Pleasing Start Over

Mech Engineer: System V. System 2.6

Qiao Chen was formally approved to work at the third fleet, and immediately put to work. He had to do more than to just work on the Z-801- if he could even find the time for it. He needed to explain his newly developed Aerial Guidance and Positioning System to the soldiers and familiarize them with it. He also needed to run the tests for the soldiers practicing with the new program. The first guinea pigs for the initial trials were the Special Operations team. To make sure all the bugs and kinks were worked out before releasing the Aerial Guidance and Positioning System out on the field, Qiao Chen was required to make detailed reports for every single test they ran.

Generally, Qiao Chen’s work didn’t give him many opportunities to come into contact with his target, Auray Rust. However, over the course of the testing period, Qiao Chen was able to gauge his perception of Auray. He judged Auray as an outstanding and serious soldier. He couldn’t find any of Wei Zhennan’s shameless characteristics within Auray. Good.

Not long after Qiao Chen entered the third fleet before the Triennial Combat Practice Competition came up. The exercise mandated that all troops participate, so the scale of it was considerably big. This kind of practice competition used the final scores in order to rank each fleet. These rankings affected the fleet’s order of priority and importance among all other fleets for resources and funding. Needless to say, this was a competition that every single fleet and unit took seriously and pulled out all their stops.

They used the previous competition’s rankings to draw each team into preliminary rankings for the first round. The winners of the first round would move on to the quarterfinals, then to the semifinal, and finally, the last two remaining divisions would compete in the finals.

The third and fifth fleets won their matches as per usual. They were considered the two most powerful army fleets. Since everyone already assumed such an outcome, those rounds were quite uneventful. The stage everyone really wanted to watch was the results of and the battle between them.

Vice Captain Cade spoke to Captain Rouble, “It was very publically decided that the final match of the competition would be an aerial one- as in outer space. Now all of a sudden, it’s been changed to a ground battle?”

Rouble sneered and snorted sarcastically, “They’re afraid. The fifth fleet played a high profile when they were developing that recent project of theirs. They tried to showboat their mid-ranged aerial mech. They thought that they would be the strongest ones with the mech’s aerial maneuverability on their side. However, now they know that they’d lose in an aerial match, why would those old foxes from their faction even want to try and compare aerial capabilities?”

“They said they wanted to change… Did the people on our side agree to it too?” Cade asked. He knew that the members of their own unit weren’t that easy to talk to.

“Since they suggested a change, then of course we’d have a change or two we’d suggest as well: Both sides switched to their Special Ops team. Have them battle it out, compare the fleets, and we’ll finally see who wins out in the end.” Rouble smirked.

“They agreed?” Cade probed. Who didn’t know that the third fleet’s Special Ops team was the strongest combat force amongst all the military divisions?

“They agreed, and they looked quite confident while agreeing to it too. I don’t know what the fifth fleet gave them so that they would feel so calm and sure- thinking that they had a 100% chance of winning.”

“It looks like they prepared some kind of secret weapon. We should still stay on our toes.”

“First, put all the arrangements in place. Then notify all the members to gather for a meeting.”