BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  A bright light and loud beeping sound woke me in the morning. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I glanced at the clock to see it was 0530. Across the room, Valissa was also groggily sitting up. I stretched to get some of the stiffness out—this was the first time I had slept in elf shape in my life, and I wasn’t a huge fan—curling up in my flexible true form was much more comfortable.

  Shaking off my musings, I got out of bed, grabbed a towel and change of clothes, and walked down the hall to wait for a shower to be free—another new experience for me, being used to having an entire suite to myself in the palace. If I hadn’t been mentally preparing myself for this change for months, it would have been a shock.

  After a quick shower, I met up with Valissa in our room before heading to the mess hall. Breakfast was simple fare, though decent. Like dinner the night before, it didn’t hold a candle to what I was used to in the palace, but it was as good or better than some of the places I’d snuck out to visit in the city.

  Shortly after we started eating, Delroy and Gathrok joined us again. We exchanged pleasantries, then dug into the food. All the while, Delroy seemed to be almost vibrating with need to say something.

  “Just out with it, Delroy. You’re making me nervous.” Apparently I wasn’t the only one to notice, as Valissa urged him to speak.

  “Did you hear? Apparently something is going down at the capital. No one knows what it is, but the palace guards have reportedly been extra active, and the police are out in force.”

  I hid my reaction to this news well, I thought. I knew that there would be a response to my disappearance, but hearing it stated was still nerve-wracking.

  Gathrok nodded. “It’s all anyone is talking about today.”

  “Well I think someone tried to assassinate an imperial but failed, and now they’re searching for his accomplices.”

  Gathrok shook his head. “It’s pointless to speculate. Besides, who would be foolish and strong enough to send an assassin into the imperial palace? If an assassination were to happen, it would be when an imperial was traveling.”

  Delroy seemed to deflate, and I couldn’t help but comment. Well, I could, but I didn’t want to. “Are you so excited to see the imperials killed that you’re hoping for an assassin, Delroy?”

  His eyes widened and his face flushed, a difficult task given the color of his skin. “No! Of course not! Obviously any assassin would fail. Long live the emperor!”

  The three of us chuckled at his clear panic at the thought of being seen as disloyal, and the topic moved on.

  “Are you all ready for the oath ceremony?”

  This prompted Valissa to finally participate in the conversation. “Yes. It is an important tradition.”

  I didn’t really care about the oath ceremony myself, though I didn’t mention this, instead just agreeing with Valissa along with Delroy.

  Once we had all finished eating, Gathrok suggested we find the auditorium for our oath ceremony, and we all agreed. As we navigated the campus, we discussed what we would be studying. I was surprised to learn that Gathrok had an engineering degree, though I probably shouldn’t have been. Delroy wanted to be a pilot, unsurprisingly, and, like me, Valissa was focused on leadership.

  “I actually have a doctoral degree in astrophysics,” I admitted. It was true—I had studied remotely under my alias.

  “Whoa! Does that mean we should call you Dr Dax?” Delroy asked.

  “Please don’t. Here, we are all cadets.”

  “We are all cadets, and we are here,” Valissa said, pointing to the building in front of us. Silently, we stepped through the doors into a lobby. Across the room were the main entrances to the auditorium, and we made our way in. The auditorium was large, seating at least a thousand people, and the seats were already filling up. We found four seats in a row, about a third of the way from the front, and sat in silence for a minute or two before Delroy joined the others in the room talking quietly.

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  “You’re really a doctor?”

  “Yes. I did my dissertation on the behavior of aether currents and how they change over time.”

  “Wait, how old are you?”

  “Twenty.”

  “You’re only twenty cycles and have a doctorate? That’s amazing!”

  “It’s not that rare. If you finish secondary school a little early, then complete your basic degree in two cycles instead of three, that gives you three cycles to get your doctorate, which is definitely doable.”

  “That’s still impressive!”

  I just shrugged, and thankfully, he moved on to asking the others about their studies.

  As the time of the ceremony approached, the lights in the auditorium slowly began to dim, and then a drum started to beat, quieting the remaining conversations. The drums stopped as an elven man walked onto the stage. His doubled gold epaulets marked him as a senior commodore.

  “Welcome to the Naval Officer Training Academy for Eryth! I am Alithor Destari, headmaster of this academy, and it is my pleasure to introduce Admiral Alreid Trystal, our speaker for today!”

  We all clapped as another elven man stepped to the center of the stage, this time wearing the bronze stars signifying a junior admiral. When he arrived, he raised his hands and released the aura of a tier 5 core. Everyone went silent, a few even wincing, likely having never experience that sort of pressure, though I was used to worse.

  “I am glad to be here at my alma mater to speak to you all. You are about to embark on a grand journey that will test your resolve and reward your hard work in equal measure. You are the future of our fleet, and I cannot wait to see what contributions you all make. We require much of our officers, but I am certain you will all rise to the opportunity and demonstrate exactly why you were chosen for this academy.”

  He continued on, speaking of the glorious history of the Imperial Navy and relating it to our future studies and the navy’s purpose. He was actually a good speaker, but the twenty minutes he spent talking still seemed to stretch on for a long time.

  Finally, he finished. “And now, I will hand things back to Headmaster Destari to administer your oath.”

  “Thank you, Admiral. And now, if everyone would please rise and place your right fist over your heart.” As he said this, the lights came back on just slowly enough so as not to blind us.

  “Please repeat after me. I, state your name, do swear”

  ““I,”” garbled mess, ““do swear””

  “To uphold and protect the laws and values of the Empire of Erythralia and its military”

  ““To uphold and protect the laws and values of the Empire of Erythralia and its military””

  “And to defend the Empire and its Emperor against all threats domestic and foreign”

  ““And to defend the Empire and its Emperor against all threats domestic and foreign””

  “And to discharge my duties as an officer of the Imperial Navy faithfully and fully”

  ““And to discharge my duties as an officer of the Imperial Navy faithfully and fully””

  “May the Emperor judge me should I fail.”

  ““May the Emperor judge me should I fail.””

  “Congratulations. You are officially cadets in the Imperial Navy of Erythralia.” There was a loud cheer, then the headmaster motioned for everyone to quiet back down. “Next, you should receive your schedule on your tablet. Please return to your rooms to check it. You have the rest of the morning to familiarize yourself with the campus and locate your classrooms, then classes begin promptly at 1300 after lunch. PTT will start tomorrow at 0700, so I recommend you keep your breakfast small. Dismissed.”

  The noise kicked back up as everyone began to file out. It took a while, but fortunately, we had plenty of time before lunch. Valissa and I split from the men as we each headed back to our dorms to check our tablets. I actually had mine with me, but I didn’t want to advertise my storage item, as most people probably didn’t have one, even if it was on the small side. I knew there were other nobles attending—it wasn’t uncommon for younger children to join the military if they weren’t likely to inherit—but even some of them might not have been given a storage item.

  Back in our room, we checked our tablets and saw that we had the same schedule, likely due to our shared track. We had classes five days a week, with the sixth being a rest day that we would likely spend most of studying. As mentioned, Physical Training and Tactics would normally take up our mornings each day. It being Loreday, the first day of the week, we had two classes in the afternoon—Military History from 1300 to 1430 and Introduction to Naval Law from 1500 to 1630. This would be repeated on the third day of the week, Sanday, while on the second and fourth days, Canday and Hirnday, we had Principles of Starships followed by Introduction to Conflict Resolution. On the last day of classes, Masday, we had Junior Practicum I, which took up our entire afternoon. Then, of course, Polday was a rest day.

  “Should we figure out where all our classrooms are?” I suggested.

  “I agree. That would be a good idea.”

  With that, we spent the next two hours checking the map and getting familiar with the campus before heading to lunch where we compared schedules with the guys. Our schedules were inverted, with them having history and law on the opposite days to us. While we all had Principles of Starships, the other two had Introduction to Starship Maintenance instead of our conflict resolution class. Then on Polday, while the two of us had the same practicum, the two men had different sections, both from us and each other.

  “At least our shared classes have the same professors,” Gathrok noted.

  “So we can study together!” Delroy exclaimed, his excitement transparent.

  “Yes, I suppose that could help.” That was about as excited as Valissa ever seemed to get.

  Soon enough, lunch was winding down, and we got up to head to our individual classes. With a deep breath, I stepped into my first class of the term.