“And wait for that one to grow?”
“Hold on, what if it’s Corinth?”
As the four of them continue to gossip, more and more people pack around our table, all of them leaning close to catch the freshest takes. No one’s sure of anything. Everyone’s spinning their wheels, coming up with increasingly ludicrous theories, or making noise for the sake of making noise. By the time one of them remembers I’m there, Ollins is trying to convince the table that Gal offered him governorship of a border system in exchange for keeping his secret all this time.
Rin taps me on the shoulder. “Heard you saved his ass. Good going, Ettian.”
“The missiles took out the Vipers. I just kept him from getting hit.”
“Don’t downplay it, dude,” Hanji chuckles from my other side. “I was in the tower when it went down—you strapped your ship to his like a maniac and flew him through the soup.”
“Someone had to do it.”
Ollins joins in. “You pancaked your Viper on Runway Three.”
“Yeah, landing gear was damaged from the maneuver.”
“You sure you’re not related to any of those suited idiots?” Hanji says, taking a swig of her drink. “Pretty sure ten years ago, that shit would have had the Archon imperials busting down your door.”
My food sours on my tongue. “Every seven-year-old’s dream,” I try to joke, choking down the fact that it was my dream, at seven years old, to strap on a powersuit and go be a knight.
Hanji shrugs. “All I’m saying is we’re lucky to have you. You’re a ruttin’ hero, Ettian. They’ll probably give you a medal. A recommendation. You’ll have a dreadnought of your own straight out of the academy.”
I nearly choke on a laugh at the thought, thinking of the academy head’s vendetta against me, but my humor twists into nausea before I can draw another breath. Would they fly me to Lucia and present me before the Imperial Seat? For a moment I’m consumed by the bloodcurdling image of Iva emp-Umber settling a brass-and-obsidian medallion around my neck before the masses with Gal looking on, his brow crowned in the metal and stone of his future empire, and betrayal in my gut from all sides.
“No need to look so put out.” Ollins sniffs. “Honestly, Ettian, you look like someone’s pissed in your boots.”
“Does he ever not?”
I join the laughter that rolls down the table. Better to put on a smiling face for my classmates. It’s what we all need right now. Beneath the glee and the joking and the wild theories, everyone’s shell-shocked. Out of nowhere, a guy we’ve trained alongside for two and a half years turned out to be an imperial. Twenty of our classmates turned from comrades and friends to assassins and corpses. The entire base has been grounded, locked down, fenced in—even with miles of open prairie within the academy’s bounds, it’s impossible not to feel trapped. Every eye in the mess is suspicious. Everyone’s wondering who’s next.
“End of day, drinks are on me,” Rin says, clapping me on the shoulder. “For the hero of the empire.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I tell her, and take another bite.
* * *
—
But come sundown, I don’t head to the cantina. Instead, I go straight back to the room that Gal and I share—shared, I have to remind myself as I kick the door open. The narrow space feels smaller without Gal in it. His bunk rests above mine, the sheets still a jumbled mess the way he left them yesterday morning. Between classes, drills, and the three debriefings that left me with more questions than they answered, I’m ready to collapse.
My fingers fumble for the lock. We never used to lock it, but there’s a deep-set fear in my bones that even a bolt isn’t enough to put aside. At least twenty people wanted Gal dead yesterday. I saved him. Someone could be gunning for me now. I haven’t felt this kind of fear in the halls of the academy since my first days here.
I grind my knuckles against my forehead, scowling. I’m thinking like the kid I was three years ago. Feeling like him too. I’m supposed to be better than that now. I’m supposed to be more. But maybe the only thing that really changed was having Gal at my side.
And now he’s gone.
The datapad in my bag chirps. Probably Rin, wondering why I haven’t joined them down in the cantina. As I reach into my bag to fish it out, I bump Gal’s desk and wake the screen of his workstation. He’s logged in, like he always leaves it. He’s too goddamn trusting. The tactics essay he was working on two nights ago is still open. I should give it a read-through and turn it in for hi—no, nope, not relevant anymore.
But even so, I find myself skimming Gal’s words. He’s always been the class anarchist, trying to thread loopholes in the teachers’ carefully laid lesson plans. This one is no exception. The solution to the scenario we were given is textbook. You swallow your pride, tuck your humanity in a nice little box, and raze your way through the system, burning anything you leave behind so nothing remains for your enemy to cobble together. Anyone who knows their history knows it’s exactly what the Umber imperials did to the Nusi System in the War of Expansion.
Gal, as usual, has tried to dismantle it. He’s ignoring civilian centers entirely in favor of running his fleet headlong at the enemy’s, refusing to throw up the blockades and sieges necessary to cut off the supply lines. His quarrel is with the opposing fleet alone, and he’s doing everything in his power to keep the common people—the enemy’s people—out of the fight.
I mean, it’s nice of him, but it’s not actually going to work. And if you asked me to pick the next ruler of the galaxy out of my academy class, it definitely wouldn’t be the dipshit trying to jam ethics into the middle of Umber warfare.
I dig my datapad out of my bag and flop backward onto the bottom bunk. But when I see the message waiting, every molecule of exhaustion evaporates from my body at once.
It’s not from Rin.
Ettian,
I don’t know if you’re going to get this or if you’re going to respond—I don’t even know if it’ll make it to you without getting caught in some firewall, but I have to try. The system governor will arrive by morning, and the guards are supposed to keep me safe until then. But these aren’t my guards. Something’s wrong. There are sleepers who were supposed to take over my protection the moment something happened.
But none of them were on the tarmac yesterday, and I haven’t seen any of them since then. The only person I’ve been allowed to talk to is the academy head, and he’s not telling me something. I don’t think I’m safe here. I need to get out before the governor arrives, and you’re the only one I trust. They’re keeping me in the head’s private quarters.