by Ivan Kal
They divided their remaining time so that each team leader had enough time to form strategies and so that they had time to get used to his or her leadership. They had also left some time close to the end of the twelfth month to come back and try to improve anything that they thought they could. They spent the next three days training without entering in any scenarios. The trainers came by their training area—each team had their own training area assigned to them—and asked why they didn’t do any scenarios. And they just replied that they were training. On the fifth day of training, Paul was finally confident enough in their teamwork and his strategy to enter one of the boarding scenarios. By then, they had fallen down to seventh place. For their first try, they chose one that had them boarding a disabled pirate vessel, with the goal to gain control over the ship. They chose that one because the others tended to avoid it, as no one had actually managed to take control of the ship. The ship was a three-hundred-meter-long cruiser, with a crew count of over eighty, most of whom were armed. It was one of the more advanced simulations, the others focused on smaller ships. As the simulation difficulty increased so did the size of the ships in them. It was one of the ways that the programmers found to increase the difficulty of the simulations without introducing unrealistic objectives and elements.
Team 9 (named after their room number; since they didn’t decide on a name by the deadline, the trainers chose the name for them) arrived at the station’s simulation center and entered in the boarding scenario. After they were all inside their simulation chambers, they closed their eyes and after their implants made the connections with the VR interface they appeared on boarding shuttle on their way to the pirate ship. They checked their weapons as they’d been taught to do, doing everything, even though it was just a simulation. It felt real, and their trainers would evaluate their attempt and add or detract points accordingly.
“Alright, remember the plan. Keep in constant contact and let’s do this!” Paul said over the comms. They were all wearing light assault armor, completely sealed off. The only thing anyone could see was black armor and a dark gray visor on the helmet; the only way to discern who was who was by pinging their implant signature. They were of course in constant contact via their implants, and their visors had a HUD that showed a name above each of their heads. Implant connection was simulated by the central computer; they were in fact connected to the simulator by their implants and weren’t in direct contact with each other.
That was also the reason Iris wasn’t in the simulation with Adrian; the computer was simulating the standard implant. Iris could have accessed the simulator through Adrian’s implant, but doing so would have alerted the staff to her presence, and that was still a secret. They suddenly heard a bang and their shuttle shook as it was attached to the pirate vessel’s hull. They could hear the cutting mechanism opening the hull, and after a moment, they saw a green light show above their heads and heard a hissing noise that told them that the opening was pressurized. They stood up and moved into a formation with Alexander in the lead and entered the ship. They had cut into the ship’s cargo bay; there was no one there. After they all entered, they slowly moved towards the elevator that led to command deck. The simulation program was smart; it adapted to the players, and it never responded in the same manner twice.
So the experiences that other teams had were of little use, except for one thing. They knew that the command deck was filled with pirates, as other players had decided to try and board closer to the command center and had been met with strong resistance. So they decided on a different tactic. All simulations had material that went with it, from mission objectives to “rumors” and schematics. Paul had studied those schematics in great detail, and had come up with a plan that they all believed could work. There was some bickering about the execution until they were reminded by Helen that Paul was the leader for this scenario. After that, they had quietly assented to his plan, not wanting to have to deal with others messing with the scenarios they would lead.
The scenario had strict parameters; they couldn’t choose the equipment that they carried, so their assets were limited. Each one of them had a standard N22 assault rifle and light assault armor equipped with a small oxygen tank that could provide up to three minutes of breathing air; standard K17 sidearm pistol—not much kick, but it was silent; a flash grenade—old tech, but still effective for stunning hostiles; and a stun rod similar to the batons of Earth’s police, only these were shorter and could deliver enough shock to render the enemy unconscious for several hours. As they arrived at the elevator, Sakura immediately opened its control panel and attached clamps to the main line that sent the commands to the elevator, giving her access and control of the elevator systems. After a minute of hacking the panel through her datapad, she turned back to the rest of them.
“I’m in. I’m shutting down the cameras throughout the ship, and no one is coming down through here unless they drop down the shaft,” she said.
“Good. Sakura, Marcus, and Ana, you stay here and make sure that anyone who tries that regrets it. The rest, move,” Paul said.
Alexander again took the lead, with the rest following in formation, weapons ready. They all knew the plan. Rather than taking the ship’s command center, they would take control of engineering. According to schematics, there was a secondary command panel located there. If something happened to the command center, the control of the ship would go to the secondary panel. Their plan was to storm and take control of engineering and gain command of the ship through there.
The mission parameters stated that they needed to take control of the ship and to eliminate the pirate threat. The cargo bay had an access hatch leading to the upper deck. From there, they had to pass through a hallway leading directly to engineering. They opened the hatch and started climbing the ladders one by one; the last one closed the hatch behind them, and Paul instructed Ana over the comms to seal the hatch from her side so that no one could get to the hangar bay through there. When Alexander reached the end, he sent a ready signal over their comms. Once everyone responded affirmatively, and he reached to his belt and unhooked a flash grenade. He opened the hatch and threw it out then quickly closed it. A moment later, they heard it go off and he threw the hatch open and stepped out. Immediately, Adrian heard gunfire as the rest of his team followed Alex.
Adrian was the fourth in line after Helen and Tania. This was the riskiest part of their plan, because the moment one of them exited the hatch, they would be vulnerable, as there was no cover. They had no way of knowing how many hostiles would be in the hallway. Adrian finally exited the hatch, his implant feeding him information about enemy positions from his teammates that were already in the hallway. He immediately pointed his rifle down the hall from engineering, as Alex and Helen had already taken care of those on the other side. As soon as he aligned his rifle with a red dot on his HUD, he fired, taking a pirate in the head. Tania took out the last one, leaving them with no immediate threat. Adrian moved forward, taking a knee with his rifle pointed down the hall while the rest of his teammates entered the hallway. Paul then instructed them to cover Helen as she opened the panel to the door that led to engineering. They moved back closer to the door with Paul kneeling on the right side of the hallway. His rifle pointed in the same direction as Adrian’s and Alexander’s, standing behind him while Bethany stood behind Adrian. Noah and Tania were standing on opposite sides of the door, ready to deal with anyone inside.
“I got it, ready?” Helen said a moment later.
Two pirates rounded the corner from the other side of the hallway as she waited for a response from Noah and Tania. Adrian and Bethany took care of the new hostiles before they had the chance to respond.
“Ready,” Noah and Tania said.
Helen tapped the datapad in her hand and the door slid open. The moment they opened, Tania and Noah were inside. Paul instructed Beth and Alex to follow, leaving him and Adrian to cover their entrance. Another three pirates came around the corner, these shooting th
e moment they cleared the corner. But their aim was poor, and Alex and Paul took them out a second later. As Noah gave the all-clear, Paul told Adrian to move through the door with him covering him. Adrian stood up, turned, and ran the four meters to the door. He took position inside and covered Paul as he made the run inside. When he passed the threshold, Adrian accessed the panel on the inside and closed the door. As Adrian turned around, he saw seven pirates lying dead on the ground, and Helen working furiously on the panel in the middle of the room.
“There, I got control over life support,” Helen said over the comms.
Paul’s plan was never to take control over the ship from engineering—the drives, weapons, maneuvering, all those systems were behind powerful firewalls. By focusing only on one system, they could take control over it much faster than if they tried to take control over everything. And by the time they did manage to take over everything, the pirates would have reorganized and overwhelmed them with sheer numbers.
“Vent the air from all compartments save this one and the cargo bay.” That would take out any pirate not in the command center, because the controls for the command center’s life support were separate from those that controlled the rest of the ship.
Helen tapped the screen a few times and several compartments started turning red. They waited a couple minutes, making sure that enough time passed for those pirates unlucky enough to be outside of the command center to suffocate.
“Sakura, bring back the camera feeds,” Paul said over the comms. A moment later, Helen accessed the feeds on the panel, as Sakura made them available from her panel in the cargo bay, and they looked at the various parts of the ship. Most every camera showed pirates lying on the ground dead or unconscious. Then she brought the feeds from the command center. There were 12 pirates left. 6 of them were working on panels trying to get back the control of life support, and two were yelling at them. The rest had positions around the room. It was strange seeing fear on the faces of what Adrian knew were simulations, programs. But they were made to be as lifelike as possible; their programming was adaptive, though it was nowhere near the level of Iris. These simulations were only barely semi-sentient.
“Helen, stay here and keep them from gaining back control of their systems. Sakura, Marcus, Ana, reactivate the elevator and meet us at the command center.” With that, Paul took the lead, and they moved through the decks with pirates lying dead on the ground. Their tanks were good for three minutes of air, but Helen had already started pumping air back in. Two minutes later, they arrived at the command center doors. Sakura, Marcus, and Ana were already there waiting for them.
“They sealed themselves inside,” Marcus said when the rest of them reached them.
“Helen, can you open them on your side?” Paul asked.
“One minute,” Helen replied over the comms.
Even though this was a simulation, everything had been built to be real, even down to hacking. Defense programs designed for their ship’s systems were used in the simulations. Aside from providing realism, it was also a way to test and later improve them, as they could see weaknesses they didn’t anticipate before actually testing them. And recruits had a tendency to find new and inventive ways of breaking through the defenses.
The doors were wide enough for three of them to pass through comfortably. Paul ordered them to take positions in front of the door, and a minute later, Helen gave the go sign to Paul over the comms.
“Open the doors on three. One…two…three. Go!” Paul yelled.
The doors slid opened and the team rushed in. Alex and Paul led the shooting, one going left, the other right. Beth and Noah were next, running through the middle to take cover at the panels in front of the door, while Ana and Marcus covered them from behind the doors. Adrian and Sakura entered next, followed by Tania. The 6 pirates that were using the controls were hiding behind their panels, leaving 6 of the pirates for them to take out. One of the pirates managed to shoot Noah’s leg; the bullet hit the armor at the right angle to push through instead of deflecting. He went down, and Marcus immediately moved from the doors to cover him while Sakura dragged him back behind a panel.
Adrian got a clean shot at one of the pirates that he’d seen previously yelling at the operators, and Alex and Paul had managed to move far enough into the round room so that they were in position to shoot at the pirates behind their cover. A minute later, all 6 of the armed pirates were down, and Paul ordered the rest stunned and taken captive. After they had control of the room, they took control of the ship, finishing the scenario. A moment later, they got a mission clear message in their implants’ inboxes, and the walls around them started exploding into blue particles and they were swallowed by darkness.
Chapter Sixteen
November 2102
Team 9 walked out with yet another top score in the capture the flag scenario. This was actually the last capture the flag scenario, and one that had given them a lot of difficulties during the past month. The scenario was set on a station, and the goal was to find and steal a memory drive (flag) and bring it back to the hangar bay for extraction. The scenario was known as one of the more difficult ones among the teams, as it required a lot of skill, teamwork, and luck to actually beat. And then there was the matter of the trainers’ scoring, they only gave a perfect score if there were no casualties, meaning that they needed to use only non-lethal weapons. It took Adrian and the rest of his team the better part of a month to finish the scenario with a perfect score, sacrificing the points they could have gotten by doing other scenarios. But it paid off in the end, as the perfect score on this scenario gave a lot more points than the others. They walked to their room in a great mood.
“That was awesome, I really didn’t think we could pull it off for a minute there,” Tania said excitedly.
“Yeah, Noah pulled through at the end,” Ana said, slapping Noah on the back.
Noah just puffed up his chest and took in all the compliments from his teammates.
“Well, these points now push us to the second place. A few more and we will take over the top,” Sakura said brightly.
The rest of the room agreed and immediately their attention went to planning on how to tackle the next month’s challenges. The next month was actually the last, and the one in which they had to gain as many top scores as they could if they were to take first place. It was also the month that Bethany and Adrian were set to lead. They had agreed on doing the challenges one after the other, with Beth going first. But other than that, they hadn’t managed to agree on anything else. They clashed on the training arrangements, on who would lead what scenario. They’d even clashed on who would go first, before the others intervened and they drew straws with Beth winning. There was a lot of tension between them and the rest of the team; all of them were aware that they needed victories if they were to take the top spot.
They didn’t know the amount of points needed to pass, so they aimed at being at the top. As such, the constant clashes between Beth and Adrian worried them. Things between Beth and Adrian were awkward at best. Ever since her apology, they’d tended to avoid each other when they weren’t in the company of other teammates. There were no more pokes on the account of Adrian’s age, but there was still tension. They just didn’t know how to talk to one another. And Adrian felt like she had a problem with him being there. They tried to be cordial with each other when in group, but they just didn’t mesh when they were alone, choosing instead to ignore one another. Their teammates noticed this early on and always put them on different assignments during scenarios or tried to limit their contact. Their relationship was something of an elephant in the room that everyone knew was there, but no one commented on.
For the first challenge, Beth chose a standard team vs. team. A scenario where the goal was to “kill” the opposing team. They spent three days watching the videos of other teams fighting against each other, formulating different tactics for each one. The teams were paired by their trainers, and unlike other scenarios, winning
these didn’t give a fixed amount of points. The trainers were the ones who decided how many points the winners would be awarded based on their performance. A few hours after they entered team vs. team queue, they got a response informing them that they would fight against Team Viper, from room 4. They were currently ranked fifth overall and fourth in team vs. team. Team 9 had a slight advantage over Team Viper as they hadn’t entered a team versus match before, and therefore the Team Viper couldn’t study their tactics.
Adrian’s team, on the other hand, studied records of Viper’s matches in detail. They tended to use head-on attacks. Matches versus other teams were different from the rest; they weren’t held in simulators, but on physical terrain. There were many different arenas, which were randomly chosen for each match. The one that was chosen for their match was a forest setting. The arena was of course onboard the station. It was big, at least three hundred meters in width and twice that in length. The terrain was dirt brought from Earth, with live trees and a simulated sky across the ceiling. The suit they wore was specially made to look like armor, but in fact it didn’t offer any kind of protection against real weapons.
It was designed to register hits from the weapons used in versus matches, which fired small projectiles made out of a thin layer of rubber and which contained an electrical charge. Upon impact, the rubber ball would shatter and the charge would be released into the suit. The suit then sent a charge into the wearer’s body, causing pain. The suit would also lock up and, based on the position of the impact, the wearer would lose the equivalent amount of mobility to the damage done, up to being completely frozen inside the suit. The weapons they carried looked like the N22 rifle.
