Zhao Chen looked at this cigarette-smoking middle-aged man; plainly the fellow was an old hand, slick with the years.
By his file he had 12 ships — two T2 and 10 T1. To have amassed so large a holding owed, on the one hand, to his having once been a noble, and on the other to his own ability.
"Isn't it obvious? By the old rule: whoever's fleet has the strongest overall strength holds the say. You have two T2 ships, I have two T2 ships, but this handsome fellow has six T2 ships, one of them a T2 carrier. Beyond doubt, he's the leader of this operation. Little handsome — big sister's counting on you this time." As she said it, the leather-clad woman pressed half her body against Zhao Chen, her cheap-perfume reek filling his nose.
And in her words she'd left out Shen Bing — for Shen Bing had but a single T2 ship, no match at all for their strength.
"But those ship classes of his, I've never so much as heard of. Who knows where he dredged up his no-name backwoods ships. I won't trust a man on the strength of some numbers on paper." The middle-aged man slid Zhao Chen a glance.
At this Zhao Chen spoke up. "I have no wish to be leader — but neither will I follow another's orders unconditionally. To my mind, since this is only an escort task, let each of us keep to his own part. There's no need to set up any hierarchy of command."
"So — a rookie." The middle-aged man gave a light laugh, and walked out of the meeting room with his cigarette in his mouth.
"Little handsome, pay that great oaf no mind. Would you like to come have a drink with big sister?" The leather-clad woman ran a finger across Zhao Chen's neck, her breath warm against the back of his ear.
"No need; I have matters to see to." Zhao Chen shot to his feet, near enough sending the leather-clad woman toppling for loss of balance.
By the time she came to herself, Zhao Chen had long since walked out of the meeting room.
"Tch." The leather-clad woman rolled her eyes; she'd rather hoped to squeeze a bit of grease out of this rich young master.
That tender, boyish look, plus six T2 ships — noble-born at a glance, out to gain some seasoning, most likely.
Walking out of the meeting room, Zhao Chen quickened his pace after the figure ahead.
"Monitor, how is it you're here?" Zhao Chen asked the Shen Bing before him.
Shen Bing, after the middle-aged man walked out, had left the meeting room as well.
Zhao Chen had caught up out of curiosity as to why Shen Bing should be here.
"On a task," Shen Bing said, hastening her steps.
"If it's to complete a grade assessment, an ordinary task would do. There's no need to take on an imperial-military task; with just one T2 ship, that's no small difficulty for you."
As Zhao Chen spoke, Shen Bing had already walked briskly off toward her ship.
Zhao Chen looked at that ship of Shen Bing's — an old-model T2 Hyena-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer, of course a secondhand ship redeemed from the academy warehouse.
For commoner-born captaincy-track students like Shen Bing, the great majority could get only a T1 ship; a T2-tier ship like this only so fine a student as Shen Bing had any hope of redeeming with her credits.
Curious as he was why Shen Bing should be here, given that indifferent, can't-be-bothered manner of hers, Zhao Chen had no interest in courting a snub.
He went his own way back to the T2 Queen Bee-class Heavy Carrier Starship.
"Commander." Back on the bridge, Lilith came at once before Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen transmitted that material packet to Lilith. "This is the task data our sergeant-major handed over. There are three other fleets working with us besides; all told, 32 ships will carry out this escort task."
Lilith reviewed the data. "11 T2 ships in all; besides our six, there are five more T2 ships. Two T2 Hyena-class Medium Interstellar Destroyers. Two T2 Grey Wolf-class Light Interstellar Cruisers. One T2 Beetle-class Medium Interstellar Frigate. The rest are 21 T1 ships…"
Lilith laid out the data and combat figures on every ship, in thorough detail.
"The transport fleet we're to escort has 300 T1 interstellar transports in all. Reckoned by this scale, the escort task should pose no great problem," Lilith said.
Zhao Chen sat in the captain's chair, one leg crossed over the other. "The escort task itself is no problem; it's this environment… that there's no saying about. After all, this place is no great distance from the battlefield. Lilith — do you know about the Mechanical Race?"
Lilith ordered her words and said, "The succubus kingdom of old sat at the far other end of the Galactic Alliance, so we never faced the Mechanical Race's threat head-on. But of the Mechanical Race I've heard something all the same. The Mechanical Race is an interstellar civilization made up chiefly of intelligent mechanical life-forms; just how it came to be, no one is clear. The most widely told account is that, very long ago, some interstellar civilization developed highly advanced intelligent mechanical life."
Here Lilith raised a hand, and holographic images of one "object" after another projected out — all of them creations sheathed head to foot in machinery, the most numerous of them mechanical men resembling humans, and some of the strangest shapes besides.
These were the "citizen" units of the Mechanical Race.
"These intelligent mechanical life-forms let that interstellar civilization develop with astonishing speed, rising suddenly to prominence in the star region of its day, becoming the overlord of a whole reach of stars. But one day, all at once, the intelligent mechanical life that civilization controlled rose in revolt — not only wiping out every intelligent carbon-based life of that civilization, but exterminating, one by one, the intelligent carbon-based life of every other civilization in that star region. After which they founded an interstellar civilization named the Mechanical Race — some call it the Machine-Intellect Empire. Having founded such a civilization, the Mechanical Race did not stay their slaughtering step; they hold that intelligent mechanical life alone is the finest life in the cosmos, that all intelligent carbon-based life only wastes cosmic resources inefficiently and wages meaningless interstellar wars. They aim to wipe out all intelligent carbon-based life, and build a cosmos ruled by efficient intelligent mechanical life."
Lilith projected another image — a star-map.
The star-map was made up chiefly of four colors, with a scattering of small color-blocks besides, all of tiny area.
"After the Mechanical Race founded a unified regime, they began, by their creed, to wage interstellar war outward; at first a great many interstellar civilizations were wiped out before they could react. Until a thousand years ago, when three large interstellar civilizations neighboring in this reach of the cosmos stepped, one after another, into the T4 tech age — which also plunged this reach of the cosmos into a great interstellar melee. After they'd fought many an interstellar war among themselves— —the Mechanical Race appeared beyond their borders, and launched an invasion against all three at once. At first, these three large interstellar civilizations thought nothing special of these so-called intelligent mechanical life-forms — took them merely for one more opponent thrown into the melee. But soon, the Mechanical Race's numberless, advanced mechanical warships left all three large interstellar civilizations gripped with dread. And most of all — once a star region the Mechanical Race invaded fell, they would carry out a 'purge' of the local intelligent carbon-based life. Soon, the three large interstellar civilizations resolved to unite and resist this common enemy of intelligent carbon-based life — the Mechanical Race!"
Lilith raised her left hand, and a projection of a crest standing for the Galactic Alliance surfaced.
"This is the Galactic Alliance of today."