Within this Machine Race base.
One could see, upon the outer faces of those planets in their mechanical framework, lane after lane opening, and Machine Race warship after warship sailing out.
Looked at from a distance, they were like several hundred long black serpents.
"Sure enough, it is as my brother reckoned.
"In this place there are assuredly more than the 500,000 warships first scouted." Zhao Wan'er, seeing this, showed no alarm whatever, but rather a thread of gladness.
For it showed that their action had told.
"Withdraw at once; and leave some survey equipment besides, to record how many enemy hulls there truly are!" Zhao Wan'er gave the order.
"Yes!"
This Owl Dragon stealth bomber special fleet began at once to withdraw; but there was no helping how many enemy hulls came welling out.
To this moment alone, the Machine Race warships shown upon the starship radar had reached 500,000!
"Reporting — several of our lines of withdrawal are blocked!" The adjutant looked at Zhao Wan'er in some haste.
These are all interstellar stealth bombers, unfit for a head-on field; still more when in that round of attack they had spent above nine parts in ten of their ordnance.
Though a tenth of these ten thousand bombers are T4 Shadow-Demon-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bombers.
They would not certainly be a match for an equal number of the Machine Race fleets before them.
Zhao Wan'er's brows drew slightly together.
But very soon she saw, upon one side of the fleet's course, a stretch of firelight appear.
That firelight she knew well.
It is the work of interstellar missiles in bombardment!
"They are ours! Break out toward that quarter at once!" Zhao Wan'er gave the order without a word more.
The whole fleet began to break out that way.
And before they had reached it, they saw those Machine Race warships that had barred the road torn open as though by some force.
And thereafter this gap widened without cease.
One could see Owl Dragon interstellar destroyers and battleships engaged with the Machine Race warships!
At this time the communication came through too.
"Wan'er, it is I, Shen Bing.
"I am come by order to support and cover you!
"Break out quickly through the passage we have opened.
"The enemy fleets are far too many in number; we must withdraw at once!" Shen Bing's image appeared before Zhao Wan'er.
"I have ordered the fleet to break out with all its strength.
"Sister Shen Bing, when did you come here?
"How is it I did not know?" Zhao Wan'er looked at her in surprise.
Within the information she had, she knew only that her special fleet was charged this time with striking this Machine Race base and drawing out its hidden military strength.
"That, of course, was so that you might give the fighting your whole mind. There now — let us get out first and speak after," said Shen Bing.
Zhao Wan'er pouted; within, she had in fact guessed it: most likely her brother meant to temper her.
How old was she now?
And still they take her for a child — were all those campaigns of hers fought for nothing?
Zhao Wan'er grumbled a word or two, and then gave her whole mind to the fighting before her.
Under the covering fire of the Owl Dragon Third Legion, which Shen Bing led, they got clear of this district successfully and joined with the Third Legion.
But these five hundred thousand-odd Machine Race warships plainly would not let go the attackers who had dared make trouble upon their ground.
And came after the Owl Dragon Third Legion and Zhao Wan'er's special fleet in a hard and unrelenting chase.
Happily, Shen Bing's Owl Dragon Third Legion, since its expansion, holds 100,000 warships too.
Facing 500,000 Machine Race warships, though a head-on fight would go more ill than well, to fight and withdraw at once was at the least no trouble at all.
At this time Zhao Wan'er, looking at the sand table, drew her brows slightly together; for she found sister Shen Bing's line of withdrawal exceedingly strange.
It was nothing like a withdrawal at all.
Zhao Wan'er raised a hand — and very soon set it down again.
Within the Owl Dragon Legion, the great majority, in carrying out an action, need only carry out their own part; as for the tasks of others, they need not know.
Even those few legion commanders who stand at the pyramid's peak are, in the great majority of campaigns, often unable to know the whole plan.
Only a certain few can know a plan of battle entire.
So though Zhao Wan'er was curious, she knew that if she asked Shen Bing, Shen Bing would most likely explain it to her.
But she chose to keep within her own bounds all the same.
What she ought to know, she would come to know.
It did not lie in this one moment.
…………
The pursuing Machine Race fleet behind them · flagship.
A mechanical commander whose whole head was gilded said, before four video windows, "I have just received the lord Prophet's order.
"We may pursue these attackers, but we may not leave the compass of the holy ground.
"Is that understood!"
"Understood!" the four other mechanical commanders said with one voice.
It seemed this gilt-headed commander held the highest standing among them.
Having charged its four subordinates.
The gilt-headed commander looked at the adjutant beside it and asked in a low voice, "How stands the damage to the Church's holy ground?"
"One side of the holy ground's outer district is gravely damaged, and it has told upon the mechanical altar within besides; it is said the lord Prophet is at this moment repairing the altar!"
"What? The altar is affected? That is the thing by which our Mechanical Divine Church receives the divine oracle! These cursed carbon-based creatures — they should have been utterly destroyed by us a thousand years ago." In the gilt-headed commander's tone one could hear anger, of all things.
Which shows to what degree this intelligent mechanical life's feeling has developed.
"Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!" The gilt-headed commander muttered the word without cease, as though it had short-circuited!
Thereafter the Machine Race fleets gave chase like mad things.
But several times, when it seemed they must overtake them, the quarry slipped nimbly away again.
And the red line of the holy ground drew nearer and nearer; pursue much further and these defilers of the holy ground would escape the place.
And by the Prophet's order, they would then have no right to pursue.
"Chase at full speed for me; every gun to fire! Contrive every means to block them for me!" This gilt-headed commander roared it, and the voice was nothing like a mechanical life's.
It was more like an enraged ordinary man's.
"Reporting — we have received word from several other fields. Three fleets of ours are likewise pursuing enemies. These are their tracks of pursuit. Reckoning by these tracks, so long as we can block them at this position. They cannot possibly break out of the holy ground!" the adjutant said of a sudden beside it.
The gilt-headed commander looked at once to the war sand table, and saw three other courses of travel.
It had known before that upon three other fields there were attackers likewise.
It had never thought they would run together by so strange a chance.
Pursue on, and at the holy ground's edge these attackers might be blocked!
Though they could not be blocked entire, at the least half might be stopped!
"Pursue on; come what may, these attackers shall pay the price!" the gilt-headed commander said sharply.