Chương 8

The cafeteria -I refused to call it a commissary- was more crowded than I expected. Students from other programs filled the tables and their conversations created a constant buzz of background noise. I spotted a few familiar faces from the physical conditioning session, including Belcher, who was eating alone in a corner with the intensity of someone who hadn't seen food in days. Charlotte claimed a table near the windows while Lysara and I got the trays.

The food options were marginally better than breakfast, the menu offering something that looked almost like actual meat.

"So," Lysara said as we sat down.

"What did you think of Instructor Zoe's little philosophy lesson?"

"The part about luck?" I took a bite of the meat-adjacent protein. It still surprised me that it tasted better than it looked. All I could get in my sector back then tasted like watered down cardboard with flavoring.

"She has a point."

"She has a… perspective. That's not the same thing." Lysara arranged her vegetable lookalikes in neat rows before eating them one by one.

"Plenty of successful commanders never experienced the kind of physical hardship she's describing. They succeeded through intelligence, planning, and delegation."

"You said as much to her face."

"I did. And she gave me the standard response about the threshold and facing death." Lysara shrugged.

"It's not wrong, exactly. But it's also not the whole truth." Charlotte had been quiet and deep in thought ever since the exchange back at the end of the session. Now she looked up.

"Then what do you think is the whole truth?"

"That there are many paths to effective command. Physical resilience is one. Strategic brilliance is another. Charisma, political acumen, technological innovation. All of these can compensate for a body that isn't built for combat. Digitization is also an option, although highly untested and regulated." Lysara paused.

"The Empire didn't conquer a thousand worlds because our generals could run faster than the enemy. We won because we were smarter."

"That sounds exactly like something an analyst would say."

"I am an analyst. That's the point!" Lysara smiled.

"The physical side of command is one variable among many. Important, certainly. But not the only thing that matters." Lysara ate another vegetable.

"The commanders who win are the ones who can leverage all their advantages, not just the ones who suffer the most." I thought about that while I ate. There was something appealing about Lysara's perspective, that intelligence could compensate for physical limitations and bring victory, but I felt that Instructor Zoe's had at least partly resonated as well. Everything is important. Too much of something is bad. Too little of something is the same. I need to find a balance.

"What about you?" I asked Charlotte.

"What do you think matters most?" She was quiet for a moment, her silver eyes distant.

"Judgment," she finally said.

"The ability to see a situation clearly and make the right decision, even when you're tired, scared, and surrounded by people telling you different things."

"That's very diplomatic."

"It's very true." Charlotte met my eyes.

"You can be the strongest person in the room and still lose because you made the wrong choice. You can be the smartest and still fail because you hesitated when action was needed. Judgment is knowing who you need to be and what you need to do in any given moment."

"And how do you develop judgment?"

"Experience. Learning from the people who've made the difficult decisions you haven't had to make yet." She paused.

"That's why we study case studies like the Thane siege. Not because we'll face the same situation, but because understanding how others judged their moments helps us judge our own." Before I could pursue that thread, a familiar voice cut through the cafeteria noise.

"Jax." Oops. Vera stood at the edge of our table, her arms crossed and her expression annoyed. I hadn't even seen her approach.

"You were supposed to meet me ten minutes ago." I glanced at the chrono on the wall. She was right. I'd completely lost track of time.

"Sorry. We only just finished conditioning. I got caught up."

"I can see what you got caught up in." Vera's eyes moved from Charlotte to Lysara and back to me.

"Interesting company. Knowing your families, I didn't expect you two to sit peacefully at one table."

"Hey!"

"You can socialize on your own time. Right now, you have training. Up you go." she slapped my shoulder.

"Training?" Lysara raised an eyebrow.

"Today's session wasn't enough?"

"Not even close," Vera stated.

"Jax needs supplementary work to catch up with students like you who've had proper preparation. That starts tonight."

"Right now?" I looked at my half-finished tray.

"I haven't even finished dinner."

"Bring it with you. You can eat while I explain what we're going to do." Vera turned and started walking without waiting for a response.

"Now, Jax." I stood, grabbing my tray, feeling like an inmate on death row. Charlotte's hand caught my wrist before I could follow.

"I'll check on you later," she said quietly.

"Try not to let her kill you."

"I hate that that's in the cards."

"Because you keep putting yourself in positions where death is a possibility." She smiled, and despite everything, I felt that warmth in my chest again.

"Go. Don't keep her waiting."

"It was nice meeting you," Lysara added.

"I expect we'll be seeing a lot of each other. The program isn't that big."

"Looking forward to it." Dangerous. Very dangerous. I wonder what Vera was talking about earlier? I shook my head. It didn't matter right now. I caught up with Vera at the cafeteria's exit. She acknowledged me with a nod and started walking toward a section of the station I hadn't explored yet.

"Your new friends seem interesting," she said.

"Lysara just joined us for dinner. And Charlotte has been nice to me." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"I know who Charlotte is." Vera's voice was carefully neutral.

"I also know who Lysara Thorne is. Analysts, the whole bloodline. Extremely capable too. If she's in the Strategos Program, it's because someone thinks she can be more than an analyst."

"Is that a problem?"

"It's information." Vera finally glanced at me.

"In this program, everyone is your potential ally and your potential rival. The friends you make now will either help you succeed… or hold you back. Choose carefully."

"Sounds like you're speaking from experience." Vera stopped walking and turned to look at me.

"I am. I wasn't born into a House. My father was a deck-mechanic on a freighter. Just like you, I got here because my aptitude scores were high enough, and because I was willing to bleed more than the girl standing next to me. The Strategos Program is the only place in the Empire where a commoner can leapfrog a thousand years of social hierarchy." She grinned, showing all of her teeth.

"And, Jax, we're going to have you do just that." Cold sweat trickled down my now dry back. – Vera led me to a training room I hadn't seen before. It was a lot smaller than the cargo bay where Instructor Zoe had tried to kill us, but better equipped. Weapon racks lined the walls and the floor was covered in thick mats.

"Sit," Vera said, pointing to a bench near the entrance. I followed the command and began stuffing myself with food from my half-eaten tray. My legs still ached from the earlier exertion, and I was not thrilled to find out what fresh hell I would be subjected to. I had a feeling that I would need every sliver of energy soon. Vera disappeared into a storage room and returned with a small case. She opened it to reveal a row of auto-injectors, each filled with a pale blue liquid.

"What's that?"

"Stim shot." She selected one of the injectors and checked its readout.

"It'll help your muscles recover faster and keep you alert for the next few hours."

"Right and I bet there aren't going to be any side effects. Especially not when it looks scarier than an animal tranquilizer."

"You've seen an animal tranquilizer?" Vera gave me a strange look. Understandable, since usually only nobles had animals. Most people just saw robots, robots, and more robots.

"Just in the books," I admitted.

"Still, my point stands. It looks scary. Wait, is it glowing?" I was scrutinizing the case on the table.

"Safer than trying to train while exhausted." she said from right next to me. Wait, when did she- I felt a sharp prick on my neck and the hiss of the injector pumping me full of glowing mystery fluid. The effect was immediate. A wave of cold clarity washed through me. My muscles still ached, but the bone-deep weariness that had been dragging at me suddenly felt manageable. I felt like a new man, like I could bench press a house, likeIcould ohmygodwhyaremythoughtssofast.

"That's..." I blinked, trying to find the right word as I came down from the initial high. Did she inject me with liquid cocaine, or something?" Intense."

"The effect lasts about four hours." Vera set the injector aside.

"After that, you'll crash hard. We need to be done before then."

"Done with what, exactly?"

"Catching up." Vera stripped off her jacket, revealing a fitted training shirt underneath. The stim let me process the new information way better than I normally would, and my brain politely filed the image away for further study at a later date. You fucking horndog. I slapped the mental voice again. This had become a habit. Sigh. Aaaanyways, time for suffering. And more suffering later. Yay! She moved to the center of the mat and dropped into a ready stance.

"First drill. Mirror my movements exactly." Sir yes sirr. What followed was an hour of the most precise physical instruction I'd ever received. Vera moved through a series of combat forms, each one flowing into the next with mechanical efficiency. I copied her as best I could, and she corrected me with terse instructions, and a stick that had appeared from nowhere. That's not how the dramas I watched did this! I want a refund!

"Wider stance."

"Elbow in."

"You're telegraphing. Smaller movements."

"Again."

"Again."

"Better. Again." The stim kept my mind sharp, but my body was still operating on the remnants of Instructor Zoe's conditioning session. Every form pulled at muscles I had already abused. But I kept going. Not like I have a choice if I want to survive. That seemed to be the theme of my first day at Magna Protos.

"You're not… bad," Vera said after we had run through the sequence for the dozenth time.

"Your fundamentals are weak, but your body moves well enough. Someone taught you."

"My mother." I wheezed. - "She was in the merchant marine before she married my father."

"That explains it. Merchant marines train for close-quarters boarding actions. Different style than military academy forms, but the principles transfer." Vera rolled her shoulders and checked her interface briefly.

"Now, hmm. Let's spar."

"Spar?" I looked at her, then at myself.

"I can barely stand."

"That's the point." Vera dropped into a fighting stance.

"You need to learn to function when your body is failing. I will attack. Defend yourself." She came at me without further warning. The first exchange lasted about three humiliating seconds. Vera feinted high, I reacted to the feint, and her sweep took my legs out from under me. I hit the mat and felt the air in my lungs vacate the premises, eviction notice in hand. I gasped, opening and closing my mouth like a fish out of water. I am sure I looked very calm and collected while doing so. Mhm.

"Stay down for a second," Vera commanded, not moving to help me up. She looked down at me, not having moved from her spot. I looked up at her. Oxygen, I need oxygen, stop using it for other things! My brain refused, the traitor.

"Think about why you're on the floor."

"Because you're faster than me," I wheezed, staring up at the vaulted ceiling of the training room. Not at Vera. Nope. Do not look at the reason she is casting a shadow over you unless you want to be sent to the hospital. Is there even a hospital here? Probably. There were three ceiling lights up there. One of them had a small crack. I felt a blood vessel in my eye start to strain.

"Speed is a variable," she countered.

"You fell because you committed your weight to a lie. You saw my hands move and your brain registered a threat to your head. When you moved your center of gravity to compensate, I could take advantage of that with a sweep. How would you solve this in the future?"

"I don't react to a feint?"

"No," Vera said.

"Don't overreact. Feel the center. My feint was high, but my hips didn't turn and my eyes weren't tracking the strike. If you had watched my core instead of my hands, you would have seen the sweep coming from a mile away."

"Got it." I made a mental note to pay more attention to the rest of her body. Wait, no, that sounded-. More slaps.

"Good. Up. Now." This time, she used a different technique to the same result. I found myself lying on the floor again with every part of my body in pain.

"You tricked me into thinking that you were going for a feint and when I relaxed my guard, you put force behind the strike," I grumbled before she could say anything. A ghost of a smile touched Vera's lips.

"Not bad, Cadet Jax. Maybe not completely hopeless after all. Up." The pattern repeated. Somewhere around the tenth exchange, I started noticing things. I could almost see the slight shift in her weight before a strike. It wasn't much, but it was enough for me to bring my arms up and block her opening attack without falling down on the mats again.

"Good." Vera didn't slow down. She followed the block with a combination that overwhelmed my guard and ended with me in pain again. I could swear she derived enjoyment from this.

"You're learning. Up." We had a few more exchanges. I rarely made it past blocking the second or third strike, but the practice was immensely helpful. I could feel myself improving. Instead of blocking wildly, I could be more strategic about things. One time, she tried to throw a low kick, and I stepped inside the arc of her attack. The power flowed off for the most part, though it was still strong enough to knock me off balance.

"Alright, enough." Vera stepped back, barely breathing hard. I was drenched in sweat and pretty sure I had developed bruises on top of my bruises. She looked satisfied. I looked like a blob of barely alive meat.

"We'll continue your lessons later this week when I'm free."

"That's it? I thought you'd keep torturing me here until an ungodly hour."

"For tonight. You need to sleep while the stim is still active, or the crash will be worse." She retrieved her jacket from the bench.

"You were decent. With consistent training, you might even be mildly competent by the end of the semester."

"High praise."

"It's my honest opinion." Vera paused at the door.

"One more thing. The physical training is important, but it's not what will make or break you in this program. Tactical theory is where commanders are forged. Tomorrow's class will be your first real test, so make sure to get a good amount of sleep. Don't embarrass yourself." I sat on the mat alone for a while, cataloging the various new muscles that had joined the screaming choir from earlier. My body felt like it had been run through an industrial processor. Twice.

Underneath the exhaustion, I began to truly understand just how far I still had to go. The walk back to the North Tower took longer than it should have. My legs had decided they were done cooperating, and the stim was starting to fade. My thoughts… were not… feeling great… By the time I reached my room, I was operating on pure stubbornness. I didn't bother undressing. A single speck of wasted energy and the floor would be my new home.

I just collapsed onto the bed, still wearing my sweat-soaked training clothes, and was asleep before my head hit the pillow. As my consciousness left me, my interface pinged me with a message I was already far too tired to read.