For our second round, Delroy opted to try the same scenario again, which was fine with me. I needed vindication. This time, I kept pace with the others, moving at a steady speed where I had more control. As we approached the enemy fighters, Delroy called out instructions, having us all target the leftmost one.

  Within seconds, the enemy’s shields went down. Seconds later, it was venting atmosphere, and shortly after that, it was dead in the aether.

  Unfortunately, the enemy had the same idea, and one of our simulated fighters had its shields drop to 15%. Delroy tried telling them to fall back, but the simulation wasn’t complex enough to understand that, and the fighter was quickly destroyed.

  After that, the enemy fighters switched their focus to Delroy, who had us focus on the “upper” fighter. Again, it didn’t take long to destroy it.

  “How are your shields, Delroy?”

  “Holding steady at 48%, Dax. I’m good to go as long as we take out the next two quickly.”

  Indeed, we did, though Delroy’s shields dropped to 14% in the process. He opted to stay with us, dropping behind though to avoid being targeted.

  By this point, my blood was flowing, and I was feeling excited. We shot towards the nearest enemy cruiser, and I had to fight against my instincts to speed up. This felt like a hunt, something I had only participated in a couple times but that spoke to my inherent nature.

  As we neared, we started firing on the cruiser, but it wasn’t having much visible effect—unsurprising, given that cruisers tended to have good shields.

  “We need to focus fire! Target the missile launchers!”

  I tried to follow Delroy’s instructions, but they actually proved more difficult than attacking the fighters, despite the fighters being more mobile. With the fighters, as long as we fired sufficiently close, the minor homing property of the force projectors would usually result in a hit. With the larger cruiser, however, the bolts weren’t able to distinguish the missile launchers from the rest of the ship, so we had to aim more precisely, which was extremely difficult while moving.

  Not to mention, the ship was firing back. While it wasn’t targeted any single one of us, it had enough projectors to pose a challenge.

  My focus narrowed as I started moving more erratically to interfere with their attacks. While that made it a bit harder to aim, I was already struggling, and it didn’t make it much worse given the size of the target.

  Checking my shields, I saw they were down to 43%. Suddenly, there was a flicker as the section of the shields blocking the missile bay deactivated.

  “Quick, hit it before they can adapt the shields!”

  Obeying without question, I launched one of my four missiles at the ship. My aim was slightly off, but it did some damage, and shortly after, two more missiles and a few force bolts hit as well, destroying the launcher.

  A cheer went up across our comms, and I found myself holding back a roar—easier to do in this form than it would have been otherwise.

  “One down, eleven to go.”

  Delroy’s observation put a bit of a downer on our celebration, but my blood was still hot, and I didn’t hesitate to fly towards the next section.

  This one went down a little faster, which was good because by the end, I was down to 12% shields.

  “My shields are almost out, how are you all fairing?”

  Everyone chimed in, with Delroy somehow still having 2% shields despite being at 14% after the fighter battle. The others all had a bit more than me, ranging from 14% to 29%.

  “Dax, stay back a bit to hopefully draw less fire.”

  I agreed and let the others take the lead despite the urge to charge. I had to remind myself that I was in a pack, and in a pack we each had our roles. Dragons were somewhat unique in that we operated both as pack hunters and individuals, depending on the situation.

  We managed to take down one more launcher, but on the fourth, Delroy got destroyed, followed shortly by me. After that, the others couldn’t keep up and quickly fell as well, and the simulation ended a failure.

  “That was awesome! I bet we could win next time!”

  “I don’t think so. We destroyed three out of twelve missile launchers, and that’s only counting the first ship. We would need to perform much better in order to make a major difference in the battle.” As usual, Valissa was a voice of reason.

  “Still, let’s do another.”

  “How about we try a different scenario?” suggested Gathrok, to which everyone agreed, and Delroy loaded up something new.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Okay, this one is a little different. It’s a large-scale defensive battle with dozens of fighters on either side. This time, we’re defending a planet and space station. Everyone ready?”

  Once we confirmed readiness, he started the simulation. Unlike the first, this time, we were dropped immediately into the middle of a chaotic battle. We couldn’t really coordinate, so I just flew as best I could, taking evasive action and firing at anyone that came close. By the time I was defeated, I had managed to take out two enemy fighters.

  “How did everyone do? I took out three.”

  “I got two.”

  “Same,” said Gathrok.

  “Me too,” added Kolo.

  “I destroyed four,” admitted Valissa, surprising me.

  “What? How did you do better than me?” Delroy was clearly unhappy at being beaten.

  “I hit the enemy and didn’t get hit,” she replied, very matter-of-factly.

  “Ugh! Again!”

  Delroy started the simulation without warning, but I was still riding a hunting high and dove right back in.

  We played that scenario half a dozen times, and Valissa won four of them, with Delroy eking out two victories. I managed to get three once, but also managed to die one time without destroying any of the enemies—not my proudest moment.

  After that, we left for lunch, which was full of Delroy describing the battles all over again. His eagerness was infectious, and we all got into the discussion. It was refreshing to see just how enthusiastic he was about piloting.

  We went back to the lab after lunch, as Delroy had booked us all the way until dinner. Turns out few people want to train more the day after midterms, so the lab had plenty of available slots.

  Once we were seated, Delroy explained the next scenario. “This is an individual scenario, but our scores will be compared, making it a direct competition. We’re doing an obstacle course! This is designed to practice complex maneuvering, so do your best!”

  With a deep breath to help me focus, I started the scenario. In front of me was a large, glowing green ring floating in space. Off in the distance, I could see other rings, though those were red. While the area in front of me was clear, I could see floating barriers and debris scattered throughout the rest of the course.

  A timer was counting down from five, and when it hit zero, I accelerated forward through the first ring. As soon as I passed through it, the nearest red ring turned green, making it clear what the goal was. Heading for the next ring, which was slightly offset from my starting direction, I made sure to moderate my speed so that I could avoid oncoming detritus.

  After the second ring, things started getting in my way. I had to slow down a bit to gain the mobility necessary to avoid all the collisions, but I ended up clipping some anyway, each time weakening my shields and throwing off my movement. At one point, I outright missed a ring. While the next ring turned green anyway, there was a buzzing sound, and I saw the timer on my display jump forward twelve seconds.

  By the end, my shields were at 28%, but I survived and finished. As soon as I passed through the finish ring, which glowed gold instead of green, the scenario ended and everyone’s scores were displayed. I ended up having the worst time of all of us, at six minutes, eighteen seconds. Delroy won with four minutes, thirty-seven seconds. It also displayed the top time of an inconceivable two minutes, forty-four seconds.

  We played the scenario a few more times, and I definitely improved each time. By the end, my time was down to five minutes, forty-five seconds, well below Delroy’s best time of four minutes, sixteen seconds.

  “Okay, it’s time for the last scenario we’ll do today. This is a solo escort mission for a shuttle through an asteroid field. Don’t ask why a shuttle is flying through an asteroid field—I know it doesn’t make sense. There will be enemy fighters scattered throughout the field, and your goal is to guide the shuttle along the directed path while ensuring that neither you nor the shuttle gets destroyed or boarded. Fortunately, most of the fighters will have weaker shields than normal—again, don’t ask for an explanation since I don’t have one. At the end, it will show statistics about your performance, including final shield percentages, accuracy, and shots fired. Good luck!”

  I would have to be careful on this one. If my instincts got sufficiently riled up, I might end up ditching the shuttle to hunt down my prey. I took a moment to visualize the shuttle as a hatchling, and I hoped that would help. With an unnecessary nod, I started the simulation.

  We were already moving at a slow speed, at least for space travel, and I was above and slightly behind the shuttle. Unlike ships constrained to zero-g, the shuttle looked more like an aerial vehicle, with a flat bottom, sleek profile, and small stabilization wings.

  Focusing on the mission, I kept my “overwatch” position, watching for enemy ships. It wasn’t long before one came into view, but I was ready, immediately aiming and firing at the ship. It managed to get a couple shots off, but most of them missed us, and I quickly took it out.

  This continued over the next few minutes, with fighters appearing, getting a few shots off, then getting destroyed quickly thanks to their incredibly weak shields. Meanwhile, we had to move slowly to make sure to avoid debris—even if it was fairly spread out, too much momentum would make it difficult to maneuver, as I learned in my first simulation.

  Soon enough, though, the enemies started coming in pairs, and we took more damage. The shuttle started firing as well, but it wasn’t very accurate, probably because the design of the shuttle meant the force projectors had a limited range of movement, and there were only two of them.

  Still, I managed to keep taking the fighters out. At one point, the asteroid field got increasingly dense, and we had to slow down even further, making us easier targets. In the end, we managed to make it out of the asteroid field, ending the scenario, though neither of us had more than 15% shields remaining.

  My accuracy was surprisingly good, I thought, at 47%, but then I saw Delroy’s results. He had achieved a 61% accuracy, and Valissa wasn’t far behind at 58%. Both of them also had shields a bit above 20%. The other two were closer to my performance, with Kolo doing slightly better and Gathrok, slightly worse.

  We tried the scenario a few more times, but the results were pretty much the same. By that point, I was exhausted, mentally if not physically, though sitting mostly still like that for so long meant I was a bit stiff.

  We all met up in the lobby of the simulation lab upon finishing.

  “Wasn’t that awesome! I can’t wait to fly for real!” Delroy had clearly enjoyed himself greatly.

  “It was pretty cool,” replied Kolo.

  “I had fun,” I admitted.

  “Me too,” Gathrok agreed.

  “It was an acceptable diversion to celebrate completing our midterms,” added Valissa, though her stilted wording felt a bit more like an intentional affectation this time.

  “We’ll definitely have to do it again sometime,” Delroy declared.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But not all day. Besides having to study, I got a bit stiff from that.”

  The others agreed, and we left for the mess hall before separating to rest and cultivate before classes resumed the next day.