Interstellar Age

Two weeks had passed since Erich first began attending the Naval Academy on Germania. By now he had gotten used to the cadet life, it was hardly different from the Youth Corps he was forced to attend as a child. However, even though it had already been two weeks into the semester, Erich and his fellow mutants had yet to be permitted to take part in what was arguably the most exciting aspect of life at the academy.

That was until today. Currently, Erich stood inside a large and empty room that was practically a warehouse of considerable size. He was dressed in a flight suit, and looked around, waiting for the arrival of his fellow cadets and their instructor. However, just when he was about to leave the room, which he was given the coordinates to in advance, his surroundings suddenly shifted before his very eyes.

What was previously an empty warehouse was now a flight hangar, filled with people and starfighters. Immediately, a smile lit up on Erich's face as he realized what had just happened. This was the holodeck, a building used to simulate combat environments for the cadets. And while Erich would not lay hands on an actual starfighter until after he graduated from the Academy and entered flight school, he would still be required to learn the basics of flight inside the simulation which he now stood in.

It was at this moment that Erich realized he was in line with a bunch of other pilots, who he did not recognize. The flight suits they wore were the same as his own. It was a stone grey in color and had the flag of the Germanic Star-Empire on the right biceps, which was a red background, with a black sun in the center.

Aside from a life support system built into the suit, there was also a helmet in his hands that had a large transparent face shield. At the moment, a wing commander was speaking to him, and the other pilots which stood by his side, all of which were part of the simulation.

"Men of Germania, a Nakaru Hive Fleet is no less than twenty light years away from our borders! I won't lie to you. Many of you will die today, but you will die for the glory of the Empire, and the lives of its citizens! So go out there and squash those fucking bugs!"

The scenario which had been inserted into the simulation was one where the empire was under a full scale invasion by a galactic power, this was how the Empire trained its combatants, to experience the horrors of total warfare from the very start of their life as cadets. It was a no-win scenario, one designed explicitly to bring the best out of cadets, by squeezing every bit of potential for a possible victory.

Because everything in the holodeck was realistic even to the touch, if Erich was shot down in the simulation, he would understand the pain of death, even if he would not actually die from the experience. Thus, he was sweating bullets, as he realized he would effectively be sent into battle, without the slightest idea in how to fly the spacecraft.

Before Erich could even figure out what was going on, one of the simulated pilots behind him pushed him towards his starfighter. Without even thinking, Erich climbed into the cockpit and attached his helmet onto the neckline of his flight suit, sealing off any air from escaping, and thus pressurizing his body for the vacuum of space.

Just as Erich was about to call out to the AI to suspend the scenario, he found that a tutorial screen projected itself into his vision via the HUD display that automatically downloaded itself onto his NeuroLink. Immediately, a synthesized voice entered his ears as the AI which was designed to assist him in flight began to speak to him.

"My name is E.V.A. which stands for Enhanced Virtual Assistant. I will be your flight instructor today. The scenario you are about to experience has been set on recruit level difficulty after taking into account that this is your first time flying.

Like in real life, you only have one life, so I suggest you complete the scenario with survival in mind. For the record, if you die in the simulation, it will affect your score on the leaderboard. Good luck, and remember to follow my advice at all times."

E.V.A.'s voice continued to speak to Erich as the artificial intelligence helped the young cadet navigate the controls of the starship. The starfighter which he was given in this scenario was the most commonly deployed design, known by the nickname of the "Dagger", the starfighter was designed to be capable of contending with starships above its own weight class, so to speak.

It was a fast and nimble fighter, with serious firepower on board. Not only did the dagger have a total of three laser repeaters attached to it, but it also made use of a plasma cannon and was outfitted with twelve antimatter missiles.

Despite the fact that the dagger was a fast and powerful starfighter, its defenses were severely lacking when compared to other starfighters employed by the empire, and its foes. In other words, it was a glass cannon. This was one of the reasons why so many starfighter pilots lost their lives in the line of duty.

However, when deployed in massive numbers, the dagger was a serious problem for the enemies of the Empire, and it was one of the reasons why, despite its lacking defenses, it was considered the primary starfighter in use by the Germanic Star-Empire.

After getting a feel for the controls, Erich launched his ship out of the carrier and entered into the simulated space. Where he and his fighter wing of simulated pilots were flying headfirst into a devouring swarm, which would not hesitate to rip them out of their spacecraft and eat them alive.

Erich could not believe his eyes when he first witnessed the Naraku Hive Fleet in person. Its ships were living biomechanical engines of destruction that were practically the size of entire planets. And the fighters which they deployed were living beings, specifically bred to survive in the vacuum of space.

When compared to the fleet of Imperial Warships, it was as if they were ants fighting against titanic monstrosities. For the first time in his life, Erich felt a true sense of fear overcome his heart as he gripped onto the joystick of his aircraft, perhaps a little too fiercely.

What kind of horrific monsters were these? And what civilization could possibly contend with such reckless evil? These were just a few of the thoughts that flooded Erich's mind as he heard the AI speak to him once more.

"Hostile targets directly in front, approximately 13,000 kilometers ahead. Prepare for combat, and good luck…"

For a split second, Erich thought he could hear a sense of pity in the otherwise robotic voice of the artificial intelligence which assisted him in flight. Staring down at what was most certainly the personification of death, Erich gulped down the saliva which was pooling in his throat, and activated his missiles, as the HUD display connected to his NeuroLink locked onto the target nearest to him.

Immediately upon entering the combat zone, the Naraku drone began to spit a corrosive acid at their imperial adversaries, as if they were Gatling guns. And while the simulated pilots of Erich's wing nimbly dodged the attacks, Erich's fighter had taken a direct hit on its left wing. No doubt due to his inexperience in piloting the spacecraft.

The acid easily ate through the energy shields, draining the power of the starfighter as Erich struggled to gain a lock onto his target. As if playing a game of chicken, Erich and the Naraku sickle continued to barrel towards one another, until finally Erich was able to get off a shot.

The anti-matter missile fired off and quickly followed after the Naraku drone, which tried to dodge out of the way. However, the missile continued to track the beast until it finally collided with its target and blew it to smithereens.

With the enemy destroyed, Erich felt an immediate sense of joy as he turned his fighter around to regroup with the rest of the wing. Still, his spacecraft's shields continued to deplete at a rapid rate because the acidic compound that had hit his fighter's left wing continued to eat away at the shield.

Fearing he would lose all power to his shields in the first exchange, Erich made a single thought within his mind, and before he knew it the energy which supplied his shields rapidly transitioned from the right side of the starfighter to the left wing to prevent the acid from eating entirely through the shields.

While Erich struggled to fight off the acid which was eating away at his shields, two men were watching his first attempt at the simulation with a curious expression on their faces. The Lieutenant in charge of the holodeck exclaimed aloud, as his superior watched by his side.

"Just how did he manage to transfer the energy of his shields to the left wing? That is not a feature of the dagger!"

The Admiral who was watching the scenario unfold with interest in his eyes, scoffed, before lecturing the lowly Lieutenant about Erich's special abilities.

"There's a reason this young man was selected to be a starfighter pilot. He has three exceptional abilities, two of which he inherited from his parents, and one which he gained from the grade S serum he was injected with at birth.

Out of his three abilities, one is quite common, the other is exceptionally rare, while the third is exclusive only to him… In fact, its existence is entirely classified, and thus I can't tell you anything about it. What I can share with you is that this young man is capable of both communicating with others via his mind, while at the same time being able to control machines with his thoughts. With these two abilities alone, he has the potential to become one of the best starfighter aces of this generation."

The Lieutenant, who was in charge of running the simulations for the academy's cadets, was stunned in to silence for several moments before he asked for confirmation of what he believed to have been a misunderstanding on his part.

"You're telling me this mutant is triple enhanced?"

The Admiral did not say a word, and just silently nodded his head, leaving the officer in complete and total shock.

While every Germanic citizen was a genetically enhanced superhuman in terms of physical and mental capabilities, only a fraction of the population had special abilities, such as telepathy. These traits were usually unlocked via the grade S gene serum, which only a minority of the population was privileged enough to receive, and there was a very low chance of that happening. However, because of this, these special abilities could be passed down to offspring, and yet this was even rarer.

Erich had not only inherited one ability from his father, and another from his mother, but he had even unlocked a third ability from the grade S serum he had taken. One which as far as the Empire was concerned exclusively belonged to him.

This meant that Erich was what many commonly referred to as "triple enhanced". In the entirety of the Empire, whose populations was in the trillions there were maybe a million men and women who could claim the same, and they usually went on to accompish extraordinary things in their lives.

Unfortunately, Erich did not live up to the hype. Even using two of his three abilities to navigate the scenario, it was still too much for him to handle. After defeating only three hostile drones, he was finally torn apart by his fourth target.

Erich could feel the razor-sharp teeth of the biomechanical lifeform tear through his fighter's cockpit and the flesh of his body, as he found himself lying on the floor of an empty warehouse while crying out in pain. For a second, he thought he had genuinely lost his life.

It took several moments for Erich to collect his thoughts, where he immediately took a look at his NeuroLink to see that his place on the leaderboard had fallen by over one hundred places. With an intense look of depression on his otherwise handsome face, he sighed heavily, before determining that he would need to spend as much time as possible in the simulations. After all, simulation scores were the number one way to rise through the rankings of the leaderboard.

With this, Erich had not only gotten his first taste of the holodeck, but also of what it was like to die in battle for the Empire. He was beginning to understand why so many men of the Empire did not fear death, because many of them had experienced it a million times before ever stepping foot on the battlefield.

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