Alarms blared as the young woman manipulated the controls. A series of damage indicators were flashing red on the engineering display, but she barely focused on that as she brought the ship out of a roll and pulled the trigger. A series of flashes were all she saw as the particle cannons fired, sending deadly pulses into the triangular shape in front of her. The computer registered several direct hits, and showed her the inflicted damage as the firing window closed.
A computer voice informed her, "Mission kill, target disabled."
Before she could even relax, new contacts appeared on sensors, "Alert! Missile lock detected."
She cursed, she'd just finished an engagement and more hostiles were coming in. Hull plating was failing, she'd taken several hits already, she was out of missiles and her capacitors were severely drained. She cursed the very misfortune of the scenario, even as she scrambled into action, operating on pure instinct, she brought the craft into an evasive maneuver while ordering, "Engage active countermeasures."
The computer replied instantly, "Countermeasures active. Warning Energy web capacitors are below minimum charge."
"I know," she muttered, under her breath as several energy bolts sailed past her craft. A second later came the warning she was dreading.
"Alert! Inbound missiles!"
She spared a quick glance at the plot, 12 vampires were on the screen and closing. Each one a potentially deadly threat. Her mind raced as her hands flew over the controls, the Energy web system was virtually depleted, she couldn't afford to take any more hits. The hull plating hadn't had much time to recover either. AIF reading was thirty five percent charge and climbing. A missile was sure to get through that, her best option was to evade, the missiles weren't falling for the electronic ghosts her active countermeasures were creating either and she had a full squadron of hostile alien fighters closing in. A course of action however presented itself.
As one of the fighters drew too close, she flipped her craft on its vector bringing the forward guns to bear. A brief pull of the trigger sent a flurry of high yield particle bolts into the fighter's hull, giving her an opening on a few of the missiles, even as she was activating the pulse detonation system. Several bolts fired from the cannons, half of which sailed into space harmlessly missing their mark, but a few hit. She watched the explosions on her hud, just as the pulse det engaged, the sudden acceleration threw her back into her seat. "Warning! Engine overload, heat levels exceeding tolerance!"
She quickly shut the engines down, cursing a previous hit. Letting the ship coast for a bit, while the engines cooled, but there wasn't enough time before a new alarm blared. "Alert Missile lock!"
She glanced at the plot, no fair! They were waiting for her! Her engines were still overheated and due to damage to the cooling array they were taking too long to cool. The energy web was still charging, and far too slowly. All her countermeasures were practically gone, and the cannons were almost dry. Yet she swung the craft around, as several missiles sailed in, firing on them best she could. Scoring several hits, but it wasn't enough.
Suddenly her screen filled with bold text; "Mission Failure! You died."
Sitting up, she pulled the headset off while steadying her breath. The first person she noticed was instructor White. "What the hell was up with that simulation? It wasn't even fair!"
Someone laughed, "That's the whole point, it's our version of Star Trek's Kobayashi Maru. The test was designed to push you to your physical and mental limits."
She looked over to see the captain sitting in a chair, a glass of something in his hand. She blinked, "Captain!? What are you doing here?"
"While I am still responsible for you, I'm mainly here to talk with your instructor."
White gestured to the captain, "He actually designed the simulation. I wasn't happy with the ones we already had, and as the fastest programmer on the ship I asked him for help."
"Fastest?"
Countryman smiled, "Comes with the territory of being a walking computer, but we aren't here to talk about that. So what do you think?"
"Aside from the endless waves of enemies, it felt pretty realistic. How'd you do that?"
"I mostly borrowed from work already done. The damage models are pretty much the same ones we use in lab testing conditions. Every vehicle has a detailed hull mockup, associated weaponry and defenses. Now of course simulations need numbers, so every weapon has a list of stats, heat generation, cooling rate, recharge speed, damage per shot, that sort of thing. The simplified short of it, is that in the simulation every vehicle has a set of hull integrity points which represent how much damage they can take before being destroyed but it ain't as simple as reduce to zero and you win. The real world doesn't work that way, so the coding is designed to match that.
"Now I mention weapon damage numbers. Well, when you take a hit you lose a certain number of integrity points based on the power of the weapon. The stronger the weapon, the more damage it does with each hit. Damage is reduced however by defenses. Now many games might use percent based damage reduction calculations or flat damage reduction modifiers. We do neither. I actually have a complex algorithm that models each shot, its trajectory, impact angles and what damage it does to the hull, along with the effects of defensive systems on the shot."
"I...uh see."
White giggled, "I don't think you do but that's okay. How do you feel about your performance?"
"I think I did okay, there were just so many enemies and I just ran out of options."
"So you did, I've got the final stats recorded. A few of those hits you took didn't help, damage to the capacitor banks and cooling systems hampered the recharge and recovery of critical systems. Still I have to agree you did well considering the situation, the attempted withdrawal to a safer position, the quick reactions, all positives."
"I'm not sure it was a very fair test. Have either of you tried it?"
Countryman chuckled, "I had to test it extensively when I made it, but pretty much every pilot on the ship has tried the scenario at least once."
"Really? Something that unfair?"
"Well some people just like a challenge, especially after completing all the regular scenarios."
"There are others?"
"Yup built on a standardized difficulty curve, we require all our combat pilots to test out at the expert level."
Sali frowned, "And um, where did I test?"
"Experienced, not quite Expert. Still you should be proud given you've never flown a 1204 before and only recently learned the plane. It's a good first result and it highlights where you need to improve."
She nodded, that felt good actually, but she was curious. Turning to the captain she inquired, "So um how did you rate?"
"I have better scores with capital ships, but last time I took the test I was rated as Cyber-Expert second class with a fighter. My skills have likely rusted somewhat since I don't regularly fly a fighter and that was over a decade ago."
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"Cyber? As in hacking?"
White laughed, "Cyborgs are rated on their own scale, after all they have an unfair advantage against unenhanced pilots. The captain there can see, process and react to things in fractions of a millisecond. Far faster than any human being should be able to."
"So you mean he's better than an Expert?"
"Yes he'd be evenly matched with an Ace Pilot."
"Impressive I think. Assuming I understand the...."
"The skill rankings? Our system isn't that complicated; Pilots start at the bottom as Novices and progress up the ladder to eventually become Experts. If they are truly talented they may eventually become an Ace."
"Sounds simple enough, but what are the exact skill ratings?"
Countryman interjected, "Something you will have to go over later. White mentioned having another test for you. I'd like to stick around, but I have things to do. Good luck."
"Uh, bye," she replied as the captain left the room, then she looked at the instructor, "Another test?"
"Nothing too complex, the first test is pretty good, but it does leave a few gaps. This one is an escort mission, nothing too crazy for the setting. You will be placed in charge of a half squadron of X-1204s, standard space superiority loadout and will be escorting a mining shuttle, one of several in the area. In this scenario, the Enterprise has stopped in a remote system for resupply and is conducting mining operations. The shuttle you are escorting is one of the more distant operators and she's bringing back fleet critical materials. Unfortunately, there is some pirate activity in the system. Mostly harmless vagabonds, but some groups are better equipped."
She nodded along, as she recalled what that meant. The X-1204 was highly modular allowing for loadouts to be swapped for different roles, the standard space superiority loadout was pretty much the stock loadout and was a fairly general-purpose configuration. Other loadouts were more specialized, so the ships were often armed according to the standard loadout. With this loadout, in addition to the four standard mount particle cannons, she'd be outfitted with eight photon missiles and half a dozen torpedoes. Given the fighter had four missile launchers, and a twin nose-mounted torpedo launcher, that gave her one missile reload, and three torpedo reloads. Of course it was possible to go heavy on the torpedoes or missiles depending on mission requirements.
By removing the missile launchers, and adding a transfer system it was possible for a 1204 to carry 18 torpedos, triple her standard complement, while going the other way wasn't so dramatic, you weren't going to triple the missile loadout no matter what you did, but it was possible to double the number of missiles carried to sixteen.
Of course if you really needed anti-ship capability you'd bring an X-1208 Sparrow. The heavy bomber by default carried two pulsar launchers and two forward torpedo launchers. Pulsars fired a charged ionic warhead that would overload shields and disrupt systems, making them very useful against capital ships. While standard fighter torpedoes and bombs could do a lot of damage. The Sparrow even had a good warhead supply with a standard loadout of eight torpedos and six bombs. Personally, she'd trade the six bombs for six more torpedoes, sure they packed a fair bit more punch, but the accuracy of a guided warhead more than made up for the extra punch of a photon bomb. Most of the time anyway, she could see an argument for the extra firepower in some cases.
"Sounds simple enough, but pirates rarely have decent equipment. More often than not they can't really afford it and if they could, why would they be in the business?"
"Perhaps, but sometimes they do have equipment worth talking about. In this case, you'll be facing primarily Headhunters and Phantoms."
She blinked, she recalled those vessels. The Headhunter was developed as a rival to the Valorian Lancer, it was a capable fighter, very fast and agile. Primary armament was a pair of pulsed plasma guns, and an ion cannon. The headhunter was also equipped with two plasma missile launchers and could carry six of them. It did however lack an energy shield, making it more vulnerable when hit, not that it happened much. The ship had some really top-notch stealth features and a cloaking device. Not as good as a Voskar cloak, but decent enough.
The Phantom on the other hand was a light corvette designed for a crew of sixteen. It had two decks, and was thirty-two meters long. Armed with light plasma cannons, and plasma missiles. Like the Headhunter, the Phantom was unshielded, relying instead on stealth and armor for protection. Designed by several civilian companies, the design had proved quite popular among a number of clandestine groups including pirate clans and smugglers. She knew the Valorian intelligence agency had even purchased a few for their own use, after a few modifications of course.
That thought reminded her that pretty much everyone who operated these vessels tended to make some customizations. Usually to better fit whatever their doctrine was. "Interesting, any special modifications I need to be aware of or are they mostly stock examples?"
"The standard pirate vessels are pretty much stock, aside from some extra armor, but the elites all have their own custom vessels but I'm not going to spoil what upgrades you might find if you engage an elite."
Sali adjusted the gear she was wearing, "I see, well I guess I better get started. Anything I need to know about the cargo shuttle?"
"It's a standard Artic Class heavy cargo shuttle."
That was more than enough for her to work with. Part of her homework had been studying the ships the Enterprise had available. The Artic class was developed as part of the 1200 series, and by the time Enterprise had launched had already been in service. By default, the shuttles didn't carry weapons, but they had a highly robust starframe protected by 120 centimeters of uniform overlord plating. The ship also had an energy web grid, and was actually fairly agile thanks to its powerful heavy-duty engines. Given its primary function of moving large amounts of heavy materials, or well anything the fleet needed, the designers had fit it with four quintuple-core particle pulse wave engines.
Those engines favored sheer power over efficiency however and could burn through fuel at a fairly fast clip, so it also had a secondary set of two dual-core engines. The dual-cores were much more efficient and were used primarily when the shuttle was cruising.
Between that armor and the powerful engines, she figured it would do alright getting away from most threats even considering the lack of weaponry. It made her wonder exactly what she was going to encounter. She wasn't sure either Headhunters or Phantoms could seriously damage an Artic class shuttle, they were built pretty tough. On the other hand they were fairly large targets, they weren't small shuttlecraft afterall. Sure they were called shuttles, but the Artics were really small freighters measuring 125 meters long and 70 wide with three decks of internal space. Highly modular, they weren't just used as cargo haulers either, as they could be outfitted for mining duties or scientific research just to name a few options.
"So no modifications? No mining equipment or anything?"
"No, it's just the transport there are other shuttles performing mining duties."
"I guess I'll find out when I try," said Sali moments before entering the scenario.
Countryman passed through the door. After leaving White and Sali to their flight training, he'd gone to find Samantha Greyman, she was pretty much in charge of education aboard the Enterprise and she'd sent him a message earlier that she had something important that she wanted to discuss when he had time. Now that he had a moment he was going to talk about that, but it seemed now wasn't the best time. A class was currently in session.
At the head of the class, Samantha was lecturing, "...the Early Twenty-first century, often called the calm before the storm these days, was anything but. In the post-Cold War period, the time frame is generally thought to be peaceful, if we ignore the conflicts in Africa, and the Middle East. Something that many often do, as those conflicts are largely outside the popular memory of the period, but even if you ignore the conflicts there were other important things going on. The Internet reshaped much of the modern world in this time as it evolved faster than the law could keep up, and an example of this came in the form of the AD Wars. Elsewhere China began to emerge as a contender on the world stage, while the Russian state tried to rebuild following the collapse of its Union leading to a number of regional conflicts. As for the United States, it was mired in social and political conflict for much of the period, and Europe had its own conflicts. Today we are going to look at the politics of the era and how they led to the conflicts that defined the 22nd century. That brings me to our first topic, the Formation of the Greater South American Union. Generally thought as something that would have been unlikely at the time..."
Countryman chuckled a bit at the mention. It hadn't been just unlikely, it had been practically unthinkable, at least until the United States and Mexico went to war. Given all the tensions over the border it was perhaps inevitable, but the world still acted shocked when it happened in 2021. Perhaps because of that war, the South American powers finally unified into a greater alliance. Of course the entire reason the war happened was due to an incident involving the incoming president's daughter and some illegal immigrants.
As big as that could have been, it did however end up becoming a mere footnote in the larger scheme of things when two months later the entire upper leadership of China was assassinated during a highly classified meeting. China might have tried to cover it up, but it was borderline impossible since the assassins had used a nuclear bomb to do it. Said bomb was later traced to Cold War-era Russian stockpiles, and was one of several warheads that had gone missing during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even today however exactly who had orchestrated the event remains unclear, but its effect certainly ended the era of peace Samantha was talking about. China fractured, Russia launched several invasions on her neighbors and several coalitions were formed. It was the first stone towards the second Cold War, which eventually went hot in 2085 with the start of World War Three.
He was drawn from his thoughts by Samantha, "Since you are here captain, do you have any insights on the period you would like to share?"
"Not particularly, no."
"I see, but I'm sure the Children would enjoy your take on it."
He chuckled and headed on up. Figuring he would see what she had wanted after the class was over.