Defender of the Empire: Cadet #1 (9 page)

             
Yeah, I said those two were honorable. And compared to some, they are. They would wait until she was an adult before selling her contract around. The honor of thieves does not apply to good men.

             
And as Michel had warned me, Lassie had looked down her nose at me from the start. And that was before she had asked where I was from…

             
“If I hadn’t known that it was impossible for dirt like you to make it through the Admissions Branch without permission I would be kicking you out. And you couldn’t possibly be intelligent enough to slip past them.” Those were the first things she said to me after I answered her questions: ‘who are you?’ and ‘where are you from?” I had wondered at her naiveté because I was quite sure that someone who knew how things worked would have been able to slip through. With a disgusted look she had pointed me toward the far side of the room.

             
She was definitely not anything like the heroic character with whom she shared a name. Mentally smiling, I figured she would be happy about that, since the character had been a dog.

             
The room had been constructed with two beds and equal storage for clothing and what not. It may have been constructed equally, but my dear roommate had been a single occupancy for some time now. She took up two thirds of the room. She left the other bed alone, but had shoved it into a darkened corner away from the window. The nightstand and light were the only other items of furniture left to me. Lassie had taken both sides of the closet and dressers. What the hell she needed all that room for I never did figure out. But whatever. Looking about my side of the room I found several hooks that I could use to hang up my uniforms. So I did. Under the bed were several drawers. One had some bedding that I took out. Since I really didn’t have all that much (the clothes I was wearing as well as the uniforms and those LF boots I had been given) it really didn’t take me long to settle in. The longest part was making the bed. Once done with that I had donned the uniform since dinner wasn’t that far away.

             
I finished just as Lassie’s friends came to the door and they left for the dining hall. I followed them as I was not allowed to walk with them. Being hungry and somewhat lost helped me to ignore the disgusted looks I received every couple moments. I eyed them warily, wondering how much trouble I could expect from them.

             
We arrived at the dining hall. It was large with an open floor plan. There was a mix of circular and square tables throughout the room. Windows lined one wall and a serving station the other. Lassie and her friends headed toward a table and one of them put her coat on a chair. My guess was to claim the table. I moved to choose a seat and the three of them glared at me. “I’m sorry,” The girl who put her coat on the chair said in an over sweet tone, “You cannot sit with us. You belong elsewhere.” The other sniggered and Lassie herself smiled nastily. All three’s actions made it very clear to me that they thought that place I belonged was a trash heap. Looking at all three beauties I felt like a weed in the garden.

             
I shrugged and turned away. I smiled slightly at the disconcerted expressions of Lassie and her friends. They hadn’t expected to get just a shrug. A weed doesn’t care if it is beautiful or not. It only cares that it survives.

             
I LIKE YOU. My invisible mouse companion muttered to me. My smile grew.

I went to the food line and got my meal.
My plate was full and had more food on it then I had seen for a long time. Even on the
Hail Mary
I had not gotten as much. It was a mix of all the food groups, much of the food I had no idea what it was. But it all smelled good to me. I carried my prize to an empty table near the windows. I sat so I could see outside, the door, and most of the interior. As I ate, my gaze slithered over the students in the hall. More girls and a couple guys sat down at Lassie’s table. Every once and a while one of the new members would glance my way and I just
knew
that Lassie was telling them where I was from. Sighing I dug my fork into my food.

As I ate my gaze
continued flickering over the other students in the hall. There were groups like Lassie’s which over crowded their tables and were fairly loud. Then there were a few quiet groups who mostly ate and sometimes talked between bites. Then there were a few students who were like me; the loners.

HE IS MUCH LIKE YOU, RYLYNN. The mouse said.

I frowned, looking at my food.
Who?

THE BOY AT THE TABLE IN THE CORNER. I looked and saw a boy who had to be about my age.
He looked to be human with long black hair that had been put in a queue at his neck. His skin was a light bronze that spoke of much time spent outside. I couldn’t tell much else from this distance. Something about his posture reminded me of the street cat that Aunt Sylvie fed and nicknamed Kitty Hawk. Kitty would lay in the sun and tap her fluffy ginger tail on the dirt and look so relaxed, but in reality, she was alert to everything. She would go from sun languid to a blur that ended with a spider rat wriggling weakly in her triumphant jaws. The boy was watchful. He dug at his food like I did. Also like me his gaze was watching everyone in the room. His eyes flicked to me. I met his gaze for a moment before looking down at my food. When I glanced up again he was the one to look down, though I think he peeked my way shortly after.

Throughout dinner I wondered who he was. No one sat next to him. Nor did they sit with me. When I was done and heading out to take my placement tests I decided that if he was alone tomorrow I would sit with him… if he let me. Maybe the loners could be friends.
As that old saying says: ‘Enemies were better than those who do not care and friends are better than both.’

Chapter 7 Knowledge Base

I headed to Medical, following the line that Ensign A’zarsha had drawn on my map. I paused a moment before entering, eyeing the building. It was different from all the buildings I had seen so far. Instead of being constructed, or at least sided with, white marble it was made of wood so old that it looked more like stone. I had never seen the like before, but Aunt Sylvie had told me once that if a tree or animal had been buried for long enough its form would become stone. Something about the organic molecules being replaced by more robust, inorganic, molecules. Stone animals were called fossils and stone trees were known as petrified wood. At least that was what I had been told. 

             
Upon thinking the word ‘petrified’ I thought about old, ancient, stories about living things who were said to kill or petrify anyone who dared to meet their eyes. I never understood why the two things were not considered synonymous. Being turned to stone meant you were no longer among the living, didn’t it? I guess that is beside the point… Anyway, the ancient descriptions of these creatures were both horrific and terrifying. There was an ancient culture, the name of which I no longer remember if indeed I ever knew it, told a story about a snake haired woman whose stare could turn men into stone just for meeting her many gazes. Then there were two creatures who were so similar that they had been confused long before the Zar’daka had destroyed Earth. My aunt had books that talked about them: the cockatrice and the basilisk. Both were born from an egg. The cockatrice from a chicken egg hatched under a toad or a snake. The basilisk was a snake egg hatched under a chicken. Both were deadly and could only be killed by a weasel. I have no idea what that is. My guess is some kind of old Earth creature. Eventually death by venom, breath, and gaze had all been attributed to the basilisk; the King of Snakes, the cockatrice falling to the wayside.

             
In today’s society, I had heard that myths still walk or slither among us. The Spectrals are all, from the little I had been able to find out, Old Earth creatures and myths. Twenty-one of them are real creatures. Four of them are mythical. The four rare Spectrals are Dragons, Unicorns, Phoenixes, and Basilisks. And supposedly, about as rare were corporeal beings who could join with a Spectral. They were known as Shades. Elusive masters of the shadows… It made that mysterious woman’s death all the more forbidding. After all, the man in the darkness had called her a ‘Shade’. What did it take to kill someone linked to creature of living energy?

             
I shivered and mentally shook my head and forced myself out of Aunt Sylvie’s attic library and the station. It was time to return to the real world. After all, just staring at the Medical building would not get me inside. Sighing I approached the doors and entered.

As wi
th most of the buildings there was a desk. It was a half circle with the back section a mix of shelves with records and a single potted herb plant and filing cabinets. The woman behind the desk looked to have some Avren somewhere in her ancestry.   She had very delicate looking hands and her hair was a pink touched blond. She had a name tag that said PORTER.

             
Ms. Porter’s eyes were busily scanning the thin screen in front of her. She must have seen me step up to the desk out of the corner of her eye because she said “I’ll be right with you, hun.” I nodded, but I don’t think she was paying attention. I figured if I had an emergency it would have been okay to press her, but since I didn’t I waited patiently. I watched nurses and doctors bustle about behind the desk. There was a hallway there that disappeared past my sight. It connected at least one hallway that opened off to the left of the desk. A door was to the right. The door was ajar and the light was off. My eyes returned to Ms. Porter. She was still doing something on her computer. Her fingers skittered over the keys every once and a while. Fluttering almost, like startled butterflies. I shifted my weight and studied her desk. The base was made of some metallic substance. The desk top and the shelves were both made out of a light wood. The record folders that I could see had colored tags on them. My eyes flicked over them. I was about to see if there were any nurses to watch when movement by the plant caught my eye. My gaze jumped to it and I stared for a moment or so.

             
There was nothing there other than a plant. I frowned. I had though there had been a shadow… I glanced up at the light and didn’t see anything that could have cast it. I guess it was possible for a bug to have flown by. But that would have been a big bug… and the movement had only been near the innocent looking plant. I stared at it some more. The leaves were still and I guessed that only a wind from outside would shift them in their sheltered spot. Only problem with that was the simple fact that the door hadn’t opened since I came in and that had been several minutes before. Long past when a wind should have moved the leaves.

             
“Sorry about that. What can I do for you?” Ms. Porter’s voice distracted me from the mystery.

             
“I just arrived today and I was told to come here after dinner for placement tests and an exam.”

             
“Ah. Your name, dear?”

             
“Rylynn Sinclair.” I said, leaning slightly on the desk.

Ms. Porter’s eyes were once again drawn to the screen once again. I heard a succession of clicks. She must have found what she was looking for because she made a small sound of discovery. “Here we are.” She turned back to me. “We’ll start you on the aptitude tests before giving you your medical exam.”

“Okay.” I said swallowing. Now that I wasn’t worrying about some shadow mystery I could now appreciate that the tests that would shape my future here at the academy were upon me. Nervous fear sat on my shoulders.

Ms. Porter smiled as she stood up. Her well-proportioned frame made her look even more delicate. She led me to the room that was to the right behind the desk. She turned on the light before telling me how the test worked. It was a program on the computer. All I had to do was follow its directions and answer all questions as well as I could. I was told by both Ms. Porter and the program that I was strictly forbidden to use the
hyper net. If I did use it, they would know and it would invalidate the test.  I promised I wouldn’t. I figured I was safe because I didn’t even know what it was. It was probably one of those basic Citizen things that was exotic to a mere colonist like me.

Forty odd minutes later saw me finished with the test. I hit the submit button. The computer sent the results to the printer at the secretary’s desk. It was also kind enough to show me my results. There were five types of skill questions they had asked me: literary and reading, Science, Languages of the Empire, cartography and the reading of maps and charts, math, and, finally, technology. I did very well at reading and knowing classic literature (Thank you Aunt Sylvie and your library). Science was another strong point, as I had known about most of what they had asked. I only had trouble with the really knitty gritty things. Of the many languages found throughout the Empire, I knew only Lenti and Trade/ Common. I was looking forward to learning others. 

In regards to maps, I could make and understand land maps. When it came to star charts I was pretty hopeless. It was another one I was hoping would be developed.

Anything beyond basic math had looked like random gibberish to me. I figured that anyone who could make sense of and work with such craziness must be geniuses.