Chapter 5 - Roles

The only central building is the Administration & Simulation Centre (ASC), with the rest of the buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city. It took a while but Marcus manages to find the dormitory and the cafeteria. Luckily the food is free thus Jako stuff himself with food before moving into his room.

As the Academy practice free timetable, any student can join any module and class in any term. Nonetheless, to prevent lazy cadets, all students have to graduate by year four. The student will be forced to leave the Academy at the end of year four without exception.

After settling himself into his room, Jako finds himself finally having some time to rest. 'IRIS, I recall you mention a special limited offer and a shop?'

'Oh how nice of you to recall, but unfortunately the shop was a joke' for some reason Jako finds himself wanting to struggle something.

IRIS happily continues, 'However... I'm authorised to release the Personal Files for this year's cohort to you for 60 IP. I would suggest you spend the points, the files will be very useful in your task to gather your first crew members, however, do note that the files are only for this year's cohort. More files will be available for purchase when you meet the minimum requirements.'

Jako realises that to get the certificate for Corvette command he will eventually need to gather his own crew. What IRIS said make sense and he had to harden his resolve and spend the recently acquired points on a file that has an unknown level of usefulness.

'Here is some free advise as thank you for your purchase. Your current task will require you to recruit the following roles,

Captain - No need explanation for this

Pilot - Someone to fly your ship what else.

Navigation Officer - You will need someone to plot your course, read your maps, calculate and monitor your warp destinations. Let's find those strange new worlds, explore the universe

Weapon Officer - Bang, Bang, Bang... shoot those that shoot you or just shoot whatever you want.

Signal Officer (detection), your eyesight isn't good enough to see that ship 100 kilometre away or the gamma radiation all around you. Get someone to read the data off the screen.

Engineering (structure) - He who will keep your ship afloat and fix the water heater.

Engineering (propulsion) - Warp drive, thrusters, anti-gravitation anything that gets us moving.

Engineering (sub-system) - The more complex equipment like life support need special people to maintain.

Each member is allowed to cover 2 roles with the restrict that the captain can only cover bridge roles. Thus at the minimum, you need 3 other crew members to fill these 8 roles.' IRIS ends her monologue.

Jako wonder where he should start from... the only person he knows is Marcus, 'IRIS, help me pull up Marcus's file. Only Marcus got close to me from the moment I came to this Academy. I got a strong feeling that him guiding me is no coincidence.'

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Name: Marcus Casteer

Citizenship: 2nd Class ITI Citizen

Age: 19 Years

Specializations: Fleet Command

Key Background: From the secondary house of the Casteer family. Second child of Jones Casteer and Jennie Kai. Their household is doing above average but as they are not part of the greater Casteer family, their prestige is limited.

Marcus has shown talent in fleet command since the early years of compulsory education. He receives sponsorship from the main house to be trained at the private academy J&J and is certificated to be skilled in the command of Corvette at the age 16.

Last known status registered into First Fleet Academy under the name 'Marcus C. Jones', exact objective unknown. No known criminal activities, no known genes modification, no known official affiliation, no known...

Ranking: Unranked (Corvette Class)

[Certification]

Corvette Certification (Completed)

Basic Frigate Certification (7.1%)

Basic Firearms (75.2%)

Basic Unarmed combat (81.1%)

Adv. Weaponry (11.7%)

Int. Navigation (61%)

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'Marus... he is likely a mole planted beside me by Chloe Casteer, but since they know I have IRIS and I would find out eventually... so why?' Jako ponders for a moment and decides it doesn't matter. He needs information and Marcus is the answer.

Jako gave Marcus a call even though he knew he is secretly affiliated with the Casteer family.

The phone rang for a few seconds and the call was connected. He didn't bother with the pleasantry and got straight to his question, "The first thing you call me is to ask for information, I'm not your personal assistance bro... but I'm a helpful guy so let me help you this time, next time you better buy me lunch or something."

Marcus suggests a few routes, first is to join the class associated with the crew he needs to enlist. The standard class is usually super dry and boring but has a good mix of crew and cadet attending. It was obvious many others will have the same idea.

The second method is to seek for recruitment in the fountain square. There is a huge notice board where it displays recruitment notices. Payment is needed to put up an advertisement and you would usually need some reputation for it to be effective.

The last common method is finding and engage cadet that is dropping out as mention before 3 out of 4 students will fall out within 3 months. But what he meant was them dropping out of the race to be captains, they should have some certificate under their belt thus making easy recruits.

There is one more possibility that is very uncommon. There is a cafe near the academy where student 'trade' crew members. Even Marcus does not have a clear picture of how that works.

"Let's meet up tomorrow, if you are going out hunting for crew members, lessons will be really boring and I need a reason to skip class."

Jako has decided in his mind to take an additional course in basic engineering. Of the 8 roles, 3 has to do with engineering and hopefully, he could make some friends and get some crew members with the Engineering skills quickly.

For now, the first method can only be done the next day where the first lessons are scheduled to start.

The second method is out as he has neither credits nor reputation, nevertheless, he can still check out the location. The third method isn't feasible either, the term has just begun so no one is dropping out... and he knew no one.

Not wanting to waste time he could only try that uncommon method, he was curious anyhow on what it is all about.

"Marcus, want to check out that cafe? It's still early in the evening, we could have some food there too.", Marcus agreed quickly and arrange to meet outside the dormitory. They quickly found the cafe and saw many students walking in and out of the place.

The waitress gave a brief overview when she saw Jako and Marcus looking around with curiosity. Every table has a cardholder. Each card had two fields 'To trade' is what is being offered while 'To invite' is the payment. There is also two type of cards, orange is a one to one trade where all party involve have to agree. Purple is a conditional trade, only the captains have the say and the trade could be one-sided.

"The orange card is still palatable but the purple one feels more like slave trading... Where is the camaraderie, where the mutual trust?", for Jako which was once a soldier, he could not understand the current situation.

"Normally when the team are set there is a sort of agreement between the captain and the crew member. This agreement is enforced by the Academy and the Fleets. It works to be a discipline guideline, in the end, this is still a military fleet Academy. Leaving your captain is considered desertion, similarly, mutiny rules also apply. Once you agreed to serve a captain you are bound by the contract terms."

"Even so, after being together for awhile people might not work well together and the member might want to leave. Captain ain't going to release their member without replacement or benefits and thus this cafe works like a manpower market. Or they can wait till their contract expires."

"I guess that just how it is, still the way it is being done feels wrong", Jako can only live in his new world and accept it's new rules. Joining the army was the same, even if the officer is unethical there is nothing much he could do. Reporting up to the chain of command? It's not as if they were blind, they knew and have let it happen. Guess time doesn't change anything.

Jako is thinking of leaving after walking one round in the cafe when he noticed in the corner of the cafe, there was a purple card. 'Engineers to trade, navigation to invite.' thinking that since he has already come to this place why not see if there is anything interesting.

At this moment IRIS commented, 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained.'

'...'