Chapter 3: Chapter 3 Naval Academy: Term 1

We dropped off the marines first on a high G world in the naval academy system. It was going to be hard for my brother. Persia VI was a lower G world and it meant we were not strong but we’re taller than most normal humans. The engineer academy was on a massive space station next to a naval repair and refit space yard. My group was shuffled to the academy on docking. Our engineering class had almost 50,000 students entering. So I was not surprised that over 5,000 also had already achieved Grade 1 in at least one specialization, just a few hundred had two or more.

We were moved into bunk rooms that were actually pretty nice. Four to a room that was spacious and had two bathrooms. There were 3 other guys in my room. I didn’t like any of them after spending a day in the room. Courses would start in four days so I explored.

I would have classes 4 days in a row, then 2 days of practical training, then a half day off and half a day of physical training. The practical training would be in the refit yard so I checked that out. There were currently 24 naval capital ships docked, waiting on overhauls and refits. The repair yard was on another station, probably so us trainees didn’t see all the battle damage. I talked with a yard supervisor and learned our practical training would earn us some credits once we got enough certs and obtained a grade. I already had grade 1 so I should start earning credits week 1.

I walked to ship slips and stared at the ships through the observation ports. The ships were massive. Automated bots crawled along the hulls. Humanoid bots were extremely expensive and I had seen only a few on the station. I would be working along side them inside the Union starships. I decided I should try to get some certs for working on them even though it was outside my naval engineering education. The basic diagnostic and repair certs shouldn’t be too difficult for bots. Checking it, it required 4 different certs for grade 1 so I added it to my to do list.

I wandered back to the academy zone and had a meal. Gwen found me eating and introduced me to her three roommates, Sheila, Vanessa and Nila. Sheila was a tiny freckled red haired girl. Vanessa was moderate in height with dark skin and Indian features. Nila was also Indian but had a light skin tone with the same golden brown eyes that Gwen had. She was also tall and well muscled. The girls surrounded me at the table and started eating and gossiping. My eyes kept wandering to Nila and her smile melted my soul. Shit, my mom warned me of this, infatuation. I tried to steel myself but it just made it worse, I wanted to burn her image into my mind and that required staring. Of course the girls noticed and soon I was peppered with teasing comments that made me and Nila both blush. Was she also staring at me? Eventually the social onslaught left but Gwen paused and whispered in my ear that Nila was a very nice girl and she would do what she could for me. Well, I was stunned and then thought my effort to befriend Gwen on the trip was well worth the investment.

While everyone else was in their social utopia before classes started I managed to get one of my certifications in robot diagnostics. It was easy as it was mostly everything I already knew just on a smaller scale. I ate meals at the same time every day and during lunch Gwen and her posse made to sit with me every time. They tried to rope me into going to entertainment deck every time but I declined. I had a plan and planned to stick with it. Get enough engineering grades to get out of debt and assigned to a quality starship.

The night before classes were to start everyone’s comms beeped and we all checked our PerComs. It was our class assignments. Like I had found earlier, 4 days of classes, 2 days of practical and half a day off and half a day of conditioning. The classes took most of the day, 9 hours. Each day we had three classes. I had naval procedures first and then two electives I could choose. Everyone else in my room had no electives and were assigned classes related to certs I already had obtained. I highlighted each and selected a basic class in propulsion and one in robot repair. The device turned yellow after my selections then turned green shortly after accepting my selections. Apparently there was an AI or a person that needed to approve my choices.

Well classes were boring, exactly 16 of us in each class. Seating was four by four in every classroom, sometimes with a humanoid robot teaching and sometimes a human. The speed was so slow like we were idiots. I was used to going through a course at a much faster pace. I tried to use my PerCom during class but it was locked during class except for course materials. I couldn’t skip classes either or risk getting black marks on my records. When I talked to one of the teachers she said I could take the final exams early and then I would be able to get self study time.

Well the courses were supposed to take 10 weeks but I finished the materials and exams for all three in less than two weeks. I started a new routine. I started running and lifting weights in the morning since the gyms were empty during the first class period. I was tall, just shy of 1.92 meters, and extremely skinny and wanted to impress Nila who was also very shy but had taken to sitting next to me at breakfast and dinner. Her closeness started getting me aroused and I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her.

Well after my 3 hour workout I worked on getting the courses for my certs in robot diagnostics and repair. I usually skipped lunch as Gwen and her crew ate with other classmates in another cafeteria on the far side of the station by her classroom. I usually took a quick trip to vending machines and then I was off to the robotics center during the third class period. Although I wasn’t getting paid the practical work on the bots was fascinating and the lead supervisor, Camila, was friendly and very helpful. She had two sons in their second year at the academy as FTL engineers.

You are reading story Starship Engineer at novel35.com

She also looked great for having birthed seven children and gave me the motherly aura I was missing so far at the academy. And I think she was trying to set me up with her youngest daughter as she keep showing me videos of her. She was 15 and entering the academy in two years, hopefully as a capital ship pilot. I still had my sights set on Nila.

The great thing about the robotics center was the junk bin. It was a large pit of electronics and mechanicals set for breakdown and recycling. It also gave me something to spend my meager funds on. Camila sold me the junk at scrap rate but there was a lot of things that were not scrap in my opinion. I salvaged and repaired a SLUMBER unit. It was a helmet that covered your head completely and put you into REM sleep immediately for five hours of restful recovery sleep. I even adapted an oxygen feed to the unit like the more expensive models that aided in muscle recovery. I kept my sleeping cubical locked in my room so my roommates wouldn’t tamper with it. Besides that I took to repairing old VR headsets in the junk pile and selling them on the station AUCTION pages. The station housed nearly half a million people, half were poor cadets but the other half had discretionary income. I started to make a dent in my debt.

On my two days a week in the shipyard it was quickly learned by the directors that I was very fast and very good. I was soon overseeing three labor bots and doing tear downs of capital ship hydro systems, electrolysis and filtration systems. I would have to alter my goals upward as I should have enough hours and practical experience to reach grade 2 as a life support engineer…maybe after 4 terms if things went well. There were a total of 15 terms, each 10 weeks long. Between each term we also had 8 days off. Unfortunately I couldn’t graduate early like I thought. The good news though was I was on track to earn multiple grades in multiple specializations and pay off my debt long before graduation.

At dinner I had meals with Gwen and her growing posse, well they had meals with me as I was always already seated alone and they just sat down around me. I didn’t make it hard for them to find me and I liked listening to them talk about their days, well Nila’s day anyway.

In the evenings while everyone else was either socializing, studying or taking exams I started studying FTL equations, FTL mechanical theory and FTL power systems. I am not going to lie, it was hard as some of the reasons and physics on how ships got into and out of sub space were still unknown and mostly theory…at least the equations never seemed to quite work out. Basically sub space worked on a completely different realm of physics that was still being sorted even after 3 millennia. It was hard for my mind to shift gears but I made some progress.

During the first 10 week term I managed to reduce my debt to just 22,194 credits. I also had also accumulated 2,940 credits into my account as ‘discretionary funds’. If I had just managed to break my lunch vending machine habit I would have done better. The cafeteria was free but to save time I spent 8-10 credits every day at the vending machines for lunch. The food in the vending machines was actually good in my opinion. The machine took a quality frozen meal and heated it then dispensed it.

Well our first 8 day break was approaching and everyone was excited. Parties were planned and the students who had money were planning to travel down to the planet for a break. Even though I could afford the 220 credit round trip I wasn’t keen on it. I had not planned on attending any parties either until Nila invited me to one on the fourth day of the break.

We also had to meet with an advisor during the break to access our progress. My appointment had been on the first day. I learned why in the meeting, the meetings were scheduled based on class rank and I was 7th of 49,390 engineering students. Seventh, wow. The meeting lasted an hour. I was close to getting my certification for a Grade 1 in robotics diagnostics and repair and was already certified as a Grade 1 life support engineer. The advisor wanted me to move into heavy weapons systems as my second specialty. I wasn’t sure I could decline but did anyway.

We settled on my second specialty being sensors. Then we went over my three classes for next term. The first was starship emergency procedures, the second was deep space scanning arrays and the third was tracking software. It was good to have this info early. I figured I should be able to get a big head start during the break.

You can find story with these keywords: Starship Engineer, Read Starship Engineer, Starship Engineer novel, Starship Engineer book, Starship Engineer story, Starship Engineer full, Starship Engineer Latest Chapter