Codename: Freedom - Book 5 - Chapter 18

Author's note:
What I was planning for this next section I ended up scrapping. To be honest, it just didn't add anything to the story. It's not something I usually like to do, but even the conclusion was blah, so here we are. Back to it.

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Mel and I spent about an hour with Timur, making it an early dinner. Destiny broke down his current placement and ability as we left the diner.

“He placed 4,612 in the 400-meter race. He’s quick on his feet, but his size limits his speed. As for the battalion he’s a part of, they haven’t broken the top 100 in any event. Brad’s battalion has done better. They’ve been in the top 100 every time. Both have the same limitation. They’re only made up of Freedom participants. Of which Prodos and the Forefathers secured the highest performing people.”

I took a moment to consider her words before asking, “So what does he mean that he’s ready to compete? Even if he becomes a one-man army, his influence in the next battalion versus battalion competition may allow him to secure a higher placement, but there’s no way he can compete against the better battalions alone. One on one, he might be able to kill a rank D participant, but they won’t make it easy. Many such fights he’d lose. And the best battalions will have more than one rank D working together.”

The little hologram of Destiny shook her head. “I don’t think he means he intends to win Vanguard. He’s been lying low. My guess is he wants to remind people that he’s out there—that he isn’t finished—and to show the world that he’s changed.”

As we walked toward the entrance of the main convention building, Mel interrupted my train of thought. “Have you met them yet?”

“Who?” I asked. If anything, I was ready to return to training. Today’s events made one thing perfectly clear. Us doing well in the next quarterly event was a long shot. Since we were to compete directly against other battalions, we would be severely underpowered. I couldn’t even rely on superior speed.

“The Founders. You still haven’t met them, right?” He asked again.

I nodded. I did want to meet them, but because they weren’t my current competition, and I simply had superior teachers, I hadn’t made the time. The convention was coming to a close so this would be my last chance. But something stopped me. Meeting them now would just delay what I needed to do. They were ultimately a distraction.

“I think I’m going to leave early.” I state.

“Three of them are still here,” Mel replied, trying to tempt me. “The two most powerful rank D Founders are stationed on what would become the frontline in the Earth-Ekseliksi conflict if the virtual war falls through. Five others were only here for a day or two. Some are helping allied nations train psionic users. Those that haven’t unlocked rank D psionics focus on training lower rank users in Vanguard on things like blending psionics and military tech.”

“So the highest among them is rank D?”

“Yeah. The two off-planet are near the peak, while the three here today are between middle to high.”

It was as Victoria had said. Rank D was the limit for talented psionics users except for those with rare genetic dispositions. The kind with the ability to become Vasileia.

Destiny informed me of who I would be missing out missing. Alvin Daily had been a highly decorated career soldier while Dr. Chester McManus was one of the military scientists that was also a part of the group. They were both medium-level rank D users. The last founder still at the convention was Elsie Arthur. She was a high-level rank D user, and the odd one of the bunch since she’d never officially been a member of the military before being introduced to psionics.

“Thanks, but my mind is elsewhere,” I informed Mel.

He let out a pent-up breath slowly, nodding as if he half expected it.

Narrowing my gaze, I grabbed his shoulder and said, “Victoria and I spoke about you training with them and both agreed that this is a good thing. I expect you to bring everything you learn back to the Combat Development Team.”

He wrapped his knuckles on my shoulder. “Of course. Get going already. You’re already training in spirit even if your body hasn’t caught up.”

We shared a laugh as I readied to leave. Before I did, I reached out to Victoria and asked if she needed me. It was only a day I’d be returning early, but that was one day my competition wouldn’t be training. She gave her blessing. I was on a plane less than an hour later.

“You sure about this? One day won’t hurt.” Destiny asked as I was boarding the plane with an odd assortment of military personnel that had to return to the base early.

“What’s the most likely scenario that I’ll lose to in the coming event?” I followed up.

“One on one is unlikely. My guess is a squad led by a rank D psionic user.”

With more than one user in the squad, yes?”

“That still won’t be common.”

I glanced at the little image of her in the top corner of my headset and snorted. “But it’s a scenario I wouldn’t be able to survive.”

She pursed her lips as she thought. “You could likely escape.”

“And the chances we win even if I have Mel and a squad to help?”

She stuck out her tongue.

“That’s what I thought.”

She mouthed the words back at me. “I’m assuming that means you want to fight squads with rank D users, now?”

“You know me so well.”

“Might as well make it a whole platoon. No, let’s go with a battalion. If you can’t take out a battalion of rank D users single handedly, what’s the point.”

“Now, we’re talking.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“And you’re sweet for helping even though you know it’s the case.”

***

As I faced off with the squad decked out in ballistic suits with the most common psionic enhancement accessories like pshields, pswords, and the odd assortment of modern military tech, I studied how they moved together.

Destiny had done extra research. There were several formations commonly used by psionic squads in real world conflicts that were first developed by the Founders. Those of us in Freedom figured out the fundamentals by necessity. We also had access to trainers early on who based their strategies on the Combat Masters and the modern military. The shield wall was one such formation that greatly benefited those with superior defensive technology. The principle translated to modern combat now that pshields and e-fields were common and effective.

After facing off with the simulated squad several times, I couldn’t help but think back to the race where I finished second to last. Superior psionics made the puzzle solvable, but without… This is what I’d been training for with the Ekseliksi as my impossible goal. However, now that my Vanguard competition could form up in a defensive turtle formation and there was nothing I could do to penetrate it, I had to remove my eyes from afar and look at what was right before me.

Like a good simulation, it adapted after each time I faced it. Currently, it only had a rank D user as its lead. The first few times, Destiny had made them aggressive enough to try and bulldoze me. I had far more success when they split up and tried to give chase. It separated them, giving me opportunities to attack weaker members. That didn’t mean I won, but it was something I could exploit. I even seemed to be making some progress until she had them hunker down and remain in a defensive formation only to attack with psionic bolts.

The solution was obvious enough. I needed a squad. Even then, I did the math. A squad of rank E users may be able to defeat one with a rank D leader, but could they do so consistently? And that might be possible for a squad of elites. Yet, how often could a normal squad pull it off? That wasn’t even the worst-case scenario. What if a squad had two rank D users, or worse, it was full of them?

It reached to the very heart of the problem with psionics on the battlefield. What can a person do against overwhelming force.

I remembered back to months ago when Victoria was still playing hard to get. Impossible to get was more like it, but I didn’t exactly play by her rules. I’d been rambling and said something along the lines of, “How do we fight the Ekseliksi that are levels above us?”

The day before, she’d had to blow me and several other members of Prodos up with a psionic energy weapon, so she didn’t exactly respond well.

My response was just to train more. That was exactly what I was doing now, but I couldn’t ignore the reality of the situation. If we lost the next event, then Vanguard was over for us. That meant that Victoria wouldn’t be in the situation she needed to when the simulated war started. It also meant she wouldn’t have as much say in the way her battalions were trained. The worst part was, I knew the Devs wouldn’t allow for us to win in the way we had the last event. It was something they hadn’t seen coming, and they certainly hadn’t been on our side this whole time.

Realizing I wasn’t asking how but if, I chided myself. I took a break after a little more training and sat down in the recovery chamber to practice Achilles’ form of mediation. Inside that dome filled with excess psionic energy, I started by sitting on the hard floor. It wasn’t about emptying your mind but filling it. As was often the case, especially as of late, I began to pace. Instead of letting my mind wander, I focused on the only thing I could control. What I could do.

It was going great for about an hour, but as I was thinking through possible solutions, it hit me. Our only hope was for our opponents, for there would be more than one, to make mistakes that we could take advantage of. Unless there was some loophole as in the last event for us to take advantage of that is. They wouldn’t make that mistake twice.

Thankfully we wouldn’t have to wait as long as we did last time to figure out what the event would be like. I’d go on Mia’s Haven with Kline next week. We’d have a month and a few weeks to prepare this time.