Sevs had struggled through what must have been hundreds of iterations of musket battles. He did alright. Someone with experience in the strategy of military history or any sort of training would likely have done this much more efficiently. The number of tactics that he had tried that utterly failed was countless.

Despite his many failures, there were some successes. He probably hadn't found anything truly new, but his tactics bag was filled with a bunch of unorthodox tricks. Despite all the innovations, Sevs had hit a wall. Unfortunately, he hadn't found a true way to cheese the system. The ban from direct interactions severely hampered his involvement.

The enemy kept improving each time he won. And when he lost, his troops kept improving. Well, they did until they didn't. His troops weren't quite what he would think another human was capable of, but it was close. The blue army wasn't any better, either. No, the only difference between the blue army and his red one was the commanders.

The computer had just reached a point that he couldn't win. It was like playing chess against alpha zero. There just weren't any moves that he could think of that would work. He failed ten times in a row before the computer finally relented.

In the darkness, he was presented with a scorecard.

Challenge

Line warfare

Level

92%

Enemy Upgrades

Max

Enemy Commander

76%

Rounds

248

Failures

148

Score

A-

Sevs had no way of really interpreting the results. It seemed that he could have pushed the commander higher, but he was pretty happy with the results. Maybe with another run, he could do better, but not by much. Maybe he could eek out a nother advancement. But without more study of tactics, progress had slowed down a lot as his imagination was taxed.

After he dismissed the screen, it was replaced with another.

Proceed to the next challenge?

Mentally Sevs accepted.

***

The next set of challenges were something that he was much more prepared for. It was squad tactics. He had a team of ten high-level soldiers with proper rifles with rifling and scopes. They had a whole host of different challenges.

This was much more like the things he had trained for over the past years. He didn’t exactly breeze through the challenges, but it was pretty close. The various highest missions were rather simple, and despite still not being able to fight directly, Sevs had no issues.

After a particularly difficult mission, it changed to more defensive engagements. Where they were pinned down and just needed to escape, then they needed to defend positions. The score he received after this was a bit different.

Challenge

Squad Tactics

Attack Proficiency

96%

Defense Proficiency

91%

Squad Casualty Rate

4% (99 percentile)

Score

A

Sevs was surprised that Squad Casualty Rate gave a percentile when none of the other categories did that. Perhaps it was because of how highly he rated. Though he wasn’t sure if 4% was very good, that seemed pretty high to be so good. He supposed that the failed missions made up most of the casualties. Especially the defense ones. Most of his failures hadn’t come with too many casualties unless it was a survive as long as you can type of mission.

Overall he was satisfied with his performance, though he wasn’t sure if he really learned nearly as much as before. This was supposed to be training, not a test, right?

When he dismissed the screen

Proceed to the next challenge?

***

This next one was political maneuvering in a medieval court. Sevs hadn't done well. This just wasn't something that he was good at. Even his ridiculously boosted charisma couldn't compensate.

It was only after millennia that he began to understand people. However, when his skills were compared to people that had spent their entire lives working on how to manipulate people and had natural talent… It wasn't a fair competition.

Despite the C- rating that he had received, this was the challenge that Sevs had learned the most about. Even if it was just how much he hated politics. Unless he got significantly better at it, he made a note never to accept a promotion above Captain.

Leading a decent amount of men into battle was just about his limits.

***

Sevs blinked as the training capsule opened. There must have been some time dilation effect inside the software as he left like he had lived almost a decade. Without whatever tech the pod used to rest his mind, he would have long ago been driven insane from the constant stress.

A hand helped him stumble out of the containment. It was a tech he wasn't familiar with, but he still accepted the help onto the medical bed, where a machine started a full body scan.

Sevs was overwhelmed with sensations, so he welcomed the silence. Whatever tech that this training simulation used was far beneath the system pod this game was run on. It would take a while to readjust to the reality around him.

Still, while he was being checked over, Sevs considered what he had learned. With over a dozen different challenge formats and hundreds of runs, the amount of experience that had been squeezed into his brain in a short amount of time was dangerous.

The tactical knowledge would be useful for sure. The command practice was also something Sevs could use. But the real gains were from the political sessions. He didn't think that he would be a political mastermind or some Henry Kissinger, but he hoped he had learned enough to keep his nose out of where it didn't belong.

Sevs figured he could go a little higher in the command structure, but he just didn't have the interest to command entire armies.

As he slid off the bed, he was welcomed by Captain Walters, who clapped him on the shoulder. "Welcome back!"

"Hello, Captain," Sevs said with a slight question in his voice. He didn't even bother trying to salute, knowing the Captain's reaction. "What did I miss?"

"Oh, not much. Nothing is as interesting as capturing an enemy ship. In fact, it's been downright boring around here without someone to cause some shenanigans." Walters said. Sevs wasn't sure what the man was getting at. He was pretty sure that he didn't have a reputation for shenanigans. He was too new for that.

"You are probably wondering why I'm here, no?" Walters asked. When Sevs nodded, he continued. "Well, it's a bit of tradition for a new officer to be welcomed by their sponsor and shown to the party."

"It seems like a lot of you just take any excuse to party," Sevs observed.

"There are few things to celebrate around here. We hadn't had a proper party since when you brought in the ship. With the low turnover rate among officers, we don't even raise new ones every training cycle even. There simply just are not enough command positions. Even if we could make them, we don't. Having a top-heavy military isn't a good idea." Walters explained as they walked down the hall.

"Though in your class, there are two other new officers in the fleet." He continued.

Sevs broke in. "Wait, shouldn't there be some sort of test or junior officer stage before we become full officers?"

The Captain shrugged. "Normally, there is something like that. However, there just isn't enough time. Besides, the training program is pretty damn good."

With that, they were at the doors to the officer's mess. Walters threw the doors open with a flourish and made Sevs step inside. He was welcomed with a wave of applause and a few popping bottles of champagne. The first to greet him was Lieutenant Dan. Pulling Sevs into a hug. "Welcome!"

“Sir…” Sevs stammered.

"None of that now. I'm just Dan here." He was corrected gently.

Sevs was glad to see that Dan had been one of the ones to get off the Excelsior before it had gone down. He hadn't had a chance to see who hadn't made it since getting back. Seeing that there were a few other new officers, he supposed not all of them had.

Dan and Walters led him into the party. With him center stage, they started showing highlights of each of his trials in the training pod. Some of those were rather embarrassing, and he would have preferred that they were kept private, but it seemed to be a right of passage, so he didn't complain.

When they got to his squad scores, people were properly impressed. Walters leaned over and whispered in his ear, "4% is the lowest I have ever seen. Dan holds the record that you just tried, but that wasn't until his third attempt."

Sevs didn't have a chance to respond before the next round started. This had a lot more laughs, but it was all in good fun. Still, it was nice to know his initial instincts were right about Dan. He did seem to earn his respect.