Aetna was furious and displayed his contempt for Narivan when he whispered, "You made the wrong choice, Tincan..."
This was exactly what Aetna had feared — getting paired with a commander who was driven to climb the ranks. He hated the ambitious types; they always pushed their subordinates to work harder...
Which meant that there would be even more work for Aetna to complete and even bigger responsibilities he would have to manage as Vice-Commander.
But the die had been cast now — the Elite Cadets had elected Narivan as their leader, and that would not change for the foreseeable future unless Narivan decided to cede the role. And that meant that Aetna was destined to be swamped with extra work from now on.
Narivan turned toward Aetna and said, "I was chosen for the position because my peers trust in my judgment and skills, Aetna. And you, by extension, were chosen to be my Vice-Commander because I evaluated you as the best possible person to support me."
"Stop it with the disgusting flattery," said Aetna, scoffing. "I don't give about your reasoning. You made an error in judgment, and now you're going to be punished for it. Mark my words, Tincan..."
Narivan sighed deeply and said, "You only have yourself to blame for this. Talent begets responsibility, and you were born with an abundance of it, whether you like it or not. Accept this harsh fact of life and grow up a bit... for both our sakes. And stop calling me 'Tincan.' You may address me either as 'Commander' or 'Commander Narivan,' am I clear?"
Unbeknownst to Narivan, the unfortunate youth had made a critical error. A very terrible mistake.
Aetna had been truly provoked this time around. Narivan's scalding reproach infuriated him in a way that he couldn't even begin to express. He was positively seething inside, akin to a volcano about to erupt and destroy everything in its immediate vicinity.
As soon as the thirty-second countdown ended and the simulation began, digital space warped around Joyeuse-01, and the ship was teleported above the orbit of a large gas giant along with its sister ships.
Not too far away from them, approximately a hundred and fifty kilometers, a lone Interceptor-class warship hovered above the gas giant.
Although an Interceptor-class warship wasn't very powerful compared to larger warships, it was still an intimidating foe for the cadet fleet. Their foe was a Bastion-type Interceptor, more than roughly twice the size of their ships at two-hundred and thirty meters in length, and judging by preliminary scans, it was outfitted for mid-range combat.
This was a ship that shone in battles situated at a healthy distance, but it could also manage just fine in close-combat fights. It was an Interceptor-class warship, after all. They were built to handle fast-paced combat to keep up with nimble Fighter-class attackcraft and could also perform High-G evasive maneuvers to avoid shots from larger, stronger warships.
Still, they had the numerical advantage, so Narivan wasn't too concerned about being overpowered in this fight. As long as they kept the pressure on the Interceptor and disabled its propulsion thrusters, they'd be able to pin it down in one place and slowly tear it apart...
Was it a cowardly act for five ships to gang up and shred a larger warship to pieces? It would be a dishonorable act to some Commanders — they'd at least allow the enemy ship to surrender first. But if they didn't surrender, then everything was fair game.
Narivan felt the same way. "Hail the ship, Officer Savar, and send a request for them to surrender. Tell them to power down their plasma shields and to broadcast their White Flag Signal (WFS). They have ten seconds to comply. Failure to comply will your ship being treated as a hostile and result in its destruction."
The Solastora Empire was not an uncivilized group of savages. Even though the directive for this simulation was to destroy the Interceptor, Narivan felt it ignoble not to try to resolve the matter through diplomacy.
Not that Narivan thought the warship would actually surrender... because it would invalidate the purpose of the simulation — to test their combat fundamentals in battle.
To no one's surprise, the interceptor did not respond. It simply sat there in orbit, not budging an inch as if waiting for their next action.
"Commander, rising heat values detected! Antimatter generator output rising inside the enemy ship! They're warming up their Energy Cannons and strengthening their Plasma Shields!" said Gafon hurriedly.
And so it began. The enemy ship had thrown their proverbial gauntlet down.
"Surrender? In your dreams! Come and get some, you mangy bastards!" was probably the closest approximation of what the enemy ship had just told them.
Now came the difficult part of the simulation — analyzing the "combat variables," the various factors that would decide how Narivan would form his battle strategy for the fight.
This involved a Commander assessing both the enemy's strengths and weaknesses, their weaponry, troop numbers and formation, terrain conditions, enemy morale, and a dozen other factors while also doing the same for the fleet they were commanding.
Only after they took all of that into account would they be able to make an informed decision about how to proceed.
It was a mentally challenging task which is why this work was usually relegated to an AI that was aboard the ship. What took a human being several hours to process only took a standard AI a handful of minutes. And they would naturally come to better conclusions than most humans, too.
Usually, AIs crunched the numbers and gave detailed reports about the fleet's chances of winning, projected losses, and various proposed battle plans, but in the end, it was the Commander who would decide which plan his or her fleet would use.
Basically, Commanders were actually closer to judges rather than actual strategists. Nevertheless, they played a vital role that could not be replaced.
One would think that the planning and execution should have up to AIs, but that always led to disaster.
This was not some odd superstition but a known fact.
In the early past, back when humanity had barely begun to colonize the galaxy, many wars had been completely managed by AIs... to spine-chilling results.
This was because the AIs always chose the most optimal choice that would lead to the fastest victory condition, even if it came at the expense of their own forces.
It wasn't as if they placed did not value the lives of their human masters, but rather, they were determined to stave off further losses of human life by ending these wars as fast as possible. They sacrificed the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers to save the lives of millions of more innocents and comrades.
Their main objective was to end battles as quickly as possible and, by extension, wars themselves. This reasoning was founded on established statistical data that suggested that the longer these wars continued, the greater the chance humanity would perish through mutual destruction.
But as AIs ran these wars on both sides, these wars often turned into costly wars for all parties involved — in terms of lives, resources, and territory.
AI-controlled fleets did not retreat, nor did they compromise with the enemy.
They had been under direct orders never to surrender, as it would lead to the loss of precious territory.
It had been a violent period defined by the sheer amount of blood spilled on all sides, all for the sake of establishing the modern-day territory lines that the Solastora Empire, Isu Union, and the Republic of Detara now adopted.
After the Domain Wars, all three nations agreed never to allow an AI to ever control a fleet ever again — in the form of the Balin Accord. Humans needed to be in control of their own fleets... if only to keep future conflicts from burning too hot.
All of this led to the current situation that Narivan was caught up in.
The Imperial Forces actually prohibited cadets and low-ranking Commanders from using AIs to calculate even the most elementary analysis reports and suggested battle plans. This was an old regulation set forth centuries ago by High Command after the Domain Wars.
They could not allow their Commanders and Admirals to be coddled by AIs like the fools of the past. They needed to learn to think critically, formulate strategies independently, and develop a habit of thinking for themselves.
Only after they proved themselves enough and rose to a certain rank would they be granted the right to use AI-generated analysis reports and strategic advice.
Several charts, graphs, and a detailed map of their surroundings popped up in holographic form, but before Narivan could even begin shuffling through the information...
The "g-harnesses" that Narivan and everyone else in the command bridge were wearing suddenly contracted out of the blue. They had suddenly been restrained by...
Aetna, of course. He had taken advantage of the fact that the ship required g-harnesses.
Every ship came equipped with g-harnesses — a set of extremely durable inflatable seatbelts that kept people attached to their seats. They were also attached to a person's individual "g-suit," providing pressurized gas to many air pockets inside of the suit.
One of the most dangerous threats pilots had to handle was the possibility of blacking out due to being subjected to high acceleration forces (g-LOC).
This was not the case for larger ships equipped with a powerful Gravity Manipulator to negate the crushing accelerational forces. Unfortunately, Aetna's ship was far too small to be installed with a Gravity Manipulator.
Aetna had quickly gotten to work when the simulation started and used his authority as Vice-Commander to access the ship AI's mainframe. By feeding the AI a homemade piece of malicious code hidden within a priority request, he had taken command of the ship's core systems in a matter of a single minute.
As someone who had worked with much more sophisticated AI before his conscription into the Imperial Forces, Aetna had little to no difficultly with these kinds of tasks.
Duping a "Dummy" AI was child's play compared to a "Wise" AI. Anyone could deceive a Dummy AI with the right knowledge, but tricking a Wise AI was a different beast altogether. That was the difference between an AI that had the capacity to learn and reflect compared to one that never learned.
Once he secretly took control of the ship, Aetna had logged a fictitious change in the ship's speed, a sudden acceleration... that caused the g-harnesses in the bridge to activate, restraining everyone in the process.
As far as the onboard dummy AI knew, the ship had suddenly blasted off at maximum speed, so it naturally activated the g-harnesses to protect its crew. It had no clue that Aetna had just duped it...
Naturally, Aetna had disconnected him from his g-harness, resulting in him being the only person on the bridge with the ability to move.
"It seems that we've hit an unfortunate snag in our... relationship," said Aetna nonchalantly as he fiddled with several holographic panels. "But that's fine. I'll be more than happy to clarify the nature of our relationship."
Narivan thrashed around in his seat and said, "What do you think you're doing?! Security, come to the bridge now! There's a mutiny in progress! Arrest the Vice-Commander!"
But no one would be coming to Narivan's aid. Aetna had already revoked Narivan and the rest of the bridge crew's privileges. Narivan's message had not been transmitted.
When Aetna finished his preparations, he said, "Ever wondered what the core of a star is like? Well, you won't have to imagine what it's like anymore after today, haha..."
Lynette pleaded, "Don't be like this, Aetna! It doesn't have to be like this!"
"Oh, but it does," replied Aetna. "I want it to be like this! I wouldn't have any other way!"
The emergency alarm blared across the ship, and the ship AI began to recite orders on behalf of the captain, declaring that, "A critical error within antimatter generator has been identified. Emergency code-999 is under effect. All crew must head toward the nearest escape pods and leave the ship ASAP."
If a ship's antimatter generator took critical damage, the crew needed to evacuate. All it took was a gram of antimatter to obliterate everything around the damaged ship for dozens of kilometers.
Once Aetna registered the dispersal of all the escape pods on the ship, he stood up and walked over to Saoe's seat, and whispered, "I'm gonna poke around here for a second."
"Stop it, you stupid bastard!" shouted Saoe in protest, but her words fell on deaf ears.
He grabbed Saoe's hand and used it to set a direct course for the enemy interceptor at maximum with her own control panel. He then moved over to Gafon's seat and did the same for the ship's antimatter generator through his control panel.
When Gafon saw what Aetna had done, he said, "Oh god...! You're batshit! You're going to kill us all, you fucking bastard!"
Aetna gazed at him with a confused expression and said, "...So?"
He strolled back to his seat and said, "AI, follow the plotted course! Full speed ahead!"
"Warning, this plotted course is NOT recommended! Forecasts predict a ninety-three percent chance of catastrophic damage! Commander override necessary to continue with this proposed course!"
Aetna calmly said, "Alpha-Two-Zulu-Foxtrot-Nine-One-Kilo-Kilo-Romeo!"
"...Accepted! Propulsion thrusters online! Estimated time until arrival at destination: Thirty-three seconds! Prepare for impact!"
The warship roared into action and immediately began to lurch forward and quickly picked up speed until Aetna and the rest of the bridge crew began to feel the effects of the acceleration.
"Ugh...! Feels... like there's... a fucking car... on my damn chest!!" shouted Aetna, now pinned to his seat by the acceleration force of the ship hurtling toward the enemy warship.
It had become an out-of-control, 110-meter long bullet as it tore through the inky void of space toward the enemy warship, not even giving the warship a chance to avoid it.
Aetna struggled, but he eventually managed to turn his head toward Narivan and raggedly said, "Our... relationship... is one of... a lesser... and a superior...! Know your... place!"
"AI! Initiate... subroutine ninety-two!!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
No more than half a second before their ship collided against the enemy warship, a gram and a half of antimatter fuel safely contained with the generator was forcibly released into an emergency vacuum containment subpath that had been improperly flooded with air.
A brilliant flash of light befell the gas giant and the remaining fleet, blinding everyone foolish enough to stare at it with their naked eyes. It was as if a miniature sun had been born for a fraction of a second as it mercilessly vaporized everything in its vicinity.
And then, the light receded and gave way to the darkness of the void.
Joyeuse-01 had utterly disappeared along with the enemy vessel.
The simulation had ended.
Mission Objective: Completed.
Total Losses: One warship (Joyeuse-01), along with its commanding officers.
Total Duration: Two minutes and seventeen seconds.
Mission Evaluation: Pending...