15 M1 - Term: 1, Round: 1 (1/2)

Attendance at Fortescue Military Academy M1 Y:2142

House Thoth, Squad Zero

M1 Rank: ?/1275, Tier 3 M-Rank: Null

Term: 1, Round: 1

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On his first day, Daedo felt smashed by 1030. He was not used to this type of hectic schedule. He used to play ladder matches, work on spacebuild, everything to his leisure and while he may have kept busy for twelve hours straight, it never included a mix of physical and mental activities.

He was hoping his obstacle course times would continue to improve, just his second course he was able to knock off five minutes from his abysmal time of seventy-six minutes. What was worse his abysmal time caused him to run over on his schedule. He had placed the course into a forty-five minute slot, as all his slots were. This only left him with thirty minutes in the gym and a shortened breakfast before hitting the gunnery range at 0830.

He was not allowed to use the light exo suit at the range, as he had not done his initial piloting course. He also was forced to use an AR gun because he had not done his first gunnery lesson either. Daedo used the time to sample each and every gun available in AR. From flamethrowers to launchers. From pistols to the largest railgun. Even a minigun and a plasma bolt thrower. And lastly a variety of vibro swords on a dummy, from what was a large knife to a massive two-handed blade.

After the range Daedo had Thoth piloting from 0900 to 1030. This was conducted topside in one of the two large arenas. These were the arenas used for inter-academy competitions and the major inter-house battles. The arenas were impressive in themselves with a seated stadium, retractable roof, and beneath the floor itself, mechs or exos could be elevated through tiles which would open and close. This was aside from the fact they could be totally transformed from a jungle environ to an urban landscape. There was even a spaceship simulator where exos would fight as if they were aboard a fictitious dreadnought.

For the piloting course itself, Daedo was finally allowed to use the light exo. His squadmates and all of Thoth were decked out in an exo of their choosing whether it was mesh, light, medium or heavy.

In his team, both Barran and Gaumont were in heavy, while everyone else was in the light. In Thoth, all squads from one to thirty watched how squad zero performed. Word had spread to every member about their bold, or stupid, bet against Horus. Hardly anyone spoke to them, but there was reserved awe for squad zero, which would last until they were smashed by Horus, in most cadets minds.

Daedo had great difficulty maneuvering the light exo to his liking. VR was one thing, reality, even augmented reality was another. His responses were extremely slow, he was used to thinking something, and it happened almost immediately. Now, he had to move it himself, and his body could not keep up with his mind, which was coupled with the physical limitations of the suit itself. No wonder most cadets optioned for a heavy, light exos were almost as slow when it came to the initial step from stationary. Or when changing direction.

Daedo: this is not good, its way too slow

Myrmidon: the suit itself moves sluggishly, something which we can improve even with tuning, but there is another lag factor I cannot determine.

Daedo: it's me. My arms and legs are slow to react.

Myrmidon: I don't understand. You control them. Order them to move faster.

Daedo: unfortunately I am ordering them as fast as I can, they need more training.

Myrmidon: we may need to adjust the schedule.

Daedo: this was always going to happen after the first week. The schedule was based on theoretical assumptions. Once we collided with reality, it would change.

By the end of the ninety-minute orientation, Daedo was totally frustrated. The only glimmer of hope was the jump jets. Positioned on his upper back, left and right, they could be directionally and separately fired. Within minutes he was able to use them to turn or skew sideways, at speed. But in a match, there would only be thirty seconds of runtime every five minutes. Unless he could tweak the power supply and increase generation. Or adjust the draw to eek out some more time from the same amount of power.

They wore their light exos back to their rooms for storage, each of them booking one specific model out.

”What's wrong?” Vannier asked Daedo after he vented frustration when boarding the travelator.

”I am too sluggish, I am way too slow to react,” he said scathingly. His voice travelling across their comms. The squad had all been on comms since the lesson had begun and while in the exo armoured frames layered on top of their suits.

”You looked great, I thought,” Vannier tried to mollify him.

”Ugh,” he said not buying into it.

”You're not going to be able to dodge railgun shots like you do in CyberMech, that's why I go heavy,” Gaumont said.

It was true, most cadets went for heavy exo armours. The armour had four times as much weight as a light, and the AR tables showed as much. It did have a movement penalty, but if you were in a firefight with railguns or plasma rifles, it did not matter much. Given both pilots were equal shots, equal strategy and no other unbalancing factors, the heavy would always win.

Daedo was reconsidering his initial strategy, right now it seemed flawed. He was wondering why they bothered having mesh, light and medium exos. But they did. And it was only his first session. He recalled his initial foray into CyberMech, he had his ass handed to him back then.

There were also strategies that could work in reality that could not work in CyberMech due to the programming. Tactics he had tried and failed. At the time he had been very upset that the developers had not coded for such events.

Strategies like using recoil to turn, dropping plasma to make other mechs slip and then firing it up. He was not going to give up on the light exo just yet, the fact that everyone else used heavy, and there were three types not being utilized, made him feel that something was being missed.

The next subject was tech, it was not a formal class, he had scheduled to complete an interactive VR tute. After that was one slot of free time before lunch. Daedo used the time to research traps and auxiliary weapons.

Traps were a subgroup of auxiliary weapons which were separate to covert ops except for the crossover of electronic warfare.

The academy did not allow electronic warfare for the simple fact that if an alien enemy invaded, we would not know what type of technology they used and they did not want pilots becoming dependant on strategies which utilized weapons such as an EMP. Which may be useless against an alien mech. This ruled out all types of devices which interfered with sensors, targeting and control through electronic means. It also ruled out hacking devices.

That left more direct devices such as smoke and other vision obscuring substances. Direct damage mines, static laser lines, static shields, grapplers, trackers, terrain modifiers and audio obscuring devices were also permitted. Daedo instantly began to think of several tactics using vision obscuring, such as a mirror image working in synergy with static laser lines. The grappler could be used in a multitude of ways, as a trap holding an opponent in place for a period of time or as a way to propel an exo or mech forward, backwards, down or up.

One of the advantages that mesh exos had was the ability to wall run for short periods of time, due to the weight light, medium and heavy could not. But a grappler could propel a light exo from one object to another given line of sight and strength of the structure.

Ideas and combinations began to form in Daedo's mind. In a VR game like CyberMech, you were limited to weapon sets. In real life, if you could imagine it and build it, you could use it. Assuming it wasn't against the rules of course. There would be some limitations as the combat was conducted in Augmented Reality. For instance, all weapons fired AR ammunition, not real rounds, plasma or flames. Anything that could cause damage was AR. Melee weapons, grenades, mines and they had placeholders for weight.

For example, the mines were real, just without ordnance, even the trigger was real. The AR would calculate the explosion and resultant damage. The AR would then affect anyone exo damaged, either eliminating them from the round or reducing the effectiveness due to the damage dealt.

Daedo began to see how these subjects would fit together, he was using his time allocated for tech studies to study what he needed to beat Horus. The test was still a long way away, and it was a project, which was probably the one subject he was overcompensating on. This overcompensation came from prioritising the subject due to academic reasons, it came from the necessity to win.

With this in mind, Daedo sent documents to his father on the light exo. With notes stating what they were trying to achieve as far as increased mobility and capability. The first thing Daedo imagined was a way to combine a Vibro sword with a trap launcher.

He researched the necessary modifications and sent another document to his Father and Mace. He knew that his father was not experienced with combat mechs or light combat exos. But his father was a legend when it came to repairing and rigging robots. He would most likely come up with ideas that Daedo had not thought of and would certainly know his way around a workshop better than any cadet.

Mace, had expressed a desire to assist and had shown how smart she was. He would keep her involved with all their plans. Especially since she had mentioned launching traps in the first place. It was possible that Picard and Vannier or who were using Railguns could work on improving it. Everyone needed to complete a project for tech studies, why shouldn't they work on something that would asset their squad in the Arena.