The Invincible Hero - Chapter 106

Walking toward the area where the Sippar Imperial Military Academy (S.I.M.A)students were to board, Boval noticed a wide variety of races queuing up. He would share his ride on the Igmus with around sixteen hundred other new Cadets. The leadership for S.I.M.A. believed it was important to start things by setting the new Cadets for their times at the Academy. Therefore, the Cadets would be arranged into companies totaling two battalions or one regiment. The regiment consists of two Battalions and each Battalion was made up of ten companies; while each company had eighty Cadets.

Boval would bunk with his company in their cabin aboard the Igmus. According to the information packets every Cadet received, the new Cadets would be under the care and command of senior Cadets. This was to help the Cadets get to assimilate into their new military lives faster.

Walking through the narrow halls of the Igmus, Boval eventually found his cabin. Entering into the Cabin, he was greeted by the site of about thirty other beings. There was a wide range of creatures in the cabin. There were humans, orcs, a few dwarves and other bipedal creatures. There were also a few creatures with four or more legs and a floating crystal creature with energy enveloping it. Like the crystal creature, Boval was the only of his species as far as he could tell.

Elves rarely joined the Sippar Imperial Military Academy. They preferred to train in their academies. When he walked in a few creatures stopped and looked at him with curiosity. Boval walked in and found his assigned bunk. The bunks were each three tiers high. Each bunk looked like a pyramid allowing large or oddly shaped creatures to stay on the bottom bunk, medium-sized creatures, such as Elves, to sleep on the middle bunk, and small to tiny creatures such as Dwarves, hobbits, and Fairies to stay on the top bunk.

There were also special areas for creatures with unique biological requirements. There were aquarium tanks and energy alcoves for different types of non-traditional face fairing creatures. It was hard creating a sleeping cabin for such a wide variety of lifeforms, but the Empire had spent so many years perfecting these cabins they were able to accommodate almost any species easily.

Boval was given the middle bunk. When he arrived at his bunk there was already a sleeping creature on the bottom bunk. Some kind of quadrupedal panther-like creature was sleeping. The top bunk was free of anyone, perhaps his last bunkmate had not arrived yet. The armies were mixed but the females of the various species had their cabins. There were fewer female cadets in the Academy. Male species made up more than fifty percent of the Academy, about forty percent were female, and the remaining were non-gendered species.

Boval’s bunk had its storage locker built into this bunk. He already collected his baggage and from LoaDrs and put his things away. After he was finished unpacking, Boval looked around for a few minutes to get a lay of the land. As he did this, more cadets were arrived and found their bunks. Boval heard a lot of laughter coming from a corner of the cabin. Several beings were crowded around a young human with dark hair who was telling jokes or something as far as he could tell.

After he looked around, he finally chose to do some reading and found a book on his reader, closed the flaps around his bed and began to read. About an hour after he began to read he could feel someone moving on the top bunk.

“Perhaps it’s my other bunkmate,” he thought.

Boval pushed his bed flap aside and exited his bunk. Standing fully he looked at the top bunk. A one and a half foot tall creature with large eyes, sharp teeth, claws and a spikey spine wearing an orange jumpsuit with a tool belt were bouncing up and down on the bed. Once it was aware Boval was watching him, the creature stop bouncing and turned to look at him with a creepy toothy smile.

“I’ve never met a Gremlin before,” Boval thought.

“Hello,” Boval began.

The creature continued to look at Boval.

“I’m Boval, are you my other bunkmate?” he asked.

The creature nodded while smiling, a little drool escaped his lips as his creepy toothy smile got bigger.

“Freg,” he said.

“Freg, nice to meet you,” Boval smiled.

“Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure,” Freg said.

“I see your toolbelt, are you a mechanic? Boval asked.

“Pilot, pilot with tools, love fly, love fixin’, love breakin’,” Freg said.

“Really? I also hope to become a pilot! I like fixing things too,” he said.

“You fixer like Freg?” he asked.

“After a fashion, I’m a field medic. Although, I enjoy being well-rounded. Here’s a little thing I’m working on right now,” Boval began.

Going to his storage compartment, Boval brought out a cylindrical object with wires coming out of both ends. He brought the component around and handed it to Freg. Freg examined it appreciatingly.

“Good Zammer, proton filament, energy calibration, good, good, good. Freg trade, trade, trade,” he said.

“What would you like to trade?” Boval asked.

Freg opened his storage compartment and took out a cube with etchings and male and female sections for plugging into something.

“Bovinic thresser, 3.2114 tenz strength, and torq,” Freg said.

“Good stuff!” Boval said with a smile. The bovinic thresser wasn’t something he needed and if Freg took his zammer, he would need to build a new one. However, he also knew Gremlins shared certain special quarks. They could be very petty, loved flying, and loved wrecking flying vehicles. It was better to be on the good side of a gremlin than on its bad side.

“Will you two grease monkeys keep it down? I’m trying to sleep,” a growling voice crept from the bottom bunk. A black tiger-like head stuck its head out from the bunk. The creature had two regular-sized eyes and eight small eye-like organs placed below a ring of head ridges.

The gremlin seemed fearful of the creature and swung itself back on top of his bed. Boval looked at the creature for a moment.

“Hi, I’m Boval,” he said.

“I don’t care, just shut up,” the creature said in response. Afterward, it pulled its head back into the shadow-filled bottom bunk.