Nova Chapter 8

  The sound of someone hammering on his door woke Jason at the crack of dawn

"What is it?" he yelled

"You need to get up and get dressed, I've left the right cloths in front of your door" the person outside said

"Who is it? And why do I have to get up at the crack of dawn?" Jason said to the person outside, walking towards his door

"It's D'ana, and you need to get up now for squadron call" D'ana said

Jason opened the door to get his package and found that D'ana had already gone. He got dressed in the windblades uniform D'ana had left and strapped Janto onto his back.

  Making his way to where people were lined up with D'ana, J'o and D'vid facing them, Asheth standing behind D'ana, and a marvellous red and golden Phoenix on D'vid's shoulder. Ruth came up behind Jason as he joined the line.

  D'vid turned to D'ana and J'o saying "is everyone here?"

"Yes, everyone's here," replied D'ana

"Good, now lets get on with it" D'vid said, turning to the assembled people he addressed them in the way his rank allowed him

"Right you miserable lot, you are here because you have requested to join the windblades battle corvette squad. There are two ranks, engineers, who build the corvettes, and pilots, who, as the name suggests, pilot the finished one and two man, or woman, corvettes"

  Jason grinned, so he was in the army, something he had said to himself that he would never do.

  D'ana stepped forward "all those wishing to be pilots step forwards and follow me" Jason stepped forwards along wit over half the group.

  "All engineers to me" said J'o; the rest of the group stepped forwards

"You will follow your commanding officer to receive your extra uniforms, battle armour for pilots and construction gear for engineers. Then pilots will chose engineering partners and you will help each other build your first one person or two person corvette, But before you construct your craft, you must all forge a windblade atlas sword, so reconvene at the forges on Smither street to begin, oh and Jason, strap your other sword in a leg scabbard as the windblade sword goes across your back" D'vid finished his instructions to the…well they could be called cadets…and turned his back on them heading to the forges.

  Jason headed off to follow D'ana and the rest of the pilots to receive their armour, it was interesting armour, the breastplate was a rounded triangle with straps going round the back to secure it on the wearer and to hold the atlas sword, there were a pair of gauntlets and a pair of greeves, leg armour, and a shoulder plate. The armour fit well on Jason so he decided to keep wearing it all the way to the forge. Ruth was waiting at the forge for him

  "Nice armour Jason" Ruth said in Jason's mind

  "I know, it's comfortable as well" Jason replied

They were given metal, an anvil to work at and hammer and tongues and the instructions to get to the basic atlas sword, Jason added some little extras to his blade, he inscribed on the blade 'honour is the path to salvation' it was kind of his family motto. After dipping the blade in the tub of water beside him to cool it off, and started looking around at the others in the forge, some had more flares on their swords then others and the engineers seemed to have the fancier bits on their swords.

  "Windblades, ten hut. Report to the barracks to begin pairing up, if you have two pilots to one engineer then a two pilot corvette is needed" D'vid shouted over the sound of metalwork. Jason's sword was finished so he strapped it to his armour and headed out towards the barracks, in side pair of pilots and engineers started forming, as with most life the male pilots went for pretty female engineers, Jason looked around studying faces and saw one lad sitting in the corner, drawing up corvette plans with no pilot beside him

  "Hi, I'm Jason, who are you, and do you already have pilot partner?" Jason asked the boy who looked startled that he had been spoken to

  "Oh, hi, I'm Zadyk, and no I don't have a partner, I'm not liked to much" the engineer called Zadyk said

  "Hey don't worry, I'll be your partner, just make sure you design a corvette that doesn't fall apart when I'm piloting it" Jason said

Zadyk laughed at that "aye, half the corvettes won't get done due to pilot/engineer infatuation"