The trip to Lumina had taken Yu Lian only four hours, and when he left, he brought along 40 spare fighters, 100 new pilots, and 500 crewmen and combat-capable soldiers.
So who said Factory Director Rugger was the last engineer left at Red Maple Works?
Also aboard with him were tens of thousands of tons of military supplies and provisions, as well as 1,000 living terror birds. Of course, Yu Lian wasn't planning to change careers and become a promising exotic-animal dealer. The birds were for enrichment for the four dragons. Dragons were predators, after all, and surely no meat could be fresher than live prey.
They had the deep pockets of the Empire's nobles to thank. With priceless zero-element and permanent psionic arrays at work, the ship's holds were still spacious enough, with plenty of room to convert into pens.
To be fair, terror-bird meat was best roasted fresh. It was a little too tough when dried, but it was supposedly six times as nutritious as beef, and Auntie Maggie never skimped on the seasonings, so it was still quite tasty.
Back aboard the Pilgrim, Yu Lian chewed on terror-bird meat and watched the green-blue planet Lumina grow smaller in the distance, his heart heavy with regret. He hoped his "home folks" would lie low for now. Staying alive was a victory in itself, and they could even maintain a superficial friendship with the Imperial occupation forces if they had to.
But not only had he failed to give them that order, he'd also taken food and supplies with him, as if he'd come specifically to mooch off them. Now he couldn't even hold his head up in front of his "fellow townsfolk" as their "captain."
Well, he hadn't had the right to order them around in the first