Compete (34 page)

Before leaving, he dutifully checks me to make sure I can answer sleepy questions, and my head is not hurting any worse. Then he tucks the blanket around me, and leaves the room to return to his own Cadet barracks—even though it’s still curfew.

That was two hours ago.

And now I yawn, sit up, and put my hand over my mouth, stunned to think what almost happened. Well, actually, nothing much happened . . . at least I don’t think it did. I giggle to myself.

Poor Logan.

With the new day, the grim realities of last night come rushing in. On my way to breakfast at the Officers Meal Hall on Command Deck Two, I walk through ship corridors past other grave-faced people.

This morning, breakfast is served and eaten hurriedly, and the meal hall is nearly empty. Few Atlantean officers are present, because I’m guessing the ship-wide cleanup is still going on, and everyone has been deployed to deal with it.

Last night Logan had told me some of the details of what had happened, but I was too sick to pay proper attention. And now I finish up eating and hurry to the CCO, arriving fifteen minutes early for the 8:00 AM shift.

The wide corridor that runs between the VIP offices including the CCO and the inner hub of the Resonance Chamber is filled with Atlantean personnel, mostly officers. Looks like a meeting is going on and it’s spilled out into the hallway. There’s a new set of guards at the doors, and I realize with a stab of sorrow that those two young guys I’d gotten used to seeing, are now
dead
.

The Command Pilot himself is standing right outside the doors, talking to the group of officers in Atlantean. He looks exhausted and extraordinarily serious. Judging by the bleak expression in his heavy-lidded eyes, the messy unkempt fall of his golden hair, and the shadow of stubble on his lean cheeks and jaw, he hasn’t slept, washed, or even been to bed at all this night. At least he has a new uniform shirt on, without the grime and blood splatter. I suspect the main reason he bothered to replace it was to cover up that significant bloodstain from the seeping wound on his shoulder. . . .

I feel a gut-wrenching pang of worry.
I hope he had a doctor look at it!

I stop and pause a few feet away from the crowd and suddenly notice Gennio’s familiar curly head, and Anu right next to him.

Thank goodness, both the boys survived! I mean, Anu is a jerk, but I’m happy he’s alive. And Gennio—oh, what a relief!

Gennio sees me and waves. “Gwen! There you are! You’re okay, good! We’re supposed to wait until the meeting is over then we can go back inside the office. We’re going to be checking the systems for harmful sabotage and other possible damage—”

I nod and stop right next to them. “So glad you guys are okay too! What’s going on?”

“They’re going to be dealing with the Earth Union prisoners,” Anu tells me.

I blink. For some reason the notion that there would be live
prisoners
after this event never occurred to me.
Idiot me!
Of course there’s going to be people alive from the EU side. “Oh, really?” I say. “Wow. What’s going to happen to them?”

Anu shrugs. “They will probably go on trial and be executed for treason.”

The way he says it, sends a cold chill of
reality
through me.

“Well, you don’t know that for a fact,” Gennio retorts. “They will definitely stand trial, but they were just soldiers following Earth Union orders, so not sure if execution will be warranted. It’s a really unfortunate, complicated situation.”

My mind is suddenly reeling.
Execution
. . . .

“How exactly did the CP contain the whole awful incident yesterday?” I ask, because suddenly now I need to know everything that happened.

And Gennio and Anu tell me.

“I
t was really intricate,” Anu says, leaning against the hallway wall and folding his arms. “Excellent, smart strategy, exactly the kind that our CP is famous for. First, the four Pilots in charge of the Four Quadrants did a ship-wide sweep with their security teams, starting with the outside perimeter and moving inward, deck-by-deck. Then they surrounded the pockets of hostility. There were several fire exchanges—”

“You mean, firefights?” I say.

“Yeah. But they were all over quickly. Many terrorists got shot, the rest captured and sitting in security cells right now. Pilot Xelio Vekahat’s Red team captured two of the Earth Union operatives, while the CP’s own teams together with Pilot Keruvat Ruo’s Blue teams got three more, plus a bunch of Terra Patria. The last one of the Earth Union ops was taken by Pilot Oalla Keigeri’s Yellow team. Oh, and Pilot Erita Qwas’s Green team got the remaining Terra Patria cells near Hydroponics and Storage.”

“How did they get the CCO back?”

Anu snorts. “They gassed it.”

“They
what?
Oh my God!” My mouth falls open.

“Oh, no, it’s okay—it was just sleeping gas, sent in directly through the air vents,” Gennio says mildly. “Actually that was the least violent part of the recapture. The Earth Union ops inside the office got knocked out, and then the CP’s team went in with masks and just took them.”

“Also the CP’s idea,” Anu adds thoughtfully. “Kind of funny, one kind of mask trumps another. Poetic too!” And he makes a whistling sound.

I stand, processing the information.

Meanwhile, I watch the Atlantean meeting in the corridor start to disperse. It occurs to me, all the Four Quadrant commanding officer Pilots are here. As more people leave, I finally notice Oalla and Keruvat, next to Xelio and Erita, talking at the doors of the CCO with Command Pilot Kassiopei and several other ranking officers I don’t know. Eventually they too head out, and the CP returns inside the office.

As they pass Gennio, Anu, and me in the corridor, Oalla nods at us.

Meanwhile raven-haired Xelio gives me a lingering glance and a brief smile that goes all the way to his very dark eyes.
“Nefero eos, vati impero pharikone,”
he says to us in passing, but looks at me as he says it.

I stare in his wake in minor confusion, then glance to Gennio. “What was that?”

But Anu interrupts. “Hah! Just in time for your Atlantean language class. You have it today, right?”

I frown, thinking.
Wow, I didn’t even check my schedule for today
, that’s how thrown off I am by all the awful recent events. “Yeah, I think so. . . .”

Anu raises one eyebrow and says in a superior tone, “You think so? You should know, Earth girl. It’s your class schedule, after all. By the way, want to know what Pilot Vekahat just told you? He said, ‘good morning, Earth girl, you are like a putrid fish in a poo-poo bucket.’”

“No, he did not!” Gennio shakes his head, frowning. “He merely said, ‘good morning, imperial aides,’ to all of us.”

Anu makes a rude noise. “Yeah, same difference.”

“Anu,” I say tiredly. “You are disgusting.”

And then we get called in to enter the CCO.

C
ommand Pilot Kassiopei stands next to his desk, adjusting the mech arms of various monitors and consoles that have been moved out of place while the CCO was occupied by the terrorists. His movements are tired, and as we enter, he turns around and nods to us to approach.

“Do a primary level deep sweep of the software and hardware in this office,” he says to Gennio. “I want you to disassemble
everything
to board and component level and check for anything missing or anything that does not belong. Then run full diagnostics.”

“Yes, Command Pilot!” Gennio immediately pushes his way through and starts climbing under the desk.

The CP turns to Anu. “I want you to do a line signal trace for all central net connections. Start with my office and cover all the primary ship systems. Watch for router anomalies, intrusions, and line diversions. Log everything you find.”

“At once, Command Pilot!” Anu nods energetically and then moves in next to Gennio, and begins pulling apart wall panels.

Aeson Kassiopei stands watching them for a few seconds. He then turns to me, looks at my forehead and injured side. “How’s your head, Lark?” I notice the tone of his voice is unusually bland, and his eyes are barely staying open.

“Oh, I’m fine, Command Pilot,” I say. And then I keep going. “But I think you need to get some rest! Look at you—you’re going to pass out! Did you get some medical attention for that wound? Please tell me you did! What happened here?” I point to his shoulder.

He watches me speak, and his lips part. He slowly raises one brow. Could it be actual
amusement?
For once I think he’s too tired to hide it. “Your attention is noted, Lark, thank you. And now, in fact, I’m going to get some sleep. For the next two hours, I’ll be in my quarters. I am not to be disturbed. The only exception is, if the Imperator calls here. . . . Or if there’s more trouble. Otherwise, do
not
wake me up before 10:00 AM. Clear on that?”

“Oh, yes!” I say, and press my lips tight to hold back a wide smile of satisfaction.
He’s taking my advice!

Anu and Gennio glance up at him from their work, and voice their agreement.

“Good.” Aeson Kassiopei nods. His gaze meanwhile is still glued on me. “Now, get some work done also. I believe you have a historical chronicle to write. Last night’s unfortunate events should provide you with much new material.”

“Yes, sir!” I say and put my hand up to my forehead in a silly version of an Earth military salute.

But he only shakes his head tiredly and continues to look at me with wide-open, very blue eyes. Yes, he’s
definitely
too exhausted to reprimand me for impropriety.

“Just get to work,” he repeats softly. Then he blinks.

And he turns away from me and leaves the CCO.

Chapter Twenty

F
or the next hour I try to concentrate on writing up the events of last night, while they’re still fresh in my mind. As I key in my work, Gennio and Anu move around me in the office. Several times I am forced to save my file and wait while they disconnect me, check various systems and re-initialize the computers.

“Oh, not again, Anu! I just lost a paragraph of work!” I mutter in frustration, as the pasty-faced annoying boy pushes past me and pulls out a connector or a panel that makes my display go blank.

“Only one more connection check,” he says. “Besides, your blogging can wait. It’s not important anyway.”

I turn my head at him and frown. “This is not blogging,” I say in a hard voice. “I don’t blog.”

“Oh, yeah?” Anu glares at me while rolling up a length of network cable. “Then what is it?”

“I am recording events. Unbiased, without embellishment or expressing my own opinion. Blogging is mostly opinion and perspective. This is reporting factual events—
journalism
.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Anu rolls his eyes.

So I ignore him and continue typing. So far, I’ve chronicled the entire hostage incident, and then the corridor gun battle. Horrible images of the firefight resurge before my eyes, the
zing
of laser firearms, the falling people, the blood. . . . I visualize the levitating wall panels forming the crazy barricades, as Aeson Kassiopei fires his weapon relentlessly. . . .

And then something occurs to me. “Hey, Gennio?” I look up. “Can I ask you something? Yesterday, the CP was involved in a bunch of serious hostile exchanges. Why didn’t he simply use a
compelling voice
to just command the terrorists to stop and surrender? I mean, wouldn’t it have saved a bunch of lives—?”

As I speak, Gennio pauses whatever he’s doing and looks up at me. And so does Anu.

“He can’t do that,” Gennio says. “If you mean the kind of
power voice
that
compels
others, that’s illegal. Wait—how do you know about that anyway? It’s really bad, Gwen. No one on Atlantis is allowed to use it.”

“Except the Imperator.” Anu corrects him.

“Well, yes,” Gennio continues. “But the Imperator is not going to use it either, unless it’s under very rare, carefully controlled special circumstances, such as formal ritual at Court, or during an emergency.”

“Okay . . . but wasn’t it an emergency yesterday?” I say. “I mean, if Imperial Crown Prince Aeson Kassiopei is going to be Imperator one day, don’t you think he could make an exception, in the middle of a life-and-death firefight?”

Gennio purses his lips and frowns. “I don’t think so,” he says. “It doesn’t work that way. By law, he may not, not until he is Imperator. There’s a good reason it’s illegal to
compel
. Throughout history, whenever the
compelling voice
was used, there were many bad reactions, damage to the minds of the recipients, and some awful side effects. That’s why they stopped allowing it.”

“Yeah, it causes irreversible brain damage in some people, and the effects in general are unpredictable,” Anu says.