“We’re getting close to the end of term. Then we get a break.” Lee chuckled.
“And it couldn’t come soon enough. Hopefully my new suit gets here by then,” she sighed.
She was stress-dissecting her currant-and-grain muffin as another message came through her hyperband.
“More training stuff? It hasn’t been that long,” Kat groaned, setting aside her muffin.
“Not training stuff,” Lee said tightly, his face drawn as he studied the message on his own hyperband. “Our reports just came out.”
Conscious of the cadets sitting at the tables nearby, Kat expanded the message, skimming its contents. The versions of the reports she was reading here today were quite short. They included the mission timeline and initial coordinates, the radiation spikes, and some of the magnetic activity around Segura’s shields. As expected, all mention of the actual ship and everything they’d encountered beyond those shields had been scooped out and truncated for higher clearance only. However, in place of their conclusion summary, a new addendum had been added.
“‘…crossing into matters of intergalactic trade and security, Commanding General Narron has assumed responsibility for the recourse.’” Kat read aloud. “‘Recourse’—what does that even mean?”
“Nothing good,” Lee said, still reading beside her.
Kat glanced around again at the cadets sitting at other tables nearby, lowering her voice. “They did get away, didn’t they?”
“The people of Segura? Yeah. As far as we know. I imagine the General would be pursuing far different measures had they not.”
At least they had that going for them.
“It’s fine. It’ll be fine. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not a big deal. Standard procedure,” Lee said offhandedly, but there was a jerkiness to his movements as he also glanced around them. “I don’t see Zane or Whistler in here. I wonder if they’ve seen it yet.”
“Why do we always get the bad news when we’re sitting here?” Kat groaned.
Lee grimaced. But they were two for two now on the bad news front. And she definitely wasn’t gunning for a third.
“You wanna head down early?” Lee asked.
Kat was all too quick to jump to her feet. Her appetite had vanished before she’d even started. “Yep, I’m done here.”
They dumped their tray, crossing over into the training levels without a second glance.
There wasn’t nearly as much foot traffic down here this early, so they didn’t have to watch their words. Although maybe it would have been easier to pretend everything was normal if they had.
Maybe it really was fine. Maybe thiswassome kind of politico slogging. Some formal lingo they used in place of “the Academy cadets screwed up and left me nothing.”
Stopping outside her training room door, she voiced as much, to which Lee gave her a too-appeasing grin.
And now she was just stalling. “I’ll catch up to you later?” She may as well go in and make sure her lesson plans were in order. It was going to be a bumpy day.
“Good luck, Hanneman,” Lee called, lingering with her before heading down a staircase with much more confidence than she had.
She could focus and make it through her trainings. It was only four hours.
Despite her ill ease going into this morning’s courses, her trainings were going swimmingly. A breeze. Delightful, even.
Her first year Rads worshipped the ground they walked on. She overheard several still talking about Lee’s Laser Rounds performance Saturday. Her second hour went well, too. And by the time she strolled in to resume Basic Ship SchematicDiagnostics with her VLs, she had relaxed back into her role as invincible Gamma Squadron Lead.
As fourth years, they had a general grasp on the overall systems and structures of their present ship models. What they lacked was the experience of actually working with them; they’d only just begun piloting ships this last year. Which led them back to diagnostics.
“Today, we are going to continue with the engine conversion system.” Kat drew up the holo-representation of one of their skimmer ship schematics. Her fellow Gamma, Cesi, had been taking them through the schematics in Kat’s absence. “As you know, each Academy ship in our employ is equipped with a verinity-core cell. Thanks to the verinity, the energy cells are essentially infallible, with a lifetime longer than yours. However,”—she pointed to several key spots along the convertor—“each of these connection points presents an opportunity for engine failure.”
The dark-haired cadet sitting in the front row raised his hand. “Have you ever gotten into trouble?”
“What?” She blinked past the image forming behind her gaze. A warning light flashing against the dash. The jostling as they passed through a shield powered by a very different source of energy…
“From the verinity-core cells. The energy. Have the engines ever failed under your control?”
