Mech Engineering followed Dimensional Theory, equally dense, more practical. They studied structural design principles, weapons systems integration, power distribution networks, sensor arrays. The kind of technical knowledge that would matter when they were actually piloting.
The engineering lab was newer than the lecture hall, walls covered with technical schematics and component diagrams. More motivational material lived here too: "Innovation Protects Humanity" above the equipment stations, "Precision Saves Lives" near the fabrication area. Standard messaging that had faded into invisibility through constant exposure.
Here, Milo excelled. Finally freed from abstract theory, he could focus on practical systems and how they worked. He asked questions that made professors pause; insightful, occasionally brilliant, frequently revealing design flaws or inefficiencies that shouldn't be obvious to first-year students.
"The thermal regulation system has fundamental heat distribution problems," Milo said during a discussion of reactor design. "If you're generating dimensional energy through substrate reaction, the waste heat has to go somewhere. But the cooling systems you showed can't handle peak output loads without risking cascade failure."
The professor, a retired engineer who'd spent decades designing academy training equipment, looked at Milo with something between annoyance and respect. "You're correct. Peak thermal loads exceed safe cooling capacity. How would you address it?"
"Secondary heat sinks integrated into armor plating," Milo said immediately, pulling up schematics on his tablet that he'd apparently already designed. "Use the external hull as a distributed cooling surface. Requires composite materials that can withstand both thermal stress and combat damage, but it's theoretically–"
"That would work," the professor admitted. "Cost-prohibitive for mass production, but theoretically sound. Good catch, Renn."
Milo beamed. Got written up later for modifying his tablet to generate engineering schematics using unauthorized software, but he was still pleased about the professor's acknowledgment.
The class continued through weapons systems architecture, explaining how dimensional energy could be channeled into various configurations for different combat applications. The professor showed examples from active duty mechs: beam weapons that fired concentrated dimensional energy, kinetic systems that used substrate manipulation to accelerate projectiles beyond normal physics, area-effect weapons that destabilized local reality enough to damage entities that existed partially outside baseline space.
"Each weapon system puts different load on the pilot," he explained. "Beam weapons require sustained mental focus to maintain energy coherence. Kinetic systems demand split-second timing for projectile acceleration. Area-effect weapons generate massive cognitive load as you're essentially forcing local reality to accept your will over natural law."
He pulled up pilot performance data showing how different weapon configurations correlated with different corruption progression rates. High-focus weapons accelerated mental corruption. Physical weapons increased bodily transformation. Area-effect weapons seemed to corrupt more uniformly across all systems.
"Your summoning will determine your mech's natural weapon configuration," he said. "Based on your consciousness patterns, dimensional resonance, neural architecture. But understanding these systems now helps you work with your mech more efficiently once you've bonded."
Valoris took notes on weapon mechanics, cross-referencing with tactical applications, building understanding of how engineering constraints translated to combat limitations. Beside her, Zee was clearly struggling with the technical density. Her strengths were physical and tactical, not theoretical. But she pushed through, taking notes with stubborn persistence.
Quinn sat in their usual isolated position, absorbing information with obsessive focus. They'd probably memorized every specification by the lecture's end, their eidetic memory treating technical data like most people treated breathing; effortless, automatic, requiring no conscious processing.
Tactical Analysis was Valoris's other strong subject. They studied formation theory, resource allocation, objective prioritization, threat assessment. She could read tactical scenarios like others read books, seeing patterns, identifying optimal strategies, predicting how situations would develop.
The tactics classroom featured the most propaganda of any space in the academy—one entire wall was a memorial to fallen pilots, names and service dates carved into black stone with the inscription "Their Service Echoes Eternal" above. Opposite wall showed tactical victories throughout the war's history, dramatic artistic renderings of pilots standing triumphant.
"Strategy Preserves Humanity" over the doorway. "Tactical Excellence, Human Survival" across the ceiling in letters large enough to read from any seat.
Valoris had stopped seeing the inscriptions weeks ago. They'd become part of the room's architecture; present but unnoticed, like the color of the walls or the texture of the floor.
Saren excelled here too, approaching tactics with the same mechanical precision she brought to everything. They'd occasionally end up debating strategic approaches, never friendly, but intellectually engaged. Valoris would propose one strategy, Saren would identify flaws and suggest alternatives, Valoris would adapt, Saren would find new problems. Back and forth until Professor Zhou told them to take it outside because they were dominating class discussion.
"You're both correct," Professor Zhou said after one particularly lengthy debate about multi-objective mission prioritization. "Kade's approach optimizes for minimal casualties. Maddox's approach optimizes for objective completion speed. Both are valid depending on mission parameters. Learn to recognize which framework applies in which situations."
It was as close to praise as either of them typically received.
Professor Zhou was herself a former pilot. There was visible corruption scarring on her neck and hands, a tremor that manifested when she grew tired. Dimensional flicker occasionally made her outline blur for split-seconds. Stage Two corruption, still functional enough to teach but no longer deployable.
She spoke about tactics with the weight of experience behind every word. Not theoretical knowledge but practical survival learned through years of actual combat. When she described formation theory, she included how those formations broke down under real entity pressure. When she explained resource allocation, she added which calculations worked on paper but failed in zones where reality stopped following rules.
"Entities don't behave according to predictable patterns," she said during one lecture, pulling up combat footage from actual deployments. "Early analysts tried to develop behavioral models. Some entities seem territorial. Others appear migratory. Some show defensive characteristics while others demonstrate what looks like exploratory behavior."
The footage showed various entity types, some moving with apparent purpose toward specific objectives, others seeming confused and disoriented, a few demonstrating what could be interpreted as coordinated group tactics or might just be random chance creating patterns human minds wanted to perceive.
"Current doctrine treats all entities as hostile threats requiring elimination," Professor Zhou continued. "Engagement protocols are standardized: identify, assess threat level, eliminate with extreme prejudice. No contact attempts. No communication protocols. Capture procedures for study only on explicit orders."
She paused, something complicated crossing her expression.
"Some pilots report entities displaying behaviors that suggest sapience or intelligence. Early in my service, I encountered entities that seemed to be fleeing rather than attacking. Running toward the rift rather than away from it."
The classroom had gone very quiet. This wasn't standard curriculum. This was personal experience contradicting official doctrine.
"But doctrine exists for a reason," Professor Zhou concluded, her voice firmer. "We can't risk assuming entities are non-hostile when failure to eliminate threats costs human lives. By their very presence, entities are hostile to human life, and their behavior doesn’t map to human emotion. Individual observations don't change tactical requirements. Your job is to protect humanity. That means treating every entity as a threat requiring immediate response, no matter what you think you see."
The moment of doubt collapsed back into military certainty. Valoris took notes but the uncomfortable feeling in her chest intensified. But questioning it still felt like betrayal. Like weakness.
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So she kept taking notes and filed the doubts away in mental compartments she didn't quite want to open.
Entity Behavior was everyone's least favorite class. Partly because the material was disturbing, partly because it raised questions no one wanted to answer. They studied entity morphology (alien, incomprehensible, geometry that shouldn't exist), emergence patterns (correlating with dimensional instability spikes), apparent behavioral patterns (defensive? exploratory? aggressive? unclear), and standard engagement protocols (eliminate on sight, no exceptions).
Professor Vance taught this course with clinical detachment that made the material somehow more unsettling. He was old enough to remember some of the earlier war years and had been among one of the first generation of pilot instructors. He carried corruption scars that covered most of his visible skin with silver and walked with a cane. Stage Three corruption, Valoris estimated. Far past operational deployment but somehow still functional enough to teach.
The classroom itself was deliberately unsettling, with holographic displays showing entity footage from various encounters, specimens preserved in dimensional stasis containers lining one wall, constant low-level dimensional interference that made the air feel thick and wrong.
"Entities come in hundreds of documented configurations," Professor Vance said, his voice carrying that dimensional echo that advanced corruption created. "Classification systems attempt to categorize them by apparent function, morphology, behavioral patterns. But understand: these classifications are human constructs imposed on alien biology we don't actually comprehend."
He pulled up images of different entity types: some completely abstract geometries that hurt to look at directly, a few that seemed to exist in more dimensions than baseline reality should allow.
"Type-A entities: most common. Ten to twenty feet tall, elongated ‘limbs,’ partial dimensional phasing that makes them difficult to target. Typically encountered in smaller groups, show coordinated movement that might indicate basic social structure or might be dimensional physics we're interpreting as cooperation."
The images rotated, showing Type-A entities in various states of existence. Some were fully manifested in baseline reality, others flickered between dimensions. All of them looked wrong in ways that made Valoris's brain hurt.
"Type-B entities: larger, more aggressive appearance. Eighteen to twenty-five feet, heavy physical presence, less dimensional phasing but more baseline stability. Often encountered near rift zones, appearing to defend territory or guard something. Current theory suggests they might be protecting emergence points for smaller entities. Or they might just prefer those zones for environmental reasons we don't understand."
More footage: Type-B entities that moved with disturbing purposefulness, positioning themselves defensively, showing what could be protective behavior toward Type-A entities or might be entirely different motivation.
"Type-C entities: rare, massive, extremely dangerous. Twenty to fifty feet, reality warps around them visibly, capable of generating localized corruption zones through their presence alone. Usuall encountered deep in high-corruption zones. Extremely difficult to kill. Current theory suggests they might be some kind of leadership caste or might simply be what entities become after extended exposure to baseline reality, corrupted in reverse, if you will."
The Type-C footage was from long-range observation only. No close engagement recordings existed because any lone pilot who got close enough to engage Type-C entities typically didn't survive to record data.
"What's their purpose?" a student asked. "Why do they emerge? What are they trying to accomplish?"
Professor Vance looked at the student for a long moment. "We don't know. Multiple theories exist. Some analysts believe entities are invasive species seeking a new habitable dimension. Others suggest they're refugees fleeing the dimensional collapse in their origin space. Some research indicates they might not have 'purpose' at all. They might be dimensional fauna migrating through naturally occurring passages between realities."
He pulled up behavioral analysis footage showing entities in various situations: some appearing confused and disoriented, others moving with apparent intention toward specific objectives, a few demonstrating what looked like communication attempts through patterned light emission or dimensional resonance.
"Early contact programs attempted communication," Professor Vance said, and Valoris felt the entire classroom go still. "Years zero through five of the war, before current doctrine was established. Various methods were attempted: light patterns, sound frequencies, dimensional resonance manipulation, even mathematical concepts transmitted through quantum entanglement."
"What happened?" another student asked.
"Some entities responded," Professor Vance said simply. "Demonstrated capacity for understanding. Showed behavioral changes suggesting reception of transmitted information. A few cases recorded what appeared to be attempts at reciprocal communication, patterns that might have been language or might have been random noise we wanted to interpret as language."
He paused, dimensional flicker making his outline blur for a moment.
"Programs were cancelled in year six. The results were inconclusive, resources were better allocated to military response than speculative research. Hard to justify elimination when targets demonstrate sapient characteristics. Easier to maintain necessary military response when entities remain incomprehensible monsters."
The silence was absolute. Professor Vance had just said something that contradicted everything else they'd been taught. Something that suggested the war might not be simple defense against mindless invasion.
"But," he continued, his voice firmer, "that's historical curiosity. Not tactical relevance. Current doctrine is clear: entities are threats. They create corruption zones that kill humans. They emerge in numbers that would overwhelm our civilization if unchecked. Whether they're sapient or not is irrelevant to survival calculus. You can't negotiate with existential threat. You can only eliminate it."
He pulled up casualty statistics; human deaths from entity encounters, corruption zone expansion rates, population displacement data. The numbers were staggering. Millions dead over fifty years. Billions affected. Entire regions abandoned to corruption spread.
"This is what matters," Professor Vance said. "Human survival. Not entity motivation. Not philosophical questions about sapience or morality. Survival. Your job as pilots is to kill entities before they kill humans. Everything else is irrelevant to that requirement."
The logic was presented as absolute. Unquestionable. The only possible moral framework when facing civilization-level threat.
Afternoons meant combat simulations.
Squad Kade-07 assembled in the simulation chamber four times weekly, running increasingly complex scenarios designed to test coordination, adaptability, tactical execution. Each simulation was recorded, analyzed, critiqued. Each failure was documented. Each success measured against standards they rarely met.
The simulation chamber's entrance featured another inscription, this one in newer script: "Train Hard, Fight Easy. Train Easy, Die Hard." Bold letters that caught attention every time they entered. Except Valoris had walked past them so many times now they'd become invisible. Just more academy messaging that shaped behavior without requiring conscious attention.
Three months in, and they'd improved from catastrophic to merely inadequate.
Their seventh simulation (week four): urban environment, entity extraction, twelve-minute time limit. They'd actually communicated this time; Valoris giving orders, squad executing with minimal argument, Zee's combat capabilities supported properly, Saren's positioning allowing effective fire coverage. They'd completed the objective with two minutes remaining and zero casualties.
Rating: C-plus. Adequate but not exceptional. Ranked 56th among squads for that week.
Their fifteenth simulation (week seven): open terrain defense, entity suppression, limited ammunition. Harder scenario. Required careful resource management and coordinated fire. They'd struggled but succeeded. Milo's creative ammunition distribution (technically within parameters, barely) allowed them to stretch supplies further than intended. Quinn's entity movement prediction (obsessive pattern analysis finally paying off) let them position defensively with maximum efficiency.
Rating: B-minus. Good coordination, questionable methods, ultimately successful. Ranked 53rd that week.
Their twenty-third simulation (week ten): multi-level structure, objective secured behind entity-controlled zones, fifteen-minute limit with environmental hazards. A complex scenario that required adapting on the fly when the initial plan fell apart (it always did). Zee had taken point aggressively but within support range. Saren had provided covering fire while also calling out tactical adjustments. Quinn had maintained overwatch and tracked entity movements with disturbing accuracy. Milo had triggered an environmental hazard that actually helped instead of backfiring catastrophically.
And Valoris had coordinated it all, giving orders, adapting to changing conditions.
They'd completed the objective with forty-three seconds remaining. One casualty (Milo, caught in his own environmental hazard trigger, but acceptable loss given objective completion).
Rating: B. Solid performance with room for improvement. Ranked 41st that week.
Progress. Visible, measurable progress.
But still not good enough. Squad Thorne-03 consistently rated A or A-plus. Squad Volkova-55 was pulling A-minus regularly. Even squads ranked lower than Kade-07 occasionally had exceptional performances that showed what was possible.
After their twenty-third simulation, Instructor Davis had pulled them aside for debriefing.
"You're improving," he'd said, which from Davis was practically effusive praise. "Coordination is adequate now. Communication is functional. Individual execution has developed past bare minimum."
He'd paused, tablet showing their performance metrics.
"But you're still hesitant. Still second-guessing. Kade, you see the right tactics but you wait for confirmation before committing. Maddox, you identify problems faster than anyone else in your year but you assume everyone sees what you see. Clarify your concerns explicitly instead of expecting others to read your mind. Zavaretti, you're learning to work within squad structure but you still default to independent action when pressured. Sterling, your pattern recognition is exceptional but you optimize for data instead of survival. Renn, you're brilliant and reckless in equal measure."
He'd looked at all of them.
"You have the capability to be top-fifteen squad. Maybe top-ten if you push. But you're holding yourselves back. Figure out what you're afraid of and work through it, or stay mediocre forever."
They'd dispersed in uncomfortable silence, processing different versions of the same criticism.
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