Noah - 2. Chapter 2

Date: 9^th March 2395
Location: Schooling Complex 159-A, Europa Colony

The sound of the buzzer signalling the end of class was the first sound I had really taken notice of since we came into the lab. Quantum physics was my least favourite subject; I did just enough to pass and nothing more.

With three weeks to go it wouldn’t be long until I never had to think about it ever again. Astrogeometry was next, on the other side of the school compound; from my worst subject to one of my best. It wasn’t that I particularly enjoyed it but I had an innate talent for visualising the problems and working out the solutions with ease; a by product of flying since I was able to see out of the cockpit.

I had grown up the son of a pilot, surrounded by my dad’s pilot friends and colleagues. Space flight was in my blood, ever since I had gone into space for the first time with my dad and he let me control his old Caravan shuttle I had known that I would be taking the Flight career. It may have been falling apart with barely enough thrust to leave Europa’s atmosphere but flying that shuttle gave me the most intense feeling of freedom.

As I had grown, I had gone flying with my dad whenever I could. When I was ten he acquired a decommissioned MF-3 Dagger. They were just being phased out of active service and this one had been badly damaged in a training accident and rather than being repaired it was slated for recycling. After calling in a few favours with his friends it was signed over to him as a recreational vessel and taken to our hangar. For over a year and a half we worked repairing it and making it space worthy. With a few modifications to make it a two-seat craft we finally took to the skies on my twelfth birthday.

The feeling of speed and agility from the small fighter was the most amazing sensation I had ever experienced and that finalised my decision.

When we started the Flight module of schooling I quickly became the top student in the class, out flying the other students with ease and occasionally even surprising the Flight Instructor, Lieutenant ‘Pointman’ Cole. My father and Cole quickly became good friends and he was soon as common a visitor at our quarters as the rest of my dad’s friends.

On the 5^th July, 2391 the word came through about Earth.

In the early 22^nd century, Earth was unified under an elected council known as the UEC. Within two decades of the UEC’s founding every nuclear weapon had been destroyed and for the first time since the 1940’s the world felt safe. The threat of mutually assured destruction was over.

In 2258, Dr Mikilov Tesla perfected a method of processing antimatter in sufficient quantities to generate power. The first antimatter power station was built in the wasteland of Siberia, far from any population centre.

On the 4^th February 2261, a massive flash filled the sky in Moscow, six hundred miles from ground zero. The explosion annihilated everything within three hundred miles, leaving nothing but a huge crater and killing thousands, mainly workers of the power station and their families.

The disaster rocked the council, and public opinion plummeted. Though operating with no evidence, the council blamed separatist terrorists for the disaster and deployed security teams in every major city to ‘prevent further attacks’. Corruption in the security teams was rife and quickly those who refused or were unable to pay for ‘protection’ vanished, accused of separatist activity.

At the time, four corporations dominated the global economy, running everything from food production to housing. When the populace turned to these corporations for help, seeing their chance to seize more power, they happily obliged. United for the only time in history, the four corporations with their own private security firms fought the UEC armies on every continent. The battles were long and bloody, and cities large and crowded before the fighting were left empty and in ruins. With little warning of either sides’ attack, civilians rarely had the chance to evacuate and millions died in the fighting. Slowly the Corporations took control of the world, city by city. On the 2^nd August 2273, the last UEC city, Paris, fell to the Corporation army.

With their common enemy vanquished, the corporations turned on each other. The war ended on the 6^th December 2273, when the M Military attacked the home city of the GatesCorp in Los Angeles with an antimatter missile. Minutes later a cease fire between the three remaining corporations; The M Military, Cannelli and Argus was called. Drawing up a peace treaty took two years, but on the 3^rd January 2275 the world was officially divided;

The M Military held Eastern Europe, Asia and Australasia, Cannelli held South America, Africa and Antarctica and Argus held North America and Europe.

It took little time for the different corporations to stamp their philosophies on their land; Cannelli Corp. grew from a group of South American drug barons, to be born in Cannelli territory was a sentence to a life of virtual slavery. The few controlled the many with an iron fist, most citizens in a life of poverty working eighteen hours a day in the fields and factories to make the corporation chairmen and shareholders even richer.

Argus Corp. thrived on a ruthlessly capitalist philosophy, money was everything. Families grew to huge numbers, most working menial jobs for low pay to send one member to school so that they could get a better paying job and bring the whole family more money. Family groups became incredibly close knit, in many cases families turned to incest to avoid sharing their earnings with other families.

The M Military was in comparison a paradise. With all citizens being well fed, educated and guaranteed a lifetime career, every member of the corporation was born into the Military. Laws were however very strict, and a single punishment of death applied to every crime.

As the most organised of the corporations, the M Military made great leaps in technology and were the first of the corporations to launch long term manned spacecraft. Using their network of spies, Argus quickly stole the schematics and launched their own ship. Unlike the M however, their first ship was filled with colonists and headed straight for Mars. Though much larger and slower than the M Military vessel, its launch was a total surprise and it had too great a head start for the M to head them off and the Argus became the first corporation to establish a colony in the solar system in 2281. The schematics were quickly sold by an Argus family to the Cannelli and they became the last corporation to reach space.

The M had meanwhile rushed through production of a colony vessel and choosing Jupiter’s moon Europa as their destination they arrived after nearly two years travel.

With no suitable planets in the solar system remaining, tension between the Cannelli and the other corporations grew rapidly. In January 2282, a Cannelli vessel traversing the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter vanished without explanation. Immediately the Cannelli accused the M Military of destroying their ship and multiple battles broke out along the borders of their territories. Almost a week after the outbreak of hostilities, observatories detected a bright yellow flash in the asteroid belt and the Cannelli vessel was once again detected. A multitude of encrypted messages passed between the vessel and Cannelli headquarters, and after a day of communications the Cannelli announced that they were standing down their forces. With no progress made by either side, the M Military accepted the cease fire and began assembling vessels to check out what had happened to the Cannelli vessel. Before any ships could be completed, the Cannelli had launched a number of vessels to the location.

Rumours among the population of all three corporations were wild and varied and everybody seemed to have their own opinion of what had happened. Each corporation sent vessels loaded with science equipment and the best minds of Earth to the location, all of which vanished in a flash but none were ever heard from again.

The MMV Von Richthofen, under the M Military was the largest ship ever launched at the time, and the first to be armed. Over the years, arms technology had advanced greatly, but in tests missiles functioned poorly in space, and energy requirements for energy weapons were still vastly beyond anything portable. The Von Richthofen was therefore armed with two 105mm cannons, firing old fashioned shells.

The Von Richthofen reached the location which had become known as ‘the Anomaly’ in August 2283. Upon arriving, intense gravitational fields suddenly appeared and the ship vanished from the Sol system. The journey lasted just a few seconds but was extremely rough. Upon emerging from the Anomaly the ship found it self facing a vessel bearing Cannelli markings.

Moments later a section of the ship decompressed as a shell fired from the Cannelli vessel, marked “CSV Suez” tore through the unarmoured skin of the ship. With emergency bulkheads closed, the Von Richthofen took round after round from the Suez’s cannons while returning fire with its own. Section after section of each vessel decompressed in spectacular explosions, neither side however able to cause any real damage. After three hours exchanging fire, a shot from the Von Richthofen tore through the power lines of the Suez’s Antimatter containment system. The first ever recorded battle in space ended in a large flash and rapidly expanding field of debris.

With what little information the Von Richthofen was able to gather with it’s damaged sensor arrays, the system was a veritable paradise; three large planets all similar to Earth, lush and green and all orbited by Cannelli ships. More wreckage floated strewn around the mouth of the anomaly, the remains of the ships sent before.

When word of the discovery made it back to the HQ’s of the M Military and Argus, both immediately declared war upon the Cannelli. With the approach of M and Argus forces, every Cannelli citizen rebelled, resulting in one of the least bloody wars since the Corporations had come to power. The popular revolution was the only reason the rapidly shrinking Cannelli military was unable to launch its antimatter warheads.

Upon its capture, the headquarters of Cannelli Corp was found to be deserted; somehow the entire leadership had slipped undetected from the planet and were last detected heading to the anomaly.

By March 2284, Earth was governed by the M Military and Argus. Though there were still occasional arguments and skirmishes the two corporations lasted for over a hundred years in relative peace.

At 02:31, 5^th July 2391, Argus computer systems detected antimatter missile launches from M Military installations and launched their own in retaliation. Detecting those launches, the M Military deployed their own antimatter arsenal. By the time the virus was detected in Argus computers, it was too late. Aside from a few small ships, every living thing on earth died as the multitude of antimatter blasts ignited the atmosphere, turning the planet into a huge inferno. Between 02:31 and 02:37, four billion people died, and the home world of humanity was turned from a lush green and blue land into a scorched black desert.

Those who had grown up on Earth always complained that Europa was too cold, and that they missed the heat of the sun. To me, Europa was home; I was born here and had never even visited earth; I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. The 84-hour days hovered around the freezing point, and the 84 hour nights rarely rose above -120.

The crisp snow cracked under my feet when I stepped outside; the school facility was built over two buildings with a courtyard in between. Most people would take the subterranean tunnel to get between them but I always loved the sensation of the freezing air on my clammy skin after a lesson cooped up in a hot stuffy classroom. At night it would be impossible to cross the courtyard but I loved to be outside during the day.

As usual I was early for the class, but not the first one there. The teacher, Professor Niklas was sat at his desk at the front of the classroom tapping away at his computer console. He barely looked up as the students arrived, not needing to take any form of register. When the last person was through the door he finally looked up.

“Good Afternoon. I hope you’re not too tired from your day’s schooling; this will be a practical examination session and will determine your grade in the subject. I have prepared a Mindscape simulation on which you will be graded individually. You are free to do what you wish until it is your turn. I will contact you when I am ready for each of you.”

As my surname, Jones, was midway along the list it meant I had some time to myself. I activated my own Neural Link, a chip embedded in the brain of every member of the M Military at birth, permanently linking everyone to a massive network known as MNet or just ‘the Net’, sharing all information instantly between everybody. An unanticipated side effect of the massive network was the formation of what later became known as the Mindscape; a virtual reality created by the idle imagination and unused mental capacity of every citizen. Everyone could access their own private Mindscape and change it as they wished; the only limitation was programmed later into the Neural Link, preventing people or animals from being generated in an attempt to ensure no Artificial Intelligence ever rose.

Closing my eyes a tingling sensation filled first my mind then radiated over the rest of my body. When I opened my eyes I was surrounded by blackness, and then from nothing walls and a floor appeared, followed by a ceiling casting light on everything else. I was standing in my bedroom at home; pretty much standard M Military architecture with three shiny black metal walls forming a room roughly 10’x10’, with a silver line running midway between floor and ceiling. The dark grey rubbermetal floor and standard illumination panel ceiling illuminating every inch of the room. The entire fourth wall, from floor to ceiling was a window, looking out over a section of The City, the massive metropolis colony comprising of the great majority of the Europan population.

It seemed like a normal day outside, the sun a small watery dot high in the sky, shining though the broken clouds which were dropping a light snow, giving the black buildings stretching to the horizon in all directions a white highlight. Inside my room, I had the standard single bed, a black metal frame with silver-grey sheets and white pillow. Opposite the bed stood the doorway with the silver doorway to the main living space, and next to that my clear desk and chair. Hanging in space a few inches below the ceiling were numerous model fighters that I had built over the years. On the wall opposite the window and by my bed was the room’s console, currently inactive and showing the yellow and blue circle of the M Military. This was a perfect facsimile of my bedroom, only far tidier. As my home, it was the destination that acted as a default location whenever in entered my mindscape.

Thinking about practicing for the upcoming Astrogeometry exam, a navigation console appeared in place of my desk and monitors showing various scanner readings extended from it. It took just a moment for me to orientate myself with where the readings were showing me to be; from the data I was able to triangulate my position to roughly a million kilometres from Europa, above Jupiter’s northern pole. Allowing my mind to generate a random destination, I calculated the optimum route between the two points, taking into account gravitational fields and obstacles such as asteroid belts and comets. Still with my full MNet access, I had my courses cross-checked against both other peoples’ experience and navigation software, and were independently marked optimum when I got it correct. Once I had the first course set, the scanner details would change and I would find myself in a new position, with a new destination. I had managed to perform three course calculations before I was notified of a message from reality;

<<Source: Prof. Niklas, Yevgheni>>

<<Target: Jones, Sven>>

Mister Jones, please report to the examination Mindscape immediately.

<<MESSAGE ENDS>>

Deactivating my own Mindscape, the room melted away to blackness before I accepted the attached invitation to the Professor’s Mindscape environment. An individual’s Mindscape was their own private retreat, and nobody could access it without invitation from the owner.

The blackness quickly transformed into the bridge of a frigate and I found myself standing in front of the navigation station, a console identical to the one in my Mindscape, just with the screens mounted on the wall behind the console rather than wrapping around me from the console.

To my side stood the Professor with a clipboard, an indication that though he was comfortable using the neural link systems, he still grew up in a paper based world and preferred to note things down by hand rather than by thought. His notations would be entered just the same; he simply used a more manual method of input. As he initiated an override on my external communications I felt a strange sensation of detachment, it was very rare for someone to disconnect from the MNet, and I had been constantly connected for years, except for during exams like this.

“Your assignment is to calculate a course between the following waypoints; from your current location to Earth, then Ganymede, Saturn, Mars then Europa. You will then calculate approach trajectories to dock at bay five of the shipyard.” He instructed, “You will be marked on the speed, efficiency and accuracy of your calculations. You have five minutes per waypoint and will traverse your route immediately when you submit your course. You may begin.”

From the sensor data I could see that I was in orbit of Pluto, currently at the opposite side of the system from Earth, with the Sun blocking a direct route. That meant that to reach the first waypoint would require a stop partway. Leaving a safety margin of ten million kilometres from the sun’s corona I calculated the course down to a ten thousandth of a degree and initiated. Instantly the readings changed and showed that I was exactly where I intended to be. From this location Earth was in direct line of sight, but Mercury and Venus were both along the route and their gravitational fields would interfere with a straight line.

“What is the mass of this vessel?” I asked, realising I hadn’t been given the data.

“Three hundred thousand tonnes.” The professor replied.

With the vessels mass I was able to calculate how much each planet would pull on the ship and how much that would affect the trajectory. Compensating, I input the new course and hit submit, finding myself just a few hundred thousand kilometres from my intended destination.

The rest of the exam went by easily, each of my courses bringing me out within an acceptable distance of my destination. The final destination, the shipyard orbiting Europa was by far the most difficult, since it involved many calculations. In reality a ship would be brought in to dock under manual control from the pilot, this was simply a difficult finale to the exam. I finally entered the last calculation and the examination registered as over with less than a minute to go.

“Thank you mister Jones, you will receive the results of your exam shortly. You can do whatever you wish until your next lesson. As usual, do not discuss the exam with anyone else until the lesson period is over.”

Nodding my reply I deactivated my link to his Mindscape and the scene melted away. When I opened my eyes I was back in the classroom, covered in a sheen of sweat. While physical injury in a Mindscape is harmless, psychological stress translates back to the body and causes an appropriate response.

The cold air took my breath when I stepped outside into the snow, and I felt the sweat covering me cooling and pulling the heat out of my skin. Pulling the black jacket tighter around me I began walking towards the school’s flight building. As well as being where my next lesson was located, I often spent a lot of time hanging around the flight deck, tinkering on one of the school’s old Daggers or just talking to one of the assistant flight instructors in the briefing room.

Since Flight was my next lesson anyway I headed through the empty briefing room and into the changing room. With the now cool sweat still covering me, I stripped off and placed my plain black uniform into the black cavity in the wall that was the sequencer. Activating the recycler I watched the uniform vanish in a blue glow. After recycling my uniform I walked into one of the cleanser cubicles lining the far wall.

Upon entering the cubicle I felt the antigravity unit kick in and lightly kicked off, using the walls to hold myself about a foot from the floor. Once I was stable in location the second phase initialised and I felt an electric buzz surround and penetrate me. From inside me I felt a charge grow and begin working it’s way slowly outwards, lifting any waste and dirt from every cell and converting it to energy. As the charge neared my skin, every hair stood on end before a blue glow began to emanate from me, then a haze left me, eradicating every molecule of sweat and grime. Once the cleaning cycle was complete I remained in the antigravity field for a few moments, simply enjoying the familiar sensation of weightlessness.

I finally stepped out of the cubicle refreshed just as the class of students who had just returned from their flight lesson entered. I said hello to a couple of the students I knew before sequencing myself a flight suit and putting it on.

Lieutenant Cole was in the briefing room when I walked out, standing at the podium at the bottom of the four stepped rows of seats.

“It’s not like you to be early, Cadet.” He joked as I walked over to the fighter he was working on. While I wouldn’t be officially a Cadet until I was accepted into the Flight Academy, he had started calling me by the title when he had learned of my determination to join.

“Astrogeometry exam, I finished early and since I had nothing better to do, I thought I might as well come and pester my favourite flight master.” I replied in a nonchalant tone. “Wha’cha doing?”

“Just preparing the flight plans for your class. Long flight today, I don’t think we’ll be back until at least this evening.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, now intrigued. Normally flight classes took place either in the planet’s atmosphere or in close orbit.

“The belt, we’re heading out to do a little target practice. It’s a three and a half hour round trip in the Daggers and we’ll spend a few hours out there to make the most of it.”

“Target practice? Sweet! Do we get to do any combat?” I was instantly excited by the prospect of unleashing the weapons of a fighter.

The MF-3 Dagger was an old design, now pretty much obsolete and replaced in service by the MF-14 Cutthroat. Since then, most MF-3’s had been refitted to MF-3T specification, the weapons replaced by low powered simulation lasers and sensor pads to detect hits, allowing pilots to dogfight without the danger of live fire. The retrofitted craft also had their cockpit expanded and controls doubled, allowing for an instructor to fly with a student.

“No, not today.” He chuckled, “Just the rocks today. Not everyone is a little hot shot like you y’know.”

“Aww, ok” I groaned, slightly deflated, then perked up thinking that I would still at least be able to shoot something.

“If you’ve got some time free, I could use a hand fixing number seven, one of the cadets in the last lesson managed to burn out the forward thruster array and buckle the landing strut.” He said as he stepped from the podium. “There’s half an hour until your lesson begins, that should be more than enough time for both of us to fix it.”

“Sure.” I replied, he knew I could never turn down a chance to get under the skin of a fighter and tinker with the systems.

Walking out of the door opposite the one to the changing room, we entered the hangar. This was a cavernous space, at one end a blast door opening onto the small landing strip operated by the school, with space for the ten resident MF-3T’s, five either side of the runway and an extra five empty landing bays, four for any visiting craft and one for maintenance and repair.

Though the line-up of fighters was hardly uniform and it looked like the last class had merely set down in the direction they came in and left it at that, the fighter in bay seven was clearly damaged, the rear of the craft sitting a good foot lower than the front, the landing gear buckled from a heavy landing.

“I’ll use the crane to bring her over to the maintenance bay. You head over to the sequencer and make a new set of rear gear for her. Once that’s done we’ll set her down and fix the thrusters.” Cole instructed, heading towards a ladder leading to a small room high on the wall.

Walking over to the large raised platform I logged in using the login I had been given by Cole when I started helping him. Moments after telling the system what I wanted, two legs, each three feet long and with a hydraulic joint appeared on separate antigrav trolleys. While I moved the first one over to the nearby maintenance bay, Cole activated the tractor beam mounted on the ceiling, lifting the damaged dagger off the ground and moving it over to the bay, where it stopped with its damaged legs hanging two feet from the ground.

Just as I had finished moving the second leg to the bay Cole dismounted the ladder and walked over carrying a tool belt. Taking it from him when he offered it to me, I attached the belt and immediately it registered with my Neural Link. Opening its inventory screen in my mind, the belt contained schematics for every tool I could need, along with a micro-sequencer and a small power supply.

While Cole jumped up and opened the access panel behind the cockpit, I began disconnecting the hydraulics of the port leg. In a few moments the leg swung freely from its joint and I moved on to the starboard.

“How’s it going down there?” Cole’s voice came from above me.

“Port’s free, just doing starboard now.” I called back up to him.

“Ok, stand clear of port, I’m cutting the bolts now.” He warned. Moments later there was a thud from inside the craft and the damaged leg fell to the ground.

“Starboard free.” I called up as soon as the hydraulic lines were clear of the leg.

“Cutting.” Cole called again, followed by a thud. “Good news, everything looks fine in here, all that needs doing is to attach the new legs.”

“I’ll just get these two clear then I’ll hoist them up.” I called, dragging the fallen legs clear of the craft. Collecting a new leg I raised it to a standing position and placed it below the hole on the port underside. Pressing a few buttons on the trolley, the platform slowly rose and soon the leg was entering the hole.

“That’s good, hold it there.” Cole said from inside the craft. While he connected the leg and internal hydraulics, I hooked up the dangling hydraulic cables to the joint. It only took a few more minutes before the starboard leg was repaired too and I moved everything from below the fighter.

“I’m going to give them a test, tell me if they’re working properly.” Cole said as he stood on the side of the craft before jumping into the cockpit. Both legs rose into the body and sat flush with the underbelly then slowly dropped to the correct height and stopped.

“All good.” I called and hauled the damaged legs away to the sequencer for recycling. Thanks to the mass of the old legs, the energy cost for the new legs would be virtually zero once they had been recycled. While I returned, Cole once more climbed to the crane control booth and slowly set the fighter down on the pad. Once he was certain the new legs were holding the tractor beam deactivated and he began to climb back down.

“The thrusters array is totally burned out.” I reported after taking a look at the outlets. “The nozzles are melted shut and the computer’s reporting the energy systems are fried. It’ll have to be ripped out and replaced completely.”

“No problem.” Cole said dismissively. To me this was a major repair, it took my father and I three weeks to rip out the same component in our Dagger and replace it. “We can just replace the whole front-end. It’s a bit drastic but we need this ship for the lesson, and it’s a lot faster than fixing the burnout.”

“Ok, where do we begin?” I asked, never having done this procedure before I had no idea what to do.

“Go and sequence a MF-3TFS1C, that’ll give you the whole front end. It’s too big for a trolley, so you’ll need to use the crane to move it, are you ok with that?” He asked.

“I think so.” I replied. He had previously shown me the crane’s controls and I had moved around some smaller things but never something that needed this level of finesse.

“Just use the cameras to zoom in when you’re aligning it. I’ll call you on the link when I’m ready for the old one to come off.”

After sequencing the nose section of the fighter I began climbing the ladder to the booth. The booth was basically a glass bubble with a control station and monitors. Using a few items scattered around the bay as practice, I picked them up and put them down as precisely as I could. When I heard Cole’s voice coming to me over the Net I was reasonably confident that I could achieve the task at hand.

He informed me that the attachments between the nose and body were all disconnected and he just had one bolt remaining. I locked onto the nose with the tractor and waited until Cole told me it was free. A few moments later I got the call and moved the damaged nose to the sequencer, picking up the new one from there.

It took me several attempts at lining up the nose but on the fourth try Cole reported that it was near enough to get the guiding bolts in, which would align it perfectly. I climbed back out of the booth and recycled the old nose before Cole reported that he was beginning to wire up the electronics.

“I can finish off on my own here.” He called from inside when I asked him what needed to be done. “If you can line up the Daggers on the pads, then go get a clean uniform that should take you up to the start of class.”

Lining up the daggers basically meant doing what the previous class should have done before dismounting; aiming the nose of the craft towards the runway and blast door to allow the next pilot an easy takeoff. It took me five minutes to get through the nine craft on their pads and I was on my way back to the briefing and changing room when Cole called me over.

“Cadet, we’re an instructor short for this lesson.” He said with a sly look. “While I was digging around in there I came across this.” He pulled a pin from his pocket, a silver set of wings with a ring surrounding them, the wings of a junior pilot, identical to those he wore, except his were gold signifying a senior pilot. “Now, only pilots who have passed at least basic flight and gotten their wings can fly lead, think you’re up to it?” He asked with a grin.

“I can’t!” I replied, “Cadets don’t even get their wings until after their second year at the academy!”

“I’ve been checking off the pass criteria over the last few weeks and you’ve easily cleared every one of them. You deserve this pin, of course if you don’t want them…” He trailed off with a wink.

“Are you being serious?” I asked, shocked. It was highly unusual for anyone in the Academy to get their wings before the end of their second year, getting them before even starting was practically unheard of.

“Yup, you get your wings and lead bravo wing in today’s lesson.” He replied with a smile. “You want them or do I have to recycle them?”

“Of course I want them!” I almost shouted out of excitement. Aside from the honour and prestige of having my wings so early, they also meant I could fly solo whenever I wanted.

“Here.” He said proudly as he threw the pin to me. “Now, go get a clean uniform, pilot!”

With that he fired up the Dagger’s engines and started to move over to the landing pad.

After changing into a clean uniform and attaching the wings to my right shoulder I looked in the mirror. When I went to the academy, a red bend would run from my left shoulder to right hip, but currently as a student it was plain black, the only adornment being my new wings. As I walked back into the briefing room, Cole was standing at the podium, still with a big grin on his face. Sitting in the front row, he signalled me to enter his Mindscape. I accepted the invitation and I found myself floating in blackness. He explained the lesson plan and my role. At the start of the lesson he would split the group in two, four students flying under each of us. He expected a little resistance from some to flying under me since I was just a student like them but he would control that and anyone refusing an order I gave them once we were flying would be subject to the same punishments as if the order came from him.

After a few minutes of going over the checkpoints, target locations and timings we left the mindscape and walked over to the briefing room which was currently filling with the other members of my class. There was a look of confusion from a number of people when instead of taking a seat among them I took my place behind Cole, but nobody said anything.

There was a surge of excitement when he informed the class that we would be letting loose with the weapon systems, and a murmur of discontent when they were told that half of them would be flying under my command.

“Jones has proven himself more than capable of the responsibility.” He said sternly, “He is the second wing leader and will be treated as such, anyone disobeying an order he gives will be punished as if the order came from myself, understood?”

A murmur of reluctant ‘Yes, Lieutenant’s came from the crowd.

“Understood?” He repeated more firmly.

“Yes, Lieutenant.” The class replied in a more disciplined tone.

Satisfied with the class’ acceptance of me as their leader, Cole split them into two and took his group with him into the hangar bay for their briefing, leaving me to brief ‘my’ pilots.