Chương 92: Reunion

Pinnacle Station, Vidako Orbit Imperium Stellarum August 13, 2848"I missed you," Arc said, once he could talk again. Something that had been tight inside his chest loosened in relief, because now that Cassie was in his arms, it felt like nothing had changed, and that they'd never been apart. For the first time in months, he breathed in the same scent he'd woken up to, when they first spent the night together in New Toledo: hints of rose and jasmine, fruit, sandalwood and some kind of pepper or spice.

Jessica Morrow cleared her throat. Arc hadn't even noticed that Cassie's bodyguard was present.

"I think we've given the gossip sites enough footage for today." Arc blinked and looked away from Cassie, first to Jessica, who was wearing her cadet's uniform rather than the black of an imperial guard, and whose auburn hair had grown out into a tussled bob. Then, he followed her eyes to the center aisle of the concourse, where more than a dozen people had stopped to take pictures with their tablets, restrained only by a rough cordon of guards, each with an earpiece.

"Are those all imperial guard?" Arc asked.

"Part of my negotiations with my father," Cassie grumbled.

"Which I have to talk to you about, once we're someplace private." Arc felt a spike of anxiety, and it must have shown in his face, because she quickly added: "Nothing that you have to worry about. It's basically all good, as far as you're concerned. I just had to agree to a full security detail this year, between what happened with Radecki and the war."

Arc was reluctant to drop his hands from her hips, but he comforted himself with the thought that they'd sit together on the elevator down to San Teodoro, and that they'd have the next nine standard months together.

"I don't exactly object to more people keeping you safe," he admitted.

"You might find a reason to when it's harder to get privacy," she pointed out. Cassie stepped back, putting just enough distance between their bodies that she could reach down and take his hand. Arc realized that something like thirty people were gathered around waiting for the two of them, either looking away in an attempt not to intrude on their reunion or trying to find something to do with themselves that wasn't awkward. All the cadets from Vidako had grouped up around Vijay Iyer, which Arc was grateful for.

C'rise, who gave Arc a quick nod when he glanced in her direction, was standing with a group of cadets from Terra. And Jessica's crew of black-uniformed guards glared at anyone who raised a tablet - save for a single woman who stuck out from the rest of them like a sore thumb. She wore the uniform of an imperial guard, though her jacket looked rather rumpled, and rather than standing in the cordon, she'd found herself a seat in the waiting area just outside the gate.

There, she leaned over a tablet, typing furiously, an explosion of blonde dreadlocks and multi-colored hair falls only half tied back out of her face. With a final series of taps and flourishes, she straightened up and flashed a grin in Jessica's direction.

"Alright, boss, local network's going to be on the fritz for the next ten minutes or so. Should give us a window before all the crap from those gawkers hits the planetary net. Probably best to move, though." Arc blinked.

"Is that legal?"

"That's a question I've learned it's best not to ask when Lynn is around," Jessica said, with an eyeroll.

"But it would be best if we got moving, please, Your Imperial Highness." Arc went to snag the handle of his suitcase with his free hand, but one of the imperial guards moved in to take it instead.

"Allow me, sir," she said, and before he could respond it was gone. At his side, Cassie visibly flinched, but they did get moving - with the guards clearing the way for the entire group to proceed out into the main concourse, inward toward the space elevator itself. C'rise fell in on Cassie's other side, and neither Vijay nor Indira Katari seemed to have any hesitation about getting close, but all the other new cadets hung back, clearly terrified to be in the presence of a princess imperial.

"This is exactly the kind of production I came here to get away from," Cassie grumbled, as they walked. She gave Arc's hand a squeeze.

"I'm sorry."

"I can understand it," he admitted. Their group moved like a bullet through the crowded concourse, parting the foot traffic to either side as spacers, station personnel, and travelers all scrambled to get out of the way. He also caught a glimpse of more than a few people puzzling over their tablets, then tapping at the screen furiously.

"I'm not actually supposed to send them all a virus that goes into their files and deletes every piece of footage they record over the past ten minutes," the blonde imperial guard said. For some reason, she hurried up to walk with Arc, Cassie, and C'rise, rather than join the rest of the black-uniformed guards in keeping the crowd back.

"But I think it would have been the simpler solution. They're all just going to try to be the first to sell their pictures to the media, anyway. Anyway. Hi, I'm Nil." She thrust a hand over in Arc's general direction, and he found himself shaking it before he knew what he was doing.

"You're imperial guard?" Arc asked.

"He sounds like that's hard to believe," the woman complained.

"That's because it is, when someone gets a look at you," Jessica pointed out.

"Yes. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I specifically requested guardswoman Clarke for Cassie's security detail. A decision I'm certain to regret frequently." Lynn leaned toward Arc and Cassie, raised one hand to shield her mouth, and spoke in a stage whisper that was comical, if not effective.

"I'm here because it was either join the guard and have my legal record wiped, or go to some deep, dark hole like Nepenthe. But!" She straightened up and resumed talking in a normal voice.

"This gig, I like. Because it's the only way to get legal neural lace in the Imperium."

"Arc, meet Cadet Clarke," Cassie said.

"My recommendation to the academy for this year's class." Arc looked back and forth between Cassie and Lynn Clarke - or Nil's - mane of blonde hair.

"Does she know?" Cassie laughed.

"I don't think she's paid attention to anything but the words 'neural lace' and 'artificial intelligence."

"Oh." Arc couldn't help but grin as he tried to imagine the woman - who'd pulled her tablet back out of her pocket and was now busily tapping away at it as they walked - getting her head shaved, or running sprints under the hot twin suns of Vidako.

"I think I finally understand how all the upperclassmen felt last year."

"She's the best person in the entire guard for computer systems," Jessica said.

"She just needs a bit of direction from time to time. I want her to upgrade your tablet and the systems in your mech, just like she's done for Cassie." Lynn held a hand out in Arc's direction. He hesitated a moment, then passed his tablet over.

"You need me to unlock it?" he asked, already half-expecting the answer. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Nah," she said, and got to work.

"Cadet Sandhurst, sir," Indira spoke up, taking advantage of the break in conversation.

"Would you mind introducing me?" Cassie glanced over at him and raised her eyebrows.

"This is Indira Katari," Arc said.

"Duke Ishaan's daughter. He did me a few favors, and in return I showed her the ropes in the simulators over break. Indira, this is Cascada Vega Sabran-Solaris, but you already knew that."

"I've met your father a few times," Cassie said. Someone less familiar with her might have missed it, but Arc could see the moment she made a decision.

"I'm probably going to be coming to Zurah V to visit sometime in the next year or two, so I can meet Arc's family. When I do, maybe you can help show me around, Indira." Indira's face lit up nearly as bright as a plasma blade.

"Of course! And I'm certain my father would be happy to put you up in a suite at the palace." 𝝮 They ended up taking over the entire passenger compartment of an elevator car, between the two loads of cadets from Terra and Zurah, respectively, and the imperial guard detail. The station security actually cleared out everyone who was waiting for a trip down to the planet, and they seemed to have gotten warning that Cassie was on her way.

Compared to the year before, when she'd managed to slide into a seat by herself, things couldn't have been more different. If she'd travelled to the academy with such a production to begin with, Arc reflected, he'd never have had the chance to meet her in the first place.

"Arc and I need to talk on the way down," Cassie told Jessica, as they approached the airlock.

"C'rise can sit near us."

"Got it," Jessica said.

"Privacy it is." She nodded to the black uniformed imperial guards. Two of them moved ahead to stash Arc and Cassie's suitcases, while the rest blocked off a section of two seats, leaving a third for C'rise just behind them but preventing anyone else from getting within easy earshot. This time, Arc got the window. Cassie settled in against his shoulder.

"I missed this," she admitted, with a sigh.

"Not the guards. You."

"Are they going to be like this all year?" he asked.

"Jessica and Lynn will be acting as cadets most of the time," Cassie explained.

"The rest of them are supposed to be subtle, once we're on campus. The idea is we don't see them." Arc had his doubts about that but kept them to himself.

"What did you need to talk about?" he asked.

"Zurah V's a bit behind on the news, but it looks pretty certain that Radecki's father's career as a senator is finished."

"We're hoping for actual prison time," Cassie admitted.

"But he still has a lot of friends. People who owe him favors. They are confined to their quarters on Auctoritas Station, though, when they aren't on trial. No, I'm not worried about them. Not anymore. Actually, I got you something."

"Oh?" Arc grinned.

"I've got a surprise for you, too. It's in my suitcase."

"I can't wait." Cassie reached into the pocket of her gray cadet's tunic and removed a small, white case with bio-hazard stickers on it.

"Here." Arc hesitated.

"What is it?"

"That," Cassie explained, "Is a tailor-made Hyper Efficient Brain Flush retrovirus, customized for your genetic profile. Courtesy of my father. You can consider it a kind of apology for making you fight Radecki. And that one functioning mine."

"It is?" Arc took the case without hesitation and found it cold to the touch. He almost opened it without thinking and then decided that the crowded elevator car was probably not the best time.

"Really?" After losing so many merits for his ill-fated patrol with Christina Fortin, Pika, and Semirye, he'd basically given up on the idea of getting any genetic enhancements before winter break, at the absolute earliest.

"You deserve more for that shit that Yarborough pulled," Cassie grumbled.

"I told my father he'd better make sure nothing like that ever happens again. Look, there's a Comprehensive G-Force Adaptation waiting for you, too, but you're going to have to come back to Terra with me for the summer if you want it. It's apparently kind of a big deal to do it once you're not just an embryo. Dad claims you'd need to be monitored the entire time, and Auctoritas is the best place to do it. But this, you can do right away. We just take it down to Doctor Seung at the infirmary.

She handles this kind of thing all the time."

"Thank you." Arc tucked the case into the pocket of his own tunic.

"This is more than I ever expected, Cassie." He laughed.

"Now I feel like I should have gotten you something more than I actually did."

"Don't tell me," she said.

"I want to enjoy the surprise." The elevator lurched, then shot down out of the station toward the world below.

"Think they're going to do it again?" Arc asked.

"Of course. It's tradition," Cassie told him, with a grin. Together, they cuddled up next to the window, and when the flight of Kestrels went by, the half dozen new cadets gasped, swore and shouted in excitement.

"That should be me next year," Arc said, as he watched the flyby.

"I hope you're ready for me to complain about it when we're on different tracks," Cassie told him.

"Your mech has thrusters," Arc pointed out.

"You could go on the zero-g track with me." Cassie was silent for a moment before she replied.

"I've thought about it," she admitted." Lady Ren wasn't really designed for that, but we might be able to make a few tweaks. I'm going to talk to Natalie and Chief Jastrow and see what they think. But I'm going to be qualifying on a Janissary, because that's the base model."

"They get all the repairs done?" Arc asked. By the time his duel against Fletcher Radecki had finished, Cassie's customized mech had seen better days. Rather than even trying to make a start on Chel, Chief Jastrow had just supervised the process of wrapping it up tightly in industrial-grade plastic for transport.

"She's better than ever," Cassie assured him.

"Hey. Do you want to volunteer to help out during Hard Burn?" She nodded her head toward the seats where Indira Katari, Marco Soares, and Cui Jia sat in a cluster with the first-years from Terra, whose names Arc hadn't caught yet. Even Lynn Clarke had been shuffled over there with them by the other imperial guards, though Arc assumed she was actually older than the rest.

"You really want to camp out in the jungle right at the beginning of the year?" he asked her. Cassie leaned in close to his ear and whispered: "We could share a tent."

"Deal," Arc declared.

"Iceni, volunteer us for the squad that goes on that march, please." Lyra and I are already on it, the AI assured him. When they reached the space port in San Teodoro, at the bottom of the elevator, Arc could see the twitching of Lieutenant Kekoa's eyes at the sight of the imperial guard contingent. Still, the Alu'kan officer didn't let it put him off: he gave nearly the exact same speech as he had the year before, when Arc and Cassie had been gazing about wide-eyed, just like the new cadets were now.

When they stepped out onto the tarmac, to board a waiting Saker, the mole rats from Terra and Zurah V all stopped to stare up at the sky.

"It isn't blue," Cui Jia exclaimed.

"It never really gets past gray," Arc told them, and waved a hand up at the two suns overhead.

"K'in's orange, but not as far toward the yellow end of the spectrum as you're used to in the Zurah system. And then Neto's outright red. They tend to make anything blue or green look more like mud."

"Wait until you see the black grass and leaves on the trees," Vijay said, as he walked past, wheeling his suitcase behind him. The younger cadets scrambled to follow, and soon enough they were all loaded and strapped in.

"So, what do we do when we get to campus?" Marco asked, having to shout over the noise of the rotors.

"Follow you all?" Arc shook his head.

"They'll have someone to meet you when we get to the main part of campus," he explained.

"Usually a couple of third or fourth years. And they'll walk you over to -" he glanced over to Vijay.

"It'll be Badar Hall," the older cadet answered.

"They rotate when a class graduates. Badar was the first-class cadets last year, so now it goes to the mole rats."

"Mole rat?" Indira mouthed silently.

"You'll find out soon enough," C'rise said.

"When you do, just remember that everyone else sitting here has already gone through it." The VTOL came in for a landing, and Arc set about unstrapping himself from his safety harness. To his surprise, when the bay doors opened and Lieutenant Kekoa jumped out, he saw a massive pile of shipping crates, stacked as much as ten meters high on the tarmac. He waited for his turn, jumped out of the Saker, and then turned around to offer Cassie an arm down.

"Is that Milla?" Cassie shouted, and even then Arc could barely hear her. But he followed Cassie's pointed finger over to where a young woman in camouflage pants and a black tank top was arguing with a crew of maintenance workers, who'd brought a forklift around and seemed to be in the process of loading.

"Looks like it," Arc shouted back.

"Let's take a look." They left the younger cadets with Lieutenant Kekoa, to be led over to their new dorm hall, and the upperclassmen to hurry past on their way to get unpacked before convocation. With only C'rise, Jessica, and two imperial guards who lingered just at the edges of Arc's vision, they crossed the tarmac to where Milla Cieszyński was yelling.

"-all to the science building!" She shouted again, as they approached, waving her arms about. Wisps of pale blond hair had escaped from the bandana she'd tied back around her head.

"It's supposed to go to quarantine first," one of the maintenance workers argued back.

"School regulations."

"Take it up with Doctor Vogel," Milla shouted.

"What's all this?" Arc asked, once they were close enough to be heard.

"Artifacts from K2-155d," she answered, turning to face them.

"Sabran-Solaris. Sandhurst. C'rise. You won't believe what we found."