Chương 23: Calculated Audacity

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum September 27, 2847"Only twelve years passed between the Wright Flyer and the Fokker Scourge," Professor DeVault lectured, while Arc continued to make notes on his tablet. Nearly an hour earlier, Iceni had offered to record the entire class for him, and he'd accepted the offer, but he wanted to note his own thoughts and questions along the way.

"Seven years before the first moon landing, the United States of America Airforce drew up plans for Project Orion, the first concrete, theoretically achievable space-based warship, though it was never actually built," DeVault continued.

"No sooner had the first Emperor, Maximilian Ascania, realized the potential of gate technology, then he sent a generation-ship with a disassembled gate back to Terra. War drives innovation—not just technical innovation, but strategic and tactical thinking."

"At Wolf 1069, the Singularity used their newly developed mechs to overthrow imperial control. It wasn't until Admiral Nakagami began targeting Singularity control ships, and eliminating their pilots, that the war began to turn around," Devault said.

"The shift in the tides of the war achieved an armistice, but the fundamental conditions impelling both sides to conflict have not substantially altered, and we cannot expect the Singularity to leave us the same vulnerability again." The professor turned off his screen.

"For next time, please read and take notes on the selections from Von Clausewitz—particularly the concept of the fog of war, and his thinking on the intertwined relationship between politics and war. Both remain relevant over a thousand years later. You are dismissed, cadets." With the creak of seats and the shuffling of shoes against the lecture hall floor, the other cadets stood and began to make their way to the door.

Arc had just folded his tablet and tucked it into the pocket of his tunic when the professor spoke again.

"Not you, Sandhurst. Stay behind a moment." Arc paused, glanced to the door, and back to Professor DeVault.

"I have Xenobiology 101, sir," he said. It wasn't quite an objection.

"I'll send a note to Doctor Vogel," DeVault promised, stepping around his podium to approach Arc.

"You're the cadet who won his spot at the Tacticalis tournament." It wasn't a question, but Arc answered anyway.

"Yes, sir." At conversational distance, DeVault seemed even taller, almost a looming presence.

"I look over the logs of each year's winner," he explained.

"Partly out of professional curiosity, and partly out of personal interest. Your final match was particularly interesting. You didn't win through exceptional tactical maneuvering, but by taking advantage of stacking morale penalties. What gave you that idea?" Arc couldn't help but digest a bit, being put on the spot.

"Gaugamela, sir." Professor DeVault narrowed his eyes.

"You were thinking of mechs as cavalry."

"Yes, sir." Arc nodded.

"I used my destroyers and cruisers to pin the enemy forces, and once I found a gap, I rammed a wing of mechs straight through to their flagship. Once they lost that —""They failed a succession of morale checks. The Persian army breaking when Darius retreated." DeVault nodded.

"It's a clever manipulation of the game system, cadet, but there is a very important distinction between Tacticalis and what we do here. Whether you can understand that will be the difference between success and failure, and it is very simple. War—life—is not a game system."

"Yes, sir," Arc said.

"The emperor's game is a clever recruiting tool, a good bit of public relations, and it has found us the occasional diamond in the rough," DeVault said.

"But it doesn't account for a commander who inspires faith in their soldiers—soldiers who would follow them into the event horizon of a black hole. Your trick wouldn't work against such a commander."

"With all due respect, sir, I wouldn't try it against someone like that," Arc said.

"But I do think cavalry is a promising analog for conceptualizing how to integrate mechs tactically." DeVault shrugged.

"You'll have the chance to show me when we get into our simulations. But Sandhurst, even clever tactics don't make up the whole of what I want from you—what fleet will demand from you. When Napoleon placed Alexander in, as he put it, the first rank of generals, he said that the Macedonian king 'calculated deeply, carried out audaciously, and managed wisely."

"If you want to lead a wing, Sandhurst, I need to see that you can win the confidence of your soldiers; that you can keep a cool head in a crisis; and that you can inspire brave action with your own, as Napoleon put it, audacity. That means you need to be able to fight as well as think, which, I suppose, we shall determine in the months to come." Arc thought back to the moment in the jungle when he'd looked down that trail of beaten brush and realized what must be coming.

"I think I understand, sir."

"We shall see if you do. You're majoring in War Studies, which means you're one of mine," DeVault said.

"Unless, that is, you wish a transfer to the naval academy at Luna? Commanding from the bridge of a flagship doesn't require the same sort of personal heroics as leading a wing of mechs. If you do decide to make the transfer, I will write you a recommendation. In all honesty, I'd almost prefer it; the chances of a mech pilot ever making admiral are disappointingly low."

Once again, that stab of panic pierced Arc's stomach, that surge of fear that the chance to hunt down the woman who'd murdered his sister might be taken away from him, arbitrarily, by someone in a position of power.

"No, sir," he said, quickly.

"I intend to pilot a Kestrel. I'll be staying right here." DeVault looked him in the eye for a long moment.

"Very well. Off you go to Xenobiology, now. I expect to hear your thoughts on Von Clausewitz during our next class." Arc saluted, turned, and beat a hasty retreat through the doorway before Professor DeVault could change his mind. The moment he was out of the building, he tore off down the paved pathways which crisscrossed the campus at a full sprint.

"Give me a map, Iceni," he gasped, in between panted breaths. Perhaps it was because he was paying more attention to the map, and the blinker which represented his own position on Academy Hill, that Arc slammed into another cadet as he skidded around the corner and into the final stretch of his route to the science building. Just like on Pinnacle Station, he thought, with a flash of embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," Arc blurted out, before he'd even seen who he'd run into.

"Watch where you're going, mole rat," Blake Van Camp growled. Then, he looked Arc up and down, and when Arc saw the flicker of recognition in the older cadet's eyes, he lost all hope of a quick escape.

"You're that little shit who's always hanging around the princess," Van Camp said.

"My apologies, sir. I was rushing to my next class, and I should've been looking where I was going. I won't keep you any longer." Arc started to move past the other cadet, but it turned out he wasn't going to be so lucky.

"Wait a moment." Van Camp stepped so that he could plant himself directly in Arc's path.

"It's my responsibility as an upperclassman to discipline younger cadets who can't get to their classes on time. Down on the ground, mole rat. I want to hear you count your pushups nice and loud, and if I don't like your form, you'll be starting over again from nothing."

"Yes, sir." Arc kept his face as blank as he could, and dropped right there on the paved path, which was rough and hot beneath his hands. In one sense, he was lucky: by noon, the pavement would be a high enough temperature to burn his skin. He lowered his body, keeping his back straight, and then pushed up again.

"One!" 𝝮 By the time Arc made it to class, he'd missed more than half the lecture. When he slipped in the door, every eye in the room turned toward him, including that of Doctor Vogel, who paused until he'd made his way to an open seat next to Vee and Pika. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"What kept you so long?" The Torean girl asked, once he'd settled in. By that point, he was still red-faced and sweating, both from the dash to get to class, and the impromptu exercise session.

"Professor DeVault kept me after class, and then I ran into Van Camp on the way here," Arc admitted, trying to catch his breath. Now that he was sitting, at rest rather than running and fueled by desperate panic, he could hardly hear anything else over the sound of his own pounding heart.

"Ignore that guy," Vee said.

"He's a jerk."

"Can't ignore an upperclassman," Pika pointed out, but one sharp glance from Doctor Vogel put an end to the conversation. Despite the morning's troubles, Arc felt more able to relax as soon as he was with his friends again, and once they all met in the dining hall after the second class of the day was over, he was able to fully give himself over to anticipation for what the afternoon would bring.

"I've never used a simulation pod before," Arc admitted, once they'd all settled in at their familiar corner of the table.

"Neither have I," Pika said, and Rain shook her head, as well.

"I have," Vee volunteered.

"But not for mechs, only to get my shuttle piloting certification."

"It's a bit different," Cassie said, in between bites of her salad and grilled chicken.

"But even what I've done before won't be quite right. The basic sims automate a lot of things for people who don't have neural lace, or an AI, to handle those functions. Balance, for one thing. All the programs I used just ignored that whole issue."

"But you were good, right?" Arc asked. Cassie grinned.

"Good enough to kick the rest of you around," she promised. Arc had no doubt of it. If he'd had years to get ready for the academy, he probably could have found some way to get simulation time in. He hadn't even known where to begin on Zurah V, but if he'd been the sort of guy who planned on becoming a mech pilot all along, like Cal Madine, or even Cassie, he had no doubt he could have found something. But out of everyone in his class, Arc figured that he had made the decision to come to Vidako last.

If he was being completely honest, he didn't have the first clue about how to pilot a mech. That's why they're going to train you, Iceni reassured him. That's why the academy is here, Arc. Some of your anxieties are reasonable, but in this particular instance, there's no reason to panic. Still, he couldn't help but remember what Professor DeVault had told him only that morning. Alexander hadn't just been a general—he'd led his cavalry right into the heart of Darius's army, cutting down Persian soldiers as he went.

Could Arc actually do that? Once they'd all finished eating and cleared their dishes, Arc and his friends joined the rest of the class of 2851 on the walk to the south end of campus. There was hardly even a need for Iceni to provide a map to the Bachman Training Center, because all forty-nine remaining cadets were going to the same place.

Once inside, they all tramped down a great double staircase into the basement, where the doors out of the stairwell opened into a single enormous room which Arc guessed must take up the entire footprint of the building. One long walkway—a corridor, with safety railings and descending staircases to either side—divided the two sides of the room, which were both sunken three meters below the catwalk.

There, lines of simulator pods extended, one after the other, to either side, every one attended by a corpsman from the infirmary. Some of them were active: Arc could see holo-projectors, about two-thirds of the way down the corridor, hard at work depicting an ongoing fight between a Janissary and an Outrider. A man dressed in a fleet-issue flight suit, with a close-cropped beard and mustache, stood at ease in the center of the catwalk, facing the crowd of cadets as they shuffled in from the stairwell.

Only once the doors had closed behind the last of the cadets did he address them.

"Good afternoon, cadets, and welcome to the academy's Introductory Pilot Evaluation course. My name is Lieutenant Commander Libby, and I will be your instructor. I've served a total of ten years on a variety of deployments, and it is my job to not only train you in the basics of mech piloting, but to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.

At the conclusion of this program, I will make recommendations as to whether you are, individually, prepared to advance in your training, or whether you require remedial instruction. In the most extreme circumstances, I can recommend that you be removed from the academy." That set a few of the cadets to whispering, but Arc kept his mouth shut. If he wanted to pilot a Kestrel, he needed Libby's approval. He had no intention of shooting himself in the foot by drawing the instructor's ire on the first day.

"Each one of you will have a chance to connect to a simulator pod today," Libby continued.

"A corpsman will monitor you before, during, and after the connection to make certain your neural lace is interfacing properly. If they detect any irregularities at all, they will trigger an emergency disconnect and shut down the simulation—but you don't need to worry about that," their trainer assured them, with a smile.

"Less than one percent of candidates at this stage experience any sort of problem connecting to these pods."

"Once you establish a successful connection, the training program will take you through the most basic movements in a simulated T-3 Tyro," Libby went on.

"This training mech has been explicitly designed by fleet to be the easiest piloting experience our scientists could come up with. That said, you're going to make a lot of mistakes until you get used to how the connection works. If you can manage to walk without falling down today, I'll be impressed. Run, and I'll note ten merits on your record."

"One last thing before I let you find your pod. If, after today's session, you experience any of the following symptoms, you are to report to the infirmary immediately." Libby lifted a tablet out of his pocket, unfolded it, and read aloud.

"Discomfort when looking at your own reflection in a mirror; the sensation that a limb or body part is not your own; vertigo or loss of balance; migraines or intense headaches; nausea; blurry vision; phantom pain; or a feeling of intense disconnection from the physical sensations of your own body." He looked up from the tablet and scanned the crowd of cadets.

"Do not wait, do not ignore these symptoms, do not feel ashamed or make excuses. Go directly to the infirmary so they can get you sorted out. Understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!" Arc shouted, along with the rest of his classmates.

"Very good." Libby nodded.

"Find yourselves a pod, and the corpsman in attendance will help you out. Let's move, cadets, we have a limited time here." Arc walked forward in a clump, with his friends, all along the right side of the walkway. They weren't in the absolute front of the crowd, so the first few pods were taken by the time they approached. To his utter lack of surprise, Cassie turned off down the steps to the first open pod without even a moment's hesitation.

He forced himself not to watch her go, hurried over to the next, and made his way down the stairs. The simulator pod was in the shape of a sphere, with the back open and facing the central walkway. Once he got down the steps, Arc could see a pilot's seat inside. The corpsman who was waiting for him—a woman with strawberry blonde hair pulled back away from her face, stepped forward to greet him.

"Hospital Corpsman Third Class Varnell," she introduced herself.

"There's not a ton of room, so I'm going to ask you to get into the seat first, Cadet."

"Arc Sandhurst," he said, and squeezed past her. Once he was inside the cockpit, Arc could see that there was a flat screen set directly in front of the chair, as well as a series of restraints, and a joystick on each arm. There were pedals for the feet, as well, and a variety of buttons, switches, and information panels to either side. He sat down, pulled his tablet out of his pocket, and looked around for a place to put it.

"Here," Corpsman Varnell said, showing him a pouch of webbing which hung off the left side of the padded pilot's chair.

"In an actual mech, you'd put it in a storage compartment, for safety. You don't want things flying around the cockpit. But this pod isn't going to move on you, so there's no need. Let me show you how the restraints work." She leaned over him, and walked Arc through the five-point harness step by step until everything had clicked into place and been adjusted.

"I thought the pod wouldn't be moving," Arc commented.

"It won't—the restraints are to keep you in place, until you've got a handle on the connection. Next, monitors for your pulse, blood pressure, oxygen count..." As she spoke, Varnell attached wires, each one with a stick-on circular piece of plastic at the end, to various parts of his body. She unbuttoned his shirt and reached inside as brusquely as if she were making a bed, and he got the impression that she spent most of her day handling other people's bodies.

Finally, Varnell gave a satisfied nod, and he took that to mean that she was finished.

"Alright," she said.

"I'm going to step out of the pod. When you're ready, tell your AI to make the connection. If anything goes wrong, I'll pull you out, just like the Lieutenant Commander said." Varnell reached over to the screen, and at the brush of her fingers, it came to life. She typed an access code in so rapidly that Arc couldn't have followed the sequence if he'd wanted to.

"You ready?" He nodded and found his voice.

"Yes." Varnell flashed a grin and then ducked out of the pod, slapping the back of his chair as she went past.

"Enjoy!" Arc took a deep breath and held it for a moment, just to calm down. During Hard Burn, he'd known that if he failed, it would be because he gave up. But now, if something went wrong with his connection, that would be a technical problem—or a problem with the way his brain functioned. It was nerve wracking to think that he could fail out of the academy right now, because of something he had no control over.

Lieutenant Commander Libby rounded up when he stated that less than one percent of cadets had difficulties connecting, Iceni said, in the back of Arc's mind. The rate is closer to 0. 49 percent.

"That's still one out of two-hundred." Arc sighed. Are you ready for me to make the connection? Iceni asked. Arc nodded.

"Do it." He couldn't help but grip the arms of the piloting seat, just beneath the joysticks. An invisible switch flipped, and Arc's awareness shattered.