As silently as a scaly owl gliding after a field monkey, the carrier sailed through the inky blackness of space.
Shaped like nothing so much as a large cylinder gently flared out in the front, the ship was half a kilometer long.
Across the front, ship-to-ship lasers and planetary bombardment missile launchers stuck out like whiskers on a tom cat.
Within, uniformed crew members moved from station to station, adjusting speed and vector, verifying the atmospheric recyclers, and staying the hell out of the way of the warrior class members of the Earth Prime Protection Force.
In the levels below the bridge, spotlessly clean training rooms were filled with warriors. They were engaged in small arms practice, hand-to-hand combat exercises, and computer simulated mechanized defense suit training.
Apart from the others, High Captain Martin Stevens moved gracefully in virtual reality combat against multiple heavily armed opponents.
His dancer's appearance belied the view provided by the computer projected into his mind's eye. On the inside, Martin Stevens fought for his life.
Coming up just behind the rocket blast from a computer generated Un-Faithful Combat Droid, Martin twitched the muscles in his left forearm, sending a spray of incendiary darts into the shooter.
Without pausing to watch the darts dissolve the circuitry, he spun on one foot and triggered the launch of his shoulder mounted anti-personnel rocket. The projectile detonated spectacularly in the face of another sim Un-Faithful but, again, Martin's attention had already moved to his next target.
Within a simulated bunker inside the exercise, and outside the exercise on a stainless steel bench, Specialist Trevor McComb typed frantically on his projected keyboard. He sent combatant after combatant after Captain Stevens, and all were almost instantly scrapped and deleted. He had even tried multiple attackers at once, but Captain Stevens seemed to take almost sick pleasure in tricking the human-smart virtual reality constructs into destroying each other.
As Martin fired a close range laser at the arm joints and power core of yet another failed attacker, an idea started to form in Trevor's mind. A new strategy, any strategy, had to be better than this exercise in futility.
Hastily, Trevor programmed and tossed in half a dozen attackers at once. Not having time to fully code them, he trusted their melee ability to buy him the time he needed.
While Trevor frantically typed, High Captain Stevens immediately took note of the fact that the newest arrivals carried no ranged weapons. As a result, he powered his own down. It would be a disgrace to destroy even a simulated opponent without at least trying to maintain a sense of fairness.
A grim smile on his face, he waded swinging into the throng.
Chapter Eight Interlude
File: Datanet Core Server Gamma Alpha ninety six, Galactic Technologies, Era: Modern -0, Index Earth Prime Protection Force, Computing, Data Supplied by Datanet Tech Feed
The Faithful of the Benevolent States United have access to the full computing power of over a million databases worth of publicly available information. This carefully chosen and unrestricted information is provided courtesy of a central hub known as the Datanet.
The Datanet is primarily responsible for ensuring our robotic protector drones make their appointed rounds to sanitize the environment and remove chemical and human impurities. Fully harnessed by the trained Specialist Computing Corps on the Earth Prime Protection Force, the Datanet can be used to not only deny services to the Un-Faithful, but to launch powerful information attacks against any enemies who would be foolish enough to try their pitiful strength against the brave officers of the Benevolent States United.
Constantly logged in via implanted personal terminals, these brave coders use projected holographic keyboards which register precisely finger location by state-of-the-art motion detection sensors. The Specialist Computing Corps members are trained from birth to think creatively while maintaining the high ethical standards of the Benevolent States United while supporting our infrastructure and maintaining the highest level of performance in our Earth Prime Protection Force mechanized defense suits.
High Captain Martin Stevens whirled past the last construct not already reduced to a smoking heap and leaped, coming down knee joint first on the neck assembly of the immediately immobilized droid.
Expecting another assault, Martin swiveled in place and saw a tiny floater drone hovering near his chest plate.
Seemingly faster that thought, it clanked into the area above his High Captain insignia and clung magnetically.
Before he could even begin to pry it off, it had jacked into his on board system and deleted the core, instantly killing the suit and ending the simulation.
A brief look of shock stole across his face in real space before he turned to the bench and yelled, "What the fuck was that, Specialist?"
"Creative thinking, sir." With a wave of his hand across his chest, Trevor dismissed the keyboard and turned to face his commanding officer.
"I've been throwing virtual hostiles against you for over an hour, sir. Just to stand a chance I needed to add my own skills into the mix. Sir." The Specialist was more than a little frightened by the look on High Captain Martin Steven's face, but he tried not to show it.
"Without your little techno stunt I'd still be in the game, and since no one in the galaxy has access to the computing power you so casually toss around, you've just invalidated the whole exercise. You think this is a joke? You know the BSU is facing a global crisis in energy management." He was barely able to contain the anger in his voice. Apparently, he'd planned to go on killing targets all afternoon.
It crossed Trevor's mind that High Captain Martin Stevens's use of the word "game" had nothing to do with it having been a simulation. To him, any combat was a game.
In fact, Trevor had started hearing the rumors in mess halls and training rooms long before he'd even joined up with the company under High Captain Martin Stevens. The Stevens family had a long and glorious military and political heritage. However, the youngest son, Martin Stevens, had entered the service long after the last of the Un-Faithful had been re-educated or eliminated. He had, of course, been granted ancestral rank and honors, but he seemed obsessed with proving that his abilities were genuine.
"Sir, with all due respect, we are trained to use every possible advantage to ensure the continued survival of our team mates and the Benevolent States United. I was merely attempting to do my Faithful best." Specialist McComb chose his words carefully. By invoking the Faith, he hoped to avoid a formal reprimand at best or, at the worst, a severe beating.
"If you ever try to hack your way out of another of my simulations again, you won't see the outside of human waste recycling programming until you retire, Specialist," High Captain Stevens seemed a bit mollified, "Without the aid of those dishonorable technological tricks, you wouldn't stand a chance against me."
He re-engaged the simulation from the beginning.
"Throw some more melee sims against me, Specialist. That was the most fun I've had in a month."
Specialist Travis McComb complied.
