Chapter 3 - Academy Festival

Marcus quickly bring Jako to the registration counter. The process was simple, place his hand on recognition device and all his information appears on screen...

The counter staff releases a drone from it's dock after confirming the participant's details, "The guiding drone will bring you to the ready room, we estimate the waiting time to be slightly under an hour. Please be ready with your team's setup by that time."

As they follow the drone, Marcus gave a brief explanation about the festival.

New students are admitted to the Academy every trimester. All cadets comes in full of confidences thus the school came up with the festive display of commanding abilities through mock battle. All crew member of the ship are A.I. controlled.

All the matches will be broadcast live and stored in the database for reviews. Battle is optional but who wouldn't signup there isn't another chance to have their match seen by a wide audience till end of the trimester and even then there are prerequisite.

"That is why this is the only time we can impress the crew faction student with a records of your performance. The battle will be against a senior in the Academy and to make thing fair it will be 7 vs 1 scenario. Just imagine the glory if we win."

The drone arrives at the waiting room 7A which has 5 others cadet in it.

While Marcus goes around greeting the others, Jako quietly moves to the corner, 'IRIS are you going to help me out here, i need a breakdown on space battles.' Jako started to feel panicky 'Even if i'm from the borders planet not knowing how battles are being fought is bit too much. If i were to ask Marcus it will either break my cover or make me look really dumb...'

'Sigh... ITI war vessels primarily uses 3 type of weapon for the various range of combat.

For long range, laser based weapons is king as it travel the fastest. The most precise tracking system could hit a ship accurately at a distance of roughly 100 kilometres away. Range above that will be difficult as a millimetre differences in tracking will result in meters off target when hundred kilometres away. Downside to this type of weapon is it's low damage output and significant waste heat generation... and heat doesn't dissipate easily in the vacuum of space.

Mid to short range weapon consist of kinetic weaponry, the institution prefer mass accelerators such as rail-guns but there are other such as chemical base which at the expense of mass, provides more punch and generates less heat. It also faces the same tracking problem and having a slower speed the max range is usually below 30 kilometres.

Lastly, missile and rockets are for range below 2 kilometres. The downside of this weapon are it's slow travelling speed, heavy mass and it can be shot down by point defence. Nevertheless it's still the most popular weapon for assault. A well placed missile can do as much damage in 10 seconds as a laser weapon would have done so in 5 minutes.

There are other less popular weapons example the shotgun that shoot out kinetic pellets in a spread. The power of the mass is divided among the pellets thus the energy of any one pellet of shot is fairly low resulting in it's lack of popularity.'

Jako start drawing up a plan in his mind as he hear IRIS explanation,'What about defence'

'Typically the main 2 are armour plates and shields but you don't need the in-depth knowledge for this mock battle. What you need to know...'

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Marcus came over to pull Jako to the other team members, "Why are you standing in the corner, having cold feet? Lets move to the front and start the tactical meeting"

Quick introduction went round and they started the meeting with the early comers sharing what they know.

"The map is a standard orbit engagement with both side have equal amount of ships. 1 destroyer-class as flagship and 6 corvettes as escorts. We are allowed full customisation of the ships.

We are blue team with each of us will be commanding one ship. The opponent, even though he is only 1 person will be red team. He will be commanding the flagship while it's escorts are A.I. controlled. The performance configuration of the A.I. is set at 50% average of the last cadet cohort. In theory that means if we are all above average we only have to worry about the captain of the flagship."

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Jako is in command of the Flagship, the team had decide to follow his plan.

There was a big countdown on screen and soon the battle started.

Blue team ship is positioned into a straight line like an arrow nock on a bow. From the enemies point of view, they could over see the flagship acting as the arrow's tip and covering the rest of the ship behind it

"Enemies fleet has their corvettes formed up on the wings," the sensor officer reports. "Captain, it's the arrow formation with a heavily armoured flagship."

"As expected with the corvettes on both wings, they will try to do a double envelopment using those corvettes. It is such an obvious flanking maneuver." Jako make a quick conclusion, "Let's proceed with plan A. Ahead slow; bring us into maximum weapon range."

The two fleet approach each other quick as they did not start out to far from each other. As soon as the blue fleet reach their firing range Jako gave his next command.

"Everyone, re-positioning to provide sniping fire. I want a fully volley of laser and rail on enemy's corvette on the left wing. All ship, sync up with my ship's targeting system and fire on my mark."

All 6 support ship move out of cover from the right side of the flagship. The sudden move allows the blue team to temporary outnumbering the enemy's wing 6 to 3.

"Mark,"

Numerous laser fire from all 7 ships hit their target, "We got one, enemy ship down, i'm switching to the second target." Marcus shouted in the team channel.

Rather then a big ball of fire Jako was expecting, the enemy corvette just broke apart into chunks of debris and dust.

"Jako, red team have respond with evasive action. They are speeding up to close the gap", "The enemy ships on the right wing is folding inwards to assist." Marcus voice constantly flooded the team channel.

One of his team mates reports, "Enemy Flagship have reach rail-gun range, he is targeting our Flagship." that was barely two minutes after the first laser volley.

While the channel was reporting that his ship is being targeted, Jako calmly gave his next command, "While this is faster then we plan there is no change to the overall strategy, we are moving to phase two."

"Nav, Full reverse thrusters", Jako pass down the instruction to the navigation officer.

While the blue flagship slows to a stop and started to move into reverse, the rest of the team have manage to cripple a 2nd corvette.

Red team notice the rapidly slowing and retreating flagship of his enemy and couldn't help but shout into the open channel, "Coward, stay and fight." immediately after Red team flagship pushes their froward thrusters to the max.

Whoever say the Flagship should fight with flagships don't understand a thing about battles. Long gone was the ancient age where general fought each other and the troops look on.

Situation report keep coming up on the comms "Captain, impact to our front armour, shield down to 23%", shortly another volley impacted the hull, "Fire in sector 3-1. Damage control team has been deployed. We have 2 crew members trap in sector 4-3 after the emergency barrier shut on a false negative ."

"Rescue them if possible, chief i don't have time to deal with this, you have command for the damage control and emergency teams." Jako was at the most critical phase of his plan and he had to focus.

The second corvette went down as easily as the first. Thing were going well at the start but red team have now reach the range where they could use heavy missile to barrage the blue team. Blue has numerical advantage but Red has the weapon superiority.

As the missiles approach the blue fleet Jako had prepared a surprise for them. 'Shotgun shell' shot out by all ship forming a large screening point defence. Most missiles was taken out and the remaining one barely weaken the shields.

Shortly after the enemy's right wing join in the fray as reinforcement, the first friendly corvette went down. Jako team have just crippled the shield of the third enemy corvette.

At this moment the Red team's flagship overtook the dog fighting situation around the coverttes

Base on the size and speed of an object in space, any maneuver and adjustment take lots of energy and time. Red team's flagship had speed up recently and the rapid front momentum along with it's heavy mass result in it having no choice but to continues forward, chasing after Jako's ship.

"Time for the last phase, 3 corvettes are to stay and fight against the new comers, the other 2 are to swing around to the back of the enemy flagship and take out those engines." Jako pass down his new orders.

At this stage with the enemy's formation broken down and receiving constant fire from the corvettes Red team's flagship eventually slowed down and try to evade. Nevertheless it was too late, a lucky shot disabled its engines and without it the ship could no longer adjust it course.

On the other side of the field, the situation doesn't look good either. Even though the dogfight between the corvettes it back to a fair 3 vs 3 fight. Their flagship could no longer provide any support but Jako could continue to direct his ship to snipe and suppress them.

It doesn't take long for the conclusion of the dogfight. Even in the hopeless situation red team's leader still refused to surrender banking on the weapon used by the blue team being ineffective on its armour. Similarly, Jako secretly hope the battle will end at this stage as he know lasers ain't design to take out the larger vessel...

Jako had everyone turn their sight on the remaining disabled flagship, and with a long draw out slugging of rails and laser manage to achieve victory. While it wasn't the best, he did secure victory with a reasonable loses.

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Individual Command Score – Host score% (Average T1 Cadet %)

Gunnery 89% (47%)

Damage Control 37% (71%)

Crew Response 44% (78%)

Engineer (Sub-system) 32% (56%)

Engineer (Maneuver) 77% (59%)

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Overall 68.4% (69.2%)

68 Institute Points (IP) awarded for winning the match and individual performance.

Jako is confused how his score below the average, didn't he just brought the team to victory?

'While the host preform admirably on tactics, it is not one of the judging criteria. You have performed only better than the average term one student in a few categories.

This is the result of your over reliance on the Chief of Deck (second in command) to resolve ship issue. As a Captain you might not want to be micro-managing every details but passing on full responsibility during battle to your chief while in command is not the bearing of a good commander.

As such you will had receive a lot less point if I were the judge'

Jako remember giving command for the chief to make his own decision and stop bugged him for instructions. What is the use of a second in command if not to handle the nitty gitty. If only he was told in advance how he will be scored he would have responded better.

Marcus try to console "Don't look so sad, bigger ship usually score worst against term average. Why don't they match the average against ship size? The best guess is that it is a form of discouragement. Every captain wants a bigger cooler ship and to stop those students from only having the minimum required skills, the scoring will force them to skill up better as they trade up their ships."

At this moment IRIS seem to receive some new updates...., 'Host, by the way you now have some points, thus the shop is now open to you. I have receive instruction to provide you a special limited offers, visit us now for your super rates'

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