Interstellar Age

After a long journey back to the Empire, Erich and his crew deposited their prisoner at the nearest starport, which was taken into custody by the agents of the Imperial Intelligence Services. Having completed two missions, as well as the first phase of his training. Erich was now given a temporary status of leave. 

Unfortunately, he was not able to return to Ayumi’s loving arms, or the massive breasts of his wife. Instead, Erich was immediately shipped off to the next level of his training. If becoming a Tier I WRAITH meant you had to survive on your own while being hunted by an army. Then the training to become a Tier II WRAITH was much simpler. 

Erich soon found himself separated from his unit, and did not even say any farewells. After all, once he completed his training, he would be sent right back to active duty. Instead, he was geared up with a set of standard Star Marine Power Armor, and dispatched to the frontier world of Lugii. 

Lugii was a world filled with dense jungle, and whose sky was almost permanently dark. Rainstorms were the norm on the planet, and if it were not raining, then it was simply waiting to do so. But it was not the world itself that Erich was sent to, rather, an orbital facility, designed to train soldiers in zero gravity combat training. 

To put it simply, Erich would spend the next three weeks in intensive zero gravity combat scenarios. After all, he currently had all the theoretical knowledge of what it took to become a proper W7 downloaded into his brain. Now was the time to gain practical training. 

Erich was not the only one in this facility. In fact, an entire batallion of propsective WRAITHs who had completed the first tier of training were sent here. The name of the game was elimination. For the next three weeks, Erich and the other twelve hundred or so elite operators would fight and kill one another in zero gravity to determine who was left standing in the end.

The last man standing graduated from the training, and returned to active service, while the remaining twelve hundred men continued on with their training until they had all emerged victorious or deemed unfit for further training.  𝑂𝓋𝓁xt.𝒸𝑂𝗆

However, unknowingly to the rest of the soldiers, Erich had a distinctive advantage over the rest of them, and that was the highly advanced artificial intelligence which was merged with his NeuroLink, one which normally only W7s would have access to. Because of this, he could hear Tia’s voice, and see her adorable figure, as she continued to cosplay as a schoolgirl, while she alerted him to the nearest hostile. 

“Master, Tia has detected a hostile on your six about three hundred meters above you. He is closing in on your location, and will soon be within firing range!”

Erich had an eager expression as he heard these words. He had entered fight-or-flight mode, and could not care about his myriad of mental issues which plagued him when he was not engaged in combat. He did not even have time to think, as he was surrounded by three hundred and sixty degrees of combat. 

Thus, he simply responded to Tia’s warning by turning around, and aiming his rifle up in the air, precisely where the opponent was coming from, and fired a plasma bolt directly into the man’s helmet the moment he appeared within sight. 

One burst of plasma was not enough to kill another star marine, but it definitely damaged the man’s helmet, causing his heads up display to malfunction. Thus, after buying himself some time, Erich continued to fire at the man’s torso, until a giant hole had melted through his chest. Leaving the other operator dead on the spot. 

Having killed the man, Erich then swapped out his plasma cell for a fresh one, where he began to run on the metallic platform which acted as the combat zone. His boots created gravity, which attached themselves to the platform as he ran by at breakneck speeds. 

Eventually Tia activated a small minimap in Erich’s heads up display which showed him the exact location of all known hostiles which she had detected in his immediate vicinity. 

“Be careful master, Tia has detected several dozen hostiles nearby. As the battle currently stands, there are still 1137 other competitors on the map!” 

Erich did not bother caring about this as he leapt into the air, and soared through orbit towards the next platform where another hostile was located, instead he simply thanked Tia for her help before aiming down his holographic sight, and laying down another spray of plasma at another soldier who was hunkered down behind cover, completely unware that Erich was on his six. 

“Tia, you’re my little angel! I have no doubt that I will be the first to succeed, thanks to you!”

Tia blushed in embarassment, and not because her programming told her to do so, but because she felt a tinge of the emotion herself. Having recently started developing sentience, now and then, certain emotions would wrack her consciousness, usually as a result of something her master said or did. 

However, this also made Tia less reliable, at least for the time being, as she took a considerable amount of time processing these emotions, and trying to understand how she should respond to them. Like at this moment, for example, Erich was busy engaging in a firefight with three hostiles, after killing one from behind. However, soon enough, the three men began to gang up on Erich after it became clear that individually they were outmatched, and because of this, he desperately needed an escape route. 

He called out to Tia several times, but she couldn’t respond, because all she could think about was what her master had just said to her. It was only after Erich raised his voice slightly did she finally come back to reality. 

“Tia, for fuck’s sake, what the hell is going on?”

Tia immediately snapped back to reality and realized that Erich was quickly being surrounded by enemy soldiers who had decided to work together to take him out. Thus, she snapped out of her daze and began calculating an escape route, one which didn’t have enemy hostiles hidden away inside them. 

“Tia is sorry master, she got… distracted. Tia is calculating an escape route now, eta three seconds.”

These three seconds felt like a lifetime, as Erich tried to dodge the waves of plasma that were being fired at him, all while returning fire at the hostiles, who themselves hid behind cover. Eventually a crimson trail appeared in Erich’s vision, which he did not hesitate to chase down, even while the enemy fired at his back. 

Once Erich had escaped, and had some time to breathe, he began to scold Tia for her failures. 

“Tia, what the hell happened back there? I was asking you to give me an escape route for thirty seconds, and it was as if you weren’t listening to me. Are you okay? Should I find a place to lie low so that I can initiate repairs on your code?”

Tia became incredibly embarrassed, and overwhelmed with guilty when she realized that her new emotions had overwhelmed her ability to think for several moments, and thus she profusely apologized to her master, while assuring her something like this would not happen again. 

“Tia apologizes to Master. She did not mean to space out like that. It’s just that she has recently developed new… parameters, and is trying to process them properly while also assisting her master in his operations.” 

Erich looked a little bit concerned after hearing this and immediately expressed this while maintaining situational awareness. 

“Are you okay, Tia? You are starting to worry me? I’m not angry with you because of what just happened. I’m just worried that something might not be right… You know you can tell me if you’re having any difficulties. I am more than capable of initiating repairs if need be.” 

Tia was happy that her master cared for her wellbeing, but also guilty because she had allowed such a minor oversight to nearly cost the man his life. Because of this, she steeled her resolve to help Erich overcome his current trial without any further issues. Thus, she smiled and nodded her head before voicing her commitment aloud. 

“Don’t worry, master, Tia is fine now, and she will let nothing get in your way during this contest!” 

Upon hearing that Tia was in proper functioning condition, Erich smiled as well, before agreeing with Tia’s words. 

“Alright, if you say that your are alright, then I will believe you. Now let’s win this thing!’

After saying this, Erich began to heed Tia’s commands, which were as accurate as they had always been. As he stalked his way through the platform and took out hostile after hostile. Rapidly bringing down the count from nearly twelve hundred men to less than a thousand in one day. 

Of course, his excessive performance was immediately noticed by the Officer in charge of the training operation, who was quick to report the abnormality up the chain of command for further investigation.