Chapter 33 Contradiction

Alphonse spoke up, 'Yes, unfortunately Andre's commander thought the focus was elsewhere." 'Well, that was a serious lapse in strategic perception," General Danny said. 'Where do you see our turnaround point in this battle?" Halbo asked next. 'There is no turnaround point, we lost the moment Andre's Starfort opened fire with its railguns towards Menil." Alphonse said lightly. 'Oh? What does that mean?" General Danny asked as he pulled out his tobacco and filled his pipe. Alphonse calmly analyzed, 'I had thought that as soon as Andre ceased fire, there would be an interruption in the continuous flow of matter, and I had also asked the Star Fort for instructions. But then I thought about it, Star Fort was right, Menil is perfectly capable of creating its own stream of matter by accelerating to an acceleration that the star can't withstand, and the key lies in that first shot that made Menil's body loose." General Danny lit his pipe, took two puffs, and said, 'Not bad, you sure have good judgment. The repeater on the starfort had sent back a recording of a conversation between the commander at the time and the science commissioners judging the same thing." Halbo, seeing that the matter was clear, began to ask the next question, 'After the Federation seized control, was it you who suggested that the fleet not surrender? Please explain why." Alphonse thought about it for a little while and replied, 'Yes. Reason one was not to let the majority of the fleet fall into the hands of the enemy, and reason two was to fight with our backs to the wall, to consume as much of the enemy ship's combat power as possible, all for the sake of the future battlefield." 'Are these all your decisions alone?" Halbo asked next. 'No, it was the result of my deliberations with Chief of Staff Jan." Alphonse said, and Jan nodded in agreement. Halbo closed the folder in front of him and pushed it to the side, signaling towards General Danny that he had finished his questioning. General Danny said slowly, 'His Majesty the Emperor would like to see the two of you." Alphonse and Jan got up at the same time and gave a military salute and said, 'It's an honor!" General Danny gestured for the two to sit down and then said, 'The following words belong to small talk and are not part of the formal conversation, Alphonse, you have a brother in the Federation, right?" Alphonse knew that the less formal the conversation, the more cautious he had to be, and if he wasn't careful, he was afraid he would be court-martialed. He replied, 'Yes, it was twenty years ago when my family came to visit my grandfather's home in Dosas, and my mother went into premature labor and gave birth to my brother and me. This coincided with the Resistance uprising, the local defenders were routed, and in the midst of the rout my brother just disappeared, and after the Battle of Andre, after my ship lost power and was captured, I was found to resemble him, and a Federation officer reported it to his superiors, and then we met." His words were truth and not truth, vague and genuine at the same time, he did meet his brother after he was discovered by Elina, but not as vague as his description, he wanted to see what the other knew as he answered. 'Well, what a pair of brothers who have suffered many mishaps in your life." General Danny said. Some tedious small talk ensued, and the two men, seeing that the small talk had begun did not intrude any further and made an excuse to get up and leave, going back to their cabins. Jan closed the door to his cabin behind him, even locking the airtight lock. Alphonse couldn't help but laugh a little as he watched his fellow act so carefully, saying, 'You're rather more suspicious this way..." 'It's better to be suspected than to be caught with evidence." Jan said, taking off his military cap and tossing it on the bed, unzipping and relaxing. 'What we're about to do is a capital offense as long as we're suspected, no evidence is needed, and since we're close friends, you're already getting away with it as far as that relationship goes." Alphonse said lightly, stepping forward to try and unlock the airtight lock. Jan was startled by Alphonse's words and large beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. Alphonse hurriedly comforted, 'Jan, I know you're conflicted, your duty to the family makes you afraid of danger, and your desire for a career makes you follow me, after we go back, we'll first arrange for your two sisters, so that you don't have to worry about re them." Jan calmed down and looked at Alphonse, 'You promise! You promise by your family name that you will take care of my sisters." Seeing that he had made up his mind, Alphonse smiled and raised his hand to initiate an oath, 'I, Alphonse Alec, hereby swear. Once we return home, we will proceed to arrange for Jan's two sisters to take up permanent residence in the family, and the Alec family will protect the two until they return to the Star Ocean." Jan nodded slowly, her heart filled with longing for the future. On the Cygnus spiral arm, the Silver Dragon, which had already passed through the star bridge, finally got rid of the gravitational interference from the surrounding galaxies after most of the day's conventional power navigation and prepared for the folding leap. 'Continuous folding leap coming up, 12 folds, please prepare." The Silver Dragon's AI was speaking more and more smoothly under Elina's constant coaching these days, even with some emotional coloring. At the end of the countdown, the ship entered hyperspace to begin the folding leap. Edward felt a strange force flip through his body at that instant, as if he had turned into a pocket being turned over by someone grabbing the bottom of the pocket. The feeling felt like it lasted only a moment, and like it lasted for a long time, he couldn't tell, but the moment the ship leapt out of hyperspace, the strange feeling suddenly disappeared again and everything returned to normal. Edward couldn't get enough of it, 'The feeling of hyperspace is so weird, I wish I could experience it more, every time it's just this one moment and it's gone." Elina patted her chest, she was a little nauseous at the moment, the 12 consecutive folding leaps were a little too much for her. When things got a little better she said, 'Go find a star and force a folding leap next to it, maybe you'll get stuck in hyperspace and not be able to get out, enjoy that weird experience. Make sure you get me off the ship when you do, I can't stand it." Edward patted the back of Elina, who had started to dry-heave again, and said, 'You did tell me you'd take you with me wherever I went." 'Star map comparison complete, we have arrived at our pre-determined location, fuel reserves are below forty percent, are we heading to a nearby inhabited star system?" Love's voice rang out. 'Going to Toronto." Elina chimed in with the name of a long selected planet. 'Turning on conventional power forward, estimated voyage five hours and fifteen minutes, automatically contacting starport tower, automatically applying for customs clearance, automatically processing berth applications ......" 'This automates everything, what do we do?" Edward asked Elina, scratching his head. 'Us? Honeymoon of course!" With that she pinned Edward down and kissed him. By the time Edward woke up again, the Silver Dragon had been in its berth for a long time, and he drew back his arms, which were already tingling from Elina's pressure, and began to rustle up his clothes. Elina rolled over, stretched and sat up, looked at the local time and began to grumble, 'Silver Dragon, what's wrong with you, why are you parked in the night hemisphere?" AI's emotive voice came out, 'Given that you two are already in a deep sleep, I chose to dock at this starport, which is about to dawn in the middle of Toronto's night hemisphere, and I thought it would be helpful for you two to integrate into the local routine and activities." Edward lifted up his pants and said, 'Good lord, this isn't an AI anymore, this is a butler." Elina yawned and said with a sleepy look, 'It's not even close, it still has to adjust." 'Come on get up, we're going to breakfast." Edward urged, the only thing that he could aspire to on his honeymoon trip, besides the company of a beautiful woman, was good food. Elina couldn't help but bounce out of bed when she heard about breakfast and ran to the bathroom to start washing up. Standing on the starport, they looked at the surface of the planet below and couldn't help but sigh for a while, the entire planet was wrapped in green except for the poles which were somewhat less white. Look carefully, that layer of green is not a comprehensive coverage, vaguely see those green between the star scattered with many different sizes of lakes, from the height of the scattered layer look at the Toronto star is like a green and tender plum, hanging full of the morning dew. Born in Dosas that dry planet of the duo where to see this kind of scene, standing in the observation deck for a long time reluctant to go down. 'It's beautiful!" Elina exclaimed as she moved closer to the railing and started taking selfies. 'Yeah, what a fresh and juicy planet." Edward murmured. 'All you know is eating!" Elina said as she picked up Edward and walked towards the space elevator. This conventional space elevator was constructed from nanomaterials, the elevator shaft was vacuumed and the walls of the shaft were equipped with acceleration coils that constantly accelerated the elevator compartment, meaning that it was able to reach extremely high speeds. The upper and lower parts of the elevator compartment had artificial gravity devices to offset the huge acceleration to the members of the huge physical burden. The two of them walked out of the starport, a fresh breeze came to their faces, making them relaxed and happy, they looked around and found that beyond the starport was the jungle, and there were no skyscrapers in the metropolis, and they could only see the huge trunks and canopies of the trees. 'It's all trees!" Elina said as she turned on her communicator and checked the map. 'Should have contacted a guide beforehand, it's hard to tell east from west and north from south." Edward said reaching out, trying to stop a rental shuttle.