Jim buried his face in his hands. Of course their first class of the week had to be mind numbingly boring. He had been so certain that a class named 'The Making of Spaceships' that supposedly taught 'A comparison between types of spaceships and the pros and cons of each style' would be one of his more interesting classes. Instead the instructor somehow managed to make one of his favorite subjects the most boring two hours of his life.

"For the rig bearing ships the smallest warship is a space-corvette of which there is no relation to the popular car of the same name. They are four to eight gun ships. They are managed by a corvette captain which is the lowest captain rank, and are the smallest ship that bears a captain rank. The equivalent in non-simulated-environment ships would be the T Blaster. These are four to eight blaster ships. They are managed by the lowest ranking captain-"

As the instructor droned on in his monotone, Jim could only sink lower into his hands. His friends were either taking notes or pretending to, but Jim could not even manage to put forth the effort of pretending to care. His forehead hit his open book. He hadn't even found the right page before giving up on the class.

"-space-grande-corvette, which is identical to a space-corvette but larger. They may have up to twenty guns. The equivalent would be a grande-T Blaster. They may have up to twenty blasters. The space-grande-corvette is considered to be-"

Jim whimpered softly. He tried desperately to distract himself by attempting to guess what his friends would be doing. Matt would be taking notes. If he wasn't taking notes, Matt would be drawing what he imagined a space-corvette, or perhaps a T Blaster, to look like. Jim had no doubts his interpretation would be spot on. For all that he loved trouble, Jim knew that Matt actually cared about the classes and getting good marks.

Braxton, however, did not. Had he been in this class, he would probably be composing a love letter to his girlfriend under the guise of taking notes. Or perhaps he would be planning his next upgrade. Jim and he had been discussing possible options just the other day.

"-very maneuverable ships and a good choice for swift battle techniques. Unlike Mister Hawkins."

Jim didn't even realize he was being called out at first. The instructor's dull lecture sounded no different than his attempt at criticizing his students.

"Perhaps you would care to tell us about the numerous spaceships you have had experience with, Mister Hawkins."

By now most of the class was staring at the young recruit. It was not his professor's question that caught Jim's attention, but more the lack of the background drone. He lifted his face up off his book to find every set of eyes in the room turned his way. "Uh, what was the question?"

"I am unsurprised by your lack of attention. I invited you to inform us of your experience with spaceships, as you seem to feel you have no need of my knowledge."

"Really?" Jim raised an eyebrow, barely daring to hope that he could.

"Yes, Mister Hawkins. 'Really.'" Even when attempting to mock someone there was no emotion.

Jim grinned and stood up. "Well thank you! I should be delighted to! Matt, to the board please! A piece of chalk!" he didn't give anyone a chance to contradict him. This was going to be the only day that anyone in this class would ever feel any sort of excitement.

"I've sailed on a space-galleon before. Now that was a beautiful ship! Took my first trip at fifteen, then spent several voyages on it when I was sixteen and seventeen. My planet is in one of the systems that uses the sailing ship style of spaceship. They're considered to be more traditional, and easier to handle by recruits from lands that are not space acclimated yet. As my system has several planets not yet into the space exploration phase yet, we favor traditional ships so we can explore or resupply as needed on those planets."

"One of the most important features of the sail ship is that it contains three different propulsion methods. They have their sails, of course. These sails are specially designed to catch both solar currents as well as wind. Additionally they have slots that can open for oars. And finally they have their rockets, which everyone knows how those are used. Actually, wait," he spun around to look at one of the youth in the back. "Mohamed. You're from a world that doesn't do space travel, right?"

The wide eyed boy nodded slowly.

Jim grinned. "Matt, draw some rockets for me! I'll explain them." Practically skipping, Jim headed up to the front of the classroom beside his friend. As Matt sketched the most intricate chalk rockets Jim had ever seen, the eager young cadet set to explaining how they worked and the way that they fit into a ship like the RLS Legacy.

Mohamid sat up straighter. "Yes! I am aware of these! I have heard of them when the war came near my home. Father described them to me. But they are much smaller, a weapon."

Jim nodded eagerly. "That's right, most peoples develop weapons and fireworks as their first uses of rockets.

A hand in the back went up. Jim jerked his chin up to acknowledge his classmate. The boy stood up beside his desk. "It sounds to me like way too much work to put rockets in a ship like that. Between the artificial gravity, the atmosphere shields, and the rockets, the ships are over designed and under performing. Why bother?"

Jim grinned and planted his hands on his hips. He might not learn anything new in this class, but he was going to make sure his classmates did. "Great question. Before I get into that, why don't the rest of you give me your thoughts?" His eyes scanned the classroom.

On the right side of the classroom, near the door, was a tiered platform. Like bleachers the highest section was against the wall. Each section had smaller and smaller desks, accommodating the cadets in the short height class. Only one youth sat on the highest section, a sparrowman with huge glasses that Jim didn't know. He wasn't surprised not to recognize him, however. Jim only knew some of the young men by name. Since the class was an elective, it was open to all years.

Jim nodded towards the miniature desk. "What do you think?"

"Perhaps it is because wood is easier to imbue with magic than metal?" The sparrowman suggested.

Jim shrugged. "Truth be told, I don't know much about magic. We can look into that point more closely a bit later. Other ideas?" A third or fourth year in the front raised his hand. Since Jim was able to recall his name, he called on him next.

"A combination of attachment to the classics and unwillingness to spend money that could be used on fancier toys. It is more cost effective to keep them than to replace them. Also no government will ever pay to upgrade something that they can just keep using until it falls apart, so there is absolutely no chance that we would receive enough votes to expand our repair budget enough to replace them." The older boy leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms.

"A cynical but fair point," Jim snickered, "other thoughts?" He spotted a first year waving his arm through the air eagerly and sporting a fresh black eye. Very likely gained during Sargent Wilskin's games. "How about you, whoever you are?"

The boy popped up to his feet eagerly. "Hogarth Hughes." He tossed his head to flick a stray lock of hair out of his eyes. "Obviously the wood helps protect them from getting eaten, I've been studying up on all the creatures that eat metal, and there's a lot of them! Like, hundreds of kinds of robots and things that go through all sorts of metal!" Hogarth gestured wildly with his hands as he rapidfire launched from one sentence to the next, "They're suppose to be used to help get rid of space junk and to help recycle metals and things that wouldn't otherwise be able to be reused or gotten rid of, but sometimes they start to go rogue, or get lost before they're taught how to behave, I had one of them for a while, sometimes he still visits me. Oh! And occasionally an evil villain like, I dunno, Dr. Facilier or Mansley or somebody like that-"

Jim had not been expecting such a long answer. The boy was still rattling on about his opinions of the metal eating robots and the benefits of wood built ships. "Uh, Matt? Can you start sketching the inside of a spaceship? The control room please. A big one, not a personal craft. Maybe a Tri wing or an L-8-750?" His friend flashed him a grin and moved to the next chalkboard.

"-not to mention the quick rusting atmosphere of that one plannet in sector Delta-51-B or whatever funky name they gave it. The body of the ship won't rust if it's made of wood and all! Oh, and on top of that, wood is a lot easier to insulate, and man space is cold! I thought my mom was being such a fusspot when she insisted I bring extra sweaters, but I need to write and let her know I'm so glad I have them! Though I don't actually think they send letters to my planet. But anyway, wood is way warmer and it makes people happier to be in than steel does, so obviously it means that the crew is going to be more likely to perform. At least, I'd be doing better in a wood ship over a metal one. Plus I'd be a lot warmer,"

"Hogarth," Jim leaned against the teacher's desk, an eyebrow raised as he watched the younger boy.

"Though lately I've been drinking a lot of coffee to help keep myself warm, and man do they make good coffee here!"

"Hogarth."

"-said that the stuff I like is suppose to be for some of the large species and has more caffeine than the stuff meant for humans, but really I don't think there's any harm, and it tastes so much better-"

"Hooogarth."

"-honestly I think he's making up that stuff about heart rates and hyperactivity anyway! I mean, I've certainly never been affected by anything I've drunk here. Not that I've been drinking much other than-"

"Hogarth!" Jim's voice finally cut through his classmate's chatter. As the younger boy fell silent, Jim took control of the class once more. "Thank you for that, but I'm moving on now! So there were some interesting points brought up, and I'm going to focus on one that no one has mentioned yet. Everyone stand up!"

The class exchanged skeptical looks among themselves, but took to their feet all the same. "Great! Stay standing if you've heard of a ship! Just a normal ship on the sea, you know? Actually, know what, stay standing if you've seen a ship before you were recruited."

Mohamad and one other boy were the only two people to sit down. Jim shrugged. "That's fair. You're both from desert areas anyway, I think. Okay, so that's basically all of us. Great! You two stand up again, thanks! Now. Sit down if, before you were recruited, you'd seen a rocket ship or spaceship of any kind."

There was a scrape of chairs as various young men around the room took their seats. A third of the class still stood. Jim grinned. "How many of you standing think you could fly something like this?" He turned, gesturing to Matt's latest creation. Only the oldest of the young men volunteered. "How many of you have a basic understanding of a sea ship? Hands up." Most of them raised their hands.

"And that is why we use ships." Jim shrugged. "A not insignificant amount of the guys we recruit, oh you can sit now, thanks, a lot of who we recruit come from areas that don't have space travel yet. We also keep tabs on even more planets without space travel. So we need to blend in. Ships are super common, and they can go out to sea to launch if we can't do it on land without being spotted. Plus, they're familiar to people who are already struggling to learn about space travel itself. It makes it easier for our cultures to all blend together and to provide the best training for everyone."

Around the classroom the other guys were starting to talk. A few of the more space familiar recruits were trying to convince their less technologically advanced classmates that it was as easy to pilot the latest century eagle as it was to sail a space schooner. Several more were debating how well a modified ship would blend in among cultures without such inventions of their own, and in the corner, two of the older kids were speaking in their native language as they made a rough draft of a ship traditional to their culture and tried to add in rockets of their own.

The professor was very displeased by how the class had gotten away from him. "That is enough." He took the front of the classroom once more, chasing Matt off with a stern glare. Jim was not so easily intimidated. "Sit down, Mister Hawkins."

"You said it was my class to teach, sir." Jim protested.

"I said sit down. We will discuss this matter later! Now. Everyone, we shall return to our actual subject matter."

Jim scowled at the man. He hunched his shoulders and sulked back to his seat. It wasn't fair that the old fart wouldn't allow some actual discussion in the classroom. Ignoring the teacher's droning, Jim pulled out his school issued tablet and flicked through his documents swiftly. Might as well go over things for his next class instead.