By the time Zhao Chen returned to the Holy Radiance Empire's starport, it was the end of January already.
And here, long beforehand, a squadron of Owl Dragon interstellar warships was found waiting.
From one of them a shuttle flew out and entered the Hades' hangar outright.
To reach the Hades' hangar directly without the Hades' leave.
In the whole Owl Dragon Legion there were not many who could.
Before long.
Zhao Chen looked toward a white figure that came darting out of the bridge doors.
The next second Zhao Chen felt something come flying against his breast and strike him square and solid.
Had Zhao Chen's bodily condition not been of the toughest, an ordinary man taking that would likely have been left with an internal injury outright.
"Am I not unhurt? And how is it you have come all this way on purpose?" Zhao Chen looked at Charlotte in his arms, and then at Lilith walking slowly onto the bridge.
"Only come to see whether you were missing an arm or a leg." Charlotte glared at Zhao Chen fiercely.
Perhaps sensing the eyes about them, she then got down off him, somewhat abashed.
Lilith at this point came near as well, and looked Zhao Chen up and down, as though a stone in her heart had at last come safely to the ground.
"It is well that you are back safe. Next time you travel, be careful in the extreme!" Lilith said in careful reminder.
Zhao Chen shrugged helplessly. "That I should run into a cosmic disaster of a kind that comes not once in several hundred thousand years — what means had I?"
Lilith threw him a look of the whites of her eyes.
"I hear the meeting with the Angel Race went smoothly enough?" Lilith came to the business.
Zhao Chen nodded, and took out a data disc. "Within this are the technical drawings for 90 percent of an Angel Race class called the T3 Radiance-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer. I have settled it with the Angel Race's three Angel Kings: so long as our Owl Dragon can, within one month, provide the component share for 10,000 hulls of this class. We can ally with the Angel Race! And hereafter we shall contract-build interstellar warships for the Angel Race in quantity besides."
At the Commander's words.
Lilith's brows drew slightly together. "Our own Owl Dragon production tasks are exceedingly heavy at present, and a great quantity of interstellar warships wants building. To produce these 10,000 interstellar warships for the Angel Race at such a time…"
"I have reckoned it: this order costs 50 billion star coins, and the order's sum is 2 trillion." Scarcely had Zhao Chen said it.
Lilith at once put on a scrupulous expression. "This military-purchase business I hold we can quite certainly swallow whole."
This military-purchase order, even setting aside the costs of transport and the rest hereafter.
Would give the Owl Dragon's side a profit of at the least 1.9 trillion star coins!
Which came to about two months' earnings under the whole Owl Dragon Galactic Interstellar Group!
"Get in contact with Li Wei of the Northern Goose Group; hand him this technology. Have him finish it for me within a month… within 20 days. Then get me Chief Engineer Annie besides," Zhao Chen instructed.
Hearing Zhao Chen mention Chief Engineer Annie, Lilith reminded him in a small voice, "Commander… high as our Chief Engineer Annie's gifts are. Through this stretch of time, with all the heavy work of every kind, she has truly been squeezed… quite dry. However fine a sheep may be, you cannot go on shearing the one."
"It is nothing; only a small task. If it truly will not answer, let Chief Engineer Nana and the rest work along with her." Where Chief Engineer Annie's limits lay, Zhao Chen knew very well.
Charlotte here spoke of a piece of business too. "There is a rather urgent case. We have had news. Just five days ago. Marshal Red Demon, leading the 600,000 interstellar warships of the Red Demon Legion under his command, together with 200,000 interstellar warships each from the Ghoul Legion and the Balam Legion. A grand total of 1 million interstellar warships forming a demon legion expeditionary fleet group, has already set out to open a new round of expedition against us!"
At hearing this news.
Zhao Chen's face darkened.
Because he had been in warp-run mode all this while before, Zhao Chen had had no way of learning it at the first moment.
He reckoned that Charlotte and Lilith waiting for him here was on the one hand out of anxiety for him, and on the other on account of this urgent case.
Zhao Chen paused, then asked, "Do we know where their demon legion expeditionary fleet group lies now?"
Charlotte at once called up a star chart — the very chart of that demon lane.
"This time is unlike the last: this time the demon legion fleets are vast in number, and they took a beating before besides, so they sail very warily, which makes their sailing rather slow. Which has let our T4 Banshee-class Light Interstellar Stealth Scouts trail and track them. In five days past they have sailed less than a tenth of the distance of this demon lane. And reckoning in the rather long halts and refits that may come between. They are projected to reach us at the last in above two months at the least. Which is to say, about the middle of April." Charlotte finished her analysis and looked toward Zhao Chen.
The middle of April…
There was time yet.
But the pressure of it upon the Owl Dragon was enormous.
"A million interstellar warships… that Marshal Red Demon has truly had his blood up this time. Charlotte, what do you think — resting when the time comes upon our Owl Dragon's own strength alone. What certainty have we?" Zhao Chen inquired.
Charlotte plainly halted and thought a while at this, and said, weighing it, "Under 30 percent — and it will be a victory dearly bought."
Thirty percent… dearly bought…
This was by no means the result Zhao Chen wanted.
Zhao Chen scratched his head in some vexation; he had thought the Demon Race would launch a fiercer round of attack for the defeat before.
But he had never thought it would be above a million interstellar warships.
"Among the enemy's million interstellar warships, the number of T5 Terror-Blade-class Medium Interstellar Battlecruisers we already know of comes to near 10! Whereas by our Owl Dragon's present production plan for combat-type interstellar warships. In the matter of T5 interstellar warships we do not in fact fear the enemy. The trouble is the matter of fleet scale. By the middle of April, reckoning it to the very last, the number of our Owl Dragon Legion's interstellar warships can barely reach 50,000-odd! The gap in interstellar warship numbers comes to twentyfold! Set against the tenfold gap in fleet numbers at that battle before, it has doubled again! And this doubling is by no means so simple a thing as one plus one." Charlotte shook her head helplessly.
Against a disparity so vast, resting on the Owl Dragon alone, it would be very hard indeed to bear up.
Lilith too said, powerlessly, from beside them, "If only the demon legions came some few months later, and our T5 Galaxy-class Large Interstellar Industrial Base could carry out some months of production tasks. The case would not be half so bad!"
"It seems the pressure is very great, resting upon ourselves alone; then we can only ask for help from outside," Zhao Chen muttered.
As for who that outside help should be.
Was there not one on hand before them?
The Angel Race!
So long as an alliance could be made, and the Owl Dragon showed its value when the time came, the Angel Race could hardly leave an ally of theirs to shift for himself.
To send reinforcements would be a thing of course.
Of course, the whole of it rested upon this: that Zhao Chen could bring the alliance of the Owl Dragon and the Angel Race about.
This alliance must go through without the slightest slip!