They all had sidearms. I scanned their body language for any threat of violence in their stance or their expression. All were ready but generally non-threatening.
My training picked out two ways I could take them down if necessary.
I snapped to attention. Vega turned and scowled at the commander. Dax and Amelie scrambled out of their restraints and joined us in the cargo hold. We all gathered in some form of attention. Defiance radiated from Vega from the tight posture to the up-tilted chin. I hoped she’d stay silent.
But hoping was for fools and Hub-born bastards.
“Why’d you attack us?” she blurted without any proper greeting or salute.
“You will address me as Lieutenant, Cadet Volante.”
“Sorry. Why did the Axis attack us, Lieutenant?”
I admired her moxie. She went ahead with her questions. Always had to have her answers no matter what. She’d saved us on the Lazarus by being stubborn and confrontational. But I couldn’t help but cringe as the Lieutenant Commander's eyes narrowed, and she stepped forward, targeting Vega just as Commander Wu had.
Anyone with a spine, anyone with original thought, anyone who questioned authority, was either promoted or removed. I still wasn't sure what would happen to Vega. I hoped the former but feared the latter.
“I apologize for your treatment outside of Mil-station space. We just received the message from the Lazarus.” The lieutenant was approximately my height, so not as tall as most Axis males but tall for a female. She had dark brown skin and black eyes. Her head was shaved down to her scalp and partially tattooed. She was quite striking in profile, and I did not want to get on her shit list. My only goal was to get back to Phantom Ops HQ and face whatever repercussions my actions had brought me.
“Smith, Dupree, Volante, you will be debriefed, then sent to admissions.” She shifted and quirked an eyebrow at me. “Junior Lieutenant James, you will be debriefed separately and reassigned. Follow me.”
Reassigned? Had I been demoted? Was I being shipped to a mining colony? It would be no more than I deserved.
I exited the shuttle into the oil and fuel scent of the landing slip. Garages all smelled the same on the battleship, on the Mil-station, in the Hub. A garage was a garage. I pulled my shoulders back and marched down the shielded tunnel. The curved walls glowed, bathing us in stark light in contrast to the dim light of the shuttle.
I reached the tarmac first. The bay buzzed with movement. Sleek, slim ships on hoists getting charged and prepped for maneuvers. Scores of pilots, navigators, and pit crew all scrambling for their stations.
My heart rate picked up. Maneuvers, my favorite exercise at the academy. A hand clamped down on my shoulder, and I jerked. Whoever it was had sneaked up on me, and that was hard to do.
“Junior Lieutenant James.” There was only one person with a voice that could fill the bay like a ship ready for take-off.
I shifted, coming to full attention and clasping my fist to my chest in salute. “Lieutenant Commander Gleason.”
He was as big as a humbleball player but not bulky. Instead, he was lean, bearded, strong, a piece of Martian iron forged into human form, or at least that’s how I thought of him.
My breathing stopped as I held my stance, waiting for what direction my path would take. The others stood nearby. A prickly sensation along my neck told me they were watching.
The longer Gleason remained silent, staring at me, the more unease spread into my body, winding my shoulders, stiffening my neck, but I wouldn’t break.
I wanted to pour out my explanations as to why the mission on the Lazarus had gone so wrong. Not that any of them were valid. I’d messed up. There was no denying facts, and you did not speak to your superior until required.
“Good boy!” He stepped forward and pulled me into a hug. His arms enveloped me. I only came up to his shoulder. He made me feel like a small child next to him. “Nicely done. I knew you wanted to break, but you didn’t.”
“Come on. Let’s get a drink, and you can tell me about your mission.”
We separated and clasped arms as we had a hundred times before. I may not have been out of the nebula yet, but the light of Sol was shining. I had a chance to explain myself to a friendly ear.
“You almost had me.” I snorted, and he laughed.
“You’re too good.”
I rolled my eyes and clamped him on the shoulder. Yeah, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
“Lieutenant Commander Gleason?” The female lieutenant’s sharp voice cut through our laughter.
Gleason stiffened and turned, squaring his shoulders. “Yes?”
The lieutenant leaned back at the strong gesture. It was subtle, but I knew enough from my Phantom-Ops training to recognize his use of body language and tone to avoid questions.
“I need to debrief Junior Lieutenant James. I have orders.” To her credit, she maintained eye contact.
“He’ll be debriefed. By me. I’ll copy you on my report to Strag Central.” He was the superior officer, so this would be short.
The extremely arched eyebrow and pursed lips were borderline insubordinate, but the officer finally nodded. “Of course, Sir.”
She took in his scruffy hair and full beard. Both were not within military guidelines, but he was a Phantom Ops agent, one of the commanders, which gave him a lot of flexibility.
The rest of my friends stood awkwardly at attention, eyes flashing from speaker to speaker. Dax’s forehead scrunched, and Amelie blinked, frowning.
Vega scowled.
I wanted to try one more time to explain to her. But it was done. Our potential connection dead-on-arrival.
The commander guided me to the lift on the far side of the hangar. I caught one more look at my former crew, the people I’d fought and almost died with, as the doors slid shut and the lift shot me into the next chapter of my life.
Chapter Three
Amelie
There were thirty-two doors between the bay and our destination. Shoot, I was falling behind. Double counting to make sure I had the number correct probably wasn’t the best use of my time.
I rushed to catch Vega, who, even though she was the same height as an eight-year-old, could move with the speed of a gato.
Funny, the image of a gato superimposed with an OE cat and made me think of how much taller the gato was than the average cat had been—at least three to four inches taller. So, in essence, I was the gato, and she was the cat.
And I was a slow gato.
Dax followed with his long, relaxed strides. He probably stayed behind to make sure I was okay.
Why he did that, I didn’t know. We passed in front of the massive electromagnet that powered the rotation of the Mil-station and filled the chamber with a brilliant blue light. My breath caught in my chest, and I stepped toward it.
“Not now, Am.” I felt his warmth behind me. He never touched me, not since the night after we played Truth or Dare on the Lazarus. And I’d asked him. Geez, I’d asked him to hold me.
I think I did, anyway.
The night was a complete blur, as if looking through a concave glass. We’d chatted and drunk too much Hub whiskey. I was pretty sure I threw up at one point and spouted way too much information, spilling some of my deep, dark secrets. Dax, from what I could reconstruct, was kind, listened, and comforted me. He’d been great. Perfect.
The memory mostly just made me feel embarrassed every time I thought of it.
“Hmm.” I shuffled on without looking back at him. I didn’t need to. The image of him and his walk was stuck in my head.
Burned there.
I hadn’t planned on having any emotional entanglements once I’d joined the military. Most were painful and unnecessary.
I’d joined. I wasn’t conscripted like Vega. Well, I was encouraged to enlist by my fantastic parental units, to ensure that they would have the future they deserved. That wasn’t something I wanted to review yet again. They hadn’t responded to my hail. It didn’t help to dwell.
Instantly, a stream of info poured down my magnifier. My body relaxed as I dissected hundreds of bytes of knowledge.
The halls continued to twist and wind. I estimated we were approaching the outer wall of the station, and from the schematics, I’d determined our location.
“We should be exiting the tunnel soon to the main expan...” I paused to search for the correct word to describe the Citadel.
“Daaayyyuummm.” Vega had stopped in front of me and rotated. My eyes glued to the tallest human-made structure I’d ever seen outside of virtual reality.
“Just the word I was looking for,” I said.
Vega flashed me a smile as we tipped our heads back.
“Me, too.” Dax joined us, and we all scanned the structure.
“The original academy was one of the first permanent buildings erected on this station. The Board built the spire and training grounds with material from old warships and military waste.”
“It doesn’t look like a refurb,” Dax said.
“After the first war, Energy, Military, and the Manufacturing stations encased it in molten metal. A feat never duplicated in space. It takes too much heat.”
Dax chuckled. “And it was the last time the Manufacturing, Military, and Power Stations worked together at all.”
“It’s called Energy now.” I tried to stop the words, but my need for correctness outweighed my ability to be social.
A slight shrug and lazy upturn of half his lip set me at ease again. My explaining didn’t bother him.
He had a way about him that made the constant buzz in my head still like an oasis. I allowed him to stand close enough to feel his heat again. And Vega rolled her eyes at Dax and me before looking at the Citadel.
She knew me too well, and sometimes it was annoying.
“Cadets! I’ve given you a moment. Now follow me.” The Lieutenant’s loud alto voice sent a jolt through me.
I snapped straight and cleared my head of the chocolate-covered nonsense that Dax always introduced into my mind. Focus was necessary to succeed here, and allowing emotion to distract me could cause me to wash out before I even started. I had to be strong. I had to be serious. I had to be analytical.
Sol’s light rebounded from the sharp peaks of the Citadel, making them sparkle like gemstones. They were coms towers so beautiful that they could almost pass for architecture from home.
Scratch that. It wasn’t home. Not anymore. Education Satellite Seven was where my parents still lived.
And her.
I had to let that go. I had to let any thought of Dax go. And I had to dig in, or I’d have nothing. The Academy would be my place. I’d make it work.
The lowest level of the Citadel took up over a block and had a large, wide arch that framed the faux wooden doors. Vega marched forward with purpose, not looking back, and Dax followed, still observing everything, He rubbed his hands against the poly-cotton material of his jumpsuit—a gesture I knew meant that tension consumed him. He didn’t communicate his stress.
Again. I shouldn’t care. I didn’t care.
I double-checked my bun was tight and my uniform was unwrinkled as I crossed the threshold.
A wall of soldiers greeted us in a vast atrium. A mix of ensigns, commanders, lieutenants, and some I believed to be Phantom-Ops.
Phantom-Ops usually didn’t openly display their faces in public. A dark face mask hid their identities, and their dark gray uniforms with half-skull emblems made them appear ominous and imposing. The emblem was designed to invoke fear.
They just looked uncomfortable to me.
Two lower-level officers corralled us away from the imposing line and guided us down another narrow hallway.
“You, there.” One pointed at the open doorway and then at me. Another grabbed Vega, and a third diverted Dax.
Without Vega and Dax, I felt like a ship with shredded shields. My anxiety wrapped around my heart as the petty officer enclosed me in a brightly lit room. One table. Two chairs. It appeared to be an interrogation chamber. I should’ve expected this. Of course they would debrief us separately.
I leaned on my Satellite decorum training and sat calmly, folding my hands in my lap. The Officer pulled up a screen using her wrist com.
“Name and rank for the record.”
“Amelie Dupree, Cadet.”
“Please describe the events that lead to your arrival at the Academy.”
I arched my eyebrows but played along. “I joined the Ax-Military and was stationed on the Lazarus after a two-week training fiasco. I didn’t even know how to assemble a laser pistol when I arrived. It took two more weeks to reach my assignment. Anyway, my first few days were troublesome—”
“Cadet Dupree. I would like the interview to focus on the events surrounding Captain Price and the seizure of the ship by three cadets.”
“Ah. That.”
She waited, her eyes finally on me.
What had Vega said about these interviews? Keep it short and simple, or else we could end up detained. From the look in the petty officer’s eyes, she was already frustrated.
“We discovered the Captain was plotting to steal the ship, and we stopped him.”
“Three barely trained cadets took the bridge of an elite military vessel?”
She sounded incredulous. No. Worse. She sounded like she didn’t believe me. And that was the path to weeks of questions and detention and not being able to go to the Academy.
I leaned back in the seat and reviewed what I knew about psychology and studies about rapport. I mirrored the junior lieutenant’s seated position and lowered my tone to match hers. “Honestly, it was all Commander Wu. She discovered the plot and directed us.”
Fingers secretly crossed. I kept a soft and pleasant look on my face.
“That makes more sense.”
I swallowed and let my breath out slightly. The JL reviewed her screen again, scrolling down.
“Cadet Dupree, tell me what you remember about the encounter with hostiles on Clementine. Video evidence is jumbled, and some accounts are contradictory.”
The question was another space mine waiting for me to fly too close. One of those pirates had a connection with Vega, but even I knew not to say anything about that.
“We retrieved a squad of trainees on maneuvers after an attack by hostiles. No lives were lost, but there were a few injuries.”
Was I vague enough? I wanted to go into great depth about the potential of planet-spawned skills. I still wondered how the lead pirate moved things with her mind. There had been limited success with enhancing humans in some studies but nothing to that extent.
Too much information might keep me out of the Academy, and I wasn’t about to lose again.
“Nothing strange happened?”
“Define strange? Almost everything I encountered was a new and unusual experience, by my definition strange.”
She rolled her eyes and scrolled some more. I hoped that was a good sign. A small ding sounded, and a green light illuminated the top of her hover screen.
“We may call you in for additional questions. But we are about to start the next initiation sequence, and you still need processing. Follow the arrows with your name. Dismissed.”
I nodded and rose. My heart expanded in my chest until it seemed to touch my ribs. Finally, the Academy. The door slid open, and I followed the arrows to the processing center.
Chapter Four
Dax
The questioning was brief. I kept to the yes and no answers that Vega had suggested.
They seemed turbo-interested in Captain Price and our trip to the planet. But I didn’t have anything to tell them. They waved me through quickly. I followed glowing arrows lit up with my name and crossed into another hall.
Swarms of droids and enlisted grunts descended and ushered me into what looked like a launch chute. A kid not much older than me stood at the entrance pointing at me.
I raised my hands, palms up. I had no idea what the kid wanted.
> “Your clothes, Squab.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
I stripped. I didn’t have much to my name. A few weapons. An image capture or two. And a handful of clothes. Most of them were hand-me-downs or general issue from the Lazarus, but I valued my few belongings. The duty officer curled his nose as he placed everything I owned in a sanitation box.
“You’ll get them back after initiation,” he said.
I placed a palm against the cold table that separated us. It was stable and smooth and centered me. He didn’t get what it meant for a Hub kid to lose what little they owned. I had to let this happen if I wanted to get in. And there wasn’t much that I wanted more.
The kid quick-stepped out and left me alone in the tunnel, wearing nothing but my underwear.
A partition rose just ahead. I whirled around to find another had risen and closed off the tunnel—stuck between two polyplastic white walls.
Instinct kicked in at the sense of being trapped. Close places didn't bother me in general. My whole family lived in a place not much bigger than this area. But being suddenly cornered, that was different. Spouts emerged from the wall, and water started to pour into the area.
Also, I didn’t swim.
“Cadet Smith, please affix nasal enhancer. Found in the drawer to your left.” The automated voice spoke in a calm tone.
A 2” x 2” drawer popped out of the wall at about chin-level. I pulled out what looked like a nose plug. I didn’t have time to ask questions. The water level rose past my knees, headed to my hips. I'd never been submerged in this much water in my entire life. Sure, I’d had an occasional H2O shower, but most of the time, I used the sonic for cleaning.
A fist clenched in my chest, but I took a breath. The Ax-Military would never destroy one of its assets. I was one of its assets.
Logic didn't stop the urge to escape. I shoved the nasal enhancers in and waited.
The higher the water got, the faster my heart slammed. I didn't want to die like this. I didn’t want to die at all. I had too many things to do. Too many people were counting on me.
Cadet: Star Defenders Book Two: Space Opera Adventure Page 3
