Combat exercise (phase one)

After the training exercise was over, the pilots went out of the training room to do various things like rest, eat and some pilots, such as Alpha, went to the equipment room on the citadel to get their attachments. They put their badges in an upgrader which upgraded the badges to level 2 and unlocked a new function as well as three attachment slots. This took 20 minutes. (For the record, an attachment can be anything at all and depending on what the attachment is, it is placed strategically in different positions of the suit.) With that, the pilots went to another machine and placed their badges in, the machine took in the badges and after another 20 minutes it released the badges. After getting his badge back Alpha decided to check any changes the badge went through by activating his suit. The nanofibre surrounded him and wrapped nicely around his body to the point where it felt like another layer of his skin. It still had the design of the military. Tapping the badge he was pleasantly surprised that instead of just a message and system tab, the tabs had expanded, the message tab remained but instead of the second tab just being labeled as system, it was labeled as ship system and then a third tab had appeared labeled pilot system. Switching to the newest tab, the information on himself as the pilot appeared.

Name: Alpha]

[Companion: Beta]

[Nano synthesizer level: 2]

[Attributes:

Durability: 100

Energy supply: 100

Damage: 50

Speed: 20mph

Attachment slots: 2/3]

[Nano suit attachments: Lazer pistol (1), Steel sword (1)]

He was a little surprised at the information, but quickly got used to it. He then activated the battle/exploration suit by tapping the badge twice. The activated suit looked exactly the same as before with the only two differences being a Lazer pistol in a futuristic holster and the steel sword provided by the military. The way to equip the pistol is to grab the handle, at which point the nano bots would released it into your hands. As for the sword, it's handle was made with the same type of magnetic material as the badge, which meant physical contact wasn't needed to detached it, it's sheath was also a metal made of nano bots so if you did the specific gesture to equip it, the sheath would disassemble and the sword would be attached to your palm until sheathed.

After spending 10 minutes marvelling and testing the upgraded suit, Alpha decided to head back into training room zeta, on his way he passed a few other pilots making their way towards the training room. Entering through the door to the training room he and a few were met with a holographic message telling them that they should move to the citadel docking bay, at the very bottom of the message was a timer that was set to shut down the message after 8 minutes. Alpha and the eleven female pilots who decided to show up early went to the docking bay, as they entered the docking bay the smug smile was wiped off Alpha's face as it turns out his group wasn't early, they were late as the other pilots were already waiting in the docking bay. At the front of the small group of pilots was the same military instructor who had been addressing them this whole time. "Ok, now that everyone is here, am going to go over your next training exercise, this exercise is actually quite fun." He said with a smile as he looked at the faces of the pilots one after the other. "The next exercise is quite simple actually, your only job is to destroy a target drone using nothing but the navigation and tracking system of your ship as well as it's current weaponry." The instructor said with a smile. The faces of some pilots dropped as some of them were given ships that were more defense oriented, others didn't even have weapons and most of their ships were slow. "Come now, don't be like that, it's a nice exercise that helps non offensive pilots think outside the box. There are three phases to this training, the first being the one I just informed you of, the second phase will be the opposite as in that phase you will be the one under attack, more information will be given if you pass phase one, phase three will be revealed during phase two." The instructor said as he tapped something on his digital watch and just like that the exercise started.

Running to their various ships the pilots called upon their assistants to open the various doors as they all rushed into their ships and undocked. On the ship navigation system and through the viewpoint the various target drones could be seen flying in multiple different directions, every pilot chose a drone to follow as they started flying in those directions only to realize, they were outclassed in terms of speed. What the instructor neglected to mention was that the drones could fly 60 mph and the fastest ship among the pilots could go 40 mph.

The chase was even more ridiculous when you realize that Alpha's ship can fly at only 20 mph at it's fastest. There was one silver lining, the drones were not allowed to move more than 10 ship miles away from the pilots which would mean the pilots had to think very hard to destroy them. Alpha flew in the direction he saw his drone fly in and for the next thirty minutes he flew in the same direction, after getting close enough his ship picked up a nearby energy source. "Beta coordinates now." He said as he was flying the ship. The coordinates were given to him and as soon as he got close the drone started moving, he quickly targeted and started blasting with the Lazer blasters on his ship, he wasted a total of 200 energy points, five per shot per blaster and only managed to hit the drone a handful of times as he watched the drone fly away in another direction. "Nonononononono, nooooooo." He yelled in frustration as he sat back in his seat and set off after the drone. Another thirty minutes later he managed to find it again and started spamming the fire button without caring about energy consumption, this time as the drone was escaping, he managed to hit it dead in the energy core causing the already weak drone to explode. Alpha celebrated so much, until he realized that the drone had brought he 45 minutes away from the citadel, at which point he just left the ship for Beta to take over as he sat down and just looked at space through the viewport.