Chương 3: Cassie

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum August 12, 2847 At the words of the older cadet, Cassie felt a shift in the entire dynamic of the other newly arrived students who surrounded her. Eyes shifted in her direction, whispers ran around the edge of the group, and some of them even stepped back to clear a space around her. Almost all of them had already known, of course—but until someone had actually said something, she imagined that they hadn't been certain how to act.

She could even see Jessica quietly shifting around the perimeter of the group, ready to leap in if needed. She felt a sudden, boiling anger, and the urge to punch the preening boy in front of her in his stupid nose was almost impossible to restrain. You need to get a handle on your temper, Cassie. She could hear her father's words in her head, the precise tone of the admonition, it had come so many times before. It was easy for him to say—a lot easier than it was to put those words into practice. Especially now.

Because somehow, she'd gotten lucky enough to meet someone who didn't seem to have the slightest clue who she was. How that was possible when her face had been plastered over every planetary net in the Imperium since the day she was born, Cassie couldn't have said; and at first, she hadn't even believed it. But either Arc was the best actor in the sector—a thought which nearly made her snort in laughter—or he genuinely hadn't put it together. Until right now.

There was no way anyone could possibly be that oblivious, now that this cadet, who was clearly waiting for some sort of gracious response, had put her on the spot. She felt like 'Cassie,' cadet fourth class, had only been allowed to live for a few short hours before being ruthlessly and publicly murdered. Now all anyone would see when they looked at her was Cascada Vega Sabran-Solaris, Princess Imperial, and she hated it. It was everything she'd come here to get away from.

Still, if there was any performance she could put on, it was this one. She had, after all, been trained for it her entire life. Cassie met the older boy's eyes and poured every ounce of contempt she could muster into her gaze, while making a short, sharp gesture with her left hand, where it hung by her hip, to call Jessica off. He was an ant—nothing more than an insect to be ground under her boot, and she wanted him to know it. She raised her chin proudly, let the whispers die, and then spoke.

"Perhaps you haven't been adequately trained in academy protocol, sir," Cassie said.

"While I am here on Vidako, I am Cadet Sabran-Solaris. I'm to be given no special treatment, nor any non-military form of address. And you outrank me, sir."

"Enough of that," the other upperclassmen said, stepping forward. She had gorgeous dark skin, and three years' growth of long, black hair that had been pulled back in over a dozen thin, tight braids.

"My name is Ireti Ọlatẹru, Cadet First Class. I'll be escorting all of you ladies to Tycho Hall, where you'll be given your room assignments. Come along with me—keep up, and I might even be persuaded to answer a few questions on the walk. I'm certain Cadet Van Camp and the boys will be right behind us." Ọlatẹru turned on her heel with military precision and moved out along the path, but all the other first year girls hesitated. Of course, Cassie realized: they were waiting for her.

She spared one look for Arc, saw that his eyes were just as wide and his face just as pale as she'd feared, and knew that she'd already lost what might have been the only chance at a real friendship she'd have here, but there was nothing to do. She turned and hurried after Cadet Ọlatẹru, into the shade cast by the genetically engineered trees whose boughs arced over the campus paths.

Like a dam that cracked, and then burst all at once, the other women all burst into motion, though none of them spoke to Cassie, or even approached her.

"You said you might be willing to answer questions, sir?" Cassie asked, once she'd caught up to Ọlatẹru. The older woman's long strides positively ate up the ground, and Cassie was already feeling the ache in her back from Vidako's local gravity, which was marginally higher than what she'd grown used to on Terra.

"I believe I did, cadet," Ọlatẹru agreed.

"So long as you all keep up and stay together. Ask away." Cassie didn't actually have very many questions about the school—well, any questions at all. She'd set her heart on coming here since she was twelve years old and doubted that anyone else had poured over the student handbook or each year's new course catalogue the way she had. But she also doubted that any of the other girls would risk asking their own questions if she didn't go first.

"I was wondering what models of mech you've qualified to pilot," Cassie said, because it was the first thing she could think of, because people always liked when you showed interest in them, and because she really was curious.

"The T-3 Tyro, of course," Ọlatẹru answered, her braids shifting over the back of her cadet grays as she glanced back. Cassie knew that she wasn't expected to be in uniform upon arrival, but the older student's fitted pants and tunic, and the elegance with which Ọlatẹru wore them, still made her feel underdressed. Has her hair grown back that long in only three years, or is she wearing extensions? Cassie wondered.

"That's what everyone qualifies with by the end of first year," the older cadet continued.

"Which I'm certain those of you who've done your research already know. I'm also qualified to pilot an A-3 Culverin." Cassie nodded silently. The third generation imperial mech models might be on the back end of their life cycle, but she knew the specs on all of them by heart. The Culverin wasn't the sort of chassis she preferred to use, but when they had a good screening force and a capable pilot, they could absolutely dominate a battlefield.

"You're a girl who likes big guns, then," a Torean with a peacock-green and blue head crest exclaimed, hurrying her way nearly up to Cassie's side, presumably to hear better. Many humans had a hard time telling Torean women from their men, because they were all so slender and light on their feet. The fact that the Harriers of Toree were descended from avians, not mammals, and so didn't have breasts, only compounded the problem.

Cassie liked to think she had the trick of it, but then, she'd had a rather cosmopolitan upbringing. An understatement—how many of the other cadets here would have met all six of the Torean senators? Cassie knew the answer to that without even having to ask. She noted the telltale swell of the other cadet's hips, which would have been enough of a clue even if the group of incoming cadets hadn't already been split by gender. Males, after all, didn't need their bodies to be able to pass eggs.

"What I like," Cadet First Class Ọlatẹru said, "is to be able to hit my enemies before they have a chance of hitting me. Which means yes, I like my rail guns. Next?" As they plunged deeper into the campus, past lawns of black-bladed, carefully trimmed grass, the wind carried the scent of the jungle. It was a thick, deep smell that spoke of rotting leaves, wet loam, and sticky heat. Cassie could already feel sweat slicking her lower back, and she wondered how anyone could possibly deal with four years of this.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Now that the ice had been broken, a few other girls called out questions, and mostly Cassie didn't bother to listen to the answers. They wanted to know how hard it was to get a weekend pass into the city, what the food was like, and a dozen other things they could just as easily have learned from reading the handbook or just searching a few forums on their planetary net.

There were plenty of academy graduates willing to share their experiences, if you knew the right place to ask. But maybe, she realized, they found something comforting in hearing the answers out loud, from an actual living person who'd gone through it themselves. Ọlatẹru took it all in good humor, and she gave as much attention to the stupid questions as the more interesting ones. First year cadets received one pass each semester and could earn more.

The dining hall food was designed for health, not taste, but what did you expect? By the time they reached Tycho Hall, Cassie knew that she would have been out of patience, if she were in Ọlatẹru's place. Perhaps the older cadet was, after all, because she lifted a hand to cut off the last question before it could be finished.

"Follow me inside and go immediately to the right," she ordered. The electronic lock on the outside of the door lit green, though Cassie hadn't seen Ọlatẹru actually touch it, and the older cadet pulled the door open, then set her back against it, leaving the way clear for the girls. Neural Lace, Cassie decided. It has to be. She almost stayed behind to ask, but she'd said herself that she didn't want to be treated differently than any other cadet, so in she went.

The cadets piled into a great foyer, with a massive staircase and a bank of elevators to either side. The walls to right and left opened into long rooms which appeared to be something of a cross between a lounge and a hallway: there was plenty of room to walk down a center aisle, but there were also couches, love seats, and coffee tables spread about against the walls, basking in the light that poured in through tall windows.

At the end of the lounge into which the girls were ushered, Cassie saw another open doorway, and through that what looked like a dining hall. Another cadet, this one having discarded her tunic in favor of shirtsleeves, rose from one of the lounge chairs, tablet in hand. She had the look of a Mikaboshi native, Cassie thought: ethnically Japanese, but with unusually pale skin and light eyes adapted to light in eternal dusk.

As the cadet stood, a dark-furred animal hopped down out of her lap and fetched up on its hind legs, examining the new arrivals with great curiosity—and with the largest eyes Cassie had ever seen.

"Cadets, this is your RA," Ọlatẹru announced, having followed the last of the new arrivals inside.

"Cadet Lynstan-Hanigata, I leave them in your hands." Despite Ọlatẹru's words, however, Cassie noticed that she did not immediately depart, instead taking a seat in a loveseat just inside the entrance to the hall.

"Thank you, sir," the RA said brightly.

"Welcome to Tycho Hall, girls. My name is Karisa Lynstan-Hanigata, cadet second class, and this is Flopsy." Flopsy, at her feet, wiggled his nose, and then thumped the floor loudly with one foot.

"I didn't think pets were allowed on campus?" a girl with a distinct Morenan accent whined. Only when Lynstan-Hanigata narrowed her eyes did the new cadet add a belated 'sir.'

"They aren't," the RA explained.

"Flopsy is a trained therapy animal, and I'm only allowed to have him here with us because my minor is in psychology and counseling. What that means is that, yes, you can come and pet him—especially around crunch time at the end of a semester—but no matter how much he begs please, please don't give him treats without talking to me first, or we'll end up with a shadow-rabbit the size of a mech waddling around the building."

There were a few genuine laughs at that, and Lynstan-Hanigata waited for them to subside before she raised her unfolded tablet in one hand.

"I have your room assignments right here," she said.

"Now, you're the last load of arriving cadets this year, so you may find you've already got roommates who have moved their things in upstairs. I encourage you to make friends, because there will be no reassignments, and no exceptions. When I call your name, come and get your ID card from me, then take your things and head on over to the elevators. Every one of you is on the third floor, so I shouldn't see you headed anywhere else for now. Al-Hamra, Zoya—room 301..."

Cassie let the names from the first part of the Imperial standard alphabet slide past her without really hearing them. Instead, she kept an eye on the entrance to the hall, and she noticed when Cadet Van Camp led the boys through the foyer and into the opposite hall. It would have been hard not to: they were as loud as a herd of bison. She wasn't certain anyone else in the room would understand that particular idiom, but she'd toured a bison ranch on Terra, and it seemed the most apt comparison.

She tried to get a glimpse of Arc, as they all went by, but he must have been somewhere in the middle of the pack.

"Sabran-Solaris, Cascada—room 305," Cadet Lynstan-Hanigata called out. Cassie had reached down and flicked the power switch on her suitcase as soon as she heard her name, and the moment it had risen up to a comfortable height in the air, she pulled it by the handle over to the RA and took her card. Then, she headed toward the foyer and the elevators as quickly as she could.

"Cadet," Ireti Ọlatẹru called, softly, as she went by, and Cassie paused.

"I'll be reporting Cadet Van Camp, and I'll speak to your RA, as well. If anyone gives you any trouble, come and find me at Badar Hall."

"Yes, sir," Cassie said, and ducked out, making for the nearest elevators. She slapped the call bank, waited for a set of doors to open, and then crammed herself inside with two other girls from the tail end of the alphabet, who'd hurried up behind her in the time it took the elevator to arrive. They rode up together in an uncomfortable silence, and Cassie was the first out the door.

She strode past the first four rooms, along with the entrance to an enormous group bathroom that she didn't at all look forward to using, and up to the door of room 305, through which she could already hear raised voices. There was an electronic scanner on the outside of the door, of the same type Cassie had seen at the entrance to the building, and when she pressed her ID card against it, a green light lit up, followed by an audible click. Cassie pushed the door open into an argument.

It seemed a small room for more than one person. To either side of a wide window on the far wall were two work desks with chairs, and along the side walls two open doors which revealed small closets. The rest of the space was nearly entirely taken up by two bunks, each with a top and a bottom bed—one of which was occupied by the Torean who'd run up next to Cassie during the walk over.

She was perched on a top bunk—of course—watching the other two girls with the same wide, excited eyes that had sparkled at the thought of Cadet Ọlatẹru's railguns. The bright feathers of her crest were flared up, and she gave off the attitude of someone watching the latest episode of their favorite holo-drama from the edge of their seat. The other two girls must have come in earlier, for Cassie had never seen them before.

One was clearly Alu'kan, from the bone-white coloring of her face and the smooth gray skin where a human's hair would be. She was tiny, however, even compared to a human woman, and next to one of the Alu'kan males who shipped in with Cassie, she would have looked like a child. The impression was exaggerated by the fact that she was curled in on herself, as if braced for a blow.

Cassie's tutors had tried to train her in body language, though she'd often frustrated them, and to her it looked like the girl was trying to look as small as possible, as if she wanted to be ignored or to disappear. Even her eyes were lowered, fixed on the carpeted floor of the dorm room. The contrast with the attitude of the woman facing her couldn't have been clearer. Her skin was iridescent, pink or lavender at the lightest points, and deep purple where the overhead lights of the room cast shadows.

Her features were delicate and aloof, and where hair might have grown on a human's scalp, or a Torean's feathered crest would be, her delicate skull rose in layers of shell, which were yet more vibrant than her skin. The sight of her set Cassie's stomach to churning with a sick feeling.

"—it is simply impossible," the standing girl declared in a thickly accented voice.

"We cannot remain in this room together. I will explain it to the Lynstan woman, and she will find you a new place."

"I'm fairly certain the RA downstairs said they wouldn't do that," the Torean butted in, with an enormous grin.

"She even said, no exceptions." The door to the room gave a small, but audible click, as Cassie closed it behind her, and every eye in the room turned toward her.

"You're LeShaii, aren't you?" she asked, meeting the vibrant, inhuman eyes of the shell-headed woman.

"I am Shaii'eth C'rise of Bian," she declared.

"Then you're right," Cassie said.

"We need to go and speak to Cadet Lynstan-Hanigata. Because there's no way I can spend the next four years living in the same room as a psycher."