Chapter 1299: Imperial Assets

Jax truly hadn’t been far off the mark.

And it was no wonder he was suddenly being touted as a rising strategist, both by the honestly dumbfounded instructors and his own increasingly flustered partner, who desperately needed his meeting to end so he could watch the actual feed instead of trying to piece everything together from the audio alone.

In fact, the cadets of Battalion 10 had unknowingly been spared from the grim fate about to be doled out through the machinations of the second son of House Nox, simply because they’d managed to leave the Academy Training Hall so much earlier than everyone else.

It wasn’t that Battalion 10 hadn’t made mistakes during their preparations, nor was it that someone had secretly completed everything for the first-years.

They simply had a rather unfair advantage when it came to finding those mistakes.

With D-29’s help, Luca didn’t exactly have to search for a needle in a haystack whenever something went wrong.

An unaccounted-for drone?

A switch someone forgot to flip?

A diagnostic that hadn’t been completed properly?

With such ridiculously encompassing eyes watching over everything, Luca could readily pinpoint where they needed to look without actually doing the work for them.

Couple that with how quickly Battalion 10 had gathered all five hundred of its members, along with Luca preventing at least three senior battalions from entering their own battleships with his spiritual barriers, and they’d somehow built a considerable lead even against the battalions commanded by the far more experienced Imperial Crown Prince and his Adjutant!

Then again, Xavier Solaris of Battalion 8 probably could’ve departed earlier.

He simply chose not to.

Because while Luca had been busy getting everyone in order and figuring out what to do about their energy crisis, Xavier had remained grounded for an entirely different reason.

He’d been in the middle of preparing to monitor their competition by tagging the other battleships.

Safe to say, the various stakeholders watching the exercise weren’t quite sure what to make of any of this.

CREX had barely begun!

Yet some of these first-years were already modifying equipment with a level of questionable expertise while most of the seniors hadn’t touched theirs beyond basic calibration.

"Are they seriously taking apart military equipment for the tags?!" one observer sputtered, leaning closer to the console. "Literally just the tags?!"

"Is that even allowed?" another asked with a deep frown.

"..."

Unfortunately, the administrators couldn’t exactly complain.

They’d already deliberately handicapped both Luca Kyros and Oliver Mylor by ensuring the two genius mechanics couldn’t possibly end up on the same battalion.

So what were they supposed to say now?

Please stop being mechanics?

Besides, Battalion 8 wasn’t destroying the tracking inventory tags normally used to locate Imperial Military assets.

They were merely... creatively repurposing and relocating them.

Instead of leaving the trackers inside their own battleships to maybe locate lost equipment later, they were taking them out, modifying them, and tagging the other battleships as Imperial assets.

As military-recognized equipment, the trackers would let them monitor the movements of the other ships without being discovered by ordinary radar sweeps. Sure, they might only provide basic coordinates rather than true real-time tracking, but it was probably the closest they could get to energy-efficient surveillance without alerting their targets.

The observers could only wonder how Oliver Mylor had so many tricks up his sleeve. Those genius mechanics really were forces to be reckoned with all on their own!

If only the spectators knew Ollie wasn’t actually responsible for the most suspicious part!

The blonde had done little more than pretend to fuss over the trackers while Ada discreetly used her wind ability to carry the modified tags toward carefully selected targets.

Because really, how could such a plan not be the brainchild of one Imperial Prince who was fiercely determined to keep everyone away from his adorable wife?

Fine.

Xavier knew perfectly well he couldn’t keep everyone away.

But he could at least guarantee he’d know if any of those idiots decided to gang up on his little Chipmunk, who had most definitely attracted an unhealthy amount of attention after everything Luca had done to the opposing battalions.

Xavier had no intention of deciding what his wife could or couldn’t do.

Luca was perfectly capable of making those decisions himself.

So the next best thing was making sure Xavier knew whenever someone decided to fall too far out of line.

He wouldn’t interfere simply because the other cadets wanted to fight to their hearts’ content.

That was part of the exercise and was likely something his beloved might even enjoy.

But if anyone decided to cross the line from competition into something far more malicious for the sake of revenge?

Well.

One spatially gifted husband certainly wasn’t beneath using actual force.

It was the least Xavier could do to make sure his beloved enjoyed this sad excuse for a field trip.

And perhaps the only reason the Crown Prince remained so strangely calm about Luca being somewhere beyond his immediate reach was Sid’s occasional reassurance through their private link.

"Master, the Little Master appears to be doing well. He has found a new... fun activity."

"..."

Naturally, Xavier immediately wanted to know what kind of fun activity his Luca had found.

But with the guardian mecha’s unwavering integrity, there was simply no way he would start spilling the details of the dungeon owner’s admittedly unhinged side quests.

Unless there was a genuine emergency, Sid wasn’t going to elaborate. After all, how was he even supposed to explain such madness in his own words?

So Xavier could only suppress his curiosity and respond with a low, "Mn. Good. You know what to do."

"Yes, Master."

And while the Prince would’ve happily spent a little longer wondering exactly what Luca was currently doing, the sudden agitation spreading across Battalion 8’s bridge quickly pulled his attention elsewhere.

The main terminal flashed furiously.

A stark crimson glow washed across the bridge as a priority warning appeared across the screen.

Xavier’s eyes narrowed.

[CM7-OOS: ALARM RED]

"?"

The Orbital Station was on Alarm Red?