Character Perspective: Novarod

“And that will be your daily schedule in terms of classes and expected physical training requirements.”

We had called it a night shortly after dinner and the next morning was a rush of paperwork being finalized and before I could even stop and take a breath we had been swept toward an auditorium at the center of the campus. I was itching to see the simulated bridge, to get behind the controls of the cockpit, but unfortunately for now, I still had to wait.

“Now that we have gotten that out of the way, please give your full attention to Dean Williams,” Dolores, the Orientation Administrator that had been running down the basic schedule for us, finally stepped aside and a stocky but well built, dark-skinned man with a shiny bald head stepped out from the side of the stage and approached the podium. His uniform was similar to that of the training admirals that had greeted us when we departed the ships the prior day, but luckily this time my stomach wasn’t turning from the trip.

“I am Admiral Andre Williams, Dean of Training and Commander of the Near Earth Fleet. You have already met your training admirals and have begun the process of settling in I hope,” The man said, his voice projecting through the room without the need for a microphone. “You have had a lot of people congratulating you and even praising you for the work you have done to get here, but I will not be one of them. I am the man that is here to temper you, to mold you into the best officers that we have. In many ways, I am the man who will keep you all grounded.”

A nervous chuckle seemed to pass over the various classes and I heard Mendez groan a few seats down, “Come on, just get to the good stuff already.”

“Quiet,” Sullivan muttered, and Commander Allen shot a glare back at the two of them.

Dean Williams either didn’t notice or simply didn’t care and forged onward, “So let’s get down business, because at the end of the day, that’s what this is all about. It costs 4.2 Billion, with a B, Dollars to construct a single Star Launch ship. To that end, for your crew to prove their worth to the board as capable of commanding such a vessel, you will be tested on a myriad of different simulated trials, some that have been encountered by our other ships in the fields, some that are purely hypothetical in nature. You must be the best of the best, because at the end of your seven year training period, only two of your ships will be christened and sent into the fleet.”

Murmurs passed over the various crews and ours was no exception with Ty leaning over to whisper something I couldn’t quite catch into Sera’s ear. To his credit, Curtis didn’t seem to stir as he kept his eyes forward with Vicky shooting him her own questioning gaze.

“We’re in this together,” I whispered to myself.

“By now you know that the people on your Bridge are for all intents and purposes your family now, but it goes far beyond that,” The dean circled the podium as he stared between each of our crews. “For each of you, your entire lives, the only person you have depended on, trust in, has been yourself, with some possible exceptions. That changes today and those attitudes will not be tolerated in the Star Launch Fleet, if you are only here for yourself, then you need to go back to the barracks, pack your bags, and hitch a ride on the trash rocket heading back to the ground.”

As he paused to allow us to take in his ultimatum, a large screen descended from the ceiling, flush against the wall behind him. It flickered to life without warning to revealing a wide, open starfield. Three small, different colored triangle indicators, each in different spots of the map, popped onto the display. Under each of the indicators a name began to scrawl and soon the names MEGALODON, DRAKE, and NEUTRINO below the purple, green, and silver triangles respectively.

“This is sector 7322-A, while currently we have no survey information for this five hundred thousand square kilometer area, radio scans indicate a large orbital object somewhere in this region. It is up to you are your crew to survey the available field and to establish location information, possible threats or resources, and of course to establish our light speed relay point on the target point,” The Dean explained as he returned to his podium, “This will be a fairly standard trial and points will be awarded to each crew for the speed in which they have successfully reported back to Fleet Command the location of the orbital body along with any other discrepancies and . The deadline for this trial is four hours. The floor is now open for questions, and make them good, because the simulation will be starting the moment this question round is complete.”

Another round of murmurs started as our line all looked down to Curtis who visibly swallowed, not returning the gazes but shaking his head.

“So we aren’t even getting time to familiarize ourselves with the simulated environment or controls?” A petite girl from the green crew asked.

“This is your time to familiarize yourself with it, Captain Stevens,” Dean Williams replied simply. “You all have been in simulators and classrooms for years now, there is no better way to learn than to simply do, wouldn’t you agree?” he posed the question, though even I knew it what rhetorical.

“What is considered report worthy, sir?” The captain of the purple group was standing now, one hand behind his back as he spoke. “And are we to understand the other ships will be operating in the same region or will we each be in our own version of the simulation?”

“I’m going to choose to ignore the first question given how obvious that answer should be, but your second one does merit an answer,” the Dean responded. “The map here displays where you will be when you enter your bridge, you will be operating under the assumption that friendly ships are in the area, but you have no radio line of communication preprogrammed in order to communicate. Doing so is at your discretion and discovery.”

“But why would we help each other?” Ty asked, “He said it himself, this was scored and now we know we are competing with each other, right?”

“If we were actually in the field, then of course we would be helping each other, there would be no point in trying to search the area ourselves when we had allied ships in metaphorical arms reach that we could be splitting the work with,” Vicky was thinking out loud, but Curtis had taken notice as he rose to his feet.

“Sir, with all due respect, I don’t think I fully understand, why would we under any circumstances not work with fellow Star Fleet Ships?” he asked.

“And that is the question that I was hoping for,” Dean Williams said with a somber smile. “It’s time we cover Parasitum, the greatest danger to deep space travel that we have encountered and a threat to our very fleet and planet.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Stevens had returned to her feet, “Why haven’t we been told about this before?”

“Classification,” the Dean replied, “For a start, we do not know what Parasitum exactly is. Early reports called it ‘Space Madness’, where entire crews turned, turning their weapons on allied ships and destroying them without warning. When Parasitum takes hold, the ship is considered lost as all attempts to contact or communicate with them have been futile, ending only in destruction.”

The various training admirals were on their feet now, turning to calm the sudden uproar that came over the small crowd. We were all worried in our own ways but I found myself oddly calm. I always knew that there was going to be something out there, something that wasn’t going to be happy that we were sticking our noses into the universe, hadn’t that always been the warning when it came to space travel?

“I am not here to hide this from you any longer, but it is something we are still trying to learn about, still doing further investigation into, and if the people of Earth knew the truth, our entire endeavor to search the stars may be deemed too dangerous to continue forward and that is not acceptable, not to me, and not to any of the other Admirals in this fleet. If this is a dealbreaker for you, if the risk is not acceptable to you, then this is your final opportunity to reconsider and return to the ground,” Dean Williams said, his voice hardening. It felt like it should be a dealbreaker, because I always knew there was something out there. For me, the decision was painfully simple.

After waiting for a full minute, the clammer of the room dying down as we all settled, he finally went on. “This first trial will have one Parasitum ship within the region.” On the screen behind him, a fourth triangle flickered into existence, but instead of holding a single color, all of the ships began to flicker, changing places and colors at random. “You will not know which ship has been infected and it is at your own risk that you open channels and present yourself to a potential threat, additional points are available for capture or kill of the Parasitum as these will be your orders if you were to come upon a Parasitum ship out in free space,” the Dean continued.

“Sir, how many Parasitum ships are there even? Aren’t they all just handled as they are discovered?” Curtis asked, having remained on his feet.

“There are roughly a dozen ships that we have unaccounted for in the galaxy, as we have no further information on them and they have not communicated with Command in over the normal interval, we are left to assume they have all succumbed to Parasitum,” the Dean responded honestly. “Now that you have been brought up to speed, you will be given a larger take on the universe in the coming weeks, but this trial is meant to be your introduction.”

“Understood sir,” Curtis nodded, though he still didn’t sit back down.

“Is there something else Captain Curtis?” the Dean asked, and all of the attention seemed to fall onto our ship’s captain.

“Yes…” Curtis said though he seemed to hesitate. No one had whispered anything else to him in terms of questions, and the other crews all seemed to have settled, readying themselves for the trial to come. Whatever he had left to ask, must have been from him directly and he didn’t hesitate any longer, “Had we not asked about possible threats, would you have given us any warning at all?”

“No,” Dean Williams responded quickly, “They would have still been in the simulation, however it would have been something that we would have had to debrief you all on after the trial instead of before. Some classes go one way, some go the other, though which does better is hard to exactly say, but by the end of the first trial, you would be expected to be brought up to speed. For what it is worth, no member of any class has ever stepped away when being presented with the truth of our situation, because at anyone who is smart and determined enough to qualify for a position up here, is smart enough to know the reality of the universe.”

“Got it, thank you sir,” Curtis said as he returned to his seat with a contemplative look on his face.

“You good?” Vicky muttered and he nodded, though I could make out a hand hidden out of sight from the Dean wobbling back and forth. “We’ll talk on the bridge then,” she added just as quietly and his thumb rose.

“Now then, if there are no further questions, I believe it’s time you all set foot on your bridges,” Dean Williams’ voice seemed to bristle with excitement now, “There’s a planet to discover.”