Upon the bridge.
"Hold to the heading and the course; another hour and we may sail clear of this district. Then we may open those system programs we shut down." So saying, the demon captain turned and walked to the captain's private room beside the bridge.
Within it a young demon petty officer sat.
"Why are you not at your own post?" the demon captain rebuked him with a frown.
"Brother, I only came across to rest a while." This petty officer said it with a grin; and he looked about him, feeling this and touching that, and said, "Brother, who in the world do you suppose builds these warships?
"We have come five journeys now, and I find that the warships we see are very nearly identical every time!
"Truly… did I not remember that we have come five times, I should feel we were aboard one and the same ship.
"The starship works upon our side could never manage such a thing."
The demon captain's face turned ugly at once; he came straight forward, seized his younger brother by the collar, and rebuked him in a voice exceedingly low. "Have you forgotten the rules of this task of ours! Ask nothing, think nothing, look at nothing!"
"I know it; have I said it before any outsider?" The demon petty officer said it with a light laugh.
Of this younger brother's temper he was well aware.
Boom.
Of a sudden the two felt the very floor beneath them shaking.
"What is this?" The demon petty officer was struck blank.
The demon captain walked out of the room without a word and went back to his own place upon the bridge.
"What is the case?" He asked his adjutant at once.
"Reporting — we are ambushed by an unidentified fleet. Our star-shields are taking the attack, and the shield energy value is falling swiftly!" the adjutant cried in his haste.
"Under attack? Then organize a counter-attack at once!" the demon captain said, with his face set.
"But because the system programs we shut down include the radar system, we cannot lock the enemy's warships," the adjutant said in his difficulty.
At this the demon captain was struck blank as well.
Just so.
Without the radar system started, the fire-control system cannot lock an enemy.
"Ask the commander at once; apply to open those system programs and make a fighting answer!" The demon captain hesitated a moment, then asked his commander at once.
And very soon they had their answer: every system program might be opened, and they were to make ready to fight.
Having this leave, warship after warship at once opened those closed programs.
And they plainly discovered the enemy who had struck at them.
Warship upon warship had them ringed about entire, and upon the hulls was one exceedingly conspicuous mark: a golden dragon device.
At this fleet blazon no few of them failed at the first moment to know it.
But happily there were materials within the data banks.
This is the Owl Dragon Legion's fleet blazon!
Seeing the words Owl Dragon, no few of them did not at the first moment catch up with it.
But seeing within the noted materials upon the Owl Dragon Legion the business of the Red Demon Legion, they all caught up with it at a stroke.
So this was the chief author of that Red Demon Legion affair.
But how should they appear here of a sudden? And fall upon them besides?
Carrying these doubts, these demon warships gave battle in haste; but their case had already turned sharply down.
Though from suffering the attack to making their answer and opening those starship system programs again was a bare dozen minutes and more.
Yet upon an interstellar field a bare dozen minutes is enough to change a great deal.
The Owl Dragon Legion fleets, swift in the attack, used interstellar cruisers and battlecruisers to cut and divide the demon fleets without cease, and then to surround and annihilate.
Within which the interstellar battleships took upon them the task of surrounding and destroying the demon main-force warships.
And the great quantity of fighters and drone swarms the carrier starships put out came sweeping over earth and sky besides, giving their friendly ships great support upon the field.
And for certain thornier opponents within particular districts, interstellar gunships and missile ships gave firepower support.
These hundred thousand-odd Demon Race warships, in a bare hour and less, were cut into a dozen and more fields, great and small, with no capacity whatever to strike back.
Their being wholly destroyed was only a matter of time.
The Dragon Emperor · bridge.
"All goes very smoothly; the enemy shut down no few important combat system programs before the fighting, which has given us our opening. Fighting on as the case now stands, give us two hours more and we may annihilate these warships entire." Little Dragon Girl floated at Zhao Chen's side, reporting how it stood.
"These 100,000 Demon Race warships are but a bait. It remains to be seen whether that fish will take the hook." Zhao Chen said it, his voice low, staring at a vast interstellar radar map beside him.
That was a radar star-map network built up out of the radar star-maps reported back by T4 Banshee-class Light Interstellar Stealth Scouts scouting outside.
Which let Zhao Chen see the case about them clearly.
With so great a stir here, the enemy could not fail to be drawn.
Sure enough.
Ten minutes more, and at the edge of the radar star-map there appeared the energy beacons of many fleets.
"They come," Lilith said in reminder beside him.
"The quarry has shown itself." Zhao Chen propped his chin upon one hand and stared at those fleet energy beacons.
Very soon the stealth-scouting Banshees sent back the images of the place.
One could see that these were orthodox Machine Race warships, wholly another style from the warships now under the Owl Dragon Legion's attack.
"Scan the enemy fleets' composition — chiefly to see how many T5 warships they hold, and where they lie!" Zhao Chen said in reminder.
Little Dragon Girl nodded, and very soon larger energy cursors appeared one by one upon the star-map before them.
Those large cursors stood for the Machine Race's T5 warships.
And at the same time a frame appeared before Zhao Chen, prefixed with the name of warship after warship, and behind each a number flickering and climbing.
T5 Steel-Terminator-class Heavy Carrier Starship: 1
T5 Imperial-Steel-Fist-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship: 2
T5 Imperial-War-Blade-class Heavy Interstellar Battlecruiser: 5
T5 Iron-Eagle-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser: 13
T5 Steel-Claw-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer: 37
T5 Black-Mechanical-Guard-class Medium Interstellar Escort: 103
And these numbers were climbing without cease.
"This Machine Race has no few secrets.
"Upon our side, all supposed the Machine Race had not one T5 warship.
"Upon the Angel Race's side, all supposed the Machine Race had but the one T5 Steel-Claw-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer.
"I could wish to let them look properly upon this scene." Zhao Chen shook his head with a self-mocking smile.
Though it must be said that the intelligence the little girl gave upon the Machine Race's fleets in service was true enough.
Every class answered to it exactly.
But at the same time it left Zhao Chen with a chill in him.
He would not suppose that little girl so simple. That she dared show these things before him.
Did that not mean the Machine Race holds some greater secret yet?