Free Flight of the Outcast by Brad Strickland

demerit, order her to perform some personal service like cleaning his or her boots, or command her to drop and execute twenty-five push-ups. But she could handle it. She could handle anything. She had to—for her father, for what she had lost. All she had to do was think of the charred cinders and smoky rubble the Raiders had left of her farm.
       Beginning on the first day of classes, Asteria had to get up early, 0500 hours. She and the other girls in her dorm crowded into the showers, hastily soaped up and rinsed, and then dried and dressed. By 0545, they had to be in formation outside the barracks and jog to the dining hall. On the double.
       "Everything is on the double," grunted black-haired Bala Takeen, one of her dorm mates, the first day. The upperclassman conducting them heard the remark and issued Bala a demerit for talking in ranks.
       They were also supposed to maintain silence at the table. They almost had to, because the schedule gave them only twenty minutes to eat. Then they jogged again to physical training class, which began around the time the sun rose at 0615.
       "Hi," Dai said to her on their first day in the gym complex. "I'm glad we have some classes together."
       Asteria nodded.
       Dai smiled. "We can talk here," he said. "As long as we're silent when the proctors—"
       "Class, attention!" said the Cybot. Two hundred and fifty students stood stiffly. The Cybot said, "You will report here for physical training six days a week. Three days a week will be spent in zero-gravity training, alternating with three days in normal or enhanced-gravity training. You are going to be split into ten classes of twenty-five students each. As I call your names, assemble here and then follow your instructor. The Honorable Orlin Avers. Viscount Laslik Azora. Deria Basila—"
       Dai wound up in the same training class as Asteria. Two of the classes followed an instructor to a gym in which the walls, floor, and ceiling were all padded. "Zero G," murmured Dai.
       Sure enough, their instructor, a woman lieutenant named Tasenos, told them, "This is Zero-Gravity Facility Five. You will report here every other day. Today, we have orientation. Form up into five rows of ten. Dress left and right."
       Asteria had never heard the term, but Dai was in the row right ahead of her, and she saw him stretch both arms out to his side. She did the same, and the cadets shuffled until they stood at double arm's length from each other. The instructor nodded, stepped back, and said, "Going to zero gravity now."
       Gravigenerators whined. Asteria realized they were in the walls and ceiling—gravity actually was not being canceled out, but equalized, so that the walls and ceiling tugged on her just as strongly as the floor. She felt a momentary sensation of falling.
       "Kick off from the floor," the instructor said. "Gently."
       Asteria tapped her toe and felt herself rising into the air. Ahead of her, Dai kicked too hard. He soared five meters up and bounced off the ceiling, tumbling back down. A number of others had done the same thing.
       "You will have to learn control," the instructor said sternly. "Good job, Allmon, Chresler, Locke, Thursby. Microgravity of point one."
       The gentle gravity brought them all back to the floor. "We are going to do that again," the instructor said. "And we'll repeat it until you can rise in formation. If you don't want to be bored, catch on quickly."
       The second time, Asteria was a little too timid with her tap, and the instructor said, "Locke, do it the same way you did the first time. Tamlin, you're still trying to jump into orbit. Take it down by half. Microgravity of point one. Do it again…"
       At the end of the period, Dai said, "I think I've got it now."
       "I don't like zero G," Asteria muttered. "It makes me feel clumsy. How do you judge mass and trajectory?"
       "You'll learn," Dai assured her. They had to form up and jog