The bob of approval told him it had.
“Excellent. In that case…”
In a blur of motion Rei barely followed with his naked eye, Captain Loren stood in front of Lee Jackson, her height—though still a few inches short of the boy’s—much more of an even match compared to Rei’s, particularly with her cap on. She came up so close to Lee’s face that he yelped and leapt back, almost tripping over himself.
“As an intended student of the Galens Institute, Cadet Reidon Ward is officially under the purview of the school’s teachers, instructors, and staff. He is correct to inform you that calling a Device on civilians without just cause is highly illegal, but you should also be aware that as ranking officer of the ISCM, those limitations are a bit more… lenient, for me.” Loren took a step towards Lee, who again retreated. “I witnessed enough of your exchange to know the intention of your presence here tonight, Mr.—” she paused a brief moment as her NOED undoubtedly pulled the boy’s information up “—Jackson. Do you mean to pursue this matter any further?”
“We were just messing with him!” Lee half-wheezed, half-squealed, his expression one of absolute terror as he continued to backpedal. “Honestly, miss, were just going to—”
“Do not lie to me, boy.” Loren snapped, and for a second time she blurred as she closed the growing gap between them again in a flash. “A high-level CAD can read your pulse and breathing as easily as you might a picture book. Now—” she brought one hand up to point at the nearest exit “—get out of my sight, and if I find out you’ve distracted any military cadet from their preparation for Commencement again, you’ll have the opportunity to see a Device in action up close and personal, just as you wished.” She looked over her shoulder, and Rei almost gasped aloud as he took her in, watching the captain glare at each of the other three combat team members in turn.
Kana Loren’s eyes were glowing. Not the faint reflection you might catch in a flash of sunlight or the like. Actually glowing. Her irises blazed a deep, dangerous white, much brighter and more vibrant than the fainter purple Major Connelly’s had gleamed when he’d shown off his “Calysta” at the start of the CAD exam. At the time, Rei had judged the head evaluator to have been a high B-Rank at least, too, and yet the outward indications of this subtle partial-call indicated there was no comparing that man’s ability to the woman before him. She was a top-level A at the very least, and if Rei had been a betting man, he would have assumed himself in the presence of a Pawn- or Bishop-Class S-Ranked CAD-User, maybe even a Knight…
“That goes for every one of you,” the captain said coolly, the burning of her eyes not fading as they held the group stricken in their grasp. “Is that understood?”
With affirming answers coming as an assortment of nods, yells of confirmation, and half-intelligible whimpers, Loren grunted, satisfied. With a dismissing jerk of her hand the power behind her gaze faded, her irises returning to their typical pale coloring.
Or were they… just for a moment… brown?
Regardless, Lee and his seconds needed no other release. In record time they’d bolted from the gym, so desperate to put as much space between themselves and the terrifying captain that Silva actually tripped over Suresh’s feet, tangling them both up and bringing the pair to the floor before they were halfway to the lobby. They were back up in an instant, though, hounding the others’ heels like the group was fleeing an active fire.
Once they were gone, the captain let out a snort.
“Well that was fun,” she muttered to herself. Turning around, she caught Rei staring at her, and seemed to remember her position. Coughing into a fist in what was obviously an attempt to steal a moment and collect her thoughts, Loren brought her hands behind her back to take an at ease stand in front of him, continuing their conversation like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
“Your notice of acceptance, along with instructions on how to confirm your enrollment, is in there.” She dipped the brim of her cap towards the envelope still held—somehow momentarily forgotten—in Rei’s hand. “Once you complete the process, your NOED will register the data, but you are encouraged to memorize your ID number yourself. Your cadet regulars will be delivered to your provided address of residence within three weeks of school Commencement in August, where you are expected to present yourself for assignment in dress.” She met Rei’s eyes. “Do you have any questions for me?”
Rei blinked, reeling for a moment at the torrent of information. Once he’d caught himself up, he hesitated, then spoke.
“Uh… As far as I know, there’s no registered CAD Ability that would let the User know if someone is lying…?”
Loren, in answer, stared at him.
Then she laughed.
“I was told you were an odd one, Ward…” She smirked. “Sometimes embellishment resolves unnecessary situations a bit quicker than fact, if you understand what I mean.”
Rei nodded at once. “Of-of course,” he stammered before pausing again, considering. “You said you’re an A-Type instructor? Would we… Would I be training under you? At the Institute?”
Hearing himself say “the Institute” almost had Rei swooning once more. He still couldn’t believe it. There was just no way they would let an F—no, E-Rank, now, he had to remind himself—into Galens.
And yet here a staff captain of the academy stood, having handed him the very acceptance letter that said otherwise.
“The school employs a good number of instructors and sub-instructors, so chances are you’ll be working with a lot of trainers.” Loren dodged the question masterfully, eyes dropping to Shido’s bands. “My understanding is that your Device is currently presenting as a Brawler weapon. I would assume your conditioning and lessons will start there, and adapt as your CAD evolves.”
Again, Rei nodded.
“Any other questions?” Loren asked, checking the time pointedly in her NOED. “I have a few more notices to hand out in different time zones of Astra-3 before my day is over.”
“Oh! N-no! I’m sorry, I just…” Rei couldn’t help but look down at the envelope again, distantly hearing the buzz of the drones still making their sweeps of the gym galleries. “I didn’t expect this…” he finally finished.
He was too busy studying the griffin of the Galens Institute to see Loren smile her approval.
“The best of us rarely do, cadet.”
Then she clicked her heels, turned, and left the gym in the same direction she had come, leaving Rei to stare after her until the captain vanished down the lobby stairs and around the corner of the entrance.
Only then, as he stood there alone in his brown jumpsuit, with his acceptance letter in one hand, did it sink in.
“YYYYEEEEEESSSSS!” he yelled to the empty stand, punching the air with both hands, the envelope highlighted as a rectangle against the lights high above. “Yes! YES!”
A notice caught his attention, then, a small marker in the corner of his vision, and as he opened it he started when the recording of Viv’s squealing voice nearly blew out his eardrums.
“Jerk! Pick up! Pick UP! I got in! I got IN, Rei!”
Recalling her missed calls, Rei rang her back immediately. Almost at once Viv’s blue eyes and brown curls popped into his frame as she picked up in video-mode.
“Look! Look!” She was still squealing, and the camera view was suddenly filled with a red blur. After it corrected itself, the shape of the griffin came into focus, the wax seal of Viv’s envelope already cracked. “Some lady officer stopped by my training session twenty minutes ago! I would have called you immediately, but my instructor was being a jerk and made me wait till we were done! I’m in, Rei! I’m in!”
“That’s great, Viv!” Rei answered enthusiastically, thinking fast. “What did you think of Captain Loren? She seems kinda badass, doesn’t she?”
“Totally!” Viv agreed, her face popping back into view as she pulled the envelope out of frame again. “The instructor was pretty sure she was an
S-Rank, though he’d never heard of her. I hope I get to train under her! She seemed totally—!”
Viv froze, Rei’s words finally hitting her. She stared at the camera, still as a statue except for the understanding slowly dawning across her face.
“Wait… Rei… How did you know what her name—?”
And then she shrieked, her excitement and glee making Rei smile so hard his cheeks hurt as he showed her his own—still-sealed—envelope.
*****
From around the corner outside the combat gym, Valera Dent listened with a grin as Reidon Ward and Viviana Arada celebrated together with yells and screams. When she was satisfied, she eased herself off the wall she’d been leaning against, making her way from the building exit in truth this time. The doors opened for her automatically, and stepping outside she looked around. Evening was turning into night, and there looked to be nobody around.
Perfect.
Valera slid a hand between the buttons of her uniform to turn off the projection unit hung around her neck like a necklace. Her vision shimmered for a moment as the skin-tight hologram that had shifted the details of her face faded, then cleared, and she looked up into the clean, rapidly darkening sky of Astra-3.
She hadn't been able to stop herself from requesting she be the one to hand Reidon Ward his letter. She’d had her sub-instructors—Michael Bretz in particular—research him heavily in the days before the board of admissions had met, but there was only so much one could glean from data on a page. She’d needed to see him with her own eyes, to take him in in person, before she could feel satisfied she’d made the right choice.
As though on cue, a line of script wrote itself out, unbidden, across her NOED.
“Why didn’t I intervene earlier?” she asked the empty air, turning and moving down the paved path that would lead her to the flyer waiting to take her to the nearest space port. “Isn’t it obvious? I wanted to see what he would do.”
Another line.
“What do you mean, ‘why’?” Valera snorted, pulling her cap a little further over her eyes as a few students heading back to their dorms crossed the way some distance ahead of her. She hated using the projection unit, but she also didn’t want to risk getting spotted by a fan or CAD enthusiast who might otherwise recognize her. “Because you give someone a taste of power who’s never had it before, and there’s always the risk they’re too keen to use it. I wanted to make sure that wasn’t the case.”
A pause in the conversation, then, and Valera watched a shooting star—common enough a sight in the Astra system—flash in a sweeping arc across the dusk sky.
Then, eventually, a final script.
“Yeah, Kes,” Valera answered quietly, not looking away from the coming darkness that expanded infinitely beyond them as she kept walking. “Yeah. I think we picked a good one.”
CHAPTER 10
Early August - Two Months Later
Astra System – Astra-3 – Sector 9
“It is no uninvolved trick, triggering mental commands. It’s like trying to teach yourself to use a muscle you’ve not only never employed before, but had no idea you possessed in the first place. It takes diligence, discipline, and an enormous amount of frustration to learn even the basics, but mastering the ability to instruct your Device in silence is a minimal essential for any higher-level combatant. Face off with a User who has experience in the ring, and shouting your commands is as good as handing them a detailed playbook on how to feed you your own steel.”
- Captain Sarah Takeshi
Head of Tactical Studies, the Galens Institute
Aria Laurent caught the neon-grey blade of the halberd sweeping down on her head with the edge of her shield, deflecting the weapon aside. In her right hand Hippolyta’s spear flicked forward in a flash of red, gold, and green, going for her opponent’s exposed thigh. The blade was knocked away at the last moment, and Aria wrenched it back into position, retreating a step and setting herself into a defensive posture, her plated greaves adjusting with her legs helping to support her weight.
“Good!” her uncle shouted as he pressed her again, his “Taj” thundering down from above for a second time. “Excellent foot movement! Perfect Phalanx retreat.”
Aria didn’t have a breath to appreciate the compliment, applying her D8 Speed spec into a lunging side-roll out of the way of the descending blow. She successfully dodged it, and the blade of the halberd bit into the floor of the empty, all-white Neutral Zone variation field they typically used for their morning exercises. Finding her feet, Aria lunged, pulling her shield to the side as her spear led the attack.
Again it was deflected, and again she found herself tactfully withdrawing to a more defensible distance.
“Good!” Uncle Ram said again, drawing Taj back and bringing the glowing halberd to bear before him. “Quick shifting like that will take most opponents by surprise. A Phalanx is a blade that happens to be made of stone. Not stone that happens to be carved into the shape of a blade.”
Aria almost laughed, but kept her composure.
“Wise words from a wise man,” she teased, inching forward, lifting her spear over her head to rest it atop the red-and-gold steel of her shield. Standing in the middle of the field a few yards in front of her, her uncle waited, Taj still held at the ready. He was sparring with a partial-call—the only manifested part of his device apart from his weapon being the metallic orange-green and grey-lined armor that encased his hands and forearms—but that was more than fine with Aria. She might have been the star of Galens’ summer training program, but an S-Ranker bringing his full ability to bear against her would likely have resulted in Aria’s rapid exiting from this plane of existence, regardless of if they were just practicing or not.
“Watch it, brat,” Uncle Ram warned her with a chuckle, eyeing her footing carefully. “This ‘wise man’ can have you running laps around the Institute grounds until graduation, don’t forget. Now keep track of your steps. Spreading your legs too wide in a defensive crouch makes you easy to bowl over.”
With a whoomph of shifting air, he demonstrated this fact promptly, closing the distance between them in a blink to put a boot on the surface of Aria’s shield. She yelped as the older man gave her a good shove, immediately falling backwards to land on her rear.
“Owwwe!” she complained, pouting up at her uncle, Hippolyta’s shield and spear limp in either hand. “I know I need to watch my stance, but how many of my opponents any time soon are going to be rushing me with S-Rank Speed?!”
“A8,” Uncle Ram corrected her, reaching down to offer her help up. She accepted, letting herself get pulled back up to her feet. “And maybe not any time soon, but you’re on the shortlist for Sectionals, don’t forget. I doubt there will be any A-Rankers in the first years’ brackets, but anyone with the right specs could manage what I just did a little slower, if they timed it right. Third Eye won’t help you in that kind of situation either.”
Aria grumbled, not disagreeing, but not finding the will to admit the man was right either, even regarding her Ability. In answer her uncle laughed and tousled her hair playfully. “Muttering under your breath and being bad at taking advice? It’s like I’m trading blows with your father all over again.”
Aria gave a grunt of acknowledgement at that, having no desire to speak of her parents as she reached up to try to flatten her red hair back down while she eyed him hopefully. “One more round?”
Uncle Ram’s eyes tilted up and to the right as he checked the time in the corner of his frame, and he shook his head. “Not today, unfortunately. I need to start getting ready.” He looked at her critically for a moment. “As should you. Are you prepared for this afternoon?”
Aria shrugged in faked nonchalance. “If the likes of Grant and Vademe weren’t able to put much of a scratch on me all summer, I’m not too worried about some random with a lower Rank and even less training. Bring it on.”
Her uncle nodded slowly, reading a communication off
his NOED that must have been sent while they practiced. When he finished typing out a quick reply one-hand on a keyboard Aria couldn’t see, he finally answered. “Probably fair, but don’t let your guard down completely. The sixteen of you are only the favorites for Sectional qualification. There hasn’t been a year I’ve been at this school that a good few ‘randoms’ from outside the summer courses got the individual slots instead.”
Aria’s stomach clenched unpleasantly. She still wasn’t too worried, but if she made a fool of herself in front of the other first years…
“But you’re right, it’s not anything to worry about.” Uncle Ram grinned down at her, putting a finger on her forehead. She looked at it cross-eyed, a little confused, until the man continued.
“Just remember—” he hooked the heel of her weight-bearing leg with an ankle before she could stop him “—to watch your footing.”
And then, with the tiniest of shoves through her head, she was on her ass again.
“Owwwe!” Aria repeated, recalling Hippolyta with a word so she could rub her rear. The CAD’s reactive shield hadn’t bothered triggering for either impact. “Uncle Ram, have I ever mentioned how much I am not going to miss these mornings sessions with you?”
The man recalled his own CAD silently, the Neutral Zone around them disappearing at the same time. They were left to float gently down the 2 feet of empty space to the projection plating of the training chamber floor, coming to rest near the middle of the 30-yard Dueling ring that took up their favorite East Center room. Reaching the ground, her uncle turned and made for the door, beside which his black-and-gold jacket and cap were waiting for him on a hook.
The old man hadn’t even broken enough of a sweat to bother showering, Aria realized with a groan.
“You have, my dear, several times.” He flashed her a smile as he pulled on his uniform and tucked the top of his grey-black ponytail under the cap. “Now go get yourself cleaned up and ready. It would be bad form to show up late to your own Commencement Ceremony.”
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 13