Attendance at Fortescue Military Academy M1 Y:2142
House Thoth, Squad Leader, Squad Zero
M1 Rank: 1/1275, Tier 3 M-Rank: Null
Term: 1, Round: 4
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It was round four, and Thoth Squad Zero had increased its stranglehold on the M1 rankings. They now had four cadets in the top ten. Mace had moved from rank three to rank two. Vannier had moved to rank four. This gave the squad three cadets out of the top four in M1, with only Karine Fortescue breaking in at rank three.
Barran improved his Gauntlet scores tremendously when he was able to use the version two heavy. He moved up from the overall rank of twenty-two in round one to nine in round three. It was not only the Gauntlet, but he was also inspired to do well in his academic subjects. His overall rank reflected his high achievements in physical and combat which were not impacted by his academic results due to his improvement in that area.
With Picard at rank eleven, Axel-Zero at rank fourteen, and Gaumont jumping from rank thirty-five up to rank nineteen, the entire squad was in the top twenty cadets of M1.
It was 0550, and the squad walked as a group to the obstacle course. Daedo was in the lead with Vannier close beside him. With her orange hair and height, it would be easy to overlook Daedo. Behind the pair were Mace and Picard, followed by Gaumont and Axel-Zero, with Barran bringing up the rear.
The tallest cadet took his role of security seriously and always assumed the rear position when they walked together.
As always, they wore their black bodysuits with helmets either donned or attached to their upper back. Daedo’s shoulders were all white, due to his rank, the fact that he was the squad leader, and his accomplishments. A large white zero was on the right side of his chest, denoting his squad, while a number one was on the left, denoting his rank in House Thoth.
The white contrasted with his olive complexion and dark hair as well as the whites of his clear eyes. Vannier, in comparison, was pale as if she never got any sun or was well-protected if she did.
They were quiet. It had been a demanding weekend, and the fourth round had just begun. They would begin again on the obstacle course and the Gauntlet. While they took these sessions seriously, this was not their main concern. It was only three weeks before the tournament during the last week of the term. All their efforts were directed at improving their performance in the arena. Armour, weapons, tactics and individual skills were being improved daily and weekly.
Thoth Squad Four watched as they passed, their chatter suddenly turning silent.
“Don’t they send a shiver up your spine?” one of the Squad Four cadets whispered to another, who nodded.
“They act more like U3 cadets than M1,” the squad leader said. “Hell, if we didn’t know better, I would have guessed they were M3 if not for their height and insignia.”
Their mentor was with them. She was a Thoth U1 cadet, and even she felt a little intimidated. “We’re glad to have them, but in a way, they’re making it harder for all of us.”
Her cadets stared at her questioningly. She said, “Everyone viewed Thoth as easy beats – future engineers and people they would lean on for equipment modifications. But in seven weeks, this squad has changed all that, and not only in M1.”
The Thoth Squad Four leader asked, “How could they change something in seven weeks that has been ingrained for years?”
Their mentor brought up the rankings on her forearm holodisplay. It projected up into the air above her and was larger than a standard helmet. “You can’t argue with rankings,” she said.
As Thoth Squad Zero disappeared up the corridor, they relaxed.
Senna, who was rank 122, said, “We are Squad Four, yet the gap between them and us is huge. Did you know Daedo solved the first math problem in the first week?”
“I can’t even work out what the math problems are asking, let alone solve them,” his squad leader said.
“Do we have to fight them in the tournament?” Senna asked their mentor.
The mentor shook her head. “Only if your house master needs a match to separate two squads in the tournament tiers. I will eat a giant pickle if Master Nader asks you to compete against Squad Zero.”
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Master Nader sent a message summoning Daedo and Vannier, not to her quarters, but topside at Commander Mallet’s offices. When they arrived, she met them outside.
“Follow,” Master Nader ordered. She didn’t let them know what was happening, which was frustrating to Vannier, but Daedo took it in stride. He speculated it was one of her strategies to test their ability to deal with anxiety by purposely placing them in a situation in which it would build.
Daedo tapped Vannier’s hand. She was extremely tense. Without speaking, he motioned for her to take a deep breath. She nodded, smiled at him, and followed his advice.
As they entered the foyer on the outside of the commander’s main office, Master Nader indicated a couple of chairs. “Wait here until called,” she said, before proceeding into a large meeting room.
Daedo could see it was filled with masters from M1, M2, and M3. More arrived, walked past the pair seated outside, and entered the meeting room. There were five houses – Horus, Shu, Amun-Ra, Osiris, and Thoth. Each had a master for M1, M2, and M3. The room total was fifteen house masters, Commander Mallet, and his assistant.
The meeting got underway without much sound escaping the large room. Daedo and Vannier were at a loss as to the purpose of the meeting, let alone the purpose of them sitting in the foyer. They were the only cadets present.
After thirty minutes, the noise level rose suddenly, sounds of protest and surprise escaping the room. They could hear one master’s booming laughter. Another minute passed, and Master Nader came out of the room. She indicated for Daedo and Vannier to enter.
As they went inside, Daedo could see his squad’s results on a large holodisplay. Their scores in the Gauntlet, obstacle course, and even the test results of their exos, which informed the AR simulator, were all displayed.
The commander was standing while most of the masters were sitting around a large oval table. “Master Nader has proposed entering your squad into the M3 tournament,” he announced.
Daedo thought it would have been nice if Master Nader had asked first, but he didn’t have an issue.
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“This is irregular, but there are no rules against it,” the commander continued. “It is not unheard of for talented U2 or M2 squads to go up a level and compete. Are you prepared for this?”
Daedo did not look at Master Nader; he knew that would be a sign of weakness. He merely answered in the positive. “Yes, sir.”
“They will have to prove themselves against Thoth M3 Squad Zero and One first,” the Thoth M3 master announced. One of the Osiris masters laughed, bringing a frown to the Thoth master’s face.
The commander nodded.
“Why are they even here?” the Horus M2 master enquired rudely. This was something that could have been decided and Thoth Squad Zero informed about later.
“Because, Master Hamile, Master Nader correctly assumed I would want to gauge the cadets’ response personally before allowing this irregularity,” Commander Mallet said and gave the Horus master a cold stare which conveyed his displeasure at the inappropriate interruption.
After a moment, the commander said to his assistant, “Very well, the schedule will accommodate Thoth Squad Zero to compete in both the M3 and the M1 tournament.” He then addressed Daedo and Vannier with a curt, “Dismissed.”
Deciding that if Master Nader wanted them to wait she would have sent them instructions, the pair left and made their way back to their quarters.
“You didn’t even hesitate,” Vannier said.
Daedo shrugged. “There was no reason to. We have nothing to lose.”
“But still, M3?”
“The only issue I see is the exclusive deal we made with Shu M3.”
“Oh,” Vannier said, and then after some thought, she looked up the terms of the deal. “No, we’re fine; we agreed not to sell or give away exos to other M3 squads. We are M1.” She stated the last obvious fact out loud, not caring that it was redundant information.
“Good, then we really have nothing to worry about,” Daedo said. “We’ll need to study our new opposition. There are tonnes of streams we can access from their prior battles.”
“Why do you think Master Nader did this?” Vannier finally asked.
Daedo shrugged. Perhaps she wanted to challenge them. Or perhaps she meant it when she said they were preparing for war, so why wait – fight the best squads now. “You can ask her, but I doubt you’ll get a straight answer.”
“You are going to tell the others?”
Daedo smiled and nodded. “Sure.” He’d been the one to agree, and knowing Vannier, she didn’t want to be yelled at for throwing the squad into the deep end.
Vannier called a meeting over the comms and all the squad members had gathered in their common room by the time the pair arrived back from the commander’s topside office.
“Where have you two been?” Barran asked.
“Topside,” Axel-Zero answered. She knew they’d been summoned by Master Nader; she’d been with Vannier before they left.
“We have some news,” Vannier announced and looked at Daedo. Everyone was quiet as the mood in the room became heavy with anticipation.
“We have been issued a challenge,” Daedo said.
Barran thumped their table. “Which idiot dares challenge us?”
“Master Nader,” Daedo answered succinctly.
Barran stared. The look on his face was priceless.
Axel-Zero cleared her throat as the silence and tension spread.
“Master Nader,” Daedo said, “entered our squad to compete in the M3 tournament. In week nine, we have matches with Thoth M3 Squad Zero and Squad One. Depending on the results of those matches, we will be competing in the M3 tournament in week ten as well as the M1 tournament.”
“Holy …” Barran exclaimed.
“Geez,” Gaumont said. “Um, is this good or bad?”
Mace smiled. “It’s good. We can kick their ass.”
“Let’s face it,” Picard added, “M1 would have been too easy.”
Vannier looked at Axel-Zero. “What do you think?”
“I’m worried, but it’s exciting at the same time,” she said.
“Can we do this, Daedo?” Barran asked. Barran was always confident, but the idea of taking on M3 squads daunted him.
Daedo shrugged. “Let’s find out. We have the exo, and our weapons are coming along. We need to refine our teamwork and tactics. From now on, we’ll have a tactical meeting every night after arena practice.”
Daedo stood and opened a large holodisplay that showed the loadouts of each cadet. “The loadouts for the medium exos is versatile. Axel-Zero, Mace, and I are now carrying a mix of the medium-range railgun, grappler, and melee weapon. If needed, one or more can switch over to a launcher, but if we all carry traps, this may not be necessary. All of the squad will be equipped with a limited use ion shield.”
Daedo showed them the image of a fist-sized object and then activated the shield that surrounded the object in projected blue light. “The shield will plug into your exo and will draw power from your reactor. It will compete for power with your jumpjets and other equipment so use it wisely.”
“What’s the draw?” Mace asked.
“I can’t be certain until it’s finished, and the size will affect the draw, but it’s in the ballpark of 0.05 megajoules per second.” There were a few blank faces at that, and he continued. “The jumpjets draw double that, 0.1 megajoules per second and our new reactor can generate 0.1 megajoules per second. We now have a total of three megajoules of storage in the lithium plasma.”
The cadets had been studying power consumption, heat generation, loads, runtime, and the effects of loadouts on their reactor in tech studies. It was the foundation of exo operation and would also be critical to mech operation. On top of the power issue, heat was an ongoing problem for a mech pilot due to the size and type of reactors in mechs. The software behind the HUD would interpret generation, storage, and consumption concisely into a bar graph, but it was essential the cadets understood what went into the bar graph and why.
Heat was not a factor in exos due to their size, weight, and performance. They merely enhanced a soldier’s speed, strength, and operated a few pieces of equipment, while a mech had to move around tonnes of metal under its own power. This difference was the difference between the two pieces of equipment generating a small amount of heat that was converted in an exo, to a large amount of excess heat that needed to be managed and dealt with in a mech. It was possible to design a mech that never generated excess heat, but usually, the temptation was to increase its speed, strength, jumping ability, and loadout well above these levels.
Daedo had been adding as much lithium plasma as he could to the exo while staying within the rules and balancing it with the impact on hydraulic and armour components. He found as many unused crevices and pockets as possible, connected the power conduit, and increased the overall storage capacity of the medium and heavy exos. The cold fusion reactor would run equipment directly and charge the storage, which would be accessed in a time of peak demand – anything over 0.1 megajoules a second, the new peak generation of the cold fusion reactor Cisse built.
“The loadouts of Picard and Vannier are simple, even though their role is not,” Daedo said. No one’s role was simple if performed at its peak. “That leaves us with the heavy loadout, which we have three main options to alternate. We need to start rotating these three and practising with them. Barran and Gaumont, create a training plan for my review today, and we will start tonight.”
“When will we start to use the heavy shield?” Gaumont asked.
“Now,” Daedo said. “The AR has a standard version you can just carry around from the mech bay.”
“Okay,” Barran said, “let me get this straight.” He brought up his own holodisplay with dozens of loadout options for his heavy exo. “The main three are combinations of Gaumont and me using shield, melee weapons, minigun, and launcher.” As he spoke, he highlighted loadouts for himself marked ‘B’ and for Gaumont marked ‘G.’
“Why can’t I use the minigun and shield combo?” Gaumont asked.
“Run it in the Gauntlet, and you’ll see,” Barran said. He was much stronger than Gaumont, and while the heavy exo increased their strength, Barran was starting from a much higher base. Carrying a minigun in one hand and a shield in the other was something that would probably overwhelm Gaumont and most other cadets.
“What about the plasma shotgun?” Axel-Zero asked.
Barran shook his head. “Not unless we improved it. The minigun outperforms it in versatility, damage per second, range, and power drain. It even carries more ammo in terms of space, weight versus damage.”
Daedo nodded. “A project for term two or three. Now, before we break up, you have another task for the tactical meeting. We will have nine opponents and a few contenders for these spots from each house. Axel-Zero, you have Horus, Mace – Osiris, Barran – Shu, and Gaumont – Amun-Ra. Each tactical meeting, you will research and present on each of these potential opponent’s characteristics. I will do Thoth M3 and present tonight.”
He left Vannier and himself out to a degree. They would collate all the information, and Vannier would check everyone’s research.
The end-of-term tournament was a tiered tournament. Every squad would participate, but only the top two squads per house would participate in the main event. A round-robin with two groups, each squad competed in a survival match versus the other four squads in their group before progressing to the semis and then the final.
The selection of the tier one squads was entirely up to the master in charge of the year level. Which was probably why Master Nader had interrupted the scheduling meeting to introduce M1 Squad Zero into the M3 competition. This forced the Thoth M3 master’s hand. He was not able to deny them entry without at least a match against his most elite squads.