Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 11: Overachievers

Eva’s nose crinkled as a pungent smell wafted into her nose. She sniffed a bit at the air around her before she realized that the smell was coming from her body. Yikes!

She was still wearing the same pressure suit as when she woke up, and that was a cycle or so ago. It had become a little gross and grimy since then. And since it was a pressurized suit, her body felt a little more than ‘icky’ underneath, having stewed in her own sweat for hours on end.

Eva quickly leapt up and headed towards the fabricator, where she picked a relatively simple all-black outfit for it to create for her. A thousand credits were removed from her ledger in exchange for the convenience.

Her eyes watered at the cost. Money was something she had always had a love/hate relationship with.

She loved to spend it, but hated to lose it.

She quickly slipped out of the pressure suit and jumped into a shower, which she enjoyed immensely. By the time she was done, her outfit was ready to go so she quickly slipped it on and headed out the door.

She then had a video call with Miko via her DI, and the both of them met up shortly after. They decided to pair up and head to their region’s Starport and get their licenses.

.....

Eva was quite impressed with Miko after she saw her in action. She figured that if they teamed up, there wouldn’t be anything that could get in their way.

Miko pretty much felt the same about Eva.

They decided to get their piloting licenses quickly. Doing that would open up quite a few piloting jobs to the both of them, with the hopes that they would land on a few lucrative ones.

Just as importantly, they had initially thought that their 10k stipend was plenty, until they saw how much everything cost. Eva’s simple outfit had already cost her 1k, and the meal they had on the way to the Starport cost 500. They quickly realized that relying on the stipend to live was utter foolishness.

The faster they got their licenses, the faster they would start earning real money. It was as simple as that.

One of the Federal Starpilot Licensing Bureau’s facilities was inside the massive Starport itself, and took up multiple floors of an entire wing. It was large enough to deal with thousands of people at any given moment.

There were people everywhere here, of every age, shape, and size. Seemingly, they were here to get their licenses as well. Or, at least, sort out whatever problems they had with theirs. Regardless, it was a great many people, and Eva shuddered at the thought of her being in a line that was a thousand people deep.

But even with the great amount of people waiting, everything moved along rather quickly. Back in Eva’s time, her experience just trying to get a driver’s license was an exercise in patience. There were times where she had to wait for hours just to hand in a form, only to wait some more! It was ridiculous!

Thankfully, they were spared from that purgatory in this universe.

Eva and Miko were astounded at how helpful their DIs were. As they walked and talked, they would constantly be alerted to happenings around them, and updated with fresh information regarding topics they were discussing.

At the Starport, their DIs even started the application process automatically the moment they walked through the main doors. All the two of them had to do was review the completed form and approve the application.

Their applications were accepted very quickly, and were then notified on the next steps they needed to take. All in all, they felt like the whole thing was absurdly convenient. Go here, do that, next step.

They got the notion that the only thing that could have made things easier was if they didn’t have to physically come here at all.

The two of them chatted a little more as they headed to the lesson rooms, where they were supposed to learn more about the licenses themselves. There were multiple licenses, each of them with their own requirements before they could get them. It was necessary for the bureau to teach about those differences and requirements.

The Civilian, Commercial, and Industrial (CCI) licenses were relatively easy to get. All they had to do to qualify for those was to simply go to some lessons and take the exam afterwards. The other three were a bit more problematic, or at least more difficult to acquire. They were the Military, Bespoke, and Experimental (MBX) licenses.

The military license didn’t require enlisted service, and was obtainable through a variety of ways. Successful completion of multiple military contracts was a method most people tried.

The bespoke and experimental ones were a little more complicated, but still not out of their reach. The bespoke required special training and access to unique or custom-made cores, while the experimental required ownership of a Core Engineering Lab.

Miko’s interest was piqued when she learned about the Engineering Lab, and so paid close attention anytime the Experimental license was discussed.

Besides that, since the MBX licenses were out of their reach, the only thing Eva and Miko could do was concentrate on the simpler CCI licenses.

The classes they went to were pretty simple and straightforward. They were ushered into a classroom where a teacher lectured them on all the basics. It was unbearably dry, but it was necessary for the two of them to go through it.

To Miko, if she couldn’t do something as simple as sit patiently, then how was she going to earn a living for herself? So she sat and absorbed every word that the lecturer said and missed absolutely none of it. If it was something she already knew, she simply accepted it as a confirmation of fact.

On the other hand, Eva was in an absolutely terrible state. She just couldn’t concentrate on what was being taught. The words were literally going in one ear and out the other! The moment she thought she understood some part of the lesson, her mind would immediately wander.

It was close to infuriating.

This must be Tiamat’s Transcendence, she thought.

Being in a classroom never suited her from the beginning anyway. She was always the kind who learned by doing, and was bored to death with any other method. But now, this trait made the simple act of learning in a classroom virtually impossible!

Lucky for her, she already understood the fundamentals thanks to Bellum Aeterna.

The Civilian license was pretty simple, as it was meant for using personal vehicles. Everyone had one of these licenses, and it was the absolute minimum. Although one wasn’t necessary when traveling within one planet or station, it was absolutely necessary when doing any interplanetary travel, or even simply from the surface to an orbital station.

The lecturer then went through the other categories, and expounded on their special piloting needs. She even gave examples on how the different licenses were used, such as by a Commercial long-haul shipper, and an Industrial terraformer.

Eva noticed that her DI also reacted to the lecture, and it provided all sorts of study materials that related to the topic at hand, such as images, blueprints, video, 3D models, and more. This helped her with her learning ‘deficiencies’, as it allowed her to process the information in a more interactive, nonlinear fashion.

When the lecturer discussed the importance of cores, Eva’s DI showed her the various cores as developed by different manufacturers. Not only that, but it also showed a few chassis types that could be fitted over it.

Eva loved that, as she was able to manually swap around the virtualized cores and chassis, and immediately saw the results of the different combinations. Eva was incredibly pleased to see that the core, chassis, and parts system was also present in this universe.

Cores were essentially modular pods that pilots used. They were the basis for the vast majority of small spacefaring vehicles across the galaxy. The way it worked was relatively simple. Different chassis, from jets to mecha, could be fitted on most cores. This allowed pilots to heavily tune their favorite core, and simply swap around the chassis they needed, whenever they wanted.

There were a few limitations, such as component ranking. Although a core could install a part that was lower-ranked, it would only perform at the rank of the part itself. Parts that were ranked higher than their cores wouldn’t work at all.

For example, a rank B core could have a rank C chassis, but the core would operate at rank C. On the other hand, installing a rank A weapon on that same core and chassis combo would cause the weapon to malfunction. It wouldn’t even activate.

After a couple of hours, the two of them completed their classes. They decided to immediately go and take the exams so they could qualify for their licenses quickly. Thankfully the exams were relatively simple as well.

They were essentially little booths you could sit in and they even had simple control decks, throttles, and joysticks. When an applicant sat in one of them, virtualized flight decks would be projected inside to simulate the ship and environment they needed to be tested on.

It all reminded Eva of some older arcades games, especially the ones you sat in, like the kind that were race cars or fighter jets. And in a way, these exams were basically arcade games.

They had mission-critical tasks to accomplish while avoiding taking damage or spending too much time. They were even given a score.

Eva felt like she was playing a meta-game within a meta-game, and secretly hoped she would get some sort of digital animal as a present for beating it. Or a funny title.

In any case, they were tested on the practical applications that the lecturer had discussed previously. So they found themselves maneuvering small passenger shuttles in and out of atmo, hauling precious gems across a planet, flying a refueling ship among asteroid miners, and so on.

Although Miko was still a bit unsteady during her exams, Eva was supernaturally proficient. She adjusted to each ship type very quickly, and had very little problems maneuvering them around in spite of their limitations. She rapidly and expertly met her goals in each exam before she moved on to the next one.

The examiners who were overseeing them looked on incredulously as Eva tackled each scenario gracefully. Meanwhile, the majority of other students often failed many of their exams, and had to restart the problematic scenario. This was pretty normal – grasping the concept of six degrees of motion wasn’t an easy thing. Many often took hours of training and testing until they were successful enough to pass.

Eva made it all look supremely easy, and swept through all her exams in less than an hour. She ended up with near-perfect scores for all of them, which was such a rare feat that some of the Bureau’s employees came out just to take a look at her.

They wanted to see if she was real.

Miko didn’t do too bad, either. She finished up her exams an hour after Eva, which was still more than twice as fast as normal. Once they were done, they were automatically graded by the system, and their status was immediately updated in the Citizen Database.

There was no pomp or circumstance. Certainly no plastic cards with bad photographs.

Their DIs simply flashed with Congratulations, and they received a new entry in their Status page that denoted their licensing credentials.

They were simply flagged as good to go, and that was the end of that.

The two of them were all smiles as they left the Starport. It hadn’t even been three cycles since they first respawned, and now they were ready to start conquering the galaxy.

“What jobs you think we oughta do first?” asked Eva.

Miko rested her chin in her hand, her gaze somewhat distant.

After a moment, she turned to Eva and responded, “Prospecting. We can go out in the wildlands and perhaps discover some valuable resources. Or scavenging. Could get lucky and find rarities among the wreckages.”

Scavenging? Prospecting? Eva wondered.

She imagined that trading and playing the market might be better, so the suggestion to go with those two was odd. As she tried to imagine the possibilities that they could bring, her DI also looked up market data and started to present pros and cons.

She was about to reply when a familiar voice sounded out from behind them.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “Looks like we caught ourselves a couple of black-haired ravens, huh boys?”

Alarm bells immediately went off in Eva’s mind. That was Nightmare’s voice!

Her DI quickly turned red and became filled with warnings. Along with suggestions for incredibly brutal methods of torture.

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