On the sidewalks, shattered glass twinkled in the picture, having been blown outward from the storefronts lining the street. Panning forward, they followed the line of parked cars, all of which were destroyed, and many of which held dark smears of what appeared to be blood.
“Why would the High Council have missed such a telltale sign of danger?” Decker asked.
“They wouldn’t.” Vance continued frowning. “Somehow, I think there’s more to this mission than what we’ve been briefed.”
CHAPTER NINE
The display on the desk before Keryn shifted, enlarging and expanding until a two-foot-wide sphere hovered above the table’s flat display. Lines of latitude and longitude encased the hollow sphere, crisscrossing like a fine gossamer web. Within the sphere, small pyramids appeared one in front of the other, hovering in eager anticipation of commands from the class’ instructor, as if frozen in never-ending pursuit.
Victoria stood in the front of the room, a long, pen-shaped apparatus held in her hand. When she pressed a button on its side, a fine laser emerged, penetrating the identical sphere projected above the teacher’s desk. As the laser entered the sphere, it struck the front-most pyramid. With that under her control, she moved it slowly away from the focus of the sphere, drifting it toward the orb’s outer edge. In response, the rear pyramid gave chase, keeping an equal distance behind.
She said loudly, working with the pyramids, “Most of you have difficulty grasping combat outside a two-dimensional plane. All combat exists on a single flat sheet. Two opponents maneuver and drift around one another in a tactical, artful dance, until one finds an opening and strikes. Even when you take into account the use of high ground, you’re still altering only the level of the two-dimensional plane to a twenty-, thirty-, or forty-five-degree angle to account for the elevation. Still, however, your combat exists only within that stifling plane.
“For those of you to whom that description applied, you’ll find the shift to three-dimensional combat difficult. You’ve mastered the art of preparing for an enemy in front of you, to the side, or behind, but taking into account an enemy simultaneously below and above you, too, you’ll be forced to expand your thinking.”
Victoria returned to the sphere. Keryn watched her own display, seeing the pyramids move without the distraction of Victoria and her laser moving objects like a marionette.
“Some of the skills you’ve learned in ground training, such as leading a target when firing at a moving object, still apply to space combat. However, even those are modified. Distances in space are distorting to the eye. On a planet, the atmosphere masks great distances. The same can be said for the shape of the planet itself. Objects disappear into a distant horizon when they get far enough away. Therefore, your mind can interpret distance easier due to the planet’s slope.
“In space, however, there’s no horizon to use as a marker, and the size of the ships themselves is misleading. The smallest Duun fighter is still massive compared to normal targets on the ground. Spotting a distant ship during a space battle might mean that it’s literally thousands of feet away, far beyond effective engagement distance. Until you learn the fact that, in space, there are no reference points for distance, you’ll struggle with this crucial part of the learning process. In this classroom, I’ll teach you the basics, but your experience in the cockpit will truly teach you to be a pilot.”
Victoria turned back to the sphere, finally making reference to the pyramids she’d been moving in a dizzying dance. “Most of three-dimensional combat is an incorporation of both mathematical concepts and basic physics. The most basic of these concepts is the simple triangle. Take, for example, the banking ship.”
Using her laser, she turned the front pyramid into a steep climb. Behind it, a fine blue line appeared in the sphere, tracing the path it took on its upward flight. As the front ship pulled away from its pursuer, Victoria paused the demonstration.
“What you’re seeing is the first establishment of a triangle.”
On the screen, the ship’s gradual climb elongated until the single sloping blue line became two lines intersecting at a ninety-degree angle. “Though this wasn’t the exact course the lead pilot took, we can see that the front ship has established two legs of the triangle during its evasion of its pursuer. However, it leaves itself open for attack. How?”
Sasha raised her hand confidently from the back of the room. “Because everyone knows that the hypotenuse of a right triangle is a shorter distance than the sum of the other two legs. Therefore, the pursuing pilot simply has to increase the elevation of his own climb to cut off his fleeing adversary.”
In response to her words, a thin red line was drawn from the two exposed ends of the legs, completing the triangle. Victoria continued the lecture with a faint nod to the proud Avalon student. “The gravitational inhibitors on every Alliance ship mean that you can pull off maneuvers like the one I just demonstrated without fear of crushing gravitational forces during an intense climb. Cast aside your preconceived notions about combat. In space, within an Alliance ship, nearly anything you can imagine is possible.”
Keryn sat entranced, as Victoria lectured for hours on different techniques for assault and evasion during space combat. Pyramids danced throughout the sphere in wild firefights that she struggled to follow. Slowly, Victoria added more and more pyramids to the demonstration, until nearly the whole sphere was filled with a combination of mock ships and weapon fire.
By the end of the instruction, Keryn’s eyes watered from strain, and her head ached. She tried to retain all Victoria taught, but she felt the fabric of her understanding unraveling. The concepts were foreign and complex, leaving her concerned about how to apply ideas she barely understood to real-life aerial combat.
Frowning, she replayed the most-recent demonstration, squinting hard to track the individual movements of dozens of small fighters, as they wove through one another’s machine gun and rocket fire to maneuver close enough for a kill. She already knew how the battle ended and marked the winning ship. Still, she couldn't see what it did that was so remarkable that it defeated so many opponents.
During her training as a warrior, Keryn always kept aces up her sleeve in every confrontation. She watched her opponent’s subtle body language and facial expression, learning his strengths and weaknesses. Choosing from a vast repertoire of battle techniques, she always found one that exploited her opponent’s weaknesses and left her victorious.
In the cold alloy of a spaceship, however, she couldn't see her opponent’s face. She could only see the darting ship and its bristling arsenal. Could the ship’s movements reveal insight into the pilot’s weaknesses? If not, what chance did she have to overcome the damning firepower of those she would face not only in the Academy but some day in a real confrontation with the Terran Fleet?
“I want the class to split in two,” Victoria ordered from the front of the room. “Half of you move to my right, half to my left.”
To Keryn’s relief, she saw Iana move to her side, while Sasha and her cronies went to the other.
“For the next few hours, I’ll place all of you in direct conflict with your classmates. Each of you will have a uniquely colored pyramid representing your ship. The defensive values of all your ships will be the same, as well as maneuverability and weapon systems. The only thing that sets you apart from your peers is your imagination and what you learned from this class. Take a second to study your ship schematics and select a color. We begin shortly.”
Each of the displays before Keryn’s group had the same sphere. As students chose their colors-Keryn settling on a vibrant red that matched her tattoos-she took a second to read the cadets’ expressions. Some showed faint traces of fear, revealing concern over their inadequacies. For others, confidence and bravado were proudly displayed, though Keryn wondered how much of that was for show and how much was genuine ability.