by Kal Spriggs
“Thanks, sir,” I said. “Do I need to arrange for my transportation?”
Commander Leath seemed a bit disappointed that I wasn't unhappy about the assignment. I wondered, then, if Erewhon with its “freaks” as he'd put it, had been supposed to be some kind of punishment... and if this one was as well. “No,” he growled, his false smile slipping, “there's a Militia courier headed out in... forty minutes. Your orders assign you to it until you reach the Centurions. I understand they just shipped out to their next job, so the courier is the best way to get to them. Don't miss it.”
“Forty minutes, sir?” I blinked. “I was hoping to see my friends, to pick up any summer assignments--”
“Your assignments will be transferred to your datapad,” Commander Leath bit the words out, clearly irritated at the fact that I'd dared to question him. “As for your friends, this isn't a social club, Cadet.”
“Yes, sir,” I stood and straightened to attention. “May I go, sir?”
He waved a hand at me, “dismissed.”
I stepped out of his office. Alexander raised an eyebrow as I hurried over and grabbed my duffel bag. “I have forty minutes before my ship leaves for my summer assignment.” I bit out. “Catch you later.”
I was fuming as I shouldered the heavy bag and staggered out of the secure area. As soon as I got clear of the shielding, my implant pinged to tell me that I had three messages from Kyle. The first he must have sent just after we docked, saying he was en route to see me. The second was that he'd arrived at the station. The third was asking where I was.
Hock. I thought to myself. I mapped out the station in my implant and hurried along, shooting him a message that I had to get to my transport that was about to leave, hopefully he could meet me there.
I broke into a jog as I realized that the courier had docked on the other side of the station. I had a suspicion that the “verbal debrief” from Commander Leath had just been an excuse to delay me. Theoretically forty minutes was plenty of time to get from one end of the station to the other. But I had to carry my baggage, I had to download my summer correspondence work, and I had to catch numerous different lifts, traveling from the inner ring, to the outer ring, and then back... because I hadn't been given codes to get through the security hatches along the inner ring.
Luckily, I had my implant, so I was able to split off some of my attention and download all the course material as I ran. On a hunch, I went through all my Academy messages while I was at it. Sure enough, there were additional instructions there, from my instructors on specific details from the summer course work, which I would have missed if I had only downloaded the assignments themselves.
I was a sweating, irritated, mess as I staggered into the waiting area on the inner ring.
Of course, I ran right into Kyle.
I bounced off him and the added weight of my bag on my back sent me falling back with an undignified squawk of surprise.
“Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Jiden!” He reached out and hoisted me back to my feet. I brushed loose strands of hair out of my eyes. “Are you okay?”
I panted for breath, “Yeah, yeah, I'm good.” Nothing hurt but my dignity and pride, I thought to myself.
“I hoped to catch you before you shipped out,” Kyle swallowed nervously. “I really wanted to talk with you in person.”
“Oh?” I asked. My day had been going so splendidly so far that his words had an ominous weight to them. Oh, hock, I thought. Alexander must have talked to him about the kiss. I felt my stomach begin to drop.
I dropped my duffel bag, “Look, Kyle, I need to tell you--”
“I've been thinking about this a lot. The whole time you've been gone,” he spoke deliberately, as if he were thinking each word though, weighing it. It was almost as if he couldn't hear or even see me, like he were reading a script. “This isn't the kind of thing someone does lightly, you know?”
“Uh... Kyle?” I asked, my throat constricting. Oh, God, he's breaking up with me. All over that one stupid kiss. “Look, it was just a kiss, okay!?” I blurted.
Kyle got down on one knee, “Jiden, will you marry me?” He blinked as he held up a ring, “Wait, kiss?”
“Marry!?” I blurted. I stared at him, completely caught off guard. “Are you serious!?”
He was still down on one knee, his expression confused. “Jiden, we've been apart for five months. I hate it. I hate worrying about you, wondering what's going to happen... I've missed you. Missed having your advice, missed talking out our problems. The worst thing, I hate worrying that you won't be there, that this, our relationship, could fall apart. I wanted you to know that I will always be there for you, no matter what.”
“But, we're cadets, we're not allowed to get married--”
“No but we can be engaged,” Kyle countered, still looking up at me. “There's nothing against that in the regulations.”
I stared at him, my head spinning. I was aware that we were making a scene, people in the concourse, walking past, were pausing to stare at us. “I... I need time to think.”
“What?” Kyle's face flushed.
“I need to think,” I told him. “I--”
The buzzer for the airlock sounded. “Ship departure in one minute,” a voice announced over the intercom. “Last call.”
My head spun and I grabbed my bag, struggling to pull it up on my shoulders. “Kyle, I have to go. Just... I love you, okay?”
“Jiden...” I hurried off, leaving him kneeling there, feeling awful, feeling panicked, feeling guilty. Kyle had proposed. I'd kissed Alexander... and Kyle had proposed. I was sweaty, my hair was a mess, I still hadn't caught my breath from running halfway around Century Station to catch my ship... and Kyle had proposed to me. I was emotionally a mess, I'd lost my family, I still had nightmares, and anger to spare over what had happened... and Kyle had proposed to me.
I shuffled through the airlock just before it closed. The deck officer waved me toward the side and I felt as the ship detached from the station. I somehow knew that if I could magically look through the hull of the ship and into the station, Kyle would still be kneeling there, the ring in his hand.
Today was about the most awful day ever.
***
I somehow found my way to my shared quarters, feeling dazed, almost feeling like a robot. Only stinking and soaked with sweat.
I opened the door and stumbled inside. The courier ship was small, a retrofitted corvette, I knew it wouldn't have room for a mere cadet to have her own quarters.
Ashiri Takenata sat cross-legged on a bunk. “Jiden, hey! I was worried you weren't going to make it!”
I blinked at her, still standing in the hatch, my duffel bag still on my shoulder. “Ashiri,” I said, feeling slow and dumb. “You're going too?”
“Yeah!” She said cheerfully. “Got my first pick, pretty cool, right?” She cocked her head, looking at me. “You look like crap. Are you okay?”
The realization of just how bad I must look, not just to my best friend, but also to any crew passing by, got me moving again. I stepped all the way into the narrow room and closed the hatch behind me. I dropped my bag on the floor, too tired to try and lift it up onto the top bunk.
I sat down in the only chair, not looking at Ashiri. It took me two or three tries to talk. “Kyle proposed.”
“That's great!” Ashiri gushed. “That's so cool. Did you guys have time to talk about when you'd get hitched? I mean, will it be right after graduation or are you going to give it a few months?”
“Uh...” I didn't look at her.
She didn't seem to notice, “He'd asked my advice, you know. I told him the ideal way to do it would be a nice romantic candle-lit dinner, but then we got word that you had orders to the Centurions and he did the math and realized he'd have to basically catch you at Century Station...”
She trailed off. We sat in awkward silence. “Uh, Jiden? You don't seem excited.” There was a longer pause as she stared at me. “Jiden, you did tell him yes... right?”
/>
“I told him I needed time to think,” I answered.
“You what?” Ashiri stared at me, “Jiden, are you crazy!?”
“He ambushed me!” I protested. “I'd just run the entire station to get to the ship, I'd just been interrogated by Commander Leath--”
“Okay, he's a jerk,” Ashiri admitted.
“I hadn't seen him in months, I was flustered and...” I shook my head. “And I kissed Alexander Karmazin.”
“Wait... you what?” Ashiri made a face. “Really, I mean, I thought that you and he...”
“There wasn't anything more than that, okay?” I snapped at her. “I mean, you and he were dating, and then Kyle and I were dating, and then he was dating Sashi. I mean, it's not like there'd ever been any opportunity for anything to happen, right?” I felt panic welling up in my chest. “And then we were working together for five months and out of the blue, right in the middle of it, he kissed me.”
“But there's nothing there, right?” Ashiri asked. “I mean, he's handsome, I dated him, he's not a bad guy. But you and Kyle...”
“Yeah,” I told her. “Me and Kyle. Only Karmazin apologized over the kiss, and I thought he must have felt guilty and told Kyle...”
Ashiri stared at me. “Kyle proposed to you and you told him you'd kissed Karmazin and you needed some time to think... Jiden, what is wrong with you?”
“I don't know!” I threw my hands in the air. “I already told you, I wasn't thinking clearly.”
“I mean really,” Ashiri brushed a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, “you and Kyle are like perfect. It's almost sickening. I mean, you want to marry him, right?”
“Well, sure, yeah...” I flushed even thinking about it. “We kind of talked about it...”
“Jiden,” My best friend reached over and caught me by the shoulders, forcing me to look her in the eyes. “Do you want to marry Kyle and have his babies?”
I felt my ears burn and I really wanted to look away, but Ashiri's delicate hands seemed to hold me locked in place. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I guess I do.”
She gave me a shake, “Then tell him! God, Jiden, don't mess this up. Call him right now. Don't leave him hanging!”
“But I told him--”
“Doesn't matter,” Ashiri snapped at me, letting go of my shoulders. “You're a girl. Us girls change their minds all the time. Tell him now, though, before--”
“All hands, prepare for engagement of strategic drive, secure all communications,” the dec officer announced over the intercom.
“Oh no,” I said. I called up the ship's communications on my implant and started to open a call.
Then we jumped. Worst day ever.
***
The Centurions, Century's mercenary company, had taken a job in the Harmony system.
Hanet, which was the headquarters of the Mercenary Guild and where all Mercenary Guild Companies had their headquarters, was inside Guard Space, but was an independent system. They were also one hundred and five light years away from Century. In the small tramp freighter I'd taken to Erewhon, that would have been a seventeen day trip.
The CPM Palmer, the Century Planetary Militia courier ship that I'd boarded, could have covered that distance in just over thirteen days. It had a military grade strategic drive and it had been souped up to give it greater speed.
We weren't going to Hanet, though. We were headed for the Harmony Protectorate. It was only another fifteen light years away from my homeworld, so it took right on fifteen days.
If you ever want a textbook case for claustrophobia, try being on a courier ship the size of a corvette, trapped in strategic warp for fifteen days. Add to it the fact that I hadn't had a chance to fix things with Kyle and the impatience that came with wanting to tell the Admiral what I'd learned and I was pretty much going stir crazy.
The Palmer was eighty meters long. It had a normal crew of sixteen. There were four officers board, plus another ten enlisted personnel, all being transferred to work with the Centurions.
To say that it was cramped would be an understatement. The passengers filled the small ship, so anywhere you went, there was someone there. The permanent crew had their own heads, separate from the passengers. The passengers all had only the one set of heads, with two showers and three stalls. We had a water ration that limited our shower time to three minutes per day. The ship had a funky smell of too many people after day three. By day five, I'd started thinking longingly of the Academy, where I could take a shower for ten whole minutes before the smart showers would cut off.
The old ship had started out as a picket vessel for Guard Fleet almost two hundred standard years earlier. It didn't have room for a gym. It didn't have room for much of anything. The quarters that Ashiri Takenata and I shared were two and a half meters long and one meter wide, with an inset alcove for our bunks that folded down. The crew mess was three meters long and two meters wide. The ship had no kitchen, just an automated food preparation system. It had ten different settings. That might seem like a lot until you considered three of them were breakfast.
Ashiri and I adopted a routine of working out in our quarters, mostly doing isometrics. I'd actually put on a fair bit of muscle doing Erewhon's grueling physical training. The close quarters and lack of any real way to work out left me antsy and bored.
I had a stack of correspondence work to do, but it was hard to stay focused. I kept thinking about Kyle. It would be thirty days, at best, for any message I wrote him to get to him. That was even assuming that the courier ship turned right around after linking up with the Centurions. What must he think of me? For that matter, once I'd had a chance to look up summer assignments, I found that he and Alexander Karmazin would be working together a fair bit. Kyle was still the Regimental Training Officer, so he was basically managing the training for all the candidates over the summer. Alexander had ended up with an aide slot at the Academy, where he was helping to coordinate defense plans with ready forces filling in for the Academy's down time during the summer.
They were friends, so I knew they'd talk when they had time. Would Kyle ask about the kiss? Would Alexander tell him? How was Kyle going to react? I didn't know and I had fifteen days for that to play through my head.
I tried composing dozens of different messages to Kyle. Written, audio, and even full simulated ones that I built with my implant. I tried apologies, tried explaining. I deleted them all. What could I say? I was leaving him in thirty days of uncertainty. He probably hated me and had every reason to...
Needless to say, by day fifteen, I was dressed in my uniform, by bag packed, impatiently bouncing on the heels of my feet, waiting for our arrival.
“You wear a hole in the floor yet?” Ashiri asked.
I glanced down. I might have scuffed the paint, “Not yet.”
“It's going to be fine,” Ashiri told me. I gave her a level look. “Kyle's a good guy, he's not going to run off and do something stupid.” She made a face at me, “Besides, at this point, he's got to know you're crazy, or else he would have run off a long time ago.”
“Thank you so much,” I rolled my eyes. I couldn't help but smile, though. Ashiri might be right about the crazy part. Thinking through some of what I'd been through... yeah, I'd have to be a little crazy to do what I'd done. And Ashiri should know, she'd been right there with me through most of it.
For that matter, she'd been through a heck of a lot, too. The training was one thing, everyone at the Academy went through that. But she'd also been a part of the Quicksilver implants, and the Doctor behind it had tortured her. She'd lost a year to that, having to step down last year and take a set-back, coming back a year behind her former classmates. I bit back a curse as I realized that I hadn't even asked her how that was going.
“How was your spring semester?” I asked.
Ashiri shrugged. “Okay. I was actually assigned as one of Kyle's assistants. He was pretty good about treating me normal.” Her voice went bitter, “Some of the others, not so much.”
“Oh?” I asked.
Ashiri shrugged, “There's a certain stigma with being a setback, you know?”
I nodded. Most setbacks were involuntary. I'd learned that a third of each graduating class was setbacks, which was kind of scary. Either a cadet fell behind in their classes or duties or both, and the instructors sent the issue up to the Superintendent. Taking a setback gave a cadet time to get clear some of their failures and retake classes, to fix their class ranking, to make a new start of things. Some cadets got setback, some got released, and others got their duties lessened or worked out study plans to get caught up. With the Admiral, I felt the decision had been made fairly.
But my grandmother hadn't been the Superintendent this last year. I felt that if she had, maybe Ashiri wouldn't have gotten to the point that she took a setback. And now Admiral Drien was in charge. I still didn't have a feel for how that was going.
Either way, the tendency for most cadets was to assume that they couldn't necessarily trust setbacks. I had to assume it was a strange position to be in. Ashiri and I had been Cadet Drill Instructors for the class behind us... her class, now. To go from being in a position of authority and respect to being one of their fellow cadets... I wondered how they took it. Sort of like when Trask got set back to our class, I guess. He'd been one of our Cadet Drill Instructors, then he'd been setback. We hadn't really hung out with him, he had been sort of there.
“Anyone give you any grief?” I asked.
“Well, there was Hodges,” Ashiri made a face.
“What?” I asked in surprise, “Isn't he a setback?”
“To hear him tell it, he did so just to buff his ranking, not because he had any issues,” Ashiri growled. “And he's the Regimental Plans Officer, which means I was constantly having to work with him and his assistants. Guy's a real pain, hasn't learned anything, if you ask me.”
“Well, he'll get his,” I growled. The Academy did promote rivalry and jostling for position, but it didn't reward people who were hard to work with or who went out of their way to make things hard on their fellow cadets.