The next day, Rune awoke late, the time in his head reading 9:12. He wasn’t totally sure of the exact time he’d fallen asleep, but he was pretty sure he’d gotten more than nine hours of sleep. He yawned, blearily swiping at his eyes, before climbing out of bed and commanding his bedroom to convert itself into a bathroom. It wasn’t anywhere near as nice as the bathroom at the hotel, but nonetheless, having a private bathroom and shower at a school was gift horse he wasn’t going to look in the mouth.

After finishing showering, Rune sprayed a shout of mouth mist into his mouth, threw on some new clothes, and then went out to the Enclave proper, finding a place to sit down and do some watching of videos on the G-Web. He briefly entertaining the idea of trying to find his friends earlier, but he decided to just wait it out. After all, there were hundreds of years of history to catch up on that he’d missed.

A few hours passed on Rune watching videos of the great wars of the past before at 11:30 Rune finally decided he might as well head to the cafeteria and see if his friends weren’t there. After the long walk between the two places, Rune finally arrived in the cafeteria to find that to his surprise both Teira and Harvey had already shown up, sitting at their own table off in one of the corners of the cafeteria.

Rune leisurely strolled over before taking a seat next to Harvey, opposite to Teira who was sitting on the opposite side of the table. Both the occupants of the table were currently absorbed in their own digital projections, Teira assumedly watching some video as she absentmindedly stared at a projection, with Harvey giving the air the occasional swipe.

Because she was sitting facing his direction, Teira noticed him first and waved as he walked over to sit down next to Harvey. Harvey glanced up in surprise, but as soon as he saw who it was he gave Rune a smile and a nod along with a, “Hey man.”

Rune smiled and nodded back, responding with a reciprocal, “Hey man,” before sitting down at the table next to Harvey. Glancing around the table, he noted that Teira already had a finished meal in front of her, whereas Harvey had nothing in front of him. From what little time he’d spent with Harvey, Rune knew he liked to eat, so he’d most likely already eaten. They’d been here a while.

Rune cleared his throat. “So anyway, you said you were going to help me pick some classes, right?”

Teira nodded. “Yup, that’s what I said I was going to do, and I'll gladly help you figure out it all out. There are a lot of courses you can choose, and it’s really easy to get confused.”

“Okay,” Rune said, “so how do I even get started.”

“Well first,” Teira said, her voice taking on a confident tone, “You need to go to the TEF’s G-Web page and through there access the student access portal.”

Rune smirked. “Well, maybe education hasn’t changed so much as I thought since the twenty-second century.”

“Pfft,” Teira said, waving her in a dismissive manner. “Bureaucracies will always be bureaucracies. How else do you think people would do things? Students attending most educational facilities pick their own paths, and how else do you think they’d have you choose?”

Rune shrugged, thinking about it for a brief second, before saying, “Huh, I dunno. I always expected that people would change things up somehow, make it easier, simpler.”

Teira’s eyes twinkled. “What, you think us elitist bastards running the academies are going to make it easier for you plebeians to get a good education? Please.”

Rune chuckled. “Alright, I guess you got me there.”

“No, but in all seriousness,” Teira said, “highborns like me run the vast majority of the academies, and the TEF is no exception. Academies like this serve to indoctrinate skilled people like yourself or Harvey and ultimately recruit them for one house or another. People who sign on with noble houses get distinct advantages. Less tuition to pay, an easier time navigating a convoluted situation, and what’s an essentially guaranteed job after graduation provided they do decently. It’s a pretty good deal.” She held up her hands as she looked across the table and caught Rune’s expression, a placating smile on her face. “Not that I’m trying to recruit you. But,” she said, sticking up a finger, “I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea.”

Rune frowned, slowing shaking his head, about to vocally reject her, when a voice from his right chimed in. “I’d absolutely love to if you’ll have me.”

Rune glanced to his right to see Harvey pushing up his glasses, an uncharacteristically confident look on his face. “For someone without any formal training, a forty-five is pretty damn good, and you know it. I’m going to spec into advanced stellar weapons systems controls. On the condition that you’ll provide me with training resources, I’ll sign on as your first systems tuner for a decade, no charge. As insurance, if I haven’t gotten a sixty-five by next year, an eighty-five by the year after that, and a one-hundred by the third year, you can cancel the deal. Besides, most of the expensive shit won’t be needed till halfway through the second or third year.”

Teira crossed her arms, a small smirk on her face. “Somebody clearly did their homework.” After a couple seconds of an intense staredown, she shrugged, relaxing a little. “It’s not a bad deal. I might need to make an adjustment here and there. I’ll draft up a contract, run it by my dad. We should be able to work something out though.” She shrugged, then smirked. “Besides, I don’t mind doing favors for my friends.”

Rune glanced between the pair, slightly flabbergasted, events passing by too fast for him to quite keep track of. “Wait a minute,” he said, disbelief creeping into his voice, “did you just become her flunky? How long did that take you? An hour or two of knowing her?”

Harvey just shrugged, a smirk on his face. “Hey man, you snooze you lose.”

“B-but…” Rune spluttered the words out. “That’s like, what, a decade of your life? That’s a lot of time to just sign away so quickly.”

Harvey just shrugged again, that same smug smirk on his face. “Man, you snooze, you lose. I gotta take all the opportunities that come my way. Steel slinkers like me get one shot, fail once and it’s all over. At least you got the pits, worst case scenario.”

Rune frowned. The pits? Whatever. “Huh,” Rune said, some amount of skepticism in his voice, “I still can’t imagine signing myself away like that. I want to find my path for myself, you know what I mean?”

Harvey just shrugged. “My road is set in stone. Either I’ll walk it, or I’ll go nowhere.”

Rune’s eyebrows went up, but after a second or two of consideration they went back down and he shrugged. “Huh. I guess… I don’t know. It’s too early for me to have chosen my own path.”

Teira let out a short bark from the other side of the table. “Well, you’re going to have to have chosen one by the end of today, at least for the rest of this year. And even then, restarting two or more years in is an incredibly stupid idea. Once you pick a path, there isn’t a lot of going back. You train for five years, and you become very good at one thing. Take your pick and pick well, because you’ll only get to pick one.”

Rune frowned for a half second, then shrugged, letting a smile spread across his face. “Well, hey, lucky thing that I have such a knowledgeable, intelligent teacher. I won’t have to sign on to any sort of plan that forces me to join a mega-corporation, right?”

Teira fixed him with her most serious look. “No, you won’t. You’ll just have to be my slave for the rest of time.” A disgruntled expression came onto Rune’s face and after a half-second Teira burst out laughing. “Of course it’s free, dumbass, you could find this information for free online with just a little bit of research.” She reached across the table, this time with a slightly more reassuring smile on her face. “It’s a favor, from a friend. No need to think into it any more than that.”

Rune gave her a half smile and pulled up his holo-computer. He quickly got to the TEF’s G-Web page and found the student portal. The link was very obvious, and he clicked through it to his student portal. There were a few more very obvious links, one leading to his scores, one to his classes, and one to his information. He went through the one to his classes and found another link leading him to the selection page.

He went through that to find four more tabs that showed a selection of the courses he could choose. It turned out that there were a lot of courses. As in, over four-hundred total courses available to TEF students. The drop-down section of courses for those going into Harmonics was a full eighty-three courses long. There were a lot of options. Combat had a similarly large number of options, with a full ninety-two.

Rune quickly scanned the list, reading the first five or so titles, before he threw his hands up, giving up. “Alright,” Rune said, “I need some help here Teira, how the hell am I supposed to make heads or tails of this. There are a ton of fucking courses.”

Teira smirked. “Well, it all depends on what you want to opt into. There are a bunch of different paths you can take. Do you want to fly starships? Do you want to fly drones? Do you want to do something safe, or are you the sort that lives on combat rushes? Do you want to make a million GCs a month, or do you not care about the pay? I think, though, that we’ve already established that you don’t want to work for a highborn house or some corporation.”

Rune nodded absentmindedly and then sat there for a bit, frowning as he thought. “I guess,” he started speaking hesitantly, “I guess that I want to fly drones. I don’t really care about the pay, as long as it’s enough for me to get by on my own, you know? I’m good with action. I’m not against risking myself if I need to. Dangerous is fine, as long it’s rewarding, you know?”

Teira though for a second, then started speaking. “So I guess you’re probably going to mostly be going for soloist operations, as opposed to group combat. That actually narrows it down quite a bit. Coordinated drone operations are completely different from solo operations. Large coordinated drone operations tend to be far more focussed on cooperation between individuals, whereas solo operations tend to focus primarily on the skill of the pilot.

“For you, coordinated action is going to be mostly out of the picture. Unless you’re working for a big corporation or highborn house, nobody is going to have the resources to equip and pilot more than a dozen or so drones.” She stared carefully at Rune for a couple seconds. “You’ve got a few choices. You could go mercenary, with a couple of different options. You can become a specialist, focussing on learning a few models and styles of drones particular. Or you can become a generalist, picking up several styles at the same time.

“Honestly, I’d strongly recommend the generalist option. As a multiple integrator, it could really be beneficial to you in the future to be able to control an entire squadron of drones yourself that can cover each other's weaknesses. Now don’t get me wrong, it’ll take a ton more work, but it’s definitely doable.”

Rune was nodding along. “Yeah, I probably want to go more soloist, and being able to control multiple drones at the same time, it would definitely be smarter to learn to pilot multiple types of drones. Where does that leave me in terms of options?”

“With not many left, if I’m being honest,” Teira said the words with a regretful expression on her face. “In fact, that pretty much narrows down the pool to a couple course plans. Do you want to opt into any combat courses, or are you going to stick solely with Harmonics?”

Rune thought for a minute before he nodded. Doing his job was important, but always getting shoved around while not in his drone would suck. “I want to learn some basic infantry skills, if possible to work into my schedule.”

Teira grimaced. “Eh. I mean, it’s doable, but between training to be a generalist and also learning basic Combat skills, you’re going to be hard pressed for time.”

Rune shrugged. It wasn’t like he’d had any significant amount of time to himself in the last four years of his living. “I’m used to it,” he said.

Teira’s eyebrows went up, and she gave him an assessing stare for a couple seconds before shrugging. “Alright, whatever you say. You’ll either make it or fail somewhere along the way. It’s on you to make sure you don’t overload yourself.”

Rune smirked, a slight smile crawling up onto his face before he spoke with confidence. “I’ve got what it takes.”

Teira just shrugged, a slight smile coming onto her face. “We’ll see, mister four neural linkages. We’ll see.”

A couple seconds of silence elapsed as the two stared each other down. Rune was the first to break the silence. “So anyway, which courses should I pick, then?”

Teira smiled, got up from her side of the bench, and walked around the table before sitting down next to Rune. A mental question from Paine sounded in Rune’s mind as she sat down in the chair next to him.

Teira Sheinfeld has requested the ability to view your projection without distortion. Would you like to allow her to view and manipulate your projection?

Yes Paine, Rune mentally responded, I would like it if you could allow Teira to view and manipulate my mental projection.

Teira somehow seemed to have realized that Rune had authorized her to view and manipulate his mental projection and quickly flicked through the list, highlighting six courses in the list for Harmonics and three in the list for combat. “To balance your courses, I’d recommend picking four of the six courses for Harmonics, and one of the three courses for Combat.”

Rune frowned, quickly scrolling by and reading each of the titles for each of the different Harmonics classes. They were Basic Fighter Drone Combat Simulations, Basic Fighter Drone Offensive Strategics, Basic Spaceship Safety Protocols, Basic Fighter Drone Defensive Strategies, General Fighter Drone Systems Knowledge, and Basic Fighter Drone Maintenance and Regulation.

It barely took a single read for Rune to figure what it was he’d be learning. He checked off the marks next to Basic Fighter Drone Combat Simulations, Basic Fighter Drone Offensive Strategics, Basic Fighter Drone Defensive Strategies, and General Fighter Drone Systems Knowledge. The others sounded like they would be useful—even critical to his future success, but at the moment, Rune was looking for something more exciting.

Teira, sitting beside him and watching him make his choices, smirked. “You picked all the exciting ones,” she said, half judgmental, half amused. “You’re going to have to finish at least the standard level courses for the other two if you want to go solo, though.”

He waved her away, a dismissive look on his face. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s important stuff. I just want to do something exciting, make sure this is what I really want to do.” Without waiting for her response he scrolled down to the combat courses.

Meanwhile, Teira shrugged. “Whatever flies your frigate.”

He quickly found the three that she’d selected for him. Basic Extraterrestrial Combat Operations Training, Basic General Combat Training, and Basic Extraterrestrial Tactical Strike Trooper Training were the three options that she’d highlighted for him. He was a little confused, though, because some of the other options seemed pretty appealing to him.

“Teira,” he stared, confusion evident in his voice, “why wouldn’t I instead opt for something like Basic Riflery Training, or Combat Simulation Classes?” Rune frowned. “Both those classes sound like they could potentially be very useful to me, especially if I wanted to become something like a marksman.”

Teira rolled her eyes at him. “Look, if you want to become a marksman, then you should prioritize Combat as opposed to Harmonics. Becoming a skilled marksman takes a lot of time, effort, and dedication. It’s not the sort of thing you learn half-assed while spending the majority of your time mastering another incredibly difficult skill—it’s the sort of thing you spend a career perfecting. The other courses you can pick up are made much, much more useful by picking up other Combat courses. If you just want to generally know what you’re doing in a shootout in space, pick one of these because you won’t have the time to master anything else.”

Rune cocked his head as he listened, then nodded when she finished. It made sense. “Alright,” he said, a little hesitant, “I’ll trust you.”

Teira gave him an honest, wide smile. “You won’t regret it, I promise.”

Rune glanced back to his holo-computer and between the three options. This decision didn’t come quite as easily as it had with the Harmonics courses. With the Harmonics courses, the names were on the money, but with the Combat courses, he wasn’t totally quite sure what the options entailed. After a second of search with his eyes, he found the more information box and clicked through it, opening a longer description for each of the courses.

Basic Extraterrestrial Combat Operations Training seemed to focus on the usage of a variety of equipment used in breaching or repelling breaches in a station. It sounded useful, but Rune wasn’t really sure if he’d ever be raiding or helping defend a station and he moved on to the other two after reading the description.

Basic General Combat Training was different, a hodgepodge of different types of training in a variety of different situations. The course touted itself as primarily infantry focused, giving trainees a wide variety of skills useful in a variety of settings. Planetary combat, extraplanetary combat, station combat, and even ship raiding would all be covered in the course. Rune liked to be self-sufficient and know what he was doing, so being able to cover himself in all fields was appealing. But even while the course strongly appealed to him, he decided to read the third’s description and see if it wasn’t something equally as appealing.

It turned out it was. Basic Extraterrestrial Tactical Strike Trooper Training focused on training in a few very specific skills. In particular infantry combat on starships and offensive raiding equipment were the focus of Basic Extraterrestrial Tactical Strike Trooper Training. If Rune was going to be spending the vast majority of on starships doing, the skills from the course seemed like exactly the sort of skills he could one day need to survive.

After a minute or so of deliberation Rune still found himself unable to choose between the two. Picking Basic Extraterrestrial Tactical Strike Trooper Training would allow him to polish skills that could be vital to him in the future. But Basic General Combat Training would allow him to pick up those same skills and master many more at the same time. Struck with indecision, Rune ultimately decided to ask Teira for her advice.

“So,” he said, leaning towards her, “between General Combat Training and Tactical Strike Trooper Training, which do you think would be better?”

Teira, who had been watching and waiting as Rune deliberated, was quick with a response. “Well, I wouldn’t quite say that one option is better than the other.” She paused for a second. “They’re both good options. That being said, Basic TST Combat Training is obviously the more specialized of the two. If you’re going to be a drone pilot, depending upon what you do, it could even be considered a critical skill. If you want to do something like pirate hunting, for example, TST Training is definitely the better choice for you. If you’re going to become a mercenary, however, doing odd jobs here and there, many times those jobs could take you down on to planets, and if you trained to be an Extraterrestrial TST, you might have absolutely no idea how to handle yourself properly. Weaponry, tactics, equipment, ROE, a lot of things change when you take it off planet.”

Rune frowned, nodding thoughtfully. It was honestly a very tough decision. “So,” just hypothetically, if I do decide to train as a TST as opposed to a General Combat, exactly what advantages will I have?”

Teira nodded. “Yeah, good question.” She thought for a moment. “Well, aside from having nearly double the experience in space engagements of various types, Extraterrestrial TST training will actually certify you to join a boarding pod crew. As part of that, you’ll get specialized high G endurance training and modifications. Completing the course will qualify you for some jobs you might not have otherwise qualified for. It will also clear the path for you to the Planetary TST training regimen, and you’ll be able to start at the standard or even advanced levels if you can manage to test in. I guess it’s feasible for you to finish Extraterrestrial TST training in four years, then spend your last training Planetary, leaving you with more knowledge and experience than what four years of general would teach you. That would be insanely hard work, though. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it. You won’t have much a life outside the TEF.”

Rune shrugged. It wasn’t like he had any sort of life outside the TEF, anyway. What would be very helpful to him would be if he could get an extra year or two of training. “Is there any way I might be able to get an extra year or two in terms of training?”

Teira frowned. “Well, I mean, it’s not impossible. You’ll have to apply for it, and it’s not all that likely it’ll be granted. You have to be an exemplary student and have extremely high scores to boot. Thirty-four percent of students apply, but only five percent of them are admitted.”

A voice chimed in from behind the trio. “Already thinking of extending your time here at the TEF man? You’ve got a rock for a brain if you want to stay in this hole for any longer than you need to.”

Each of the three table’s occupant’s heads swiveled, to spot Jamis standing behind them with a cocky grin on his face. “How're everyone’s mornings?” His eyes flickered over Rune’s shoulder. “And what’s Rune doing that everyone’s so interested in?”

Jamis Specter has requested the ability to view your projection without distortion. Would you like to allow him to view and manipulate your projection?

Yes Paine, Rune mentally responded, Let him have full access.

After a half second Jamis’ eyes focused on the holo-computer, and understanding dawned on his face. “Ah. Picking your courses then.” He frowned as he saw the two highlighted courses on the screen. “Extraterrestrial TST or General Combat? I thought you were going with Harmonics, not Combat?”

Teira Rolled her eyes at him. “He’s going with Harmonics, you dummy, he just wants to pick up some Combat courses so he knows how to handle himself.”

Jamis shot her a quick frown and opened his mouth, but closed it after a look at Rune’s stern face, instead opting for a dismissive shrug. “I mean, I guess. But if your choices are between TST or gen combat, TST every day of the slagging week.”

He smirked. “Gen combat is for a bunch of sissy newbs who have no idea how to fight and want it all, fast. Gen combat isn’t for actually teaching soldiers how to fight, it’s about teaching a bunch of idiots which end of a blaster spits out plasma. Real men sign up for TST training. Boarding pods, orbital drops, suit combat, you learn all the cool stuff in TST training. Gen combat isn’t going to have a single career trooper in it. You want some real action? You should sign up for TST training.” He paused for a second and then shrugged. “Besides, I’m training to be a TST myself. I’ll be in that class. Why not join in?”

Teira had a frown on her face, and she seemed like she wanted to jump down Jamis’ throat, but Rune spoke before she could. “Alright man, I’m sold.” He turned back to his computer, clicked the box to select the course, and then scrolled down to the bottom of the page to find the Submit Selections option. He clicked it and was instantly rerouted to a massive message reading, ‘Thank you for your prompt selections.’

Teira opened her mouth as if to say something, giving Rune a slightly annoyed look, then thought better of it and shrugged. “Whatever. Your frigate.”

Rune nodded and glanced around at his friends. “So anyway, you three going to select your courses then?”

Jamis laughed. “Man, I dunno about the other two but I picked out my courses earlier this morning. I figure that miss highborn know it all has picked her courses and Harvey’s likely the same if he wants to become a tuner. Most people who don’t already know what they’re signing up for are clueless steel slinkers who got in off the loto or synths like yourself that couldn’t tell the bridge of a starship from the engine room.”

Rune went a little red and then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, slightly embarrassed, “It’s not my fault I was born in the 22nd century.”

Jamis just laughed. “Don’t worry, old man. I’m not an ageist. Speaking of your lack of knowledge, have you been to Tetris town yet? You said you were just recently reintegrated.”

Rune slowly shook his head. “Maybe? I don’t know. I don’t think so? I stayed in some hotel earlier.”

A wide smile stretched its way across Jamis’ face. “Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to show you around.” He glanced at Teira and Harvey. “Whaddaya say, guys, show Rune around the town?”

Teira frowned and nodded, while Harvey got out of his seat with a wide smile on his face. “Yeah, let’s go. We can hit up the arcade, too,” he said, clearly enthused.

Rune threw his arms up in acceptance, also rising. “Alright,” he said, “sounds like a plan.”