The Dragon Emperor · bridge.
Zhao Chen watched the holographic image of this mechanical planet grow clearer and clearer before him, its inner outline updating bit by bit.
All of it from those thousand marine companies gone within, recording through the equipment they carried and sending it back; and every stretch of the advance they would put out probe robots besides to help it.
"The outermost district looks to belong to the starship manufactory as well.
"They divide out the making of every module and every component of a warship, and at the last, in several places of assembly, piece the starship modules built before together." Zhao Chen propped his chin upon his hand and looked at the mechanical planet's surface, now scanned complete.
At this time one could see, within this model, those thousand points of light beginning to change.
Moving quickly, they show green.
When the speed slows they turn yellow.
And when they halt, or move and halt by turns, they turn red.
Which stands for these marine companies' three states in the fighting: green for a state of no fighting.
Yellow for a state of wary advance — no enemy met, but a latent danger present.
Red, as the name tells it, for a state of fighting.
And when such a cursor turns black.
That means this marine company has fallen to the last soul.
Such cases had already appeared.
"The fighting within this district is exceedingly fierce; of the marines fallen to the present, above half fell within this stretch." Lilith pointed at a district upon the model.
That district's progress was plainly very slow, and there were several black points of light that had ceased to move.
And while Lilith and Zhao Chen were talking.
Zhao Chen had Charlotte's arrangement from her side: she had set a further hundred interstellar marine battalions — and one knew from the name alone that what was sent this time was of another kind.
These hundred battalions are of an establishment raised to three hundred.
If the earlier companies of thirty were the vanguard, then these battalions are the main body.
The place where they came down was exactly the nearest to that suspicious district.
Reaching the mechanical planet, these battalions began to move quickly, advancing toward the positions where those marine companies had fallen.
Zhao Chen folded his arms and stared at these larger green cursors.
Very soon one of the large green cursors turned red.
…………
"Reporting — the signal of the vanguard's 133rd company is detected a hundred meters ahead!" An interstellar warrior held a radar device in her hand.
"Order every company to make ready for battle!
"Dong Li, your second company goes up first.
"Have a care."
"Understood. Second company, all: B2 battle formation, advance!"
A company of thirty began to break from the main body, and advanced step by step upon the cover within the pitch-black passage ahead.
Each stretch of the way, they would throw out a fist-sized scout robot.
Only when they had made certain it was safe would they tell the ranks behind them.
And only then would the ranks behind come up.
This was a very great ruin, all iron and steel structure about them, with fallen floor-slabs besides.
Every light had failed.
Though the night-vision upon their tactical helmets let them see as in broad day.
"Wait." The company's captain Dong Li halted of a sudden, and looked with drawn brows at the picture the scout robots sent back.
"Captain, what is it?" A member halted and asked in puzzlement.
"It is not as it should be." Captain Dong Li's brows drew together. "There is no heat reaction here whatever!"
"No enemy — is that not perfectly ordinary?" the member said without thinking.
Captain Dong Li said, her voice low, "Ordinary? Do not forget: a battle was fought here but ten minutes since.
"How should there be no heat reaction at all!"
"Then… the field has been swept?" the member muttered in puzzlement.
The member beside her slapped her outright upon the backside. "Are you a fool? This is no particular kind of action; is there any need to sweep a field?
"And every place we entered before where fighting had broken out, we detected no small heat reaction — the wrecked bodies of those mechanisms, even having lost their capacity to fight, do not lose their heat reaction wholly in so short a time.
"Unless…"
"Unless this is a trap!" the captain said, with her face set.
She gave her order without a word more. "Pass my order: upon the position from ten meters to thirty meters ahead, a covering firepower strike!"
"Yes!"
Two members took the packs they carried and set them upon the ground; and having pressed the button upon them.
The packs opened, showing a honeycomb structure of missile launchers within.
And thereafter the firing command was entered.
Missile after missile, each the size of a fist, went out with its tail of flame.
Boom, boom, boom.
The sound of bursts came without cease from ahead.
"Reporting! Heat reactions found!" The member charged with watching the radar cried out of a sudden.
And at the same time certain uncommon sights appeared within the picture.
Within the smoke of the bursts there appeared mechanical creatures one after another, strange and various in shape.
There were mechanical dogs bearing gatling-style autocannon upon their backs, and medium-to-large mechanisms of a crab shape with two rocket weapons upon the back and autocannon in the hands.
Within the smoke their number could not be seen clearly.
But one could see red indicator lights in dense array, like beasts within the dark.
"Enemy found! Enemy number unknown.
"The whole battalion, open the fighting!" The battalion's commander gave the order at once.
Three hundred interstellar warriors entered their several fighting positions at the first moment, and with weapons of differing kinds began to exchange fire with the enemy.
"Captain, have a care!"
Dong Li's company, standing foremost, of course bore the greatest pressure.
The enemy locked her position too; a laser cannon hidden behind took aim at her.
A pulse beam came out at her.
Dong Li sensed the danger and at once brought her right arm before her; and before her there appeared a shield-shaped star-shield.
But all knew well that against an attack of such force, a single-soldier star-shield could hardly survive whole.
Sure enough, at the first instant of the impact the single-soldier shield showed cracks like a spider's web.
Dong Li set her teeth and faced that terrible threat.
But the next second another and greater star-shield appeared before Dong Li.
"Captain, captain, are you unhurt?" An anxious voice came down the channel within her helmet.
Dong Li closed the several red prompt boxes that had sprung up upon her tactical helmet; she had just now been pulled hard by someone.
She looked at the one standing before her.
That was a member in heavy single-soldier armor, and in her hand she bore a physical shield the height of a man!
Do not think little of this physical shield: within it is used star-shield field technology, and set against single-soldier shield equipment it has above ten times the defensive effect.
It is generally standard issue within a company.
Had she not stood before her just now, Dong Li would likely have been gone.
"I am unhurt." Dong Li drew several deep breaths; and just as she was about to stand up, her hand seemed to touch something.
She lowered her head and looked at a severed arm upon the ground.
That was the uniform of an interstellar marine, and upon it a blurred string of numbers.
Dong Li was silent a second, and stood up. "Pull out several of the enemy's firing points for me; do not shame our company!"