2 Weeks Later Saturday. 10:45 Co-Ed Dorm

John was sitting down on the couch watching the tail end of an NFL game being held in London. His Minnesota Vikings were once again choking the game away. This was supposed to be an easy win and one they desperately needed to get into the playoffs. They were ahead by three points, but it seemed like they were trying just as hard to give the game to the Browns as the Browns were trying to win.

“I just can’t even right now,” John said as he was shaking his head at the game.

Alice’s phone dinged as a message came in. She shrieked with glee, which caused John to look over at her. Though all he caught was an afterimage as she effectively teleported to the door. She threw the door open and nearly bowled over Andern.

“Sorry and congrats!” Alice shouted from down the hallway.

John looked back at the door to see a stunned Andern, “Come in you idiot. Congratulations seem to be in order.”

Andern walked in and sat down in a chair next to the couch, “She said yes. Holy hell that was a terrifying question to ask.”

John jumped from the couch and was screaming at the TV. A cornerback for the Vikings, who were running a prevent-defense scheme, cut inside at the last moment and intercepted a pass that would’ve put the browns in chip shot territory to at worst tie the game.

“Oh, thank baby Jesus. There is a god after all,” John was pointing at the TV.

“This game was a pain to watch and listen to. One knee down and that's that,” Andern breathed a sigh of relief, “Was asking Alice as hard as I imagined it was?”

“After I had resolved to ask her, it wasn’t that difficult. But getting to that point was difficult and I was nervous because I didn’t really have a backup plan if she said no.”

Andern laughed, “Yeah that would’ve been awkward as hell. Man, I didn’t even think of an out either. I was with her at her family’s place over the holiday.”

John laughed, “I hate this team man. They don’t make anything easy at all. One more win and they are playoff bound.”

Andern grimaced, “I trust them to give me a heart attack in each game. You hear about Theresa and Kevin?”

“Now that was a funny email. ‘Our families annoyed us so much. They took a red-eye to Vegas and eloped,’” John smiled, “Think he said his great-grandma is ready to disown him.”

“Didn’t his dad tell him he made the right call?” Andern asked.

“In private, yes. Publicly he is playing up the aggrieved parent card like his mom is,” John flipped the channel over to a different pregame show, “Can’t say I’m surprised. They both knew their families are a little wedding crazy.”

“Is command doing anything interesting in your classes?”

John looked over at Andern excitedly, “Dude, we are running a wargame against one another as if we were admirals of our own fleets. It’s going to be so much fucking fun.”

“Man, I thought Kristin was just bullshitting me when she said that. Dammit, that sounds better than what we’re doing.”

“Which is?” John asked.

“Normal classes. Except one has us simulate workstations.”

John laughed, “That is kind of necessary for your role on ships.”

“I know I know. It's just not any fun.”

“Brother, not much of what we’re going to do over the next two to three years is going to be called fun.”

Andern shook his head, “I wish anyone besides you would say that. That almost sounds like it’s going to be life and death for us all.”

The pair laughed at the comment. Though whether or not Andern was correct in his assertion wouldn’t be known for some time to come. They would continue to banter with one another and watch the football pregame show.

Monday. 08:15 Kranz Center

The control room for their wargames was massive. Each cadet was given a small cubicle with several terminals and a three-dimensional holographic projector that they could use to see exactly where and how their fleets were flying in formation. John, like virtually all the other cadets, looked like a kid in a candy store. He couldn’t hold back his excitement.

“All of you will be commanding a fleet of ships. In the first game, which is set to last two weeks everyone will share the same composition of ships. In future games you’ll be able to set up your fleets yourselves,” their instructor spoke from another room but the audio channel in each cubicle was open.

“Now, there will not be any alliances in this game. Once again, in the future, this will change. Each fleet is in a unique system. Not all systems on the map have a fleet. Please spend the next hour familiarizing yourself with your fleet and your home systems.”

John was a frantic mess in his seat. All three terminals were open. He was glancing from one screen to another drinking in all the information he could about his fleet. Everyone was in charge of an absolutely massive fleet of warships.

He stopped his spastic bouncing around and focused on the fleet he would be commanding. Corvette class vessels were a noticeable absence in the list. John presumed that was just to save processing power. Each fleet had thousands of small ships available to them, though it was rare to see all of them active at once. Delusions of grandeur started to float about his mind when he looked at the number of capital ships available to him.

His fleet consisted of the following ships:

1 Fleet Command Ship – Nimitz Supercarrier Class. The total crew complement exceeded fifty thousand people. Nearly four kilometers in length it contained a considerable amount of kinetic and EM shielding along with an appropriate number of weapons to defend itself. The first one launched from the shipyards late last year in 2259. She had eighty-eight launch bays, containing a combination of heavy drone fighters and manned fighters. Twenty hangars to store drop ships, corvettes, and shuttles. Ten marine battalions were permanently assigned to the ship too. 8 Carriers – Johnson Class. A twenty-year-old design, but it continued its role as the backbone of the Confederate Navy. At just under two kilometers long it was manned by a crew of ten thousand. Four drop ships and twelve corvettes and a handful of shuttles are stored in its eight hangars. They were using the most common variant in the simulation which had twenty launch bays for its complement of fighters. 8 Dreadnoughts – Berserker Class. A five-year-old design. This ship was death incarnate. At just over two kilometers long it bristled with a combination of long, medium, and short distance weaponry while also heavily armored everywhere. It eschewed the standard design of a single super large railgun of past dreadnaught designs but instead adopted a unique quad rail that fired four battleship rail slugs at once. Four launch bays and one hangar were also included on this vessel. 64 Battleships – Victoria Class. A fifty-year-old design with noticeably older systems that aren’t as compatible with the more modern ships. A curious inclusion in this wargame. These were much smaller than modern ships, and in fact, we're only barely larger than the battlecruisers in the fleet. Battleships of this era had fewer short-distance weapons and far more long-distance ones. 96 Battlecruisers – Elizabeth Class. An eight-year-old design that is arguably more dangerous than the battleships in their fleet. They had six launch bays and a single hangar for its support vessels. Like the battleships, they have an abundance of weapons. 320 Cruisers – Variety of classes. John and his classmates had several of each class. The most important, to John anyways, were the e-war variants. The heavy cruisers would also be useful in bullying the smaller vessels and hammering away at worn-out larger vessels. 640 Frigates – Donovan Class and Raborn Class. The Donovan Class was the bog-standard attack frigate. It was a solid vessel, incredibly agile, and had a surprising amount of firepower for a small ship. The Raborn E-War frigates, which they had only one hundred of, would be treated with care like their larger cruiser variants. 2000 Destroyers – Nelson Class. Small, durable, and had the highest ratio of point defense cannons by ship size. They were excellent enemy fighters and missile killers and were a key component in the capital ship’s survival.

“Oh my god, I get all this?” John said to himself as he continued to smile.

John immediately ignored the instructor and began formulating ways to use his fleet. His first course of action was to break his fleet into six wings. His electronic warfare ships were spread across the wings, with some being held back into a small task force.

He activated the holographic map and pushed his chair back to the wall of the cubicle. The solar system John’s fleet was currently situated in was labeled HS-7521, which appeared to be on the far side of the galaxy. Humans hadn’t yet traveled there yet and were likely over a hundred years away from accomplishing that.

John inspected the six closest solar systems to his fleet. They would be the focus of his first wave of commands. One destroyer and e-war frigate would slip into the systems, scan for any hostile fleet, then report back their findings. He slid his chair back to one of the terminals and entered his first orders into the queue.

Not unsurprisingly to anyone he was already way ahead of everyone in his class. His unique mind let him accumulate, store and utilize a massive amount of information. Exponentially more than what his peers were capable of doing.

“Alright cadets, now that you’ve spent a very short amount of time checking out the systems, I’m going to let you know how the rest of this wargame is going to play out,” the instructor paused and chuckled, “One of you already has submitted fleet orders into the system. Sometimes you’ll only be given a single directive, such as fly here, observe this, attack here, and so on. Others you’ll be able to be more detailed, travel to this point, change directions to here, attack on the flank. Put another one, sometimes you’ll only be able to give commands that do one thing, others can be many things.”

“This will be a one-step order. Please submit into your terminals what you’d like to do.”

John was twitching with excitement. He added an additional order for his fleet in the system to move into a defensive position. He would have to wait another twenty-five minutes for the deadline, and then however many minutes the system would take to process all of the cadet’s orders.

12:05 Cafeteria

John was the last one to sit down at the table. He was incredibly hyper and nearly all his focus was on his tablet. His greetings were minimal. That was until Alice knocked some sense into him.

Alice planted an elbow in his ribs, “Good lord, what are you so focused on?”

Kristin smirked and answered the question, “Command is doing wargames. We’ve done two turns so far. You’re planning an attack aren’t you.”

John nodded while still looking at the tablet.

“Honey, I’m going to break that if you don’t put it away,” Alice warned John once more.

“Fine. Yes, so far so good. I have leads on three other fleets too,” John paused and looked at his plate, “Too bad we have normal classes. Every morning is wargames now.”

“Next week our afternoon classes are replaced with them. So he’s going to go mental with them,” Kristin was smiling as she ate her soup.

“That actually sounds fun. Unlike our station drills,” Andern whined.

“It really does, medical is doing stuff like that too Andern,” Theresa shook her head.

“Engineering isn’t that different. Lots of drills. Though we are having fun stress testing things,” Kevin laughed, “Turns out you can pour about three times as much plasma through most power relays. But you go a tenth of a percent over their limit really bad things happen.”

“Pfft, like how bad could that really be?” Andern asked dismissively.

“Only the whole damn relay system blows up violently,” Thomas laid on the sarcasm as he answered the question.

“Anyone else thinks it's weird that we’ll be graduating in five months?” Jessica completely changed the subject.

Nathan smiled, “I can’t believe I’m going to be twenty-three in July.”

“I was talking with one of the guys I sit next to about that. Most of the engineering guys were all ready to be done with school and get our assignments. We will actually have some more freedom,” Kevin said as Thomas nodded in agreement.

Kristin laughed, “More freedom? Fat chance at that. Though we will get more shore leave and time off. But when we’re deployed there are no days off.”

“I am ready to get a move on with my career,” John said before taking a bite of his turkey sandwich, “Missing this will really suck.”

“I’ll second that. I have a feeling I will have to do real, actual, hard work while deployed,” Andern said raising his glass of water.

Everyone at the table looked at him and shook their heads. Only he would be disappointed in being expected to work. Though everyone at the table knew damn well that he was the group's slacker. John was the lone one that was worried about whether or not he’d actually cut it.

By the time the group finished eating it was time to head out once more. They dropped off their trays and continued talking until they got to the doors. Then they split up and went to their afternoon classes.

18:45 Academy Armory – Armor Range

There was no one in the armory, as John had predicted. The lights were dimmed in most areas except the armor testing range. John had a dummy that was rigged with all sorts of sensors and electronic gadgets. There were sensors placed all over the floor near where he would make his attack. He was looking down at a portable terminal and going through all his checklists.

“Alright, everything is checking out. Here goes nothing,” John said quietly.

John walked to be about ten feet away from the dummy and then sat down on his knees on the ground. He closed his eyes and focus his energies on the dummy. His arm moved up and John extended his fingers. John opened his eyes and sent a wave of psychic energies.

The odd sensation that he had felt before was felt here once more. The dummy could be seen to withstand the force applied to it though. John couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed by what he had witnessed. On the one hand, that anything was happening at all was miraculous. But the force impacted could hardly be counted to do anything.

He walked over to the terminal and began skimming through the readings. John looked defeated when he saw the force readings. He hung his head in shame.

“Ninety-two pounds of force. Christ almighty, children punch harder than that,” John was dejected as he said that.

“What in the fuck are these readings though?” John skimmed down and his dejection changed to complete confusion.

John had a couple of psychic sensors and an amplifier on the dummy as well. All the sensors were tripped and ‘felt’ psychic energies. But their readings were all in the negatives. That wasn’t technically possible. So what was happening here?

“What if one of those amplifiers was turned on…” John spoke aloud his thought.

He turned and walked back to where the Academy stowed his power armor’s reliquary. John unlocked a door and looked through the shelving. Two devices were pulled out and scanned. One was put back, but the amplifier in his right hand was the one was using while fighting the twins. Better yet, it still had his psychic imprint stored within it. When powered it would be channeling the latent energies stored within its capacitors.

It couldn’t do that in perpetuity, but John figured there was enough juice in it to run at least two tests. He plugged the amplifier up in a free slot where the dummies’ chest was. The amplifier was then turned on by a command John sent via his tablet. He then walked back to his spot and sat down on the ground.

Once again John closed his eyes and looked within. He could feel this weird power well up inside him. The energy was channeled once more through his hand, though this attack was more restrained from the last one. He opened his eyes and sent the attack toward the dummy.

The amplifier could be heard surging in power, but then it shut itself off. John didn’t have to look at the readouts to know that was a very odd reaction. The fail-safes built into the device clearly weren’t appreciated of whatever it was that John attacked it with.

John went over to his terminal and focused on the data that was transmitted before the amplifier shut off. He chuckled when he remembered explaining to Andern that it was just spooky mind-magic. Well, it was still mind-magic, but a more precise and accurate explanation for it was coming into focus.

“One more test,” John said as he walked back to the dummy.

He turned the amplifier back on, which resisted at first but when its capacitors had been cleared it flared back into life. John set it to max power before he walked aware from the dummy. One final time that night he sat down and looked within himself, trying to draw out this new power.

Unlike the previous time, John was trying to pull out as much power as he could. No limiters were used as he was molding this energy deep in him. John desperately wanted to hit it with all the power he could. He opened his eyes as he sent the energy through his body to his right palm.

The psychic energy rippled in his hand for a brief moment. Tears in the very fabric reality appeared to be forming and instantly healing around his right hand. John then sent his attack toward the dummy. Only after he sent the attack did he allow himself to be moderately worried about what the attack appeared like. He wasn’t looking at the dummy when the attack struck, but his hand to make sure it was fine.

His attention recentered on the dummy. The amplifier had exploded. Its internal components were either flung out in red hot chunks of silicon and metal or had melted. John cocked his head as he stared at the end results.

“Fuck me sideways. That ain’t good. But what the hell is happening here?” John spoke to himself once more.

He walked over to the dummy and looked at the damage. Obviously, the amplifier was a lost cause and several of the sensors looked like they were ruined, or at the very least damaged goods now. John was working out a theory on what that thing was and was reasonably confident he knew crippled him.

The terminal confirmed much of what he had theorized. John wasn’t telekinetic anymore, but the denseness of his attacks would be perceived by the layperson as telekinetic. The data clearly showed that incredibly dense waves of anti-psychic energy that were folded in over one another were created within John and sent toward the dummy.

“Holy hell, if those readings are right…” John paused as he ended his thought, “Damn short range. Fizzles out to basically nothing at forty feet. Point blank then, not like I’m against getting up close and personal.”

John uploaded the data to his private server. He remotely connected to it and brought the VI’s interface online. The screen blinked green before a woman’s face appeared.

“Eve, bring up the Manchester incident, please. Can you compare the twin’s psychic gun attack against me to the anti-psychic wave readings? Report on any similarities.”

“Please wait a moment while I compile the data,” a digitized feminine voice answered.

John stood up and began pacing back and force. He didn’t care for the possible ramifications that were running through his mind. Worse yet, if Dr. Norman had perfected an anti-psychic gun, possibly by accident, it would have far-reaching consequences. Especially in the event, there was no way to protect people from it.

“Your suit’s sensor suite was damaged and the palace’s sensor readings did not record any attack.”

“Fuck me,” John interrupted the VI.

The VI continued ignoring John's outburst, “But based on the collected data there are similarities, the energy waves are not an exact match.”

“Then what burned my mind out?”

The VI paused for a moment but then answered, “Once again, based on the available data the most likely explanation is the damage you had done to yourself by overriding the safeties on the amplifier coupled with the anti-psychic attack resulted in your new paradigm.”

“Delete and scrub this terminal. Encrypt this data as strongly as you can. Once completed log off all machines that you are signed into.”

“Understood.”

John sighed deeply. He was relieved that their attack alone couldn’t neuter someone that is psychically gifted. Though it was one more dagger to his psyche. His idiocy that day grows with each new revelation.

Now John needed to figure out who, if anyone, to share this information with. The Confederate military would be well served with knowing that the psychic weapon, in its current incarnation, wasn’t a psychic killer. But a pained grin formed on his face because he fought against being labeled a human weapon before, he was once more a human weapon, though it appears only to psychics.