Chapter 1300: Absolutely Unacceptable!

Meanwhile, just as the other battalions were beginning to encounter what Battalion 10 had left in their wake, said group finally managed to breach the atmosphere of Caldris Minor-7.

And sure enough, the briefing hadn’t been exaggerating when it described CM-7 as practically one enormous desert.

Luca’s face was almost plastered against the glass as he stared down at the barren landscape they’d be calling home for the next several days.

Vast stretches of reddish-orange sand extended beneath a pale, haze-filled sky, broken only by flat-topped mesas and jagged layers of rock scattered across the otherwise desolate terrain.

It was beautiful in a stark, ancient sort of way, especially with the unusual color of the sand.

Unfortunately, the others were quick to notice the glaring problem that came with all that beautiful open space.

"No place to hide..." Theo muttered.

He hadn’t spoken particularly loudly, but the bridge had gone quiet enough that most people still heard him.

And really, Luca couldn’t disagree.

They’d already expected the terrain to be bad for covert operations after reviewing the available information, but seeing it in person was something else entirely.

Even the largest layered formations that might’ve passed for hills weren’t tall or broad enough to conceal a group their size. Worse, nearly every plateau was surrounded by enormous stretches of exposed sand.

There was practically nowhere for five hundred cadets to move without leaving themselves painfully visible.

All it would take was someone flying overhead or deploying a basic scout drone.

And Battalion 10 would stand out in the middle of that desert like a sore thumb.

Though to be fair, it also meant they’d likely be able to see everyone if they simply looked well enough!

Or well, at least that was what he thought until D-29 suddenly called out, "Host!"

Almost simultaneously, shrill alarms erupted throughout the battleship.

Luca immediately stood at attention.

[WARNING: INCOMING ATTACK DETECTED.]

"Return to your posts!" Luca ordered firmly, trying to imagine what his husband would say at such a time, his voice cutting cleanly through the chaos as emergency lights began flashing across the bridge.

He turned toward Finn Wrenner, who was currently serving as Battalion 10’s cadet battleship captain after taking over the helm from the professional captain responsible for guiding them through interstellar travel.

"What’s the situation?"

Finn barely looked away from the controls, his brow already slick with sweat.

"Our shields are taking direct hits from plasma beams coming straight from the ground!"

"!"

Outside the viewport, brilliant streaks of blue energy erupted from the desert floor, slamming repeatedly against the battleship’s shields.

Underground plasma cannons.

And judging by the readings appearing across the terminal, there were several of them scattered throughout the surrounding terrain.

Luca quickly studied the damage reports.

Thankfully, the battleship itself hadn’t sustained any structural damage yet.

Unfortunately...

"The shield keeps having to repair itself," Finn warned. "If this continues, our energy consumption is going to increase way faster than expected!"

"!"

Now that got Luca’s attention.

To a certain little money-grubber who valued every single unit of energy they’d painstakingly secured, hearing that their reserves were being unnecessarily drained was practically the same as being told someone was throwing Star Coins directly out the window!

Absolutely unacceptable!

"What’s weird is that we purposely chose this area because it wasn’t near any of the camps, right?" Theo muttered, holding onto the console beside him.

That had been one of the main reasons they’d selected this particular landing zone.

They’d carefully deliberated over the available terrain using Luca’s newly reconstructed map.

Technically, any battalion could’ve copied the intelligence from CM7-OOS by manually drawing everything down. They weren’t allowed to use personal storage systems to store the supplies, while taking photographs or deploying drones inside the command center to record restricted information had also been prohibited.

After all, part of the exercise was teaching the cadets not to depend entirely on their technology when there might come a time when it simply wasn’t available.

But apparently, one Luca Kyros wouldn’t have bothered using his terminal to take pictures anyway.

Instead, he’d simply memorized everything.

Theo, having personally survived their tutoring sessions for the centralized examination, probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

Then again, even he’d reacted the same way when Luca had first shown them how he inscribed knowledge into his mind to truly memorize things.

So what more could be expected from everyone else?

They probably found it ridiculous that Luca, who hadn’t even spent all that long inside the command center because he’d been rather preoccupied with stea—err, borrowing—energy from the outpost, could later reproduce the map with enough accuracy and detail to make the invigilators doubt their own eyes.

But in the face of their current attack, most people really didn’t have time to think about the Kyros heir’s unusual memory.

"Yeah," Luca agreed, brows furrowing as another plasma beam struck their shields. "We’re not even near an extraction point or supply-drop zone."

He looked back toward the terrain.

"We were hoping to hide the battleship here, but clearly, that’s not going to work anymore. Worse, if the hostiles have some sort of centralized communication system, the others might already know we’ve arrived."

So much for their quiet landing.

Then again...

Wow.

Luca figured that maybe the Academy really had thought this through and anticipated that someone would try exactly what Battalion 10 had been planning.

"Finn, get us out of here as quickly as possible!"

"Yes!"

Luca closed his eyes briefly, concentrating.

"I’ll create an outer barrier to take the attacks. That way, they won’t keep chipping away at our energy supply!"

"?!"

Several perfectly normal and sane people on the bridge nearly gave themselves whiplash turning toward him.

An outer barrier?

For the entire battleship?!

Unfortunately, even though it had only been a short time, they already felt like they’d known Luca long enough to realize he wasn’t joking.

And as his spiritual energy began spreading outward, more than a few cadets suddenly felt extremely parched.

Most of them were still learning how to maintain a properly balanced spiritual barrier around their own bodies!

Meanwhile, their Battalion Commander was once again going to wrap one around an entire military battleship just because he didn’t want the shields wasting energy!

"If we’re going to get attacked anyway, we might as well head toward the nearest supply drop," Luca muttered with a slight pout.

His spiritual energy extended beyond the hull, gradually enveloping the vessel in another protective layer.

What else could they do?

Their original landing spot had clearly been compromised, and if they were already being forced to expend resources moving somewhere else, they might as well make the trip useful!

Several cadets would’ve liked to remind Luca that they’d already saved an absurd amount of energy and obtained considerably more than the exercise probably intended them to have.

There was really no need to keep hunting for more!

But just as Finn, who was sweating from equal parts distress and intense excitement, prepared to enter the coordinates of one of Battalion 10’s assigned supply drops...

"Wait."

Jax suddenly spoke.

"Why don’t we go to the supply drops from the other map sets?"

"?"

Finn’s hands froze over the controls.

"Huh?" Luca turned.

Jax looked around at all the stunned faces staring back at him while warning signals continued chiming across the bridge.

"Can’t we save our own coordinates for last?" he asked reasonably. "We’re the only ones who’ve seen them."

"..."

"..."

Jax blinked.

"What?"

He shrugged as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why everyone looked so horrified.

"Luca might not want to take everything, but he can at least pick whatever he thinks we need from their supplies, right?"

"..."

Right.

Of course.

Because while the other battalions were probably still approaching CM7-OOS and preparing to compete over basic intelligence and their first allotment of supplies...

Battalion 10 was already discussing raiding the actual supply locations!

After the nth time experiencing severe mental whiplash from the decisions of these increasingly questionable cadets, one might’ve expected the spectators to simply sigh in resignation.

Instead, something very different happened inside the observation room.

Several administrators abruptly stood.

The change in atmosphere was immediate.

One officer gestured discreetly for the others to move somewhere more private before lowering his voice.

"Hey..."

His expression had gone tense.

"Those plasma cannons firing at Battalion 10’s battleship."

The others looked toward him.

"Where did they come from?"

"..."

Then came the far more troubling question.

"And how the hell did they let unmodified ones fire at the cadets?!"