Task triggered: "Rescue the Trapped Teachers and Students of the Northstar Starship Military Academy and the Heaven's Glory Noble Starship Military Academy"
Task: Rescue the trapped students of the Northstar Starship Military Academy and the Heaven's Glory Noble Starship Military Academy
Task Difficulty: Grade B
Task Reward: 20 task points and 6,000 System points
Bonus Task: Save at least one hundred teachers and students of the two academies, including Zhao Wan'er, Su Lan, and Xue Xiaoxiao
Task Penalty: Deduct 6,000 System points
Task Time Limit: 100 hours
The System prompt that suddenly sounded in Zhao Chen's mind just then sent a jolt through his heart.
That the System should issue a rescue task meant this was no rescue wholly without recourse.
The System, after all, would never give a task that simply couldn't be completed.
And this was the first time a System task had a detailed time limit — 100 hours.
Did that not mean that, within 100 hours, Zhao Wan'er and the others would be in no danger of their lives!
"No — we cannot give up!" Zhao Chen said, resolute. "To those trapped teachers and students, right now we are their only hope! If even we give up on them, then whom else can they look to for rescue!"
Hearing so righteously indignant a speech from this student Zhao Chen, some instructors and professors present were moved — but the looks on their faces were helpless all the same.
"Student, your thinking is very fine. But reality is cruel; I'll not hide it from you! Our academy dispatched a fleet to support too, but look… look! This is the latest state of the Water-Lily Star System we've obtained. Across this whole stretch — bugs everywhere! And the last message our trapped students sent was from this position. As ill luck would have it, that's right at the center of the zone the bug-race now controls! Even if we truly did dispatch a great interstellar fleet to save them, in such haste — how great a price would that mean?" one instructor stood forth and said gravely.
Beside them Dean Qin heaved a long sigh, his aged frame settling into a chair, and was long silent.
To them, this was already a game of chess lost.
Viewed from the whole board, to dispatch a fleet in support without interstellar fleet enough was simply to send them to their deaths!
To have lost one batch of fine cadets already wasn't enough — must they send more sheep into the tiger's mouth!
No one dared, in haste, issue a rescue order of that kind.
"Zhao Chen… you must keep calm… perhaps… perhaps, once the imperial-military fleet has finished mustering and launches its cleanup against these bugs… your sister and the others… may yet come through alive." Chu Xuan tried to console him, but she scarcely believed her own words.
"There's no time! Their fleet's combat power — even if they've hidden in some safe place, they can hold out five days at most. And to wait for the imperial-military fleet to finish mustering and launch a full offensive will likely take 10-odd days. By then — it'll all be stone cold!" Zhao Chen shot back.
"You student — how can you be so impervious to reason! To save people who can no longer be saved, you'd send yet more to their deaths, and only then be satisfied!" an instructor rebuked in anger.
The instructors and professors around all shook their heads too — helpless, sighing.
An air of tragic solemnity spread through the whole office.
"Can we be certain this is the position of their last contact with us?" Zhao Chen pointed at a dot marked on the holographic star-map.
Around that dot were many more dense red dots — all of them intelligence on the interstellar bug-race scouted and relayed back from the still-unfallen zones of the Water-Lily Star System!
"This is the position of their last contact an hour ago; the intelligence we got is that their fleet ran into the interstellar bug-race and was ambushed, that over 80% of their ships were destroyed in the fighting, and they requested our support. After that, communication cut off. The interstellar bug-race itself carries a kind of biological magnetic field; when its density reaches a certain figure, it can block signals — can even serve the function of a 'warp jammer.' By the situation, if they're still alive, they should be somewhere near this stretch. Were I them, I'd choose to set down on a planet and use the ships' remaining weapon-resources to hold there, and wait for support." Vice-Dean Hong analyzed at their side.
Zhao Chen stared at the star-map, standing there like an old monk gone into meditation.
"All right, student. We can understand how you feel; leave this matter to the teachers to handle, and go on out first." an instructor consoled Zhao Chen.
"I have a way!" Zhao Chen suddenly spoke up.
But the instructors and professors present took it only for the wild talk of a student in the grip of worry.
"First, we set out in our fastest ship to reach the star-gate of the system nearest the Water-Lily Star System, then cross interstellar edge-space. After that, we go on using the warp engine to reach, as far as we can, a spot close to this position. Because of the interstellar bug-race, warp travel can't carry us to the destination — so we'll simply use ordinary engines to cut straight through these bugs and reach the destination outright! Find the imperiled teachers and students, get them all aboard the ship, and evacuate in emergency! Set against the mobilization of a whole fleet, a rescue operation by a few ships, or even one ship, is on the contrary the swiftest and most nimble!" Zhao Chen laid out his notion, and drew a line across the star-map.
The red line passed through the zone with the fewest interstellar bug-race in the intelligence.
"Are you joking? To cross a bug-swarm on the strength of one ship! Even a T4-grade ship wouldn't have such assurance — and what's more, T4 ships are, the great majority, held in the imperial military's grasp; they'd never risk a T4 ship to save these teachers and students!" one instructor shot back.
To the empire, every T4 ship was of the greatest importance; the students of the two academies might be the empire's flowers, but a flower lost could always be planted again, could it not.
"There's no need for a T4 ship — only a T3 ship of speed enough will do!" Zhao Chen said, resolute.
"Too much of a gamble; I do not approve this way of rescue."
"Too idealistic; the least misstep and it's a moth flinging itself into the flame."
"A ship of speed enough — a cruiser, then? But how would it break through the bug-swarm? It's not realistic."
Listening to these instructors and professors judging, on the strength of their own gut feeling alone, that Zhao Chen's plan was unworkable and far too naive—
Zhao Chen knit his brows. He threw a glance over everyone present; he knew he couldn't persuade these people, and he knew his own conduct to come would be a great gamble — that the secrets thereby exposed might place him in the very vortex of danger.
But some things he simply had to do!
Zhao Chen said gravely, "The interstellar cosmos — which single thing in it is not a gamble? If we're unwilling to gamble, and do only the safe, four-square things, then our ancestors would never have left their planet to set foot on the interstellar voyage, would never have crossed star systems and opened the interstellar age! You won't go save them! Then I'll go save them myself!"
With that, Zhao Chen turned in fury and walked out of the office.
At the very moment he walked out, he sent a message to Charlotte, far off at the Owl Dragon base.
"Bring the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser to the Northstar Academy starport at once to fetch me!"