Sophomore Share

Sophomore Share

My second year at the Academy, we discovered something that would change our lives forever.

With the money Pip and I had made during freshman year, the four of us got an apartment together. A nice four bedroom, with one set aside as a shared office.

At the end of our freshman year, we did a summer in space. We took out a ship a little larger than the Lois, and did a single run. Pip was worried he was going to fail out, since he'd been getting low scores on the written tests. But, well, the summer in space counted for as much as anything else. We all got a turn as officer of the watch, and I had my hands full with the ship's systems.

After the summer in space, maybe 10% of the class was gone. And Pip and I were called into Headmaster Giggone's office, who had heard about our trading program. I thought we were going to be expelled. Instead, we were invited to a special hands-on course with Professor Graves, our old shipmate from the Lois. If we joined it, this would be our only class for the year.

Of course we said yes. There were no tests, so Pip would be OK afterall.

When we got to class, we realized Bev and Brill were also there. They always loved not to tell us everything. The class had someone rated as Spec One in each discipline: astrogation, ship handling, power, propulsion, environmental, chef, steward, bursar, cargo routing, cargo handling, systems.

Bev was the astrogator, of course. Brill represented environmental. Pip was routing, and I was one of very few systems nuts at the academy.

The exercise was to develop a system that would tie in all ship’s systems, automate all databases, and essentially reduce shipboard dependencies on crew. This would let a single watchstander to ensure every system was nomimal. With shipboard pads, you could now track every shipboard system from anywhere onboard. The only thing you couldn't do was fly the ship during transitions.

Professor Graves would receive a large share of any profits, as would the Academy. Each cadet would also receive a share; any licensing would benefit all of us.

By the end of first semester, we had our systems. Second semester, the Academy told us this wasn't a joke- they had a junker and wanted us to load up the systems on it. Wowzer.

We spent the next semester doing just that. We ran into a lot of problems, but eventually the dozen of us solved those problems.

At the end of that semester, our summer cruise seemed obvious. Along with Graves, we got onboard the ship and took it for a test run. We didn't die, and made some improvements.

I heard about other projects that year, too: improved soft suits, transition closer to a gravity well, even an improved solar sail. There were others, I'm sure. Apparently the Academy didn't just turn out new officers -- it was also a hotbed of research and development.