Empire Reborn (Taran Empire Saga Book 1): A Cadicle Space Opera A.K. DuBoff (guided reading books TXT) 📖

“Disregard.”

He tried to suppress the uneasy feeling and return his attention to the lesson at hand.

“So that’s how it’s done. Easy, right?” Jason asked his students in a more upbeat tone than he felt.

“This is nothing like the sims,” muttered Bret Hamlin, one of the Initiates. It was unclear if he’d meant to broadcast the sentiment on an open channel, but Jason wasn’t about to let it slip by.

“In fact, it’s exactly like the flight simulators. Though it might not look it while you’re parked out here watching me do all the work, give yourself a chance to get a feel for the controls. You’ll be surprised.” The sleek fighters, styled with tapered wings and rear fins suited for both spaceflight and in-atmosphere combat, were an ideal practice craft to help the pilots hone their skills.

“I think it’s pretty spot on so far,” Alisha Delroe chimed in, always the suck-up.

Her teacher-crush had been obvious to Jason from day one, but he’d made a point to not encourage her. Frankly, he didn’t have the time or energy to deal with it.

“Sampsen, you’re up. Just a maneuvering run, no targets. Don’t be a showoff,” Jason instructed. He’d learned that the best approach to keeping the lesson on track was to cut off the side chatter before it took hold. Let the students start a discussion on matters of opinion, and that would be all they’d talk about for the rest of the day.

Thankfully, Wes Sampsen did as he was told. His flight lines were loose and his reactions slow, but it was a decent initial run. Jason would rather see a student be too cautious out of the gate than try to act like a hotshot. Confidence could be built; breaking down cockiness was a lot harder.

“Nice work,” Jason complimented the pilot trainee. “Delroe, go for it.”

“Aye, sir,” Alisha acknowledged with far more sultriness than was warranted.

With Jason’s athletic build, chestnut hair, and striking teal eyes, he was used to getting that kind of attention, but it still made him uncomfortable. While his popularity had been well and good growing up on Earth, now that he was an active participant in the galaxy-spanning Taran Empire, he could never be sure if it was him or his family name that people were interested in. The Sietinen Dynasty was tantamount to royalty, known to everyone throughout the expansive civilization, but Jason couldn’t care less about their wealth and influence—that was his twin sister’s domain. She played princess while he got to be the consummate soldier and leave the politicking to the people who actually cared.

“Watch your lines,” Jason called to Alisha over the comms as she cut a little too close to one of the buoys that defined the flight lanes.

The training course in the void between Jupiter and Saturn was composed of markers leading past various enemy-simulation targets. For these preliminary practice purposes, the drones were inactive while the students got comfortable maneuvering out in the black versus inside flight simulators. Other training could get students competent with the controls, but only time in a genuine spacecraft revealed the psychological impact of facing an immense expanse where the nearest celestial body was a distant speck.

Jason had loved it from the first time his father took him out in a shuttle. Most days, he found the vast nothing calming—a reminder that he was a tiny piece of something grander than an individual could comprehend. It kept petty day-to-day problems in perspective. At this moment, though, he felt none of that usual comfort. Whatever he’d sensed at the start of the lesson was still out there.

“Easy, Delroe!” Jason warned again as Alisha made another dangerous turn.

Young trainees like her were all too common—trying to prove they were the next superstar who would set the bar for future generations. The Tararian Selective Service’s training program was effective at reining in those reckless impulses, but it took years to mold someone into a TSS Agent who would be valuable to society. Early on, emerging telekinetic and telepathic abilities had a way of getting in teenagers’ heads. They felt invincible. Jason knew, in retrospect, he’d suffered from the same affliction at their age. Now, at twenty-six and a graduated Agent, he had sufficient life experience to recognize when others were acting stupid even when he didn’t always make the wisest decision himself.

“That’s enough, Delroe. Bring it in,” he ordered. She’d come close to clipping too many buoys for him to allow the run to continue.

“Sir, I—” she started to protest.

“We’re not trying to set any records today,” he said in a firm tone. “Let Hamlin have a chance.”

The comm cut out at the start of an aggravated sigh from Alisha.

There’s one in every group. Jason shook his head. Not everyone was a natural, as much as they wanted to be. It sucked, but that was life.

He kept a watchful eye on Hamlin, and then the remaining seven trainees, as each completed a practice run. A few would need more hands-on coaching, but he was confident he could make decent pilots out of every one of them.

“All right, time to head back,” he told the group when the last trainee had finished.

Jason activated the automated navigation control for a group jump back to TSS Headquarters. The pre-programmed protocol allowed close proximity subspace transit to the space dock on the far side of Earth’s moon, out of sight from prying eyes. With the rise in space traffic in recent years, it was becoming more difficult to keep the base’s presence secret, even with stealth shielding. Though it wasn’t Jason’s direct concern, he knew that a TSS team worked around the clock to keep the Empire’s existence hidden, through various technological, political, and private intervention means. A waste of resources, as far as he was concerned.

Blue-green light swirled around his vessel as the