Third term started with PTT, as before, which hadn’t fundamentally changed from the summer term. Following lunch was my first new course, Interstellar Relations. When Valissa and I entered the classroom, the instructor was already standing at the front. He was an orc, with the typical green skin and bald head of his species. I noted his skin was a bit darker than Gathrok’s, and he was particularly tall, even for a species that was already one of the taller elvenoids.

  Right as the clock ticked over, he began his lecture.

  “This is Interstellar Relations, and I am Commander Harkon Morktaq. In this course, we will cover the major local star nations along with the relationships between each of them. By the end of the term, you will be expected to understand not only how the various star nations and subdivisions within them interact, but the reasons why.

  “To begin, we’ll go over the major star nations at a very high level. First, of course, is our own nation, the Empire of Erythralia. As you know, there are four major worlds within our empire—Eryth, our current location and the home planet of the dragons and elves; Arkon, the home planet of the fae; Leval, the home planet of the felids, and Kelbor, the home planet of the demons. Beyond the major worlds are a number of minor worlds settled as colonies. We’ll go into more detail about those worlds and how they affect the empire and interstellar trade later in the term.

  “Our strongest ally, and the home nation of orcs and humans, is the Galactic Federation, located primarily counter-orbital to us. Of course, the two most significant factors in our allyship are that our values align closely enough and both nations have strong enough militaries to defend themselves from attack.

  “Core-outward from us lies the Coalition of Clans, where the dwarves originate from. While their population is smaller than either ours or the Federation’s, they have a strong technological base and effective fortifications. Like the Federation, their values largely align with ours, and we consider them allies.

  “Pro-orbital from us, you’ll find the Var Republic. The population there largely consists of gnomes and goblins, which both originated from the same home planet. They are the most advanced weapons manufacturers in our region of the galaxy, and, as such, have significant advantage in defensive abilities. Like the other two nations we’ve discussed, they have similar values and are friendly with us.

  “The last major nation in the region is the Kaksholi Hegemony, the largest star nation around, nearly the size of our empire and the Federation combined. It is located core-inward from us, and it also has borders with the Federation. The Hegemony has a rigid caste system, where most of the castes consist solely of hexarians, while all other species are slaves. Since all of the other nations in our regions outright forbid slavery, the Hegemony is considered hostile by everyone. Though we are currently not at war, we are always on the lookout for raiding parties attempting to capture ships or attack colonies for slaves. This is a vital duty of our navy.”

  The hexarians of the Kaksholi Hegemony were brutal, both to their own people and those they captured. They vaguely resembled a sort of amphibious squid-like creature, though they only had six arms, hence the Draconic name hexarian. Four of those arms were more similar to squid or octopus arms, while the other two served as their primary manipulators. They communicated by a curious mix of sounds and bioluminescent patches on their skin.

  Shaking off my musings about foreign species, I paid attention to the lecturer as he continued on to discuss our relations with the other nations in a bit more detail, along with giving us a syllabus for the term. While I knew most of what he discussed already, it was clear that this class would go much more in-depth than my current knowledge. Again, I was frustrated at the ways I was kept in the dark despite being an imperial princess.

  After that class came Void Tactics, another important course. The instructor explained how we would be learning about how battles were fought in space. The course would not cover higher-level military strategy—that would be briefly touched upon in a later course, while more rigorous strategy instruction would happen at the School of Naval Strategy if we advanced far enough in our careers.

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  On our second day, I had Advanced Conflict Resolution and Introduction to Starship Maintenance, the course Delroy and Gathrok had taken during the first term. Unlike Gathrok, that would be the only maintenance course I would be taking.

  Come Masday, our practicum instructor explained that now that we had covered all the duty stations, we would be starting simulated ship battles, practicing everything we learned in Void Tactics. To that end, in many of our class sessions we would be divided into groups and placed into separate bridge simulators in order to either fight each other or work together to fight simulated enemies.

  Because we would be rotating through the various shipboard duties, we would all eventually get the opportunity to fill each role, including captain, which we were all excited about. After all, few would enter the leadership track if they didn’t want the chance to eventually become a starship captain.

  Our group met up on our rest day to hang out. As usual, Delroy was excited.

  “It’s great! I’m finally getting to the point where I get to spend a fair amount of my time piloting, and I love it.”

  Gathrok nodded. “It’s good to be working with my hands again. While I am perfectly capable of studying, practical experience is vital.”

  “Same,” agreed Kolo. “We’re finally getting to learn more healing spells, since we mostly only got to study medicine before. Albeit more advanced medicine than I studied in my basic degree, but medicine nonetheless.”

  “Well, we will have the opportunity to work on a simulated bridge, including serving as a mock captain, which is an important opportunity to practice our leadership skills.”

  I nodded my agreement.

  “Okay, enough talking about school,” Delroy interjected, clearly getting impatient. “It’s time for wallball.”

  By that point in time, we were all fairly evenly matched, save for Kolo who still won more often than she lost. At least now, though, she did lose occasionally, albeit usually only if we made her play multiple matches in a row.

  After a few hours of playing, we separated to shower—though, as usual, we made sure not to let any of us walk alone. Once everyone was cleaned up, we met up to play some cards before dinner.

  We decided to gamble something this time, but none of us wanted to get in the habit of betting money, so we decided that everyone would have to refer to the winner as “Your Excellence” for a week, which was acceptable because it wasn’t an honorific used in modern society.

  I was not surprised when Valissa won, though I was surprised when she took the opportunity to act like an over-the-top, spoiled noble. She wasn’t usually one to joke like that, making it a nice change of pace. I appreciated that she had warmed up to everyone over the months that we had been together. She was still reserved in many ways, and I knew she always would be, but the moments when she relaxed were precious.

  After dinner, I spent a bit of time studying, but, since it was the beginning of the semester, I had a bit more free time, and I chose to spend it cultivating. I could tell I was getting close to ascending to Tier 2, but I still had further to go. I definitely wasn’t going to reach it that day.

  Partway into the second week of the term, Delroy made an announcement.

  “My birthday is tomorrow. I expect all of you, including you, your Excellency, to participate. After dinner, we will retire to the boys’ lounge and play games. That is all.”

  That turned into a discussion of other people’s birthdays. It turned out that both Valissa and Gathrok hadn’t mentioned it when their birthdays happened earlier in the year, and Kolo’s would be near the end of winter term in the first month of the year. Delroy was noticeably upset that his roommate hadn’t told him about his birthday, but he just grumbled a bit before focusing on his own upcoming day.

  My real birthday was in a month or so, but I gave Dax’s fake birthday, which was a few months later, right near the end of the year.

  The next day, classes passed as normal, though Delroy was almost vibrating during meals. We had each wished him a happy day at breakfast, though I wasn’t really sure why he was making such a big deal of it. My birthdays had never really been important. I mean, sure, I’d usually get an increased allowance or something like that, but I didn’t care all that much.

  Nevertheless, I went along with it, and we met up after dinner in the lounge, where Delroy chose games for us to play, each time insisting that “we not let him win.” I wasn’t totally sure whether that was a hint that he actually did want us to let him win or the truth—it could be difficult to understand how Delroy’s mind worked sometimes. Regardless, I wasn’t about to let him win, birthday or not.

  Yeah, well, he lost. Thankfully, he still seemed extraordinarily upbeat about it, as if nothing could bring him down on his birthday. I almost admired his commitment to happiness.

  Eventually, though, we had dedicated enough time to this event—it was the middle of the week, after all, and we needed to study and rest. After getting delayed twice to play “just one more game,” we finally separated and headed out only an hour and a half before lights-out. Despite the loss of study time, it had been a good time. I ended up having to skip my cultivation that night, but I would never begrudge Delroy the simple happiness getting to spend his birthday with friends seemed to bring him.