“Cadets!” a cold, authoritative, voice suddenly called from outside. “Disembark as soon as possible and meet me on the platform. The train has a schedule to keep, and so do I. Though if you want to stay onboard, by golly, that’d be just fine with me. Less nubbies I have to mother duck around this dump, savvy?”

Terry swallowed hard. The real world, as it turned out, might suck a little.

“Great, a hardass prick,” Bedrock grumbled, grabbing his sack from the overhead compartment and heaving it on his back. “Come on. Best not to make her mad.”

At that, the group exited the Bloomfield Express, joining about thirty or so other cadets on the platform. Immediately, Terry felt a light breeze roll across him. It carried the smell of salty air which filled his nose, mingling with the already prevalent scent of flowers. The wind must have been blowing off the massive bay both the city and Skyfleet Academy sat near.

The other cadets, like Terry, were wearing casual clothing, but a small few were already in their Skyfleet uniforms. Terry had seen said uniforms before when the census came to town, but he was just as perplexed by them now as then. They were silky, plain, and seemed to be built with a mixture of comfort and utility in mind. If it weren’t for the coiled-dragon Skyfleet insignias on them, one could easily confuse them with casual-wear. Despite the brisk weather, none of the wearers appeared to need coats.

As for the cadets themselves, a majority of them were human, though they were diverse in race and culture. He saw an equal mix of dark-skinned southerners and westerners, olive-skinned easterlings, and white northerners. It appeared Skyfleet’s policy on allowing cultural identity wasn’t hot air, either, as many had small cultural items on them as well, from turbans to light kilts to even slouch hats. Whatever wasn’t going to get in the way of performance.

The non-humans were even more interesting. Terry never thought of how many dwarven holds there actually were, and how different each might be. He had to admit, he sort of lumped all dwarves into a single category of, well, dwarves. But no, just in sight, he could see five dwarves who looked completely different from Bedrock, from uniform customizations (such as being fitted with custom armor chestpieces with distinct clan markings on them) to sporting pairs of glowing, red eyes.

“Deep holders,” Bedrock whispered to him, looking at the red-eyed dwarves with awe. “Practically grew up in total darkness. Didn’t expect ta’ see any of em’ here.”

“Why’s that?” Terry whispered back.

“Notice that a lot of em’ are squintin’?” Bedrock asked. “Sun burns their eyes even in this cloudy weather. Probably took a bath in sunscreen before comin’ ere’, too.”

Terry nodded in understanding. Indeed, he could see most of them reaching for pairs of sunglasses as a lighter cloud layer floated overhead. Many had some sort of oil on their faces that didn’t quite blend in with their skin.

Gnessia had remained silent throughout the whole process, which was perplexing to say the least. While Terry had only known her for a short while, he couldn’t fathom what had squelched her usually perky behavior.

“Dun’ worry, sis,” Bedrock said in a comforting tone. “I’m sure more levikin will come around.”

“I just… didn’t expect there to be zero others,” she said sadly.

“I feel ya’ there,” Spot chimed in, looking around the crowd himself. “But hey, at least it makes us more unique, right? … Right?.”

Unique was definitely a good word for it, as Spot was certainly grabbing attention. Many were turning their gazes towards him curiously, whispering among themselves afterwards. Terry only caught a little of what they were saying.

“Is that one of those furries?”

“Why isn’t he wearing a shirt?”

“Check out the tail! I wonder if it’s prehensile?”

“Absolutely fascinating specimen.”

“Oh, you’re definitely unique, alright,” Bedrock grunted Spot’s way, interrupting Terry’s ease-dropping. “And not because of the fur.”

“Cus of the tail?” Spot said, his tone unironically innocent.

Terry felt further bemusement from the monk. He was seriously starting to think of Spot as an anti-Benny at this point. Benny would say that sort of thing just to try to annoy people. To ‘troll’, as he called it. While Spot… well, that was just Spot. It was actually kind of refreshing, if he was honest.

“Either way,” Bedrock sighed, turning back to Gnessia. “This campus is huge. Could be dozens hiding out of sight. Besides, I already heard someone on the train say something about some sort of levikin trainer. That implies–”

“Alright, enough chatter!” that same, cold voice from earlier called, forcefully grabbing everyone’s attention.

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Terry was surprised he missed her. Separated from the crowd and facing to address them was a tall, fiery looking woman. Though her language suggested otherwise, she certainly looked military. Her hair was cut short, practically to the scalp, which only seemed to accent her piercing green eyes and the scowl on her face. And fitted on her medium frame was the golden outfit of the second highest rank to captain.

“My name is Commander Regilla Black,” she addressed. “For the next year, I’ll be prepping you for service on my ship, The Yuletide Truce. ”

She pointed to a particular rectangular skyship currently docked at one of the platforms.

Currently in the form of a humanoid (probably in case she needed to salute), Gnessia ‘whispered’ in Terry’s ear: “I’m confused. I didn’t think commanders, well, commanded ships. I thought that was a captain– EEP!”

Commander Black had suddenly stormed in front of her, glaring at her. Gnessia had practically jumped. “Hmph. Your nerves of steel must rah-ha-really be why you wanted to be in Skyfleet.”

Bedrock furrowed his brow while raising a finger. “Actually, her ‘nerves’, if you could call them that, are made of–”.

“Shut up, don’t care,” Black said dismissively, before turning back to Gnessia. “And for the record, I refer to it as my ship because I’m in charge of running day to day operations while Captain Ramming Speed practices her best scary voice for hailing frequencies. AKA, I do most of the work. And that makes me a little cranky when it comes to less than smart questions. Savvy?”

“Y-Yes, m’am,” Gnessia peeped.

Terry couldn’t help himself at that point. Gnessia was already feeling out of place and now this jerk was insulting her intelligence?

“Don’t you think you’re being a little rough on her?” Terry asked.

Just as Black was storming back to her position in front, she paused in her tracks, before turning towards Terry with a wicked, frightening, and decidedly unfriendly grin. “Listen, pumpkin. Skyfleet isn’t just about sailing off into the horizon to get your rocks off with the first faraway floozy who compliments Adam's Apple of yours.”

Terry flinched. He didn’t think it looked that apparent.

Black turned her merciless gaze off him, pacing in front of the crowd. “You’re about to serve on the frontlines of the Silver Republic’s efforts to stabilize this Builder-forsaken land. And there are some knuckleheads out there who don't appreciate that. Think my words are harsh? Wait til they're traded with bullets."

"Pfftt, guns aren't scary," Spot called out, earning a look of horror from his new-found companions. "I mean, yeah, they're scary if they're pointed at you, but if you're in that situation you've messed up. Trick is to sneak up on them. If they got a beat on you, circle around and mess with them a bit until you can attack from a good angle–"

Commander Black stopped in front of him, looking more baffled than anything. “I'm sorry. Who are you supposed to be?”

“I’m Spot!” Spot beamed excitedly. “I’ma cat monk.”

Black nodded curtly. “Fair enough.”

Terry raised an eyebrow at that. If Spot was supposed to be some sort of special attachment, why didn’t she know who he was? And was she really so baffled by him that she had nothing to snark about?

“As those of you who were here last year already know, I expect the best effort from all of you,” she said. “If you aren’t at your hundred percent by the end of the year and need more time to learn, I’m fine giving you a second chance, even a third.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “But if you aren’t even trying to learn and are just treating this like summer camp, your ass will be out of here in five minutes and I’ll forget about you forever in the next ten. Are we clear?”

“Yes, m’am,” a number of people, including Terry, responded.

Black scowled at them. “And keep in mind: this isn’t some Great War military regiment. You don’t need to say ‘yes, m’am,’ every minute like good little peons. Let me be clear: we don’t do that ‘how high’ nonsense in Skyfleet. There will be no mindless following of authority here. We want you to think.”

Her piercing gaze scanning over the new cadets. If she looked into Terry’s eyes, she would have seen a look of calm wash over them. Apparently, both Bedrock and his step-father may have been wrong about Skyfleet. If these were the kind of ideals they held dear…

“Note that this does not exempt you from the rules laid out by our organization,” Black continued. “Nor does it give you an excuse to disobey the chain of command without good reason. However, you have the right to use your brain. Constantly. Is what you’re doing right or wrong? Are you tackling a problem the most efficient way? Why, oh why, is that stupid Elephant Men show still on the radio?”

Terry’s relief at the apparent benign practices of Skyfleet were dashed by dismay. She seriously didn’t like Elephant Men?! As Black continued her spiel, Terry leaned towards Bedrock and whispered: “How dare she!”

“I know, right?” Bedrock whispered back. “It’s second only to Final Frontier.”

Terry winced at that. “Final Frontier, huh?”

“What!?” Bedrock whispered defensively. “It’s a good show.”

“Hey uh… what’s a radio?” Spot asked. “Is that the box with little people inside telling the news?”

“They’re actually little ghosts,” Gnessia whispered, and Terry had no idea if she was being serious or not. “It’s a common misconception.”

And like a spirit, Black materialized in front of them once more, that odd look of harsh annoyance masked by an air of wicked giddiness on her face. “Oh, hi there, campers. Sure hope I’m not getting in the way of your banter. Watcha talkin’ about?”

Spot was the only one to open his mouth. “Well, I wanted to know what–”

“That’s just great!” Black said, grinning evilly. “Anyways, I was thinking since you lot are so chitty-chatty, maybe one of you wouldn’t mind answering a question I had. Ya’ know, just to refresh my memory. Shouldn’t be too hard since it’s something you should have picked up from the introductory manual you were supposed to have read by now.”

Crap. Terry knew there was something he had forgotten.

Black must have read the panic in Terry’s face, as she quickly asked: “What is the Prime Tenet of every Skyfleet officer?”