At the meeting of four to decide the course of action of the whole battalion, despite Weiss's hard work, the hesitant Dio still failed to do it decisively, and in the end he still had to solve the problem in the most traditional and middle-of-the-road way.

That's voting.

Four people voted, what suspense is there in the result?

Weiss voted one for dispersed action, and three for concentrated forces.

Previously, Weiss had improved the status of second-year students in this student army through his own efforts, but at the decision-making level of the troops, the strength of third-year students still occupied an absolute advantage.

Since it was a collective decision, Weiss had no choice but to accept it.

The original plan was to hide in the woods for a day, wait until nightfall and then drive west, as far as possible into the enemy's rear, but after some objective and realistic analysis, Dio and the two third-year students who served as team leaders also realized that the "enemy" would not give them a whole day's time, and believed that it would not be long before their search would cover this area. Therefore, at Hawkes' suggestion, Dio decided to adopt a strategy of "separating people and goods", allowing the cadets to use local materials, camouflage the vehicles, and then move west with as many supplies as possible.

As a form of compensation for Weiss, Dio instructed him to lead the 1st Squad to set out first, and assigned Nikolai to accompany him as a liaison to the battalion headquarters.

Soon, the dawn dawned, Weiss took the 1st squad to embark on a new journey, and the battalion headquarters and the 2nd and 3rd squads were still busy sweeping the tail at this time. According to Dio's assumption, it is still possible that the "enemy" will not be sensitive enough to detect the trucks hidden in the woods for the rest of the day, so he deliberately left the trainees who have mastered the driving skills behind them to operate with the 3rd squad in charge of the palace, so that they can kill the horses and pistols if necessary.

At about 8 o'clock in the morning, Weiss and all the members of the 1st team had been walking through the forest for nearly three hours, leaving the hiding place of the transport vehicle for more than ten kilometers.

At this time, four flying ships appeared in sight.

Ordinary people need to judge and identify the type of ship by observing the outline of the flying ship, and for Weiss, even if the target is far away, just squint his eyes to quickly and accurately find out the faction and real-time combat power they belong to.

For the fleet commander of this era, if he has this ability, it will definitely be of great benefit to the marching formation and battle command, which can make the general instantly turn into a good general, and the good general will advance to the god of war!

Perhaps one day, Weiss will be able to influence the situation on the battlefield, but now, he is just a small squad leader, and when the exercise is over, he will return to the status of a cadet.

Therefore, his current role is at best a personal meat radar soldier, and on his "radar screen", two of the four flying ships flying from the northeast are second-class cruisers and two are light transport ships.

The exercise area was mostly mountainous and plain, and only four flying warships were seen in groups of two, with patrol ships and transport ships. The transport ship flew slightly above the treetops, and the cruiser at an altitude of three or four hundred meters above the ground. Such a combination looks like a battlefield search mission. As soon as the enemy situation was detected, the cruiser immediately suppressed the fire, and the transport ship quickly landed, laying down the heavily armed marines.

Before, it was only speculation, but now, Weiss can be 100% sure that this remote road has special value for the attacker's operational deployment. It is precisely because of this that they will send four flying ships to come when the battle on the front line is stalemate and the strength is stretched.

The two flight groups were simultaneously engaged in the battlefield search, and the efficiency of the operation can be imagined.

Without waiting for the "enemy's" air search formation to approach, Weiss ordered to disperse and conceal as soon as possible, and let everyone use local materials and camouflage nets to minimize the probability of being discovered by the "enemy."

After everything was arranged, he found a broad-leaved tree with lush foliage and climbed to a branch three or four meters above the ground to observe the enemy's situation.

As a liaison sent by the battalion headquarters, Nikolai also climbed the tree with his hands and feet, and looked out on the trunk next to Weiss in a surprisingly consistent posture with him.

In sight, a group of flying ships gradually approached the hidden spot of the transport vehicle, which flew so low that the bottom of the ship was only a few meters away from grazing the treetops. At such an altitude, can those vehicles be hidden?

Weiss was worried when he suddenly saw a flash of fire from the open gun emplacement on the port side of the transport, and then a small cloud of gray-white gunsmoke. , the shells fired by the small-caliber guns made a shallow mark in the air, crashed into the woods not far away, and exploded.

Looking at the orange flames flashing in the woods, Weiss was stunned - that's clearly a live ammunition!

However, squinting at it, the dotted boxes corresponding to the two flying battleships are still green. What's going on?

In an instant, the guns of the transport's starboard rear position were also fired. If the first cannon fired live ammunition may have been an operational error, then the second shell, which exploded on the ground, shattered Weiss's luck in his heart.

This is clearly a live attack!

The guns carried by the light transport ship are small-caliber guns used for self-defense, and the direct lethality is not great, but under their guidance, the cruiser at the height suddenly and violently poured artillery fire into the same area - more than a dozen small and medium-caliber naval guns fired intensively and rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, a blazing and violent rain of fire set off in the woods!

Seeing this, Nikolai clung to the trunk of the tree in horror and cried out, "What's the matter? They are actually shooting with live ammunition! What to do? How can we stop them? ”

Weiss frowned, trying to figure out a way to stop the two ships from continuing to "go crazy". But it happened suddenly, and he didn't have a problem at all!

In this way, the sound of cannons like a thunderous storm lasted for more than a minute, and the two flying ships projected hundreds of shells regardless of consumption. Then, the sound of the cannon suddenly stopped, and time seemed to stop flowing at this moment, but the branches were still shaking, and the smoke was still rolling. The transport ship descended rapidly, landing almost unbuffered in a glade, and soldiers in steel helmets and yellow-green camouflage combat uniforms jumped out of the hatch with rifles in hand, and quickly dispersed in battle formation.

There are two forms of marines in the Ulster Free Federal Army, one is subordinate to the aviation unit, which follows the actions of flying warships and can be put into ground combat at any time; The other is combat units that are subordinate to the army and have received landing training, and when there is a need for combat, they go to the battlefield on flying ships.

These soldiers who are engaged in ground combat in the field of vision, judging from their military appearance and tactical formation, should belong to the latter.

In normal times, Weiss would have tried every means to rescue his comrades and stop his opponents, but when they encountered this extremely unexpected scene during the exercise, their inherent way of thinking was useless, and he had to rack his brains to think about what the truth behind this sudden accident was, and then he could judge what to do next.

Since coming into this world, the "identification system of friend or foe" has never been miscalculated. When encountering Norman armored ships in the Monamolin Mountains, a striking red frame appears, and at the Grumman Group's high-level luncheon, the ill-intentioned directors are also red frames, and the opponents on the exercise ground are green, indicating that it judges friend and foe based on ideology and mentality, rather than simply nationality and camp.

The two flying battleships in sight, the pilots of the flying battleships, to be exact, were not in a hostile position, but they opened fire on the Basen student group on the ground. According to normal logic, there is only one possibility for this: they mistakenly believe that the student soldiers hiding in the woods are the real enemy.

In other words, a real enemy has appeared in this exercise!

Weiss was first surprised by the result he deduced, and then realized that it was likely to be the current reality, and besides, the enemy entered the exercise area, and the target was most likely Nikolai!

At this time, he suddenly remembered that yesterday he faintly saw black smoke rising in the distance in the woods. I didn't think much about it at the time, but now that I think about it, nine times out of ten it was related to the uninvited guests who broke into the exercise area.

Isn't this the case that the Military Intelligence Department went to such great lengths to send people to protect Nikolai? Well, now Major Brooks and that elite team of special service soldiers have been left in nowhere, not only that, but their own unit was also misidentified by their own flying ships, and they were bombarded with a full head without reacting, what is this?

Weiss's gaze was once again on Nikolai's anxious and dazed baby face.

Through Weiss's strange eyes, Nikolai also had an epiphany.

"It doesn't look good." He told Weiss, "Somebody must have been attacked." ”

With an extremely heavy heart, Weiss nodded, and had already made up his mind in his heart: no matter what the enemy's identity, position, trajectory, and no matter how much his team was wronged, how many casualties he suffered, and how much sacrifice he made, what he could and should do now was to protect Nikolai.

For no other reason, the enemy's target is Nikolai, and the best counterattack against the enemy is to destroy their plot!

So, Weiss quickly gathered the members of Team 1 who were hiding around and laid them out: "Everyone, pay attention, the situation has changed now, there is likely to be an enemy nearby, and their target is likely to be one of us. For the sake of those students who were unfortunately injured or even sacrificed their lives, and in order to thwart the enemy's sinister intentions, from now on, we will change the original plan, everyone will change to live ammunition, and be ready to engage the enemy at any time! ”

During the exercise, all officers and soldiers in the training used empty cartridges under normal circumstances, but in view of the wild beast activity in remote areas, each officer and soldier was routinely issued a certain amount of live ammunition in case of emergency - officers and non-commissioned officers who used pistols had a magazine for live ammunition, while riflemen had a three-round magazine for live ammunition, and these real bullets were packed in a special emergency kit with spare first aid kits and emergency rations, which were usually placed in the innermost layer of the marching backpack, although the number was small. However, it can allow the officers and soldiers not to have no way to survive in extreme circumstances.