Chương 54: Applied Tactics and Simulations

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum January 12, 2848 When Arc got back to room 207 on Sunday evening, leaving Cassie and Jessica in the elevator on its way up to the third floor, he found that Pika had already got back, and was unpacking his suitcase. Cal, who'd never left, had his tablet propped up on the rightmost of the room's two desks, because the dorms didn't come with holo-projectors. A newscast played, muted, while captions scrolled beneath.

At a glance, Arc could see that the anchors were talking about the war, but it didn't look like anything new.

"Welcome back!" Pika greeted him, with a grin. The big Alu'kan left his suitcase for long enough to throw an arm around Arc and clap him across the shoulder blades.

"You had a good break? Got to relax?"

"I did," Arc agreed.

"And I got a lot of training in with the duke's guard, too." He hoisted his own battered suitcase up onto his bunk.

"Cassie's good. We missed you all." Arc hesitated for a moment, but the memory of Cal watching that vid from his father spurred him on.

"How about you, Cal? Have a chance to catch up on some sleep?" Above the empty bunk where Delvan Beck had once slept, Cal had appropriated the unused pillow and added it to his own, forming a sort of cushion against the corridor wall, so that he could sit up comfortably and watch the tablet.

"I studied," he said.

"Studied, and exercised, and grabbed simulator time while there weren't so many cadets around."

"Well, I got to go for a real swim," Pika exclaimed. Arc climbed up to his bunk, opened his suitcase, and began unpacking.

"Yeah?"

"With my mother and the rest of the pod," his friend said.

"We dove to the artificial reefs at the Golden Banks."

"Isn't everything on Stellar Abyss artificial, by definition?" Arc asked, as he fished out clothes and sorted them into piles. Thankfully, the Montalban's cleaning staff had sent him back with not a single piece of dirty laundry. He did, however, appear to have accidentally absconded with one unmatched sock of Cassie's. I'll have to run it upstairs to her later. Pika shrugged his broad shoulders, held up one hand, and wiggled it.

"We made the ring, of course," he said.

"And engineered the contours of the ocean floor, for a variety of biomes. But then some places we left to develop on their own, and others we purpose-built. I say we, but really I mean my ancestors."

"Got it." Arc nodded.

"So the Golden Banks are a place where the Alu'ka specifically designed a reef. That makes sense." Clothes sorted, he took an armful down from his bunk and began to put them away.

"I'd like to see it, sometime, if we ever get the chance."

"You will!" Pika promised.

"I will show you myself. Perhaps next winter break! Everyone can come. You, Cassie, Vee, Rain…"

"I'm not sure Vee would want to go swimming," Arc joked, as he turned back around to grab the book that Cassie had given him as a gift, from out of his suitcase.

"What's that?" Pika asked, leaning in to look.

"Cassie got it for me," Arc said.

"Admiral Nakagami's memoirs. And he signed it, and made notes inside." In fact, he'd found the first of them while re-reading a bit of the book on their flight back from New Toledo.

"She got you a personalized book from Admiral Nakagami, the chief of fleet operations?" Cal Madine exclaimed.

"That Jack Nakagami?"

"She did." Arc carried the book over to the desks, hesitated, and then set it down next to the model of the Blood Hawk that he'd placed there at the beginning of the first semester, when he'd first moved into the room.

"You are—so frustrating," Cal said, after a moment.

"I don't think you get it, Sandhurst. I worked my entire life to come here. My father had to beg half a dozen senators to get me a recommendation. And you just—win a few games, start dating a princess, and now the highest ranking officer in the entire fleet is writing you notes." Arc winced, and made the considered decision not to tell Cal that Admiral Nakagami had signed the book 'Uncle Jack.'

"I get the impression he's real close to the imperial family," he said, instead. Cal shook his head.

"I just don't understand how everything is so easy for you. It's like it falls right into your lap, while the rest of us have to work for it." Arc exchanged a glance with Pika.

"Cal, I've worked for everything," he said.

"There were days during Hard Burn I thought I'd never be able to get out of bed, nevermind finish a run. Do you know how angry it made me when I found out I was the only one in the room who needed more than four hours of sleep? Talk about unfair." he laughed.

"Yeah, you worked for years to get here," Arc went on.

"Which meant you knew how to do everything, and I was clueless. I couldn't have made my own bed if you didn't show me how."

"I only did that because we pass or fail inspection as a room," Cal grumbled.

"Well, thank you anyway," Arc said.

"Just in case I never told you before." There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Cal simply nodded. 𝝮 When they took their places in the dining hall that night, Cassie sat next to Arc, instead of across from him. After weeks at the Palacio de las Orquídeas, it felt perfectly normal to him—but then he realized that Pika, Rain, and even Vee were exchanging glances. Arc cleared his throat.

"Your feathers are coming in nicely," he told Vee. He said it mostly to fill the space, but it was also true. In fact, he was a bit surprised at just how quickly his friend's crest was filling out, though as yet every feather looked like a sort of thin, stiff, waxy tube with just a bit of color buried beneath the surface. They almost looked like quills.

"Pin feathers," Vee grumbled.

"They itch so bad, I can't stand it. But at least it's better than being bald." To Arc's relief, whatever awkwardness had been between her and the rest of the group, toward the end of the first semester, seemed to have gone.

"Better than the half dozen different haircuts I'm going to have to go through while I grow this out again," Cassie grumbled, running a hand through her hair.

"I just can't wait to get back into the sim pods," Rain said.

"All through break, the only thing anyone wanted to talk about was the war."

"Think about how much worse it is for the first class cadets," Arc pointed out.

"They're going to be graduating right into this. I don't think anyone expected that a year ago." That thought settled over their end of the table like a shroud, and for a moment everyone occupied themselves with eating quietly.

"I only know a couple of them," Cassie admitted.

"But Ireti Ọlatẹru has been really nice to us, ever since the first day we got here. And my cousin –" she paused, evidently to consider her words.

"I don't think you have to worry about him," Vee said.

"There's no way they'd send someone important like that to the front lines. They'll put him on a carrier in the core worlds, somewhere. Same as they'd do for you." Arc could feel Cassie's body stiffen next to him.

"I don't want to be treated any differently than any other pilot," she said, and he could tell that it bothered her for the rest of the evening. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. That night, for the first time in weeks, Arc had to get to sleep alone. He was surprised at just how much he was used to having Cassie in bed next to him, after the stayed in New Toledo.

It didn't feel right to lie on his side without her snuggled up against his body, and there seemed to be no good place to put his arm without her there. Finally, he asked Iceni to open a private chat to her. I can't get to sleep, Arc admitted. For a moment, there was no response, and he was almost certain that she must be asleep already. Yeah, I got used to sleeping with you, Cassie sent back. Lyra says my hormones are all out of whack and I should sneak down to your room or something. She's ridiculous.

Arc almost laughed out loud, but managed to choke it down so that his roommates didn't hear. I don't think we'd both fit in one of these bunks very well, he sent. And I think other people would notice. We'll just have to take this semester's weekend pass and get a hotel in the city, Cassie sent back. We can go out and get dinner someplace nice, and then fall into the biggest bed they have. That sounds nice, Arc sent back to her, and yawned in spite of himself. He closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

𝝮 Arc's first class of the new semester was a practicum with Professor DeVault: Applied Tactics and Simulations. Unlike his introductory course with the head of the history and war studies department during the first half of the year, this was the equivalent of a lab course in the sciences, and it met in the enormous holo-tank that took up nearly a third of the war studies building—the half-sphere that Arc had seen the first time he approached Nakagami Hall.

When Arc and Phoebe had been children, he remembered their parents taking them to a holo-planetarium at the Avataran Shahar Museum of Science. He'd followed his father and Phoebe into the room, clutching his mother's hand, and gazed up at the enormous, curved dome that made up the ceiling, lit by dim red lights. When they'd sat down in their seats, and Arc had leaned back to gaze up at the stars that made up the Imperium, he'd felt like the entire universe was spread out around him.

The war studies holo-tank was a bit like that. Professor DeVault waited on a balcony that hung out about a third of the way up the dome, with a waist-high railing, four rows of seats, and a bank of flat-screen control panels at the front. Though he had no podium, nor any notes, Arc thought that the professor actually looked more comfortable here than in a lecture hall. He recognized Sloane Emonstone-Granville from his course with DeVault the semester before, and of course Cal Madine was there.

But for the first time, Arc found himself in a course with cadets older than him, as well. Ireti Ọlatẹru was present, and Prince Bhaskar Xiao-Solaris, as well as Vijay Iyer and Christina Fortin. Arc felt as if he only barely knew her, even after spending days together in the jungle, but at least she was a familiar face. He found himself a seat near the four of them, though there were plenty of empty seats, and students sat in clumps, rather than filling the entire space up.

"I didn't see you on the transport, going either way," Iyer observed, keeping his voice low.

"Did you go home over break?" Arc shook his head.

"No, I stayed here."

"I'm surprised the coverage didn't make it to Zurah," Bhaskar grumbled.

"He and my cousin were making a display of themselves all over New Toledo."

"I think news of the war buried it," Arc admitted.

"Everyone's more worried about that than who one princess is dating."

"Something that we can all be grateful for." Bhaskar might have said more, but Professor DeVault cleared his throat, and the cadets all quieted down.

"Good morning, cadets," DeVault began. After a few weeks away, Arc was once again taken by surprise by just how deep the professor's voice was, and how well it carried even without a microphone.

"Welcome to Applied Tactics and Simulations. This course is very nearly unique among the offerings here at the academy," DeVault continued.

"It is a course offered only to war studies majors every semester, only on my recommendation, and it is repeatable for credit as many times as you would like to take it. Personally, I encourage you to carry this course every semester from now until the time you graduate. You may notice that we have several First Class Cadets present with us now; that won't last.

Cadets Ọlatẹru and Xiao-Solaris have agreed to help you get started today, and to act as teaching assistants, but they will both be shipping out on the ISS Honorius before the week is out, as will all of our fourth year cadets." Arc took a deep breath. Ireti had promised to find him a Kestrel pilot to practice against, before everyone had gone on break, and he hadn't had a chance to check in with her since getting back.

He hoped that she'd managed to come through for him over break, because it didn't seem like they were going to have much time.

"Tactical simulations, or wargames, are widely considered to have been invented almost eleven-hundred years ago, in the long defunct nation-state of Prussia," DeVault went on.

"Some of the earliest iterations used grids of squares, and later hexagons or rulers. There might be a referee, for double blind rules, or dice to simulate random chance. Many of you may even be familiar with Tacticalis, the wargame sponsored by the emperor himself. We have two tournament winners with us here this morning, in fact." Arc felt the eyes of at least half the room settle on him; but he wasn't the only focus of attention.

A Torean girl with nearly entirely white feathers, save for a streak of red through her crest, glanced across the room to meet his eyes. He was certain that he'd seen her picture before, or perhaps her face around campus, and Iceni was kind enough to supply him with the information unprompted. Kievit Red Crest, the AI told him. She won the tournament the year before you. The previous two winners washed out during Hard Burn, so far as I can determine from public academy records. Arc held her gaze, and nodded.

It almost felt like she was challenging him, but then she broke into a grin.

"This, however, is not Tacticalis," DeVault declared.

"That is a game. A very useful game, as both a propaganda piece and a manner of identifying talented minds, but a game nevertheless. We do not use formal rules here. We do not abstract the capabilities of our troops and our war machines into easily-digestible bites. You will not be able to memorize a list of terrain modifiers and penalties, or manipulate the morale systems." Arc winced at the pointed comment.

"Instead, we play with the most complete data that the imperial fleet has, built up from records of every military engagement since the unification of the Imperium. We model the capabilities of carriers and mechs alike from classified blueprints which are never made available to the general public," DeVault went on.

"And all of this is possible, thanks to Skuld. Skuld, say hello to our new students." The holo-tank shimmered into the form of a woman of indeterminate age. Not so young as the cadets, certainly, but neither was she old. Her image assembled from points of light, and paid not the slightest attention to actually looking human. Instead, she seemed more of an impression, like dabs of paint flung together, brushstrokes still visible.

"Good morning, cadets," Skuld said.

"And good morning to my brothers and sisters, who I know are listening, as well. Welcome. I am the third, and youngest, artificial intelligence built by the Imperial Fleet to train the next generation of officers. You will find my two siblings, were you to look, at Luna and Morena respectively, where they create the ship-captains and marine colonels of tomorrow." She's speaking to me, Iceni told Arc. I think she's talking to all of us at once. I've never met someone like myself that is this old, Arc.

She's been here since the founding of the academy, at the end of the Singularity War.

"Skuld is, essentially, a black box, so far as all of you are concerned," DeVault said.

"You cannot game her systems, so do not even try. She and I will work together to present you with scenarios. Some of those, we will play out as a class, and discuss in depth. At other times, you will be given a set of resources and objectives individually, and Skuld will simulate outcomes in accelerated time based on the orders you give. You will also be matched against each other." Sloane raised her hand.

"If she's a black box, how do we know she's being fair?"

"Who said that war was fair?" DeVault shot back.

"You will not find 'fair' in the field, cadet. You will find yourself at a disadvantage more often than not. Deal with it, and learn to achieve victory regardless—or don't, and fail this course."

"And this semester, you are fortunate indeed," Skuld broke in.

"Because Professor DeVault and I have spent the winter break constructing an entirely new set of simulations for you. We wish for your education to be nothing, after all, if not relevant." The holo-projection of the AI waved her hand, and a series of images appeared, floating in the air before the cadets. One was much larger than the other, but both were horrifying. Arc saw wings on the smaller of the two, buzzing things like those of a bee, or a fly.

Both images had eight legs, and were covered by a sort of exoskeleton, or carapace. Their eyes were horrifying, compound things that showed nothing even approaching human emotion.

"The Na'xir swarm, cadets," Professor DeVault declared.

"Built with every piece of data fleet can send back from the front lines at Ha'veth, at Bian, and at Tau Ceti. Together, we will learn to fight them. And you will learn to beat them."