"At least she let you have dessert at the Academy." Max offered, but the man only shook his head.

"She informed the staff that I was not allowed to have them, and they refused to serve them to me, so I had a friend who was in their good books sneak me an extra serving sometimes when she wasn't supervising the cafeteria."

"Well, I will have you know that our Academy is somewhat less strict on the dietary restrictions. Instead of prohibition, we have a collection of sugar-free and low-carb sweets from around the universe. That way, the kids can enjoy dessert while maintaining a nutritionally balanced meal plan, carefully designed for the various species by our own in-house nutritionists." Nico informed him proudly.

"You even brought in specialist nutritionists to make meal plans by species? Now that is impressive. My school was all Valkia, so we didn't have to worry about it. What about sports? Do you have hoops?" He asked.historical

Nico looked confused, but Max saw the images of the flying sport using the hoops that they had built into the outdoor facilities.

"We do. And it's set up for both the noncontact and professional versions. We even adapted human children's toys to make soft clubs for practice so that they didn't have to hold back. You can still knock someone out of the sky with them and knock the ball free, but they don't cause any serious bruising or broken bones, and there is a protective gravity field over the grass, so nobody will crash down with any serious force." He explained.

"I was a wonderful goalie back in the day. Good enough that I made the starting line all the way through university. But professional sports weren't for me. I was picked early for a career in politics instead." The Envoy sighed.

Max could sense the disappointment, and it was a familiar emotion. He had seen it many times before, with old soldiers, washed-up old drunks in the projects who went on about the glory days, and many others who lamented not following their dreams.

In practice, the Valkia had all that one could ask for, but not being able to become a professional athlete would always be a regret, no matter how far up the political ladder he climbed.

"I doubt that we will be able to form a proper league since we only have the one Academy with students who can fly, but if we introduce the Archangel Exoskeletons, I think we could form a couple of recreational teams using the wingless species," Nico suggested, finally understanding what sport they were talking about.

"The wings are essential, though. They're part of the strategy, so having a wingless competitor would give them an unfair advantage." The Giant pointed out as a fan of the sport.

"The originals had weaponized metallic wings, but I am sure that we could adapt them to an animatronic feathered wing easily enough so that all the players would be on an even playing field. The suit might not be as agile as the Valkia are, though. That assistant Envoy has some pretty good moves." Nico laughed.

"He is pretty agile in the air, isn't he? It's impressive every time I see it, and I've always thought he would have been better suited to a job in law enforcement or something where he could put his athleticism to better use. But like our Giant friend here, he prefers to work a job in politics and make a hobby out of his physical training." The Envoy shrugged.

"Well, I will let you get back to the party, and I will see you in the morning. We have a few things to take care of tonight, so I must also steal my second in command." Max replied, giving the Valkia envoy a wink and wrapping an arm around Nico to lead her back to his room before the train of thought she and the Huntress were on turned into a new extreme sport.

They could do that later, and not when there were so many dignitaries on the ship, all half drunk.

As they walked, Max could tell that he was already too late. The Huntress had a plan to "improve" the game of Rings, where instead of five players with wooden clubs and an inflatable ball that was thrown through varying-sized rings for points, they would instead use stun batons, and two smaller metal balls would be added, to give the game a projectile weapon.

The thought of players hurling solid metal balls at each other while carrying stun batons to club each other out of the sky was a very Hunter sort of sport. Still, since the Humans had the anti-gravity exoskeletons, it was perfectly viable on the existing infrastructure and would be accessible to all species, not just the winged ones.

Convincing the Academy staff to let anyone actually play it was another matter.

Max woke up to ice-cold hands on his skin the next morning as Nico dropped the temperature of her outer shell enough to shock him out of a deep slumber. It was both the most effective and most horribly cruel alarm clock he had ever considered. He always swore to himself at the end of the night that he would wake up first to prevent her from doing it, but every time, she would be up before him and would find a way to shock him awake before the alarm went off.

Not that all of them were unpleasant, but that was not the point. One of these days, he was going to be the first one up, and he would get his revenge.

"Good morning, sleepyhead. It is now six-fifty in the morning. We have a breakfast appointment with the Envoys at eight, an Academy tour at nine, and you have to oversee a court case at noon. It's been a long time since there was a high crime that needed your attention, but protocol says that you have to be here for this one."

"What happened? Everything seemed to be fairly well under control when we went to sleep." Max asked.

"The accusation is an attempt to start a mutiny."