Eric Olafson, Neo Viking Vol. 02

Alyica sighed."It isn't magic. It is a higher, and something different than psionics. We are manipulating nether dimensional energies. Isah Drives, Trans Dim Shields and Translocator Cannons, psionics all works by utilizing more than the simple three dimensions of this relam. You don't call that magic."

Richard put his hand on hers for a moment."Sweetie to me it's magic when a girl that isn't a girl or human for that matter can do the things you do."

"Well you aren't exactly human anymore either and I might not fit the exact description of woman or girl, but I am and always was all female and I am still dreaming that you might one day change your mind and ask me the question. Who knows I might even say yes!"

"I am too old to start a family and I am married to my career and the Devi." He looked dreamingly across the water. "I really like you and you know that, but I am old fashioned and I would want to wear the pants in the house and not be afraid the woman turns me into a frog or something."

She took his retracting hand and put it back on hers. "You know I would not want it any other way, than you being in charge. You are an immortal and my life span is not measured in years or decades either. I take my position as general of the PSI corps as serious as you do yours. However there is no career left for both of us. You could theoretically become Admiral of the Fleet, but that would not be you and old Mc Elligott is a way better administrator than you." She paused for a moment and then said. "There are storm clouds on the horizon and neither of us can consider retirement just yet."

His face grew harder and he said." This is the real reason you came, isn't it? There is something going on?"

"It is not imminent or clear to me at this point, but the Rule that has been broken will be reset in this Universe."

"Alyica, for the last millennia you are trying to tell me about these mystical things. Despite all my psionic shielding I know you can read my mind. You know I do not understand these things and I don't like to believe in predictions and predetermined events in the future."

"Richard I never read your mind unless you would ask me, like during that night in the Alps at your old house. I can't predict the future as it is fluid and shaped by our actions and decisions in the now, but there are certain mile stones on the road of time, that mark cosmic events that will happen. This, our Universe is only one of many. This time is only one of many time streams. Every time you go into Quasi Space you remove yourself from this Universe and this time. Due to the Isah field you are taking your own time with you but you are completely gone from this reality.

"I know you accept physical laws as a given. All these multi verses, these different time streams and dimensions can only exist because all follows physical mathematical laws. Some of them are simply not discovered or understood by humans and most of them are not understood or discovered by anyone, but they still exist."

"Yes I am learning that all my life. I thought nothing could move faster than light, yet I made a career out of traveling all across this galaxy. I never believed someone could read my mind, move objects with the force of will or live 3000 years, but I must believe that I can do something about it, that what we do has a purpose."

"I am sure it has or the guardian would not have picked you to be the warrior. I am not human as you so meanly pointed out, and I can feel and sense things and conditions., but I don't know what the Rule is, but it has to do with the Y'All and those who sent them. The Coven believes that the Y'All have been sent to search for something and they haven't found it the last times they were here. They have been called again and something or someone is coming to search again."

Stahl's hand cramped around the arm rest, "It cost us a lot of lives and sorrow the last time they came. How long do you think we have?"

She shrugged." I can't say, but it took the Y'All about sixty or seventy years to respond to the last call. So I think we have about that much time."

"Do you know who keeps calling them and how?"

"Yes this is why I actually came by the way. The First among the Saresii send us an intelligence report. It is is the Kermac Grand Wizard making that call. Cherubim had the TSI follow up on this and we got informed that the Grand Wizard of the Kermac are on a long journey to make that call. Currently we don't know how the Call is made, or where. The Grand Wizard has executed many to guard that secret."

"I should have known and kept going. We would fight the Kermac and the Nul now but that is a known enemy and not the Y'All or something worse and unknown."

"This time you are not alone. It also appears the Narth know something is coming, and that is the real reason why they are more active and the Hidden Coven is considering revealing itself and asking for membership. Till now you are still the only one knowing about us."

"I would still be in exile and the Union a forgotten memory if it wasn't for you showing me where to find the Devastator and how to make her accept me."

"If it wasn't for you Richard, I still be the horrible monster you said I was and not the woman I am now. You don't believe in predestination but I think some force meant that we meet each other and learning about the meaning of love, Richard getting to know you made it all worthwhile!"

He got up. "I would love to know what I have to do to prepare ourselves, but guess I do it as always and play by ear. Now it is my turn to predict something. I see a pretty silver haired monster having dinner with an Old Geezer and perhaps even a dance after that?"

"If it takes bad news for you to invite me to dinner and a dance, old Geezer, I find bad news every day!"

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Chapter 18: First Days

After a day of class room instructions there was another dinner. Instead of China and silverware, there were rectangular stone slaps and long thin hook like utensils. The Nogoll Instructor mounted his floating disc and said. "You will learn to use the utensils of other cultures as well. While there are Fleet standard procedures for everything and Fleet standard utensils we want you to experience as much as possible about other cultures. If we can use the sum of our cultural knowledge to help us understand the ways of a society you may encounter for the first time as an officer and thus represent the Union it might break down barriers.

"Today we are learning how Attikans eat at a formal event. The hooks represent the claws and are used to tear your food into smaller manageable bits. The food we serve today is also Attikan style. Those of you who can't eat this will be presented with lookalike substitute food tailored to your metabolism."

Two-Three who had found a seat next to me snickered." I wonder what they will serve me then, as I can't eat anything."

The Nogoll instructor turned on his platform responding to the Non Corp's question, showing that they did monitor our conversations."You will still learn how to use the utensils and pretend to eat. Your suit is equipped with a lock mechanism and the food will simply disintegrate. Many Non Corps went through the Academy before you."

They served the food that looked and smelled like slightly cooked carrion.

The Nogoll said." It is imperative that you understand that you will be ambassadors of the Union when you meet other civilizations. Eating and the sharing of food is an important part of many cultures and can break down barriers. It has been shown that the consuming of food is very universal and almost always associated with social customs and taboos. We want you to learn to accept what you might find disgusting without showing it. Now we don't want you to eat poison or something harmful and you can in such cases decline partaking, but never show disgust or any other negative emotion when you are served foreign foods."

The Nogoll suddenly gagged and almost threw up, and more and more cadets started to look sick, those who had noses tried to hold them close. Before I could ask what was going on I too got a whiff of the most horrible stench I had ever smelled.It was worse than Surströmming. It was so bad my stomach turned and it took all my will power to keep the heaves down.

The Nogoll finally managed to say." Holy Mountains rocks, what is that?"

The Cadet who had introduced himself as Elly earlier on said proudly. "Gelatinous Pulse stink maggots. I wanted to celebrate the safety of my family and surprise you all with a wonderful delight!" The Elly had a wrinkled gray skin, a long triangular shaped head and two large triangular ears. Along with the deep set yellow eyes he almost looked like a furless Nubhir Wolf, except he did not have a teeth filled snout but an underarm long hose like trunk and his voice sounded just like mine would have if I talked through a long hose or pipe.

Holding his furry paws before his nostrils the Nogoll said. "You just demonstrated that to every rule there is an exception. We scrubbed, scanned and searched you. Where did you get these?"

"There was a snack machine in the hall, sir and I watched it being stocked and so I asked if they had any Elly Snacks. They man stocking it got me a whole case. I gladly share with everyone!"

"No need Cadet, but you helped me to make a point and showed us that we all, me included, need to learn to keep our reactions better under control. To make my point, were you offended by my reaction to your offering, that was meant as a present?"

"Offended, no of course not, it takes us Elly years to get used to the smell and kids react just like you do, but I do understand what you trying to make us see, Sir."

"Well now please eat your Maggots fast and put them away so I can continue with my instructions and..." He stopped and threw his hands in the air. "No not tonight, I am an Instructor for a long time and have taught thousands of new cadets to accept apparently revolting foods and tonight you taught me a lesson, so tonight we forget about the eating utensils and I just instructed the kitchen to serve Pizza. The one food I learned almost everyone likes."

The cadets greeted the announcement with a cheer and as it ebbed off some lonely voice somewhere said." I don't like pizza."

Right after wake up call and a hurried shower, the Nogoll inspected us and found hundred things wrong with the uniforms. He was only satisfied when the last Cadet looked exactly like regulations required, then he said. "You are lucky cadets as we are not the Marines. You would already made two hundred push ups for every problem I found on your uniforms, but we too put great emphasis on personal fitness. It was quite difficult to find a common denominator and a training regimen that is equally demanding on all of you but the Academy found an elegant solution to the problem. We simply train you hard and it is your responsibility to keep up."

Our instructors had us assemble at the inner ledge of the Duro-Crete foundation that was the base of the transparent dome encasing the entire compount. This ledge was about five meters wide and had nothing in terms of railings or saefty barriers. That foundation was at least thirty meters above the ground.

This foundation ring was as I learned exactly 12 kilometers long. The transparent material of the dome split the ring more or less in the middle and created a two meters wide ledge on the inside and one on the outside of the dome. The foundation wall below the ring had doors in equal intervals I had entered the Academy a few days ago through one of these. Over a ladder we had to climb up onto that inner ledge and then they divided us in groups of ten cadets and made us around that rim. We saw other cadet groups lift weights, climb robes attached to scaffolds or carried boxes up and down the stairs leading from the domes perimeter to the Applicant roads. I even saw a group in old looking pressure suits run the same foundation ring on the outside of the dome.

My group included an Elly, the Non-Corp and the Garbini, four humans and two Attikan.I considered myself a decent runner and was reasonably fit, as I was swimming and diving mostly all my life...

The Attikan, the trunk nosed Elly and the humans had no problem with this exercise and for the first two rounds it was actually like a little contest between me and the two Attikan. They reminded me a little of Terran wolfs. As the Wolf was the Olafson herald animal it was one of the Earth animals I knew and I had made a point to check them out during a virtual Zoo visit. The Attikan had the same kind of short coarse fur, except around the shoulders and up their necks where it was much longer. Their snouts were much shorter than that of a wolf and their ears not pointed but round. Both Attikan were as tall as I am and very muscular. They walked like a Wolf would walk upright and on their toe tips, their heels were much higher up the leg. To support their upright walk they wore boots with enormous high heeled wedge like soles to support their tip toe walk. The one with the gray fur and the black dots introduced himself as Pure and the one with brown fur and black horizontal fur stripes listened to the name of Fectiv.

Fectiv and I ran at head to head and he laughed in a coughing manner. "Your fast human, but you couldn't keep up with a Attikan if I ran for real."

I kept a good pace and regulated my breathing." Well then my new friend, I think we need to run for real then."

"How about to that second flight of stairs leading to Applicant road four?" He suggested. I estimated it to be about 500 meters from where we were right now and I said. "Let's go for it!"

He dropped and ran on hands and legs, like a real wolf did and truly took off in a burst of speed. I sprinted as fast as I could, at school I ran the 400 meters at 49.56 and that was decent.

Still the Attikan beat me by many lengths but I almost kept up with the other Attikan. The rest of our group was far behind. After I caught my breath Fectiv put his paw on my shoulder. "You are fast human! I think you could run with an Attikan pack."

"I am not so sure. You look quite fresh and I am pumped."

"Well I use four legs and Attika has vast planes, bigger than some planets oceans and in our stone age Attikan had to run away from Zinools when we tried to snatch their kill."

I wiped my mouth and grinned." I bet your planes are not as big as the oceans on Nilfeheim."

"You know Attika?"

"Not really but Nilfeheim is all water, except for a few specks of rocky islands."

He laughed. "I wonder how you learned to run so fast on a planet without land to run on."

"My world freezes over for seven years and you can run on ice just fine."

"Isn't it slippery?"

"It's too cold for that."

An instructor came floating up to us." Being faster than the others doesn't mean you can stop running. It just means you have to do more rounds! Now get moving!"

So we started running again but at a measured pace. From up here I could look outside and see the planets yellowish brown cracked surface.Everywhere groups of Cadets engaged in a physical exercises, supervised by black uniformed Instructors. Pure didn't talk very much and I asked Fectiv about it. He turned to his friend and then back to me and said. "He is a Striped, they never say much. It's nothing personal." Pure curled his chaps revealing a row of sharp incisors. "And he is a Dotted, they talk way too much."

Remembering Mix I said. "What does the showing of teeth mean for an Attikan?"

Pure made a few faster steps to catch up. "There are hundreds of ways to show your teeth. Right now I was trying to insult Fectiv, not in a real bad way though. You see how he put the ears and his tail, that means he understood it was not serious. Now if you see an Attikan with the Neck fur all standing up and the chaps up as far as possible, that is as serious as it gets."

Pure glanced down the rim. "Not that I feel very comfortable running so high up and that you can see because my tail isn't doing much, but hanging down."

Fectiv said." I am not exactly feeling all that well either, but I manage and I am very pleased you want to know about Attikan, maybe you can tell me what it means when a human raises the bushy fur remnants above their eyes. My Union teacher was a human and he did it all the time."

"It could mean surprise if it is both eye brows and amazement if it is one."

As we talked we made it around the rim and caught up with the others. I reached Two-three and he complained as he noticed me." While I don't have muscles that could get tired, it takes a lot of concentration to keep the legs moving that fast."

"What do you mean by concentrating?"

"I don't really have legs you know. I must visualize every movement, be it a finger move or a leg and then put some of my energy in that visualized shape and then change the shape to mimic muscle movement. What you do sub consciously takes an awful lot of thinking on my part. Especially since the instructors turned off the Computronic module that normally does that for me." He actually stumbled and I caught him. "You see I get distracted and I mix up my legs."

"I bet you do just fine floating in a sun and I would not know what to do!"

"I would show you of course, but I think Potsema our Garbini friend is in worst shape."

I looked behind us remembering passing the Methane breather. The Garbini struggled visibly on his six walking tentacles. One of the instructors mocked him. "Come on you slow invertebrate, you got six legs. Moving slower than a Shaill without a Grav Sled."

To me the instructor yelled. "Don't slow down Olafson. Don't let those slow misfits keep you. You're fast! Show them how it´s done!"

I still slowed down and fell next to the Garbini and asked. "Are you alright?"

He had a distressed sound in his voice. "The Instructor said he fails me if I don't make it all the way around at least once. It is hard for me to stay on my tentacles walking and takes much energy I can't run that far, we live in trees. We are not meant to run, you see I don't have bones, just muscle and without the Exo-skeleton that we use normally to walk, I am screwed. I wanted to be an Officer so badly."

"That reminds me of an old friend of mine and many stairs. He had only bones and no muscles. How much do you weigh?"

The Garbini's tentacles shivered." I think about 95 kilos under one Gee."

To the instructor I said." You won't fail him if he makes it once around right?"

"If he completes at least one round he will pass."

"Potsema you got lots of Tentacles to hold on, let me carry you! He didn't specify how you going to get around the circle."

The Garbini stopped." Are you serious?"

"Don't argue I don't have that much breath to spare!"

It was a weird feeling to have his tentacles worm around me, but I simply ignored it, thought about the stairs of Hasvik and told myself at least I could see an end here and it was not cold as I was back then when I had to climb those narrow icy stairs. I ran with the Garbini on my back trying to fall in an energy saving rhythm as much as possible. He did not feel heavier then that sack of Soak stones I had dragged up the mountain side of Muspelheim, but then I had grown since then and that episode felt like it happened a life time ago. I was drenched with sweat but we made it once around, twelve kilometers with a Garbini on my back wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. The physical training instructor who had mocked the Garbini awaited us and said. "Well the Garbini made it but your Non Corp Buddy hasn't. Well maybe there is another Non Corp in the next class."

I tried to catch my breath and stemmed both my hands against my knees. I saw Two-Three about a 1000 meters ahead, struggling keeping his legs moving." How long does he have?"