Chapter 1: contact with the enemy

Fitz was having a really bad day, well it started well enough but as everyone learns no plan survives contact with the enemy. And what a plan it was, hide behind things then use superior sensors and a highly accurate coil gun to place sharpy sized tungsten rods directly into enemy vehicles' special places, then run away at top speed. it wasn't the flashiest plan, nor did he think the audience would like it that much, but It would probably earn him a spot in the top ten.

A solid foundation if he did say so himself, well it should have been if 3 champion-level teams didn't use this specific off-season unofficial tournament to train new recruits. Well with his luck he should have expected it, why he didn't was a mystery to him maybe his unending Sudo optimism was finally catching up to him. He was expecting to compete with other solo designers and maybe some rookie teams, instead, he was going against Black Hawk Robotics, a team that worked directly out of a United Coalition military base, with access to some of the best tools around and direct mentorship by world-renowned engineers and designers most of which were hard at work designing the UC’s next warship design to help fight off the silicates, they were wildly considered the best team in old Florida. If that wasn't enough he was also going up against Spartan Robotics, Silicon Valley polytechnical highschools team. A remnant of the old valley, created before it was turned into the main hub of weapons research and technological development, rivaled by only japan, and that was highly debated. Almost every student that graduated from SVPT that had spent four years on the wargames team went on to be accepted by the best military academies the UC had to offer. Just to add a cherry on top they also received sponsorships and donations from almost all of the major companies in the area. Finally, The team from luna, they were certainly not better than the other two, not even close but they were better than him.

Just then he slapped himself, he should not get distracted by things he couldn't do anything about, he glanced down at the corner of his vision yup it was just about the time he took his meds. No matter a few hours wouldn't matter in the long run. As he glanced back at the tactical display it flashed red then orange then back to red before returning to its normal configuration of panels “shit, shit, shit, not good not good” that specific pattern meant an object moving 50m above ground level or higher. That meant it was either a missile in which case he hoped his repositioning worked or it was one of the new grav gunships. He really hoped it was just a missile that was on its way to ruin someone else's day but with his luck, he knew it was coming straight for him he ordered the control program to retreat into the trees behind him. While he was at it he canceled the orders from the commanding program to switch to flechette, the best antimissile round he had designed just before this competition.

Seconds later a second ping came back which told him several things it has a mediocre stealth package, if it had been good he would not have been able to detect it before it was on top of him, if it was bad he should have gotten 15 pings on its location and direction. He grinned that in combination with the fact at it was not moving at missile speed meant that it was not what he had feared, it was a rookie team that had attempted to make a grav ship, quite the grave mistake, pun intended based on the fact that it was flying, he guessed that it was a private school team with some cash and a few skilled members but not the history and reputation to back it up. The reason he was so happy was that he knew that they must have sacrificed a lot to get it in the air and even more to get it to the speed that his sensor program was reporting to the rest of the “crew”, they probably didn't any advanced sensors, most likely some cameras and maybe infrared if they were lucky. As for weapons, it was either some rocket pods or a rudimentary gunpowder canon likely rapid fire. They didn't have the energy to power a directed energy weapon or a light coil gun like most of the high-level teams used on gunships. That is unless they wanted to cut engine power to shoot a few times, he doubted anyone was that stupid.

The gunnery AI was already plotting a trajectory and loading his most advanced round. a shell with no explosives but a lot of penetrating power and fins that extended after it was fired to provide guidance mid-flight he intended it to be a sudo artillery shell meant to home in on the unarmed top of the enemy command vehicle if only his team was competent enough to actually spot it, instead of changing at the enemies main force while leaving his light vehicle to guard the flacks. He spent the entire 12-hour game shooting other scouts and lightly armored vehicles while occasionally taking out a few medium tanks when he got close enough to the main battle, although close was a relative term as his weapon outranged most long-ranged sensors let alone weapons. Hoping off that side track he went back to monitoring the gunner it had loaded the shell and was commuting firing solutions the gunship would be in range in less than 30 seconds. As time ticked by the hit probability steadily rose as his vehicle's main computer chugged through the calculations. He heard a whining sound as the capacitors charged then a sudden thump as the kinetic kill vehicle left the barrel and sailed at an astonishing speed toward its target. he was still proud of his coil gun design it might not look pretty but it packed a lot of energy and had a respectable fire rate. as the gunship rise above the line of buildings it had been obscured by, he began grinning with anticipation as his visual camera locked on and started sending minute corrections to the KKV. Just as the camera feed appeared on the main display his face paled, what he was expecting to see was a halve-baked grav platform looking like it just fell out of a junk drawer instead he saw a fairly clean-looking gunship. Normally that would have made him a little nervous, no what made him terrified was the gaudy impractical paint job it was black with bright red accents and trim, and to make it worse there were small bits of reflective gold sparkling in the mid-day sun. only one team competing at this event had that color scheme, SVPT. just then the KKV landed a direct hit, he saw in slow motion as it passed cleanly through the main unarmored sensor package sliding through lots of important bits, from how it instantly started plummeting, the turret stopped pivoting and all outgoing digital telemetry stopped he was fairly certain he had hit the main computer core, a fatal blow, not even the microrobot repair systems utilized by the best teams could fix that.

Before he even saw it hit the ground he ordered a full retreat with evasive action. Cut all active sensors, dropped power output, and sealed all of the slits covering the reflective lenses on his cameras and infrared sensors. If he was going to survive the incoming shitstorm he was going to need stealth. He had no doubt that there were already incoming artillery shells and cruise missiles incoming. He barely escaped the counter-attack only losing one wheel to the shrapnel. He fired some counter-battery shots using the calculated trajectories to predict the locations of the artillery pieces, he hoped he would hit something even though he knew he would not. He was monitoring the diving AIs path planning algorithms rejecting the ones that would leave him exposed and the ones that would slow him down too much. In the end, it didn't matter, alarms blared as the sensors detected a target lock.

He knew it was too late to do anything so he sat back, might as well use this as an opportunity to test his ai’s from here on everything was their decision. A small smile appeared on his face as he saw his right command panel go red every symbol turning red to indicate overclocking. The output of Every computer sored even the tiny ones that had the mundane task of keeping track of tire pressure, contributed to calculating a battle plan and firing solutions. The quiet electric motor that propelled the entire thing was silent no more. The coil gun extended its length and preheat the coils. The actuator in charge of pushing the projectile into the magnetic field clunked a few times preparing for what was to come. It was a hell of a battle but once he understood he would lose he stopped caring all that much. He looked on as the ais got a few shots off before being hit by three massive shells ejected from the large rail guns mounted on three medium tanks. The armor didn't stand a chance, crumbling under the sheer kinetic force transferred to it. And with that, it was over even with the best design he had ever made he still couldn't get anywhere close to his previous team. He hadn't intended on fighting them here he had kind of hoped he could prove them wrong, he wasn't just a special ed kid with dreams far to big for him to ever achieve.

 

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