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- High fantasy is my personal favorite, followed closely by modern fantasy and post-apocalyptic, but I can happily play in any genre if the plot is good enough.
The graduation ceremony for the First Men's Planetary Expeditions Academy was being held in the Sir Martin Schreiner Auditorium Hall, a massive building made of glass and steel. The building was located right at the core of the proud city of Morecambe, the capital city of the planet Khepri, which served as the heart of the United Planetary Alliance.
Despite the fact that Khepri was one of the largest inhabited planets controlled by the UPA, it wasn't the kind of place just anyone could gain access to. Most of the people who lived on Khepri were the elite of the Alliance, people tasked with maintaining the health and wellbeing of an intergalactic commonwealth that spanned twenty seven different solar systems.
However, for someone like Aeva Rivans, such restrictions were almost meaningless. It only took one wave of her badge to get her into some of the most restricted buildings in the Alliance, let alone something as simple as being granted permission to land on a planet.
With a population growing close to 500 billion people, there were still less than two hundred individuals who had the right to bear a Platinum Planetary Expeditions badge. It was a sign both of her value to the Alliance, and the great contributions she had already made towards its development. What made her stand out even further was that she was one of the five people in the history of the Alliance to earn the badge before the age of 30, and the only one of those five that was also a woman. Additionally, she was one of the forty seven who held the badge as a support, rather than a frontliner.
Many people considered Aeva a role model, the representative for an entire generation of Planetary Explorers. But Aeva had never put as much stock in the grade of her badge as many of her fellows did. To her, it was a convenience, something that helped her wave her way through the red tape that often slowed down government bureaucracy, and anything else that might get in the way of her ability to complete a mission.
However, she knew full well that the grade of her badge wouldn't affect anything when she was millions of lightyears away from the interstellar quadrant of the Alliance. The monsters that lived on these distant planets would happily bite through her in an instant if she gave them a chance, whether her badge was colored iron or platinum.
Whispers followed Aeva as she walked in through the massive double doors admitting a slow flood of people into the hall. Aeva could feel countless eyes on her, but she ignored their presence as effectively as she ignored the few people who came up to try and start a conversation with her. All of the people admitted to the graduation ceremony held some level of status in the Alliance, but Aeva wasn't interested in them. No, her focus was entirely on the ceremony that was about to begin.
It was clear that the First Men's Academy had pulled out all stops for this ceremony, as per usual. The academy had been the highest ranked planetary expeditions school for the past 50 years, and well over two thirds of the current platinum badge holders were alumni of the school. The First Men's Academy brought in high-potential recruits from all over the Alliance, and successfully graduating from its rigorous curriculum marked a person as a member of the up-and-coming talent of the Alliance.
One day, these young graduates would bear the weight of the Alliance's health and wellbeing on their shoulders. These would be the people who would venture into the furthest regions of space, visit the most dangerous planets, to harvest the most valuable materials for dust attraction in the galaxy.
But there were always dangers associated with planetary exploration, and there was no way that the Alliance was going to risk seeing these promising talents perish in their early missions, when all new explorers were still learning how to transfer their knowledge into actual skill. That was why the First Men's Academy, along with many of the other Interplanetary Expedition Schools, had set up a mentorship program, something that paired new recruits with senior explorers. This would allow the more experienced seniors to guide and protect the young explorers from unexpected or dangerous situations, until the new recruits became competent enough to handle them safely.
Of course, the higher caliber the school, the higher level mentors they had the ability to invite. Despite having held her platinum badge for three years already, Aeva had only just now hit the minimum required age for the mentorship program, at 30 years old.
Normally, it was required for everyone at an eligible age to mentor a new recruit at least once every five years. However, people who held gold or platinum badges were automatically exempt from the mentorship draft, as they were considered far too valuable to "waste" on teaching other people. Some schools, the First Men's Academy among them, had the resources to occasionally tempt a gold badge explorer into agreeing to participate in a mentorship for their most exceptional students. However, it had already been five years since the last platinum badge explorer had accepted a mentorship.
Many people had reacted with surprise when Aeva announced she would be taking on the role of a mentor for the next year. More than half of those people had attempted to persuade her to change her mind, and stay focused on her real work. But Aeva had ignored all objections, and carefully searched through the dossier of graduating students to pick out her future mentee.
As Aeva casually seated herself in one of the seats of honor towards the front of the auditorium, she studied the mostly empty seats near her. Most of the invited honorable mentors would turn down their invitation to the graduation ceremony of their cadet explorer, finding it a waste of their time. They would wait until their pupil had completed all the after-graduation paperwork before finally calling them over to set up a first expedition.
Personally, Aeva found such a delay to be the real waste of time. She was here to grab her cadet as soon as the ceremony was over.
Aeva's timing was as exceptional as ever, with the opening speeches beginning less than five minutes after she'd sat down. Various people, including the academy principal, valedictorian of the class, and several honorable speakers gave speeches about the glory of the academy, the pride of the Alliance, and the value of planetary expeditions. It was rhetoric Aeva had heard countless times before; none of the information was new to her, or likely anyone in the hall. It was simply tradition.
After the speeches dragged to a conclusion, the proper graduation ceremony began. There were over 4,000 explorers graduating this year, and they were, one by one, presented with their exploration badges. A large majority of the recruits were awarded with tin badges. It was only a step above the lowest ranked iron badges, but that one step was something that millions of explorers could only cross with years of effort and dedication, and even more paid with their lives in an attempt to earn. The elites of the school were awarded brass badges, something that would allow them to take on the more lucrative explorations once they completed their apprenticeship. Only the top 0.1% of the graduates of the year, among all the expedition schools, were presented with bronze badges, starting their career only a single step away from entering the lowest of the high rank badges, copper.
As the graduation proceeded, Aeva's vaguely bored gaze suddenly sharpened when a familiar man stepped onto the stage. He was taller than many of the other graduates, standing at six and feet tall. She tracked his movements across the stage, as the sandy haired man proudly received a brass badge, under the announcement of his graduation with honors.
Under normal circumstances, Asher Tallart-Moore would be far from the most eye-catching of the graduates, even among the frontliners. Not only was he not one of the bronze graduates, but he had to be the oldest among the graduating crowd, at 28 years old. Under normal circumstances, he would be the last person someone would pick out of a line-up to be selected by a platinum mentor. Yet here Aeva was.
When Aeva had been flipping through the thousands of dossiers she'd received for the First Men's graduating class, something about him had stood out to her. Perhaps it was simply that she saw a lot of herself in him. Aeva had also graduated with a brass badge, her figure all but lost in the shadow created by the top explorers in her class. Also like this young man, she'd come from a colonial planet. Back then, half her mind had been still focused on how she was going to care for her family, brand new to the capital city after riding their daughter's successful admittance to the Academy. Yet, her own mentor had picked her out from among that crowd, and there was no way she would be here without him.
It was time for her to pay forward the favor, and Aeva believed in her instincts. There was grand potential in this seemingly overlookable man.
Even though the speeches at the beginning were kept relatively short, in the scale of speeches, the ceremony was still drawing close to the two and a half hour mark by the time the last of the four thousand graduates had made their way across the stage. As soon as the final, parting remarks were made, a speech which was kept gratefully short, Aeva stood up, her gaze locked on the man she'd watched with such attentive eyes before. One hand extended to point a finger in his direction, before she flipped her hand over and beckoned him with two quick pulls of the same finger.
She knew he'd received her information the day before, probably in an equally long and boring ceremony when all the graduates received information on their mentors, but she had no doubt her presence at the ceremony would be a surprise for him. Not that Aeva was concerned about that. He'd had two and a half hours to adjust himself to that reality, and she wasn't about to sit around longer to wait for him to finish chatting with his friends, or whatever most graduates did after the ceremony was over.
It was time for work to begin.
"Congratulations on graduating," Aeva began as soon as the young man approached. Her voice was unexpectedly dry for someone supposedly offering good wishes. There was a hard look on her face, and determination blazed in the depths of her blue eyes.
"Now it's time for you to enter the real world. What I intend to put you through will likely be dozens of times harder than anything school put you through. If you come with me, your every waking minute, your very life, is mine for the next year. This is your one chance to back out if you think you aren't ready for that." One brow rose, and a faint hint of a smile crossed her face. "You ready to go?"
Despite the fact that Khepri was one of the largest inhabited planets controlled by the UPA, it wasn't the kind of place just anyone could gain access to. Most of the people who lived on Khepri were the elite of the Alliance, people tasked with maintaining the health and wellbeing of an intergalactic commonwealth that spanned twenty seven different solar systems.
However, for someone like Aeva Rivans, such restrictions were almost meaningless. It only took one wave of her badge to get her into some of the most restricted buildings in the Alliance, let alone something as simple as being granted permission to land on a planet.
With a population growing close to 500 billion people, there were still less than two hundred individuals who had the right to bear a Platinum Planetary Expeditions badge. It was a sign both of her value to the Alliance, and the great contributions she had already made towards its development. What made her stand out even further was that she was one of the five people in the history of the Alliance to earn the badge before the age of 30, and the only one of those five that was also a woman. Additionally, she was one of the forty seven who held the badge as a support, rather than a frontliner.
Many people considered Aeva a role model, the representative for an entire generation of Planetary Explorers. But Aeva had never put as much stock in the grade of her badge as many of her fellows did. To her, it was a convenience, something that helped her wave her way through the red tape that often slowed down government bureaucracy, and anything else that might get in the way of her ability to complete a mission.
However, she knew full well that the grade of her badge wouldn't affect anything when she was millions of lightyears away from the interstellar quadrant of the Alliance. The monsters that lived on these distant planets would happily bite through her in an instant if she gave them a chance, whether her badge was colored iron or platinum.
Whispers followed Aeva as she walked in through the massive double doors admitting a slow flood of people into the hall. Aeva could feel countless eyes on her, but she ignored their presence as effectively as she ignored the few people who came up to try and start a conversation with her. All of the people admitted to the graduation ceremony held some level of status in the Alliance, but Aeva wasn't interested in them. No, her focus was entirely on the ceremony that was about to begin.
It was clear that the First Men's Academy had pulled out all stops for this ceremony, as per usual. The academy had been the highest ranked planetary expeditions school for the past 50 years, and well over two thirds of the current platinum badge holders were alumni of the school. The First Men's Academy brought in high-potential recruits from all over the Alliance, and successfully graduating from its rigorous curriculum marked a person as a member of the up-and-coming talent of the Alliance.
One day, these young graduates would bear the weight of the Alliance's health and wellbeing on their shoulders. These would be the people who would venture into the furthest regions of space, visit the most dangerous planets, to harvest the most valuable materials for dust attraction in the galaxy.
But there were always dangers associated with planetary exploration, and there was no way that the Alliance was going to risk seeing these promising talents perish in their early missions, when all new explorers were still learning how to transfer their knowledge into actual skill. That was why the First Men's Academy, along with many of the other Interplanetary Expedition Schools, had set up a mentorship program, something that paired new recruits with senior explorers. This would allow the more experienced seniors to guide and protect the young explorers from unexpected or dangerous situations, until the new recruits became competent enough to handle them safely.
Of course, the higher caliber the school, the higher level mentors they had the ability to invite. Despite having held her platinum badge for three years already, Aeva had only just now hit the minimum required age for the mentorship program, at 30 years old.
Normally, it was required for everyone at an eligible age to mentor a new recruit at least once every five years. However, people who held gold or platinum badges were automatically exempt from the mentorship draft, as they were considered far too valuable to "waste" on teaching other people. Some schools, the First Men's Academy among them, had the resources to occasionally tempt a gold badge explorer into agreeing to participate in a mentorship for their most exceptional students. However, it had already been five years since the last platinum badge explorer had accepted a mentorship.
Many people had reacted with surprise when Aeva announced she would be taking on the role of a mentor for the next year. More than half of those people had attempted to persuade her to change her mind, and stay focused on her real work. But Aeva had ignored all objections, and carefully searched through the dossier of graduating students to pick out her future mentee.
As Aeva casually seated herself in one of the seats of honor towards the front of the auditorium, she studied the mostly empty seats near her. Most of the invited honorable mentors would turn down their invitation to the graduation ceremony of their cadet explorer, finding it a waste of their time. They would wait until their pupil had completed all the after-graduation paperwork before finally calling them over to set up a first expedition.
Personally, Aeva found such a delay to be the real waste of time. She was here to grab her cadet as soon as the ceremony was over.
Aeva's timing was as exceptional as ever, with the opening speeches beginning less than five minutes after she'd sat down. Various people, including the academy principal, valedictorian of the class, and several honorable speakers gave speeches about the glory of the academy, the pride of the Alliance, and the value of planetary expeditions. It was rhetoric Aeva had heard countless times before; none of the information was new to her, or likely anyone in the hall. It was simply tradition.
After the speeches dragged to a conclusion, the proper graduation ceremony began. There were over 4,000 explorers graduating this year, and they were, one by one, presented with their exploration badges. A large majority of the recruits were awarded with tin badges. It was only a step above the lowest ranked iron badges, but that one step was something that millions of explorers could only cross with years of effort and dedication, and even more paid with their lives in an attempt to earn. The elites of the school were awarded brass badges, something that would allow them to take on the more lucrative explorations once they completed their apprenticeship. Only the top 0.1% of the graduates of the year, among all the expedition schools, were presented with bronze badges, starting their career only a single step away from entering the lowest of the high rank badges, copper.
As the graduation proceeded, Aeva's vaguely bored gaze suddenly sharpened when a familiar man stepped onto the stage. He was taller than many of the other graduates, standing at six and feet tall. She tracked his movements across the stage, as the sandy haired man proudly received a brass badge, under the announcement of his graduation with honors.
Under normal circumstances, Asher Tallart-Moore would be far from the most eye-catching of the graduates, even among the frontliners. Not only was he not one of the bronze graduates, but he had to be the oldest among the graduating crowd, at 28 years old. Under normal circumstances, he would be the last person someone would pick out of a line-up to be selected by a platinum mentor. Yet here Aeva was.
When Aeva had been flipping through the thousands of dossiers she'd received for the First Men's graduating class, something about him had stood out to her. Perhaps it was simply that she saw a lot of herself in him. Aeva had also graduated with a brass badge, her figure all but lost in the shadow created by the top explorers in her class. Also like this young man, she'd come from a colonial planet. Back then, half her mind had been still focused on how she was going to care for her family, brand new to the capital city after riding their daughter's successful admittance to the Academy. Yet, her own mentor had picked her out from among that crowd, and there was no way she would be here without him.
It was time for her to pay forward the favor, and Aeva believed in her instincts. There was grand potential in this seemingly overlookable man.
Even though the speeches at the beginning were kept relatively short, in the scale of speeches, the ceremony was still drawing close to the two and a half hour mark by the time the last of the four thousand graduates had made their way across the stage. As soon as the final, parting remarks were made, a speech which was kept gratefully short, Aeva stood up, her gaze locked on the man she'd watched with such attentive eyes before. One hand extended to point a finger in his direction, before she flipped her hand over and beckoned him with two quick pulls of the same finger.
She knew he'd received her information the day before, probably in an equally long and boring ceremony when all the graduates received information on their mentors, but she had no doubt her presence at the ceremony would be a surprise for him. Not that Aeva was concerned about that. He'd had two and a half hours to adjust himself to that reality, and she wasn't about to sit around longer to wait for him to finish chatting with his friends, or whatever most graduates did after the ceremony was over.
It was time for work to begin.
"Congratulations on graduating," Aeva began as soon as the young man approached. Her voice was unexpectedly dry for someone supposedly offering good wishes. There was a hard look on her face, and determination blazed in the depths of her blue eyes.
"Now it's time for you to enter the real world. What I intend to put you through will likely be dozens of times harder than anything school put you through. If you come with me, your every waking minute, your very life, is mine for the next year. This is your one chance to back out if you think you aren't ready for that." One brow rose, and a faint hint of a smile crossed her face. "You ready to go?"