Vitor hadn't forgotten about Kaela during the week-long deployment before returning to Eden's End, but he had pushed the woman to the back of his mind. With Xin opening up a new front against the STO, it was imperative that the Union take advantage of that to push the Grand Admiral's forces out of Union space. With a possible Shican war on the horizon, it was even more important to bring an end to that conflict as soon as possible.

To ensure that happened, he had been working diligently with the Jarls, Lagertha Char, and the other Asgardian captains deployed to the front lines, to coordinate BSE reinforcements and intelligence gathering, even before the Shican attack.

None of the Jarls or Asgardian captains were aware of the stealth nature of their surveillance efforts, but they had been briefed on the comm nodes, so it wasn't hard for them to guess how BSE and the Lokis were compiling the information.

Vitor made his way to the Lund Academy. He didn't have classes today, but it was the only place with the new holo theaters that Alexander had built. Normally, the holo theaters were designed to simulate multi-crew vessels, to allow cadets to experience working alongside others and taking orders without the risk of going into space.

When Vitor had read Alex's report about his experiences remote piloting the Stingray, he had requested that Alex build a holo theater specifically for solo training. Alex had agreed but didn't have time to kick off the project before he left for Earth, so he gave Lucas the go-ahead to modify one of the existing rooms.

Lucas, being Lucas, wasn't happy with a simple holo theater. The man had gone above and beyond to turn the room into a remote-pilot interface for the comm node-equipped Stingray on the Asgardian border.

That was what Vitor was here to test today. When he turned the corner of the hallway, he spotted Lucas having a jovial conversation with their resident test pilot, Branston. The two nodded in his direction as he approached.

"Admiral," Branston gave a sloppy salute.

"Glad you could make it, Admiral," Lucas said with a smile.

"You don't need to call me Admiral. Neither one of you is part of the Navy."

Lucas shrugged. "It pays to be deferential. Are you two ready to experience the next leap in space combat?"

Vitor very much doubted that. While combining the remote interface with a comm node was an ingenious combination of the two technologies, it had its limitations. Alex's Shican report had highlighted a significant decrease in the effectiveness of the automated ships during the attack. The reduction in processing capacity was likely due to the Shican's powerful ECM and intrusion attempts, which forced the ships to prioritize more of their processing power to stopping the attacks.

Alex might be able to overcome such a limitation in time, but that could be years down the road. Still, the technology would be a major advantage against human ships, especially the Xin ones, which had outdated ECM capabilities.

"I can't wait to see what you cooked up," Vitor said earnestly.

If the technology worked at all, Vitor planned on requesting more of the comm node-equipped Stingrays. In a war against the Xin forces, they would make perfect training simulators for the cadets, while keeping the inexperienced pilots out of harm's way.

The trio entered the holo theater, the room had bare grey concrete walls that wrapped around in a dome, leaving no corners. The only item inside the room was the simulator, which housed two seats and the same consoles found aboard a Stingray gunship.

"I've programmed the simulation to be as accurate as I can to the controls aboard the Stingray. Hopefully, you won't run into too many issues, but make sure to note any oddities down so I can take a look at them during the tests."

"This feels like taking all the fun out of flying," Branston said with a shake of his head.

Vitor had to agree with the sentiment, which is why he had worked with Archie Matthews, the former captain of the Talon, to ensure the cadets got both simulated and practical experience before graduating.

"I'll leave you both to it then," Lucas waved as he exited the room to begin the connection process.

"What do you think of all this?" Branston asked as he took the pilot's seat and began strapping himself in.

Vitor sighed as he did the same. "It's a bit too early to tell. I don't think it will remove the need for piloted ships in our lifetime, but I fear what the future might hold if humanity divorces itself completely from combat and starts to treat it like a game."

The former First Lieutenant looked over at him and blinked in surprise. "Um… I was referring to the accuracy of the simulation equipment."

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Oh," Vitor said, a slight flush of embarrassment creeping up his face. He threw his simulation helmet on, and the pair pretended the previous conversation hadn't occurred. Thiscopycomesfrom

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A moment later, the holo emitters started flickering to life, causing the space around them to vanish and be replaced by darkness studded with stars. Vitor looked off to the side and noticed they were floating in orbit around some gas giant.

The room speaker crackled to life with Lucas's voice. "After the last rearming session, I recalled the Stingray to an empty system to allow for this testing without having to worry about real combat. For the first test, I just want to make sure everything is working correctly while I monitor the data load on the node."

Vitor would have preferred a real combat scenario, but he could understand the reasoning behind the slow approach. As the co-pilot, his job was to monitor for targets, fire weapons, and provide coordinates for jumps as necessary.

He had trained in the Stingrays for a few hours while they were docked, but he hadn't actually flown one of the gunships. As he was familiarizing himself with the controls once again, the starfield began to move as Branston pushed the ship forward.

Vitor could hear the man grunt in disappointment at the lack of acceleration as he did so.

Branston vocalized that displeasure a moment later. "I feel like the lack of inertia is going to ingrain bad habits into the young pilots."

The speaker clicked on again. "Unfortunately, not much I can do about that," Lucas replied.

As the test continued, more issues cropped up.

"There's a small delay between the controls and when the ship responds," Branston said.

"I'll take a look at the code after. I might be able to tighten up the timing, but it won't completely go away. I think we can move on to weapons testing. Any small asteroids should suffice."

Vitor highlighted a group of nearby ice chunks, and Branston whipped the craft around, sending the starfield whizzing and making Vitor slightly motion sick. That was why he preferred larger and slower ships. He recovered quickly and targeted the nearest ice chunk with the FE cannon. The ability for the cannons to gimbal slightly made tracking the targets much easier, and he fired a quick three-round burst from one of the cannons.

The control delay caused two of the three rounds to miss the target.

Lucas replied before Vitor could say anything. "Yeah, definitely need to tighten up the timing."

The Stingray's single missile shot out and adjusted its course before slamming into another icy chunk, blasting the asteroid into mist and small chunks.

With the weapons tests complete, the ship jumped. As soon as the warp bubble formed, the holo showed a 'Lost Connection' message. The starfield reestablished itself a few moments later when the ship returned to normal space, but the ship had drifted to the side slightly during that brief window of time.

"Lucas, can you remove the lost connection message with a simulation of the jump?" Vitor asked.

"Sure," the man said, "but wouldn't you want to know if you lost connection to the ship?"

"In most cases, sure, but I think while jumping, just a small indicator at the bottom should be fine. Also, can you set the onboard computer to keep the ship on the same course until the connection is reestablished? An experienced pilot would notice the directional drift, but I fear the more inexperienced ones won't notice the issue right away. A mistake like that could be costly in a fight."

"That shouldn't be an issue. I disabled the autonomous features of the Stingray during our test, but it might be better to sync the two. That'll take some work to get right, though."

Once the testing was complete, Lucas programmed the ship to rearm and return to the front. It would take four days for the ship to reach the border once again before the next test would begin, but that gave Vitor plenty of time to manage his other duties.

The first of those was a graduation ceremony for three more people who had passed the captaincy courses. They were all former STO people who had signed on with BSE. He shook their hands and congratulated them on their accomplishments.

Unfortunately, even though they had passed the courses, there were no ships available for them to command. Performing another one of his duties, Vitor shuffled around personnel from the few ships within Unokane.

While he would prefer to have Vanguard available for his command, Vitor couldn't let such a strong military asset just sit around if there were captains available to command it. He transferred one of the most senior captains from the Eden's ships to Vanguard. The post was only temporary, but it would give the man some much-needed command experience on a capital ship. Then he assigned one of the new captains to Eden's Resolve.

That would give both captains experienced XOs to rely on while they grew into their roles. Normally, new captains would get assigned to corvettes, but Alex hadn't given the go-ahead for any manned ships in that class.

The other two captains would need to wait a few weeks while the two Orcas that were under construction finished. Once they were, he would move the other two Eden-class captains over to the new Orcas. Luckily, he had more than enough crew to fill those two ships with the influx of arrivals from the Union.

With another one of his duties complete, Vitor made his way to the strike team training grounds. Galloway had turned over the basic training to a tall raven-haired Asgardian woman. It was the same woman who had put the Marine on his ass during that STO Marine scuffle nearly a year ago.

It made logical sense to have someone who could kick your ass train new soldiers, but it still surprised Vitor when Galloway suggested her for the position.

Vitor stepped into the training room and watched quietly without disturbing the class. Astrid Vargsdottir was a strong-willed woman, based on what little Vitor knew of her. Her methods were far different than the STOs. There was less emphasis on obstacle courses and more on hand-to-hand combat and weapons handling.

Vitor didn't disapprove of such an approach, it was just different than what he was used to. In fact, he thought it was a smart idea considering what Galloway had faced when he went aboard the Shican wreckage with the strike team. It was clear that close-quarters combat would be a highly valued skill set for any crew, even if all they did was fight off boarders.

Astrid finally noticed his arrival, but she only gave him a curt nod before returning to her instructions.

Vitor stuck around for a few minutes longer, watching as the strike team recruits, who mostly consisted of Asgardians, fought a series of padded training robots.

As Vitor exited the training center, he ran into someone. "I'm sorr–" he began to apologize before he realized who it was.

"Fancy meeting you here," Kaela said with a smirk.