Chapter 73: Assignment
The ten teams departed from asteroid C-N976 in unison and headed to their destination asteroid C-N300. These two asteroids were both situated at the edge of Sector C and supervised by the military.
Every team was allocated a small starship and a hundred or so technical engineering type robots to assist with the management of the starship and other matters. However, the assistance was strictly limited to the journey to their destination, and once they arrived at the space station outside their target asteroid, the robots would all be put into sleep mode. They were not allowed to be brought into the planet as martial force for offensive purposes against the other teams.
When they reached the space station outside the asteroid, all team members would switch to air transports that were prepared beforehand and head to the planet’s stronghold. When that happened, the ten competing team members would truly be left alone in that area. If any technical issues were to arise, they must be resolved by the team members of the respective team alone.
Team members were not allowed to bring weapons, and would receive a uniform distribution from the base. If there were any special requests, they could make an application to the base. The applied items must be inspected and verified by the responsible person in charge of the base before they were allowed to be taken. No subspace containers were allowed to be carried, and all food, energy batteries and so on must be uniformly received from the base as well, hence ensuring basic uniformity among the ten team’s equipment. the only way to differentiate the abilities of the students of each institute was by having everybody at the same starting line.
Gerrard and the other team leaders were not allowed to accompany their team members, and could only be transported by air to a different location. Moreover, while the integrated warfare contest was ongoing, they could only stay at asteroid C-N300’s space station. They were forbidden from interfering with the students’ actions.
The students’ job was to gather ten energy blocks, and whoever turned in ten energy blocks the fastest would complete the mission first. There were a total of one hundred energy blocks in the area, and they were all buried in the ground beforehand. Only the person in charge of this contest would know the exact location of each energy blocks. Everyone else knew nothing about them.
Although looking at the average, it might seem that every team could obtain ten energy blocks equally, in reality things were different. The aircraft parked above the stronghold consumed energy, and after they landed the security system installed on the aircraft, livelihood, electronics and other necessities all consumed energy. Normally speaking, the team members would need to gather a total of 12 to 13 energy blocks to smoothly complete the mission. Ten of them would be turned over for the mission, and the rest were used for energy consumption.
In Seven Lights’ ten man team Knight was appointed team leader, and Cillin the assistant team leader. Knight might look like he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone normally, but when he had real responsibility put on his shoulders, he would become a lot more steadier.
The ten teams of ten institutes all gathered at the port not far away from the base and departed towards asteroid C-N300.
As the battlefield for every year’s integrated warfare contest, asteroid C-N300’s mechanization wasn’t too severe. It even had a sea, although it was not part of the integrated warfare contest’s battlefield. There were also garrisons and observation stations on the planet, and they were not within the integrated warfare contest’s combat zone.
A majority of the combat zones on the planet used to hold the integrated warfare contest were jungles. There were also some large lakes. In order to ensure that the students would have enough food supply, some small mammals were also specifically raised in the jungle. There were also fish in the lake. Highly dangerous large fishes and animals did not exist in the integrated warfare contest combat zone, which was why the biggest threats of this contest were still the students of other institutes.
Every student wore a special sensor suit on themselves. The guns distributed by the base were not of the usual lethal kind, but specially modified so that the student who was hit could judge from their sensor suits if they were ‘dead’. If they were judged ‘dead’, then this student would be already out of the contest, and at the same time, the military would come over to take them to the observation station on the planet. The student would no longer be able to participate in combat.
For Cillin, this was nothing more but a game. It was a classic educational game with no life or death stakes involved. But for many of the non-military academy students, this was their first, and most significant battle.
Every team had their own specific stronghold. During earlier integrated warfare contests, the participants had to seize a stronghold for themselves, but later on it had gradually developed to the point where strongholds were distributed right away.
The surroundings of every stronghold always had a lake so as to take care the students’ water problems.
After arriving smoothly at the space station of asteroid C-N300, the engineering robots all went into sleep mode and became completely immobilized. Cillin and the others had long since switched transports to the aircraft prepared beforehand and drove it to the surface. From now on, everything must be carried out by the students themselves.
The first thing to do after landing wasn’t to scan the surroundings of the stronghold to check if there were energy blocks around or where the closest energy blocks were. It was to conduct a good preparatory work.
“Scan the surrounding terrain and open the solar panel.” Knight ordered succinctly.
Although they were given maps beforehand, those maps were all from last year. There might be crustal movements or other special circumstances that altered the terrain. Moreover, they also had to consider the growth of the grasslands and forestries, and the distribution of small mammals. Scanning the surroundings and acquiring a real-time map facilitates the later operations. As for opening the solar panel, it was for the purpose of conserving energy and absorbing solar energy from the sun. This was to avoid using a hard won energy block due to lack of energy later.
“Map acquisition successful.” Kang Man’s fingers moved across the control panel and brought up the map.
“Analyse for strategic points and begin the assignments.”
Once the strategic points were analysed based on the terrain, it would be time to begin deploying ‘Sentinel’ on the ground within a certain area, so that the alarm could be sounded in time when the enemy team members attacked. Besides that, they also had to place traps etc. and improvise based on their respective needs.
At the same time, Ci Jincheng analysed the weather condition and made some predictions about the weather for the next five days so that it’d facilitate future plannings and operations.
On the night they arrived on C-N300, Knight decided against taking action and instead called for rest. This was because that rest would become a luxury, and they would have to stay tensed and alert when the battles began. Therefore, before either sides had started fighting, they would take the opportunity to get in a good rest.
Lung ran to the lake to catch some fish. Judging from his appearance, he wasn’t anxious in the least. He looked like he was on a trip.
While eating dinner, Knight looked at Cillin and Lung and said, “I heard that the two of you were marked.”
The team leaders of each team had told their own members that whoever manages to send Cillin or Lung out of the contest would be amply rewarded when they got back. These two fellows seriously pissed off the officers that day.
“I was born to be dazzling star, capturing everyone’s attention in the limelight.” Lung did not have the slightest consciousness as a marked man at all.
“As long as you don’t act like an idiot when the time comes.”
The people who needed to be heavily guarded against in every institute were explained a long time ago, so Knight refrained from nagging further. Fu Luo and Kang Man basically would not participate in any external confrontations, since Kang Man was pure technical personnel and Fu Luo was responsible for health care. They both belonged at the rear.
After dinner, the rest of the team members rested while a member on rotation was left behind to guard the night. The person to keep vigil for the first night was Cillin. He had requested this himself. He had had his beauty sleep back on the starship when they came over after all.
You gotta do something when you’re on night watch, after all.