Then, out of nowhere, she spoke again.
“Aria.”
Around the table, the other three all paused. As one they turned to her, taking her in intently.
“What was that?” Rei asked, though he was quite sure he’d heard her clearly.
When the girl looked up, one might have mistaken the redness in her eyes were it not for the brilliant smile she met them with, bright as the sun high above.
“Aria,” she repeated, her voice just a little hoarse. “My friends call me Aria.”
CHAPTER 27
Mid-September, 2468 - Two Weeks Later
“Despite the formation of the ISC in 2182 following the New London Treaties, it was nearly 100 years before the Intersystem Collective Military was established, and for good cause. With the signing of the Treaties, war had become largely non-existent across the civilized planets of mankind, what revolutions, conflicts, and uprisings did occur typically easily handled by local peace-keeping forces or unmanned global defense systems. Only after humanity’s first attempted expansion into the Sirius System, and subsequent encounter with the archons, was the need for a force capable of large-scale combat reestablished, if rapidly so.
Now, 200 years later, the ISCM is the single largest branch among the governing systems of the Collective, its exclusive funding by the SCTs making it nearly autonomous from the tedium of Intersystem administrations, lobbyists, and private interests intent on pressing their own agendas…”
- A History of the Collective
Gilbert France, M.S., Ph.D.
Distributed by Central Command, Earth
“I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but I find it simultaneously infuriating and amusing that you think I would divulge a student’s particulars without their permission.”
“Oh save me the speech. She’s my daughter. I have the right to know.”
“She may be your daughter, Salista, but as of the moment she accepted enrollment into this Institute, she also became my cadet. My highest obligation is to protect her and her education, even if that is from the meddling of well-intentioned parents.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Rama.” Salista Laurent’s voice was seething. “If you were interested in protecting her education then you would take a greater interest in who it is she is spending her time with. Viviana Arada is one thing. The girl seems to have promise and comes from a good family. Layton Catchwick I’ll allow as well, but I will absolutely not allow Aria to be wasting her year with a ward of the government, much less a D1 who—”
“D2.”
On the other side of the call, Salista paused.
“What was that?”
“D2,” Rama Guest repeated firmly, staring at his reflection in the black sky beyond his office window as his NOED spelled out “Voice Call Ongoing” across his vision. “Your informants are behind the ball, whoever they are. As of yesterday evening Reidon Ward reached a D2 CAD-Rank, and achieved his third evolution since arriving at Galens at the beginning of August, which is already more than I should tell you.”
“What do I care if he’s a D2? That just makes Aria a full tier above him as of last week, which means he hardly measures up to her. That boy has no business fraternizing with my daughter, particularly if they are training together on a nightly—!”
“Who my charges choose to ‘fraternize with’, as you say, is their business, and theirs alone,” Rama rumbled, feeling the twinge of impatience beginning to grow. “I accepted this call because you are dear to me, Salista, as your own person and as the wife of my greatest friend. I did not take it to be lectured on how to conduct the affairs at my school, nor to be instructed on how to impede in the growing bonds of the cadets under my care. If this is the way our conversations are going to go from now on, then I will instruct my chief assistant to refuse all communications from you henceforth, and you will be forced to rely on your spies for all updates on the progress and wellbeing of your daughter. Is that understood?”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a long few seconds.
“I just want what’s best for her, Rama…” Salista’s voice was cool, hard even, but not absent a certain taste of what might have been sadness.
Rama Guest felt the fire leave him all at once, and his shoulders sagged as he sighed.
“I know. I know, Salista. But this is not the way. They are not my children, so I am hardly fit to lecture you, but I can say with certainty that you are toeing the same path you took with Kalus and Amina, and risk similar results.”
Another silence, this one so thick Rama could almost taste the tension.
Then, with a tone, the connection cut off, leaving him to stare off into the darkness as his frame scripted a “Call Ended”, then blinked out. He took a deep breath, allowing for a moment to center himself, studying the stillness of the stars against the trailing lights of the moving traffic beneath them.
“She hang up on you?”
Rama looked around. Maddison Kent stood a little to the side, a stylus still held over the wide pad nestled into the crook of her elbow, ready to take notes as he directed.
“She did,” he muttered, gesturing at the tablet to indicate it wouldn’t be needed. “Though whether out of anger or because I struck at a guilty nerve, I couldn’t say.”
“That woman is a force of nature,” Maddison grumbled, stowing the stylus behind one ear and relaxing. Rama gave her a warning look, which she met without so much as flinching. “Oh please. Like you disagree.”
“Perhaps I do, but I hoped a year of working together has not given you the impression I am frequently one to speak ill of those not present to defend themselves.” Rama turned away from the window at last, making for the broad chair behind his desk. It was getting late, and he still had to run through the day’s requisition forms from Bashir Sattar.
“That’s fine. I’ve heard ill enough from Aria.” Maddison followed him as he settled in, coming to stand across the desk. “In fact, these last two weeks have been the first time since summer training started that she and I haven’t spoken daily.”
Rama raised an eyebrow at her. “And that’s… a good thing?”
“Of course it is!” The younger woman looked like she wanted to roll her eyes, but seemed to think better of it. “Consider it: that girl has been starved of true companionship most of her life. If she’s not coming to me, then she’s finding it somewhere else, isn’t she?”
“Hmm… Perhaps.” Rama contemplated this news a moment, then eyed Maddison carefully. “I’m still not sure how I feel about you being so friendly with one of our students, by the way.”
“Then you should have hired a member of the military to be your assistant, rather than a civilian,” the woman told him sweetly, grinning in a knowing sort of way. “Then you could have ordered me to stop spending time with the poor girl.”
“None of the other applicants could manage half the work you do in twice the time, and you know it,” Rama grumbled, knowing better than to engage in that losing battle. “But still, it may not be seen as appropriate by some.”
“Oh? But they would be fine with two months of daily morning training with the Institute’s commanding officer, as well as not-infrequent audiences just to say hello?”
Rama coughed to clear his throat, knowing he was cornered. “Yes… Well… If Aria isn’t reaching out to you as often, I suppose it is likely only a good thing…”
“It is,” Maddison assured him, seriously this time. “She’s making friends, Rama. Real friends. Isn’t that the whole reason you pushed to have her brought here?”
“It is one reason I pushed to have her brought here,” Rama was careful to clarify. “One of many reasons.” Then he sighed. “But yes. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose you’re right… If Aria can find a place at Galens, then perhaps she won’t go the same way as her siblings.”
“And perhaps your best friend won’t be left heartbroken,” Ma
ddison added, blunt as ever.
Rama glared at her, and this time his assistant had the sense to look a tad sheepish under his gaze.
“Sorry,” she said with a bit of a grimace. “Just slipped out.”
“Yes… As it seems to more and more frequently of late. I can see your beau’s fiery personality has been rubbing off on you.”
Maddison grinned at that, but only lifted her pad in question. “Will that be all, colonel? It’s getting late, even for you.”
Rama grunted in agreement. “Yes. Thank you for your work today. You may go.”
The woman nodded in acknowledgement, turning to leave. She’d made it as far as the door, pulling it open, when Rama found himself calling after her again.
“Maddison…”
His chief assistant looked over her shoulder at him questioningly.
“She… Aria knows what she’s doing, doesn’t she?” he asked, chewing nervously on the inside of his cheek. “I know I defended her choices on that call but… Ward is a wild card. She knows what she’s doing, right?”
Maddison offered him a smile he wasn’t sure he liked. “Of course she doesn’t. But why is that a bad thing?”
And then she was gone, leaving Rama Guest to regret ever having been fool enough to ask.
CHAPTER 28
“It is not his victories that make a man. It is his defeats.”
- Golden Child
Pierson Maron
The day the troubles began started off on such a positive note, Rei would never have guessed he was going to find himself waking up in the hospital later that evening.
He’d always been the earliest riser of the five cadets in 304. Viv, Catcher, and Benaly tended to sleep in, while Cashe kept to her room in the morning, and so it wasn’t unusual for him to get the common area to himself for a good hour before anyone else made their appearance. Getting up when his NOED alarm went off at 0600, he started by making himself coffee in the kitchen, then settled onto a couch in the living room before pulling up his school texts and lecture notes on the smart-glass wall to review.
It was a chore, for once, to study. For one thing he’d stayed up late the evening before finishing a paper for Captain Takeshi on “Team Coordinations in Multi-Squad Matches”, and for another he had to consciously stop himself from calling on Shido, wanting to examine his newest evolution for what had to have been the hundredth time since the changes had taken place two nights before, on his reaching of a D2 CAD-Rank. The adaptations hadn’t been as extreme as either of his previous two shifts, but the fact that he’d achieved a third evolution at all was enough to distract him from his review of molecular compression equations. More than once he found himself staring at the complex formulas blown up in white lettering on the semi-transparent wall before him, and each time he had to refocus, to work to keep his mind on task. It was hardly easy. Apart from his own elation, Viv, Catcher, and Aria had all been ecstatic at his progression, while in combat training yesterday afternoon every eye had been on him again for the first time since earlier in the term. Rei frowned, remembering the whispers that had started up once more. He understood, of course. When he’d been an E-Ranker it had been easier to pass off his progression as “catching up”. Now that he’d been in the Ds for half a month, however, his jump up of two levels in that period had likely only gone largely unobserved because no one but a handful of the top students were bothering to keep an eye on him.
Now that Shido had evolved this third time, though… well… People had started to take notice again.
Rei blinked and cursed himself, realizing he’d once more been doing nothing but staring blankly at the function for carbonized steel decompression with Device calling. He tried to set his mind to task again, and for 2 whole minutes managed to review the numbers in detail, partially committing them to memory.
It was so dull that he was more than pleased to hear the click of a door opening behind him.
Rei turned on the couch, hoping to find Catcher making an early morning of the day, or even Jack Benaly, with whom he could have at least made some scattered conversation. He was disappointed—and a little alarmed—therefore, when he found himself looking at Chancery Cashe, the girl’s silver hair in a messy tail behind her head, purple-green eyes sleepy over a loose shirt and pajama shorts.
Her expression cleared, though, the instant she realized who she was sharing the common area with.
For a time the two of them did nothing but look at each other, Rei frowning around at her, Cashe looking stricken at finding herself alone with him, even in the shared space. Eventually—unwilling to start the day off on the wrong foot—Rei mumbled a minimally-polite “Morning” as he returned his attention to the smart-glass display.
His jaw almost hit the floor when the Lancer answered with a quiet “Good morning…”
Unable to stop himself, he twisted to look over his shoulder again, eyeing Cashe in confusion. Not since their first day on campus had the girl spoken so much as a word to him, and he’d only ever seen her exchange more than a passing greeting with Catcher, who seemed not to give her any other option. As such, Rei didn’t quite know what to say as he took in his generally silent suitemate, who was suddenly looking everywhere but at him.
“Um… Is that coffee?” she asked after a moment, clearly hesitant, eyes finally settling on the mug resting atop the table by his knees.
Rei was so dumbfounded it took him a second to answer.
“Oh… Yeah. There should be some left in the pot, if you want it…?”
She nodded, still refusing to look at him again, and moved awkwardly to the kitchen, where the sliding and clinking sound of a cupboard being opened and a mug getting retrieved told Rei he’d been taken up on his offer. His distraction now utter, he could only listen to the coffee being poured, and a few seconds later Cashe reappeared, making back for her room in a hurry. Reaching the door, however, she paused in the opening, and appeared to be steeling herself for something.
Then, all at once, she whirled.
“Ward, listen…” the girl started, her expression pained, but she seemed unable to continue. Still completely at a loss, Rei only watched her, allowing her to gather herself, somewhat reminded of Aria as he did.
“Listen…” Cashe tried again, but once more appeared incapable of getting out whatever words she was going for.
In the end her eyes started darting around, settling on the mathematics displayed on the room wall.
“Are you… um… Are you done with the paper for Takeshi?” she finally managed, and Rei would have bet both arms and the CAD attached to them this was not what the Lancer had been intending to say.
Still, he wasn’t about to give her a hard time for even this meager olive branch.
“I am, yeah,” he answered, turning around a little further to face her more fully. “Finished it last night. Why?”
Cashe looked to be struggling with herself. “Would you…? I heard you’re good with… with the coursework… Would you be able to look at mine? I’m not really happy with some of my deductions…”
She trailed off, fidgeting with the handle of her mug in distinct discomfort.
Rei, though, offered her a smile. “Sure. Can you bring me your pad? I was about to fall asleep to this crap anyway.” He indicated the compression formula with a grimace.
Cashe looked briefly surprised, then brightened. “Oh… Yeah. Okay!”
She vanished into her room, reappearing a moment later with her tablet in one hand, coffee still held in the other. Moving around the couches to sit opposite him, she put her mug down to wake the device up and swipe across its contents for a while before handing it over.
“I’m having trouble with ideal coordination on the ‘Asteroid Mines’ Wargames field,” she told him, more confidently now as she pointed to a place on the wall of text she was presenting. “If your whole team gets dispersed across a series of blind tunnels like this, I can’t figure out how to quantify wheth
er or not you’re better off engaging individually, or trying to regroup…?”
“Oh, yeah that’s definitely a tricky one, because it actually comes to event probability. If you try to attack on your own, the best you can hope for is a one-on-one fight, right? If you think of it that way, you have to consider the likelihood of encountering worse conditions, like two-on-one, three-on-one, et cetera. By attempting to engage on your own, the probability of your elimination increases since the best you can hope for is equal odds. But, if you try to regroup first—”
For a good quarter hour Rei reviewed Cashe’s paper with her, and by the time anyone else stirred the silver-haired Lancer was almost animated in their discussion. Unfortunately, Viv was the next to open her door drowsily, though she woke up fast upon taking in the pair of them seated near enough to hand the tablet back and forth across the table.
“What the…?” Viv muttered, dumbstruck, and her astonishment was apparently enough to remind Cashe of the situation. The girl blanched, pulling the pad away from where she had just been about to pass it back to Rei, and stood up at once.
“Th-Thanks for the coffee,” she stuttered, once again having lost the ability to look him in the eye. “A-And the advice. This was… really helpful.”
Then, so swiftly Rei was sure she had engaged her Speed spec, the Lancer was gone, the door to her room closing with a quick clack.
*****
“You told Cashe, didn’t you?”
Walking at Rei’s right, Catcher glanced at him sidelong.
“Told her what?”
“About me.”
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 42