"I apologize for my tardiness." said Lieutenant Lavender. "I had very important matters to discuss with your Dean. I thank you for taking care of showing my students the cafeteria and taking care of their first moments here, Lieutenant Anders, Now, onto the first order of business. All of you are still in civilian outfits. From here on out, you will only be permitted to wear one of three outfits on campus outside of your dormitories. Normally, you will be wearing the cadet dress uniform. During physical training, you will wear PT gear and during certain types of specialized training such as obstacle courses or rucksack runs designed to train you for combat, you will wear NCUs. These are more commonly known as Naval Combat Uniforms. For the majority of Induction Week, you will exclusively wear the dress uniform and PT uniform. Now, I want you all to line up in front of me as Lieutenant Anders had you line up for the cafeteria and prepare to be measured for your appropriate fitting. You will then be sent into the back changing room over here to be issued the appropriate uniforms for your body size."
Lieutenant Lavender swiftly and expertly used a tape measure on each cadet to gauge their height, waist and neck circumference before handing the cadet a piece of paper with numbers written on it. She would then usher the cadet into a back room.
Melbourne had his measurements taken and went into a room adjacent to the main classroom where a man with a sergeant's insignia and a name tag reading "Kaleen" stood behind a desk.
"Ticket please." said the sergeant in a commanding tone.
"Yes, sir." said Melbourne, handing the ticket with his measurements over.
"It's 'yes, sergeant' to you, cadet. You address anyone below Lieutenant by their rank when they are your superior. Remember that."
The sergeant went back to a line of shelves and took out three articles of clothing in plastic bags then brought them to Melbourne.
"The top one is your dress uniform. Your smartwatch has received an instruction video for how to put it on. The article below it is your on-campus NCU. Beneath that is a pair of shorts and PT gear. You may use your civie clothing in your dormitory and on the weekends but you are expected to wear the dress uniform on a daily basis. Four more of each article will be delivered to your dorm room before the end of the day today. You may have your laundry dry cleaned once a week at any of the designated laundry rooms throughout campus. Now, go down that small hallway and enter any of the dressing rooms that are unlocked. Change into your dress uniform and report back to me when you are done. I will inspect it and send you back out to the classroom when I am satisfied that it meets standards. You will get five merit points if you manage to get it right without any correction from me. These can be used on campus to access various special resources including extra food on your down time or specialized research on the library's terminals."
"Interesting." mused Melbourne.
"What's your name?" asked Sergeant Kaleen. "I need to make your name tag."
"Melbourne Acliate."
"Cadet Spaceman Acliate, I'll have your name and rank ready for you when you return." said Kaleen.
Melbourne being the second in line, it didn't take him long to find an empty dressing room.
After a mildly tedious process of following the holo video's instructions, Melbourne adjusted his collar and stuffed his civilian clothes in the bag from where the dress uniform came. As he came out, Sergeant Kaleen was just finishing the inspection of Logan.
"Good job, cadet." said Sergeant Kaleen. "Five merit points to you for a job well done."
Melbourne came up to Kaleen as Logan left proudly. Kaleen promptly handed Melbourne a name tag reading "Acliate" and two black sleeves with a single chevron on each.
Melbourne remembered the instructional tape and put the sleeves on his shoulder flaps and the name tag over the top left pocket of his dark blue dress jacket. Sergeant Kaleen scrutinized his action, nodding approvingly. He then took a look around Melbourne's body, inspecting the uniform from every angle as he walked around.
"Excellent job, Melbourne. One thing, though. Your shoes need to be shined a little bit. Put some saliva on it and rub it over them to solve that. You were mostly correct, so I'll give you four merit points for putting your uniform on correctly and deduct one for the lack of shoe shine. You may return to the classroom."
After everyone had filed back into class, it was about 10 AM in the morning.
"Alright, cadets, listen up!" commanded Lieutenant Lavender. "You will be expected to show up wearing these uniforms appropriately every day from now on at 8 AM in this classroom. Failure to wear them will result in a deduction of ten merit points. If you do not have any merit points, you will go into the negative. If you reach negative fifty merit points, you will be expelled from this academy. Do you understand?
"Yes ma'am!" roared the class.
"Very good. Now, this week is going to be an abnormal week for you all. As your first week, you will all be tested to gauge your aptitude in various skills including physical fitness, intelligence and combat abilities. We will use this data to determine your initial class ranking. The rankings are an internal competition of sorts. Achieving higher ranks will result in an allotment of merit points as well as a certain amount of glory on the campus. You may achieve different rankings in different areas such as martial arts, weapon fighting, marksmanship, piloting skills, drill and ceremony and strategic planning. There will be different classes for each of these skills and they are all compulsory. Increasing rank after induction week may be done through challenging those whose higher positions you would like to take to a competition. For example, if you would like to rise in rank in martial arts, you would challenge a higher ranking martial artist to a fight. If you won, you would receive his place. Now, today you have received your uniforms. Before lunch, you will receive a physical fitness test and be assigned a training regimen bracket based on how well you perform. That training regimen will determine where you go after HR tomorrow and you will then be tested by First Sergeant Lioni. After lunch, you will have basic drill and ceremony training with Staff Sergeant Zeo. Following that, you will go to a military history class with Lieutenant Malev. I believe today will just be a welcome to the academy and mission statement speech. Finally, you will end today with a brief strategy simulation designed to test your innate sense for strategic thinking at this time with Lieutenant Kara. After that, you will receive additional aptitude tests throughout the week to gauge your skills in various things like knife fighting, shooting, mathematics, science, survival knowledge and zero gravity navigation."
Jeremy smiled at Melbourne, excited to prove his skill in zero gravity navigation and knowing Melbourne would be a pro as well.
"Alright." finished Lieutenant Lavender. "I am done with you all. Your regular schedules will be determined based on the results of your aptitude testing this week. Next week you will receive your permanent schedules. Today, you have your temporary schedule. Tomorrow will have a different schedule after morning PT. Please proceed to your physical fitness tests and do your best. Remember, those who place in higher rankings will receive greater academic benefits and those with lower rankings will soon find themselves getting expelled from this academy if they are unable to show improvement. You do not want to be consigned to the lowest rankings in any of the important disciplines. Have a good day, cadets."