I felt a soft vibration going through the deck, pulling my mind from the text I was reading and back into the present. Around me, the other cadets were quickly getting ready to disembark the shuttle we had taken to the Merathorn, all twelve of us. But even just twelve of us were almost ten percent of the Merathorn’s crew. Two of us were in the familiar dark purple of the Starfighter-Corps, two were wearing the dark green of the Marines, even if the Merathorn only carried a small compliment for security, while the rest were in blue, denoting them as normal fleet-officers, with tabs on their uniform denoting their specialities.

I had once researched why the separation between the forces was that way and, after sifting through a mountain of tradition going back hundreds of years, it seemed as if the Starfighter-Corps had come from a military organisation flying airplanes and the fleet had emerged from a civilian space-agency. On the other hand, marines had simply jumped ship, quite literally, leaving their wet-navy transportation and hopping onto starships, continuing what they did best, cause havoc.

The other Starfighter-Cadet wasn’t one I knew very well, barely remembering his name, Ryan Something, nicknamed Gigolo, at least according to my memory. Different training squads had limited exposure to the others, being actively encouraged to stay within our groups, fostering camaraderie. But not knowing him would hardly matter, sure, we would be in the same squadron, but I’d bet marks to ration bars, they would put us as far away from each other in the formation as they could. One unknown pilot was a lot easier to work around than two. It would also give us the biggest exposure to the experienced pilots, which was the whole reason for the exercise.

Feeling another soft vibration alerted me to the fact that we were now docked and ready to disembark, so I stood, grabbing my duffel from the overhead and waited for my turn. There was no shoving or any sign of urgency, instead we cadets simply waited for the full officers to disembark before following suit, before, at the end, the enlisted would leave the shuttle.

A quick glance instantly showed me where the Starfighter Officers were, two of them already waiting for us. Walking over, I noticed that there was even someone in the black uniform of Psicom in attendance, sending a shiver down my spine. The idea of someone being able to delve into my mind, to read it like an open book, uncovering my deepest held secrets and even being able to change them, it made me incredibly uncomfortable. We had been trained to resist psionic attack but, at the same time, we had been told that it would merely slow an attacker down, giving us time to, for example, put our fighters into lock-down.

Sadly, the training was necessary as there were races out there that had a much higher percentage of psions, with rumors that some of them were using them offensively in the military. I quickly suppressed my discomfort, focusing on a complex and confusing hyperspace-equation that took up almost all of my attention until I stopped in front of the two officers in Starfighter purple and stood straight, softly beating my right hand on my left chest in salute. The two officers, Commodores Ming and Ryker, as I now was able to read from their tabs, waited for a moment, letting me stand there until I heard a soft noise of rusting fabric next to me, knowing that Gigolo had joined us. Now, the salute was returned and we were able to stand at ease.

“Greetings, Cadet Horn, Cadet Trezt.” Commodore Ming greeted us. I had to forcibly keep my face straight, both of them looked old, at least for Starfighter Pilots. Commodore Ming, a woman slightly smaller than me, with short black hair and slight, epicanthic folds in her eyes, had visible creases, especially around her eyes, while Commodore Ryker had quite a bit of grey discolouration the brown hair at his temples.

Starfighter Pilots served, on average, for a little less than ten years, with ten years being the time we owed the Federation for our training, so those two were raising the average by a great deal, simply by existing. Outside of enrolling in one of the Federation Academies, there was almost no way to get into the cockpit of a Starfighter, there were, quite simply, more than enough recruits to fill every spot at one of the academies and more than enough graduates to fill the cockpits of deployed Starfighters. Unless my mind was playing tricks on me, those two had been flying Starfighters longer than I had been alive. And not only that, both of them had the same rank, Commodore, which, most likely, meant they out-ranked the Master of the Vessel, on this class of ship traditionally a Captain. It made me curious what was going on here.

“Greetings, Commodores.” we cadets returned the greeting, not quite in perfect sync but good enough. I wondered if Ryan had noticed the same thing as I had, but there was no way I’d ask.

“Cadet Horn, you will be assigned to Commodore Ryker as his Wingman. He’s my second in command, flying as Carmine 9, commanding the third and fourth wing. For your stay aboard, you will be Carmine 17.” Commodore Ming told me, which I instantly acknowledged.

“Cadet Trezt, you will be flying as my own Wingman, taking the slot of Carmine 2, using the callsign Carmine 18.” After he had acknowledge the order, the Commodore looked around for a moment, before barking out, “Spacer Xialo!” causing a slender female, dressed in the standard navy-uniform for enlisted to instantly trott over. She was quite a bit taller than me, almost a full head, but I wasn’t sure if she had more mass.

“Spacer Xialo, show the Cadets the way to Officer County and how to log into the ship-net. There, they will find their bunk-assignment and further orders.” she ordered the woman before giving us a nod and leaving, with Commodore Ryker following in her wake. I felt myself relax just a little, Commodore Ming had a gaze that made me feel as if I was under a microscope, a look strong enough power to crucify someone with a glance. She was one intimidating lady, no matter how petite. She was who I wanted to be one day.

I focused on the Spacer, who quickly gestured for us to follow her, deeper into the ship. Behind us, other crew were unloading the supplies our shuttle had brought, while some waited for it to finish being unloaded so they could embark. Leaving the loading area, we were quickly shuffled to the centerline, where a long corridor was connecting the main parts of the ship, fortified and secured with blast doors every few meters. Those were meant to limit the damage, if the ship ever was breached.

“Great, so we are with the Retirement Squad.” Ryan moaned next to me, causing me to blink in disbelief while Spacer Xialo quite obviously made sure to look like she had heard nothing.

“You should remember your decorum.” I muttered, not wanting to engage him at all but, at the same time, I didn’t want to let him spew more drivel so I sped up my steps, catching up to Spacer Xialo, walking close behind her.

Officer County, the area where officers were bunking, was in the forward part of the ship. Further forward, there was an astronomy and viewing area, where a large viewing-port allowed observation of the surrounding stars, for those interested in it. It was something most vessels had, mostly to allow crewmember and officers to gaze at the stars. It also had a few scientific instruments and computer-stations for stellar cartography.

Behind officer-county was storage and the mess, something shared between officers and enlisted. On a cruiser, with only a crew of hundred-twenty people, almost half of them officers, it just wasn’t reasonable to have separate facilities. Sure, the Captain had his own, private dining room where the highest officers could eat in peace, should they chose to do so but everyone else had a single mess.

Further back was the bridge, in the deepest part of the ship, protected by as much armour as possible.

Next came more storage, then the reactor and engineering-section, the quarters for enlisted crewmembers and finally, the drive-section. The Starfighter hangar and the launch-tubes were at the belly of the wedge-shaped cruiser, able to launch four fighters at the same time, with a one-minute cycling time. It wasn’t bad for a cruiser-class ship, but it was far from what a dedicated carrier could do.

“Cadets, if you would enter the computer-center to register your computers in the ship-network?” Spacer Xialo asked, pointing at an airlock, near the bridge.

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Spacer.” I replied, walking over to request entry. It only took a moment for the door to decide that I was allowed to be where I wanted to go and the lock opened, allowing me to step into a very neat and tidy room.

At a similarly tidy desk, with a data-terminal in front of him, a enlisted was waiting. He didn’t stand or salute, which was just fine with me. He had his job to do and hopping each time an officer walked by was just silly if half of the crew was officers.

After quickly reading his rank-tabs, I told the Leading Spacer why I was there, which was mirrored by Cadet Trezt who had walked in behind me. It made me wonder if there was a subroutine to their security, preventing anyone from simply barging into areas they were not supposed to be with that trick, but decided that I hadn’t enough of an idea about ship-security to even guess.

We were required to place our computers in a special scanning-station, which made sure that there were no surprises hidden in either soft- or hardware that might damage the ship. Once that was done, we were given access to the ship network, allowing us to get our bunk-assignment and further orders.

While we could have used the map on the network to navigate, I was quite grateful that Spacer Xialo had waited outside, continuing to guide us.