Chương 75: Choosing the Battleground

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum February 12, 2848"Wait a minute!" C'rise called, from down the corridor. Arc paused at the foot of the stairwell and looked toward the sound of her voice. The LeShaii hurried over from the women's bathroom, a paper towel held to her nose. Arc glanced back up the stairs to the second floor, and tried to draw a map in his head before remembering that he had a simpler, easier option. Iceni, is she coming from the right direction to have been beneath Marlowe's office?

Roughly, the artificial intelligence confirmed. Arc waited until C'rise had reached him before continuing on to the exit, and she fell in to walk at his side.

"Are you alright?" he asked. It looked like she was dealing with a nosebleed.

"My head hurts," C'rise complained.

"I didn't think anyone here would have the right technology to be able to do that. I need to rest for a bit." Arc held one of the double doors open for her, and then followed as she descended the steps outside Montalban Hall. He wasn't at all surprised to find that their friends were waiting, or that Cassie immediately rushed over and caught him up in an embrace. Arc was suddenly very aware that he hadn't showered in days, and must smell of equal parts sweat and the Vidakan jungle.

Probably blood, as well—he hadn't exactly had modern sanitation to scrub with, after the surgery. Disinfectant wipes weren't any substitute for a long, hot shower.

"I was really worried about you," Cassie said, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Arc told her.

"I didn't plan for any of this to happen. I was just trying to keep Pika alive, and -" She shifted in his arms, pulling back for just long enough to turn her face toward his, and then she kissed him. He was surprised at how desperate, how insistent she was, as if Cassie was trying to prove to herself that he was still alive and actually there. Lyra has passed a message, Iceni told him, the interruption jarring.

Cassie requests you do not talk out loud about the person that I cannot remember until you are somewhere where you can't be recorded or overheard. When their lips broke apart, she looked up into his eyes, brows raised as if asking a question, and Arc nodded. Later, then.

"You need to stop going out into the jungle," Vee teased him, and Cassie backed away so that first the Torean girl, and then each of their friends in turn could move in to give Arc a hug, or to clasp his hand.

"How bad is it?" Rain asked.

"They'll take into account that you got everyone home alive, won't they? We only got part of the story from Pika—he didn't remember everything. But it sounded like you did the best you could."

"It doesn't matter," Cal Madine broke in.

"I'm not certain all of you understand how serious relieving someone from command at gunpoint is. You do that when your commanding officer is dead, or unconscious, or having some sort of psychotic break. And there's always—always—a hearing afterward to decide whether it was justified or not." Arc nodded.

"I'm barred from patrol duty until further notice," he said.

"No weekend passes, either, but at least they aren't confining me."

"The academy hardly ever does," Abioye Taiwo said.

"It's a school, not a military detention facility. They'd have to move you off campus if they wanted you imprisoned. But if you're still allowed to use the simulators, and go to class, that's a good sign."

"You sound like you've seen this before," Sloane observed, from where she hung back near Cal and John Rixey.

"In almost four years here, more than once," Abioye confirmed.

"Not this exact circumstance, but cadets get in trouble often enough. Sometimes for fighting, sometimes for cheating on an exam, or some sort of drunken trouble while they're on a weekend pass in the city. We have disciplinary procedures for a reason. The best thing you can do, Arc, is to listen to your judge-advocate and do exactly what they say—and the rest of the time, get back to work and put it out of your mind." Arc nodded.

"I want to see Pika," he told everyone.

"If I can." He didn't think he would be able to truly believe that his friend was safe until he actually saw the big man in a hospital bed with his own eyes.

"He can only have two visitors at a time," Rain explained.

"This is too large of a group."

"Well, now that we know they aren't setting you up for a firing squad at dawn, I think we'll head on back to Tycho Hall," Rixey said. To Arc, the other cadet's grin, and the joke that went with it, felt a bit forced—but he appreciated the effort.

"I need to lie down," C'rise said, still holding a hand to her nose.

"In a very dark, very quiet room. I'll walk with you."

"You're welcome to." Sloane hesitated only a moment, then stepped over and hooked her arm through C'rise's.

"Don't worry. We'll make sure she gets back to her room safe," she assured Arc and the others, as the four of them walked away.

"I don't know your friend well," Abioye said.

"So I'll leave you here. Tomorrow evening, Sandhurst, I expect to see you in a simulator pod." He turned and took a different path from the departing cluster of first years, toward his own dorm.

"Of course." Arc nodded. Once the others had peeled away, he walked in a group with Cassie, Vee and Rain, with Jessica trailing a few steps behind. They were quiet for a moment, and while he wasn't quite able to relax yet, being among only his closest friends helped. Cassie attached herself to his side, and the warmth of her hand in his was like a light in the darkness.

"How bad could it get?" Vee asked, when the infirmary came in sight.

"A sentinel leaving their post in wartime can be executed," Arc said. Cassie's hand tightened almost painfully on his at the words.

"Right, but they wouldn't actually do that," Vee said, her words tumbling out rapidly.

"Sure, the Imperium's technically at war, but we're nowhere near the front."

"I'm not certain 'technically' has much to do with it," Rain said, in a low voice. She walked ahead of them and opened the infirmary door, holding it while the rest of the group piled into the waiting room. For a moment, Arc looked around to make certain Radecki wasn't present, before he remembered that the other cadet was up on Chel.

"The senate has approved a state of war," Cassie agreed.

"But you're right, Vee, that we are pretty far away from it here. I'm sure everything will be fine. Anyway, you and I should wait here while Rain and Arc go in." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. She turned to Arc, kissed him again, and then released his hand.

"I'll be waiting right here for you when you're done," she promised. Then, stepping away from him, Cassie took Vee by the hand and pulled their friend over to the empty chairs which lined the perimeter of the lobby. Arc let Rain deal with the corpsman at the desk, and then lead him through the hallways of the infirmary. She clearly knew where she was going, and he wondered just how often she could have visited their friend in less than a day.

Pika was the only person in his room, and the curtain between the two beds had been pulled aside to open the entire space. There was an IV drip attached to his arm, and he sat up in bed with his tablet in his lap. Arc could see, when his friend's hospital gown shifted, that there was a large, fresh bandage on the upper left side of his chest near the shoulder, where the zombie fly had stung him and inserted its eggs, and then where Arc and Christina had cut him open.

"I hope this meal's better than the last one," Pika grumbled, in a worse temper than Arc had ever heard from his roommate before. There was actually a scowl on his face until he looked up and over to the doorway, and caught sight of Arc and Rain.

"Arc! You're back!" he exclaimed, pushing aside his tablet. His ill-temper melted away in a moment, replaced by an excited grin. Rain quietly made her way over to one of the two chairs in the room, where she took a seat while Arc approached the bed.

"Just a couple hours ago," he said.

"They hauled me off to a meeting with Commandant Marlowe right away." Pika frowned again.

"They're not going to punish you, are they? You saved my life! If they're going to punish anyone, it should be Christina Fortin. If she hadn't -""Deep breath," Rain said, very softly, and yet somehow her words stopped Pika in his tracks.

"I'm sorry," he apologized.

"I've never gotten angry so quickly before, in my entire life. Doctor Seung says it's the withdrawal from the deathroot flowers. Look at this." Pika held his hand up, fingers spread and palm down, and Arc could actually see the tremors. He was suddenly awash in guilt.

"I'm sorry," Arc said.

"It's my fault. It was a stupid idea to get those flowers. I could have killed you."

"No!" Pika reached out, leaned across the bed, and grabbed Arc by the arm.

"Listen. The flowers killed the eggs. They know that because they got two out of me. In fact -" he let go of Arc, reached over to the tray next to his bed, and lifted a stoppered test tube.

"I have them right here." Arc peered through the glass, where two pale, shrunken grape-like eggs floated. The sight of them made him feel, once again, how they'd squirted away beneath his fingers, deeper into Pika's bloody wound. He couldn't help but shudder.

"I can't believe you're keeping those things around," Rain chided the big man.

"Anyway, he's here for an imperial standard week, for the addiction and withdrawal to run its course. During which time he's going to be a big, cranky baby, because coming off the flowers makes people irritable. It also gives them tremors, diarrhoea, nausea, difficulty sleeping -""In other words, I'm going to be miserable," Pika broke in.

"And a pain to be around. But I am also alive, and that is because of you, Arc. You saved my life." Arc shook his head.

"I should have just called for evac as soon as Christina went to sleep," he said.

"I was stupid. If I'd done that, you wouldn't be stuck here for days and days."

"You kept me alive, and got me home," Pika insisted.

"Don't tear yourself to pieces thinking about how you could have done it better, Arc. I am here at all because you did something, even if it was not the perfect thing. And I will not ever forget it."

"Don't worry about it," Arc said, uncomfortably.

"You would have done the same for me. Hell, you carried Semirye across your back up a rope ladder. If anyone should be thanking anybody, she should be thanking you."

"She came to see me this morning," Pika admitted.

"She is—upset. Worried that the academy will release her for medical disability. I think she has had more concussions than she has admitted—but! Put that aside. Have you made your choice?" Arc just blinked for a moment. He felt like his mind was stuck and unable to process—perhaps because of the sudden change in the direction of the conversation, or just because he was exhausted.

"Where you want to fight," Pika said.

"If you tell me, I will send it to Radecki's second, and to the commandant."

"He's been waiting for you to come by so that he could ask," Rain explained.

"He'd rather think about this than actually keep up with his coursework."

"The Deeps," Arc said, with a sense of finality.

"I thought about the others, but—that canyon still lets him fly above and take pot-shots down at me. The mines are mapped—he could study the layout. Once we go into The Deeps, he's going to be forced to get in close, and he can't plan ahead."

"It is also the most dangerous option," Pika pointed out.

"You could become lost there. No one knows just how far down those fissures go. You could both be trapped, and never come out. Are you certain?"

"Yeah," Arc said.

"Tell them." Your emperor commands you, Yarborough had said. It wasn't the reason he was doing this—but whether it was for Cassie, for her father, or for himself, Arc was determined to win. 𝝮 Arc didn't stay for much longer, after that; being in the same room with Rain and Pika he felt, very suddenly, like the proverbial third wheel. He'd know that his friend had been developing feelings for Rain, but Arc hadn't thought that she had any interest in reciprocating.

But now, she gave off the air of a long-suffering wife or mother, determined to see Pika through his recovery—in spite of himself. What that would mean once Pika was released from the infirmary, Arc didn't know, but he left the two of them to it. Vee had slipped out at some point, leaving Arc and Cassie to walk back to Tycho Hall by themselves—or, at least, as alone as they ever got. Jessica trailed behind them, all the way along the paved paths and then up the stairwell, past the second floor and then the third.

"Where are we going?" Arc asked.

"Someplace we can actually be alone to talk," Cassie said.

"Rain took us up here—I guess Karisa gave her access so that she'd have a place she could go to be alone. Jessica?" The imperial guard squeezed past them up to the locked door that provided roof access. Arc was completely unsurprised when the light turned green and she opened it; he wouldn't have been shocked to find that Jessica could get into anywhere on campus, including Commandant Marlowe's office.

"Give me a moment to secure the roof," Jessica said, and stalked out ahead of them. Arc caught the door and held it open with his boot, while Cassie leaned against him.

"I'm surprised you didn't want me to take a shower, first," Arc said.

"You can do that in a bit. We have to talk, and I can put up with smelly-Arc for a little while," she teased him.

"Clear," Jessica called back.

"No bugs, jammers up, and I've got a drone in the air to keep an eye out for snipers. Not that there's much chance of those here on academy grounds, but it isn't my job to take risks." Cassie took him by the hand and led him out between air ducts, pipes, and humming pieces of industrial machinery until they came to what must have been the west side of the roof.

There, they sat down next to each other, with the city of San Teodoro laid out beyond the green trees of Academy Hill, and in the distance, the sparkling waters of the bay. Jessica lost herself in the maze of rooftop equipment, and for the first time since Arc had left on patrol, they were alone.

"How bad was it?" Cassie asked.

"Pretty bad," Arc admitted.

"It would have been fine if the ground hadn't collapsed beneath Semirye's Culverin. That's where everything went wrong. And then, once we got her out of there, with Pika stung—Christina wouldn't call for evac. I couldn't understand it, but she thought we were going to somehow get back here with all four mechs." She took his hand in hers, and then leaned against each other.

"Yarborough told you what to do?" Cassie asked.

"She said I needed to win, and I needed to not kill him," Arc confirmed.

"And that I basically couldn't talk about it with anyone but you. Oh, and that they expect Radecki to make an offer to settle things, and I have to have Iceni record it. For evidence."

"That's basically what she told me, too," Cassie said.

"She showed up while you were out on patrol."

"I was going to do my best to win anyway," Arc said.

"I know that. I've watched you spend months getting ready, Arc," Cassie said.

"I don't know that anyone else has ever put more time and effort into getting ready for something like this. It's like you're planning a war." He shrugged.

"If I can't beat him, he's going to try to kill me."

"Probably," she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

"Yeah, I don't think he'd be as merciful as my father wants you to be."

"I think we have the pieces," Arc said.

"The training. The location. Your mech. If I lose now, it's no one's fault but my own."

"Don't lose." Arc nodded.

"Anything else happen while I was away?"

"I had a meeting with Commandant Marlowe and Lieutenant Commander Libby," Cassie said.

"Looks like I made my point. I've got a qualification test on Saturday."

"Good." Arc slipped his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze.

"Not that there's any question you'll pass. You're the best pilot in our year. Anyway, hopefully your patrols will be a lot less exciting than mine have been."

"You have had rotten luck," Cassie admitted, with a laugh.

"Better than some, though. You're still here."

"As long as they let me." They stayed up there together until the binary suns went down beneath the horizon, and the glittering lights of San Teodoro illuminated the evening. Only when the clouds rolled in, with a cold drizzle of rain, did the two of them finally flee back down the stairs into Tycho Hall.