For the next dozen or so standard Terran days, Hercules's life settled into an almost brutally rigid routine.
At the same time every day, he went to the specially built training room, where Company Captain Menoetius battered him bloody through all manner of "inventive" "instruction." Then a group of medical staff, long accustomed to the sight, carried him on a stretcher to Norskar's Apothecary laboratory.
This endless commute between two points had become his new normal.
And at the end of that fixed route, an "enthusiastic" spectator was always waiting for him.
Chaplain Skranchi, the ancient Saturn-pattern Dreadnought.
He seemed to regard watching Hercules receive treatment as a form of entertainment, guided by the simple philosophy of "drag in anyone you can; I'm not going to be the only one stuck inside a Dreadnought."
Whenever he saw Hercules covered in extensive bruising and torn soft tissue, or sporting a battered face and internal injuries that nearly made him vomit bile, his deep, heavily electronic voice would chime in at just the right moment, always carrying an unmistakably punchable undertone:
"Hey, kid, look at the state of you. Why put yourself through this?" Skranchi's loudspeaker buzzed.
"If you ask me, you should consider applying to enter a Dreadnought! Let me tell you, aside from a slightly... uh, memorable adjustment period when you first get inside, there are plenty of benefits! At the very least, you'll never feel this sort of physical pain again. What a bargain!"
To make his argument more convincing, he would even deliberately shift his massive body to display the reinforced thrusters mounted on his back.
"Take a look at these. Now these are the good stuff! I had Norskar pull some strings and get those... 'exchange students from Mars' to custom-build them for me! Plenty of power,