Its movements were clumsy and sluggish, like a drunk pilot at the helm. Its long, scepter-like hull even scraped against the baffle at the hangar entrance. This wasn't a matter of chipping some paint, though—the impact triggered a violent explosion in the thick layer of fluid metal.
Fortunately, perhaps thanks to its sheer mass, the behemoth only lost a bit of its paintwork. The Imperial insignia painted on its side armor had indeed been mostly blasted away, but the hull itself remained completely unharmed.
It certainly wasn't a textbook takeoff, but at least it had taken off.
Then again, there were only three hundred of them, and they'd actually gotten this thing moving. They seemed truly familiar with the Colossus. But that made no sense! How could they be so familiar with it? Just how many times had they practiced?
All right. Years ago, I'd taken the Colossus blueprints from the Feilin Laboratory. I'd given some to Yani, and of course I'd handed some over to the Human Alliance.
So this was still my fault!
Yu Lian gazed at the Colossus as it lurched along, his chest brimming with pride. Though he wasn't there, he felt as if he stood shoulder to shoulder with all his comrades.
At last, the Emperor's Scepter staggered free of every connection to the fortress and put some distance between them. Only then did it begin to accelerate. The enormous engine nozzles at its stern shone with a blue ion glow, reflected in the fortress's fluid-metal surface. The rippling, wavering mirror of metal was instantly painted with a dazzling arc of light.
"Utterly anti-civilization," Little Gray remarked without the slightest courtesy.
She wasn't wrong. What era were they living in, still using ion engines? These days, only large workships that didn't need to worry much