Collab between
@digmata and
@Ravion the Red
It's been a few days since Minerva went aboard the Solaire, and she made sure to make her time count. After a day getting familiar with the ship, she wasted no time testing the simulators while looking for live fire exercises. Unfortunately, there aren't any developments on the latter.
Argo tore apart another Cruxi machine with its remaining arm as the core of the power plant erupted, ending the simulation in what was objectively a tie but felt like a defeat.
Minerva gritted her teeth at another loss. It doesn't matter if the task is made with a squad in mind. She cannot expect everything to operate under ideal circumstances, after all. Yet, perhaps a change of scenery is in order.
She altered the settings of the simulation, changing the mission parameters to random aside from disabling framewerks. This is not her training; this is her taking the opportunity to vent.
To say that Arrish had been using his time well was an understatement. Much to Lieutenant Ritsu’s dismay, he had been flirting with the ladies all over the ship and trying and failing to get their contact info. He told himself that he had plenty of time to use the ship’s facilities and properly train himself in time for a real encounter. He didn’t need to break his back or anything.
Well, he was sure that the Lieutenant would probably snap him in half if he treated his time like he was on a luxury cruise, and honestly, he did want to check out the simulators anyway. Maybe if he was lucky, he could find himself alone for some sparring with the bots.
Much to his surprise, he had found someone already at one of the machines. The young Minerva had already been logged into one of the computers, busying herself with a simulation. He half wondered if she had always been like that, working diligently and always training. He had gotten that feeling from most of his squad mates, and in these times, a lot of people were always pushing themselves. Push yourself too much, he thought, and eventually something would push back. Something that made sure you didn’t get back up again. He grimaced at the thought.
His other thoughts had been on what sort of virtual missions she was up to. He walked up to one of the computers and entered a few buttons before putting on one of the virtual helmets to spectate her for a little while.
Minerva wouldn't notice someone spectating her as she returned gunfire from the simulated syndicate. Her shots landed most of the time as she made use of her athleticism, hovering from cover to cover, slowly making her way to her enemies. Eventually, her rifle ran out of bullets, forcing her to resort to her fists and improvised weapons.
She snapped someone's neck before using his pistol to kill another. She improvised a trap to make an enemy fall to his death. She punched and kicked hard so many times that her limbs were now colored in their blood.
For a moment, Minerva would take a deep breath and let out a feral smile. Like a wolf finding itself in a familiar hunting spot, Minerva was in her element.
This wasn’t the fighting that he had expected when he joined as a spectator, not that there was any way to know what she was doing without joining in as one. Not as far as he knew. This was the old way that mankind had handled threats, he thought to himself, not inside a giant mech or using a machine to answer problems. This was ancient, almost primal.
He found his fingers entering the code to join her when he saw the gun click dry of ammunition and almost stopped himself when he saw she was forced into hand-to-hand combat, using fist and boot to take down soldiers. The wolfish smile on her face made his heart beat faster, and he found himself staring not at a bodacious woman, but a powerful creature of the wild. She was still beautiful, yes, but in the way that a wolf glittering with the blood of its prey was beautiful. Something to be respected and feared.
He took a small breath and decided anyway to join her. Maybe she would disapprove and maybe she would call him out and turn off the simulation, but what did he know anyway? He saw a squad mate in the middle of combat; who was he to stand by and watch when there was work to be done?
His arrival would be met by the prattle of gunfire as he fired into a man who had been about to jump her from behind. The shot was messy, not as practiced as hers had been, but he had enough skill that it was unlikely the spray of bullets would have grazed her. Arrish rushed toward the nearest source of cover between him and Minerva. He wondered what would happen next.
Minerva would roll to dodge only to hear gunfire preemptively saving her. Wait, where did that come from? She made sure that she would have no allies in the simulation, so what was happening?
She looked, no, glared at the source of fire, seeing the lecherous redhead making his way into cover. So that's what happened.
Using her host rights, she paused the simulation, causing time to freeze for everyone except her and Ari- Aru- Aris?
It doesn't matter.
The white-haired clone would walk toward Ari, staring down at him as if she had just seen an insect.
”What are you doing here!?” she asked in a restrained tone, as if she was keeping her fury inside.
Uh oh. Here it comes. There was a part of him that had expected a reaction like this, but he told himself Minerva was a rational, confident, and above all, serious squad mate. It’s not like she would get angry at something so small as joining her for simulated combat, right? Right?
Yet here she was now, staring him down for daring to interrupt her little combat session and demanding to know why he was here. Arrish wasn’t going to let himself be treated like some lesser human. They were equals aboard this ship and held the same rank. He stood up to his full height, straightened his back, and squared his shoulders. He also mentally readied himself for a strike or blow, or some sort of shove that would knock him back. He wasn’t going to just back down and take this sort of attitude.
”I have a right to be here as much as anyone else, Minerva.” His voice was cool and collected and lacked that silver tongue he normally spoke with.
”I came here and saw a squad mate in the middle of combat, surrounded on all sides, and I did what I thought was best. The real question is, what are you doing here?”That was a question for her as much as himself. If she was this upset with him for interrupting her session, then was this really training or something else?
”You do realize that we were not in actual danger, right? That this is just a simulation, one that I set for myself?” Minerva fired as she crossed her arms, clearly unimpressed at her fellow cadet.
”And if it wasn't obvious to you, I'm training like I always do.” There was a bit of edge in her voice, as if she knew that among everyone, she's the one who is training the hardest.
In fact, it could be said that she did nothing but train.
He could feel her argument fall apart as she made it, and he wondered if she knew too.
”I’m aware we’re not under real danger, cadet Minerva. I came down here to train on the simulators just like you, and my combat expertise is a combination of close-range combat and defensive maneuvers.” He kept his voice firm and steady.
“It also seems to me that we’re not training right now. Would you like to amend that, or are we going to stand here talking about why we’re both here?””That's not—” Minerva tried to protest before processing what exactly the redhead could mean.
...fine, you have a point.” she conceded as she opened the menu to restart before an idea entered her head.
”You know what? I'm tired of thinking of simulations, so I'll leave the parameters to you. You must have something in your mind before you enter, right?” she asked as she moved the menu to him.
There was a part of him that felt like retreating and crawling back to his room to read manhuas all day, but he would lose all of Minerva's respect if he did that.
“Yeah, do you know the historical simulation, the one they teach to the new bloods? It's known as the Duvallian Folly.”He keyed in the information, and the scene changed. They were aboard a vessel still frozen in time. Men and women were all around them unmoving; bodies were frozen in running positions, and voiceless mouths were about to bark orders. There was damage all across the ship, with debris and paperwork scattered across the floor. Fire had broken out on the deck, and outside had been even worse. Cruxi vessels had poured in all around the space outside, some of them already firing on human vessels and shooting down what were then modern but now ancient models of framewerks. Minerva would know Duvallian Folly had been a massacre against human fleets a hundred or so years ago, and more importantly, it was a training lesson taught to new officers about the impossibility of some scenarios and that no matter what you did, there was a 0% chance of survival.
What wasn't common knowledge was how the folly got its name. He wasn't sure if Minerva knew who he was, much less even his first name, but he shared.
”The fleets of the Duval court were said to be nearby, close enough to help in the effort and maybe actually save some human lives and maybe bring important information back. I don't know if it could have turned things around, but they didn't arrive despite the emergency.” He didn't add that the name had been a mocking one. A political statement. A reminder that if you've got the power to change things, no matter the risk, you should do something.
“So, I know it's rookie stuff, but wanna try it?”Minerva knew of the folly, if only as one of the few simulations that she is forced to admit to be beyond her sole capacity to salvage. No matter how skilled one could get, they are only one man in one machine.
And yet, despite that truth, that woman did turn the tide of the battle countless times. What is it that she lacks that she possesses?Grabbing at her wrist, Minerva stared at Arrish before speaking.
”It's been a long time since I last tried this simulation. Perhaps today is the day to revisit it again.” Minerva spoke as she unpacked the simulation, resulting in a sea of voices drowning their surroundings. Some were despair, others were cries for help, and some were grim determination to kill as many Cruxi as possible.
Arrish leapt toward one of the consoles and shoved a young woman aside as soon as the simulation was in motion. With practiced motion, he began to type a code into the machine and shouted over the din of screams.
“Minerva, get down to the framewerk bay!” He barked out the order and pulled himself away from the console and toward the stairs.
“Down this way, follow me!” and didn’t wait for her to pile in behind him.
The way down had been met by the screams of their crew mates, and one unlucky fellow had been bleeding at his side while walking up the stairs. Arrish didn’t even give him a second look, and with Minerva following him, he would say,
“I’m sure you already know this ship goes down midway through the battle, but we can do more good out there fighting the Cruxi than cramped in this little ship.” He blinked.
“Unless you think otherwise, I’m going toward the right stern of the ship to stave off the Cruxi. That should keep the Midnight from falling right away before it gets totaled by a lethal bombardment.” He took a breath.
“I still don’t know what to do about the little carrier ship that gets destroyed before it can send out a warning to the nearby planet. Anytime I get close, I end up getting shot down by a Cruxi flier. If it can make it, maybe we can save some of the people down there.” He glanced back at her.
“Ideas?”Minerva nodded, skillfully weaving her way to the hangar, where she would find a pair of era-appropriate framewerks that were meant for their use. It made sense, considering the technologies to create the Argo didn't exist in this era.
“I could go ahead and start engaging with the fliers. This Framewerk is made with speed and range in mind. It would go down in a hit, though.” Minerva spoke as she tapped the Framewerk, the implication that this was a sacrifice play in the air.
“You should try and get everyone coordinated from here. If my memory serves me right, it is one of the greatest reasons why the Folly happened. Even if we cannot win, as long as we get the message out, it will be enough.” Yet, she knew she could turn this into a victory if only she's ‘made’ right”Good luck.” Minerva spoke as she entered the Framewerk.
He watched her enter the framewerk for a minute and thought to himself if this had been a real scenario, then this would be the last time they would see one another. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but this was something that may just happen one day.
He broke off from Minerva and headed toward the ship's inner right stern, only ever stopping to take a weapon off an emergency rack. He began to direct orders through the ship's sealed radio line, directing it to take emergency action and protect the faster and smaller framewerk that Minerva had been in from threats that would stop her from reaching the little carrier ship.
There was nothing he could do about the Cruxi fliers, and for however skilled Arrish was, he had hoped that Minerva would do what he couldn’t and reach the carrier in time. Not only did she have to survive getting there, but once she was there, she would have to distract enemy fire long enough that the ship could get close enough and out of jamming range to contact the planet.
Still, they couldn’t change what had happened at the Duvallian Folly, but maybe they could change the outcome.
The Framewerk flew into the open space as Minerva steeled herself, steering the controls to evade opposing gunfire and firing the rifle to take some of them down.
She looked at the supporting fire on her way as they covered her advance to the fighters. She let out a breath; now came the hard part.
Another shot of her rifle took down a Cruxi fighter, causing others to spread around. Half of them engaged her, using their faster speed to close the gap. The other half marched to the carrier ship, which she knew would still be enough to take it down.
So she ignored the former in favor of setting her thrusters to overdrive, locking all the missiles onto those going to kill the carrier. It was enough time for the other fighters to graze her frame, dooming her mobility and leaving her with firing back as the only option.
They got her left leg, then her right arm. She charged, making use of the last of her shields until…
“Framewerk down,” a comms officer spoke to Arrish like a grave inevitability.
The ship that she had sworn to protect at all costs, even knowing that it would cost her life, would soon follow after her. Explosion after explosion rocked the vessel until the inner workings of the ship turned in on itself and exploded into a fiery and devastating blaze.
Arrish turned off the comms and lowered his head and gave Minerva a quiet prayer for the inevitable sacrifice. Then, knowing the end would come soon enough for himself, he gave the final orders for the ship and its crew to spearhead one final attack in the center of the battlefield before erupting into flame and sacrificing itself to take down just one more Cruxi vessel.
That didn’t mean Minerva had failed, however. The ship would have gotten far enough that it would deliver its final message down to the planet below and would spare at least some of the people of that planet. It meant that word would get out to the Duval fleet, that reinforcement could be on its way, and even if they couldn’t protect this planet, at least maybe the next planet could be prepared for another Cruxi assault.
Eventually, the Midnight would explode, Arrish would be caught in the blast and killed, and the simulation would end, ejecting its pilots back into the real world before either of them could feel any pain.
When Arrish woke up, he would see Minerva standing beside him, her arms crossed, waiting for him to wake up.
”So how did it go?” Minerva asked as she helped him get out of the VR.
He had something of a sad look in his eyes, but he looked up at Minerva and smiled at her.
”We got the message out in time. The ship delivered its message to the planet.”What he didn’t tell her was that in real life, that ship had made contact with the planet, and the planet had contacted the Duval Fleet for further orders. The details about the ship being destroyed in the training program had been part of a cover-up by his family. It wasn’t difficult information to dig up if you had good networking or someone had made you privy to the information, but it wasn’t something commonly known. The reality was that the information had been sent, and the Duvals had chosen to do nothing.
Minerva would remain ignorant of the truth, not out of malice but out of apathy; for her, it was just another training exercise. Nothing more, nothing less.
”That's better, my best record yet.” she spoke with a little smile on her face.
”I suppose it's time for me to take a break. And Arrish, don't be too hard on yourself. That exercise is, after all, an exercise in futility.” she reassured him as she looked at his burdened face before walking away.
After all, she could have acted better.
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