Chapter 2: 2. Learning to be a Warrior.

   After flying for a little more, I checked the time on the hand watch and saw that the dinner will be served soon, so I decided that since I could fly now it would be a good idea present my invention to the family and I maybe the queen and the king will no longer think of me as a flightless shame of the royalty and a dark omen. 

   I flew through the open corridors, to the surprise of everyone that saw me, until I reached the dining hall with a ten meter long table and motioned the maid here preparing plates to get one more set there, to her and sat on an empty chair, as the maid hurriedly brought one more set of tableware. 

   Within minutes the rest of the family flew in and sat in their respective places and the place became awkwardly silent as they noticed me. 

   "Sis, you finally decided to leave your tower and eat with us!" Yelled Koriand'r, while using a short burst of flight to hug me.  

   I didn't replicate the hug and just said "Better get back to your place Koriand'r. Dinner is starting soon." 

   As if they heard me, the butlers and maids started bringing various salads, meats and vegetables. I poured myself a glass of citrus water from the flask nearby, took a small piece of my favorite meat, some potatoes covered with mildly spicy spices and a salad. 

   Koriand'r was seated next to me, my father as a king on the end of the table, with his wife on the right side and second daughter on the left. The rules normally stated that I should have been on my sister's seat, but I didn't care. 

   "So… how's the school Komand'r?" Asked my father while looking at me after a while of silence. 

   "I managed to skip a grade and I am still keeping scoring everything as the top student on every lesson or spar." I answered proudly with confidence. 

   "That's… good. Normally you don't join us for dinner since… your room is quite far and with your sickness I believe it was quite a long walk there." My father answered with hesitation in his voice. 

   Meanwhile mother watched awkwardly not knowing what to do and what to say, as we didn't talk for more than a year and last time we spoke it was just a short exchange of how is your day type. 

   "Illness?" Asked puzzled Koriand'r, while looking at me. 

   "Komand'r was born flightless and it was easy for her to fall ill at a younger age."

   "Flightless? But I saw my sister flying today! She even passed by the playground, where I was and she was really high up in the air and the nanny forbade me from going to her." Exclaimed Koriand'r with a face full of confusion, to the shock of our parents, who dropped their forks and knives. 

   "Umm that should be impossible. There is no cure for that illness. Maybe you mistook someone for your sister…" 

   "It was Komand'r! I even heard her laughing, as she did some stunts in the air. I would never mistake my sister for someone else. She is the only one with black hair." 

   "... Is it true Komand'r? Did you fly?" Asked mother after a moment of hesitation. 

   I watched with a hidden smirk and satisfaction from my parents various states of shock, before answering calmly "I decided to test today my new invention that would allow me to replicate our race ability to fly. It consists of two types of devices. First it is an anti-gravity belt and second there are four propulsors to control the direction of the movement." 

   "That's amazing, my daughter. Making such a thing at your age. I am impressed." My father replied and then the silence continued to my hidden amusement. 

   "So Komand'r, what are you planning to do after finishing school?" My mother asked, trying to find anything to end the silence. 

   "I will join the military college, graduate with honors as the top student and join the military to fight the Citadel forces in order to avenge our citizens and to bring victory to our race." 

   "That's… Very inspiring and hard plan, but I can only hope you will succeed for our people" 

   "I knew that my sister cares about us!" Happily exclaimed Koriand'r while hugging me again. I placed my hand on her head and pushed her away back to her seat. 

   The rest of the dinner went silently and after finishing I flew back to my room with a small smile on my face. 

   Looking at the calendar back in my room, which was the only reliable way to track the time for me, I saw that my father will be approaching his two hundred fifty birthday in two weeks, at least according to our planet time, since the day lasts twenty six hours and a time it takes for Tamaran to make full rotation around the star is four hundred thirty days. 

   Each inhabited planet has developed its own calendar, for their own needs and any attempts at creating universal one failed, due to complications of time diversity. 

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   Exceptions to this rule were the ships, especially military ones, that followed their homeworld capital time and date, since in space the concept of day and night is absent. This managed to simplify a lot of coordination and navigational problems in fleet management, with the additional benefit of stabilizing crew shifts. 

   I grimaced at the thought of having to attend the incoming party and as well to wish him something nice, when he never even wished me anything and not even bothered to show up. It was a special time, since two hundred fifty is marking half of our average lifespan. Normally we celebrate our birthday every year until we reach twenty and then only every ten years with our family. For the halfway birthday, we are expected to invite everyone we know and throw a grand feast for all our guests. 

   Nowadays it was very rare for royalty to reach that age, due to the constant wars, where our people are forced to defend ourselves. Also average warrior life expectancy on the deployment was around forty years and it was rare to see somebody above one hundred fifty in the war, as older people were either civilians, dead on the battlefield, or enslaved by Citadel forces. 

   Two weeks later I wore my best skin tight clothes that per our tradition were skimpy made to allow us to better absorb UV light and flew my way through the palace to the main hall where the celebration was about to start. 

   Taking my seat near my family at the highest part of the hall I sat and waited for the celebration to start with a speech made by the king. 

   After all the guests took their places my father stood up and lifted his cup and started his speech. 

   "Thank you all for coming here to attend my two hundred and fifty birthday. I am so h…" the speech was interrupted, by one of the warriors slamming doors open and yelling "My king! The citadel forces are throwing mass assault right now! Their target is the palace!" 

   Almost everyone stood up at once and reached for their weapons and took off to the sky in order to defend the royalty. My father ordered my mother to take Koriand'r into a safe place, before taking off to the sky with his long sword. I was left alone inside a suddenly empty hall. 

   'Well that's the end of the party' I thought morbidly, before standing up and sneaking myself a taste of the bitter wine produced with local berries. Normally I would not be able to taste it for many more years, but now and like always, nobody cared. Maybe except for my noisy sister, but she was annoying and naive. 

   After drinking a whole cup of it, I made my way up to the roof to observe the battle taking place. Maybe not the best idea, but curiosity was literally killing me and I wanted to be ready for the future. 

   It took some time and flight to skip the stairs, but when I finally reached my goal, I looked emotionlessly towards the sky and started observing on how the defensive turrets were ripping through the mass of Citadelans fighters, Tamareans literally flying around the ships and stabbing their weapons throughout the cockpits, killing pilots and engines, while taking losses by occasionally hit from enemy side, causing my kin body to be cut in into two pieces, or big part of their bodies and fall into the ground dead like a fly. 

   After some time, the remains of one of the guards fell on the roof, where I was and I took the long spear that he still had in hand and took off into the sky. 

   As I climbed higher and higher, while evading occasional blasts that were fired in my direction, I aimed the spear forward and launched myself onto one of the fighter's cockpits, where I slammed the spears through it with enhanced strength and pulled the bloodied spear back, before going for another one. Thankfully I was able to dodge everything that was fired at me at this time too, mostly due to my smaller size, compared to adult women, which was already just a half of the size of an adult male in terms of body build. It helped that I could always turn my belt on and off during the fight to have help from gravitational force, but it only worked downwards. 

    After killing the pilots of the second fighter, I decided to go for a third one that was flying towards me, ignoring the one closest to me, as there was already somebody trying to engage it. 

   As I started dodging the incoming fire, I felt my right arm getting hot for a moment and a moment of weakness spasmed my right hand, but I was able to grip the spear harder and slam it into the third one and before pulling it out, I took a fast check on my right arm and saw it was on the side partially scorched and bleeding. 

   The pain hit me hard with a fear of realization of how close I was to dying, but luckily the sun started healing me slowly and I continued going after another fighter. 

   After a while I lost a count of time, as I focused on fighting, killing and surviving. The pained cries, the blood on the spear and the pain in my arm all faded into the background as I fought in the daylight. Some fighters were able to escape me with their superior speed, only to meet the end at the hands of a more experienced warrior. 

   As I ran out of targets to chase in proximity, I stopped in the air and looked around to see that the remains of the enemy forces were retreating and half of our initial forces were celebrating the victory with raised weapons and cries. 

   Looking down I saw a lot of downed and destroyed fighters and a considerable amount of dead Tamaraneans in various states of what remained of them. The palace itself had a couple of fighters embedded into it and was partially burning, though the people on the ground were already taking care of it. 

   I was exhausted from the fight and dirty, with remains of one of our warriors stuck on my hair, though I didn't even notice when it landed on me and I just didn't have the strength to panic. I just wished for my bed and started slowly descending towards the palace. 

   Then I felt somebody catching me by the arm and using his ability to fly in order to help me reach the palace faster and heard a words coming out of that person "You fought bravely princess Komand'r. Please let me escort you back to the palace. I can see that our people were misjudged about you. You are really a bad omen, but not for us, but for our enemies." 

   I let him escort me, though I pointed towards the window on the corridor that led to both my room and a bath, to which he escorted me too, before placing me inside, doing a deep bow he raised and flew away. 

   I made my way towards the shower and just used water to rinse my whole body and hair, while gritting my teeth at the soaring pain it brought towards my arm. After rinsing I proceeded towards the giant body dryer mounted on the wall, to quickly dry myself up and naked flew towards my room, only to fall asleep on the bed immediately.