Technical difficulties were resolved quicker than Charles had feared. A simple switch had to be made; the programming had been done eons ago, and the setting simply had to be found and enabled to allow for user pre-programming of the monster's actions.
The Magus, Joseph, wasted very little time making plans. At the moment, the key goal was to kill the opponents—the knights and marines—to kill simulated civilians, and to hijack escape shuttles and gunships.
In one scenario, the monster hid under departures and then burst in to depressurize the room before fleeing, daring everyone to survive with limited personal oxygen. In the next, the creature oriented itself as an orbital platform and cut the station apart with its laser. In the third, the creature simply ambushed the knights over and over, fleeing and then attacking at every other doorway or corner.
Charles, returning, programmed a machine that would simply charge and continue to assault all the marines in its path.
"Ready Charles?"
"Yes, Magus!"
"Nonsense! In sim, I am Joseph!"
The vanity of the Magus was not important right now. The blinker buzzed—the only indicator that the red team was ready. Detected, even.
The men, who had been doing little more than sitting around the table complaining about technology, stopped in reverence. They got up and ran to the simulators with an awkward urgency, somewhere between a jog and a trot. Each man, curling into his virtual burrow, began the simulated "pre-flight" checklist. It was always called "pre-flight," as if they were pilots and not soldiers. Technically, not everyone was worthy of the armor.
Indeed, Squire failed at this step. He had only been able to pilot his own armor off of Turlington Station because someone else had initialized it. While the knights had given him the documentation to read and advised him on how to operate the machine, the result was that of a first-timer.
Unable to bypass the ancient security protocols inherent in Syndicate machinery (specifically a Windows boot logger), he was forced to restart the simulated machine, losing precious seconds. The basic Syndicate security system flagged the shutdown as abnormal, causing the reboot to become total. Squire appeared in the sim in an unresponsive suit—loaded in as little more than a decoy.
Operational security was tight in the new mission; open RF frequencies were willingly suppressed. Only nearby visual or high-frequency data transmission methods were tolerated.
"Bait? Wait?"
"The machine is going to want to kill civilians at the terminal."
"Yeah, but that's gonna happen no matter what if Red wants it to."
"I guess this is our best chance to see what happens."
The implied statement was "to throw and see," but shooting down a proper sim was rude. The sacred and eternal divine rule of "takesibacksies," however, dictated that this first run was a practice run. It wasn't "real," despite the illusions to the contrary. Mindless purpose was for Gregor Samsa.
Simulated RF traffic confirmed that one of the simulated monsters had depressurized simulated departures. The eleven men—ten functional men—spread out, their plan already in motion. They knew where one monster was: Departures. They decided they would travel only on the outside of the station. Groups of five crept up the exterior like little ants.
Squad Two found evidence of sabotage and engaged a monster while they debated how they would re-enter the station. Squad One rushed around the exterior to engage the monster spotted at the edge of the simulator map, which was blasting with its laser. Two armored men "died" to the laser, their simulators clicking off to the hardwired Magus code.
Toccata and Fugue played over a spinning 3D model of the alien monster. The Magus's voiceover read text that filled the bottom of the view range for the "dead":
"An inspired warrior. Spiritually powerful. Reflect deeply."
The monotone continued. The "dead" were blissfully free of the simulated trials, yet they still felt the very real stress of failure.
Squad One was ambushed by the second monster. It burst through the skin of the station and disabled three of the armored suits. Only five men were left within the simulated chaos—six, if you counted the evil monsters. Now there were four; another had died to the laser.
Monster Two, having attacked Squad One, fled back into the bowels of the station. Monster One, somewhere in the void lasering Squad Two, quit firing, moving outside the normal visual range of the armored men.
"It's off-kilter," Jason reported.
The four remaining armored men were Jason, Coffee, Gabriel, and Lopin. Coffee was the de facto leader.
"So one is dead?" Coffee asked.
"Combat ineffective," Jason replied.
"Humph. I think it's because we used it wrong. I don't think the lizard would do that." Coffee was probably correct; his growling, old voice carried a natural authority.
"Are we hunting the last one?" Lopin asked. He was another young knight.
"I'm happy to call it. Seems like a useful exercise."
"Get ready to pull some teeth. As a rule, we run the sim a bit too long," Jason spoke for the knights.
"What are we learning here?"
"How to suffer."
Coffee didn't argue.
The four couldn't find the monster. The Magus, "piloting" the floating mecha, was struggling with the controls, trying to keep the machine pointed at a target. It needed work; the somewhat ermine body was not intuitive to control given human inputs. Joseph had been hit by a few virtual bullets that had disrupted his inertia, and he was skeptical the laser was really as powerful as the simulation reported.
Charles, piloting the "station" mecha, waited at the nearest airlock, hoping for a message from the Magus, who had a better view. None came.
Those who had escaped the simulation were already discussing the next one, reviewing the generated reports of their virtual demises. Likely, Owningsburg was putting together a drawing on a chalkboard.
Squire finally booted up his machine, but he was unable to join local high-frequency comms. With no line of sight, and because the virtual station had an accurate model of RF-blocking materials, his first "simulated pilot experience" was spent alone—highly non-standard.
The final squad of four detected Charles's mech. Charles had accidentally initiated a move command and broadcast an auditory signature. The volume of fire that plunged through the thin station paneling was determined enough to disable the alien machine. Charles was ejected from the simulation. Grimly, the same cruddy Magus animation played on his screen:
"An inspired warrior. Spiritually powerful. Reflect deeply."
If it was insulting to one who had "lost" to the alien, it was doubly so for one who had lost while acting as the alien.
Edgecase and Oscar debated when to end the simulation. It was getting a little painful to watch. The Magus was not combat effective, but he was getting better at controlling the machine in zero-G. He was outside the effective range of most weapons and had a very low signature when not firing. It was unlikely the armored men—who wandered pointlessly around a dying station struggling to find a civilian lucky enough to survive the depressurization—would ever find him. The machine was still functional, or would be, if it had enough propellant to return to the station.
Outside the simulation, a compromise between religious penitence and practical time-saving was reached. The Magus was given infinite emergency propellant.
The simulation ended only four minutes later. Squire and the Magus wrestled, which resulted in Joseph ripping apart a suit of armor piece by piece.
"This would have been terrible for morale back on the Red Solstice," Owningsburg said.
"You know the First Church of Ludd was dedicated to the death of innocents?" Rafael asked. He had a fascination for old churches. "Every stained glass window is a disjointed frame from the old Shovel Dog video... if you've ever heard of it."
The secular warriors didn't really know how to respond to this.
"I've been," Rafael continued. "The priests will tell you that we don't actually know if Shovel Dog was innocent, only that it was shocking and likely cruel. They gave me my name... Ralph."
Owningsburg blinked uncomfortably; he wasn't sure if this was professional information or not. Oscar understood the sentiment.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Squire finally made it out of the little virtual reality pod. After two hours of stressful waiting followed by an anticlimactic false death came the relaxing and simple process of physical conditioning, eating, and maintaining good health. The life of a knight was paradise, the service was natural, and the only real challenge was dying well.