Chương 79: A Willing Foe

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum May, 2848 The spring semester passed more quickly than Arc would have ever imagined possible. Back during those first few weeks of Hard Burn, when he went to bed every evening and woke every morning more exhausted than he'd ever been before in his life, when he'd lowered his head to avoid the notice of older students like Blake Van Camp, and when his goal of getting into a Kestrel cockpit had seemed nearly out of reach, each day had crawled by.

It was an irony of life that time seemed to stretch out when you were miserable, and contract during the times that you were happy. And despite how busy his days and nights were, the escape from the prospect of a court martial had shown Arc just how much he was enjoying his time at the academy.

With Pika back from the infirmary and Arc's relationship with Cal Madine somewhat thawed—a prospect he would never have anticipated, at the beginning of the year—room 207 of Tycho hall had become a place where Arc felt comfortable. With much pushing and tugging, they'd rearranged the modular bunk beds so that the empty mattress left by Delvin Beck was pushed right up against Pika's place.

A trip into San Teodoro proper—one which Arc hadn't been able to go on, as he was confined to campus—had resulted in the acquisition of a foldable support in the place of a box spring, a foam topper, and sheets large enough to fit over both mattresses when placed side-by-side. Ark's friend could now spread his frame out comfortably, rather than scrunch himself up on his side every evening.

Cal's upper bunk was moved over to the windows, to loom over the top of one of the two desks which had been provided for their collective use. In short order, that desk became his exclusive property, while the second, still decorated with Arc's painted model of Beecher Red Crest's Blood Hawk, became Arc's by default. The signed copy of Admiral Nakagami's memoir was placed next to the miniature, where it would be visible to anyone visiting the dorm room.

Somehow, the very act of modifying the room to suit their routines made it feel less like assigned quarters, and more like home. At meals in the dining hall, he had his group of friends, which had expanded beyond a size that he ever would have expected when he'd first arrived. Rain continued to mother Pika even after he'd been cleared by the infirmary, a state of affairs that the big man showed no objection to. When they took their spring pass into the city, it was together.

Privately, Rain admitted to Arc that she wanted to make sure that their friend didn't come into contact with Spike while he was off campus.

"I saw too many addicts when I was a kid," she told him, when Arc expressed surprise that the two of them would be spending so much time together.

"I know he's got all of it out of his system; I know he's through the withdrawal symptoms; and I know the unprocessed flowers aren't as strong as street drugs. But I just want to be certain he isn't even tempted before he goes back to Stellar Abyss." Vee and Natalie Ramírez had become, to Arc's surprise and intense distrust, thick as thieves.

There was something of the deranged goblin about each of them, and together the two women concocted an elaborate plan to load half a dozen store-bought drones with glitter bombs. The drones were then sent swooping down to dump their payload over a cluster of professors leaving the officer's club one evening, including the woman who taught Cassie and Vee's course in contemporary Torean politics.

"It's a lot less than she deserves," Vee observed, and even after the two of them were caught and assigned punishment marches, she didn't seem the least bit contrite. Arc benefitted from the whole thing, because it meant that for at least a few Saturday mornings, he wasn't the only one marching around the center of campus in full uniform with a BA-50 on his shoulder. His classes were all at least interesting, though the Applied Tactics and Simulations practicum with Professor DeVault remained the highlight.

While their focus continued to be on fighting the Na'xir swarm, with new combat data coming in from the LeShaii front seemingly every week or two, DeVault and Skuld didn't neglect exposing the students to any other threat that Imperium forces might encounter. Arc played through simulations that threw him up against Singularity mechs, xenobeasts, pirates with jury-rigged guns on out-of-date mechs, and even a rebellious duke's personal guard.

The fictional duke in question was left deliberately vague, with mechs painted in colors that didn't match any of the Imperium's existing noble families. Arc had checked with both Cassie and Iceni. Above and beyond everything else, of course, was Cassie. Their plan to escape into San Teodoro together for a weekend was a casualty of Arc's actions during that ill-fated patrol into the jungle, but they stole every bit of time together they could find.

If they were studying, it was on one of the loveseats on the first floor of Tycho Hall, nestled together with tablets in hand. The deployment of more and more first-year cadets on patrols provided opportunities, as well—at Arc's urging, Pika and Cal finagled their way onto Kievit Red Crest's team during the third week of April, which left an empty dorm-room entirely to Arc and Cassie for five glorious days.

Of course, when she went off on her own first patrol, that left him to worry the entire time she was gone, while Pika and Vee teased him endlessly. Even Cal Madine got in on the fun, which left Arc speechless.

"You realize," Madine said, after the third time that Arc complained in the same evening, "that she managed to survive waiting here through your disastrous patrols not once, but twice. I can hardly think of a way that she'd come back in worse shape than you did—missing a mech's arm once and marched through campus by MPs the second time."

"Neither of those were my fault," Arc was left to grumble. He finally gave in and swapped the picture on his tablet to a shot of he and Cassie, taken by Itzia Montalban during their winter break.

After Cassie did get back—with the only mark of her time in the jungles a few scratches left on unit twelve's paint job by the occasional brush with Vidakan foliage—the two of them accepted an invitation to have dinner with Professor DeVault and his wife in their apartment on the north side of campus, just at the edge of where the academy gave way to The Valley. 𝝮"You're sure we shouldn't be wearing our uniforms?" Arc asked.

Iceni and Lyra had plotted a map for each of them through the quiet side streets which wound their way between faculty apartment buildings, beneath the sheltering boughs of the live oaks which had been planted all over campus. The rainy season had passed, along with most of the spring semester, and now the only relief from the heat of Vidako's binary suns came with evening.

"I'm certain," Cassie said.

"Trust me. If there's anything my parents drilled into my head, it's etiquette. It'd be different if we were meeting at the Officer's Club, but this is their home." She'd ordered a white summer dress, which had been delivered to Tycho Hall along with a pair of linen pants and a matching shirt for Arc. He hadn't really been surprised to find that both his clothes, and hers, were of natural fibers, rather than made of synthetic fabric.

Arc made a conscious decision not to ask whether she'd had a package shipped from off world, just to be used for a single evening. He figured that he was better off not knowing and trying not to think about how much that would have cost. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. They walked up the stone steps to the door together, with Cassie's arm looped around Arc's, and a bottle of wine tucked under his arm.

That had taken some doing to get, as well—especially with Arc confined to campus. Thankfully, there were plenty of other students, including upperclassmen, who had liberty to go into the city on weekends. Arc took a breath, then knocked on the door. There was a moment of silence, and then the door swung open into the apartment to reveal a middle-aged woman, reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, and more than a hint of gray in her hair.

"Come in, come in," she said, with a smile, and stepped aside to make way for them.

"You must be Arcturus—Neil's spoken about you. I'm Ruth."

"Nothing too bad, I hope," Arc only half-joked. He waited for Cassie to step in front of him and then followed her into the apartment. Once everyone was in the foyer, Ruth DeVault closed the door behind them, and Arc was able to look around and take the place in. A small foyer, at the foot of a stair leading up to the second floor, opened into a den that was more than half library.

A single couch, which looked plush enough to practically swallow anyone who sat on it, was surrounded by bookcases built into the walls. Every inch of those shelves was crammed with books of all shapes and sizes, and Arc couldn't help but smile at the titles on the spines: Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Tillet Nightjar's On the Migrations of the Fleets, and even the same edition of Admiral Nakagami's memoir that Arc owned—though without, he guessed, the personal inscription.

"Only that he's had to scrape you out of that simulation chamber at the end of class, to make room for the next person," Ruth said.

"In any case, welcome to our home. You must be Cascada." She didn't say, 'Your Imperial Highness,' Arc noted. And at his side, he felt Cassie relax.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. DeVault," Cassie said.

"Thank you for having us."

"Is that voices I hear at the door?" Professor DeVault called from further back into the building.

"Send them this way, Ruthie." Ruth DeVault rolled her eyes.

"He's in the kitchen. I'll take that wine, dear, and let it breathe." Arc handed over the bottle, accepted Cassie's outstretched hand, and then walked through the den and into a dining room. The apartment, he discovered, was made up of a line of rooms stretching backwards in one long, thin rectangle, and presumably he would find, if he'd gone up the stairs, a similar layout on the second floor.

Foyer gave way to living room, to dining room, to kitchen, where Professor DeVault was holding a cast-iron pan above the stove in one hand, and a bottle of brandy in the other. As Arc watched, he tipped the brandy into the pan and then ignited it in a burst of flame.

"The original recipe calls for tuna," DeVault explained, as he watched the fire burn down. Then, he set the pan back on the burner and poured in a bit of cream, before setting to with a whisk.

"But I've found it works just as well with our native Red Sail, from the bay."

"He has to disconnect the fire alarms every time he makes it," DeVault's wife called from the dining room. DeVault laughed, turned, and began to load plates with heaps of rice, asparagus, and slices of seared fish which he drizzled with the brandy-cream sauce from the pan. He handed the first plate to Cassie, the second to Arc, and carried the final two himself. Before long, the four of them were seated around the dining room table, Arc and Cassie on one side facing DeVault and his wife on the other.

The wine they'd brought had indeed been opened and poured out into four glasses. Professor DeVault raised his glass.

"This is a very old tradition," he explained, "dating back to the British Navy, when it was the pre-eminent sea power on ancient Terra. A different toast for every day of the week. A willing foe, and sea-room." With a series of clinks, all four wine glasses were touched together in turn.

"What are some of the other toasts?" Cassie asked, once they'd all had a sip.

"Sunday is 'absent friends," DeVault answered.

"I particularly like 'a bloody war or a sickly season,' which is traditionally followed, in jest, by exclamations of 'and a quick promotion. There's also -""He's skipping Saturday," Ruth broke in, "because he knows it would get him in trouble.

'Wives and sweethearts—may they never meet." Cassie laughed first, and then Arc couldn't help but follow. Whatever ice might have remained was broken by the joke, and they dug into the food—which Arc found to be excellent. Professor DeVault and his wife were equal parts kind and fascinating, with a dose of good humor that the man rarely showed when he was teaching a class.

Arc learned that Ruth worked as an editor for a small press that specialized in histories, and that the two of them had met at an academic conference.

"Almost forty years ago, now," DeVault said, with a sigh. He pushed his empty plate aside and leaned back in his chair.

"It doesn't seem that long until I say it out loud."

"What caught your eye?" Cassie asked Ruth.

"You might expect me to say how tall he is," she answered, in between sips of wine, "or that deep voice. But actually, the first thing I thought was—'who in all the empire names their poor child Othniel?" Everyone laughed, including DeVault himself.

"My parents always just called me Neil," he protested. He took another drink and then allowed the smile to fade from his face.

"Arc," the older man said, his voice becoming serious at last, "Do you remember what I told you before the winter break? That I'd do everything I could to put an end to this duel, if you wanted?"

"I do," Arc said, setting his own wine glass down.

"And I'm grateful for it."

"But you aren't going to take me up on the offer." DeVault met his eyes, and Arc didn't look away.

"No. I'm not."

"Can we ask the reason, dear?" Ruth spoke up.

"We've all seen those interviews on the planetary net, of course. But I'm certain if enough of the faculty went to the commandant about it..." Arc glanced to Cassie, because he didn't want to accidentally say something that he shouldn't. She reached under the table and squeezed his hand.

"There's things we aren't supposed to speak about," Cassie said, correctly interpreting what he wanted.

"But I don't think it's giving anything away if I say that, at this point, with how public Radecki's made everything, the things he's been saying—the duel is now something that the imperial family is invested in."

"I mean no offense by saying this," DeVault broke in.

"But what is best for the imperial family may not be what is best for Arcturus Sandhurst. And that is what I am concerned about."

"Why, sir?" Arc asked, before he could stop himself.

"Because someone damned well should be," the professor growled.

"Your parents are half the imperium away. At least one adult in this entire mess should be looking out for you." He pointed a finger directly at Arc's face.

"And not politics. Say the word, right here and right now, and I'll do whatever I need to do to make this go away. You have my promise." Arc felt a rush of warmth through his chest. Not that he was going to take DeVault up on his offer—but that anyone had cared enough to make it, in the first place. He couldn't help but smile.

"Thank you, sir," he said.

"You don't have any idea just how much it means to me to hear you say that."

"But you aren't going to accept my help," DeVault continued.

"No, sir, I'm not," Arc said. He glanced to his side, and Cassie gave him a smile.

"I told you that you'd better have a damned good plan by May, or I'd put a stop to this anyway," DeVault said.

"Well, it's May. Walk me through it." Arc took a deep breath.

"Do you have a holo-projector I can use?"

"I'll get it," Ruth DeVault said. She stood up from the table, reaching out to take Arc and Cassie's plates with her into the kitchen. While his wife was out of the room, Professor DeVault turned to fix Cassie with a glare.

"I don't know you well, Your Imperial Highness," he said, in a low voice.

"You aren't in any of my classes. I hear that you're quite a pilot. I would hate to see this young man die in a duel because he got caught up in some sort of messy imperial scandal."

"I don't think there's anyone at this table who wants Arc to come out of the duel alive more than I do," Cassie replied, firmly. After a moment's hesitation, DeVault nodded, and then his wife hurried back into the room with a portable holo-projector, which she set in the middle of the table. Iceni, Arc thought. Pull me up an image of The Deeps, and the schematics for Lady Ren. I've got both ready, the AI replied. Along with our analysis of Radecki's piloting footage.

Two holograms flickered into existence at the center of the room, hanging between the DeVaults on one side, and Cassie and Arc on the other.

"This is where I've chosen to fight," Arc began.

"Our friend Pika talked to a few relatives, and friends of friends, among the Alu'kan mining corporations active on Chel. The Deeps are only mapped to a depth of about three-hundred meters, and they're close quarters all the way. Fighting there should just about completely negate the range and speed advantages of a Kestrel."

"What in the world is that?" Ruth DeVault asked, leaning across the table to examine the white-and-gold armor of Lady Ren.

"That," Cassie said, "is the mech that I'm loaning to Arc for the duel. I think you'll find, Professor, that it's quite a bit more formidable than a stock Tyro." DeVault's eyes moved from one projection to the other.

"You've done an analysis on your enemy, I hope?"

"We have piloting footage, and information on his custom Kestrel," Arc said.

"Intelligence is a first step," DeVault muttered.

"All right. Walk me through it."