Our quarters looked like coffins. The desire to hijack a ship home grabbed me like a physical thing. But what could I do alone at home with the aliens coming? Who even knew if I had a home left? I’d had no message from my parents since I embarked on the Lazarus. Anything could have happened to them.
After all of the cadets had their assignment, everyone scattered.
“Lights out at 2200. Reveille at 0600 hours.” The duty officer exited the barracks.
0600 was early, and I hadn’t eaten in like a hundred revolutions.
My cot was on the ground floor, which was a relief. I threw my small bag on the bed-just enough room to lay down.
How would Am fit her three cases of clothes and info chips in hers? A wisp of sadness tugged at me. I crawled in. The cot’s semi-soft mattress was slightly better than the Laz. Which was to say it sucked.
The blankets were the same gray standard issue, soft but nowhere near home-level. My stomach gurgled. A haze of dried sweat and swampy water clung to my skin. Even though weariness pulled at me worse than my grav suit, I had to get food and find a shower.
I shimmied out of the bed and saw a group gathering. The planetborn girl and the one with fluorescent pink hair, Binary, had joined our barracks.
Our eyes met. Her gaze reminded me of a kele, a venomous reptile from my homeworld. The same sense of warning and danger rippled through me.
“I think we should trade bunks. I wanted a ground level one. You don’t mind, do you? What did that Hub-boy call you? VV?”
She was poking me. Trying to get a reaction. I swallowed hard. “My name is Vega. I’d prefer to keep my own.”
“I prefer you move, Vee Vee.”
“Don’t call me that.” My emotions keyed into high, and blood slammed in my eardrums. I’d be damned if I’d let this space slug intimidate me.
“Why? Is that what your boyfriend calls you?”
“Seriously? You want to do this now?”
“Move your stuff, and we’ll be good.” She smiled a slow grin that promised violence.
I gave her a moment to consider that I might not be the type of person to fall in line. My blood roiled like a pot left on a stovetop too long. I was hungry, exhausted, and emotionally drained. Dax would have encouraged me to chill. But Dax wasn’t here.
I adopted the method I’d used with Am, obliging but not weak. I sensed if this girl smelled weakness on me, I’d be doomed.
“Sorry. I think the bunks are assigned. The duty officer just left.”
“I know.” Binary put a long-fingered hand on one hip and looked down at me, then she leaned in close and whispered into my ear. “You and your friends messed with Kenzie. I won’t forget it.” Putting a hand on my shoulder, she shoved me back.
“Don’t touch me.”
“What are you going to do about it?” She reached out and ran a finger down my cheek.
The trigger on my temper fired.
This. Touching me. No. Uh-uh.
My brain went blank as I launched myself at her middle. With my planetborn strength back, we careened into the curved wall behind her. The crowd parted like water. The impact stunned the pink-haired amazon. I jerked upright, ready to pummel her into a paste, when hands descended on me, spinning me to face her planetborn friend.
The other cadets formed a circle.
“Back off. My issue is with Binary.”
“It involves Binary. It involves me.” Her voice was low and accented like a gato’s purr.
She crouched low to the ground and shifted her weight from foot-to-foot, sweeping her arms back in large circles. It reminded me of a water dance I'd seen in a vidclip from the planet Seasara.
Without warning, she dropped and swept a leg across the floor.
I crumpled into a hard pile. That was one of my moves! Anger stormed back, and all reason drained.
I lurched upright. This time I planted my feet and raised my guard. I did have training, and I'd seen real combat. I could handle one attacker.
McKenzie had returned to her swaying motion, sweeping up and back. It was almost a dance.
With a powerful jump, she was on me. The smooth motion had lulled me into thinking she wouldn't attack.
Stupid, stupid.
This time, I landed on my back hard, and her fist connected with my face once, twice, almost three times before I bucked her off. Her expression screwed up, hard, and impassive. Her halo of hair so like Jess's blocking out the light behind her.
Something warm ran down from my nose, trickling down my face.
Blood? Sol damn it. I was a trained fighter. How had this girl nailed me so hard? I put a hand to my nose and tottered to my feet.
She was back at it with her crouched wave dance, but this time I wasn't playing.
“Get her, Kenzie!” one of the bulkier Axis boys shouted.
I memorized his face. I didn't forget when someone wronged me either.
I noted her rhythm. Like an Old Earth snake coiling for a strike, she shifted forward, back, side to—I stepped forward before she completed the motion and rabbit punched her in the jaw.
She was planetborn, so I gave it a bit more strength than I would with any other human. Her head snapped back. I didn't allow her to regroup. I delivered two more punches, one to her ribs and another to her stomach. A satisfying whoosh of air flooded out of her, and she doubled over.
The crowd groaned, and I bit back my smile. They'd bet on the wrong lunar steed this time. A growl like an injured moonya brought me back to the fight just before Kenzie shoved a rock-hard fist under my chin.
My teeth clamped together, and a bright collection of shooting stars lit my eyelids. I didn't feel the floor as I hit. My ears buzzed in time with my galloping heart.
The lights were above me, and my vision swam.
“Cadets!” the booming voice shook me back into my body. The weight I'd felt on me evaporated, and I sucked in a breath.
I was at the Academy. Fighting with someone.
Losing to someone.
My brain slid back into the moment.
A white-clad officer stared down at me.
“Would you like to explain what happened here, Cadet Volante?”
No. No, I would not.
But that wasn't an option. I lassoed my scattered thoughts.
“Nothing, Sir. I slipped, and the cadet was trying to help me.” It wasn't even a good lie. And I was terrible at hiding things, according to my mom.
“You slipped?”
I nodded which I shouldn't have done. My head filled with arrows of pain, and a coppery taste coated my mouth. I ran my tongue over my teeth, praying they were all still in place.
“Cadet McKenzie was assisting you?” He examined McKenzie. His eyes lingered on the blood, staining her left hand and roved back to me for a second as if asking me if I truly was going to pretend everything was fine. I remained still, sitting on my ass, brain still wobbling.
“Fine. May the strong survive.” He shook his head and turned for the exit. “Keep it quiet. Damn, squabs,” he muttered under his breath.
He stepped over the raised threshold and pushed the door closed with a resounding clang. The spin of the wheeled door felt like the closing of a tomb.
Maybe I should've said something. Maybe I should've run. There were a lot of people who didn't seem very fond of me. Fear grabbed for my already hyper heart and jacked it up. I forced a deep breath and fought to stand.
Dying while laying down didn’t seem very noble.
A hand reached out. McKenzie.
We spoke no words, but I took it and stood with her help. We locked eyes, and I inclined my aching head. The recruits went back to organizing their cubicles and planning food runs.
“Want to get some rations?” Binary asked. She'd stood back, observing everything with those icy eyes.
I nodded, worried that blood stained my teeth.
McKenzie and another girl joined us, and we opened the portal. I followed them tentatively, watching, waiting for more
violence. But it seemed I'd paid the price for ruining Binary’s score. I was one of them. Having more allies couldn't hurt. A wave of nausea rose, and I pushed it down. I still had my real friends, Dax and Am, but for a moment, I felt like I belonged.
Chapter Sixteen
Amelie
If someone had asked me what the Christian heaven would look like, I would have described what I saw before me.
When I’d awakened this morning, I’d been so excited that I skipped mess. Finally, seeing and being inside of the Ax-Mil Science Lab was a literal dream come true.
Dozens of experiments ongoing in an open-air forum. Officers and recruits working alongside each other at multiple stations of micro-biology, botany, thermo, astro, and cosmic dynamics—more than I could categorize at a glance. Even with my eidetic memory, I had trouble processing the volume of information that covered every available surface.
An older man in a lab jacket greeted me. He didn’t appear to be military proper...maybe a civilian contractor? Wait. He looked familiar. “By Sol, you’re Doctor Newton Sinclair. The Newton Sinclair who wrote Current Biology and the Rise of the Superspecies?”
He inclined his head and pursed his lips.
“I’ve read your work.” I rushed on breathless. “I sent you a wav about some of your concepts.”
“What’s your name, Cadet?”
“Amelie Dupree.”
“Ah. Yes. I do remember a message from you. Good concepts. Wrong conclusions.”
Instantly, blood flushed in my face. “The simulation I ran confirmed my hypothesis.” I didn’t want to get into an argument with him. He was Newton freakin’ Sinclair...but even a genius could be wrong.
He craned his neck back and straightened his stooped shoulders. His head was bald and slightly discolored. He hadn’t done any rejuv treatment, although he’d been integral in creating some of the best skin treatments in the Axis.
“Ah.” He twisted away and began walking.
Dismissed.
By Newton Sinclair.
I rolled my eyes up to the stark white ceiling and pushed back my churning emotions. I had to keep it together. I could still make a good impression, although my heart sank with each step Sinclair took.
Then he stopped. I held my breath. Swiveling, he frowned and lifted a hand. “Come.”
I wanted to bounce and clap my hands, but I sedately followed. He shuffled forward between two groups of experimenters. The diverse scientists chatted and passed actual lab samples.
I’d only dealt in SIMs before and itched to touch the physical elements.
We entered another more secluded area of the lab, dimly lit by illuminated wall panels and shielded from the rest of the open-air experiments.
An unfortunate looking girl with an overbite and skin lesions occupied the lab. A victim of bad genes that could’ve easily been corrected with enough credits. I felt terrible for those who had ailments that science could easily fix but were denied because of a lack of credits.
But maybe there was some karma in the universe. The gene pool had given her some gifts because she was in Newton Sinclair’s lab. And that was worth more than perfect looks any day of the solar revolution.
She stood over a six-by-six, rectangular box on a platform. With a wooden paddle, she stirred the teal green liquid.
“Look.” He signaled for me to join him and the cadet at the bubbling vat.
He didn’t have to ask me twice. I approached, and my heart tremored. The paddle swirled, making it hard to identify what was in the liquid.
Then it moved.
They moved.
A school of fish. Real living fish, not SIMs. I stared at them, noting their shape, speed, coloring, fin dimensions. None were familiar.
I’d scanned hundreds of bio books and absorbed their content. The name of the species should’ve come easily. But these specimens were unknown. My palms sweated.
“What are they?”
“You tell me.”
A test. I excelled at tests.
But I wasn’t good under scrutiny. I tried to take a full breath, but my chest locked tight. Damn. I was going to get thrown out of the Academy on the first day. I’d already almost drowned. My typical panic response threatened to pull me down like the black water of the SIM yesterday.
“Not a newly discovered species. I would’ve recognized from my instant reports.”
The doctor raised one shoulder.
He wasn’t going to help. Good. I didn’t need it.
“Not a hybrid, or I’d recognize something in the appearance...synthetic genes? You made them?!” Reproduction of viable genes had been attempted since the end of the twenty-first century on OE. Food riots pushed science to expand what could and should be allowed, and suddenly there was enough to eat.
But creating an entirely new creature had eluded scientists for nearly two centuries.
Thousands of the tiny shapes speared through the large aquarium, some as small as my pinky finger, others as large as my forearm.
“They are called Sinclairs, in honor of their creator.” He beamed at me with the intensity of a star going supernova. It was the first truly pleasant expression to cross his face.
“What is the creatures’ purpose?”
He narrowed his eyes. “You may find out in time. Would you like to assist with this project?”
“Yes! I mean, yes, sir.” I let some of my excitement leak onto my face. I tried to control my shaking.
“I am not military. You don't need to address me in that fashion. Doctor Sinclair would be sufficient. Now, decontaminate yourself and put on protective clothing.”
I found the decontamination area and stood in the light blue radiation then scanned the rest of the room for wooden prongs.
Sinclair was giving quiet instruction to the cadet who was still stirring the liquid like a witch's cauldron from the legends of Old Earth. The dim light and the spooky lime-green glow from the vat sparked a mustard seed sized worry inside me.
Some kind of built-in instinct. One of the things they had bred out of us, to be instinctively afraid of mysterious unknown quantities. It was a survival mechanism.
But I was safe. I was safe. I was safe.
I’d read in a psychology paper that repetition bred belief. I wasn’t sure I believed it.
My nerves fritzed. I couldn't find the prong. Sinclair would think I was an idiot for not even been able to follow his simple instructions. The most basic level instructions at that. I reviewed the space again, turning in a full 360. The room was more extensive than it initially appeared. Two other exits were evident in the rear of the room, a desk with a singular light, and a wall lined with experiment tables. Next to the entrance, in a circular container, were three prongs. I walked quickly to them. Reining in my desire to sprint, I snagged one and raced back to the aquarium.
“I’ve reviewed your file. Spectacular test scores. I think we’re going to get along just fine.”
Again, I felt that Sol had come out, and the station had turned just enough for the Sat to get full natural daylight. Those were the best days. The natural radiation somehow triggered endorphins.
This was the same. I hadn't felt this much pure joy since back on the Lazarus. But thinking about Dax was complicated. Staying in the present moment was necessary to absorb as much as I could.
“What would you like me to do, sir? I mean Doctor Sinclair.” I flubbed a bit, but he seemed somehow less intimidating than before, and I didn't go into shatter-into-a-thousand-pieces mode.
“Put the prongs in the vat, being careful not to damage the specimens. They need to be encouraged to swim and consume enough algae to grow to reproductive size. We can't use automation at this stage. The subjects are too fragile. Note any changes in health, appetite, or color in the journal using your wrist coms under NS-8703. Understood?”
I instantly memorized that code for the journal and straightened, pulling my prong close to my side as if coming to attention.
“You can count on me,
Doctor.”
My communicator buzzed. Vega’s name popped in the air directly above my wrist. Dammit all. She should have known not to try to contact me during duty hours. The interruption made me look horrible.
The distasteful looks from both Sinclair and the girl were enough to melt polysteel. I wanted to crawl under the aquarium and hide. I itched to explain, to beg forgiveness, or to run. But if I learn anything from my time in the military, it was that no one cared about excuses. They cared about results, and right now, I was an obstacle to their results.
“Are we interrupting your social agenda, Ms. Dupree.”
“No, sir. I didn't realize my coms were on. It won't happen again.” I left the sir in to show respect and hoping it would buy me some forgiveness.
The slight warm-up I'd seen from him froze over, and he snorted.
“Nanami has training if you have questions.” He strode to the exit without another glance.
To have a superior, a superior I desperately wanted to impress, dismiss me was worse than being shoved out of an airlock. I released a deep breath to fight the invisible bands around my chest.
“He doesn't like you.” Nanami’s voice was nasal, and the words clipped.
I whirled to see a small, smug upturn of her lips.
“Really.” Both my eyebrows rose, and I tilted my chin back. “I received a perfect score on the intelligence portion of the entrance exams.”
“So did I. And I know to turn off my com when entering a lab.” She maintained direct, unblinking eye contact with me—a challenge.
I snorted and lifted the prong that looked like a giant wooden fork. “Just show me what to do.”
“No.”
“Um. Dr. Sinclair asked you to guide me.”
The girl stopped stirring and gave me another hard stare. I fought the urge to check my reflection to be sure I didn't have food or dirt on me.
“You are a waste of my time. A satellite girl won't last a day in Sinclair's labs. If you aren't too busy looking at yourself, then watch what I do and copy it. Even a test tanger could do that.”
Cadet: Star Defenders Book Two: Space Opera Adventure Page 9
