章 13: Interstellar engineering and technology
The 85 applicants who passed that year were divided into three groups of 21 cadets and a group of 22. Eneas got into group two. Part of his luck was that he already knew most of his classmates. In general, it was a good group. On one side were Hector, Jason and Nestor, who were already like pineapples; the brilliant Telemachus and the barbaric Ajax were also in their group.
A group of girls would also accompany them; there were not many, but better 5 than nothing; in this way, Penelope, Chryseis, Cassandra, Lavinia and Ariadne. In his previous life Eneas would have been thinking a lot about these beautiful cadets, but now he himself could only think about how to be one of the best in the academy, he had no time to flirt.
The rest were a heterogeneous group; only two characters stood out among the rest of the class: Paris and Agamemnon, two opposite beings at first glance. Paris's passive-aggressive attitude could be guessed as a conflictive character to flee from; Agamemnon had much better acceptance; although it made Eneas' hair stand on end, it was like seeing a political, cunning animal with those small, close-set, mean eyes.
The schedule at the officer academy was intense; in the first month they would have five different subjects. Interstellar Engineering and Technology was what an advanced class on the ships, equipment and weapons used in space sounded like. Just thinking about the process of mental synchronization of knowledge began to make his head hurt, just like with regulations, regulations and protocols. Military. He was excited about Three-Dimensional Combat Tactics, or mechatronic Driving Practice. But he was terrified. Advanced Hand-to-Hand Combat Instruction couldn't have been a second semester subject. Why did they start directly with Advanced Instruction? Weren't they just cadets?
He went to the physical examination room, in order to begin his training, they had to first undergo a small intervention to replace his neural terminal with one with access to the Navy's encrypted data.
It was the fourth implant that he had received in his life, but he once again felt the strange panic of losing something. It was materially impossible that what he had learned in his life through an implant would be lost due to the replacement, but that's human nature.
Once the implant change was performed, all the students were taken to the loading room to connect to the learning system. Actually, through the implants, you could load data, but not reasoning, receiving or having the technical information about anything in your head did not imply that when the time came you would know how to apply that data. And in this case it was not different, no matter how much information the army introduced into the heads of its cadets about types of engines, flight systems, energy systems, etc., what use would they have if they did not know how to take advantage of that information.
It is true that there was not even half an hour left to finish the class hour, but even so, when the cadets were taken to the assigned classroom, many of the classmates scratched or rubbed the area of the implant, which always generated a certain itch until it was assimilated by the body after a couple of days.
"Welcome cadets to this Interstellar Engineering and technology course. I am Commander Perseus, your teacher during this month that we will spend together. In your heads, there is already data on all the systems used in the navy, my mission is for you to learn to use those data and get the most out of them"
The commander was an extremely neat officer, with a neat and immaculate beard where not a single hair was out of place, a military-style haircut, and a strict look on his face. The back screen brought up a diagram of a mecha.
"Can anyone tell me what we have behind me?"
"That is a Colossus-type Mecha, manufactured in the Hellenic nation and one of the symbols of our navy"
"Very well, thank you for the praise for our army but that does not answer my question..."
The cadets looked at each other without fully understanding the question the commander was asking them.
"The diagram on the screen corresponds to the mecha called Colossus, specifically its series 12, it is a bi-formal mecha, with a single energy system, two main navigation engines, two turbojet engines, and four auxiliary flight engines. It has an operating autonomy of 48 hours and can be equipped with Ionic shield-type defenses or Sonic rail weapons, but its main forms of defense always included are solid light screens, and black light lasers with a maximum range of 20 kilometers and a drilling capacity of 35 pils at 100 meters and 20 at 1 kilometer. Recommended for close combat if it does not carry additional equipment."
Everyone turned their heads in the direction of Telemachus; his response was more typical of a bookworm. It is true that they all had that information, but he had still accustomed his mind to what was expected of them.
"Good answer, the exercise to respond is the following: we have this same mecha without weapons or additional defenses; we are on a reconnaissance mission in which they have an autonomy of 10 hours and a distance of 2 hours at maximum speed, the energy system is compromised at 50% of its performance, the enemy is in a non-combat zone 1 hour away, although they have support from 200-pile gaus cannon-type artillery weapons at 200 kilometers, which are at a distance of 4 hours in the opposite direction from the base, tell me what your energy reconfiguration would be, justify the response and announce your next immediate action in the mission. You have 5 minutes"
The cadets looked like a bunch of Zombies staring into space while they did their calculations. However, Eneas was the first to raise his hand.
"You already have his answer and you are sure of it, Cadet Eneas."
"Yes, Commander Perseus..."
"Well, we'll wait for the five minutes to pass and see everyone's responses."
The five minutes passed, and although many had managed to do their calculations, some had worried faces. Perseus gave way to Eneas to present his response:
"My initial configuration would be to reduce the energy of the weapon system and the defense system to 0, thus conserving the full energy of the primary and flight systems. In this way, it would not reduce the autonomy or compromise the maximum speed of the ship; the sequence of actions would be to launch the mirror camouflage, fly to the 200-kilometer zone, use the wave radar to count the positions and numbers of the enemy, and return to base."
The commander did not make any gestures of affirmation or denial, and gave way to the rest of the cadets. Of the entire class, only Telemachus agreed with Eneas's analysis. The most bellicose, like Ajax, left the primary system and the defense at 25%, distributing the energy between the weaponry and the flight system, and launched themselves towards the enemy.
Other more moderate people, like Hector or Jason, chose to conserve the defense but diverted the weapon system to make an approach at less than 100 kilometers, but without entering the combat zone, they identified it by sonic radar and flew back.
The commander removed the diagram from the screen. On the screen, the names of Eneas and Telemachus had earned 100 points, the moderates were between 75 and 50, and Ajax received a resounding 0.
The commander explained that the real problem was the hours of autonomy; if the system was kept at 100%, it would be 10 hours, but if the amount of energy was reduced, the remaining survival time increased progressively. The most conservative option allowed the fulfillment of the mission, it was reconnaissance, not combat, and the return to base. He pointed out different defects or possibilities in the rest of the cadets' calculations. It was going to be an interesting month.
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