Destiny - 8. Chapter 8

Do you think Nate will ever forgive his dad?

Chapter 8

Day one of twenty

Staring into the bathroom mirror, Nate was feeling pretty nervous about his first day of training. He felt unsure of what was going to take place. Nate applied some gel to his hair and worked it into a semi faux-Mohawk style, and sprayed some cologne on to his naked body. Happy with his hair, he walked out into his bedroom and put his clothes on. He slipped a pair of printed dark red boys' boxer briefs up his legs to his middle, before pulling on a fitted grey dress shirt along with black dress pants. All nicely pressed and ready to make a good impression on his first day. With one last look in the full-sized mirror, Nate was happy with his look. Normally it would be too dressy for him, but it was his first day and he needed to make a good first impression, especially if he wanted to stand a chance of getting a boyfriend.

Nate entered the dining room, and he saw his Mom and Missy all dressed up and ready to go. “You look nice, dear,” his mom complimented Nate on his appearance. Nate just nodded and indicated that he was ready to go.

To Nate, it felt as though the train trip was shorter this time. In reality it wasn’t, but Nate just had a lot on his mind. He was mostly thinking about Derek, debating when would be the best time to go all the way with him. Nate didn’t want to leave Earth a virgin, but he didn’t want to push Derek too much either, as he didn't know how he would react to that notion. The train began to slow down as it approached the station. Nate looked out of the window and was surprised; he didn’t realize they'd arrived at ESF HQ.

He entered the main lobby with his mom and sister, before saying good-bye to his mom and sister as he headed off for his first class of the day. Nervously wondering what would be in store for him, Nate dragged his feet to the elevator. When he reached the 15th floor, he was able to find his first class without much trouble. Choosing to sit in the back row next to the window, Nate saw that there were only a few people other than him in class. They were mostly adults, sitting quietly and waiting for the class to begin.

With each passing minute, more and more adults came into the class. Nate was beginning to think he would be the only teenager in the class, when at the last minute two girls about his age entered the class and sat next to Nate.

“Hi, I’m Tess, what's your name?” one of the girls asked as she stared dreamily over at Nate. All Nate could do was smile back.

“Hi, I'm Nate,” he replied.

“Well, nice to meet you, and this is my new friend Iva.” Tess smiled at Nate, not knowing what to think of him, but she sure liked how sexy he looked. Nate looked over at Iva and nodded at her. She didn’t say a thing to him, and Nate figured that she was shy.

Nate sat there quietly, unsure of what to say. Tess then spoke up and gave Nate her life story. Mostly it was pretty unimportant, and Nate wasn’t in the mood to listen to her life story. He wanted to get rid of his jitters, the uneasy feeling of butterflies in his tummy. With each passing minute, his stomach was feeling worse and worse. ‘Am I even in the right room?’ he thought, not wanting to make himself look like an idiot.

“This class is Intro to Ship and History, right?” Nate asked Iva. He'd rather have Iva answer than have to listen to Tess tell the whole story of how they got there. Iva being shy was unable to speak, and she just nodded at Nate. He looked towards the front of the class, feeling relieved.

Seeing that all the seats were taken, Nate started to relax in his chair. He looked outside and saw a beautiful forest on the horizon. The colors of fall looked amazingly beautiful to him, the oranges, reds, and yellows. It looked like a slow motion fire show put on by nature itself.

Hearing footsteps out in the hallway getting louder and louder, Nate looked at the door to see if it would be their new teacher. A short Indian man walked in carrying a couple of data-pads with him; he wore round glasses that looked a little too tight for him. He stood in front of the room and looked at everyone. He smiled and looked down at his data-pad, tapped a few keys, and looked back up.

“Good, it seems that everyone is here.” The teacher closed the door, then walked back to where he was standing.

“Welcome to Introduction to Ship and History. Over the next twenty days, we will be covering the ship and her design, and also a bit of background history to understand why we designed and built the ship in this manner. My name is Dr. Aadarsh Bhatnagar, but please call me Dash. I'm also one of the ship's designers.” He paused to let everyone soak in the new information.

“Since this is the first day of training, I think an ice breaker will start us off nicely. Everyone, please introduce yourselves.”

‘Oh, bloody hell....’ Nate thought to himself; he'd always hated talking about himself in these things.

Everyone did the introductions. Some of them were moms, some were college graduates, and some had special skills. Nate didn’t really care who was who, and he just sat there at his desk tapping his fingers. Until it was Tess' turn; Nate was simply amazed at how much this girl could talk. For once in his life, he was very happy to be gay and not have to deal with ladies.

Shortly after that, it was Nate's turn. Unsure of what to say, he simply stated, “Umm, my name is Nathan Blair, and I’m 15 years old. My family and I will be joining all you folks. There isn’t much else to say about me.” Nate looked at Tess, and she had the biggest smile on her face. Fearing that he might be married to her for the rest of his life, Nate quickly thought of a way to get her off his back.

“Also, I’m gay,” Nate quickly added. Tess eyes' opened wide and her smile was gone at those words, but Nate could hear Iva snort beside her.

“Your turn, miss,” Dash said as he looked at Iva.

“I’m Iva, and I think I like Nate,” Iva said softly to the class, making Nate blush. She didn’t say anything else after that.

“Yes, that's good,” Dash said after everyone had spoken a little about themselves.

“Right, let’s get started. Exciting subject, isn’t it?” Everyone looked at each other, smiled and nodded to themselves. Nate sat there rolling his eyes and thought, ‘Sure, exciting...’ to himself.

Dash tapped a few keys on his data-pad, and a hologram appeared in the middle of the room. “Folks, this is the Destiny, your new home.”

Nate sat up straight and looked at the hologram, for the first time he saw what the ship looked like. ‘It’s a fucking cargo ship!’ he thought, as It seemed so dark and small to him.

“The Destiny is the newest of our colony ship designs, made to be faster, safer and more reliable than previous models. Everything has been tested to the optimum limits of safety.” Dash paused to let everyone take in the holographic image of the ship.

“Okay, here are the specs. The ship's hull is 100 meters wide, and 700 meters long from bow to stern. Its' height is 150 meters at its' tallest point. The ship has over one million square meters of living space, and a maximum capacity of 1225 crew-members and passengers. Most of that space is allocated for the family units and storage, and we have also included a nature garden deck for relaxation. There is a total of 25 decks. Deck 1 is the Bridge, senior staff offices, and some family units for senior officers, decks 2 to 10 are standard family units, and decks 11 and 12 will be the single person units. Deck 13 will accommodate the nature garden, deck 14 is the school deck, and deck 15 will house a gymnasium, movie theater, bars and other nightlife. Deck 16 will house the Dropship hangars and defensive weapons systems, and decks 17 to 20 will contain the ship systems and utilities, ranging from star drive to cargo storage.” Dash paused to tap a few keys on his data-pad. The holographic image zoomed in on Deck 1.

“Deck 1 will contain the Bridge, senior staff offices, and the family units for the Captain, bridge officers and their families. Obviously, the Bridge is the command center for all ship functions. Only officers who have been assigned the proper security clearance can access this deck.”

‘Does that mean I'll be living on the first deck?’ Nate thought to himself.

“Decks two to ten are mostly made up of family units. These are the 3 unit types.” The hologram zoomed in further to show a family unit in detail. It contained an open concept dining room with attached living room. There was also a small hallway that connected to the bedrooms and bathroom.

‘No private bathroom in these units’ Nate thought. Dash then showed everyone the 2-bedroom units on the ship.

‘Pretty much the same’ Nate thought to himself.

After Dash explained what each deck was and how to move between them using the turbolifts, he then covered the history of the colony project.

“In 2179, under pressure of dwindling global resources, we sent out a probe to search for a planet very similar to ours. After a few probes were sent, we received a transmission from one of the later probes, stating that it had found a suitable planet. In 2183, we sent out an initial survey team to assess the planet. They found that the planet had a suitable atmosphere with sufficient oxygen for our breathing needs, and also enough forests and large bodies of water to support an eco-system very close to our own here on Earth. Since it was the first planet we found that could sustain human life, we named it Alpha. Alpha was the first letter of the Greek alphabet, with a numerical value of 1. Anyway, after Alpha was discovered, the World Congress passed the Colony Bill the following year, thus approving global funding for colony projects. Then we started to develop colony ships to settle on Alpha, and in the last 20 years we have sent out at least 50 ships. The first ship was sent with a team of scientists to perform more detailed research on the planet, and also an engineering team to establish infrastructure projects if conditions allowed. Soon after that, we started sending settlers there. Currently, we have over 3000 people living on Alpha.” Dash said proudly.

Nate raised his hand to get the teacher's attention. “Yes?” Dash looked at Nate.

“Why only 3000, since we sent 50 ships?” Nate couldn’t figure out the numbers in his head. By his math, there should be 61,250 people or more on the planet.

Dash cleared his throat and looked at the floor. “In the early days, there was a time when we sent out 9 ships at one time, and only 5 of them survived the trip. Sadly, at the time we were naïve in thought, just putting them on metal buckets and sending them out.”

“Only 5!?!?” Nate almost screamed at the teacher.

“Yes. Sadly, over the years we have lost ships out there. But now we have new technology, and we understand space travel like never before. We have a lot of confidence in the new ships; it took us over 10 years to develop the Destiny class. Everything has been tested, right down to the nuts and bolts of the ship. Yes, there is always danger.” Dash stopped and looked at Nate. Nate still had the fearful look in his eyes, and Dash wanted to calm him down.

“Also, the L’woti have been helping us extensively with our ship development. They said that our ships are built to the same standards as theirs.” Nate relaxed a little at these words, knowing that everything should be fine if the L’woti had been involved with building the ships. The L’woti had already been a space-faring civilization for hundreds of years.

“Speaking of the L’woti, they are an alien race that live 30 light years away from our planet. They are peaceful explorers, and when we developed an imaging technology that allowed us to see for extremely far distances in space, we managed to uncover one of their shipping routes. We planned to try to establish first contact with them, when they realized we'd become conscious of their existence. Thus they initiated first contact with us instead. For hundreds of years, they'd kept their existence a secret from us because we were on a self-destructive path. The rest, as you know, is history.” Dash looked at his data-pad and saw that it was almost time to end today's class.

“All right folks, class is done for the day. Have a good rest of the day and, we'll meet here again tomorrow.” Dash walked to the door and shook everyone's hands as they departed.

Nate left the classroom with a contemplative look on his face. It was a lot of information to process for his first training class.

He searched for his second class of the day, and arrived at a door marked ‘Fire Safety’. Nate entered the room, and no one was there. He looked at his comm-pad clock and saw that it was still early, and class wouldn't be starting just yet. Nate took a seat in the back row next to the window again, looking out at the view. He heard a few people walk in, and looked over his shoulder to see it that was a couple of old guys talking to each other, whom he'd never met before. Looking back out at the forest, Nate was lost in his thoughts once again.

“Is this seat taken?” a boy said to Nate, breaking his thoughts. He looked over and saw a boy of the same age as him. He had short black neatly styled hair on top of his Asian face.

“No, you're welcome to sit,” Nate replied as he watched him sat down.

“My name is Nate,” Nate introduced himself as he reach over to shake his hand. The boy took Nate's hand and gave it one firm shake.

“Alex here.”

“Cool, so you're on the Destiny too?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, isn’t it exciting?” Alex smiled.

“Yup, it sure is!” Nate twirled his index fingers in mid-air. He saw Alex looked away, and saw that his smile was gone. ‘Great, I’m being a jerk,’ he thought to himself.

“Sorry Alex, it's just... I didn’t sign up for this, my parents did,” Nate explained to Alex.

“I asked mine to sign me up, it’s okay. It’s not for everyone.” Alex replied, trying to be friendly with Nate.

“You're the first guy of my age I've seen here today,” Nate said, indirectly asking if Alex had seen anyone else of their age around today.

“There are quite a few around, I've met 4 so far.”

“Really?” Nate was surprised; maybe he wouldn't be so lonely after all.

“Yeah, there's Jimmy, Kenny, Aaron, and Lance,” Alex mentioned the names of each boy he'd met in his earlier class. Nate wanted to find out more, but he didn’t want to probe too much. Since he'd just met Alex, Nate wanted to know him better and asked Alex what he was into. He learned that Alex didn’t share a lot of his interests, but they had enough in common to be friends. Just as Alex and Nate had started to exchange information about each other, the teacher entered the room and introduced himself as Ethan. Just like in the first class, everyone present had to introduce themselves to everyone else as an ice-breaker.

“Welcome everybody, in this class we will be training you to deal with the issues of fire safety in space. Let's start with something simple today.” Ethan looked at his data-pad and hit a few keys. A hologram of fire appeared in front of the class.

“This is a fire,” Ethan told the class.

‘Oh god, you've gotta be kidding me,’ Nate thought and rolled his eyes.

“Fire is the worst and most dire threat you will face on any ship. Even though there are escape pods on the ship, you will all need to learn how to deal with fires and stop them, because to lose an entire ship would be a very tragic loss, and even the escape pods don't give a 100% chance of survival. Even a little fire like this can affect the safety of the entire crew and ship, as it can spread across the ship and turn deadly very quickly indeed. There are both active and passive fire suppression systems including sprinkler arrays in place all over the ship, but you will still under-go training to operate them and also practice what to do in case of a system or equipment failure. This class is all about hands-on experience to familiarize you with using the systems we have in place.” Ethan stopped and tapped a few keys on his data-pad again. The hologram was replaced by another one, showing fire extinguishers of different types, shapes and colors.

Nate looked over to where Alex was sitting, and saw that he was listening to the teacher with undivided attention. As he watched the other boy and studied his features, Nate noticed that he was pretty cute, as most Asian boys of their age were. He also noted that Alex was whispering and repeating to himself what the teacher was saying. Nate thought this was weird to see, but he figured that everyone was weird in their own way.

“Nate?” Ethan spoke up to grab Nate's attention and return it to the lesson. Nate snapped his gaze to the front of the class and looked at the teacher.

“Right… In case of a fire, you need to pull the ring next to the handle here, in order to release the trigger,” Ethan explained as he pointed out the ring next to the handle of the fire extinguisher.

“That was a pretty long and boring class, wasn’t it?” Nate asked Alex as they left the classroom.

“Not really, I thought it was pretty interesting,” Alex replied as he looked at his schedule to see what his next class was. Nate did the same thing to see if they'd be having another class together again. It turned out that they did have the same class, but in separate classrooms.

“Well, there are hundreds of classes going on right now. I doubt we will have a joint one that often. What lunch period are you in?” Alex asked Nate.

“I'm in the E period,” Nate said, and wondered what that meant.

“Cool, we're in the same lunch period.”

“Okay. Well then we'll meet for lunch, yeah?” Nate asked Alex. Alex nodded with approval.

"Yeah sure, I'll see you later then. Good luck with everything," Alex answered and gave Nate a small wave before heading off towards his next class.

Nate found his way to his third class of the day, and saw that it was full of adults. ‘What's with all the old people?’ he thought to himself.

Unable to find a seat at the back of the room, Nate was forced to sit at the front of the class. Once again they had to introduce themselves to each other as an ice-breaker. This class was about CPR and emergency medical first-aid. He just sat there stumped and bored out of his mind. Drifting in and out his daydreams, he hoped the class would end soon. Looking at his comm-pad and seeing that only 20 minutes had passed leaving another hour to go, Nate felt like time had purposely slowed down to tease him.

The class finally finished and Nate was the first one out of the door. He couldn’t be in that room any longer, all the talk of blood and human anatomy was just too much for him. Looking at his schedule, he saw that there was one more class before lunch. Nate was starting to get hungry and wanted to find Alex, and talk to him about his roles on the ship. Stepping into the class, he was greeted by a tall man with curly brown hair. Nate took a second to figure out that it was his teacher.

“Hello, I’m Anubis,” he said as he reached out to shake Nate's hand.

“Hello, I’m Nate.”

“Oh yes, Nate Blair, correct?” Anubis looked at his data-pad.

“Yes, sir,” Nate said, trying to look at the pad and see what it said about him.

“Good, I'd like to speak to you at the end of the class,” Anubis said.

“Oh, okay.”

‘God damn it, I’m getting fucking hungry here,’ Nate thought to himself.

“It won't be for very long, go ahead and take your seat.” Anubis could almost read Nate's thoughts.

Again, Nate sat in a seat in the back row of the class, next to the window. Sitting there and waiting for the class to start, he saw a lot of people entering with uniforms on. Nate wondered why he was here amongst people more qualified than himself. Checking his schedule, he saw that this class was Spaceship Function. He wasn't sure what that really meant.

“Welcome everyone, I’m Anubis, and I will be instructing you on how to use the various ship system computers and conduct their various functions.” Nate now knew what this class was for, it felt like a more advanced version of his basic computing class from pre-school.

“First we'll be covering how to use the computers for common things, then we'll move on to specialized computers that run and manage specific systems on the ship. Right, first off, we need to do an ice-breaker.”

‘Not again?’ Nate thought to himself; he was getting seriously annoyed by having to repeat introductory things about himself all the time.

As each person told the class about themselves, they also mentioned what their jobs were going to be. Nate noticed that there were engineers, biologists, medical officers, and some jobs he'd never even heard of before like ogoiests. It was Nate's turn to tell everyone who he was and what his job would be. “Hello, I’m Nate and I’m going to be a part-time Math Teacher, and a Radar Operator on the Bridge. Also I’m 15 years old.”

Everyone continued looking at Nate even after he was finished. This caused him to feel slightly uneasy.

“Thank you Nate, and you, sir,” Anubis pointed to the guy sitting next to Nate.

“I'm Peter, Lieutenant Peter Shank. I will be the senior Radar Operator on the ship.” Peter looked at Nate and smiled at him.

“Good, that's everyone then. Now, let's start the lessons. Most of you folks will already know most of this stuff. So we should have an easy time of it.” Anubis tapped a few keys on his data-pad, and a display extended out of the top of every student's desk and activated for usage. Nate looked at Peter curiously, as he had so many questions to ask him about his future job.

Peter noticed that Nate was looking at him, and smiled at him again.

“Are you like my boss?” Nate asked Peter in a low whisper.

“Yeah, I am. Don’t worry, I’m not a hard ass. Also I'd like to talk to you after class.” Peter winked at Nate.

“Umm okay, Anubis wants to see me after class too.” Nate looked in front and watched as Anubis explained about the basic computers on the ship.

“Good. Now I need to know, how much do you know about Radar Systems?”

“Not a damn thing,” Nate answered Peter truthfully.

“Not good!” Peter was worried now, knowing he had a newbie on his hands, and that it would take time to train him up on using the systems. Nate sat there quietly, not knowing how to respond to Peter, as he didn’t apply for the job. He was simply thrust into the position.

As Anubis promised, the class was quick since everyone had been trained on computers before. The only difference was that the ship had faster computers with more intricate interfaces. As everyone started to leave the class, only Anubis and Peter remained, looking at Nate.

“I see you've met your boss, that's good. I just need to talk to you about the teaching job.” Anubis put his data-pad on the desk and leaned against the wall.

“It’s rare for someone to be in the position of teaching their classmates. Also, the other teachers might have some issues with you,.” Anubis admitted what was on his mind.

“What kind of issues?” Nate asked.

“Basically, you would become their equal. It would be a bit hard for them to see you as a student in the morning, and a fellow teacher in the afternoon. I just wanted to let know that I'll be here to help you if you need it, okay?” Anubis put his hand on Nate's shoulder to add weight to what he said.

Nate nodded.

“The reason I wanted to talk to you as well is that you might run into problems on the bridge too. I have 4 officers along with you under me. They might have a problem with the fact that a kid is doing a job equivalent to theirs. I just wanted to let you know I believe that you have the skills to be a good operator.” Peter told Nate.

“Why did they pick me to be an operator?” Nate asked, since he couldn’t figure out the reason why he'd gotten this job.

“Because of your math skills and your natural aptitude for problem-solving. Yes, computers can help us a lot with reading and figuring out where objects are in space, but sometimes it takes human instincts and quick maths to save the ship. Personally, I think you're going to be the best operator we're going to have. I’m going to be depending a lot on you, but first things first. You need to learn about radar systems and technology. This will be your homework for tonight.” Peter handed a data-pad to Nate. He looked at it and saw that it contained an e-book on basic radar systems and technology.

“Now, I want you to read through this tonight, and we'll talk again tomorrow, and I will answer any questions you may have.” Peter gave Nate a firm look, knowing that Nate had no clue about this technology to begin with. He had to make sure he got familiar with it before going on duty aboard the ship.

“Anubis, I will need some time at every class to talk to Nate. I think at end of the class would be best, if it's possible?” Peter asked if Anubis could spare Nate.

“Well, you can actually instruct him to meet you, if you need time with him. Just inform me,” Anubis replied.

‘Lovely, first Dad, now Peter!’ Nate thought to himself.

“Well, I don’t know about you two, but I’m hungry,” Anubis told Nate and Peter. In agreement, they headed off to the food court with him.

Walking into the food court, Nate looked around and took in the view. There were hundreds of tables with people sitting at them, and Nate was unable to pick Alex out of the crowd. He went to get his tray of food from the food processor, then looked out over the sea of people sitting down and eating. The place was full of chatter and noise. Nate decided to sit at an empty table near the doors. He was half-way through his meal when he heard a boy's voice behind him.

“Can I sit with you?”

Nate looked up and, seeing that it was Alex, told him, “Yeah, sure. Where were you?”

“I had to talk to my teacher about my job,” Nate told Alex as he placed his fork next to his plate, his knife on the other side, and his napkin on his lap. He watched Alex as he put everything neatly in place, and then began to eat his Swedish meatballs and French fries.

“Yeah, I did too.” Nate told Alex why he had to stay behind, and about what he'd discussed with Peter and Anubis.

“Well, I heard that we're going to have a rather young teacher for math. Is that you?” Alex asked Nate and looked at him.

“I don’t know, but it does sound like it.” Nate looked at his plate.

“Cool, but that would be weird at the same time. I’m working part-time as a Computer Systems Officer for the ship computers as well,” Alex said and continued to eat his lunch.

“Oh okay. So can I ask, did you get your own individual unit?” Nate was wondering if everyone working for the ship would get their own individual unit.

“Nope, they explained that only some people get them. I’m going to be living in a family unit with my Mum and Dad,” Alex replied, as he wiped his mouth. Since Nate had finished his lunch, he thought he might as well ask Alex more about himself.

“What kind of music you like?” Nate asked him.

“I like dance types of music, but I love the classic dance pop stuff. I just found an old artist named Lady GaGa in the library, she’s pretty amazing.” Alex took out his comm-pad and sent some of his Lady GaGa music files over to Nate's comm-pad. When the files transfer was complete, Nate played some of the music that Alex gave him.

“Well there is a lot of music I like, but yeah, this kind of music appeals to me too. Something about that time period, the music just seems to be more raw.” Nate bobbed his head from side to side as he listened to a song by Lady GaGa called Telephone, followed by Fashion. He was surprise that he'd never heard of this artist before.

“Do you play virtual games?” Alex asked Nate.

“Well, mostly RPGs, and maybe some FPS games sometimes,” Nate said as he looked through the list of music he had on his comm-pad.

“FPS and racing games for me. Have you played this game called The Great Korea War yet? It’s based in the year 2012,” Alex asked, to see if Nate could help him out on a particular mission that he was stuck on.

“Nope, haven’t really had the time lately.” Nate didn’t want to tell Alex that he'd rather spend whatever time he had left with his lover. As he didn't know how Alex would react to his sexuality, he wasn't quite ready to share that part of himself with his new friend just yet.

“If I were you, I'd be downloading all the games I could off of the network. This 2-year space odyssey could get mighty boring otherwise,” Alex said as he chewed on his last meatball.

Nate looked at Alex's eyes, there was just something about this boy. He had this presence that Nate could feel, but not put his finger on. Shaking off his thoughts, he told Alex he'd get around to doing that some time.

Alex looked at his comm-pad and saw that the lunch period was almost over, and he should start heading to his next class. Nate and Alex said their good-byes and arranged to meet again in their second period class tomorrow.

Nate opened his class schedule and saw that he had Combat and Ship Defenses next. ‘Lovely, I’m going to be a marine!’ Nate thought to himself. He entered the classroom and took his usual spot in the back row. Waiting for the class to start, he watched the various people as they entered the class. A feeling that something wasn't entirely right overcame his senses. Something was coming, but he didn’t know what.

Supporting his head on his right hand, he watched the door as people poured into the room. He started to get butterflies in his stomach when he saw his father walk in. He didn't know why he was in this class, but sharing a class with his dad made him uneasy. Nate kept looking at his father, not sure what was going to happen next.

Dan never sat down, he just stood there next to the teacher. ‘Is Dad teaching this course?’ Nate asked himself. He sat there nervously waiting for the class to start.

“Hello class, my name is Cory and I will be teaching you Combat and Ship Defenses. But first, I want to introduce you to your Chief Tactical and Security Officer. This is Commander Dan Blair, and his job is to protect you while you're on the Destiny,.” Cory said as he looked at everyone.

“Hello, I’m just here to let you know who I am, and please feel free to speak with me both here and on the ship if you have any concerns.” Dan spoke with a pompously proud voice.

Nate almost jerked his arm into the air and asked when did it become okay for a father to beat up his own son. Luckily he just managed to restrain himself. If he didn't, he was sure he'd get beaten up tonight.

After Dan left the room, Cory continued with the class. It turned out that today's class was just about safety and how to remain calm in an emergency or an attack. They hadn't yet progressed to training with energy weapons or operating the ship's cannons. Nate felt relieved that he wouldn’t have to become a killing machine, at least for now. He was interested in today's class, because he did need to learn how to calm himself down. He noticed that he got nervous around Derek a lot, and he didn’t like that feeling. He wanted to be calm and not stress himself out with tension all the time.

After the class was done for the day, he noticed that he had one more class. The day seemed to never end. Leadership Training turned out to be an okay class, and Nate did get to learn some new skills about self-expression and confidence, but mostly it was about laws and rules that applied on the ship. Nate felt like he was going to fall asleep, but he was just able to stay awake. As soon as the last class of the day was over, Nate left the room as quickly he could, looked at his comm-pad and saw that it was already 4:30pm.

The day was almost gone, and still there was the two hour train trip back to Calgary. Nate called his mom to see if she was done for the day. It turned out that they'd been waiting for him for half an hour in the main lobby. Nate met up with them, and they began the trip home.

’19 more days of this.’ Nate sat on the train, thinking about his day. He was very happy that he'd been able to meet Alex and Iva, but Tess still gave him the willies. Looking out the window, he watched as the forest he'd been glimpsing all day blurred past him. Nate took out his comm-pad and called to see if Derek was home. There was no answer, so he left a message.

He leaned against the window and closed his eyes as he listened to the music that Alex had shared with him earlier.