Beep, beep, beep, beep.
Zhao Chen, who had been in a state of dormancy, was roused by a piercing sound at his ear.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! A cosmic storm of great extent detected; warp-run mode closing down under emergency; please plan the route afresh!"
Everywhere upon the bridge the red lights of emergency status were flashing.
Zhao Chen climbed out of the dormancy pod and watched the ship's women hurrying back to their several posts.
Some among them might well not yet have made out what had happened at all.
But long training had already bred in them a kind of muscle memory: when a case of this sort arose, whatever the case might be, they would return to their posts without thinking.
"Commander, upon the route we had planned there has appeared a cosmic storm of great extent." Xue Xiaoxiao looked gravely at Zhao Chen as she set out the situation.
Zhao Chen's brows drew slightly together, and through the holographic projection he looked at the scene taken from outside the starship.
One could see, ahead of the fleet, a vast stretch of chaotic region, and everywhere within it haloes of purple and blue in shapes of a strange enchantment — seemingly very beautiful, but deadly all the same.
Even a T5-grade interstellar warship, should it stray in among them, would stand in very great danger.
Still more so when their fleet held T4 interstellar warships besides — and the Angel fleet travelling with them were T3 interstellar warships.
Happily the warning function of the warp run had sensed this danger beforehand; otherwise, to have entered this stretch under warp — it was hard to imagine what would have come of it.
"Why was this danger not sensed beforehand, when the route was planned?" Zhao Chen asked.
Secretary Nancy, at his side, spoke with a face full of self-reproach. "We… we calculated and probed a great many times then, and made certain… made certain that this route held no trouble. We… we never thought either… that a thing of this kind would happen…"
One could see that Secretary Nancy was thrown into great confusion now; had she been in some other fleet, perhaps she might have been able to steady herself.
But the one beside her now was the lord Commander!
"This is no fault of Nancy's. After this route was reported up to me, I looked over the data myself, and it could be settled then that there was no danger. The Angel fleet's side likewise confirmed it. As the case looks at present, this should be reckoned a cosmic disaster breaking out of a sudden. The flank of this lane was in any event a region of cosmic disaster all the year round, and by our bad luck we have run into just such a sudden cosmic disaster as comes not once in several hundred thousand years. And we chanced to be exactly within the compass it reaches." Xue Xiaoxiao said it helplessly.
"Then what means have we?" Zhao Chen asked.
Secretary Nancy answered, "Though we do not at present stand within the compass the cosmic disaster reaches, yet by what our probes show, within 10 minutes this stretch where we are will be reached by it. We must withdraw from this region as fast as may be. But our road back is stopped up by the cosmic disaster; and now this stretch of space cannot even guarantee the safety of a warp run. The one direction in which we can withdraw is…"
Secretary Nancy hesitated a moment, and pointed at the other side of this lane.
The direction of the Machine Race's territory!
In this moment Xue Xiaoxiao and Zhao Chen were both silent a while.
But very soon Zhao Chen made his decision. "Get in contact with the Angel fleet at once; tell them our decision, and have them follow us immediately in withdrawing to take refuge!"
"Yes!" Xue Xiaoxiao and Secretary Nancy, having their orders, went at once to set the arrangements in train.
With a cosmic disaster before them, it was now a matter of fighting for every second.
The Angel fleet's side agreed to this handling of it as well; there was, after all, no other choice in the present case.
Two fleets, above 60 interstellar warships, came about in the shortest time and began to rush toward the Machine Race's territory at the highest speed their regular engines could give.
And behind the fleet the cosmic disaster began to spread onward like some vast wave running down a squadron of ships, following hard at the fleet's heels.
Should this fleet once be swallowed by that terrible wave, the result might be imagined.
"There is no time! The speed at which the cosmic disaster spreads far surpasses our own! By the System's calculation, 10 minutes at the most. Our fleet will be overtaken!" Secretary Nancy said it in her anxiety.
Zhao Chen said, with his face set, "Pass the order to both fleets: have every interstellar warship draw close to the Hades. Whatever may happen in a moment, rush forward at any cost whatever! Xiaoxiao — when we are overtaken, open the star-shield, and cover the whole fleet in breaking through!"
At the Commander's words.
Secretary Nancy at once looked at him in alarm. "Commander, it will not do! What of your own safety, done in this fashion? I hold that the other interstellar warships should cover the Hades, and guard the Hades' safety at any cost whatever. So long as we can hold out and break clear of the compass this cosmic disaster reaches, at the least… at the least you are safe."
Zhao Chen sat upon the sofa and smiled slightly. "Nancy, you are not yet familiar with my character. I fear death; but to hide behind my own crew and drag out a stolen life — that Zhao Chen cannot do. The Hades' hull is of T5-grade technological material; set against T4- and T3-grade interstellar warships its defense is stronger, and its star-shield energy more ample besides. For the Hades to take this task upon it is the fittest thing. Say no more; carry out the order."
Xue Xiaoxiao gave Zhao Chen one glance, said nothing further, and went silently to carry out this order.
Set against Nancy, she was far the more familiar with this schoolfellow's character; he had done madder things than this.
Time slipped away, moment by moment.
Very soon the compass of the cosmic disaster behind them began to overtake the fleet.
That five-colored radiance, filled with death, began to swallow this luckless fleet.
And at this the Hades opened its own star-shield, barring every danger outside the shield, sheltering beneath it the more than 60 interstellar warships.
In this moment every soul upon the Hades' bridge looked, without meaning to, at that star-shield energy value flickering and falling.
From green it turned to yellow, and from yellow to red.
This terrible five-colored radiance seemed as though it were without end; there was simply no rushing clear of it.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! Star-shield remaining energy value below 1 percent; closing down shortly."
The System's warning left every heart dead as ash.
Zhao Chen closed his eyes and said nothing; not the faintest look of alarm could be seen upon his face.
Thereafter, without the System's telling, Zhao Chen knew the star-shield's protection was gone.
Because the bridge began to shake violently, and Zhao Chen could even hear a grinding and creaking at his ear: that was the hull's armor taking the impact.
Even the bridge's electronic systems were affected, and remained unsteady.
In this moment the fate of this fleet could only be handed over to fortune.
An interstellar warship of a sudden came rushing out of that stretch the cosmic disaster covered.
Though there were many marks of ravage upon the hull, that it could sail as it should was enough to show this ship had no very great trouble in it.
Where there was a first, there was a second, a fifth… a tenth.
There were Owl Dragon interstellar warships, and Angel interstellar warships as well.
And at this moment that region of cosmic disaster had also ceased to spread outward.
"We have broken clear." The angel Tabitha leaned back in the captain's chair and let out a long breath.
Who could have thought that a thing so dangerous should be the very thing they met with.
Happily, before this, that lord had sheltered them with a T5 interstellar warship's star-shield.
Otherwise, resting on the star-shield energy of these T4 and T3 interstellar warships of theirs alone, it would have been spent long since, and they would have vanished forever within this cosmic disaster.
Nor could they have held out until now.
"Just so; we are safe at last." The adjutant beside her said it in relief.
"That… that… the Owl Dragon fleet's T5 interstellar warship… it seems it has not come out at all…" One angel petty officer said it of a sudden.
The angel Tabitha rose sharply to her feet, and her eyes swept in tension over this fleet of survivors.
The Owl Dragon fleet and the Angel fleet were, in the main, all here — save for… that T5 Hades-class Interstellar Dreadnought.