New Blood: Chains of Command Book 1

by Zen DiPietro

  When they were done, she noticed that Drew had taken a seat near the class.

  So much for making sure they didn’t cross paths. Never had she failed so quickly at a new resolution.

  “Now I’m starting to think you really are stalking me,” she said to him as they shrugged on their backpacks. She smiled to make sure he knew she was kidding.

  “You wish. This place is crawling with girls who want me to stalk them. You and I just happen to have schedules that coincide. What do you have left today?”

  She should make some excuse to leave without telling him, or just lie to create some distance. For some reason, though, she actually detailed the rest of her day.

  Then he detailed his afternoon and evening, and his next day, too.

  Though his major was systems engineering, they had a lot of the same core classes. No wonder they kept crossing paths.

  But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to compare notes with someone, or complain about a teacher to someone who could understand? Val and Jane took entirely different classes, and Emiko rarely saw them during the daytime unless they ran into each other at the dorm.

  She could be friends with him. She’d just have to be careful.

  WITHIN A WEEK, Emiko’s schedule had dovetailed with Drew’s. They walked together when they were headed the same direction and began eating lunch together every day. Everyone seemed to know him, and he attracted a variety of different people who joined them.

  She’d started to get used to eating a quick lunch alone while studying, but eating as a group turned out to be kind of nice. It gave her a chance to meet more people, too.

  When the weekend arrived, she was glad. As much as she liked seeing Drew, they’d jumped right into spending a lot of time together, and a little distance would be good. She spent the first day studying and didn’t even leave for food. Instead, she ordered some delivery and spooned Bennite stew into her mouth as she worked on her physics homework.

  Her voicecom alerted her to an incoming message. She opened a channel.

  “Hey, stalker.” Drew grinned at her.

  She blinked at him. “You called me.”

  “Yeah. I’ve been in my room all day and need sunlight, or I’ll wilt like a fern.”

  “Most Earth ferns don’t like direct sunlight,” she said.

  “Really? Man. You should have told me that before. But why are you a fern expert?”

  She laughed. “I’m not. I just read it somewhere once.”

  “Huh. Okay. But anyway, do you want to meet me on the quad?”

  “Why?”

  “Sunlight. Fresh air. Recreation.”

  When she didn’t immediately answer, he added, “I’ll bring you some ice cream.”

  She rolled her shoulders. She was getting a little stiff from sitting all day. “All right. Make sure it’s chocolate, though, or the deal is off.”

  “Duly noted.”

  She double-checked to make sure she’d saved her physics work, then turned off the voicecom display. She should check to see if Val and Jane were available. They’d like Drew, and hanging out as a group would make sure things remained casual between them. She could send him a message on her comport to tell him to bring them ice cream, too.

  They didn’t answer their door, though, which left her on her own.

  “LOOK,” he said suddenly.

  Emiko had thoroughly enjoyed her ice cream, which had been a rather large portion. After eating their frozen treats, they’d stretched out on the blanket he’d spread and watched their classmates playing a friendly game of discball. She followed his gaze, looking up toward the sky, but saw nothing noteworthy. No planes or drones or skydivers. “At what?”

  “That cloud.” He pointed. “What does it look like to you?”

  She’d been lying on her right side, propping her head up on her hand, so she rolled onto her back. “Just clouds.”

  “No, you’re not looking right.” He turned around and lay down on his back beside her. He pointed up, so she could follow the precise direction of his finger. “Right there. That one. What does it look like?”

  It looked like a cloud, but he’d be disappointed if she didn’t come up with a more whimsical answer. She squinted at it, which didn’t help. Then she let her focus drift slightly to the right of the cloud in question.

  “Wait, a duck, right? With some sort of hat.”

  “Yes! A very pointy hat.” He slapped her a high five. “Anything else?”

  She sighed and went back to looking at clouds. This was childish and entirely unproductive. But it was fun.

  “That one.” She stabbed her finger toward the sky. “It’s an interstellar ship.”

  “Really? How can you tell it’s interstellar, and not just some atmospheric ship?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  He rolled over to look at her. “Maybe you just like atmospheric ships better?”

  She smiled. “Maybe.”

  He gave her a long look, and she was ready to roll away and jump into some ass-kicking. But he didn’t move toward her. “Let me guess. You’re a pilot.”

  Should she admit to it? He already knew she was studying security, and there didn’t seem to be a reason not to tell her that she studied avionics, too. “Yes. But what made you think so?”

  “You have that adrenaline-junkie vibe.”

  “I do not.” She sat up, not sure what to think of his pronouncement.

  “Sure you do. The way you like to fight? And it’s that you like it, not just that you’re good at it. Then there’s your whole way-too-serious thing.”

  She laughed. “I’m not too serious. I’m just serious enough. And you know, I object to your saying that I’m a type. I’m a unique individual.”

  He grinned. “I figured that out. But guess what? So am I.”

  “A unique individual or an adrenaline junkie?”

  “Well, I meant the first thing, but maybe a little of the second, too. Not like you, though. I can tell you’re a straight-up psycho.” He rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue.

  Laughing, she gave his shoulder a playful shove.

  “Seriously, though,” he said. “Think you could spar with me sometime? Teach me some things?”

  “I’ve never taught anyone. Shouldn’t you work with Whelkin?”

  “I am. I will. But is there such a thing as studying too much?” He had that look in his eye, the one he’d had when she first met him. The one that had made her notice him as different from others.

  Different in the same way that she was different.

  “We could try.”

  “WHAT ABOUT YORK HALL?” Drew suggested.

  “I checked it out yesterday. Too much traffic.”

  “Whitman?”

  “Maybe. Let’s go see.” Without giving him any warning, she took off running.

  They’d already looked around three buildings for a room that didn’t get any use. Of course, that meant that the ones with classrooms and administrative offices were out of the question. People would notice them coming and going on a regular basis and might start to wonder why.

  Residence halls had seemed more likely, so they’d begun touring the basements of the ones that had enough traffic that Drew and Emiko wouldn’t look conspicious going in and out. Someplace that might have unused storage space or service areas that were no longer utilized.

  Though she heard his feet pounding the ground behind her, she made it to Whitman Hall first. With a “Hah!” of triumph, she opened the door for him.

  “I like how courteous you are, even when you’re gloating.” He booped her nose as he entered. “Let’s find the lift.”

  “This way.” She’d committed the blueprints of the residence halls to memory, which made their search a little easier. Of course, what the blueprints didn’t show was how the building was actually being used.

  They stepped into the lift and rode it down into the basement.

  “I hope there aren’t any spiders.” Drew scrunched up his face in
faux terror.

  “It’s a basement. You can bet there will be.”

  “Nooooo,” he moaned. “All those legs freak me out.”

  “Shhh.” She poked him, laughing as the doors opened.

  She peeked out, looking for maintenance people.

  Nobody. That was a good sign.

  Most maintenance and janitorial people worked during the day, which made their nighttime search less risky. Even so, she didn’t want to get in trouble for being somewhere they weren’t supposed to be.

  She didn’t want that kind of thing on her record.

  “I like how quiet it is down here,” he murmured.

  “Yeah. All we need is a decent-sized room. Assuming it’s like this most of the time, this could work.”

  “Well, we shouldn’t assume,” he pointed out. “You know what happens.”

  She sighed and tried to look aggrieved, but he grinned. He knew she didn’t mean it.

  The first room held the building’s self-contained air-filtration unit. According to PAC regulations, each building had to have one. They moved down the hall and found janitorial storage.

  “Let’s try this way.” He made a left turn down a hall.

  “I’m not seeing any doors.” She skimmed a hand along the wall, imagining their location on the blueprint. They’d just gone past the exterior wall of the first floor. They were probably somewhere under the sidewalk that led out the back side of the building.

  “There’s got to be one somewhere. I’m sure they didn’t build this hallway just as a dead-end practical joke.” His voice bounced off the enclosed space.

  “Wait, there it is.” Ahead, the hallway curved slightly, then ended with a door. “This is kind of ominous. I bet there’s a werewolf in there.”

  “Vampires,” he declared. “Definitely vampires. This is where they bring people to drain them of their blood. It’s far enough away from anything else that no one hears the screams.”

  “Planning ahead is key,” she said agreeably.

  She loved that he shared her dark sense of humor.

  The room probably stored some kind of volatile chemicals that required a minimum distance from living quarters. It would probably also be locked.

  She was surprised when the door opened.

  The room was huge. Nearly the size of one of the cafeterias on campus, and practically empty. It was perfect.

  “It’s filthy.” Drew’s lip curled in disgust. “And the smell…”

  “Nothing a little cleaning won’t fix.” She walked slowly around the space, trying to figure out why it was there.

  “A little? It would take days. Several very dirty days.”

  “Afraid of a little dirty work?” She arched a mocking eyebrow at him before squatting down to examine deep divots in the floor along the southern wall. “Oh. This was a laundry. They’ve removed all the machines, but this is where they’d have hooked into the air-filtration system. Huh.”

  “Really?” Drew squatted beside her. “A whole room for doing laundry?”

  “Yeah. Back before they had compact processors. Since we all have one in our room, places like this became obsolete.”

  “And since this place is inconveniently located, it doesn’t get used,” he surmised.

  “Exactly.” She grinned at him. “It’s perfect.”

  “It is.”

  She suddenly became aware of his nearness. His face was only half a meter away, and his left knee bumped against her right.

  Something between them shifted, and the size of the universe shrank down to the small space they occupied. Time seemed to slow.

  He scooted closer and put his arm around her back. She put her hand on his knee to steady them both, and they met in the middle for a long, but gentle kiss. It ought to have been awkward and ridiculous, but it wasn’t.

  He pulled back slightly and grinned. “So...I guess we’re going to have to get some cleaning supplies.”

  She laughed, a little out of breath. “I guess so.”

  “Let’s start tomorrow.” He stood and pulled her up.

  She liked that he hadn’t made a big deal about the kiss. No cheesy compliments about her eyes or that he really liked her. It had simply happened, and now they were focused on the subject at hand.

  Her excitement about the possibilities of their newfound treasure bubbled up. She was in a great mood, in spite of the dirty work ahead of them. “I’ll bring the cleansers. You bring the scrub brushes.”

  AFTER THREE DAYS of intensive cleaning efforts, Emiko and Drew had themselves a private little dojo. They brought in some mats and chairs and a small folding table.

  It was perfect. They immediately began training together.

  Drew improved each time they sparred. She rarely had to correct him twice. His rapid advancement impressed her. She’d trained with a lot of people over the years, but she’d never seen someone improve so rapidly.

  They’d taken to running together each morning before classes, and most days they met up between classes, too. She’d only known him for a month, but they saw progressively more and more of each other.

  He still had trouble hitting her when they sparred. Not getting hit was kind of her specialty. She ducked under punches, leaned back, turned aside, and generally just made sure she wasn’t in the way of wherever he was hitting. Unless she wanted to use his force against him, of course.

  She found an opening between his attacks. Trapping his arm as it was extended and all of his force was aligned behind it, she stopped him in place. With both of her hands trapping his arm, she leaned forward, extended her right leg up, all the way above and over her head, and lightly tapped him on the head with it.

  The lightning-fast motion took only a moment, and she stepped back afterward.

  The look on his face was priceless. It was a mixture of surprise and awe.

  “How did you do that?” he asked.

  She laughed. He had a way of making her laugh that no one else ever had. “It’s not something you’d ever use in real combat. I can do it a lot harder than that, but it’s really just a showy thing I created for extra points in competition. Judges loved it when competitors scored a touch in a creative way.”

  “Well, it’s cool. What else did you do for creativity points?”

  She smiled, remembering her competition days. Unexpected moves had been her specialty. “I did a lot of flips. Things you would almost never do in a real fight.”

  “Show me.”

  “Really?” She looked at him to see if he was teasing her. He liked to tease.

  “Really.” This time, he was earnest.

  She looked around, concerned about someone seeing, but the basement was deserted, as always. In the three weeks they’d been doing this, no one had ever taken notice of them entering Whitman Hall, and they’d never encountered anyone else in the basement.

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  She executed a forward tucked flip, a backward layout flip, and—her favorite—a tucked sideways flip that covered a lot of ground.

  “Wow.” Drew seemed impressed. “Think you could teach me?”

  She eyed him and wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure. It’s a lot tougher for taller people. Maybe you could do a back tuck?”

  “Show me.”

  The rest of that session became more about gymnastics than combat. He fell on the mat over and over, even with her spotting him. She liked that he never got frustrated or angry, no matter how many times he fell. He either laughed, grimaced, or both, and got back up.

  “I think that’s enough for today,” she said after he took a particularly hard fall. “This isn’t something you get right in one session, or even a week.”

  “Sure.” He pulled himself up into a sitting position, squinting a little.

  “I have a major stockpile of dermacare,” she said.

  He grinned up at her. “Are you inviting me to your room?”

  “Uh…” She hadn’t thought that far ahead. So far, all of their interactions had been
in public spaces. Letting him come to her room felt like it would be more personal, somehow.

  Considering their kiss earlier, which had proved that they definitely weren’t just friends, she hesitated to push things further.

  “I’m kidding.” He stood and dusted himself off. “I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”

  “Who said I was nervous?” she fired back. “It’s just dermacare. Let’s go.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, she doubted her decision. She didn’t mind that he was in her room, but his shirt was off and her fingers were on his skin as she helped him get the dermacare patches into place.

  What was wrong with her? She’d done this tons of times for other people. With Drew, though, she felt alive in a way she’d never felt before, except for when she was fighting or piloting a ship. All of her nerve endings were on alert, and she felt hyper-aware of every detail around her.

  She snatched her hand back when she felt like she’d been smoothing the edges of the patch for too long.

  “Thanks.” He grinned as he pulled his shirt over his head.

  She should have felt relieved, but the shirt made little difference. He was still there, filling the small space of her room with his smile and the smooth sound of his voice and the way he had of moving that was just so much more appealing than the way any other person moved.

  What was it about him? How could she like him so much after knowing him only a month?

  “Should we do you now?” he asked, picking up another patch.

  “I’m good,” she said quickly. “Already have one on.”

  “Why?” he asked. “That class you have with Whelkin can’t possibly give you any challenge.”

  She couldn’t exactly tell him about her much more intensive private lessons with Whelkin. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I think you’ll be able to do that flip within a couple of weeks.”

  “I’ll keep working at it.” He stepped closer. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  “I was hoping to distract you,” she admitted.

  “I figured that out already.” He moved even closer. “Why?”