Chương 43: Know Your Enemy

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum November 3, 2847"I feel like an idiot," Cassie complained, as she paced back and forth before the secretary's desk, just outside the commandant's office. Though outside Montalban Hall, the binary stars of Vidako beat down mercilessly, here the air was air conditioned to a pleasant chill. Arc watched her from his seat in one of the three chairs that had been set up against the wall for cadets to wait in.

Cassie's hair hadn't quite grown back enough to truly hide the glint of silver tracery along her scalp, and the metal of her neural lace flashed beneath the overhead lights as she moved. She was clearly a bundle of nervous energy, and she wasn't even the one that Commandant Marlowe had called in. For his own part, Arc felt the familiar unrest of nerves in his stomach, and tension in his chest. It was just like when he'd been called to the office in primary or secondary school back on Zurah, only ten times worse.

During those days, the worst he'd had to fear was being forced to stay for after school detention, and the grief his parents would give him over it once he got home. Now, not only was his career in the imperial fleet on the line, but his entire plan to go after the pirates who'd killed Phoebe, as well. The thought struck him. When, exactly, had he begun thinking like he actually had a career at stake—as if this entire school, and the imperial fleet, weren't simply means to an end?

Was it the first time he'd gotten in the cockpit of Tyro unit seventeen, and realized that he actually liked piloting? Was it when he'd woke up to an entire other person, riding along in his brain, who he was responsible for? Or had it happened the first time that he'd kissed Cassie?

"Come and sit," he said, leaning forward and reaching out a hand for her.

"You're not the one in trouble here. I am." He ignored the look that Marlowe's secretary shot his way when Cassie paused in her pacing, took his hand in hers, and allowed herself to be drawn back to the empty seat at his side.

"I just feel like this is my fault," she said, leaning up against him and lowering her voice.

"I've been taught all about this, and I still fell for it." Cassie's voice was laced with bitterness and anger, and not a little guilt.

"I should have known that none of the upperclassmen would actually want a mole rat at the officer's club. At least Ireti helped me get out of there." She gave a slight shudder, and Arc could feel it when she moved against his body.

"Even then, I thought Radecki was just one more creep looking to set himself up with a princess. I didn't ever think he'd do something like this, Arc." Arc sighed.

"I had a bad feeling about him from the beginning," he admitted.

"The way he looked at you, the way he ignored me when we were together. It was like he was trying to make me feel so uncomfortable and out of place that I'd leave. Or at the infirmary, when he waited and walked you back, but just left me to find my own way. It was obvious. But I didn't want to say anything to you."

"Why not?" she asked, sitting up a bit and turning her head to look him in the eye.

"Because I didn't want to come off as jealous," he admitted.

"Or controlling. He hadn't really done anything I could call him out on, and he was making sure to be nothing but nice to you."

"Arc." Cassie reached up with both hands to cup his face, and to trace her fingers through the short fuzz of his hair.

"You have nothing to be jealous about. You are the only person in my entire life who ever chose to be my friend before knowing who I was. I'm not sure you have any idea what it feels like to know that you don't want anything from me."

"Well, I wouldn't say that," Arc said, reaching out to put one hand at her waist. When Cassie's cheeks flushed, he considered himself to have achieved victory. Lieutenant Junior Grade Hayes seems to be ill, Iceni pointed out, after a quite deliberate cough came from the secretary's desk. I would recommend remaining at least two meters distance from her at all times, so as to reduce the possibility of infection.

"Iceni…" Arc shook his head, and reluctantly withdrew his hand, settling back into his seat.

"Lyra isn't the best at interpreting human social interactions yet, either," Cassie admitted, as she settled back in next to him.

"Anyway. I was trying to warn you exactly so you didn't get trapped like that—and he still outmaneuvered me." Arc sighed.

"We got taken by surprise. This guy started a fight we didn't see coming, and he had a plan. Of course we got the worst of it in the first engagement."

"It wasn't a battle, Arc," Cassie said.

"Just a jealous piece of shit trying to throw his weight around."

"It was absolutely a battle," Arc said.

"And now that we know we're in a fight, we're going to win the next one." Before either of them could say anything more, the door to Commandant Marlowe's office swung open. She stepped out far enough to hold it wide with one hand, while keeping her gaze locked on Fletcher Radecki, who stepped out just after the commandant and then paused when his eyes found Arc and Cassie sitting together in the outer office.

"On your way, cadet," Marlowe said firmly. The upperclassman hesitated for just a moment, half turned away from the door into the corridor and toward where Arc and Cassie sat, as if he might say something. But he must have thought better of it, because under the commandant's watchful glare he finally made for the door, opened it, and left the room. Once the door had clicked shut in Radecki's wake, Arc exhaled. He'd been half ready to jump up out of his seat.

"Sandhurst, you're next," Marlowe said, narrowing her eyes.

"I don't think I called for you, Sabran-Solaris, but I suppose you're so wrapped up in this nonsense that you might as well come in too." Arc stood up at the same time Cassie did, the two of them releasing each other's hands by common consent. He let her go into the commandant's office first, and then followed. Marlowe closed the door behind them, then walked around her desk to settle into her own chair.

"Be seated," she grumbled.

"Between the two of you, you've been spending an unusual amount of time in my office. In most cases I'm familiar with first year cadets from their files, you know." She reached up and flicked a finger across one of her two screens.

"I have Cadet Iyer's report on your patrol," Marlowe went on.

"He says that you killed a cornibus with a plasma blade to the throat."

"Yes, sir," Arc said. There wasn't exactly any reason to deny it.

"You didn't tell me that," Cassie said, turning to face him with a grin. Arc squirmed in his chair.

"I would have," he said.

"But then we sort of got distracted by other things."

"No, no, no," Cassie teased him.

"You don't get out of this! You didn't want to take one, and I insisted, remember? Let me hear it.

'Cassie, you were right. That plasma blade saved my life. Melee weapons are just as good as lasers…"

"That is blatantly false," Arc grumbled.

"Melee weapons have severe limitations when a Culverin can core your cockpit with a railgun slug from a mountaintop twenty klicks out." This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"Admit it," Cassie pressed, poking his chest with her finger." Cadets," Commandant Marlowe snapped.

"You can flirt on your own time." She leaned back in her chair and sighed.

"We get one or two of these every semester—sometimes more. A couple of cadets start to feel like one or two rides in a cockpit makes them the god of mechs, and the first time someone says something stupid, it's a 'matter of honor.' It isn't. And it's my job to talk everyone involved into making an apology." Arc exchanged a glance with Cassie.

"I'm not certain that's going to work this time, sir," he said.

"No?" Marlowe raised her eyebrows.

"Let me be very plain when I say this, Sandhurst. One trip into the jungle and a few hours cockpit time does not put you on the same level as a second class cadet who's qualified to ride a Kestel. Have you run a single zero-g sim yet?"

"No, sir," Arc admitted.

"But the surface of Chel isn't zero-g. It's only low gravity."

"You're supposed to be smart," the commandant went on, waving a hand to dismiss his objection.

"You got here by winning a tournament that required strategy and tactics. You should be able to see that this is a losing position. You take a Tyro up against Radecki, even on the surface of the local moon, and he is going to blow you to pieces with volley after volley of missiles before you ever get into range. Nevermind the fact that he's going to fly circles around you while you're stuck on the ground. The smart play here is to eat a little crow and apologize."

"With all due respect, sir, I don't think that's going to work," Arc said.

"Did Radecki say he'd accept an apology?"

"Not yet," Marlowe admitted.

"But he's still running hot. I've seen this plenty of times before. Give me a few days to work on him, and he'll be ready."

"He won't," Cassie cut in.

"I'm not certain you know everything involved in this, sir, if you've only talked to him." Marlowe drummed her fingers against the top of her desk.

"Then tell me." Over the next hour they did, in fits and starts, passing the thread of the tale back and forth between them. Much of it was Cassie—Arc simply hadn't been there for everything. In fact, he hadn't even known everything until right then and there. The fact that Radecki had first cornered her in the infirmary, for instance, while she was going through the stations in her underwear, and wormed his way into 'helping her.'

The thought of it—of Radecki's eyes on Cassie's body, all while he planned to take advantage of her, sent a sharp blade of anger right through Arc's gut. And then the full story of the evening at the officer's club—how she'd shown up, nervous and excited to sit with the upperclassmen, hoping to get advice from them.

When Cassie admitted that she'd wanted to make a good impression, so that she might be able to go back with her friends, Arc wanted to reach out, take her in his arms, and pull her into his lap so that nothing in the world could ever hurt her again.

"It wasn't until he put his hand on my back that I actually clued in," Cassie ranted, clearly almost as angry at herself as she was at Radecki.

"I was such an idiot. Of course that's what he wanted—none of them would actually invite an underclassman in there, just to give a bit of advice."

"The better ones would," Marlowe said, but her voice had gotten very quiet.

"Go on." And Cassie did. How Radecki had waited until Arc was in the jungle, out on patrol, so that he could catch her alone. The marriage offer—so cynical and calculated.

"He actually said that?" Arc broke in.

"That both of you could cheat on the other, as long as it stayed out of the news? I wish you all hadn't held me back."

"They saved you from a disciplinary hearing by doing so," the commandant pointed out.

"You should be grateful to your friends."

"He was so jealous of Arc," Cassie went on.

"I was worried he was going to do something like—well, something like what he did. Not exactly that, but some kind of trouble. So I was going to make sure I got to Arc first, right when he got back, so that I could warn him. Radecki sent one of his friends to slow me down –""While I walked right into his trap," Arc picked the thread up.

"I saw what he was doing, and I thought that if I stalled for time until Cassie got there, we might be able to embarrass him into backing off. But then he brought up my sister, and I lost it." Cassie reached out and took his hand.

"So, knowing everything—do you still want Arc to apologize?" she asked the commandant. Marlowe leaned back in her chair and raised one hand to massage her temples, just over the bridge of her nose.

"No," she said, after a moment's consideration.

"He's trapped you right where he wants you, and I was wrong. I won't be able to lean on him to accept so long as he thinks he can get something he wants out of it."

"I don't see what that is," Arc admitted.

"I mean, he can't really think Cassie will suddenly be interested in him if he beats me, right?"

"It isn't about that anymore," Marlowe said.

"He made a play for her and lost, that's one thing. But he can't be seen to lose to you, not without punishing you somehow. He's got his family's reputation to protect. And he's figuring that years from now he'll have bragging rights about how he won his first duel while he was still at the academy."

"Bullying a cadet two years younger than him," Cassie groused.

"I'm certain Senator Tarquin Radecki has enough contacts in the media to spin things however he'd like," Marlowe pointed out.

"Can you stop the duel yourself?" Cassie asked.

"Haul him before a disciplinary hearing," Arc suggested.

"He's been harassing her since she got here." Marlowe shook her head.

"Radecki's been smart about this. He does work in the infirmary to earn merits on the side, and he did help you, cadet," she said to Cassie.

"Even at the officer's club, a hand on the back isn't so blatant I can charge him with sexual assault. It'd be one thing if he'd grabbed your leg, or went in for a kiss, but… No. As much as I hate to say it, there's only so much pressure I can put on him."

"Because his father's a senator," Arc said, clenching his empty hand into a fist.

"And because of the Imperium's dueling laws," the commandant went on.

"He's got you fighting on his battlefield. It's not a subtle plan, but it is an effective one."

"Not entirely," Arc said.

"I haven't picked exactly where on Chel we're fighting, yet. I don't actually know much of anything about the moon, but Iceni—my AI—says there's mining up there." Marlowe frowned.

"Plenty of it, actually. When Vidako was first colonized, there was an enormous mass-lifting operation, because the local gravity was a touch too high for human comfort. Alu'kan engineers hauled trillions and trillions of tons of the densest rock on the planet up into orbit, over the course of decades, and smashed it all together. The planet didn't have a moon until we got here. That means a lot of the building materials the local economy needs are up in orbit, instead of down here."

It only took a moment for the commandant to see where Arc was going.

"You want to set the dueling area somewhere he has to get close in," she said.

"Some kind of quarry, or mine shaft, where you can cancel out his Kestrel's range advantage."

"I could see the trap closing," Arc explained.

"I didn't have a way out, but I did have a way to put the fight on ground that's more favorable to me than to him. And I'm not done. I've got a plan."

"Tell me." Arc nodded, and sat forward in his chair.

"There's got to be plenty of cadets who've been in the sims with him," he explained.

"Or gone on patrol. That means I can learn how he likes to fight. His habits, his strengths, his weaknesses. Sun Tzu said that 'if you know the enemy and know yourself –"" –you need not fear the result of a hundred battles," Marlowe finished the quote for him.

"You really are one of DeVault's, aren't you? He must love you, Sandhurst. All right, so you gather intelligence on your enemy, and then I presume you bring a loadout tailored to taking him out, again, on ground you've chosen. He's still got more time in the cockpit than you, and you've never piloted a mech in low gravity. You haven't even selected between ground and zero-g tracks yet, never mind started the training."

"That's where I need your help," Arc said.

"Go on."

"I need clearance to start low gravity sims," Arc said.

"I need time in the centrifuges. And I need the duel pushed back as far as possible." Marlow bit her lip, clearly thinking his request over.

"The upperclassmen spend a lot of the second semester—the ones on our zero-g track, especially—up on the Honor," she said, after a moment.

"I wouldn't want this duel to get in the way of Cadet Radecki's training. It would be, I believe, irresponsible of me to not give him the best education the academy possibly can—especially since he's the son of an important senator. Since he's going to be so busy, I don't think it would be possible to approve a duel before the end of the second semester, in May."

"Thank you sir," Arc said, with a grin.

"And the sims? The centrifuge?"

"Your sims are approved," Marlowe said.

"But if you want time in the centrifuges, you need to get Doctor Seung's clearance. I cannot, will not go over her head on that."

"I understand." Arc stood, and Cassie rose from her own seat at his side.

"Permission to go, sir?"

"Granted," Commandant Marlowe said.

"I'll see you when it's time for your testimony at the court martial. And Sandhurst? Keep one thing in mind. You're not trying to win this duel—you're trying to survive it. Don't disappoint me."