After 45 minutes of flying on auto pilot, Alpha's ship managed to return to the citadel. There were five other pilots already docked in the citadel's docking bay as alpha pull in making him the sixth pilot. He got out of the ship and went to join the others, he had relaxed enough on the way back. "Ok, after 1 hour and 45 minutes only six pilots returned, you guys can go do anything you want, well contact you when the others return." The military instructor said to the returners. Not a single pilot moved a muscle from the lineup. "Come on guys, this isn't a test, you are literally free to go." The instructor said. Still, no movement. Realizing it would be a waste of breath, the instructor rather left the docking bay to go elsewhere. "So, how was you guys' chase?" One female asked the pilots. They all instinctively growned at the same time. They then went over their experiences with the drones. It turns out the fastest of them all came back after 1 hour, the rest slowly trickled in in 10 minute intervals with alpha, the first male breaking the record and appearing in 5 minutes instead of ten. Also, the third person to arrive was the female who died first in the simulation and throughout the entire conversation, she was laughed at then consoled, two pilots even offered to chip in some credits to help upgrade the Lazer pistol she will get. The conversation then followed of to everyone's credit balance and it turns out, Alpha was the richest at 4,000 credits. He sold the titanium ores he got from his mission. Titanium sold for 100 credits per ore in the citadel. The next was the girl who died first at 2,500 credits. The rest then followed with the next being 100 credits lower than the last. Slowly all the pilots returned to the citadel's docking bay and joined the conversation, it wasn't until the instructor returned that they all instantaneously kept quiet and returned to formation.
"Ok, prepare for phase two as I know there'll be some complaints. Basically, phase two is to help you train your ship defense tactics, especially for those who don't have defense modules. In phase two, you will be facing of against target drones that have been fitted with a Lazer blaster at the front of the drone, do with that information as you may. The main goal of phase two is to survive the drone's onslaught of blasts for an hour, if your ship's hull capacity drops below 10% the drone will shut down and you would automatically fail the test. You are allowed to use any tactic to survive including but not limited to the destruction of the drone, the only thing prohibited is hiding in any part of the citadel. Good luck." The instructor said as just like before, target drones were deployed from the citadel into space to await the pilots.
The pilots got into their various ships and flew out into space, unlike phase one, phase two began with a ten second countdown during which, about seven different ships activated an energy shield around them. "How is it fair that they get energy shields and we don't?" Alpha sent out a message to all the other pilots. "Well, how is it fair that some of you have weapons and we don't?" A female pilot in a defense ship sent back to everyone. "Fair point." Alpha replied. They were just having fun, no anger of anything, just harmless fun. Before long the countdown ended and the drones started flying at their 60mph speeds around the ships firing off in various parts of the ships. Every ship had a dedicated drone. Alpha decided to test his ships durability by waiting and keeping an eye on his hull capacity. "Oh, the drones are pretty weak, am just gonna have a snack." One defense ship mocked the ships with no way of protecting their hull. After a full ten minutes, alpha checked his ship system only to see that his ship was down by two hundred points of hull capacity, he knew the ship wouldn't be able to last the full hour so he started flying around trying to evade the drone, the drone was three times faster than his ship so it was bearly missing it's shots, after another five minutes he checked only to see he lost another one hundred points in hull capacity, deciding to fight back he started trying to fire at the drone, but hitting a drone flying in a straight line in one direction was different from shooting at a drone flying in all sorts of directions and hitting the ship from all sides, after another five minutes of the one sided battle he was down by another hundred. Getting desperate he used his ship's size to his advantage, he somehow managed to get the drone flying at full speed in a straight line towards him and then he started flying in the drones direction at full speed, at a certain distance the drone tried to stop but it's momentum kept it flying, at the last second, alpha spun the wheel, spinning the ship sideways as the ship batted the drone a very far distance away as he managed to stabilize the ship. Checking his ship system he found that he was down to three hundred points of hull capacity. "Captain, I think this is a good time to use the ship's repair function." Beta said. "Oh, great idea Beta, my ship is about to break down yet I didn't think of repairing it, you are so helpful." Alpha said sarcastically. "You are welcome." Beta replied. It then activated the ship repair function and there in space the ship stopped moving as a small hactch opened up to release a whole bunch of nano bots as they started repairing the parts of the ship that needed the most repairing, mainly the side that made contact with the drone, as the ship was being repaired the other pilots watched in awe, amazement and jealousy. "Alpha, your ship has a repair function?" One of the males asked. "Yeah, doesn't yours have some?" Alpha asked back. "No." He replied. "None of us do." A female pilot said joining the conversation. "Then how would you guys repair your ships?" Alpha asked. "The citadel's repair shop." Another pilot replied. "Oh, right." He said feeling dumb for forgetting. The conversation went on for five minutes before coming to an abrupt stop when the drone returned, the ship scanner started beeping, as he looked over, Alpha realized that the drone was back for more. As it got close enough the repair function was disabled to allow the ship to function. The nano bots retreated into the hatch that they came from. Alpha started flying straight towards his drone as he started firing at it wildly. He managed to hit the drone a few times causing it to be damaged to the point that it couldn't change course and kept flying directly towards the ship. The two collided head on as one exploded, Alpha's ship came out victorious. Check his system, what he saw shocked him.
[Hull capacity: 200/1000]
[Energy supply: 100/1000]
"Beta, what happened to the ship's energy supply." Alpha asked. "I'll quantify the energy usage file into the system Captain." Beta replied.
[First five minutes gun fire: -200]
[Ship repair: 500 energy - 200 hull capacity]
[Blind firing at the drone: -200]
"In all, you wasted 900 energy points captain." Beta gave the report. "Ok, fine, set a course for the citadel's docking bay, once there repair the ship using the repair function." Alpha said as he sat back in his chair thinking about the close call he had. "If I had lost just one hundred more points of hull capacity I would have failed." Alpha said with a sigh.