Chương 41: Chosen Ground

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum November 2, 2847 Arc's tech crew was waiting for him back at the hangar. Travelling by VTOL above the jungle canopy was, of course, substantially quicker than hoofing it through the undergrowth in a damaged mech. Natalie Ramírez and the others already had the broken limb of academy Tyro unit seventeen hoisted up and bracketed in place, and when Arc climbed down out of his open cockpit, he could see they were in the process of disassembling it.

"How much of it can you save?" he asked, walking over to where Natalie watched Tremblay and Moore pry off a section of ceramic armor deformed from the horn of the male cornibus.

"Probably the lower arm and hand," she said, glancing away from their work to look him over.

"The entire shoulder assembly is going to have to be replaced, both on the torso and the arm itself. And we're going to have to test how much of the support structure has been deformed by what you put her through. Don't expect to be taking her out of the barn for at least a week, Sandhurst. Maybe two."

"I feel like I need that long just to sleep," Arc admitted.

"And I'm not scheduled for any more patrols before the winter break, anyway."

"Good. So, get out of our hair, then," Ramírez said, making a shooing motion with her hands.

"And go take a shower. You stink like a week in the jungle."

"Just about. Later, Ramírez," Arc said, and gave a wave as he turned to leave the hangar. To his surprise, Vijay Iyer and Christina Fortin caught him on the way back out onto the tarmac, so that all three of them walked to the gates together.

"Sandhurst," Iyer said, reaching over to place a hand on Arc's back.

"I know you're tired, and you've got friends waiting for you. Don't worry, I won't hold you up. I just wanted to say this: whatever else happened out there, you just came through your first combat mission in one piece. You did good. Don't forget that." Arc almost stumbled at the praise.

"I'm not certain it quite feels real, yet," he admitted.

"Pretty soon it'll be just another day," Christina said.

"Anyway. I know I can rely on you to watch my back, now, and I'll watch yours." She didn't smile, and he didn't feel like the distance between them had closed at all, but there was a level of respect in her words that hadn't been there on the day they'd left the academy together.

"I will," he promised. Iyer clapped him on the back once more, then dropped his hand, and the three of them were waved through the gate together, to where Arc saw Pika and Vee waiting. To his surprise, neither Cassie nor Rain were present.

"He lives!" Pika declared, and scooped Arc up in his arms, lifting his feet off the ground. Arc found himself crushed to his roommate's chest, and his breath forced out of his lungs.

"We heard you had some excitement out there!" Iyer and Fortin continued on to the dorms, though Vijay gave a casual wave to the younger cadets as he left.

"Urk," Arc said, and then Pika set him down and he could breathe again.

"I guess everyone knows?"

"Ramírez told us all about it!" Vee shouted and bounced up to throw her arms around him next.

"She said you got your mech's arm ripped off, but you killed a spiked terror!" With his friend hugging him, Arc got a mouthful of that strange, citrus-y scent which seemed to be the natural body odor of Toreans.

"Where's Cassie and Rain?" he asked, giving Vee a quick squeeze and then setting her down to take a step backward. Arc couldn't imagine that anyone actually wanted to smell him after days in a cockpit with no shower.

"They should be right behind us," Pika said.

"There she is." He raised his arm and pointed back along the paved path which led out of the campus proper to the gate into the south part of Academy Hill, where all the hangars were. Arc followed the line of his finger and saw Cassie and Rain talking to one of the older Torean students, with a vibrant red crest of feathers. She'd planted her body directly in the path, forcing his friends to stop and speak to her. He frowned. Something about the way the older cadet held herself didn't seem right.

"Cadet Sandhurst." Arc spun, to see two older cadets approaching—not along the path, but out from beneath the branches of one of the genetically engineered live oaks which shaded the main part of campus from Vidako's twin suns. One of the two, he didn't recognize as more than a half-familiar face: an Alu'kan a couple of years older, and nearly as big as Pika, but without the broad grin. The other, however, Arc knew at once, with a sick, sinking sensation in his gut.

Fletcher Radecki was dressed in his gray academy tunic, rather than infirmary scrubs, and he wore his cap. Something about the way he held his head gave the impression that he was looking down his nose at Arc, though the older man wasn't actually any taller.

"Sir." Arc turned to face Radecki directly and straightened his back despite the aches he was nursing from so many hours in the cockpit. Your cortisol just spiked, Iceni told him. But I'm not certain I understand why. Because I know enough to recognize an ambush when I see one, Arc told the AI. Sometimes it was easy to forget that, for all the knowledge Iceni had access to, she'd only been in existence for a few weeks. Do you remember what I told Cal Madine?

There's a reason that setting a trap for your enemy has never gone out of fashion. It works. He pins Cassie out of position and comes at me from the flank… At least he had Pika and Vee to back him up. Better, Arc thought, if Iyer hadn't already walked away. But of course, Radecki must have been watching from under the trees and waiting for just the right moment.

"You other cadets are dismissed," Fletcher Radecki said.

"On your way." Arc could see, in his peripheral vision, Pika and Vee exchanging glances. Rather than leave, Pika stepped right up to stand at Arc's shoulder and somehow seemed to become even larger than normal. The move set him up facing off directly with the Alu'kan who'd accompanied Radecki.

"Whatever you have to say to Sandhurst, you can say in front of us, sir," Pika rumbled.

"Is that insubordination, cadet?" Radecki asked, with narrowed eyes.

"No, sir," Vee said.

"We're not currently assigned to any squad you're leading, sir, nor are you training us. We're between classes and off duty, and we have just as much a right to be on campus as you do." There was a twitch in the man's face, and Arc caught a glimpse of Cassie and Rain over his shoulder. One of them must have spotted what was happening, because he saw the two of them dash around the red-crested girl who'd gotten in their path.

They were jogging over, now, and he only had to delay a little while until his reinforcements arrived. But what he didn't understand was exactly what the purpose of this whole maneuver was. Unlike the departed Van Camp, Radecki didn't strike him as the type to simply beat up those who annoyed him. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Fine," Radecki grumbled.

"I thought I might save you a bit of public shame, Sandhurst, but it's clear to me you don't understand when you're being offered a courtesy. No surprise, I suppose. You're a boy from a backwater planet who doesn't know his place. A climber. What I have a hard time understanding is why anyone ever let you get close enough to our princess to dirty her with your hands." Arc blinked, momentarily taken aback. Until now, Radecki had hardly said a word to him.

He didn't trust the man—and he'd had a feeling the older cadet was circling around Cassie for weeks now, but he'd never done anything more than give Arc a cold shoulder or ignore his presence to the point of being rude.

"I'm not certain how my relationship with Cassie is any of your business, sir," Arc said.

"We aren't breaking any regulations." He was playing for time, as much as anything else. Whatever was going on here, he was certain that Cassie would be better equipped to deal with it than he was. But he couldn't keep a certain amount of annoyance out of his voice. He'd just spent days marching his mech through the jungle, eating rations over a campfire, sleeping on roots and rocks, and pissing in a ditch. He'd nearly been killed by a spiked terror and killed it in turn.

Was it really too much to ask to let him get back to the dorm and have a shower—maybe even a nap—before dealing with whatever bug had crawled up this guy's ass?

"Watch your tone with me, Sandhurst." Radecki stepped forward, right into Arc's personal space.

"I'm your superior in every way," he went on, never looking aside from Arc's eyes. It was if he actually wanted a fight.

"Someone like you wouldn't even be allowed to step foot in my father's house. I'm certain Duke Montalban and his entire family were laughing behind your back during your entire visit." Arc's eyes flicked between Radecki and the Alu'kan he'd brought. That was the play, was it? Show up and spout insults until Arc lost his temper, try to get him to throw a punch. Bring someone who could not only plant him in the ground when he did it but would also be a witness. Drag him in front of the commandant for fighting.

Run him out of the academy, he supposed, so that—what? Radecki could take a run at Cassie himself? For a moment, he thought about doing just what he'd done whenever Van Camp was around. Just lay low, shut up and take it, and wait for Radecki to lose interest and go away. Only—he wasn't the same person he'd been when he landed here on Vidako, was he? The Arcturus Sandhurst who'd ridden the elevator down to the surface had never thrown a punch in his life.

He hadn't hiked days out into the jungle, he hadn't carried Natalie Ramírez at a full sprint, chased by a monster that could eat them all. He hadn't known what it was like to pilot a mech, to pull the trigger with his weapons locked on an actual, living target. He hadn't been seconds away from death, waiting for his cockpit to be cracked open. Why, by the stars above, should he back down to one more petty bully? Arc took a deep breath, to brace himself.

"Sir. I don't believe I'm obligated to stand here while you insult me. If there's nothing of substance to be said, my friends and I will leave."

"Have I insulted you, cadet?" Radecki said, his lips twitching until there was just the trace of a smile on his face.

"If I have, there's a way to settle it. Enshrined in Imperial law."

"What is going on here?" Cassie demanded, her boots scraping against the paved path as she and Rain drew to a halt. Arc could hear one more set of steps—the Torean that Radecki had recruited, presumably—pounding across the pavement toward them.

"Cadet Sandhurst was just saying that I've insulted him," Radecki said, unable to keep his smile from blooming, now.

"A public insult is a matter of honor, of course. Any pilot who isn't a coward knows exactly the response to give to something like that." That's the play, Arc realized. He doesn't just want me in front of a disciplinary board, he wants me in front of his guns.

"You want a duel," he said.

"That's what this whole setup is. You came here because you wanted a duel."

"Fuck that," Cassie exclaimed.

"If you want to fight someone, Radecki, you can fight me."

"I don't believe that any insult has been offered between the two of us, Your Imperial Highness," Radecki said.

"Particularly since it's your honor I'm defending, here. This cadet is a disgrace, and he's got no place following you around like a whipped dog. You deserve better, and there isn't a person in the Imperium who wouldn't agree." Cassie grabbed Arc by the arm, slipping hers through his, and tugged him to the side.

"Come on," she said.

"We're getting out of here. And we're going to report this to the commandant, Radecki, so don't follow us."

"Of course," Radecki said.

"It shouldn't surprise me that a boy like this has to hide behind someone else, rather than defend his own honor. Tell me, Sandhurst, did your sister run and hide when the pirates took her ship? I don't suppose it mattered, she's dead either way." All his life, Arc had heard the expression 'seeing red.' But until that moment, he'd never really understood what it meant.

He wanted to tackle Radecki to the ground, punch him until that stupid grin was a ruin of blood and broken teeth, and then keep stomping until the man's head burst like a ripe melon. He couldn't even take credit for the fact he didn't do it: without Cassie holding his arm and hauling him back, it would have been violence right then and there.

"You fucking bastard," Arc screamed, as Pika got a hand on him. He didn't even realize that he was trying to throw himself forward until Vee and Rain piled on, all four of his friends pulling him back away from Radecki.

"Ah, there it is," the older cadet said, the words almost a sigh of relief.

"That, Sandhurst, is most definitely an insult to my honor, in front of half a dozen witnesses. I'm afraid that, unlike you, I can't let such things slide. I have my family's reputation to uphold, after all. The only possible answer to your words is to be found on the battlefield, between two pilots. Nalu, here, will act as my second." The Alu'kan nodded and smiled.

"Of course."

"No!" Cassie shouted, thrusting herself in between the two men.

"There won't be any duel."

"I'm afraid you don't have the authority to deny it, Princess Cascada," Radecki said, with such a tone of satisfaction to his voice that it was more a declaration of victory than an apology.

"Your own family enshrined dueling in imperial law. I have been insulted, and now I have offered a challenge of honor. Sandhurst's only options are to apologize to me, or to fight. Unless he's simply a coward and wishes to refuse my challenge. But no coward will make it far in fleet. Prepared to throw your career away over this, Sandhurst?" Arc clenched his fists so hard he thought his nails might draw blood. Radecki's trap was sprung, and he was well and truly caught.

He had no doubt that Radecki had every intention of killing him—but he didn't see a way out.

"I'll be your second," Pika promised, on one side, but Cassie was still shaking her head.

"I choose the time and place," Arc said, and everyone stopped.

"That's tradition, isn't it?" That dinner at the duke's palace—the story about Esteban's duel was running through his head, and he could practically hear his husband's words, exactly as Marcus had spoken them that night. …You never want to be the one to make the challenge, kids. Let the other guy—or girl—lose their temper. It gives you an advantage. For the first time, Radecki hesitated, but his second spoke.

"That's true." Nalu nodded.

"But it must be a reasonable location. My friend pilots a Kestrel, so it needs to be in orbit somewhere."

"Arc's only ever piloted a Tyro," Cassie protested.

"He hasn't even started training in zero-g." Iceni, Arc thought, and he felt the attention of the AI focus on his words. I need a place in this system, an asteroid or another planet or something, that's got cover. Someplace I can get rid of his range advantage and make him come in close. Chel, Iceni said. Not the Academy training ground on the moon, but the quarries. Someplace you can hide in the cuts, the canyons, the mineshafts. Thank you, he told her.

"Chel," Arc said.

"We'll fight on the moon. Low-g for you, and a surface for my Tyro. Pika will let you know when I've picked a time and a location."

"Done," Radecki declared, with a smug grin.

"I look forward to it, Sandhurst. Perhaps you have a shred of honor, after all." And with that, he turned and left, his two accomplices walking to either side of him. Cassie waited only long enough to be certain they were out of earshot before she grabbed Arc by the shoulders and spun him around so that they were face to face.

"What are you thinking?" she demanded.

"He's got two years of piloting experience on you, Arc." Arc put his hands on Cassie's and ran his fingers down her arms until they reached her shoulders.

"I was thinking that the first step in beating him is to choose my ground," he said.

"To fight on terrain that I've picked."

"He's going to try to kill you," she said, and for the first time since he'd met her, Arc thought that he saw fear in her eyes.

"I know." He nodded and drew her in close so that he could wrap his arms around her.

"I know. I couldn't see how to get out of it, Cassie, but he's already made his first mistake. Now we just need him to make more." Beneath the shade of the trees, his friends around him, Arc began to make his plan.