"How is it that the two of you have come?" Zhao Chen looked at Zhao Ruyue and Qin Xiaolei in astonishment.
Qin Xiaolei sat herself down without ceremony upon the sofa beside Zhao Chen, took up fruit from the table and set to gnawing at it, and said as she ate, "We have come to your side this week for a holiday. We saw that T5 Hades-class Interstellar Dreadnought of yours just now, and thought at once that you must be back. And since we had meant to get in contact with you anyway, we simply came straight over."
Looking at Qin Xiaolei's manner, which had nothing of a lady in it and still less of an Empress, Zhao Chen said in complaint, "If you please — you are, for what it is worth, the Starlight Empire's Empress now. Mind your own bearing and conduct!"
Qin Xiaolei, without the least ceremony, flung Zhao Chen a rolled eye. "To the devil with your bearing and conduct. Only now do I discover that I was hoodwinked by you. I have truly had enough of being this Empress; let whoever likes it do it. Or how of this — I shall hand it over to you."
"Cough, cough, cough — a matter of this kind will not bear trifling with. As things stand in your Qin imperial house now, you alone are fit to be this Empress. Or is it that you believe somebody else can govern the Starlight Empire well?" Zhao Chen countered.
This troublesome mess he had no wish whatever to take up.
He need only stand behind the curtain and take the money.
Qin Xiaolei gave a muffled snort. "Hmph. Wait until this stretch is past and the Empire has settled. Then I too shall do as you do, and fling all that tangle of business to my subordinates, and find a place to be at my ease."
"Him you must not take for a model." A voice sounded.
Zhao Ruyue glanced at Qin Xiaolei, and instructed her for all the world like an elder sister. "You are now the Empire's Empress. What bearing you keep among ourselves in private we may let pass. But before outsiders, before the ministers and the common people, you must mind your bearing. And you are the Empress now besides; the governing of the whole Empire is your responsibility."
At this Zhao Chen's eyes shifted away despite himself, and he wore a look of a guilty conscience.
Jiang Hong, attending beside him, nodded heavily, with the look of a victim about her.
"I know it." Qin Xiaolei pouted. "You may lecture me now; but hereafter you will have no such chance."
The words were barely out when Qin Xiaolei's ear was seized between Zhao Ruyue's fingers. "I shall be in contact with those cabinet ministers of yours often; and if I learn that you have been neglecting your proper business. Then I shall come straight down upon the Capital Star!"
It could be seen that Qin Xiaolei held Zhao Ruyue in great respect all the same.
For all the way Qin Xiaolei had come, through wind and through rain, it had been with Zhao Ruyue at her side.
It might even be said that without Zhao Ruyue, Qin Xiaolei's head might have been parted from her body long ago.
"Wait… what was that you said just now, about having no such chance hereafter?" Zhao Chen caught a thread of something not quite right in the talk.
Qin Xiaolei set both hands upon her hips and looked at Zhao Chen. "In coming this time I have another purpose besides: to give Sister Ruyue back to you."
Zhao Chen was blank a moment.
Give her back to me?
What did that mean?
"In returning to the Owl Dragon Star System this time, I have already resigned the post of supreme commander over on the Royal Fleet-Group's side," said Zhao Ruyue.
At this Zhao Chen was more astonished still.
Qin Xiaolei looked at Zhao Ruyue with some reluctance to part from her. "In truth I am very loath to give Sister Ruyue up. But I know that conditions within the Starlight Empire's borders have quieted now, and even that permanent Grade-4 cosmic bug-nest has been brought under control for the present. The crisis at present comes from the permanent Grade-5 cosmic bug-nest over in the Holy Radiance Empire, and from the Demon Race beyond the Warhammer's border. Set against my side, you have the greater need of an able helper such as Sister Ruyue. So… for the present… I give her back to you! And once these crises are handled, you are to give Sister Ruyue back to me! And she has not resigned her post upon my side — that place is being kept for her all along, and she may return at any time!"
By the end of it, Qin Xiaolei had even given Zhao Chen a glare.
"How is it, little brother? Am I not welcome?" Zhao Ruyue looked at Zhao Chen with a smile.
"How should you not be welcome! This is simply rain in a time of drought!" Zhao Chen was overjoyed.
In truth, he had long wished to have Zhao Ruyue back in his own Owl Dragon Legion.
Zhao Ruyue's own ability had made an outstanding showing in the civil war before this, and she possessed besides a strong native talent for combat command.
Otherwise she could never, after leaving the Owl Dragon Star System, have become commander of the Princess Fleet by her own efforts.
And it happened just now that Zhao Chen wanted for top-rank talent beneath him.
Only lately he had been in a tangle over the choice of person for the newly established Owl Dragon legion.
Zhao Ruyue's return was simply rain in a time of drought!
"Though in coming back this time I am not alone; I have brought a body of trusted people back with me besides. All of them able to fight, and to fight well," Zhao Ruyue added.
"Better still!" Zhao Chen was delighted past measure; though he did not forget to ask, "They are all women soldiers, I take it?"
Zhao Ruyue flung Zhao Chen a rolled eye. "I truly do not know where you came by such a taste. Set your mind at rest — all I have brought are women soldiers. But I warn you: you are not to entertain any wicked notions about them!"
Zhao Chen gave a heh heh of a laugh. "Am I a man of that sort?"
Zhao Ruyue and the others exchanged a glance, and said nothing.
To have raised an interstellar fleet of women soldiers only — that fact alone left one very much in doubt.
"Though because of the differences between our two sides' legion-fleet systems, and between our interstellar warships. I cannot arrange senior posts for them directly. And they must besides go to our Goddess Academy-class starship for a period of advanced study. But I can promise this: so long as their ability suffices, they will be promoted to the posts they deserve in the least possible time, and there will be no want of any benefit or provision due to them!" Zhao Chen promised.
Courtesy first, arms after.
Though these were trusted talents brought back by his own family, in this matter of the Owl Dragon Legion Zhao Chen had always held to strict demands.
This was a duty owed to the officers and men of the Owl Dragon Legion's fleets!
"I understand. Let all of it go by your rules." Zhao Ruyue nodded; she knew of this Goddess Academy-class starship as well.
Very nearly every woman soldier and officer now serving in the Owl Dragon Legion made this passage.
And of this Goddess Academy-class starship the number would seem already to have reached three figures.
An "academy district" had been set up in one region of the Owl Dragon Star System, supplying the Owl Dragon Legion with talent of every kind in an unbroken stream.
"Xiaolei, that matter I spoke of to you before — how does it go?" Zhao Chen raised a piece of proper business.
"You mean the great building." Qin Xiaolei recalled it. "Under Sister Ruyue's arrangement it has all passed, and execution has begun already. First are the star gates to be built; the first batch can be put into use within three months. As for the rest, all of it has been carried down as well."
"This is exceedingly important for the Starlight Empire; it must on no account be trifled with," Zhao Chen said gravely.
This great building program was, in fact, an enlarged edition of the Owl Dragon Star System's development.
At present a great deal of high-end technology lay in the Owl Dragon's hands, all of it put into military industry to begin with; but once analyzed and turned to civil use, it made for very advanced technology there as well.
So Zhao Chen had set Qin Xiaolei to give the Starlight Empire a wave of great building, and to remake the whole of the old interstellar transport network, along with whatever else in every trade and calling could be remade.
Some might perhaps think that at a time so troubled as this, to go in for great building was a waste.
No!
It was, on the contrary, to enlarge the whole Starlight Empire's output; and at the same time a flourishing general condition could consolidate the Empire's stability, and bring it out of the shadow of the civil war as soon as might be.
And the most important reason besides was that the Starlight Empire's original technological installations were simply too far behind the times.
After the great building, the whole Starlight Empire might be made new within a short time, and pour blood into the Owl Dragon Legion in an unbroken stream.
Only when the vessels grow larger and thicker can the blood flow in greater quantity, and faster!
And only so can that giant, the Owl Dragon Legion, grow mightier still.