The Optimum Project

Chapter 19

Gravity ball

After a bit more exploration I stayed in the common area and watched tv with some of the other kids. They had changed the channel and were watching the gravity ball tournament, a game that was a mix of ancient earth baseball and soccer. The match was the Retran sys. Team vs. the Alpha Solaris team, the Alpha's were destroying. Everyone knew that the more central solar system teams get more money, training, and are better equipped.

The game was simple, played like normal soccer teams of 11 players, each trying to score their own goal at either end of the field. The difference was that the ball hovered 6 inches off the ground and the goalkeeper was armed with a bat to launch it to the opposite end of a 100 yard field, teams could also score if their goalkeeper hit the ball through the single small hoop hovering 50 feet above the center of the field. The game was played in a gravitational field with an effect of 1.622 m/s^2, which was the same as the moon's gravitational field. We watched in silence for a few rounds until the announcement tone went off and the tv automatically muted itself. The lady's voice said, " All cadets report to the mess hall for lunch, all cadets to the mess hall for lunch." I sat up and made my way to the elevator with the other kids, I was starving.

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Lunch and lessons

Before I left I grabbed my tablet, I wanted to play with it a little more after I was done eating. A bunch of other boys and I all piled into an elevator and we rode down to the meal hall. I walked in and looked around, noting that the girls and boys were sitting together. Lunch must not be separated, and if that was the case our classes probably weren't either. I slipped in line behind this shorter boy with glasses and blond hair and waited until it was my turn to get a tray of military sanctioned mush. I probed at it, it probably had large quantities of nutrients and vitamins to help with development in space but the bone density problem would probably be treated with exercise, not food. I sighed and sat down at an empty table, I knew it was important to make friends but I wanted to be alone while I messed with my tablet.

I ate my mush and slid my tray away from me, grabbing my tablet I turned it on and accessed the settings, I scrolled through a series of classifications until one labeled projections caught my eye. I opened it up and flipped the digital on switch linked to the projector. Immediately a detailed map of the triad appeared in front of me, displayed through four holographic projectors built into the corners of the tablet. I smiled and reached out, turning the map slightly with my fingers and finding the meal hall, assembly area and the boys and girls dorms. I reached up with my other hand and made a motion like I was crushing something between them. The projectors shut off, and I looked at my tablet as it vibrated lightly, I had received a message from the triad computer again, this time with a schedule for my classes, I read the list. I had been assigned technical manipulation and repair, hand to hand combat lessons (PE), combat analysis, trigonometry, xeno-linguistics and advanced spacial combat. I frowned, these were advanced classes, I was nowhere near this intelligent, however advanced spacial combat sounded cool.

I looked up as murmurs ran through the hall as other kids got their schedules. "So what'd you get?"

I jumped and looked over my shoulder to see the girl from the elevator looking at me. "What?" She rolled her eyes and said slowly, " what... Classes... Did... You... Get?"

I handed her my tablet and she looked it over, raising her eyebrows at the list. "This is some serious stuff, you from an inner system or something?"

I laughed and shook my head "I worked on a cargo carrier with my dad, it was a small ship but it was home."

Talking about it reminded me that it had blown up, I had been told after I woke up that my father was on a nearby station and was being taken care of until the alliance could arrange for a new carrier and monthly payments for a engineer, and as long as he didn't ask questions about my whereabouts or went looking for me he could keep it. I sighed and the girl nodded, she reached out her hand and we shook. "My names Brenadara but you can call me Brea."

I nodded and thought about it for a minute, "wait, are you from the premajora system?"

She tilted her head "yeah, how'd you know?"

I shrugged and said "my dad took me there on a trip once, he told me that if I ever met someone with a long name ending in 'ara' or 'ora' it was a good bet they were from premajora."

She laughed and we talked a little longer, she had advanced spacial combat as well and Xeno-linguistics, though she had linguistics at a different time. I yawned and checked the time on my watch, it was 7:15 pm earth time, we had been told we had free time until curfew at eight. Brea looked at her watch and groaned "aww man, I was supposed to meet my friends 15 minutes ago!" We agreed to meet up at lunch tomorrow and went our separate ways.