Chương 49: Scandal

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum December 20, 2847 When Arc pulled his suitcase out of the elevator and wheeled it into the foyer of Tycho Hall, he found that Cassie and Jessica Morrow were already there waiting. Like him, Cassie was wearing her cadet's uniform, but Jessica had changed into the black of an imperial guard.

The building itself felt strangely empty; Arc knew that students had been leaving throughout the morning as they finished their exams, but he hadn't really been confronted by the fact until just that moment.

"Ready," Arc said, as he approached them.

"Is the car here yet?"

"Just outside," Jessica answered.

"I'd like the two of you to wait in here while I check it over. Shouldn't be more than a few minutes." Without waiting for a response, she ducked out through the door, leaving Arc and Cassie to watch over three suitcases between them.

"It's disorienting how quickly she changes roles," Arc said, keeping his voice low. He supposed there might be someone in the dining hall who could overhear them.

"There's a pretty clear line," Cassie explained.

"As long as we're here on campus, she'll stay out of sight and do what every other cadet is doing. She'll match my qualifications, and then she'll follow me on my first tour of duty. Otherwise, she'll try to stay out of our way." Except for when she makes her presence inconveniently known, Arc complained to himself.

"But now that we're leaving campus, you turn back into a princess, and she turns back into an imperial guard." Cassie nodded.

"Exactly. And that means she checks the car for bombs or bugs. It means when we get to the spaceport she works with security to keep the media back. All of that." She looked down at the floor for a moment, and then stepped closer to him, reached down, and took his hand in hers.

"Can you be alright with this?" she asked, quietly.

"This is my life."

"It still feels pretty strange," Arc admitted, but he pulled her closer, until he could put his arms around her waist.

"I've got a video file from my parents waiting. I haven't watched it yet. I'm a little afraid to."

"Yeah, the news must have got as far as Zurah by now," Cassie agreed, leaning her head forward so that it was the easiest thing in the world for him to gently press his lips against her forehead.

"We can watch it together, if you want. I've, um, I've got one from my parents, too."

"I hope they're not too angry you didn't go home." That was the last thing Arc needed, the emperor angry at him, personally. The door swung open, and Jessica stepped back in. Her eyes flicked over the two of them, the way they stood there together, and when she looked at Arc, he felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over his head.

"The car's clean," she said.

"Let's get the two of you moving." There was a uniformed chauffeur waiting outside, next to the grav-car's popped trunk, and he wrestled each suitcase in turn into place, packing them like an engineer. Then, to Arc's surprise, he stepped aside so that Jessica could get into the driver's seat. Cassie didn't react at all, so after she slid into the backseat, he followed her. A moment later, the grav-car rose, hovered perhaps two feet off the ground, and set off slowly through the campus toward the city.

"We're just leaving him there?" Arc asked, glancing out the tinted windows. He was certain that every piece of the car was armored.

"He isn't cleared to drive the princess," Jessica called back.

"The car's computers do most of the work anyway, but there's always an emergency manual override, and that's a point of vulnerability." Arc nodded, and settled back into the cushions of the bench-seat.

"Pika left earlier this morning," he told Cassie.

"Rain and Vee, too," she confirmed.

"Did you know Pika invited her to Stellar Abyss?"

"I didn't." Arc sighed.

"It tracks, though."

"Oh?" Cassie looked sideways at him and raised her eyebrows.

"He said something when we spent the day in The Valley," Arc explained. He didn't think it was actually a secret from her that he'd been shopping for a present, but as long as she was willing to pretend that she didn't know, he'd do the same.

"I think he likes her." Cassie let out a long, low whistle.

"I don't envy him," she said.

"Not that I don't like Rain—she's my friend. But she's been through a lot. I don't think any relationship she has is going to be simple, and I'm not certain Pika really understands what he'd be getting into."

"Trauma wrecks marriages," Jessica called back from the front.

"Sure, people say they'll be there, no matter what happens. But once you actually get in it—most partners can't take that." Arc almost asked whether she knew that from personal experience, but thought better of the idea.

"If she didn't go with Pika, where'd she head to?"

"She's spending the break with Senator Catalina," Cassie explained.

"I get the impression that Dorotea's become something like a mother-figure."

"Is that a problem?" Arc asked.

"I never really paid attention to politics before meeting you."

"Dorotea Catalina?" Cassie shook her head.

"No. I mean, she's not exactly an imperial family loyalist, but there's nothing she wants that we object to. She does good work. She's saved a lot of women and children from some pretty horrible conditions. There's plenty of senators that Rain could have connections to that would be a lot worse for us."

"Speaking of," Jessica said, from the front of the car.

"You should be aware that Fletcher Radecki managed to get himself in front of a few cameras on his way off-world. The footage is circulating all around the planetary net, and with so many ships leaving over the next day or two, you can expect it to spread through the imperium pretty quickly." Cassie winced.

"Do I even want to watch it?" she asked.

"You should. Both of you should, before we get to the spaceport," Jessica continued.

"There are bound to be questions." Arc reached into the pocket of his tunic, pulled out his tablet, unfolded it, and searched for Radecki's name. A dozen hits came up immediately, still images of Radecki with a microphone in front of him. The headlines were all similar: Duel of Honor for Imperial Princess's Hand, or Senator's Son Fights for Princess Cascada.

"What is this horseshit," he grumbled, clicking on the top video and tilting the tablet so that Cassie could see as well.

"—of course, if he'd simply offered an apology, I would have accepted," Radecki was saying, and Arc felt the immediate and strong urge to punch the man in his face.

"But once the honor of my family had been insulted, I didn't have a choice." You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Particularly as the son of a senator, I imagine," a woman's voice broke in, and the camera pulled back to show the very attractive, very polished media-type holding the microphone.

"And this entire thing is over Princess Imperial Cascada Sabran-Solaris?"

"I'm not here to comment on any private relationship with Her Imperial Highness," Radecki said, shaking his head.

"But there is a relationship?" the woman insisted.

"No comment, and my ship is nearly ready to depart," Radecki said, turning away from the camera. Once he'd left the frame, the view centered on the woman who now held a microphone in front of her own chin.

"There you have it. The Emperor's youngest child is, apparently, all grown up and already embroiled in the kind of passionate trysts that we usually only see in a holo-drama," she said, with a smile that reminded Arc of a predator.

"Two young officers will fight a duel on, we're told, the artificial moon of Chel, over the honor of her affections. One wonders whether the imperial family or Senator Radecki's office will make an official comment, but –" Cassie stabbed her finger at the screen to stop the video.

"Fuck! That slimy son of a bitch! I can't believe he—he's trying to make it look like I—fuck!"

"I don't get it," Arc said, as he scanned through the comments posted under the video.

"I don't understand what he gets out of all this. He's already risking his life, but there's no way you're going to have anything to do with him. Anyone who actually knows what's happening is going to know that he's lying."

"I can tell you exactly what he's doing," Cassie grumbled.

"It's a tried and true tactic. Fling enough shit at the wall that sooner or later, something sticks. I hate it, I can't stand people who do it, and it's why I have less than zero interest in ever standing for election." Arc's confusion must have been plain on his face, because she went on with her explanation.

"Sure, our friends know the truth, and our families will, too," Cassie said.

"But millions—billions of people across the imperium only know what hits their planetary net. And whoever talks first gets to set the tone. So he frames this as some sort of romantic rivalry. He's just defending the honor of his family, while I'm running back and forth between two men. They can spin it into a scandal, drag it out every time any member of my family gets in front of a camera for months. It doesn't cost them anything, and it gives Senator Radecki a lever he can pull.

'Support me on this, or help me kill that bill, and I'll tell my son to stop getting in front of a camera."

"It's despicable," Cassie went on, her voice rising into a rant. Arc got the impression this was not the first time that someone had tried something like this on her family.

"But the media will eat it up, because people love any hint of imperial scandal. The politicians who want to get rid of the emperor entirely, and put everything in the hands of the senate, will start rattling their swords again about how this 'proves' the imperial family is nothing more than a drain on resources. Antiquated."

"I'm sorry," Arc said, after a moment. He folded his tablet up and slipped it into his pocket.

"I didn't mean to cause such a mess."

"Get one thing straight, Arc," Cassie said.

"You didn't do this. This is exactly what Fletcher Radecki wanted, and you didn't do anything wrong by standing up to him. Understood?" He nodded, but he must have looked a little uncertain, because she grabbed him by the head with both hands and kissed him. For the rest of the ride through San Teodoro, Arc found himself thoroughly distracted. And for once, Jessica Morrow didn't even do anything to stop them. 𝝮 Duchess Nicté had sent her family's private plane, this time.

On the one hand, that meant that Arc, Cassie and Jessica would have a much more comfortable journey across the continent than they would have rattling around in the back of a fleet Saker. On the other hand, that meant that they needed to run the gauntlet of press between the door of the car, and the portable staircase which had been wheeled up to the side of the plane.

Spaceport security, with reinforcements from the San Teodoro city police, had clearly been warned of their coming, because they'd already set up a cordon to keep the media back in a crowd, perhaps five meters away. Jessica parked the car and popped the trunk: Arc caught a glimpse of the plane crew making a beeline for their luggage. Jessica turned around and half-leaned over the front seats.

"This is what's going to happen," the imperial guard explained.

"I get out first. I'm linked into the police drones, and so far as they can tell everything is clear, but we aren't going to wait around. The two of you go directly to those stairs. Don't worry about your luggage. Don't respond to any questions. Don't look at them. Don't give them a good frame. Understood?" Arc and Cassie nodded, and then Jessica swung her door open and stepped out of the grav-car. For a moment, the noise swelled like a wave, spilling in through the open door; then, it cut off again.

Jessica walked around the car, then opened Arc's door. He would have let go of Cassie's hand, but she squeezed tight, and so he helped her out of the back seat instead, and put his body between her and the cameras. As they hurried to the base of the steps, shouted questions rose above the cacophony:"Princess, what's it like to have two men fight a duel over you?"

"Sandhurst, what did you say to the senator's son? What was the insult?"

"Princess, what do you say to the people who claim you're playing games with these two men?" Arc made the mistake of looking: it was the same woman who'd interviewed Radecki, and she was leaning out with her microphone, held back between two police officers.

"That you've led them both on for a bit of fun? Do you actually care about either one?" Cassie stopped suddenly, and Arc almost stumbled at her side.

"You want an answer?" she shouted back, and Arc could tell that she was furious. This was the Cassie who'd punch someone in the face without a second thought, the same Cassie who'd thrown herself at three gangers in an alley. She turned to Arc, and their eyes were almost level. She only had to look up just a bit.

"Kiss me," she murmured.

"Are you sure?" Arc asked.

"I thought we weren't going to say anything."

"I don't want anyone believing that I have the slightest feeling for that asshole," Cassie said.

"Kiss me." When Arc touched his lips to Cassie's, the noise erupted. If he'd thought it was loud before, now it was positively ear-splitting, on the level of an exploding missile. Jessica dashed over to them, grabbed Cassie by the shoulder, and tugged. He couldn't hear what the bodyguard said, but he could imagine. Together, they dashed up the stairs and into the plane.

"That's going to be all over the local net in five minutes flat," Jessica grumbled, once the doors were shut and they'd slid into their seats.

"I'd ask if you were certain that's how you want to play things, but it's too late now." They were in the air ten minutes later, and then Arc felt like he could finally relax.

"We're going to have to do that all over again in New Toledo, aren't we?"

"Mmm-hmmm." Cassie leaned into him, looking oddly satisfied. Something about her reminded him of a cat who'd just marked its territory.

"Show me the message from your parents." He managed to get his tablet out without moving her, opened the file, and balanced it on his knee so that they both had a good view. Once again, the image of his father and mother, crowded into the same frame, jerked into motion.

"Hello, dear," Arc's mother said.

"We hope you're keeping yourself busy, and that you've got a friend or two who's sticking around during winter break, so that you aren't all by yourself." His father cleared his throat.

"I wish we could afford to bring you home for a few weeks, but it isn't so long until the second semester is over. You'll have two whole months at home, then. We miss you, and I know your friends do, too. I understand you don't have your grades for the first semester yet, but we're certain that you'll do well." Camden Sandhurst glanced at his wife, and Arc thought that his father looked oddly hesitant, all of a sudden.

"We wanted to ask you—that is, we don't want to pry. But I'm not certain whether you're aware, Arc, that you've been in the news."

"Just come out and say it, dear," Arc's mother said.

"Nevermind, I will. Arc, honey, there's pictures of you all dressed up for a dinner with the Duke of Vidako. You looked very handsome in that uniform, by the way. But they're saying that you were escorting Princess Cascada."

"It's hard to know what's true and what isn't, from this far away," Arc's father broke in.

"People have been asking us questions –""They want to interview us, Arc," Audrey Sandhurst said.

"We don't know how to answer them. I'd hope that if you were in a relationship, that we'd be the first ones you'd tell –""He's half the imperium away, dear," Arc's father said.

"Anyway, son, we hope you're well, and we can't wait to see you again. Send us a message back." The image froze.

"Start recording," Cassie said. Arc turned his head and looked down at her.

"Are you serious?" She nodded, and tilted her head so that both their faces would be in the camera.

"Your parents seem nice, and it's the least we can do for them. I just hope this message comes on the same ship as Radecki's ridiculous preening." Arc took a deep breath. It felt like crossing a line. But then again, hadn't they already crossed a dozen other lines? When they'd gone to the duke's dinner together, when they'd kissed in front of the cameras—all of that was much more public than a simple message to his parents. But this felt like it mattered more. He hit record.

"Hi Mom, hi Dad," Arc said.

"We just watched your message. We're on the plane to New Toledo right now, and we're going to spend the break with the duke's family. This is Cassie." Cassie lifted her hand and waved it at the camera, flashing a brilliant smile.

"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Sandhurst. It's nice to meet you, but I'd like to do it in person at some point. We'll have to figure out when I can come to Zurah." She glanced over to Arc.

"So, uh, about what you've seen on the net," he said.

"It's pretty much all true."