Chapter Four
Cronin Academic Building
10:56 GST-Z
Kat had been hustling through her class schedule all day. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday meant six classes. Tuesdays and Thursdays gave her only three, but those were PT days, with four brutal periods of physical training and one study block. The schedule was relentless.
Kat jogged down to the basement of the Cronin Academic Building. It was time for the most infamous course of freshman year, the one responsible for washing out the most cadets: Geometry of Space Combat. Every command-track candidate had to take it.
“Hey Kat!” Fran’s energetic voice echoed down the hall. Kat turned and smiled.
“What’s up, Fran?” she asked, grateful for the friendly face.
“Guess what class I’m going to next?”
“Well, since we’re both heading to the dungeon, I’m guessing you’re in my Geometry of Space Combat class,” Kat said, nodding toward the open double doors ahead. The room beyond was dim and foreboding. No wonder the cadets called it the dungeon.
“Yes, I am. So you’ve got competition, girl.” Fran slapped Kat on the back.
“Oh really? I’m going to wipe the sims with you. Your ass is grass, and I am the lawnmower.” Kat returned the slap and walked toward the entrance.
Instructions flashed across the main viewscreen at the front of the room. Seating descended in a steep, arena-style layout from the top. The orders were explicit: find a seat and log in. Use your Academy ID as your login, and enter the password: sacrifice2506.
“Hey Kat, check this out. Did they convert an old basketball arena into this classroom?”
“Not sure. Let’s grab a seat farther down,” Kat said as they descended toward the instructor's platform.
“These walls and ceilings… I’d swear they’re lined with holographic generators. This entire room might be a giant simulator.”
Kat only half listened. The bell was about to ring, and being tardy meant an automatic demerit. She found a seat and started logging in.
“Fran here. I got seats. Quit gawking at the walls and sit down!” Kat snapped. Fran always got distracted by Academy tech. If she was this impressed in a classroom, Kat could only imagine her reaction to stepping aboard a star cruiser.
“All right, all right, Mom,” Fran muttered as she slid into a seat and began tapping in her credentials. Kat followed suit. They’d just finished when the bell rang.
“Whew. Made it,” Fran blurted.
“Shush,” Kat whispered, nudging her shoulder. She gave Fran the same look her mother used when words weren’t necessary.
A man entered the room. Slender but fit. His uniform was crisp. Silver streaks in his hair. The captain’s insignia gleamed on his collar, as did his medal pins. He strode confidently to the podium, his boots echoing off the walls.
“Reports concerning cadets not logged in before the bell have gone to the discipline committee. Be on time. We have too much to cover, and time is not a luxury. I am Captain Ezra McIntyre. Look around. Out of nine hundred freshmen, four hundred are on the command track. By the end of the year, at least one hundred thirty-six of you will be gone. More, if I get my way.”
He scanned the room slowly. Even from twenty feet away, his gaze pierced through them. Kat was already captivated. Fran? Kat wasn’t so sure. She figured it was only a matter of time before McIntyre made Fran his next target.
“This is Geometry of Space Combat. Yes, it’s a math class.” Some in the room groaned. McIntyre didn’t flinch.
“We don’t calculate the area of triangles or shapes. We work with coordinates and graphs. Coordinates control captains, and good captains control their coordinates. It won’t make sense today. But it will.”
He looked up again.
“Why don’t I hear typing? You should be transcribing. Falling behind earns you a ticket to the washout shuttle.”
He turned and activated the viewscreen behind him. A warship appeared, flanked by two Zontaerian Korlav-class cruisers. The caption read: ASC Omaha, March 26, 2506 – Captured by Jupiter Station Drone Array.
“This is the Omaha, in orbit around Jupiter. Watch carefully.”
The footage began. The Omaha accelerated, attempting to break free of the pincer maneuver forming around her. She rushed toward the gas giant as if diving into it might somehow offer protection.
The Zontaerian cruisers began their final turn, broadsides rotating into position.
McIntyre paused the video.
“Who thinks the Omaha is finished?”
Hands went up across the room. Kat kept hers down. So did Fran. Kat wasn’t sure how, but something told her escape was possible. She glanced over and saw Fran drawing shapes in the air with her finger, deep in thought.
“Okay. Watch this.”
The footage resumed. The Omaha suddenly decelerated. The Zontaerian ships began to overshoot her, still committed to their broadside trajectories. The Omaha dipped down and away, exposing only a third of her hull. In return, she brought her own starboard broadside, aft, and ventral batteries to bear.
The Zontaerian ships opened fire in salvo mode. But their shots crossed paths, crashing into each other’s shield grids. The Omaha was only lightly grazed. The Zontaerians’ eagerness to kill had backfired. Both cruisers took heavy damage—and then the Omaha struck back.
Two kill shots. Both Zontaerian ships exploded.
Cheers broke out across the classroom.
“Silence. Keep watching,” McIntyre barked.
The Omaha rolled hard on her Y-axis and dove upward, narrowly clearing the expanding debris field. She passed close to the camera drone before the screen went dark. Red numbers lit up: bearing 224 60 down plane.
“These were the coordinates Admiral Reynolds called to execute the escape maneuver,” McIntyre said.
A new set of numbers appeared in green: heading 268, 112 up plane.
“Can anyone tell me what these are?”
A cadet in front of Fran raised his hand. McIntyre checked the display.
“Yes, Cadet Linares?”
“They’re the follow-up vector Reynolds used to clear the debris.”
“Correct. But which of these two sets was the most important?”
“The one that set up the kill shot, sir. That was textbook.”
“Perhaps,” McIntyre replied. “Anyone want to explain why he’s wrong?”
Kat’s hand shot up.
“Cadet Walters.”
Her name sounded like a challenge. She met it head-on.
“Sir, the debris from the Zontaerian cruisers would’ve been dragged into Jupiter’s gravity well within moments. Those chunks were still hot with plasma and loaded with unexploded ordnance. If Reynolds had stayed on his original course, one spark could’ve detonated everything. The second vector saved the ship.”
“A roundabout answer, Cadet. But correct. If he’d held the first heading, the Omaha would be gone. Cadet Reeves, how many seconds passed between the two orders?”
“Twenty-two seconds, Captain.”
“Correct. That’s the difference between victory and death. We do math in three dimensions, with two-dimensional brains, and we do it in seconds. Anyone still think this class is about glory and calling broadsides?” McIntyre looked around the room.
Silence.
“If you’re here for glory, you’ll wash out.”
McIntyre turned back to the screen.
“Open your digital texts. Chapter One. Tactical interface computers—seeing three dimensions on a two-dimensional screen.”
Kat followed along. She took notes quickly, though her head already felt like it was spinning. She had chosen command because she believed she had the instinct for it. Kat still believed that. But McIntyre made her wonder. He didn’t want them to succeed. He wanted them to suffer.