Name: Alyssa Madeline Fox

Age: 19

Height: 153.4cm

Weight: 46.5kg

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: Blue

Blood Type: AB+

Academy Ranking: 1

Class(es): Tactical Officer - 12

Infractions: 3 instigated fights (see appended)

Notes:

Flawless simulation record (87-6-0)

Cadet Fox has been found lacking in physical combat evals

Recommendation by academy council: Noted for her creative problem solving and highly intelligent mind Cadet Fox has scored as top of her class, despite weak scores in physical courses. However, she has been noted for highly aggressive and reckless maneuvers outside of standard protocols, compounded with weak social skills has led to multiple arguments and infractions with peers (note Fox has never thrown the first punch). It is this council’s recommendation (with full knowledge of standard graduation procedures for top ranking cadets) for Cadet Fox to serve under an experienced captain for tempering before promotion.

- Imperial Navy Personnel file #IA9R7C

The soft thump of many boots sounded down the brightly lit halls of the transport ship, dozens of cadets marched down the halls at the double. Emily and I had needed to run back to the dorm hall to grab our solitary standardized navy duffel bag. I stared at my name emblazoned upon it.

“It would be easier to carry that on your back you know,” Emily said, bag slung over her shoulder. I scowled up at the taller girl’s smirk with a huff.

“I didn’t have time, as someone practically ran out the door!”

“Not my fault you doddled,” Emily said, laughing at my expression.

A dozen similar conversations going on around us were suddenly muted as the narrow hallway opened up. The flight deck of the refurbished cruise liner we had bee transported on was a large hanger over two hundred meters across.

A half dozen shuttles were being prepped for launch, crews scurrying around with tools and hoses as they did last minute checks. Small crowds of cadets in their garish red flight suits were being organized for loading before each one; while officers in their more stylish black and red trimmed gear shouted instructions.

“Move! Move! Move! Treat this like a combat drop! Get to your shuttle and prepare for launch!”

Emily paled and fumbled her bag around, scrabbling at the zipper.

“Shit! I don’t know which shuttle I’m in!”

“Shuttle bay three, same as me,” I said and my friends expression relaxed in relief and I couldn’t help but tease her. “Maybe my doddling was a good thing eh? Otherwise I wouldn’t have looked at oh I dunno… our instructions?”

Emily steadfastly refused to rise to the bait and swung her bag back off her shoulder before setting off towards the waiting transfer shuttles.

Now that I took a closer look I immediately recognized the small grey hulled vessels as Laterem class shuttles, sturdy and cheap to make they were found by the thousands throughout Empire. To me they resembled bricks more than a ship, essentially just mettle boxes with grav-thrusters attached; but I guess aerodynamics don’t matter so much in space.

The crowd before the Laterem with a red three painted on the side was fairly small and we quickly ended up in front of a tough looking woman with a tablet, the patch on her shoulder identifying her as a junior officer.

“Names?”

“Cadets Alyssa Fox and Emily Zehr reporting!” I answered confidently.

The woman gave curt nod, tapping on her tablet and gestured us in. “Find some seats and settle in. Launch is in three.”

I marched up the ramp leading into the vessel, Emily a step behind me. The transport shuttle felt cramped after being in the wide open hanger bay, it looked like whoever had designed the interior had elected to simply cram as many people in as possible with no regard to comfort. Two rows of seats with a narrow walkway between made up the passenger section with a pilots cabin separated by a steel door.

Most of the seats were already taken up by other cadets in their scarlet uniforms. But Emily and I managed to find a couple empty ones next to each other near the far end.

I stuffed my bag into the empty space below my seat and swiftly sat down to let another cadet by, pulling the restraint down as I did. Laternum’s were very barebones, only meant for short range transportation. They had no weapon systems, artificial gravity or even windows. All of that would have taken up room that could be better used cramming additional sweaty cadets.

I wrinkled my nose. Could probably include myself in that count.

As I looked up from locking the restraint into place I saw my erstwhile opponent Acaba sitting across from me, because of course he would have the same shuttle as me. I grinned at the scowl he shot my way and gave him a wink; which only made the young man glare even harder. I decided refrain from antogonizing the short-tempered cadet any further, as I would potentially be working with him for the foreseeable future depending on our assignments.

The excitement was making my heart pound in my chest and my hands were clammy as they gripped the handles on my restraint. I’d been working towards this moment for the past three years at the academy. Hundreds of hours spent pouring over ship schematics and battle reports, tens of battle simulations and memorizing a hundred different naval terms. All for this moment, even the graduation ceremony back at the academy had not made my heart race this much, all so I could join the navy. So I could travel the countless stars of Empire, outwit and destroy its enemies and hunt the horrors of the void.

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Ever since I was a little girl, I had been obsessed with ships in all their many shapes and sizes. I had worried my parents sick, spending all my free time and most of my school time studying strategy and naval combat long before I had ever applied for the officer’s academy. But I felt it deep in my heart, whenever I saw and advert, news report or film on the Imperial Navy and its exploits, that I needed to be part of it. I desired to be walk with— no to rise above the legends of the modern age.

But for now I was here, in a bright red cadets flight suit, surrounded by my peers as we all eagerly awaited our first steps of our naval careers. The wait was short, a moment after I sat down the officer from before strode up the walkway, the ramp sliding up behind and sealing with a soft hiss of rushing air. The sounds of machinery and shouts from the crews outside were instantly muted, replaced by the low rumble of the shuttles systems and the sharp breaths of the cadets in the enclosed space.

*Brace for launch. Engaging thrusters* The pilots voice buzzed over the intercom.

I had just enough time to grab hold of the handles on my restraint before being violently thrown to the side by the acceleration of the shuttle. A roar of sound reverberated up the hull as the thrusters began to spin.

I gasped as the plastic bars of the restraint dug into my shoulders uncomfortably as the unseen force shoved me to the side. Most of us would have been flung like a group of bowling pins hit by an invisible bowling ball without the protection of the restraints. Shouts of pain rang down the enclosed hall as someone’s unsecured bag went flying loose, bouncing off of several cadets before slamming into the ramp with muffled thud.

After a moment the acceleration slowed as the Laternum reached cruising speed. Yet my body did not settle back into the seat. Away from the transport ship there was no gravity and I drifted around in my seat. It was odd feeling weightless, but not my first time having experienced it back in the academy several times.

The only person unaffected by the aggressive acceleration and subsequent lack of gravity was the naval officer, still standing at the end of the short hall, ignoring the chaos of the bag and the whispered conversations of the cadets. The only act of bracing she had taken was grabbing hold of a handle hanging from the ceiling. Yet still barely swaying with the force of liftoff.

It had to be Skill I decided, or maybe multiple of them, there was no other way she could have stayed standing. If it had been me standing up there, I would have been thrown down like the loose bag, not standing upright still as a tree in the wind.

The question was what Skill? There were countless Skills in the System and many could generate some effect that allowed one to ignore the acceleration of a ship. Especially in the classes found within the Navy, where such Skills were fairly commonplace. But higher level Skills would have other effects than just ignoring force and I was pretty sure she was fairly low level, otherwise she would not be on baby sitting duty. So it could be something as simple as [Brace], yet she hadn’t so much as shifted her stance in the entirety of take off. Which meant it had to be something else.

My musings were interrupted by the woman in question as she looked up from her tablet.

“Right. Ladies and gentleladies!” She shouted over the noise, silencing the whispered conversations and drawing everyones attention.

“Name’s Nocht and my word is your command until you lot receive your assignments! Questions?”

Officer Nocht paused, no one made a sound and a moment later she continued.

“Good. Now I’m to welcome all of you freshies to Her Imperial Majesty’s Eighth Fleet under command of Admiral Cross!”

Now there was noise even though we had already known where we were headed for weeks. But everyone knew of the Iron Admiral. The legend who had single handedly turned back no less then three invasions by the Seccessor States and rumored to be being groomed for a Void Admiralty.

Nocht snorted.

“Don’t get your hopes up lads, he’s two systems away.” She said wryly and there were some mutters of disappointment. “But chins up! You’ll be joining us in battlegroup Glacius commanded by Commodore Chione! The second nastiest battlegroup in the Eighth!”

“Now I’m to impress upon you lot that this is the Imperial Navy you’re joining. Not the bloody Auxilia! You are the best of the best from the Empire over, so act like it! This is not the academy, this is not a simulation! There is no room for error, if you make a mistake, the cost is lives. Do not let the comrades counting on you down!”

She gave a pointed look at the unfortunate cadet who failed to secure his bag and he flushed bright red with embarrassment.

“One in five of you will not see the end of your first tour. There are a thousand and one ways to die out here. Everything from getting blasted to bits by pirates to getting swallowed by a wyrm. This is not a game anymore!”

The only sound in the shuttle was the reverberations of the engines, as the Nochts message sunk in. I glanced across the aisle at Acaba and remembered our fight scarcely a half hour earlier, it had been petty and pointless. And judging from the frowns and scared expressions on the faces of those nearby, her message had not reached deaf ears. We could not let our emotions rule us, could not afford to given the stakes.

Sensing the grim mood her serious words had brought upon cadets filling the hold, Officer Nocht switched gears.

“But remember.” She said voice growing firm. “We. Are. Empire.”

The veterans voice slowly began to grow louder and the cadence of her words became more deliberate then before. I felt something begin to stir within my chest, my palms felt sweaty.

“We are the greatest nation to have ever existed! There is no force, no monster, no disaster that we cannot overcome! For we are legion; the instrument of the Empress’ will!”

Nocht’s voice was nearly a shout by the end, her words igniting something deep within us. My heart thumped in my chest, blood pulsed through my veins. Intellectually I knew she was using another Skill on us, something like [Inspiring Words]; but in the moment it did not matter.

She surveilled us now, judging the effect her words and Skill had had on us. Where before many had been freaked out by her warnings, there was now a grim resolve filling the air and hearts of the cadets in the shuttle.

Seeing this Nocht took a breath and continued.

“If there’s one thing you remember from today, let it be this. Trust in your training, trust in your comrades and most importantly have trust in yourself. These tenets are the foundation of the navy. Else we’d not be the most feared fighting force to have ever existed. Empire Everlasting!”

She finished with a shout and responded in kind.

“Empire Everlasting.”

Finished with her speech, Officer Nocht turned away and entered the pilots cabin, leaving us to amuse ourselves for the short trip.

I looked over at Emily, seeing my excitement reflected in her eyes. Done with the naval academy, done with training. Ready to start the next chapter of our lives.