Xandrian Stone 4: The Academy Part 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

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Chapter 3: ADVANCED TRAINING
     
    Advanced training saw us being split into 2 groups: The best 60 trained on the parade ground, while the others basically repeated basic training, but a bit fiercer. For us 60, every day was different to keep us thinking on our feet, apparently.
     
    Shields and weapons trained together, for example. Along the middle of the parade ground was a double row of little brick walls now, one meter high and long, made of sturdy bricks. Sometimes the weapons trained to focus their destructive energy on a thin beam to punch small holes through the walls, sometimes they made large energy balls that had bits of brick go all over the place. Sometimes the shields protected those walls and it became a contest between weapon and shield, to destroy respectively protect the wall.
     
    When it was my turn to attack, well... um, the wall survived. I did make a small black scorch mark though. On the other hand, no matter how hard they tried, no weapon could penetrate my shields. Even after they started grouping, it took three of them to break my shield. We did that only once, because the weapons were focusing all they had on beams of destruction and after my shield faltered they drilled a very shallow tunnel of 31.49 meters length into the ground. Parts of it collapsed almost immediately, leaving a large scar in the parade ground.
     
    The Admiral was not pleased and we (the 3 weapons and myself) shoveled a full 2 days to first dig out the rest of the tunnel and then fill the trench and repair the parade ground.
     
    Sensors, navigation, communication and engines were all trained on board of Training Bricks on small trips around the planet and its moons. I ended up with detailed maps of Eden 6-1 through 6-4. 6-2 was a rocky moon with no atmosphere worth mentioning and no life at all. 6-3 was a snowball with a thin atmosphere and scarce, microscopic life and 6-4 a dead snowball with no atmosphere at all.
     
    Eden 6, the planet, was a gas giant with no life in the upper few kilometers of its atmosphere, but further down I detected some life. Mostly microscopic to very small, the biggest things that I could make out were about half-meter long, glibbery worm-things that lived in the region where the gas turned from gaseous to liquid.
     
    Engines training was interesting. I did my first rail-drive flight, which turned out to be a simple procedure: Point the Brick into the right direction and punch it. With a properly laid course the Brick would stop automatically at its destination, which made proper navigation essential.
     
    My first jump was something. A Master Adept Engines Wizard was flown in extra for me, and we took a Training Brick together, just the 2 of us. He showed me first how it was done by jumping from one edge of the Eden system to the other and back, with me observing with all my magic. When we were sure that I could do it, he stepped back: "Jump us to the other side of the system."
     
    I focused on the jump drive rune, which was the biggest in the engine room. It glowed gently, so I did that part right. Good start. Then I focused on the spot on the other side of the system and that I wanted to jump there. I had to visualize it clearly, to avoid a mis-jump. When I was sure that I had our destination clearly in my mind I activated the rune.
     
    The jump itself was a bit underwhelming, honestly. The folding and unfolding of space happened so quickly that when I became barely aware of it we were at our destination already. "Well done. It is not so difficult, eh?" I grinned and nodded.
     
    Something occurred to me: "We are well away from any moons or planets. Is there a reason behind this beyond simple caution, or can we theoretically jump directly to a colony?"
     
    "Good question. The arrival after a jump will always send a shock-wave through the surrounding space, which would be bad for planets, moons or especially colonies. We do not know exactly how far those shock-waves reach or what they