BATTLE FOR STARS

As they talked, the aircar arrived at the spaceport. From there, Belina and the others successfully returned to the Sour Strawberry Carrier.

Once the orders were issued, the officers and crew of the Mayflower Fleet quickly returned to their posts and immediately began operations. For them, the mission was only just beginning.

Thanks to the agreement reached with the Resk Empire, the starship returned safely two days later.

However, to the surprise of both Belina and Ding Yufei, Little Chubby never came back with it.

It wasn't because he had gone missing or suffered some unfortunate fate.

He had simply decided not to leave.

As for the reason, Little Chubby didn't explain much.

Belina had no choice but to force a sum of money on him and tell him to stay safe.

In truth, Little Chubby was in a much safer position than Lina or Mor.

For one thing, he was an ordinary civilian and could travel freely wherever he wanted. More importantly, during the incident, he had remained quietly in a corner and never directly interacted with Balk. In fact, no one had paid any attention to him at all.

Lina left as well.

Although she never met Belina and the others again in person, both sides secretly contacted each other one last time before parting ways.

Soon afterward, the Mayflower Fleet prepared to depart.

This time, their destination was the royal capital of the Kramic Kingdom—Planet Violet .

Many names within the Kramic Kingdom were derived from plants. One only had to look at their military rank system to notice the trend. As for why the capital world was called Violet , legend held that it was the first flower to bloom on the planet.

Planet Violet was actually a moon orbiting a massive gas giant.

That gas giant, together with five other planets, revolved around a huge star. The six planets and their star formed the Siqin Star System, named after a species of tree.

Although Violet was the capital world, the entire Siqin System was generally considered the royal capital of the Kramic Kingdom because all its planets fell under Violet 's administration.

The other planets served different purposes, but the royal family and the kingdom's Senate were both located on Planet Violet .

As a result, foreign visitors and fleets usually traveled there when conducting official business.

When they had arrived, there had been only a few dozen ships.

Now, as they departed, the fleet numbered more than two thousand.

The sight was breathtaking.

Standing beside the carrier's observation window, Ding Yufei watched countless starships flying in orderly formations toward the Stargate. One after another, they vanished in flashes of light.

A surge of emotion rose within him.

"When will I ever command a fleet like this?"

Perhaps conquest and ambition truly were written into humanity's genes.

Even Ding Yufei, who had always opposed violence and killing, felt his blood racing at the spectacle.

“If you want to command one, I'll gladly give you my position,” Belina joked from beside him. “I find it incredibly boring.”

The statement was half true and half false.

As Fleet Commander, she genuinely didn't have much to do.

Once an order was issued, the intelligent computers aboard the carrier and the subordinate officers throughout the fleet handled the planning and execution. Very little required her direct involvement.

On the other hand, despite holding command of a fleet, Belina had never actually led it into a real war.

The fleet was her personal guard force. There had never been a need to send it into battle.

Without experiencing war firsthand, she naturally couldn't understand the excitement and passion it inspired in professional soldiers.

“I'm not talking about pretending to be a commander,” Ding Yufei said seriously. “I actually want to command starships.”

“If you're serious about joining the military, you'll need to learn a great deal first,” Claudia said, joining the conversation.

“After passing the required examinations and graduating from a military academy, you'd start as a Junior Officer in a fleet. Then you'd work your way up through the ranks.”

“If you're lucky, in thirty or forty years, you might be commanding a Task Force of this size.”

As a career military officer who had climbed the ranks step by step herself, Claudia understood the process better than anyone.

“Thirty or forty years?” Ding Yufei exclaimed. “That's a long time.”

“Is it?” Claudia asked.

Ding Yufei paused before laughing.

“Right. I forgot. People here can live four or five hundred years. In that case, thirty or forty years isn't much at all.”

“Don't worry,” Claudia said frankly. “You'll have the time.”

She firmly believed that, given his relationship with Belina, there was almost no chance he would ever return to Earth.

That meant his lifespan would likely extend into the centuries as well.

Ding Yufei smiled.

To be honest, he hadn't thought deeply about it.

Still, people naturally gravitated toward more advanced and prosperous lives, and he certainly wasn't opposed to the idea.

Just then, a starship outside the window caught his attention.

It was... transforming.

At least, that was the closest word he could think of.

It wasn't turning into a giant robot or reshaping itself into something bizarre. Rather, sections of its outer hull were shifting and retracting. Uneven surfaces gradually became smooth and streamlined.

Ding Yufei had seen transforming spacecraft in plenty of novels.

Those designs usually existed purely for dramatic effect and made little practical sense.

Yet what he was witnessing now challenged that assumption.

This was space.

There was no air resistance.

External protrusions shouldn't affect flight performance at all.

“Why is that starship transforming?” he asked, pointing at it.

Belina laughed.

“It's just to make it look prettier. Don't you know? In our kingdom, smooth and rounded designs are considered the most attractive.”

“Huh?!”

That was the last answer Ding Yufei had expected.

“Don't listen to the princess,” Claudia said immediately.

“Our starships really can change shape to a certain extent, but aesthetics aren't the main reason. The purpose is to arrange different sections of the vessel more efficiently.”

“What do you mean?”

“A starship consists of many sections—command centers, weapons systems, defensive systems, propulsion systems, living quarters, and so on.”

She pointed toward the fleet outside.

“You've probably noticed that most of our starships are long and narrow. That's mainly to minimize their frontal target profile.”

Ding Yufei nodded.

That was easy to understand.

The smaller the target area, the lower the chance of being hit—at least by most weapons that traveled in straight lines.

“Because of that, only certain direct-fire weapons, along with various reactive and blast-resistant armor systems, need to be concentrated toward the front of the ship.”

“The rest of the functional sections can be distributed throughout the vessel.”

“For example, missile launchers, carrier facilities, fighter bays, and point-defense weapons.”

“To adapt to different combat situations, those components are sometimes repositioned.”

“Suppose you're retreating. You might shift additional armor toward the rear.”

“If you're engaged in close-range combat with enemy warships, you might reinforce both sides instead.”

“Likewise, various artillery systems may need to move into different firing positions depending on operational requirements.”

She gestured toward the transforming vessel.

“That adaptability is why modern starships have limited reconfiguration capabilities.”

“In other words, that's the ‘transformation’ you're seeing.”

Then she added with a smile:

“Of course, appearance is also a factor.”

“But it's definitely not the main one.”