"Maaow."
A grey shorthair hopped onto a bunk and prodded her paw on a sleepy face.
"Maaow. Maaow."
"Co here, Syrcy."
A pair of slender but toned arms embraced the cat for a mont. Lanie luxuriated in the warmth of her pet before she roused from her bed and freshened up. After donning her cadet uniform and trying her brown hair in a simple ponytail, she exited her small cabin and moved to the nearest ss hall with her cat padding after her stride.
"Hey Lanie."
"Good morning, Jacob."
"What's up, Gigi?"
"I hope you studied enough to pass the test this ti, Imri."
"Don't even start on about that. I don't have a cranial implant yet like you guys!"
Several other cadets who woke up at the sa ti strode towards the sa ss hall situated close to their block of cabins. Once they entered the large compartnts, they approached their tables while bots floated in while putting trays of nutritious als.
In the early days, the als consisted of industrial als prepared by autochefs and large food preparation machines, but the cadets complained so much that the ship soon took on human chefs.
As the future of the Larkinson Clan, the cadets deserved to enjoy so refinents. Nothing was more important than supplying their growing bodies and minds with the nutrients they needed.
"Maaow." Syrcy rubbed her head against Lanie's boot.
"Go off to your little friends, Syrcy. I'll be okay."
"Maaow!"
The slender cat rubbed her face against Lanie's leg one more ti before running over to a dedicated pet section of the ss hall. She threaded through throngs of dogs, birds, lizards and other pets before reaching a small circle of cats who greeted her arrival with slight enthusiasm before getting back to putting their heads back into their bowls.
As Lanie dug into her bowl of warm and filling porridge while chatting with the cadets sitting at the sa table, soone sat down next to her at one point.
"Good morning, Lanie." He said as a bot plumped down a hearty al consisting of eggs, sausages, beans and eggplant.
"Ohhh." A female cadet dramatically uttered. "It's the highborn again, looking to woo the princess of our clan."
"I'm not a princess!" Lanie barked back.
"That's not what everyone else is thinking, you know. You're one of the few trueborn Larkinsons in the academy and you're the highest perforr to boot. You're still at the top of your year, right?"
Lanie shrugged. "I just have a head start, that's all. Once more people get invited to the Dragon's Den to receive their suite of augnts, I'm sure they'll catch up eventually."
Due to her excellent performance in the academy, she received priority access to a suite of high-quality gene treatnts and cranial implants that were especially developed by the Lifer biotech experts over at the bioresearch ship. Even though the augnts weren't very refined, they were quite expensive and improved a lot of piloting-related paraters such as ntal acuity, reaction ti, high impact force resistance and other helpful improvents.
While it wasn't necessary for a ch cadet or ch pilot to possess augnts in order to perform well, it made it a lot easier to pass the classes. Over ti, the standards of the Larkinson ch Academy had risen and it beca increasingly harder for ordinary cadets to keep up with the curriculum.
Lanie didn't understand why the implants were only provided early to the best perforrs of the class. The gap between the top cadets and the bottom cadets of every class beca wider. At this rate, the top graduates would probably receive a direct invitation to join one of the elite ch legions while the bottom perforrs might not even make it into the Living Sentinels.
It was none of her business, though. She was just a young cadet and had no right to tell the ch instructors that they were wrong for ignoring the less talented cadets.
She felt sad about so of her old friends that she had fallen out of touch with. They were no longer able to hang out as often due to enrolling into different classe. With her rapidly developing skill set, it made no sense for her to remain stuck in the more basic classes.
That had led her to hang out with a different crowd of potentates, chief among them the boy that tried to befriend her in recent tis.
"Are you still planning to pursue a ranged specialization track? It's a real sha for you to commit to it when you are so good with lee weapons."
"I'm not changing my mind, Petrus." She said as she was halfway done with eating her porridge. "I do enjoy my ti in the lee classes and I did score highly in the last exams, but I don't see this as my future. I'm much more interested in improving my marksmanship and hearing about the amazing new Amaranto and the new luminar crystal technology that will soon beco the new standard has only made more enthused about my choice."
Petrus Purnesse looked disappointed. "That's a great waste of your talents, Lanie. Won't you at least consider taking up at least so advanced swordsmanship classes? Maybe you can beco the next Venerable Joshua Larkinson one day and be able to fight with any ch at any distance."
"Ugh, those new Heavensworder instructors don't like wafflers in their classes." Lanie grimaced. "They're good, there's no doubt about it, but they demand complete dedication to the sword."
"There are always other lee classes. You can join my axe classes, for example. Axes might not be as popular as swords in our clan, but they're excellent at breaking through armor."
"No thanks. I am already enrolled in a lot of other marksmanship-related classes. I still need to improve in many areas such as accuracy, energy weapon theory and also the new introductory class on luminar crystal technology!"
She was particularly enthused about the latter. Though the clan had been mum about the full capabilities of luminar crystals, the rumors she heard already made it was the new killer of the Larkinson Clan.
She couldn't wait to handle a real luminar crystal rifle herself!
After the cadets finished their breakfasts, they left to attend their classes for the day.
Lanie's schedule consisted of a mixture of physical exercise, simulation training and tactical instruction and basic physics.
The mix of theory, practice and physical exertion was carefully balanced to avoid overexerting Lanie. Though she had to work hard to keep up despite her augnts, she was always rewarded for doing well.
Due to her distinct identity in the Larkinson ch Academy, she received more attention than others. Though she hated to admit it, being a trueblood Larkinson had its perks. The fact that her scores vaulted her to the top of her year only seed to vindicate her treatnt.
The next ti she t with Petrus was late in the day. Though Lanie had already gone through multiple tiring hours of instructions, she had beco far too enthused to let her exhaustion get the better of herself.
"Finally! I've missed you so much, Sagittarius!"
The Chirons had beco ubiquitous presences aboard the Discentibus. They were considered as the definite training chs of the Larkinson Clan for many reasons.
The problem was that the Discentibus could only carry so many Chirons, so the ch cadets had to go on a rotation in order to get their turn to pilot a real, physical ch.
This was nothing unusual as many other ch academies adopted the sa approach. It was too extravagant to reserve a single training ch for just a single ch cadet. Only the wealthiest and most elite ch academies in the galaxy engaged in such a wasteful practice.
As a result, the Sagittarius along with every other Chiron ch had already passed through the hands of multiple ch cadets today. Though the ch academy cleaned and fixed up the training chs after every use, Lanie could still see plenty of signs of use by other ch cadets.
"It sounds like we're about to play out another battle scenario today." Petrus remarked. "I hope we'll be assigned to the sa team again."
Lanie snorted. "I doubt that will happen. We perform too well. It makes much more sense to put us in opposing teams."
A ch instructor eventually strode in front of the gathered cadets. The younger clansn all straightened up and stood at attention.
After the tough-looking veteran opened up the class by addressing so routine matters, he finally described the plan for today.
"Our fleet is about to head into dwarf country soon, and that has given us a great idea on how to conduct your next training scenario. It took a bit of ti, but we managed to convince the engineers to ramp up the artificial gravity of one of the training compartnts. Each of you will have the distinct pleasure of trying to pilot a ch under 1.5 g! Don't underestimate this small number. Every ch and every object effectively becos 50 percent heavier. Now, I would love to explain to you how that will affect ch combat, but I figure there's nothing better than throwing you into the field straight away and letting you experience the changes for yourself!"
Half an hour later, the cadets had all entered their assigned Chirons and grouped up into teams of four. Lanie had beco the leader by default and led her cadets through a hilly bio that was filled with artificially generated fog.
The sensors of a real ch were easily able to penetrate the fog, but in order to give ranged chs more of a challenge, their sensors were deliberately crippled so that their visibility was not much better than the naked eye.
That didn't entirely prevent Lanie from detecting a threat.
"Stop. Enemies are hunkering at 2 o'clock. I can feel they are close!"
Though the Sagittarius was piloted by multiple ch cadets under a rotation, that didn't make the Chiron ch less effective. In fact, it was the opposite! The lessons learned by the other ch cadets sohow passed on to the ch and allowed others to benefit from the insights of others.
When the Larkinson ch Academy discovered this phenonon, they adopted the rotation schedule to take advantage of these unannounced capabilities.
The Sagittarius stood out from many other Chiron chs due to two reasons. First, only ranged ch cadets were assigned to this specific training ch. Second, these cadets all consisted of the best perforrs!
This has quickly caused the Sagittarius to beco a more specialized and focused training ch that offered excellent help to people like Lanie.
The bond between Lanie and the Sagittarius grew as the forr drew more from the latter. Despite the fog obscuring their vision, the Chiron ch resisted the stronger gravity and raised its training rifle in a specific direction.
"Get ready!"
Lanie pulled the trigger, causing the training rifle to release a bright but completely harmless laser beam that struck a ch that had been kneeling roughly fifty ters ahead!
"Ahhh! How did you find us?!" An angry voice roared.
Seeing that the elent of surprise had been lost, the remaining Chiron chs rose to their feet and closed in on Lanie's team.
Unfortunately, the heavier-than-usual gravity acted against the approaching chs and forced them to slow their advance lest they fell. This gave Lanie plenty of ti to fire deep within the fog and eliminate three out of the four Chiron chs of the opposition team!
By the ti the final axe-wielding Chiron closed the distance, Lanie's teammates shalessly grouped up and attacked their poor victim from multiple directions.
Skilled or not, Petrus Purnesse couldn't defend himself from attacks launched in three different directions!
"Lanie! I know it's you! How did you manage to find us and target us through this fog?! Are you cheating?!"
Lanie smirked underneath her protective helt. "It's not cheating. I'm just that good. This is what dedicating my practice ti looks like. I wouldn't have been able to suss you out this quickly if I didn't take all of those specialized classes."
She had received so much help from Ves, her ch instructors and the Larkinson Clan. She wanted to make sure she lived up to their expectations!
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