The core idea of the Latitude Jump Project is actually very simple.
The current latitude of the star station is too high, and the climate is too harsh, making it unsuitable for rapid development.
It is necessary to migrate as soon as possible to the edge of the fief, to the plains at lower latitudes, to develop farmland, factories, and cities.
The method of migration is also very simple: the troops advance rapidly southward along the lines of latitude, building military bases or supply points along the way, similar to the pattern of Jiang Ye Star's expansion.
Jiang Ye Star has already completed global occupation, and the veteran soldiers have accumulated a lot of experience.
For example, how infantry survives in the wild, how many people in a squad can balance efficiency and safety,
The impact of different terrains on marching speed, and the construction density of military bases in different environments.
Special situations that may arise after weather changes, such as clean lake water emitting toxic gases due to changes in atmospheric pressure, hibernating animals suddenly swarming out, and plants growing explosively to change the appearance of the environment, and so on.
Technology can solve most problems, but many critical issues still rely on human experience. Jiang Ye's plan is to integrate these experiences, consider them comprehensively, and then set reasonable goals.
...
Three days later.
Birong Star, Star Station Camp.
Three spacecraft have just landed, and the cargo bay doors slowly open, revealing the ornithopters with their wings folded inside.
Tractors immediately board the ships and slowly pull out the ornithopters.
The ornithopters delivered in the past few days are all new models, each capable of carrying a 20-person infantry squad and lifting cargo weighing two buses. The early ornithopter models seem like young cubs following their parents in front of these huge new ornithopters.
The tractors are all unmanned autonomous vehicles, orange in color, only the size of four suitcases. Small tractors pull giant ornithopters to the hangar, appearing from a distance like small insects dragging dead dragonfly corpses back to their nests.
At the hangar entrance, twenty heavy ornithopters are slowly exiting the hangar.
The co-pilot of the lead aircraft is none other than Che Zhen, wearing a black combat suit, his head enclosed by a glass visor. The pilot next to him and the soldiers neatly seated behind are dressed the same.
The combat uniforms of the Birong Star troops look very much like old-fashioned explosion-proof suits, or simplified versions of ancient astronaut suits.
Bulky is true, functionally powerful is true, and expensive is also true.
"All aircraft self-check, takeoff in one minute." Che Zhen opens the communication button on his neck.
"Lead aircraft normal." The pilot next to him immediately says.
"Aircraft 2 normal!"
"Aircraft 3 normal!"
A series of reports, these aircraft had test flown two hundred kilometers yesterday, and the maintenance engineers were in the hangar for maintenance and inspection early this morning, in excellent condition, with not a speck of dust on the fuselage.
Che Zhen waves his hand, and the pilot next to him yanks the control stick. With a roar, the ornithopter shakes and tilts its head to take off.
The star station and the military camp quickly shrink, becoming a small black dot on the snow in the distance.
Che Zhen's helmet rests on the side window as he looks down. The ground is covered with sparkling hailstones, undulating with the terrain. For at least tens of kilometers, everything is covered by hailstones.
And tens of kilometers away, there is seawater again, with black oceans spewing rolling white mist into the sky, appearing to be extremely hot.
"Aircraft 6 is carrying the ocean probe, right?" Che Zhen asks, "Drop one."
"Aircraft 6 received."
Che Zhen clicks on the screen in front of him, and after a few minutes, a large amount of data appears.
The temperature of the nearby seawater is actually 12 degrees Celsius, and the temperature increases as it goes deeper.
The scanned seabed topography is very peculiar, all sharp spikes, like a forest with no leaves. Each spike is hundreds of degrees Celsius, glowing red like iron in a furnace on the temperature map.
"So many underwater volcanoes," Che Zhen exclaims. "Throw some microbial probes down as well. There might be ancient bacteria near the underwater volcanoes. If we're lucky, we might encounter the ancestors of Birong Star's biosphere, which is worth studying."
"Understood, dropped them." Aircraft 6 replies, "There's a small island ahead, should our squad land to study the nearby sea?"
"Not yet, let's complete the mission first," Che Zhen says.
The fleet continues to advance.
The scenery below is very strange, with large areas of ocean, large areas of island land, and mist like wind, constantly changing.
For the first hour of flight, the scenery was still desolate.
After an hour, life began to appear.
"Bang!" a loud noise.
Che Zhen is startled and looks at his face, still shaken.
A small black bird crashes into the window, its red eyes staring directly at Che Zhen. Its internal organs are spilling out from the torn flesh, and feathers are flying. The red bloodstains are quickly swept away by the strong wind on the glass.
"Should this sample be preserved?" the pilot next to him asks.
Che Zhen takes out his phone, takes a few pictures, and says, "No need to preserve it."
The glass cleaner immediately sprays out, the bird carcass falls, and the windshield wiper brushes it away, leaving the glass intact, without even a scratch.
The fog in this area is super dense, like clouds clinging to the land. The fleet is flying as if in milk, with visibility only a few dozen meters.
A large patch of small black dots suddenly appears ahead.
Before Che Zhen can react, there is a crackling sound, and the window is as if being strafed by a submachine gun!
More than a dozen blood flowers bloom, and both the pilot and Che Zhen flinch in fright. The window glass is covered with dead birds, internal organs flying everywhere, and blood splattering.
Then there are more dense impact sounds, and more than a dozen more birds crash into the glass.
"Report! Bird strike!" several pilots shout at the same time.
"Ascend, all aircraft ascend!" Che Zhen orders.
As the fleet tilts its head, it seems to enter a whirlwind of birds. A black tide rushes towards them, the scene like a barrage of arrows, and all the ornithopters are instantly submerged by birds!
The window glass is smeared red in seconds. The previous bird carcasses are knocked down by the incoming birds, and soon nothing can be seen outside the window, only dense small bird carcasses. The fuselage continues to make thudding sounds, as if hit by anti-aircraft machine guns, or as if flying in a hail cloud.
The windshield wipers are stuck, and the pilot curses, sweating.
"Don't panic, there are no mountains nearby, keep ascending." Che Zhen says calmly.
The bird whirlwind lasts for two minutes. Fortunately, the ornithopters are sturdy enough not to be damaged. As the ornithopters continuously ascend, the dead birds stuck to the fuselage and glass peel off, falling like a layer of black powder. The windshield wipers can move again, and after a few sprays of glass cleaner, the glass is washed clean again, as if nothing had happened.
"Strange, where did so many birds come from? Drop a probe," Che Zhen says.
"We just dropped one," Aircraft 6 replies. "There are plants appearing below."
Che Zhen clicks on the screen and selects a newly activated probe.
Indeed, the ground is covered with continuous dark green, all of which are very low plants, not exceeding a person's calf, with leaves as small as fingernails.
The probe is a robot similar to a plant, capable of moving back and forth and scanning the environment. The data on the screen is constantly refreshing.
"This is interesting." Che Zhen's eyes suddenly light up.