Chapter 1 - 04: It's Tuesday

Kanya awakens from his slumber to an odd sound. Before long, he realises its just his personal data device. He picks it up and presses a button. A projection appears out of the device. The huge words slowly come into focus of sleepy-eyed Kanya: "Wake up call! - Harrison "

He then looked at the time display on his device: 7:02am. Oddly late for military training. Thinking about it, he had spent most of the night researching data on the Gifted, Erse as well as filling in any holes in his memory with the file Harrison gave him.

He immediately went to the bathroom to prepare for the day. How else would you prepare for the day?

When he returned, his device had received another message. Now it said: "Meet me for breakfast as soon as possible at the Cafeteria. -Harrison"

Kanya was puzzled. Where was this cafeteria? He tried searching through his memory for this place. Of course, that being said, he obviously lacked some form of common sense. Everyone knew how to find the cafeteria. PDDs generally download the basic navigational data whenever it entered a ship.

It wasn't long before he found someone who pointed out that rather obvious fact. He then rushed all the way to the cafeteria, which happened to be another section of the ship. He then came in, seeing Harrison at one of the tables. The nurse from yesterday was with him. She wasn't in uniform.

"Oh yeah, you haven't been formally introduced. This is Cassandra Atlam. She's your training instructor."

Kanya looked in disbelief.

Harrison picked up on it immediately as Cassandra began giggling. After recovering, she explained that she decided to see her new recruit the day before, disguising herself.

"I'm going to take it you told him about Erse visiting already?"

"Of course I did. He should've spent all night puzzled about what I was saying."

Kanya felt obliged to respond, but couldn't find any words. He just continued eating his food, not very surprised by the situation. Cassandra was a little irritated by his silence. "Say something, Kanya! You're not supposed to keep eating and ignoring the conversation!"

"What can you expect me to say? I'm not exactly surprised. You didn't act like much of a nurse yesterday anyway. Didn't think you were a pilot though."

"Hmmph," she pouted and began cleaning up her tray, preparing to leave. "Simulation training is in an hour at the Training VR Room. You'll be meeting a few fellow pilots like yourself. The only exception is that you're just practising to get up to speed. They're fresh from the Academy. I fully intend that the both of us beat some sense into them, so they won't slack off."

Kanya was a little surprised by the revelation. "OK. Nothing like ragging rookies, huh?"

"Don't be late. 9:30am sharp at the room. No late antics like the cafeteria stunt this morning."

She then left the cafeteria.

Harrison then said, "Being the best pilot on the ship means she has a lot to live up to. She a little sore that the best assignment she could get was on this ship. Apparently someone higher up doesn't like her or something."

"If she's so good, wouldn't some admiral already be scrambling for her?"

"Apparently someone put a black mark on her file or something. She didn't know why, and she couldn't find out why. She's been trying to get the mark off the file for years. Apparently, the someone who's doing is some really powerful authority. Probably someone in the ranks of the Gifted, I'd say."

"Why?"

"I'd speculate they intend to put her into some high profile project later. She still thinks she must have pissed off some general somewhere."

"But speculations are speculations."

"This ship has seen plenty of fighting though. We tend to attract pirates and the sort pretty often - plenty of which Cassandra was probably the only person that could hold them off."

"Hopefully, we'll now have two." Kanya grinned cheekily.

"Dream on. She's way beyond your level. You'll see soon enough."