Chương 38: Ambush

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum November 1, 2847"If you can't keep your dirty socks off the floor, Vee, I swear I'm going to throw them all out," Cassie snapped. She tossed her tablet and her cap on top of her mattress, let the door to the dorm room swing closed behind her, and bent over, snatching one half-rolled sock after the next and gathering them in her left hand.

"I'll get them in a minute," the Torean girl grumbled from her top bunk, without making any movement whatsoever. Cassie wasn't even certain that she'd attended her morning classes—she certainly hadn't made breakfast in the dining hall with the rest of their friends, which was becoming something of a pattern.

"I already did it. Here." Cassie threw the ball of dirty socks up into Vee's bed, in the general direction of her head.

"Hey!" Vee exclaimed, shooting up out of her blankets. Cassie saw that her friend wasn't even dressed, and that confirmed her suspicion about those skipped classes.

"What crawled up your ass and died?"

"Nothing," Cassie said, flopping down on her bed.

"I'm just getting sick of living with a slob."

"That isn't it," C'rise said, from her own bunk.

"You're snappy and irritable because you're worried about your boyfriend. That is the correct term, isn't it? I don't feel like it particularly conveys the right meaning, just gluing those two words together. In Shaii'en, we –""I don't want to hear about your language," Cassie exclaimed.

"And stop poking about in my head. I thought we talked about this."

"We did, and I offered to practice meditation with you, so that you weren't always screaming out your feelings for anyone to hear," C'rise said. Her calm was just one more thing that infuriated Cassie.

"Is that it?" Vee remarked, still half-buried in her nest of blankets.

"We're all worried about him, Cassie, but that's no reason to be such a bear about it. Get off my ass." The creak of springs beneath her mattress was the only warning that Cassie had before a pillow hit her in the face. Cassie grabbed it in her hands, and for a moment had a nearly overwhelming urge to simply rip the pillow in half. Instead, she took a deep breath, counted to ten, and stood up. She carried the pillow over to Vee's bunk and regarded her friend with as much calm as she could muster.

"Ironic, coming from you," she spat.

"Fine, maybe I've been a little—irritable."

"You've been a bitch," Vee said.

"At least I've got a reason. You, I don't even know what's going on with you," Cassie said, tossing the pillow back onto Vee's bed.

"I thought we were friends, but now it's like the only time I actually see you is to sleep. And now you're cutting classes—are you trying to wash out? What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Vee rolled out of bed, grabbed her shower basket, and stormed out the door. Cassie sighed and turned to C'rise.

"Do you know what's happening with her?"

"I thought that telepathy was an invasion of privacy," the pink-skinned girl said.

"And I thought we were always going around shoving all our messy feelings in your face," Cassie said.

"You must have picked up on something." C'rise sighed.

"I don't want to get involved in your interpersonal conflicts. Take a moment to think about it, princess. What other change preceded the change in her?"

"I don't know," Cassie grumbled.

"We finished Hard Burn, we were taking classes, we got into the simulators. Arc and I went to New Toledo, but –" There was something that shifted in the other woman's eyes, just enough that Cassie, trained by her mother and father to watch the courtiers on Terra for the slightest clue, stopped.

"No."

"I see you've figured it out," C'rise said.

"Took you long enough."

"What, she liked Arc?" Cassie raised a hand to her temples, because she felt a sudden headache coming on. Perhaps not literally, but certainly figuratively.

"Dammit." It didn't take much effort to imagine how she would have felt, in Vee's place. Having to watch two of her friends get together, hold hands, snuggle on the couches and loveseats downstairs in front of the dining hall, and chatter away obliviously. Just picturing Arc with his arm around Vee sent a stab through Cassie's belly. No, it wasn't hard to imagine at all.

"I should talk to her," she decided. It would be awkward and uncomfortable, but it needed to happen. Cassie didn't have so many friends that she wanted to lose one. She'd have to apologize, too—not for the relationship, that wasn't something she'd done wrong. But for being short-tempered since Arc had gone out on patrol. That was her fault.

"Perhaps don't ambush her in the shower, however," C'rise suggested, raising her tablet.

"Now. I need to study for an exam on the first wave of human colonization. A bit of quiet would be appreciated."

"I'll get out of your hair." Cassie said it without thinking, and then her eyes fixed on the nacreous shell that extended up in pearlescent colors from C'rise's scalp. The other girl lowered her tablet and met Cassie's eyes, and for just a moment, there was silence. Then—and she couldn't have said which of them started it first—they both burst out laughing. 𝝮 A peace offering, Cassie decided, would be appropriate.

After Lieutenant Commander Libby let them all free from their simulator training for the day, she hurried out of the building and across campus, to the academy commissary. She hadn't visited more than once or twice over the entire first semester because, for the most part, Cassie was just as happy eating with her friends in the dining hall. She'd never cooked a day in her life, so she didn't have much use for ingredients.

But if you knew that you were going to have to miss a meal the commissary was good for picking up a deli sandwich that you could carry along with you—and the building also included a bakery. She had to wait for two people to be served in front of her—one upperclassman, and a professor that Cassie didn't recognize. Then, she was in front of the glass case, stuffed full of muffins, cupcakes, croissants, and such a variety of treats that she was immediately overwhelmed.

"I need something for a Torean palette," Cassie told the white-aproned worker behind the counter.

"Something sweet—like a dessert."

"You don't care if it fits human tastes, too?" The baker set his hands atop the counter and leaned on his arms. He was a bit overweight and looked to be middle aged. That was good: Cassie didn't think she could trust a thin baker.

"No, the important thing is that she likes it," Cassie said. If making up with Vee meant that she had to eat something horrible, she could do that. She might have to rush to the bathroom afterward, but that was fine. Anyway, the commissary wouldn't carry anything that was actually toxic to humans, would they?

"These right here," the baker said, and tapped the case over a tray of oddly shaped chocolates.

"Professor Void Skimmer comes in for them all the time. She can't get enough of them. Procyoni locusts, dipped in chocolate. They're not really locusts of course, that's just what we call them. Have to get 'em in freeze dried, because the Imperium won't let anyone export live specimens from the system. Apparently, they breed like…" Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Cassie swallowed and set her jaw.

"I'll take them. A quarter of a kilogram, please." She had, in fact, heard of Procyoni locusts, and there was a good reason for the ban on transporting live specimens. Introduced into an ecosystem with no natural predators, they could strip a continent of plant-life in a matter of months. Even the freeze-dried shipments of dead locusts had to be inspected for eggs, just to make absolutely certain that nothing hatched on an unsuspecting and unprepared planet. The things she knew, as a member of the imperial family.

"Thank you," she said, and let Lyra transfer enough imperial credits from her accounts to cover the cost. That was one more convenience of having an AI residing in the back of her mind, she'd found. Bag of chocolate covered locusts in hand, she hurried back out onto the paths which crisscrossed the campus. She'd be a little bit late to dinner at the dining hall, but she'd still get back with plenty of time to join Pika, Rain and Vee at their usual spot. She could apologize there, and hand over the bag.

Though it might be better to do that privately, so that Vee wouldn't be tempted to share with everyone – Behind you, Lyra said, and the warning shook Cassie out of her thoughts.

"Cassie!" Fletcher Radecki called, as he hurried up on her right, half-jogging until he fell into place at her side.

"I haven't seen much of you since you had to duck out of dinner last month. Ireti said you weren't feeling well—I hope you're better, now?" Cassie put on the same smile that she'd used for every photo op, every parade, and every formal reception since she'd been ten years old. It was utterly fake, but no one ever seemed to notice that.

"Yes, I'm much better now," she said.

"And I've been very busy—you know how the first year here is, I'm sure. I've been trying to get Libby to let me test out on a Tyro, but he wants everyone who isn't listed for a patrol to wait until just after the winter break." And the reason you haven't seen me is that I've been avoiding you. But that part, she didn't say out loud.

"And you had to run all the way across the continent to New Toledo," Radecki said, nodding his head and giving her a sympathetic smile.

"I saw the pictures—I think everyone did. You looked wonderful, of course. I'd never have been able to tell you were wearing a wig if I hadn't known your head was shaved just a few weeks before." Cassie felt her smile slip.

"Thank you. I'm just on my way back to Tycho Hall to meet my friends for dinner." It was a subtle way of saying, 'leave me alone,' but Radecki didn't take the hint.

"Of course, the boy you took along didn't come off as well," Radecki went on.

"To be expected, I suppose, of someone who doesn't have any experience in polite society. You can't cram a lifetime's worth of manners into someone raised on a farm."

"Arc wasn't raised on a farm," Cassie pointed out.

"His father works at the silk mills on Zurah V." She entertained herself by planning the precise sequence of moves she might use to claw the man's eyes out.

"Growing mulberry trees, growing crops," Radecki said.

"It sounds about the same to me. Not that I have anything against working people, but they really don't fit into the sort of circles we move in. I'm sure you've realized that by now." Cassie stopped walking, forcing Radecki to stop as well, or continue without her.

"Is there a point to all this?" she asked. You need to keep your temper, Cassie. Her father always said it the same way, in the same tone of voice. Slightly disappointed, slightly exasperated.

"There is." Radecki nodded and glanced around. Once he appeared satisfied they wouldn't be overheard, he stepped in close to her—closer than she was comfortable with, but Cassie would be damned if she was going to back away from him.

"I understand you're having a bit of a fling with this guy," the older cadet went on.

"But we both know that someone like that isn't going to ever be the sort of partner someone in your position needs. I think that you and I, on the other hand, could be a very good match."

"What." Cassie blinked, unable to even form a complete sentence at the sheer audacity of the man. What reason had she ever given him to think she was interested—that something like this was even a possibility? Hadn't ducking out on the meal at the officers' club been enough of a hint?

"I know that I'm not part of the nobility," Radecki continued.

"But my father has a lot of seniority in the senate, Cassie. He can bring an entire block of votes to support you, when the time comes for an election. If you're planning to stay in fleet long enough to make admiral, he can make certain the confirmation goes through."

"And I understand," he went on, "that you may want to have a dalliance from time to time. I don't mind, so long as you keep things discreet, and I'll promise you the same consideration in return. I'm not even saying you need to break things off with this guy right away. Enjoy yourself. But I think we both know that the next time Duke Montalban asks you up to the capital, things would go a lot better if you had a real ally on your arm, instead of a jumped-up farmer."

Cassie seriously considered punching him right then and there. She was pretty certain that she could break his nose, and that he wouldn't even see it coming. But there were three problems with that and taken together they weighed just enough for her to hold back. For the first, Tarquin Radecki was the senior senator from Proxima Centauri, and he was powerful.

She didn't need him to be an ally, but it would certainly make things awkward for her family if she turned the old man into an outright enemy by beating his son half to death. Secondly, if she hit another cadet, and especially an upperclassman, she knew there would be consequences. Commandant Marlowe might be leaned on, to an extent, but that was just as true for Radecki's senate connections as it was for her. If things went really badly, she could be court martialed and dismissed from the academy.

It was infuriating to think that this arrogant prick had that much power over her, but it was true. And finally, of course, was the fact that almost every cadet on campus was already at dinner. She was standing on one of the paved paths that wound between buildings, halfway to Tycho Hall, without a single other witness within sight. Perhaps within earshot.

Cassie wasn't afraid of Radecki, per se — but he was older than her, had been at the academy longer, and as a man had more muscle mass than she did even before accounting for size. If he decided to hurt her, he had just as much to lose as she did—but that wouldn't keep her safe in the moment, with no witnesses to be found. Except, perhaps, for Jessica, and that thought gave her a bit more confidence. She'd never be able to spot her bodyguard on her own, but – Lyra, is Jessica Morrow nearby?

Juno informs me that Jessica is close enough to intervene if necessary, the AI said, and knowing it let Cassie relax a bit. If the worst happened, she'd have help and a witness, at the very least — but she'd still prefer not to disappoint her father, if that was at all possible. So, instead of lashing out with her fists, Cassie used her tongue.

"You think," she said, making an effort to keep her voice even, "that I find that kind of proposal attractive? That we'll use each other for political advantage, sleep around on the side to get what we need, and that's something I actually want?" Fletcher Radecki threw his shoulders back and looked down at her from the advantage of his height.

"I think that you, like myself, do not have the luxury of being a romantic when it comes to political realities," he said.

"I do find you attractive, Cascada. I don't know how any human man with eyes couldn't. I've wanted to marry you since the first time I saw you."

"Let me make things very clear to you, so that there can't possibly be room for misunderstanding," Cassie said.

"I am with Arc Sandhurst. I invited him to go with me to New Toledo because I like him, and I like spending time with him. We're both going back for the holidays, actually, an event to which I will make one hundred percent certain Duke Montalban does not invite you. I'm not thinking about who I'm going to marry, thank you very much, but if I was, Arc would already be leagues ahead of you.

He may not have a senator for a father, but he was kind to me before he had any idea who I was —""If you believe that, you're a fool," Radecki scoffed.

"He just got to you first and pulled the wool over your eyes. He's a climber, Cassie, how can you not see that?"

"I wasn't finished." Cassie stepped right up to his chest and pointed her finger right up at his face.

"There is only one person in the imperium who gets to tell me who I can or can't marry, and that's my father—unless the senate has changed the constitution since last I looked. No? I didn't think so. You can think whatever you want about me, and about Arc, but I'm not throwing a good man aside to be with a scheming, manipulative, cynical prick like you. In other words, Radecki? Forget it and leave me alone." She turned on her heel and stormed off toward Tycho Hall. Please, please don't follow me.

"He isn't what you need!" Fletcher Radecki called after her.

"And it's only a matter of time before everyone knows it. You'll see soon enough, princess. And when you do, I'll be waiting." Cassie almost looked back—the words were so angry, so full of jealousy, that they made her shiver. But Arc was out in the jungle, where Radecki couldn't do anything to him; and she resolved that the moment he was back, she'd be there waiting, to make certain that nothing happened.