While Jonathan was excited to be in outer space, the station itself didn't put on much of a show. There were no windows showing the outside, probably for safety reasons. There was the occasional viewscreen showing live video of the planet below, but honestly he could have been walking through an upscale airport that had the nature channel running.

He followed along through the twists and turns of the hallways, finally arriving at the causeway that connected the spaceship to the port. Even here, it wasn't that different from the jetways he remembered from his previous life. The routine of travel had started to drain the magic out of space travel by the time Jonathan stepped into the starship.

It didn't take long to find his seat. He found that he had some room to stretch his legs. His trip might not be as exciting as he'd hoped, but Jonathan appreciated that at least he could be comfortable. There were still a few hours before the ship took flight. Jonathan decided to spend the time reading about the Royal Academy on his pad.

At least, that was his plan. After a few minutes of paging through the public relations material put out by the Royal Academy, he found his attention drifting to more exciting topics. Namely, the holovids of notable alumni in their ranking battles.

The Royal Academy was famously competitive. Students were encouraged to settle all manner of disputes by challenge matches, and even students who got along with their fellows were pushed into frequent ranking bouts. Most of those fights were kept private, only visible to classmates who were able to watch the action live. The end of year matches, though, were open to the public.

The fights took place in the virtual world, but the stakes were real. Students' combat rankings made up a large part of their final grade and had an outsized weight on their options post-graduation.

Warfare as the Orion Star Kingdom practiced it was very different from what Jonathan remembered from his previous life. Obviously, combat over interstellar distances operated using technology that people back on Earth had never known. As a practical matter, the biggest difference was this: individual fighters varied far more widely in terms of their fighting ability.

Back on Earth, soldiers might be better trained or better armed than their opponents, but nobody was outright immune to bullets. Assuming that everybody at least had a firearm, one man couldn't wade into a fight against twenty and have any expectation of coming out alive. When mechs were added into the equation, though, all that changed.

The Orion Star Kingdom divided mech pilots into several grades. The lowest were mech novices, beginners who were still learning how to operate a mech properly. Pilots who had mastered basic operations to the point of being able to carry out the kingdom's standard tactics with the specified level of proficiency would be promoted to the grade of mech soldiers.

Reaching the level of a mech soldier meant that the pilot could be slotted into any front line military unit of the Orion Star Kingdom and at least carry out his basic duties. Most of the graduates from most mech academies were mech novices who would be sent to garrison or reserve units until they managed to train themselves to the level of a mech soldier.

For the Royal Academy, it was expected that every student graduate as a fully fledged mech soldier. Really, their goals were set even higher.

Even within the ranks of mech soldiers, there were great disparities in combat power. Talented pilots with better fighting instincts who were in better tune with their mechs could take on many times their number in lesser mech soldiers and have a fighting chance. Out of every several thousand ordinary soldiers, a small number who combined great luck and talent might have the chance to become mech knights.

A mech knight had a qualitative advantage over mere mech soldiers. He was able to pour more power into his mech, either piloting specialized mechs that mech soldiers couldn't hope to fly or wringing more performance out of an ordinary mech. A single mech knight was more than qualified to hold down the security needs of a small star system. The garrison at Matoug, for example, was helmed by an experienced mech soldier.

Mech knights were the prized core of the Orion Star Kingdom's fighting force. A tiny fraction of them might have the chance to advance to become mech lords, the strategic weapons of the kingdom, but that was the sort of thing that could be hoped for but not planned. Even advancing to become a mech knight had a major element of good fortune and serendipity to it.

The Royal Academy aimed to produce top level mech soldiers. The kind of pilots who stood out among their peers and who had a chance to become mech knights. For that reason, piloting talent, as proven by your fighting ability, was absolutely central to every student's evaluation. It was possible to get yourself kicked out for insubordination or stone stupidity, but no amount of good behavior or good test scores could overcome poor piloting in the eyes of the instructors.

That focus on skill and killer instinct was on full display in the end of year tournament. What had started as a grand melee featuring hundreds of competitors was whittled down to a few remaining survivors over an afternoon of dazzling violence. Some of the students banded together, but it was hard for Jonathan to identify those battle teams before they vanished in the ongoing ballet of destruction.

The final showdown, at least, was clear for Jonathan to see. Three mechs, battered but still fully functional, prowled the battlefield together. They were painted in shades of grey save for the bright splash of red of a stylized phoenix, painted on the shoulder of one mech, the back of another, and the helmet of the third. Their opponent was a single mech, a paragon of destruction who had racked up the most individual kills of any contestant. It was done up in matte black, a snarling wolf's head in white stenciled on its chest.

The battle was held on a large landscape, a ring of hills surrounding a central plain. The students were capable of taking flight with their mechs, but most had reserved the ability for tactical advantage, not wanting to drain their energy reserves to paint a target on themselves.

Now that it was down to the end, the solo mech had abandoned any idea of restraint and hovered arrogantly above the center of the battlefield. The three phoenix mechs spread out and moved to surround their prey. Once they had closed within range they took aim with their rifles and opened fire, the plasma bolts sizzling through the air.

The wolf mech swayed from side to side, using the mobility of its position in midair to avoid the bulk of the incoming fire. What few shots struck home were glancing hits, the plasma deflecting off its shield without much effect.

A novice like Jonathan could enjoy the display of skills. An expert, he knew, would be keeping an eye on the energy expended by each side. Long range combat ultimately came down to the question of which side ran out of gas first. Plasma rifles, deflector shields, flight and even basic mech movement all drew on the same power source: the reactor carried by every mech, which drew its own fuel from the pilot's spiritual energy.

Jonathan couldn't even begin to calculate who was winning. The graceful movements of the wolf mech certainly looked more impressive than the actions of the phoenix team, but that didn't necessarily mean that the wolf mech would triumph.

The pilot of the wolf mech apparently came to his own conclusion, as he ducked away from an incoming shot and continued the motion, turning it into a sharp dive aimed at one of the phoenix mechs. They had surrounded him in order to give themselves the best chance of wearing him down from a distance, but now the spread out phoenix team were out of position to help the unfortunate target of the wolf mech's charge.

Close range mech fights were different from the cold and clinical calculation of long range combat. Mechs could burst out with melee attacks that far exceeded the ability of their shields to absorb damage. A full energy supply was of little use when your mech had been turned into a smoldering wreck around you.

The target of the charge flew backwards, trying to maintain the distance. The movement also moved him further from his teammates, but Jonathan couldn't blame the pilot for wanting to escape from the mech that was barreling down him like a freight train. If this fight hadn't been set in the academy's virtual training room, a head-on clash with such a brutal assault would be certain to leave at least one of the pilots dead.

Ultimately, the attempt to flee was futile. The wolf mech had poured too much power into its charge, and had started from the high ground. The phoenix mech set itself, preparing at the last moment to receive the attack. There was a flicker of motion as they came together, an attempted parry and riposte that passed by too quickly for Jonathan to follow. Then there was an ear-splitting crunch of metal and the wolf mech came to a stop kneeling on the ground, its fist punched clean through the abdomen of its victim.

Jonathan swallowed. Going straight after the pilot like that was certainly the most efficient way to end the fight, but he wasn't sure if he'd be able to execute such a cold-blooded move, even in a virtual simulation.

The wolf mech stood, rushing to its feet in order to meet the charge of its remaining enemies. Just before they could collide, the playback paused.

"Now approaching warp gate. Please fasten your seatbelts and shut down all portable electronics."

Jonathan smiled and shook his head before shutting down his pad. The ship had already cut off all access to its internal network, making the pad almost useless. He could stubbornly switch over to mindless video games and keep his pad on until he received a personal warning, but there was no need for such a pointless act of defiance. Instead, he turned his attention to the viewscreen mounted at the front of the cabin.

Just like back at the space station, there were no windows allowing him a direct view out into the starry void. He had to rely on the viewscreen for a look at what was outside the ship. Right now it looked like nothing more than a recording of the night sky, but a closer look revealed a slowly growing black patch at the center of the screen.

Travel through the Orion Star Kingdom was difficult in part because each ship relied on the power of its mech pilot crew in order to traverse the void between stars. No artificial power source was capable of providing the vast energy required to travel from one star system to another. Even the assistance of the warp gate system only reduced the number of mechs needed, but couldn't replace them altogether.

The good news was that collecting the sheer power required to traverse the warp gates allowed the ship to travel through normal space at a blistering pace. The tiny black dot soon grew to dominate the viewscreen, allowing Jonathan to see more of the structure of the warp gate.

The warp gate loomed before them in the viewscreen, a massive thing. The edge was circled by a massive array of pylons, each one twice the size of their ship. Space itself warped around the pylons, only visible to Jonathan in strange distortions in the passing starlight. Inside the framework, the gate itself was pitch black.

Jonathan reached down and made sure that his seat belt was fastened. It seemed like a good idea to take every precaution before his first trip outside the frameworks of ordinary physics.