Annie looked at the fish skeleton beside her — spread a cloth over it and it would serve for a camping tent — and patted her own little belly.
She lay comfortably out in the sun, enjoying the light upon her.
The corners of Annie's mouth lifted slightly, and she muttered comfortably, "This is simply the life of one's dreams. There is a sea wind, there is sunlight, there is fine food, there is seawater, there is no work that can never be finished, there is no Commander—"
"Annie."
Annie's voice stopped.
Strange — how is it I hear the Commander calling me?
It must be that I have been pressed so hard by the Commander that I am hearing things. I ought to enjoy this rare holiday properly — and a holiday the Commander is paying for in full, besides.
"Commander."
"My lord Commander!"
But thereafter came her younger sister Nana's voice in adoration, and the glad, astonished voices of her parents and her other brothers.
Annie rose slowly and took off her sunglasses.
And looked in astonishment at Commander Zhao Chen before her.
Nana and the rest had all gathered about Zhao Chen too.
And only now did Annie discover that this was not Commander Zhao Chen in the flesh, but merely a holographic projection.
Above them a communication projection drone hung floating.
And the thought in Annie's mind at this moment was: if she picked up a stone and flung it, could she knock that cursed drone down?
"How is your play here? Are you satisfied?" Zhao Chen looked at Annie's family.
"My lord, you truly take too much care of us. To give our whole family 15 days' holiday — this… this… how should we be worthy of it?" Annie's father said in embarrassment.
"You are in charge of our foundational manufacturing industry now; and I have heard that over the past year and more you have been at work throughout, and even when you had holidays you in the main never used them.
"I hold that spirit of yours in great respect, and Nana has inherited this excellent devotion of yours.
"But one must not give up one's own life for the sake of work," Zhao Chen said with a show of gravity.
Thereafter Zhao Chen chatted a while with Annie's family.
Annie's several younger brothers and sisters were nervous at first before Commander Zhao Chen, this idol of theirs.
But under Zhao Chen's kindly, approachable manner they very soon crowded round him; and had Zhao Chen not been a mere holographic image, they would by any estimate have caught familiarly at his trouser leg.
Set against them, Annie, standing beside them, seemed distracted.
"Commander, in contacting us expressly — have you some work to arrange for us?" Chief Engineer Nana said it at this point.
Which was as though someone had trodden upon Annie's tail; her eyes searched all about her, as though for a crack in the ground to slip into.
You cannot see me, you cannot see me, you cannot see me.
"There is important work to discuss, is there?
"Annie, the Commander has work to discuss with you.
"We shall withdraw a while." Being himself one who worked within the industrial system under the Owl Dragon, Annie's father had a very ready eye for such things, and called his daughter over.
Then he took his wife and his other children and withdrew to a position further off.
As he went, he cast his eldest daughter a proud and heartening look.
Work well, and work hard!
That his two daughters could hold the posts of technical chief engineer to the Owl Dragon was the pride of their family!
But Annie, feeling her own father's gaze, was most resistant within; she felt as though her holiday were waving her farewell with its bags already packed.
No!
Do not go!
My holiday!
How am I to live without you!
The little figure within Annie knelt upon the ground and wept.
"There are indeed some matters to tell you of beforehand.
"Though set your minds at rest; it will not affect your holiday arrangements.
"The 15 days' holiday promised you before will not be short by a single day," Zhao Chen said with a smile.
At these words, Annie's spirits revived on the instant.
"Commander, whatever you have, whatever the arrangement, speak and it shall be done. After the holiday, we shall see it through to the end! We warrant you shall be satisfied!" Annie wore the look of one most earnest at her work.
She hoped now only that nothing would go wrong with the holiday; everything else could wait until it was over.
"I have four T5-grade interstellar warships here.
"Three combat types and one auxiliary type, respectively.
"You may make some study of them in this stretch of time—"
Before Zhao Chen could finish.
Nana crossed three paces in two and shot straight up before Zhao Chen, gazing eagerly at Commander Zhao Chen. "Four T5 interstellar warships?"
Even Annie looked at Zhao Chen in astonishment.
She had never imagined the Commander could bring out four T5 interstellar warships at a stroke.
Zhao Chen raised a hand.
T5 Dragon Emperor Interstellar Command Ship
T5 Holy-Redeemer-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Heavy-Artillery Battleship
T5 Fire-Qilin-class Heavy Carrier Starship
T5 Galaxy-class Large Interstellar Industrial Base
"Because these starships' technical information is very vast, to transmit it to you directly would not be very convenient.
"I shall send some brief data across afterward; make a basic study of it first," said Zhao Chen.
At this moment, Nana's eyes were fixed like torches upon that last name.
The T5 Galaxy-class Large Interstellar Industrial Base!
Perhaps in others' eyes the first three were the more alluring.
But for chief engineers, starship designers and starship craftswomen such as they were.
This T5 Galaxy-class Large Interstellar Industrial Base was beyond question the greatest draw of all.
For if a workman would do his work well, he must first sharpen his tools!
"Commander, this is… an industrial base?" There was a tremble even in Nana's voice, and an excitement she could not cover over.
Even Annie felt some curiosity rise in her.
Little as she liked work, if one could work within a T5 Galaxy-class Large Interstellar Industrial Base of this kind, that would naturally be better than anything.
"Just so; this is a large industrial base.
"Though it has not the interstellar industrial ship's advantage of moving, its building efficiency is greatly increased.
"By the data I have come to understand so far alone.
"The efficiency of one T5 Galaxy-class Large Interstellar Industrial Base is at the least 500 times that of a T4 Gemini-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship!
"Above all in the building of T5-grade interstellar warships, where it can greatly cut the build time.
"Were it used to produce T4 Skeleton-King-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Destroyers.
"One T4 Gemini-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship could produce 8 T4s a month; but with a T5 Galaxy-class Large Interstellar Industrial Base in charge of the building, the single-month capacity can reach near 5,000 outright!
"And even producing the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship, which takes the longest to build, it can turn out near 100 in a single month!" So Zhao Chen set it out.
And Nana's gaze grew hotter and hotter.
"I shall arrange my journey this instant and return to the Owl Dragon Star System!" Nana said it without a word more, unshakably.
Annie, beside her, was dumbfounded.
How is it that we talk and talk and now we are going back again?
"I said just now that in telling you of these technologies I am not asking you to hurry back now.
"It is only to let you know; you may go on enjoying your holiday.
"Very well — go on and play properly.
"I shall trouble you no further." Zhao Chen waved a hand with a smile, and closed the holographic image.
And thereafter Nana lingered a bare three days more before hurrying back to the Owl Dragon Star System.
Through those three days she could not put down the technology of that T5 Galaxy-class Large Interstellar Industrial Base, and turned it over in her mind without cease, with not the least heart left for a holiday.
And after Nana had gone back to work, Annie's father guessed in the main what the matter was, and urged Annie without cease to learn more from her younger sister, and to know gratitude toward the Commander!
So that in the end, of the 15 days' holiday first appointed.
Annie too was obliged to enjoy only seven, and then to leave her parents and her brothers and sisters to go on playing, and return herself to the Owl Dragon Star System.
And of this early return, Annie could not say she was wholly unwilling either — half glad and half sorry, one might say.
For the things the Commander had brought out this time were simply too far out of the common.