A ship appeared on sensors tens of thousands of kilometers behind the Astrum Vitae. That sounded like a massive distance, being several times the diameter of the Earth, but in outer space it was like being in knife-fighting distance. No one sane wanted to be in that envelope, much less in an uninhabited system, and the odds of it happening by accident were astronomical.
Aoibhe immediately dropped the intensity of the wave drive to begin evasive maneuvers without waiting for orders. That was standard procedure, as the delay between the captain noticing something was wrong and the pilot reacting to their commands could be fatal. That meant Miliam could immediately move onto the next course of action, but she found herself freezing, unable to remember any of the information she’d learned about being in command.
Eun-ji and Min-ji looked back at her in concern while Miliam gaped helplessly.
“Sensors, Cap’n!” Aoibhe yelled without looking back, too focused on piloting to spare the attention. Miliam’s mind ground into motion, the dam in her thought process bursting loose in an instant.
“Min-ji, what are we dealing with?” she asked in a high pitched voice.
“Corvette sized! Fifty thousand kilometers and closing! I’m seeing incoming fire from three separate lances, but the output is low, so they’re probably improvised,” the dokkaebi woman replied instantly, the data ready at the forefront of her mind already. Even as she spoke one of those weapons struck the Astrum Vitae’s barriers, a field of force that redirected the jet of plasma off into space. Even if that lance was underpowered, though, it still drained the ship’s barriers by a good ten percent.
“They’re broadcasting a demand to surrender,” Eun-ji reported.
“Tell them we surrender!” Miliam told her comms officer before the last word even left her mouth.
“Pirates don’t usually leave survivors, Cap’n.”
‘And yet you’re still here!’ Miliam wanted to shout at her pirate, but she kept the retort to herself.
“This is a simulation, captain, I don’t think they can accept anyway…” Eun-ji replied with exasperation.
“Oh…right…” Miliam hung her head. She hadn’t actually thought about that, it had just been an instinctive reaction. The situation was fake, but it felt real. All the ship’s systems were displaying as if it was, and the crew was taking it seriously, which had Miliam feeling a lot more pressure than a sim called for. “Uh…Tessa, point defenses?”
“No missiles to shoot down, captain,” the elf replied through the ship’s communications.
“Permission to speak?” asked another voice, which Miliam identified as Abigail. She wasn’t technically a part of this sim, but Miliam wouldn’t argue with a bit of advice right now.
“Please do?”
“Victory and defeat are not the only outcomes. Calm yourself and consider your options fully,” Abigail advised, her even tone doing more to calm Miliam that simply being told to.
“Barriers. Weakening. Must draw. Power. From capacitors. Soon,” Engineer reported a moment later.
The capacitors. This simulation was predicated on the premise that they were ambushed shortly after entering the system following a five lightyear jump, so they were a bit over half charged. That meant they had the option of retreating somewhere the pirates couldn’t follow, as teleportation was untraceable.
Now that Miliam’s brain was working again, she went over the requirements. The translocation drive couldn’t be activated on a whim; certain calculations had to be done for the system they were in and the system they wanted to reach. But there was a system they already had those done for, wasn’t there? The one they had just come from. The computer could update for less than an hour of stellar drift in seconds.
Typically you needed the full calculations for the system you were in and the location of the system you wanted to go to, but that was because it was impossible to gather that kind of data on a system light years away. But in this specific situation…
“Aoibhe, get us out of here! Reverse our last teleport!” Confidence filled her voice this time.
“Aye, Cap’n!” the fay replied enthusiastically. Miliam had felt sure of the decision, but that reply still filled her with relief at having found the right solution to their predicament. Moments later the other ship disappeared from sensors and their barriers were once again at full strength. Everyone’s primary screen updated to show ‘Simulation Complete.’
Miliam slumped in her seat as the tension left her body. This was her first emergency simulation since Aoibhe had proposed holding one after every jump the day before. After such a dismal performance on her own part, Miliam understood the necessity.
“Good job everyone. Same watch rotation as yesterday; dismissed,” she said, this time remembering to transmit the orders over the ship-wide comms for Tessa and Engineer’s benefit. At least she didn’t mix the twins up this time.
“I’m Eun-ji, by the way,” said the twin on sensors.
After a fitful night’s sleep, Miliam trudged into the galley for breakfast and found a bedraggled looking Abigail at the table, sipping from a mug. Having never seen the woman anything less than well-put together and a bit elegant, the visual brought her to a halt.
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“Are you okay?” she asked after wrestling in her head for several seconds over whether her intrusion would be welcome.
“Mm. While I am not a morning person, I am in the process of rectifying the issue.” Abigail gestured with her mug, which didn’t smell like coffee but probably contained something similar. “You, on the other hand, look as if you need counsel.”
“I do?” Miliam asked, taken aback. She was stressed about yesterday, but didn’t think she was so obvious. “Is it that easy to tell?”
“Perhaps yes, perhaps no. It is difficult to gauge what the perceptions of others are capable of. May I assume this is in regards to the drill you held?” Abigail took a long sip of her drink while she waited for an answer.
“Yeah…” Miliam admitted as she went to the pantry and retrieved some pancake mix. If she was going to be talking for a while she may as well use the time wisely. “I froze up. It was just a sim, and I still froze.”
“That is not unexpected in one’s first simulation. Better it happen in practice than in reality, is it not?” Abigail set her mug down. At the counter, Miliam measured out the powdered pancake mix and added water, which was apparently the only additional step.
“I’m supposed to be the captain though. I saw how they looked at me. The twins. They must be wondering how I’ll handle it if things go south for real,” she told Abigail, setting a pan on the stovetop and turning up the heat.
“Counterpoint: they may have merely been displaying concern for your well-being,” the albino scholar said from behind Miliam.
“They haven’t known me for very long.” Miliam felt the heat in the pan. It was rising faster than she expected.
“I have had the opportunity to converse with the pair. I would evaluate them as rather compassionate young women, not unlikely to empathize with a near stranger,” Abigail replied, taking another sip of her drink soon after. At the stove, Miliam took a moment to think while pouring mix into the pan.
“Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t make the results of me screwing up when the time comes any better,” she sullenly told Abigail, watching the pancake she’d placed down carefully for the right moment to flip it.
“Which brings us back around to the point of the simulations: to ensure you make these mistakes in a harmless manner.”
Miliam sighed and flipped her pancake. That was true, but it was making a few assumptions.
“And what if I bungle it in the real world anyway? I can do the sims a thousand times and still choke when they happen for real. I don’t know why Aoibhe thought I should be captain with no training,” she stated harshly, mostly directed at herself.
“Here we arrive at the core conundrum. Tell me, would you like reassurance, or to know where you need improve?” Abigail asked the question in a way that made Miliam imagine a quirked eyebrow, even without having turned around to look. Miliam was never a prideful person, and what resistance she may have had to having her flaws stated to her face had died last night on the bridge.
“The latter.” She removed her pancake from the pan and started on the next.
“Very well. I shall begin by telling you why I believe Aoibhe placed you in your role, however, as it will lead into my other observations. From my own observations you are not an unintelligent woman. You are insightful and think quickly on your feet, a trait Aoibhe sorely lacks. You stymie your own potential, however, by not thinking. It is when you take the time to carefully consider your actions prior to implementing them that you display your greatest strengths.”
Abigail paused for a moment to wet her throat, but Miliam didn’t interject. She busied herself with the second pancake instead, knowing the other woman wasn’t done yet.
“My assessment is that you possess these flaws: a tendency to act absent of thought, cowardice, and a lack of confidence. What you need work on is not your knowledge or training, but your ability to remain calm and process all information before coming to a decision.
“When you cower, your first instinct is to find the more immediate path out of a given situation regardless of the wisdom in it. Your lack of confidence inclines you to stop thinking entirely, making no choices at all because you believe you will not make the correct one. No matter how much knowledge you accumulate, it amounts to nothing if it is not used.”
“But I’m not confident because I’m untrained. Shouldn’t training more help with that?” Miliam furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she removed the second pancake and began on the third.
“To an extent. But simulations are not reality and the unexpected will always catch you by surprise by its very nature. If you are not mentally prepared to shoulder the responsibility of command when the moment comes, and you are truly fearing for your life, then your mental weakness will hold you back. But perhaps that is merely confusing without a path provided to correct the problem,” Abigail explained, shrugging at the end.
“No, I think I understand. You’re saying I should work on my self control, not just what I know,” Miliam said as she thought over what Abigail had told her. She finished cooking while reflecting on the lecture and separated the pancakes she’d made into two stacks, setting one in front of Abigail as thanks. “Thanks. I guess the first step is worrying about the problem and not the result. I’ll work on it.”
“Indeed. My thanks for the pancakes.” They both poured syrup over their breakfast and began to eat.
“You sounded like one of those wise mentors right then,” Miliam remarked wryly.
“I should hope not. They have a tendency of dying early. Should I make an effort at being less helpful?” Abigail said in response, getting a laugh from Miliam.
“Finally, someone around here that understands,” Miliam said happily.
“An enjoyer of stories, I see. Indeed, I have attempted to educate Aoibhe on the matter to no avail in the past.”
The conversation veered off into small talk, but Miliam found herself feeling better by the end of it. She had been worrying too much about her lack of training when what she needed to work on most was her mindset- at least, at the moment. Aoibhe could supplement her lack of command knowledge, and she could learn what she needed to both on the job and between shifts over time.
None of that mattered anyway if she wasn’t thinking enough to make use of it. She wasn’t sure how exactly she would improve on that, but knowing what to work on was a start.
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Codex Entry: Void Combat: Countermeasures
As offensive technology evolves, so does defensive technology. Magical countermeasures make a ship more difficult to target rather than providing a physical defense, just like scientific countermeasures, but the form this takes is often quite different.
Scientific countermeasures are generally some form of jamming that disrupts and confuses targeting systems by oversaturating their sensors or providing other targets via flares and chaff. They may even attempt to override the control systems of incoming missiles to disable them or detonate them prematurely.
Magic countermeasures employ similar methods that cannot be replicated by science. Illusion magic can produce convincing replicas of ships to confuse visual targeting. Space magic can warp localized areas to cause attacks to veer off, overshoot, or stall out by stretching the distance they must travel. Minor gravitic distortions are employed to prevent warp missiles from exiting warp space directly next to or even inside ships.
Large ships typically have dedicated electronic and magical countermeasures operators, but smaller craft may employ their communications officer in a dual role. This is because corvettes and frigates are seldom the target of missiles in the first place and so there is more emphasis on punching a hole in enemy countermeasures so that point defenses can engage incoming missiles targeted at capital ships.