Compete (71 page)

I remain standing, lost without him, while tears well up, blinding me, until everything in the world blurs. . . .

Chapter Forty-Four

I
’m not sure what I am doing, still standing motionless and blurry-eyed, when Laronda and Chiyoko come upon me.

“Gwen!” Laronda says, immediately noticing my state. “Hey, girl, are you all right? What happened?” And she puts her hand gently on my shoulder, leaning in close to my ear.

I pull in a deep shuddering breath, and smile forcibly while carefully wiping parts of my face with my fingertips, so as not to smear the fabulous makeup that is now soaking up my tears.

“Oh, I’m, fine!” I lie blatantly, mostly for Chiyoko’s sake, since I’m certain Laronda has a very good idea of what’s really going on. “Sorry, I was just having a crazy moment there—heard a song that reminded me of Earth and home, and you know how it is—instant tear gusher!” And I snort and shake my head.

Laronda nods wisely, continuing to hold her hand on my shoulder, and then rubs it gently in circles. “Oh yeah, I know what you mean—happens to me all the time. I hear songs, snatches of dialogue that Cadets quote from holo-movies, even tiny little stupid things set me off. So, yeah, no problem. Take your time, girl. . . .”

“Thanks.” I smile, then grin widely. “Okay, enough of me being a mush-ball. . . .”

“Yeah, well, you know, we were just hanging out with your Atlantean buddies Gennio and Vazara,” Laronda says, picking up the conversation with great skill. “And also with that awful little prick Anu—my gawd! He’s like—what is
wrong
with him?”

Chiyoko snorts and shakes her head. “Oh, yes. This Anu guy is really crazy!”

I shake my head and laugh with them, regaining my breath, forcing myself to be in the here and now, to push away all traces of what had happened between me and Kassiopei. With superhuman effort, I contain all thoughts of
him
deep inside, to be processed
later
.

“Anu is an acquired taste,” I say lightly.

Laronda widens her eyes and rolls them. “Sweet lord, yes! Roadkill with horseradish! Seriously, why does your Command Pilot tolerate him?”

My Command Pilot. . . .

No, don’t think.

“Well,” I muse. “To be honest, I think on some level Anu is very smart and skilled at his job, believe it or not. But also, secretly, I think Anu kind of entertains him.”

“He’s a koo-koo clown, that’s for sure,” Laronda mutters. “That boy is
messed up!
”

“Okay, enough about Anu,” I exclaim, as an out-of-control churning wave of emotion passes through me, and I must do something, anything to put it down. “Let’s dance, guys! I think that’s my song they’re playing!”

And off we go, back onto the dance floor.

W
e dance for close to two hours, taking minor breaks. At some point during a zero gravity dance, Gracie and Blayne join us, and we all spin around the great honey-colored dome ceiling, holding hands, touching fingertips, and reaching to feel the glowing orbs attached to the panels, just because we
can
. What a strange glorious sensation, to fly through the air with friends!

“
Gravity changing now!”
the Music Mage whispers mischievously, and as gravity returns, we descend.

Blayne gets back on the hoverboard and Gracie fusses around him to make sure he is settled properly, while he glances at her with one raised brow. “Seriously, Lark Two, you may chill, I got this,” he says at last, but his mouth quivers with amusement.

“
Im nefira
 . . . Gwen!”

I turn around and there’s Xelio. He is dressed in his sharp white Fleet uniform, and his long midnight hair is loose tonight, gorgeously unrestrained. Looks like he’s just arrived late.

Better late than never. . . .

“So, did you save me a dance, golden goddess?” he says, stepping closer and giving me a long appreciative perusal.

I smile, while an energizing pleasant charge of energy comes to me—something I always feel around Xelio. “Of course, Xel!” I respond, with an almost flirty tone in my voice—and why the hell not? I no longer have anything to lose.

But. . . . Just for a moment, the deeply suppressed wave of despair comes overflowing upward inside me. However, I control it. . . .

And I smile at Xelio Vekahat and take his hand, allowing him to lead me in the swaying rhythm and beat of the music pulsing around us.

I
leave the Yellow Dance close to midnight, with Laronda and Gracie following me to my cabin to get their things before boarding the shuttles for their own ark-ships.

Chiyoko says bye to us and heads to her own Cadet Barracks in the Green Quadrant.

As I hug Gracie, Laronda gives me a meaningful glance and promises to call me so that we can talk about things later. I nod at her, barely having the energy to maintain my happy front for Gracie’s sake.

I need to be alone right now.

They leave, and I sit down on my bunk. I sit without moving for long minutes, and eventually the cabin lights go out, because the sensors no longer detect living motion.

They are correct.

I am dead inside. And the tears streaming down my face, they are just running water. . . .

But it gets worse.

Because I remember suddenly that today, based on the Earth calendar, is my birthday.

I just turned eighteen.

And no one, including myself, knew or cared about it.

T
he next morning, after a mostly sleepless night—made worse by the fact that I was plagued by thoughts of coming of age and everything that goes with it—I resolve to hold myself together for the remaining days on this journey to Atlantis.

I go in to work at the CCO at 8:00 AM, steeling myself for that initial moment of seeing Aeson Kassiopei after what had happened last night.

But he comes in wearing his own full suit of emotional armor—composed, cool, remote. He barely acknowledges me with an icy glance that is unreadable, and then works at his desk for half an hour, ignoring me and the other two aides. Eventually he gets up and leaves to do ship inspections, and is gone for the rest of the day.

Around dinner, I get a brief one-sentence email from Kassiopei that my voice lesson for that night is cancelled. Not a word of explanation or apology.

But somehow, it acts as the closest thing to what I might hope to have from him as a living human reaction—he can’t deal with me right now, I get it.

I can’t deal with him either.

And so I spend another numb evening alone in my cabin—thinking, planning I don’t know what for myself and my siblings here in the Fleet and my family back on Earth—our vaporous future, maybe?—and constantly imagining what would happen only a few days from now when we land on the surface of the planet Atlantis.

In the morning, just before shipboard dawn, around 5:41 AM, I am awakened from a feverish shallow sleep by the voice of the computer.

“
Ten second warning. . . . Interstellar space ends. . . . Now entering Helios solar system heliosphere. . . .”

I bolt awake and sit up, almost hitting my head against the bulkhead.

Oh, wow!
I think.
We are now in the solar system of Helios, also known as Hel, the sun of Atlantis!

Which means that approximately five days remain until we reach the orbit of our new home planet.

It’s pretty much impossible to go back to sleep after that, and so I’m up early, feverishly recalling what I’ve been told about the structure of Hel’s system.

In a nutshell, Helios is a radiant white star, about 10% larger and 25% brighter than Earth’s Sol, and it’s orbited by five rocky planets including Atlantis (unlike Sol which has four—Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars), and two gas giants (again, unlike Sol which has four—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune).

Hel’s rocky planets in order of proximity to it are: Rah, Septu, Tammuz, Ishtar, Atlantis. And then come the two gas giants, Olympos and Atlas.

At the rate of our deceleration approach, we will likely be in the vicinity of Atlas’s orbital region some time tomorrow.

O
n that same first day of our entry into Hel’s solar system, the Fleet goes on general alert and all the ark-ships begin implementing the early stages of the arrival procedures.

Today is our last day of classes, after which we are going to be having interviews with our commanding officers and receiving our various placement instructions.

All class sessions are brief, and are mostly summaries and final thoughts given us by our Instructors. In Pilot Training, Chiyoko and I listen nervously as Instructor Mithrat Okoi tells us that all Cadets will receive specific Fleet assignment options during their career interview.

“I will be putting in my personal recommendations in your files which will then be reviewed by your commanding officers,” Instructor Okoi says, pacing the classroom. “My recommendations carry fifty percent weight, and the rest will be up to your commanding officers. If you have any questions, you may see me after class today, or any time up to your interviews which happen starting tomorrow. Good luck, Cadets! You have come a long way since our first class many months ago. Many of you will make excellent, first rate Pilots, officers and crew. And now, dismissed!”

We salute and exit, as the Instructor watches us with his grim, serious gaze. For some reason he looks
affected
—if only for a brief fleeting moment. Indeed, it seems to me that Mithrat Okoi feels far more than he ever lets on. And right now, his gaze is telling us goodbye.

My Language class is next. Instructor Chior Kla speaks to us in pure
Atlanteo
, and surprisingly, after all these months of conversational practice, I and the rest of the class actually understand most of what she is saying. It’s a strange feeling to hear the lilting beautiful language and feel the meaning coalesce at last.

“May you find and attain all your fondest wishes and dreams when you arrive on your new home,
Atlantida
,” Instructor Kla says in her beautiful, emotionally charged voice. “You might be afraid and worried now, but you will be pleasantly surprised by what you’ll find. Now that you are speaking our language, you will understand our thought processes so much better, and it will help you adjust. Think of it as another useful tool. Use the language well!”

And later on, in Culture class, we get a very similar sentiment from Instructor Nilara Gradat. “I have no doubt, you will fall in love, and so will the people of Atlantis when they meet all of you,” she says to us, in parting. “It has been an unforgettable experience for me personally to have taken this journey with you, to Earth and back. Please, do not hesitate to keep in touch with me after we land. I will leave my personal contact instructions for you. In my regular life I teach at the Lyceum School in the coastal city Thetis Nereo, so if you are ever in the area, please come see me!”

Meanwhile, in Technology and Systems class, once again held in the garden paradise that is Hydroponics, Klavit Xotoi, our Tech instructor, gives us an inspirational rundown of career options for technically inclined Civilians. “You can apply for entry level jobs in most of our industries, as soon as we land,” he says. “Or you can enroll in more advanced courses to get better positions. My recommendation is to take that entry level work and at the same time attend extra training courses in your off hours, especially if you decide to stay and make your home in the capital, Poseidon, or the provinces. You have many options, and as Earth refugees who have proven your various talents and skills simply by Qualifying for Atlantis, you will be in demand. Good luck, everyone!”

By the end of the afternoon, I have the final Combat Training class with Oalla Keigeri. “We will go through the Twelve Forms only one time, since it is our last class,” she tells us seriously.

And we do.

By now, we are quite proficient in Er-Du, and we look good doing it—double rows of Cadets sharply lined up, moving in tandem and showing fierce elegance.

I admit, I feel a twinge of pride that I’m one of the better students here. Especially since my one-on-one personal training with Xelio for the last several months, I’ve been showing marked improvement, and now I’m possibly in the top five percent of the class in Sparring and Forms, and possibly in the top twenty percent in Yellow Quadrant Weapons. I am also glad that Oalla notices and approves. I haven’t had a demerit in her class for
anything
, in ages. . . .

When we finish the final Form and grow still, Oalla paces before us in silence. “You have done well, Cadets!” she says at last, in a hard ringing voice. “I am honored to have every one of you serve on my ship, if it comes to it, and to fight alongside me if necessary. My final evaluations of your performance will be logged and analyzed during your interviews tomorrow. And now, Salute, Cadets! Show me your pride with the Form Salute of
Atlantida!
”