
"Do you think Saint Cana is equal to it?" Zhao Chen inquired of the other three.
"If my lord thinks she is, then she is," Melissa said with a nod.
"Saint Cana's capacity we have all seen with our own eyes; I see no problem in it," Gilbert agreed.
"This… that… I suppose it may do." Chieftain Saint George at this hour was much at a loss himself; he felt he was dreaming.
His own daughter had overthrown the Imperial Senate, and was now to become an Empress besides?
"I truly cannot do it." Saint Cana shook her head over and over, and looked to Gilbert and Melissa for help. "Let Gilbert or Melissa take it; they have more standing than I."
Melissa looked at Saint Cana and thought within herself: my dear, this seat is not a matter of whose capacity is greater or lesser, but of whom that man is willing to have take it.
Who alone has the standing to sit in that seat.
"Saint Cana, in the present case there is no time to let you make choices here. Did you not wish to change the Holy Radiance Empire, and save those people of the Sacred Light's race threatened by the interstellar hive-race? Since it is so, then take up this burden yourself. Or is it that in your eyes those things are in truth of no importance at all? And this is besides a time out of the common, and in a time out of the common it can only be so. At the worst you may promulgate an ordinance in due course, and say that you hold this imperial seat only until the interstellar hive-race Great Calamity is ended." Zhao Chen fixed his eyes on Saint Cana and demanded it of her.
Saint Cana bit lightly at her red lips, and the cast of her eyes was complicated and torn still.
At the last she drew a deep breath, and into both her eyes there came a different cast.
"Very well. I shall take it, then."
The corners of Zhao Chen's mouth lifted slightly.
Get her up there first; whether she can come down again afterward will not be for her to say.