Zachary Chase looked at the middle-aged man who was smoking; it was obvious that this person was an old hand.
According to the data, he owned twelve starships—two T2 starships and ten T1 starships. The reason he was able to accumulate such a large fortune was partly because he was once a nobleman, and partly due to his personal ability.
"This is very obvious. According to the old rules, whoever's fleet has stronger comprehensive strength has the right to speak. You have two T2 starships, and I also have two T2 starships. But this handsome guy has six T2 starships, one of which is a T2 Carrier Starship. Undoubtedly, he is the overlord of this operation. Handsome little guy, this time I'm counting on you."
As she spoke, the leather jacket woman leaned half her body against Zachary, and the smell of cheap perfume filled Zachary's nostrils. Her words did not include Serena Frost, after all, Serena only had one T2 starship, which was completely incomparable to their strength.
"But I've never even heard of his starships. Who knows where he got those wild starships from. I can't just trust someone based on some data on paper." The middle-aged man glanced at Zachary.
Zachary spoke at this time: "I don't want to be this overlord, but I won't obey orders unconditionally just because someone else gives them. I think since this is just an escort mission, we should each do our part. There's no need to establish any superior-subordinate relationships."
"So it's a rookie." The middle-aged man chuckled, holding a cigarette in his mouth, and walked out of the conference room.
"Handsome little guy, don't mind that brute. Would you like to go for a drink with me?" The leather jacket woman's finger traced Zachary's neck, and her warm breath brushed against the back of Zachary's ear.
"No thanks, I have something to do." Zachary suddenly stood up, almost causing the leather jacket woman to lose her balance and fall to the ground.
By the time the leather jacket woman regained her senses, Zachary had already walked out of the conference room.
"Hmph." The leather jacket woman rolled her eyes. She had wanted to see if she could get some benefits from this rich young master. His naive appearance, plus the six T2 starships, clearly indicated he was of noble birth, most likely out for experience.
Zachary, who had walked out of the conference room, quickly caught up with the figure in front of him.
"Serena, why are you here?" Zachary asked Serena Frost, who was in front of him.
Serena had also left after the middle-aged man walked out of the conference room. Zachary caught up because he was curious why Serena was here.
"Doing a mission," Serena said, quickening her pace.
"If it's to complete the grade assessment, a regular mission would suffice. There's no need to do an Imperial Army military mission. It's quite difficult for you, having only one T2 starship."
As Zachary spoke, Serena had already walked quickly away, heading toward her starship.
Zachary looked at Serena's starship—an old model T2 Hyena-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer, which was naturally a second-hand starship exchanged from the academy's starship warehouse. After all, most captain-track students from commoner backgrounds like Serena could only obtain one T1 starship. Only good students like Serena had a chance to exchange for a T2-class starship using academic credits.
Although curious why Serena was here, given her indifferent attitude, Zachary had no interest in bothering her further.
He returned to the T2 Bee Queen-class Heavy Carrier Starship on his own.
"Commander." Zachary returned to the Bridge, and Lilith immediately came before him.
Zachary transmitted the data to Lilith: "This is the mission data given to us by the sergeant who is in charge of us. In addition, there are three other fleets cooperating with us, so a total of thirty-two starships will carry out this escort mission."
Lilith checked the data: "A total of eleven T2 starships—excluding our six starships, there are five more T2 starships. Two T2 Hyena-class Medium Interstellar Destroyers, two T2 Gray Wolf-class Light Star Cruisers, and one T2 Beetle-class Medium Interstellar Frigate. The remaining are twenty-one T1 starships…"
Lilith organized all the data and combat statistics for each starship model, very detailed.
"Our escort starship fleet consists of three hundred T1 Interstellar Transport Ships. Calculating by this scale, the escort mission should not be a big problem," Lilith said.
Zachary sat in the captain's chair, crossing his legs: "The escort mission itself is not a problem, but this environment… that's hard to say. After all, it's not far from the battlefield. Lilith, do you know about the Mechanical Clan?"
Lilith organized her words and said: "The galaxy where the Demon Kingdom was located used to be on the other side of the Galactic Alliance, so it did not suffer the direct threat of the Mechanical Clan. But there were still some rumors about the Mechanical Clan. The Mechanical Clan is an interstellar civilization primarily composed of intelligent mechanical life. No one knows why it came into existence. One of the most widely circulated theories is that a very long time ago, an interstellar civilization developed highly advanced intelligent mechanical life."
As Lilith spoke, she raised her hand and a holographic image projected various 'objects'. These were creations entirely covered in machinery, mostly humanoid robots similar to humans, but also some with strange and varied shapes. These were the 'citizen' units of the Mechanical Clan.
"These intelligent mechanical life forms enabled this interstellar civilization to develop rapidly, rising abruptly in the star system at that time and becoming the overlord of a star system. But suddenly one day, the intelligent mechanical life controlled by that interstellar civilization launched a rebellion, not only annihilating all intelligent carbon-based life forms of that interstellar civilization but also eliminating the intelligent carbon-based life forms of other civilizations in that star system one by one. Afterward, they established an interstellar civilization called the Mechanical Clan, which some called the 'Sentient Mech Empire'.
"After establishing such an interstellar civilization, the Mechanical Clan did not stop their slaughter. They advocated that intelligent mechanical life forms are the most excellent life forms in the universe, and all intelligent carbon-based life forms only inefficiently consume cosmic resources and wage meaningless interstellar wars. Their aim is to eliminate all intelligent carbon-based life forms and establish a universe ruled by efficient intelligent mechanical life."
Lilith again used the holographic projection to display an image. It was a star map. The star map was mainly composed of four colors, with several small color blocks, but their areas were extremely small.
"After the Mechanical Clan established a unified regime, they began to launch interstellar wars according to their principles. At first, many interstellar civilizations were caught off guard and annihilated. It wasn't until a thousand years ago that three large interstellar civilizations in this adjacent universe successively entered the T4 technology era, which also plunged this universe into a great interstellar war. After multiple interstellar wars broke out among themselves, the Mechanical Clan appeared beyond their borders and launched invasions against them simultaneously.
"At first, these three large interstellar civilizations did not think that these so-called intelligent mechanical life forms were anything special, only thinking that another opponent had emerged in the great war. But soon, the numerous and advanced mechanical starships of the Mechanical Clan instilled fear in all three large interstellar civilizations. Most importantly, once a star system invaded by the Mechanical Clan was occupied, the local intelligent carbon-based life forms would be 'purified'.
"Soon, the three large interstellar civilizations decided to unite to resist this common enemy of intelligent carbon-based life forms—the Mechanical Clan!"
Lilith raised her left hand, and a projected emblem symbolizing the Galactic Alliance appeared.
"This is the current Galactic Alliance."