Chapter 1

This is the first chapter of the book I'm writing for "Writing for Young Adults."


TCF Flight School: Class of 2530

Volume #1: September, 2528

By Toby Clark.


Training Log: First-Year Cadet Valentin D. Porter
September 2, 2528, 1830 Hours

I'm writing this from my room in the halls of residence at the Terran and Colonial Fleet Flight School: San Francisco Campus, my home for the next two years. Or more realistically, my home for the next three months.

OK, I don't want to get too pessimistic too quickly. Just getting past the entrance exam was an achievement.

The campus is located on the outskirts of San Francisco, and it consists of a four-storey U-shaped building on three sides of a runway. Running north-to south is the Hall of Residence. Running east from the south end is the flight school, and running east from the north end are lecture halls and theory rooms for whatever elective we choose in the second year.

I arrived at 8:30 by bus, and took half an hour to find my room. The Hall is split by gender, floor, year, room size, etc therefore dividing the map into a ridiculous number of zones. It's even worse in the second-year zones upstairs, where they're also split by their electives. The first floor isn't too bad, most of it is taken up by the campus restaurant and a shopping complex, with just a couple of rows of first-year singles. But male first-year doubles are in the middle of the second-floor, which is virtually a labyrinth. Seriously, Maxwell Smart would take at least ten days to get out of here. I'd stick a map here for you, but it would break your brain.

I finally found my room and met my roommate, Matt Warren. My first impression is what I originally expected from a roommate on the first day – keen to keep his privacy, but not actively trying to drive me out. I guess I made the right decision signing up for a double. (Hardly a decision though, the singles cost 50% extra. Interstingly, the second-years don't have that option: all the rooms are doubles, because they have to share with a study partner in the same elective).

After moving my stuff in, I went to explore the flight school, which thankfully was not a labyrinth. It's one long corridor with rooms on one side and a large glass window overlooking the runway on the other. The ground floor is mostly administration and student services, the lecture halls and simulator rooms are upstairs. Basically the same arrangement on the other side of the school, according to the map.

At 11, the Class of 2530 (roughly 500 of us) began to gather in one of the lecture halls, where we watched an orientation video designed to kick off the year. It would have been helpful if it wasn't all there in the guidebook, which I've been memorising for the last two months. Then we got a standard motivational lecture by the school commandant, Vice-Admiral Morgan Christiansen, before being dismissed.

We had an hour-long break before meeting with our training-groups, so I went to the restaurant to find Matt. He was eating with a couple of girls, Holly and Selina. Holly I recognised from high school, but she was a year or two above so she didn't remember me at first. Actually, she still hasn't, she's been focused on Matt all afternoon. Selina and I found more to talk about: she's a fellow Browncoat.

At about 1:00pm, group assignments were announced over the PA. The four of us were in Group J together. Seriously, what are the odds?

The first-year system works like this: ten first-years, with two instructors – one member of the faculty, usually a Captain or higher, and one second-year cadet in a mentoring position, to compensate for the fact that most of the faculty haven't been in a star-fighter cockpit at least ten years. Our group is no exception: Commodore Quentin Fraser has been teaching for five years and he commanded the TCSC Liberator in the South American War, which means he hasn't flown a fighter himself in about 25 years. Our mentor is David Harrison, who's okay, but he's at least 10 years older than most of the group, or even his own year. In my group there's age variation, but not that much. I wonder what career he left to come here. Law enforcement or private investigation, probably, considering his security elective.

OK, time I explained that. According to the guide book, the second year is only 50% flight practice, so that you can study an extra course of your choice that determines your assignment after graduation. Basically it gives you an extra job besides fighter pilot on the ship you get assigned to, because every carrier needs paramedics, security officers, mechanics, etc, and this reduces the number of crew necessary to run the ship between battles. It also gives you something to fall back on if you get injured in the line of duty: i.e., take a n course in investigation and it opens the door to Military Police. There's about a dozen disciplines available, but I'm aiming for a Starfighter Carrier, so my options are:

* Security (both in the form of combat training and investigation.).
* Mechanics
* Medical (only to the level of a paramedic, but that's fine), and
* Strategy and tactics – basically just more advanced flight training, which opens up a lot of opportunities on its own. Among other things, it includes leadership training, which is an obvious asset if you want to move up in a squadron.

Don't know what I'm going to choose – other than flight simulators, I've never had experience with the others. But I've still got six months to make a decision.

In our first group meeting, we went around a circle and told everyone our names and what disciplines we were interested in. At least half of us had already chosen – Matt's decided on mechanics, Selina on security (with emphasis on investigation), Holly on chemistry (which rules out her serving on a carrier). It kind of bothered me that I'm one of the few without a direction, but David said that eight of his group had changed their minds by the time they were ready to sign up, which was kind of reassuring.

After that, we shared a bit about our backgrounds. I basically limited mine to, “Born in Seattle, half-Ukrainian on my mother’s side, want to be a pilot so that my hours spent on Deimos Rising 3D won't be wasted.” That got maybe one chuckle and seven or eight blank stares. (What can I say? I'm a master at obscure references that no one born in the last two centuries will get, and I can't seem to switch it off. Shame there's no elective for it).

After four hours, I haven't put names to faces for most of the group, except for those of us I knew before we started. Matt's from LA, Selina from San Francisco, and of course Holly's from Seattle as well. Of the rest of the group, two are from Las Vegas, one from Anchorage, one from Honolulu and two from Portland.

When the session was over, we had dinner in the restaurant, same group as at lunch. So this is my clique. I can live with that.

Well, that's about all for now. I'll write more tomorrow, by which point I'll either have landed my first simulated plane or crashed it.