Age of Space

As the bus approached the academy, he opted out of doing a free dive this time. Walking normally onto the grass filled ground, like a perfectly normal upstanding citizen, he passed the green, vibrant trees as he headed towards the ship hangar. Breathing in deeply, light sparkled in his eyes as the rare woody smell ran through his body. There was just something about that smell, something primal.

I don't know what this feeling is, but I like it!

As Ronin entered the hangar, he was greeted by a wide array of ship parts, from faster-than-light engines, fusion reactors, radiators for heat dispersion, to computers, cables, cooling pipes and atmospheric generators.

Lined up in front of the juicy tech, stood 49 students and a single teacher.

Oh no, I wasn’t late, was I?

“Maximus…” the teacher began announcing, each syllable slow and deliberate.

“I see you finally decided to grace us with your presence.”

The students began staring. Some chuckled.

“Is that the guy who's been absent for so long?” One of them commented

“Isn’t that the guy with the perfect scores? He’s definitely using a ghostwriter. Only showing up on day one and getting 100% on every single exercise? Hah, what a joke” A pompous youth claimed.

“Wasn’t he supposed to be dead?” Cough “I mean retired from the academy like the others?” A voice hidden in the crowd questioned.

He also heard several mentions on the strangeness of his new eyes and scars.

Ignoring the chatter from the students, Ronin lined up with the rest of them.

While half the students continued eyeballing Ronin, and not in a good way, the teacher patted his checkered blue and white suit, then cleared his throat:

“Well, since there is a new student among us, I will repeat myself. The focus of this workshop is HSE, that is: Health, Safety and Environment. Not all design labs and few factories focus on workplace safety. But I assure you the important ones do…”

HSE! This is bullshit! If only these courses weren’t mandatory, Ronin sighed, rolling his eyes.

Pointedly looking at the sore thumb sticking out among the lined-up row of fresh academy students, the teacher continued:

“Yes. I saw that eye roll Maximus. If you are going to be late, at least respect the class. Now, if you pull up your academy uniforms information sheet. Enter the section for radiation measurement and you can see the different forms of radiation the suit can detect. Let's start with Eizenshaft radiation…”

Ronin already knew which types of radiation the suit could detect; he also knew the acceptable exposure limits of the human body. After saving up for-, and ogling the suit for over half a year, it'd be a miracle if he didn't know all of its parameters given his eidetic memory.

While the teacher droned on, Ronin snuck a few glances at his fellow students. They were still peeking at him!

Sheesh, I can ignore a little staring and gossip, but these guys aren’t letting up at all. Ignoring these students was apparently not going to be as easy as he thought.

Ugh, whatever, Ronin pulled up a holoscreen description of the currently talking teacher.

[Roneus Ravent, 59 years old, employed from 3381 - 3390 A.I. as maintenance technician for Exor Solutions. 3390 - 3402 A.I. executive manager for Exor Solutions, landbound division. 3402-3421 A.I. head researcher of landbound transport, Ironglades Space-Force Academy.]

At least I know his name now, imagine calling him Mr. teacher if he comes over to talk. Hmm, he's specialized in landbound ships I see.

Landbound ships, operated on very different rules compared to ships designed for space. They didn't have to worry about heat dispersion, radiation nor the pressure of vacuum, they also rarely had a FTL drive installed. That meant there was a lot of room for new design solutions impossible for proper spaceships. As a general rule of thumb, ship designers specialized into either landbound or space-bound ships.

With regards to FTL drives, well, an interstellar jump in a gravity well, could get... complicated. In addition to gravitational interference, the planetary atmosphere-, as well as electromagnetic field, made jumps... risky. A FTL quantum jump could fail midway, causing only half the ship and crew to end up on the other side. Something from a higher dimension might also come along for the ride, heck, sometimes ships just disappeared, never to be seen again.

“Now! Let's turn to a specific example...Hmm... Let's start with a common reactor. Alright, who can answer what the main safety risks associated with the KGC-Fusion reactor is?” The teacher, or more accurately, the landbound ship researcher Roneus Ravent asked.

“Neutron particles escaping the reactor!” A bald fat youth exclaimed with a markedly pronounced lisp, raising his hand.

Maybe he knows because he’s been exposed to it himself? Ronin speculated.

Looking at the academy uniform struggling to contain the short voluminous figure, he noticed a very clear double cheek. It was almost as if the bulging neck was fighting to get out of the suit!

Who in this day and age walks around bald at 18 years old? It’s either radiation damage or he's part of some kind of cult.

“Not bad Simons, but not quite right. Neutron release does cause health problems, but you’d have to be working alongside the fusion reactor for years before gene chain alterations start becoming a truly serious issue. Anyone else?”

“Destabilization of the magnetic containment field can lead to a containment failure if the engine is already running.” A brown curly haired girl pointed out.

“Yes, good point Anastasia. When an engine is already up and running there are a multitude of factors that can cause the engine to not only shut down, but potentially even blow up the entire ship. We call this risk factor "robustness". Generally, higher performing engines have a lower robustness factor. This makes it even more important to not make any mistakes when constructing high end engines. This also makes it necessary for skilled technicians to be working on those ships at all times to monitor and correct any anomalies that crop up when the engine is running.” Roneus Ravent said as he began moving his eyes, accessing his implant.

“Oh, 10 bonus points!" Anastasia exclaimed.

“Displays of excellence are generously rewarded in our practical programs. It is for that reason we have added the S grade for practical courses and practical courses alone. Here, your final grades will depend, not only on your performance during tests, but your work throughout the course itself here at the Ironglades space force academy.” Roneus remarked. A slight smile emerging at the corner of his lips.

“Anyone else?”

Many raised their hands, though in the end, no one was given any more bonus points. The hearts of the students however, had been ignited.

As the lesson moved on, the teacher pointed to the several assembly machines lined up against the eastern wall.

“The assignment for today will be to identify the faults in these KGC-fusion reactors. Then repair them and finally, we will activate the reactors and find out who of you have a future in spaceship design, and who does not.”

Ronin's eyes lit up as drones brought out several damaged reactors, aligning them with their respective assembly machines.

This is it; I get to not only operate an assembly machine, but to actually repair a ship engine!

As the head researcher handed out several handheld multiscanners, a notice informing the academy freshmen of the teams they’d be grouped in, pinged their implants.

Ronin skimmed through the team rooster. Hang on, isn’t Simons the bald kid? I'm teamed up with HIM?

“Not to worry” Roneus Ravent chuckled as every team were sent KGC-fusion reactor blueprints specifying the components, their dimensions, the associated electrical parameters, as well as how to put it all together.

“Every tool needed for what I expect to be an excellent repair session, has been provided. If you find a damaged component, query the drones and they will bring out a spare. Oh, and on that note, in case there's some greenhorns among you, I've attached an assembler instruction manual to the blueprints.”

As the teams grouped up among their respective fusion reactors, Ronin began looking over all of the materials he’d just been sent.

There's got to be over 800 pages here! How are we supposed to read this, let alone finish repairs in 8 hours?

“Leave it to me, my dad knows the curriculum administrator and had me practice on this engine type many many times.” The bald Simons confidently lisped.

As Simons began operating the assembler, Ronin sat himself down on the cold metal floor and began reading.

If Simons really knew how to operate the assembler machine, I might at least be able to finish reading the blueprints before the time is up.

“Hey, what are you doing? I know Simons said he’d handle it, but you can at least try to be helpful!” one of the new teammates spoke up incredulously.

“Sorry, I was looking over the blueprints. How can I help?”

Shaking her head, the student spoke back sardonically: “Start by using that multiscanner, just send the data over to Simons. Or is that too much for you maybe?”

Not bothering to argue, Ronin rose up and began working.

Seems I’ll be tight on time. He now, not only had to operate the multiscanner while reading the blueprint. He'd also have to do it with enough time to spare, so that the issue with the reactor would be found. There was also the dilemma of actually fixing the reactor after they found the issue. All in 8 hours?

Sheesh, it’ll take a miracle to solve this.

But... He’d be damned if he was going to rely on Simons for everything.

Time to get to work.

"..."

Time passed as Ronin did his best to skim through the blueprints while scanning the components the assembler placed out.

As the team kept troubleshooting, trying and failing to figure out what was wrong with the engine, the assembler disconnected the reactor piece by piece. 2 hours had already passed and 60% of the reactor had been disassembled.

Ronin paused. Looking around, he noticed how many of the other teams were far behind in the disassembly process.

Where are they at? At most they’ve disconnected 25% of the components. At least Simons is fast. He’s got that going for him.

Surprisingly, Anastasia's team, the girl who got bonus points for her answer on Fusion reactor HSE, had only disassembled 10% of the reactor.

Shrugging his shoulders, he went back into furiously trying to read the blueprint. By the time 3 hours had passed, Simons was apparently done. However, the team was no closer to finding out what was wrong with the reactor.

Meanwhile, Ronin was only halfway through the dense and complicated blueprint.

At this speed, there will only be 2 hours left to repair the damn thing by the time I'm done.

Sitting down again, he closed himself off from anything other than the blueprint itself.

As the blueprint pages began rapidly scrolling across his eyes, Ronin's mind went into overdrive. As sweat began trickling down from his forehead, he began comparing the expected component specifications with the actual multiscanner data he’d gathered.

Time ticked by. From having 5 hours left to do the repair, it trickled down to 4 hours, then 3 hours...

This is… I know what's wrong! Ronin's face lit up in a big grin as he looked over at his team. They were also sweating by this point, but for a different reason. They were no closer to figuring out what was wrong

“Simons!” He called. The bulbous boy jumped at the sudden loud noise.

“I know what's wrong with the reactor, can you put it back together again?”

As the other team members were about to disparage Ronin again, Simons spoke up.

“With 3 hours left, we will be cutting it close, my personal best is about 2 and a half hours, we should be able to make it if we start now. But how can you know what's wrong? You barely even looked at the reactor!”

We’ve got this in the bag then! With a slight smirk, Ronin began his performance:

“Maybe I didn’t poke around at the reactor like you guys, but remember, I analyzed every single component you disconnected from the machine. By comparing them to the blueprint parameters. I found several components with values below safety limits.”

“You mean to say that of a machine containing over 10000 different pieces of complicated tech. You compared every single piece!? Every single piece has several specific values in and of itself and you somehow compared all of them?”

Tutting at their disbelief, Ronin sent over his findings.

“As you can see, the values are off on these breeding blankets, the magnets containing the fusion reaction also show signs of damage. My guess is that if you analyze the magnetic properties of those magnets, you will find the reason why the fusion reactor is offline.”

“Playing a prank like this on such an impor… OWW, I see it now. There is definitely something off here.” A female team member commented.

“This deviation… It looks like heat damage.” Another added.

Simons eyes lit up and he began to proudly explain, the lisp, still very much evident:

“My father told me about how these types of reactors often suffer from wear and tear. Also, if you crank up the output too much, it damages the heat buffer. A damaged buffer means a damaged magnet and a damaged magnet means runaway plasma and runaway plasma means-”

“Yeah, yeah we know, exploding reactor, goodbye spaceship.” Someone from the team finished.

Ronin wordlessly thanked the man. Simons could be a bit much, seems the team agreed. That being said, Simons knew his stuff, without him they’d be screwed.

They had the drones fetch replacement parts and as time ticked by and 3 hours became 1 hour, they raced the clock. Ronin clenched his fists.

10 minutes left! Come on!

Somehow, right before the deadline passed, they’d finished. The reactor was back together.

“...”

Roneus Ravent, straightened his suit, electrically brushed his hair to the side, then called out:

“Times up ladies! Now, who's up first?”

Anastasia's team were fast to raise their hands.

Why are they raising their hands? By the time we disassembled 25 % of the engine, they were at 10 % and we barely made it in time!

The reactor was transported into a blast chamber, diagnostics were run on it and with a nod from the teacher, it was booted up.

It ran like water, smooth. Be it, radiation leakage, engine efficiency or magnetic deviation, all values showed green.

“Great job team. From now on you will be called team 1, you were the first to make yourselves known, and you did so excellently. Congratulations!”

Ronin could see the bright prideful smiles on Anastasia and her team.

Just how did they do it?

“Anyone else!?” Roneus Ravent called out.

Not a single student raised their hands. Ronin's team were whispering to each other. Apparently, they lacked faith in his solutions, despite him proving himself.

If no one else is going to do it… He raised his hand.

“Mr. Maximus… I see you are raising your hand.” Roneus chuckled, raising an eyebrow.

“We repaired the engine and are ready to test it.” He said back.

“You sure about that?” He got back, amusement coloring the question.

Simons and his other teammates seemed to be trying to hide behind his back, covering their faces, looking down at the iron covered floor.

“Sure, if the so-called team 1 could do it, why not us?” Ronin snorted back. He was used to much more high-pressure situations than this. Some arrogant highfalutin teacher looking down his nose at him? What a joke!

Roneus shook his head in exasperation. The rest of the class began whispering and pointing. Nevertheless, the engine was eventually transported to the blast chamber for testing.

As various inspection programs began running on the engine, the teacher's eyes began to widen. All systems lit up green. The engine was ready for live action testing.

Ronin's hands were shaking, this was it! The moment of truth, had his solutions worked?

[Engaging reactor in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.]

VZZZZ

It worked! I was right all along. As Ronin celebrated inwardly, the engine ramped up and the diagnostics screen began showing the data.

“Less than 0.1% overall deviation from the blueprint standards. This reactor is running like it came straight out of the factory!” Roneus exclaimed, his entire face contorted in shock.

Simons eyes lit up as he looked at Ronin with a fervor, he was not quite sure he was comfortable with.

Hopefully it's nothing.

As the functionality test ran down, the teams were herded back together towards the entrance of the hangar.

“As you must have experienced, even simple repairs are difficult. Imagine serving on a starship, where you have to source the materials, print them out, as well as find out what's wrong with the engine. Further, imagine doing this possibly in the middle of direct combat where every second you delay means one second closer to not only your own death, but the death of every single crew member!” Roneus cleared his throat.

“Got a bit off topic there, but the point is, you all, except team 1, screwed up. Tell us Anastasia, what did you do before you began to disassemble the engine?”

“We looked up how to run basic pre-ignition diagnostics on the reactor. Since we could risk an explosion, radiation damage or any other number of issues, we first checked the blueprints.”

“Exactly, did everyone hear that? Never just start the engine. Also, what you don't do is just, out of nowhere, start disassembling the engine! Diagnostics first! Always diagnostics first! If you just randomly started disassembling an antimatter reactor, we’d all be dead now!”

Ronin mentally slapped himself on the head. Of course! How did we miss it? I'm blaming Simons!

“As for Mr. Maximus and his team, I still don't know how you managed to repair that engine. No engine is supposed to be repaired that way.”

“I analyzed all the components and compared them to the blueprint values sir.” Ronin swung back.

“Impossible! None of you have the implants for it, if you did, I’d know.” Roneus snorted.

“If you don't want to say, fine. Regardless, I will award both your teams 20 bonus points for finishing the assignment on time.”

With the exercise being over, Ronin decided to do some networking. He’d made some contracts of employment along with Uncle Nagata for when he’d begin hiring workers for the company.

On that note, I should give the company a name. Quick fix spaceships? Doombringer incorporated? No, let's make it simple. Ronin filled in the final piece required for the contracts of employment to be valid: The company name: Maximus Solutions.

“...”

Anastasia clearly did not seem enthused about the offer, after a series of deflections, he finally got the point. She did not want to work for Maximus Solutions. As Ronin continued down the ladder of competence, getting rejected again and again, it finally struck him. Maybe his previous stunt was in fact, not enough for the adoration and praise he'd expected. Both him and Maximus Solutions lacked credibility. He'd moved too fast and had no track record nor achievements.

“Huh!?” Over the corner of his shoulder, he noticed Simons. Has he been following me this entire time? He noticed the expectant eyes on the bulbous boy.

It can’t be, can it? Does he want to join the company? He did know his way around an assembler. Ronin needed the manpower and he’d already asked all the students who might be competent. Simons should be near the top of that list. For some reason, the thought of matching ‘Simons’ and the idea of "working together" caused his brain to spasm.

“Ah, Simons, didn’t see you there.” Ronin got out awkwardly.

“I've been here a long time. You talked about a company?”

Why do I feel like I'm being pressured?

“Ah, yeah. It’s a small company seeking new talents for long term loyalty. Are you interested?”

Simons picked his pockets, extracted an evaporation spray and began spraying his neck, seemingly trying to appear more presentable as he began:

“I might be very interested. When we were fixing the fusion reactor, did you really memorize the whole blueprint? It’s not a trick, right?”

“No trick, it’s part of the reason why the company hired me.” Ronin lied as he sneakily made some small adjustments to the contract, before handing it over to Simons.

“The employee is required to possess, or develop a strong ability to communicate?” Simons asked while reading the document, puzzled by the unorthodox requirement.

"..."

After assuaging Simons on the reasonableness of the strange new clause in the contract, Ronin headed home. He’d aced the practical, acquired a helper and soon the factory upgrades would finish. He was feeling good.

Arriving before his apartment, he happily began opening the door, before a CLICK rang out right below him.

What the-

BOOM!

An enormous explosion rang across the entire floor. His academy suits single use shield protected him from some of the blast, but the energy shield was not built for something of this magnitude.

As all went black and his consciousness faded, the building ignited into an inferno of flames.