34 Book 3 - Chapter 92

Attendance at Fortescue Military Academy M1 Y:2142

House Thoth, Squad Leader, Squad Zero

M1 Rank: 1/1275, Tier 3 M-Rank: Null

Term: 2, Round: 5

Daedalus Operating Capital: bitcreds

Picard and Barran were sparring in exos with Matthias and an elite Shu cadet. They were performing drills that Daedo and Siderus had designed, two on two combat, charge downs and lastly single pair duelling.

In hindsight, Daedo realised it was a mistake not placing Picard in the vanguard to begin with. In spars she beat Barran more often than not, she was fast, agile and probably the fittest cadet in M1. The only reason Barran ever beat her at all was his sheer unabashed talent for unpredictability. He matched her in speed and agility and was slightly stronger, but Picard practised longer and harder. If Barran had practised close to one thousand hours of melee combat in his life, Picard had completed seven thousand.

But when put up against the cream of M3 it pushed even these two past their limits, it was the best training they could possibly have. Daedo used this selection process and training regime to their fullest advantage. They weren't practising against the best squad in M3, they were practising against the best-combined squad from M3. The M3IAS, which stood for the M3 Inter-Academy Squad.

During these drills and spars, M1TS0's weaknesses were highlighted effectively, which only encourage Daedo to increase the frequency.

"Had enough?" Matthias asked. Triumphant at last.

Picard shook her head.

"No seriously," Matthias said.

"Sounds like Matthias has had enough," Barran accused the older cadet before beginning the drill again.

"Fark, you kids, have unlimited energy," Matthias said before raising his shield to meet Picard again.

Picard didn't talk much when drilling with M3IAS, she felt between Matthias and Barran far too many words already made their way into the atmosphere, and she didn't want to add to the pollution.

They had fought seventeen times, and Matthias had won seventeen times. He was taller, stronger and had focused on becoming a death dealer at close range his entire time at the Academy. But on the eighteenth time, whether he was tired, sloppy or she was improving, Picard turned the tables.

Picard hammered him with a shield bash and followed through with an overhead strike. Before he could recover, she had already spun kicking his centre of gravity with all her might and momentum. When he fell to the ground, after the powerful yet accurate connection, she did not hesitate. She flew at him with her swordlance raised, lunging and impaling his chest. The AR adjudicator ruled him dead upon impact and halted the blow before it injured Matthias too badly.

There were many bouts that Matthias had won by a close margin, but never so onesided as this occasion when the tables had been turned.

He got up, and although he was smiling, no one could see, his faceplate was obscuring any facial expression. To his credit, he didn't make any excuses he just said, "Damn, woman, why you so angry?"

The observation made Barran laugh as he fought with the elite Shu cade. Laughing did not distract Barran, but the photon blade wielder was the best in M3 even Barran had trouble keeping up with his incredible speed and reflexes.

"She's always angry," Barran observed as he twisted to dodge an incoming swordlance. Daedo had forced the change in loadout from photon blades to swordlances. The photon blades were too easy to nullify with a simple particle shield, and they chewed more juice than jumpjets.

Meanwhile, Daedo, Mace and Axelzero were laying traps for Siderus and his crew of liberos. Siderus rightly believed that if they could navigate through Daedo's wily tactical defence, they could make it through anyone's.

Daedo and Mace would camouflage the kamikaze recon drones, lie them in wait, and detonate as an unsuspecting M3IAS member crept or ran past. Or they would corral Siderus' team into a tertiary ambush while they were busy escaping a secondary attack on the back of a primary engagement.

The scenarios were set up to make it difficult for Siderus and his team. On purpose. Each drill gave Daedo, Mace and Axelzero time to set up with Kang following Mace every step of the way, learning at the shoulder from the diminutive purveyor of espionage.

**Daedo: Ready.

Which was the signal for Siderus' crew to attempt the gauntlet style drill once more.

So far they died each time horribly, but their awareness and reactions were improving. It was also good practice for Daedo and his team. They drilled setting up the ambush, with drones and themselves, quickly and covertly.

A recon drone flew straight at Siderus who was with one of his squad, he began to overthink the situation, and instead of taking it down he was looking for the second, third and possible fourth wave of attack. Not one to miss an opportunity Mace flew the drone directly into Siderus and detonated.

**Siderus: dammit!

He survived, but the drone halved his and his squad mates effective armour rating as far as the AR adjudicator was concerned. Daedo and Axelzero had them pinpointed, and while the drone was exploding, they launched grenades onto Siderus' position and behind. Effectively blocking his retreat unless he wanted to sustain more damage.

He charged forward only to be caught in a crossfire of railguns between Mace and Kang. Siderus went down while his offsider was pummeled with grenades before he could retreat. He had escaped the crossfire situation only to die by frag. It was a typical Daedo tactic, damned if you do and damned if you don't.

**Siderus: ok. How were we supposed to avoid that? He asked, not waiting for the remaining two M3 cadets to finish.

**Daedo: one moment.

A minute later the last two M3 cadets in Siderus' libero outfit were down.

The session clock countdown was almost at zero, so the two leaders called an end to the session. They moved outside and began the debriefing a few minutes early.

The group of eight liberos collected together for an analysis of the scenario, with Myrmidon's help Daedo brought up and overhead map, showing the movements in top-down 2D.

"The crossfire trap isn't something you can avoid, you just have to deal with it if you haven't scouted the area with recon drones. But the first drone should have been taken down immediately," Daedo began.

"Yeah but last time we did that, you used the time to spring an ambush on us," Siderus replied.

"The goal is to avoid damage, and the secondary goal would be to avoid detection. This is a drill, but in reality, you can avoid all these situations with recon drones and by taking the initiative," Daedo stated.

"The drone, if you don't eliminate it, is guaranteed to damage you, but you are correct there are times where taking the damage is the best option. But there is no scenario where you would opt to take the damage if you didn't have a known more important objective," Daedo finished.

"So, unless there is an obvious option to take, take down the drone, don't think," Siderus paraphrased.

Daedo simply said, "That's the prepared response."

Siderus nodded, "Ok, I'll make sure everyone knows it. Don't all these prepared responses make us predictable?" He went on to ask.

"Yes, you will need to adjust some as matches progress to avoid this dilemma. But you will still have a prepared response, it will just be with a different option. This enables quick action or reaction, thinking takes too much time," Daedo said.

"Thanks. Aren't you making it harder for yourself by training with us like this?" Siderus asked coyly.

"If you think our end goal is to represent the Academy, then yes, but we are on the same team when it comes to avoiding relegation and competing for promotion. This is our main priority. And training with your M3IA squad is great for us, which is all we would want from Inter-Academy matches," Daedo responded.

"I still can't believe you'll make four-mill creds if Fortescue is promoted. Do we get a cut?" Siderus asked.

"Do you want to deposit the same share of the two million for demotion insurance?" Daedo asked.

"If I had the funds, I would say yes, cos I think we're a safe bet now," Siderus stated. "While we're on this topic, why don't you join the first team as the tactician? This would free me up, and I could always act as a backup in case you went down."

Daedo had thought about this question last week, with the change in direction, it made sense for M1TS0 to reverse their stance of all or nothing when it came to representation, but this was one of the very few times that Daedo made an emotional determination rather than a logical one. It was similar to when he played CyberMech and was a perennial lone wolf.

"My calculations show, with the new three-point-two exo, tactics training and your team's skill levels, you have a sixty percent chance of finishing top two with no further improvements. And a thirty percent chance of finishing first. The actual result will come down to your performance and strategic decision making on each given match day," Daedo answered.

"So that's a no?" Siderus qualified.

"Unless you stuff up, it's a no. But you still have to beat us on the last day of term, if you don't, we will represent the Academy in the first round," Daedo said seriously.

Siderus laughed, "You are basically training us so we can beat you easily."

"You might be good, but don't get ahead of yourself," Kang said angrily. She was always competitive even if the odds were not in her favour.

Siderus held his palms out in surrender. He didn't want the foul-mouthed Korean munchkin angry at him.

"Ok, enough banter, we have work to do," Daedo said. And they resumed the drill review in earnest.

"You need to take a break," Mace said to Daedo as they ran alongside the river.

"I thought this was the break?" He queried. They were going on a long run, Axelzero and Vannier were running with Kang and Picard was racing Barran. The squad had split into three to allow each group to go at its own pace. It was Friday night and the pathway lights reflected off the dark surface of the river.

"You're missed every Gauntlet this week, not to mention Academics, you would normally be finished everything by now," she lightly scolded.

"I'm almost done, we had to rework the gyro, the first one didn't work out with the range of movement…" Daedo began to explain.

"Enough," Mace scolded, heavily this time. "Look at the river, its beautiful at night isn't it?"

Daedo looked to his left, "Ah, yeah, if you say so."

"Bah," Mace said, "Sometimes you're the smartest person in the world, and others you're thick as constructofoam."

"Ah, yeah, if you say so," Daedo responded totally bewildered by the accusation. In his opinion he deserved neither, it wasn't him coming up with all the breakthroughs it was the mystery box. Other than the muscle like mesh compound supporting both the mech and the exo he hadn't really done much. He couldn't even solve the cosmological constant.

"You don't even realise you repeated the same response," Mace said sadly.

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"Did I?" Daedo asked, and after a quick review, he realised she was right. He figured he must have auto-answered to save thinking time.

"Ay, its da rich kids," a kid sitting on a wall yelled confrontationally as they ran by, "Yeah keep running ya fukkas."

Mace looked at Daedo who shrugged, he had never seen that kid before, but the kid seemed to act like the reverse was true.

Daedo wasn't threatened by the aggressive tone, even if they were accosted by armed thugs; given their training, communications and proximity of friends let alone authorities, they could handle most situations. Other than a head shot, or decapitation, most wounds were treatable.

The pair ran another five minutes in silence, Daedo's mind was wandering until Mace spoke.

"What are you thinking about now?" She asked softly this time.

"The kid," Daedo said, "No not that kid specifically. But…if the EUDF only have a hundred thousand exo soldiers and the private militaries are all gone, what will happen to most of the people? Surely a hundred thousand exo soldiers and a few thousand mechs can't protect all of Europe."

"And Africa," Mace added.

"Yeah!" He said all of a sudden he was emotional.

They ran on for another five minutes in silence.

"We really do need to make that billion bitcreds," Daedo said.

Mace was crying, it was only a tear or two. She wiped them away and said softly, "Surely it can't be left to us? That street rat was correct, we're kids. We're just kids."

Daedo stopped Mace. He put his hands on her shoulders and made her look at him.

"We're not alone, there is the Marais, Colonel Martin and even Master Nader, but we have to do everything we can," Daedo consoled and inspired Mace.

She pulled him in close and hugged him. "You're such an idiot," she said softly.

The tone sounded like a compliment, but the words were confusing. He felt uncomfortable but accepted the hug and even returned it a little.

Suddenly Mace pushed him back, "We better start running again. If the others catch us like this, we will never hear the end of it."

They crossed the river at a bridge and began the return run leg on the other side of the river.

"Speaking of Marais," Mace said, "How did you and Barran convince them to loan us two million bitcreds."

"Oh," Daedo began, "Well, at first we offered them Daedalus as collateral with all our IP. But Sophie, the CEO, rejected that saying it wasn't nearly enough."

Mace laughed a short burst before asking, "You were going to ask us?"

"Yes and only a unanimous affirmative decision would suffice," Daedo said.

"What happened then?" Mace asked.

"She made a counter offer that I couldn't refuse," Daedo said.

"Spill it, stop playing with me," Mace said.

They ran a few more metres before Daedo finally replied, "If we are relegated I will have to hand all my shares to Marais and not only work for them, but they would own any invention or discovery I make."

"For how long?" Mace asked.

"Forever," Daedo said.

"Daedo!" Mace yelled. "Why did you agree to this!"

"We won't lose," he said emphatically.

"I know Barran is this stupid, but I didn't think you were as well. I am never leaving you two alone again," Mace stated with a large slice of authority.

The pair arrived back at the workshop just in time to witness Ikaros and the robots finish assembling the second prototype Mech for the Upper Inter-Academy first team. They would need to manufacture sixteen Mechs in all, but only after they got the design right.

"She's ready Daedo," Ikaros called. "Well, no paint job, but that can wait, you may want to recycle this one as well."

"She?" Daedo asked.

"You're right, best not to give her a designation if you're going to kill her in a few hours," Ikaros stated smiling.

"You're still doing it," Mace observed.

"Bah," Ikaros said, "Ok lady lets get you jump-started."

"I guess this one's a girl," Axelzero said after arriving on the scene.

"We can't go back now," Daedo responded.

Within minutes Ikaros had the reactor working. "I'll walk it to the shed," he said.

The shed was what the squad were now calling their large practice area next door, their first practice range was simply called; lower one.

**Daedo: Alright Myrmidon, I don't want to fry myself so keep three eyes on the temperature in the plasma storage, please.

Although simulations in their new modelling tool showed the mech was stable in both power generation and thermal loads, from experience, Daedo had learned that even the best modelling tool was wrong most of the time.

**Myrmidon: I will have eighty eyes on the temperature and can force a shutdown in nanoseconds if needed.

**Daedo: you can shut it down in nanoseconds?

**Myrmidon: misleading. I am sorry. I can begin the shutdown process within nanoseconds of determination.

**Daedo: understood. Ok, lets put this lady through her paces.

The rest of the squad watched jealously as Daedo ran, twisted, jumped, knelt, dodged and even slid.

"Oh my freakin ballsack," Barran exclaimed.

"Wow," Axelzero agreed. The Mech ran rings around Old Dawg and made Dead Beat look dead in terms of movement capability.

"Did you know it was this good?" Vannier asked Kang.

She shook her head, even she had to hand it to the smug little bastard. No Mech in the pro league moved this well.

Barran was getting more excited by the second, "It's fucking Svarski material."

"This is his first Mech design?" Kang asked Vannier who nodded once.

"Fark me," Kang said.