Deng Zhengqing's words brought a moment of silence to the scene.
It wasn't that everyone was afraid. Every officer present was a veteran who had survived countless battles. They had spent the entire past year campaigning within the Empire's territory, and those who had made it this far without being eliminated had already learned to set life and death aside.
Now that every warship was ready to depart, there was no point in getting melancholy when the time came to leave.
They were simply feeling the sadness of having to say goodbye.
With the pirates' help, they had arrived in this remote star system on the Empire's border in June. It was an ancient base, built more than three hundred years ago on a terrestrial moon orbiting a gas giant. But before construction had even reached seventy percent, unforeseen resistance had brought the project to a halt, leaving behind vast clusters of spaceborne structures that looked like ruins.
By then, the remnants of the commerce-raiding fleet had been driven into a corner. In the vastness of the universe, this space city—which didn't appear in any official Imperial records—was the only place left where they could take shelter.
After all, half of it had been built. It could at least keep out the wind and rain, and that was better than hiding in a dwarf planet's caverns, wasn't it?
What's more, the moon was over three times the size of Earth's Moon and had vast expanses of ice, enough to solve most of their survival problems.
The soldiers activated the base's main control terminal, repaired its power system, and brought its life-support and maintenance equipment back online. Then these unwelcome visitors from Earth rebuilt the barracks and workshops, and cobbled together new tools for production. They even restarted the spaceport's domed