r18novel Chapter 256: The First Batch of Support Arrives
Chapter 256: The First Batch of Support Arrives
Upon hearing this, Lorraine understood why she had sensed something unusual about Platinum earlier.
"So that's how it is. No wonder she didn't look like someone in her forties."
"Achoo!"
Platinum, who was patrolling near the factory carrying a large shovel, suddenly sneezed.
"Platinum, are you feeling cold? Should you go back to the flagship and rest for a bit?"
Hearing Bai Jin sneeze, Ouyang Nian, who was busy at work, asked with concern.
"No, maybe someone is talking badly about me?"
Platinum, seated in his mech, shook his head, glanced around, and then continued his patrol.
Returning to Lorraine's perspective, he had already finished listening to Tian Shu's introduction and was now negotiating with Tian Shu.
"No, I can do without the designers, but you must grant me surfacing authorization for two large deep-sea submersibles!"
【No, the current situation doesn't meet the requirements. I can't grant you surfacing clearance. At most, I'll let you surface once to bring out the female pilot's sister!】
Seeing signs that the talks were about to break down, Lorraine suddenly spoke up.
"So that means we don't need the Stonehenge system anymore!"
Upon hearing Lorraine's words, Tian Shu froze in place, and the fan speed surged.
After a long while, the heat dissipation system of Tian Shu returned to normal.
"Hey kid, where did you get that from?!"
Lorraine shrugged and said nonchalantly.
"You don't need to ask about that, but the Stonehenge system is indeed under attack, and I'm here to resolve the space crisis."
"As a critical node in orbital defense, can you really abandon it?"
As the series of bombs rained down, Tian Shu fell into complete silence.
Before Tian Shu could answer, Luo Lin spoke again.
"At my current rate of development, I can quickly build an orbital defense node of the same level, and it won't require a lot of manpower to maintain its operation."
Lorraine paused for a moment, then repeated her request.
"First, I need a group of officers to command my large number of unmanned combat groups."
"Secondly, I need some experienced ship designers to help me complete the design of the space fleet, after all, the sea of stars is also a sea."
After stating his request, Lorraine fell silent, quietly awaiting Tian Shu's reply.
As the speed of the cooling fan gradually decreased, Lorraine knew the answer Tian Shu had given, and then sat up straight, waiting for Tian Shu's reply.
The new generation is really impressive.
After uttering a sigh, the Tian Shu chariot turned towards Lorraine.
[Let me reintroduce myself. I am Tian Shu, the head of Project Spark and a super artificial intelligence. Greetings to you.]
As Lorraine stood frozen in shock at the formal introduction, a pale blue subtitle appeared on the holographic eyepiece.
[Master, a relic of the Pioneers, official designation 000, intelligent core—Cleveland, formerly codenamed Infinity.]
Following this subtitle is a yellow smiley face.
"Oh."
Lorraine's lips curled up slightly, and then she solemnly replied to Tian Shu.
"Relics of the Pioneers, Core of Intelligence—The Lord of Infinity pays homage to his predecessors."
You have indeed gained the approval of that relic.
Lorraine seemed to hear a soft sigh, but this was immediately followed by Tian Shu's powerful reply.
[In that case, I can grant all your requests, and your authority will be officially elevated from heir to spark, which is the highest authority in the entire Spark Project.]
[With this access, you can access all additional supplies within the deep-sea station, and you can also request personnel to surface. After review by the station's AI, personnel can be deployed.]
The number of personnel you can deploy each time and the time interval between deployments will vary depending on the type of personnel you require.
The two ascent permissions granted to you are of a higher level, allowing all personnel at all deep-sea stations to initiate ascent procedures.
However, with His help now, you can bypass the AI and directly initiate the scuba diving procedure for all personnel at some small and medium-sized deep-sea stations.
"Understood, I will make good use of these two privilege upgrades."
[All researchers at the Ship Research Institute have begun surfacing. This surfacing is not part of the previous two surfacing authorizations. They are expected to complete surfacing in 40 hours, but they will need some time to recover before they can officially begin work. You can come back in three days.]
Lorraine nodded to indicate that she understood, then stood up to leave the control room.
Before leaving the control room, he paused, turned his head slightly, and explained the cause of the rainstorm. Then, he left the research institute under the protection of the mechanical dogs.
The sound of Tian Shu's fan gradually subsided only after Lorraine boarded the escort ship.
Ah, the younger generation is truly formidable!
Then all the lights in the research institute were turned off, and Tian Shu returned to a low-power state, quietly waiting for the ascent procedure to be completed.
When Lorraine and the mechanical dogs stepped out of the passage, they saw navigation lights flashing red and green.
"laugh-"
With a hiss of depressurization, the tail hatch of the tactical transport plane opened.
Lorraine stepped into the transport plane through the rear hatch, then stood at the rear of the plane, gripping the handrail beside him, and looked out at the thick rain curtain outside the fuselage.
"Cleveland, takeoff."
The vertical nozzles on both sides of the fuselage spewed out bright blue flames, which, after kicking up a trail of white steam, propelled the fuselage slowly off the ground.
Standing at the entrance to the frigate's engine room, Lorraine shook himself off, getting rid of all the water droplets clinging to the armor.
More than an hour later, the frigate 2002, which had been traveling through the clouds, returned to the area above Jask Harbor, and Lorraine also returned to the flagship by transport plane.
"You're back."
As soon as Lorraine sat down in the captain's chair, a humanoid projection appeared beside her.
Lorraine turned her head slightly and saw the somewhat ethereal woman standing beside her.
"Hmm, not installing AI anymore?"
"What are you talking about? I am an AI, only I'm more advanced than them, a kind of intelligent life form?"
As he said this, Cleveland shrugged, causing his long, light blonde hair to sway slightly.
Only then did Lorraine take a closer look at her appearance.
She has long, smooth, golden hair tied in a high ponytail, with the ends falling naturally to her waist; the hair in front of her forehead is swept to the left and right, with slightly curled sideburns, which shows both competence and liveliness.
Her pupils were light brown, and the corners of her mouth were slightly upturned, exuding a playful and confident air.
He was wearing a short, dark blue stand-up collar jacket with white stripes along the edges and a light blue badge hanging on his chest.
Through his open jacket, Lorraine could see a white shirt underneath and a red bow tie at the collar.
Following her body downwards, Lorraine noticed her jacket rolled up to her forearm, black fingerless gloves, and a light gray watch on her left wrist.
He wore dark gray trousers and white high-top boots.
"Hmm, Commander, you're watching very intently."
Lorraine rolled her eyes at Cleveland's teasing and then got down to business.
"Tell me, what aspects have been improved in this upgrade?"
Cleveland tilted his head slightly, then revealed a series of upgrade projects, among which Lorraine was most concerned about the upgrade of the nanocore and the improvement of computing power.
"In fact, the current nanocore can no longer be called a nanocore. Although it is still composed of a large number of nanorobots, its operational precision has reached the picometer level, and it can also make certain adjustments to the structure of macromolecules."
"The improvement in computing power is even more significant. Thanks to the nuclear fusion reactor array equipped on the flagship, which provides ample energy, my main program can now run normally, and the maximum computing power has been greatly improved compared to before."
"I can now control any existing unmanned combat unit simultaneously, and I even have plenty of spare threads."
While Lorraine and Cleveland were talking, Ouyang Nian and his group returned to the flagship aboard a transport plane.
When they arrived at the driver's seat, they saw a woman chatting happily with Lorraine.
"Commander, who is this?"
Upon hearing Ouyang Lin and the others' questions, Lorraine stood up from her chair and began to introduce Cleveland to everyone.
"Cleveland, our shipboard AI."
Hello everyone.
Cleveland waved cheerfully to the crowd.
After confirming their identities, Lorraine and the others gathered together to discuss the next steps.
However, when discussing the issue of escalating authority, Ouyang Nian suddenly spoke up.
"Don't we already have Cleveland? Why do we need to apply for permissions?"
Before Luo Lin could even explain, Ouyang Nian received a chop to the head from his older sister.
"Every country has its laws. Although we are in the end times, the state apparatus has not completely disappeared. Following the rules now will save us a lot of trouble in the future."
"It hurts~"
Seeing Ouyang Nian putting on a pitiful act, Lin Shu sighed, rubbed the spot where he had slapped himself, and then poked Ouyang Nian's forehead.
"You've really gotten used to being free."
When the topic turned to ship designers, Ouyang Nian spoke again, reminding Lorraine.
"Don't forget, besides Chief Designer Huang, there seem to be a few ship designers in the shipyard. If you need them urgently, you can transfer them over first."
"Oh, really, how could I have forgotten about that?"
Immediately afterwards, Ouyang Nian turned his head to look at Cleveland, the meaning in his eyes quite obvious.
"When you first met me, I didn't have such strong computing power or such supernatural abilities. How could I possibly know so many things!"
Seeing that Cleveland was somewhat unhappy, Lorraine took the blame and changed the subject, while Cleveland contacted Yaoguang.
Huang Zhihui and others had just put their belongings away in the underground living area when they heard the announcement over the loudspeaker.
[Please have Huang Zhihui, Li Qing... proceed to the conference room.]
Somewhat puzzled, Huang Zhihui left his room, glanced at his equally puzzled colleague beside him, and then followed the instructions to the meeting room in the living area.
As soon as they opened the door, they saw Yao Guang waiting there.
They're all here.
"Of the original 115 Naval Ship Research Institute designers, 12 were expected to be present, and 12 were present."
"Then please take a seat."
Yao Guang then sent a communication request to Cleveland.
At the same time, two designers pulled out chairs and sat down on one side of the long conference table.
[Beep, communication connection in progress.]
Immediately afterwards, Lorraine and Platinum appeared on the large screen in front of them.
Good afternoon, everyone.
As Lorraine greeted them, she glanced at the group on the other side of the screen, who looked noticeably healthier and rosier.
"Looks like you're all doing well."
"Thanks to you, everyone has now returned to their pre-apocalyptic physical state."
Lorraine nodded, then got to the point.
"The reason I've gathered you here is to have you return to your original job: designing a warship."
Upon hearing this, the 12 people were immediately startled, but their expressions were a mixture of joy and worry.
The joy comes from returning to his original job, while the worry stems from a severe shortage of personnel.
The 12 people looked at each other, and then Huang Zhihui, the chief designer with the highest position, stepped forward.
"Your Excellency Lorraine, I am glad that you trust us so much, but the problem is that we do not have enough personnel to complete the design of a large ship. At most, we can design some small landing craft or coastal gunboats for you."
"You don't need to worry about that. I have a super AI here that can assist you in the design process. She can help you with a lot of repetitive work and cabin layout."
"Actually, all you need to do now is design the weapons and propulsion system for this ship; everything else can be handled by this AI."
Seeing that the group was still somewhat hesitant, Lorraine gave them a strong dose of medicine, switching the video to the sensor array on the outside of the ship and projecting the frigate No. 2002, which was anchored in the rain clouds, onto the screen.
"To be honest, this warship was completed by Ouyang Nian and me, and this super AI accounted for 80% of the credit in the design process."
After speaking, Lorraine's own image shrunk to 1/4 of its original size and was placed side by side with the physical image of the 2002 frigate at the top of the screen, while a 3D model of the warship appeared below.
Looking at the airship that was already in use, the 12 designers stumbled off their chairs and crowded around the screen.
Based on their own experience, they quickly noticed the discordant elements, but were still amazed by the warship's extremely high level of completion.
Huang Zhihui, as the chief designer, was the first to come to his senses and took over the ship design task from Lorraine.
"Don't worry, we guarantee we'll complete the mission."
Lorraine smiled and did not disturb the young designers who were observing the spaceship. Instead, he sent them the design requirements for the assault ship.
Seeing the requirements pop up on the screen, Huang Zhihui thought for a moment, then woke up everyone and they took on the task together.
Immediately afterwards, a car drove in from outside, with neatly arranged, still-warm contracts on it.
"By the way, I have some good news for you: the state apparatus has not collapsed, so this contract remains valid."
The 12 people took the confidentiality agreement handed to them by the car. Looking at the familiar terms, they felt as if they had returned to the days before the apocalypse. Then they smiled at each other and signed the agreement together.
As they put the signed contract back on the car, three tactical transport planes loaded with advanced design equipment took off from the flagship, carrying a classified document, and flew to Hongfeng Island, thousands of kilometers away.