Chapter Seven: The War Has Only Just Begun (Revised)

“When we arrived, all that was left were countless fragments.” General Hu slumped weakly into his chair, as if recounting this story had drained him of every last ounce of strength. The steely resolve on his face faded, and in that instant, the features of a man in his prime seemed to age by decades.

“That captain…?” After hearing the entire story, Shaoyu fell into a deep and quiet stillness.

“Yes, him.”

The answer brought Liu Shaoyu no relief; in fact, it only made the weight heavier to bear. The captain in question was none other than the father of his friend, Xu Meng. He also knew the verdict handed down by the military tribunal after the battle: Admiral Xu Shiyou was stripped of his rank for personal errors that brought about the annihilation of the Federation Fleet.

A lifetime of campaigns, ending in disgrace. It was a fate no one could accept—no wonder Xu Meng was so sensitive at the mere mention of the Seventh Fleet.

“Your exam question was based on our rescue attempt—when a miscalculation in warp distance meant we arrived at the wrong coordinates. We had no choice but to send unmanned drones at full speed to assist, but even then, we were too late. All we encountered were a few scattered enemy units that had evaded the explosion.”

It all made sense now. The drones, needing energy supplied by their motherships, couldn’t operate independently over long distances. This forced us to cut power allocations elsewhere, and without equipping three lasers, even if the drones engaged the enemy from afar, they’d lack enough energy for sustained combat. But with three lasers working in rotation, the energy drain on the coolant system was reduced, and they could fire in seamless succession, covering the firing intervals.

Yet, fatally, the loss of armor left the drones all but defenseless.

The atmosphere grew heavy once more.

“Sir, what’s done is done. If General Xu were still here, he’d want you to avenge him—to strike back hard at those bastards,” said Master Kang, and the “sir” in his mouth was, of course, General Hu. It became clear why both men were so loud—they came from the same school of discipline.

“It’s a pity my old friend never realized that his battle was far from over. The Fengtower Star System covers an area five times the size of the Milky Way. What we call the ‘homeworld’ is but a corner of the entire stellar kingdom. Yet our strike provoked the wrath of the insectoids, rousing their Queen Mother herself and prompting a full declaration of war against the Galactic Union. The Galactic Union, for various reasons, chose to remain neutral.”

“So, they abandoned us?”

“That’s right. The Galactic Union couldn’t withstand the fury of the Fengtower Swarm—they backed down.”

The Fengtower system, located in the northern reaches of the Milky Way, controls eighty percent of the Virgo Supercluster’s high-purity crystal ore and more than ten stargates connecting to intergalactic space.

By contrast, the Milky Way is a mineral-poor galaxy. Even before Earth ventured into space, its rare resources were nearly depleted, and the higher the class of starship, the more stringent the requirements for specialized metals. Thus, the Earth Federation had no choice but to send mining fleets across the stars in search of materials.

In those distant regions, Earth could only secure the right to purchase rare minerals, and the exorbitant cost severely limited the Federation Fleet’s development. The Solar System itself lacked high-value universal commodities, so, to avoid being devoured by rival powers and to ensure its own survival, the Federation set its sights on the neighboring Fengtower System. Securing even a fraction of the mining rights for high-purity crystals would allow them to trade for the rare metals needed to build starships.

But what the Federation sought, the Galactic Union had already considered. The chronic resource shortage left the Union’s military incapable of matching the Swarm, whose territory was rich in crystal ore. Prolonged skirmishes only worsened the situation, pushing the two sides—driven by race, resources, and irreconcilable disputes—toward a war of mutual destruction.

The crisis finally erupted when the Federation’s Interstellar Mining Company, crossing a stargate during a trade mission, was ambushed by the Swarm’s fleet—an act that lit the fuse for war.

“Falling behind means getting beaten,” General Hu uttered with a heavy sigh.

Most of these events, Liu Shaoyu had already read about in military history, but some of the classified details still caught him off guard.

If the Seventh Fleet was still fighting on the front lines, that meant the war was far from over.

“Not long ago, we seized control of a frontier stargate, but the enemy quickly counterattacked. We lost a B-class carrier fleet in the engagement,” General Hu said, a look of pain crossing his face.

Almost every member of the current Seventh Army had grown up under General Hu’s watchful eye. Each young, now-aged face lost was another blow to the old man’s heart. But that is the nature of war—merciless and cold.

Liu Shaoyu remained silent. For more than a decade, though he had no parents, he lived decently under government care and had even managed to amass a small fortune through various means. Sheltered as he was, he’d never truly grasped the brutal reality: that his peaceful life was bought with the blood of those fighting at the front.

He’d never clearly understood his own destiny, but now, for the first time, he comprehended his purpose. Now, he understood the true meaning behind the Seventh Army’s iron-blooded oath. His head was not swimming with hot-blooded recklessness—on the contrary, he’d never felt so clear-headed. At last, he understood why he trained so hard. As the veterans always told the new recruits: “The more sweat you shed in training, the less blood you’ll shed in battle.”

“Originally, you cadets weren’t scheduled to see combat for another three years. But with the front under pressure and the loss of an entire fleet, the Federation is pushing hard. The military is struggling to cope,” General Hu said gravely.

“So, does that mean I can go to the battlefield?” Liu Shaoyu barely heard anything after that—only the words “see combat” echoed in his mind. If he wasn’t mistaken, that meant, “Kid, you’re going to war!”

“But you won’t be heading to the front lines just yet. First, you and the other reserve captains will be sent to the military base at the Galactic Stargate, where you’ll manage the logistics fleet.”

This news doused Liu Shaoyu’s hot-blooded enthusiasm like a bucket of cold water.

“Is there any room for negotiation?” he ventured cautiously.

“What? Speak up, I can’t hear you!” General Hu’s booming voice could probably penetrate soundproof walls.

“Sir! I said I will carry out orders without hesitation!” Liu Shaoyu snapped to attention and saluted, a chill running down his spine. If he hadn’t endured Master Kang’s lion’s roar over the years, he’d probably have been scared half to death by General Hu, and gone to drink soup in the afterlife instead of fighting the Swarm.

“Very good! Captain Liu Shaoyu, hear my order! Ten kilometers of endurance training! No food until you finish!”

“What?” If his ears weren’t ringing, he could have sworn he just heard “ten kilometers”—doubled. Now he finally understood where Master Kang got his training routines.

“What do you mean, ‘what’? You thought you’d get away with not wearing armor? You scrapped two SX4s—mechs don’t grow on trees! Say another word and I’ll add another ten kilometers.”

“Yes, sir!” Now Liu Shaoyu heard clearly, though he muttered to himself that they weren’t real mechs anyway. In less than a second, he’d executed a perfect salute-to-door exit, as if this maneuver were harder than any of the spinning drills he’d just practiced.

“Not bad, that kid can run,” General Hu remarked, seeing in Shaoyu’s retreat a shadow of his own youthful days.

“Sir, but I thought Shaoyu’s tactics just now were pretty good,” Master Kang ventured quietly.

“Nonsense! His center of gravity was off, he overcompensated for centrifugal force, and the mech’s data hadn’t even been calibrated. If the opponent moved fast enough, one hit and it’d be scrap metal.” General Hu’s voice carried no less authority than before.

“But those maneuvers… I feel like I’ve seen them somewhere before. Where did that boy learn such moves?” General Hu soon fell into his own thoughts.

Everyone has their secrets, and Liu Shaoyu was no exception. Perhaps it was this near-limit control of mechs that set him apart from the rest.