Flight of the Outcast (17 page)

"Are you kidding?" Kayser spat, scowling.

    The self-defense class was being held outside; the day was unseasonably warm. They were playing a game of capture the beacon. Not only did the two opposing sides have to fight each other individually in hand-to-hand combat, but they had to work as teams—each team trying to defend its own flashing beacon and prevent the other team from switching it off.

    "My lord," the instructor said calmly, "you haven't faced her all term. You must have a designated opponent—"

    "I've hurt my ankle," Kayser claimed in an annoyed voice. "Disaster has a grudge against me. Everyone knows that. I can't fight her with my weak ankle. She'd deliberately try to injure me."

    The instructor looked at him with no expression. "I received no notification of your injury from the med staff, my lord. But I will take your word for it. Very well. You can sit out—"

    "No, I want to play. Because I can't run, I'll be the goal defender instead," Kayser said. "You'll have to let me use a borral stick, though. Because of my ankle."

    "No fair!" Santos Markand, the beacon guard on Asteria's side, objected. "If he gets to use a borral, I do too!" Borral sticks were long, double-headed clubs, the heads padded. They were never used in unarmed combat practice.

   "There will be no weapons," the instructor said firmly. "The rules of this game allow open-hand combat only. Very well, my lord, you may defend your side's beacon. Vanyon, switch places with Count Mastral and partner with Locke. Everyone set? Good. Onto your own side of the field and take your starting positions. At my signal. Ready?" He whistled shrilly, and the two sides clashed in the middle of the field.

   Asteria had fought Vanyon before, a slim guy who did not flaunt his Aristo background—and who had a healthy respect for Asteria's speed and strength. Vanyon didn't press an attack, and he didn't defend with much enthusiasm, though he blocked and delayed her when she tried to break away to reach the other side's goal. Vanyon clearly wasn't interested in a real fight, just in a stalemate of dodging and weaving.

   Very well, Asteria decided. She would accommodate him. She led him halfway around the field, picking up the pace. Vanyon tired before she did. Choosing her moment, Asteria faked him out of position, broke for the enemy beacon, and weaved her way through fighting pairs. Vanyon ran after her, too slow to catch up. Moving in front of the goal to block her, Kayser screamed, "You idiot! Stop her! Don't let her get through!"

   Vanyon desperately threw himself forward and grabbed her ankle, tripping her. As she toppled forward, Asteria tucked her shoulder in and rolled, feeling the now-familiar jolt of power from the belt, sensing the weird slowing of time. She saw and heard with a new clarity: colors and sounds were intense, distinct. It was as if her senses had been sharpened tenfold. She turned her fall into a controlled maneuver, tumbled forward, bounded up again onto her feet, and caught Vanyon with a sidelong blow, sending him sprawling. She spun to confront a white-faced Kayser. He crouched—he had learned long ago that bladehand was not a good approach against her, and he settled into a wary defensive posture.

   She circled him, planning her move. The beacon, a flashing red light atop a thin mast, was within reach. Vanyon was scrambling up, now behind Kayser from her vantage point.

   "Get her, stop her, help me!" Kayser growled over his shoulder.

   Asteria feinted left, moved right, and almost got past Kayser—and then felt a sudden painful shock that thrummed through her whole body and made her muscles seize up momentarily. Kayser had palmed a small stunner, and he had shot her. The charge should have knocked her off her feet; but something—an adrenaline rush, the belt she wore, something— sent a wave of fierce energy through her body, and she recovered almost instantly.

   In that instant, she forgot about the beacon. Lumbering, panting, Vanyon charged in, and she used a hasty pivot throw to put him down. This time, he landed on his back so hard that the breath chuffed out of him. He did not look as though he were in a hurry to rise again.

   Everything was moving so slowly.
Stop it, stop it,
Asteria told herself.
It's just a game. He's not a real threat!

   But she felt as if she were about to lose control. Under her singlet, a strange sensation crept all along her torso. Then Kayser lunged forward and shot her again in the solar plexus—but the belt had
grown
beneath her singlet and now covered her skin right up to the neck. Somehow it absorbed the energy beam, and she barely felt it, just a mild tingling.
Don't hurt him. Don't!
she warned herself as she darted toward Kayser.

   "My ankle!" Kayser yelped, leaping back as she moved toward him. He raised the stunner, but it had not recharged.

   Asteria waded in past his defenses, seized his wrist, spun him, and twisted until he dropped the weapon. He writhed in her grasp, screaming, "Foul! Foul! She's hurting my ankle!"

   Another opponent tried to intervene. With her free hand, Asteria blocked the attacker's two blows, and then she delivered a sudden thrust that took the wind out of him. She let go of Kayser's wrist, and when he tried to stumble away from her, she seized him and used his momentum to throw him facedown in the grass. He skidded on his stomach, yelping in surprise and outrage. She reached up, switched off the beacon—

   The world returned to normal. She heard for the first time the angry shrieking blasts of the instructor's whistle.

   Her side was cheering.

   Kayser rolled over and lay on his side, holding his ankle and groaning piteously. Asteria looked for the stunner he had smuggled into the game and didn't see it, but Gull was standing in the general area where it had been dropped.

   "Get up, my lord," the instructor said, coming toward them, his expression serious. "Walk it off."

   "She tried to break my weak ankle!" shouted Kayser, pointing at Asteria with a shaking finger. "She's a Commoner! They're not supposed to lay hands on us!"

   "There's an exception for physical training," the instructor said, crouching beside him. He said dryly, "With your permission, my lord." Then he gingerly felt Kayser's ankle. The fallen cadet whimpered as he did so. "No broken bones that I can feel, but if it hurts that badly, let's make sure. Gull, help Lord Mastral to sick bay to have his ankle checked. Locke, you could have moved past him without that last throw. Take a demerit."

   "No," she said. "He cheated. He had a weapon."

   "She's lying!" Kayser shouted. "The lying little—"

   "Silence!" roared the instructor. "Can anyone verify that? Who was closest?"

   "I, uh, I didn't see a weapon," Vanyon said hastily.

   "It was a mini stunner," Asteria said. "He shot me twice."

   "If I'd done that, she wouldn't be standing," Kayser insisted. "
She
broke the rules, not me!"

   "He has a point, Locke," the instructor said. "No one could take two close-range stunner hits and stay on her feet. Don't argue with me. Congratulations on your win, but the demerit stays. You're finished for the day. Go shower. The rest of you, form up."

   Alone in the echoing shower room, Asteria stripped off her PT uniform and saw that the belt had returned to normal: just a broad silver circlet, not some weird kind of beam-absorbing body armor. She stepped under the shower and lathered herself with soap. Then, fiercely, she tried to shove the belt down, over her hips, so she would be free of it. It refused to budge. She wriggled and pushed harder and didn't give up until she was panting with effort.

   "All right," she muttered. "Stay there." She rinsed, dried, and got dressed, not really knowing if she were more pleased or upset that the belt was on for good.

Asteria wasn't too surprised to be summoned back to Vice Admiral Chen's office that afternoon. The Admiral said, "I have another formal complaint against you, Cadet."

   "From Rear Admiral Vodros?" asked Asteria, fighting to remain composed.

   "No, not this time. From Count Mastral's father, Earl Kayser. He alleges that you deliberately attacked his son, though Lord Mastral was suffering from an injury at the time. He reminds me that it is a major offense for a Commoner to strike an Aristocrat. I want to hear your side of the story. Tell me the circumstances."

   Tight-lipped, Asteria told the commandant about the capturethe-beacon game, leaving out the part about the stunner—it was long gone, and she knew that any mention of it would be seen as her attempt to excuse her actions. "I didn't do anything to his ankle," she finished. "To reach the objective, I threw him facedown on the grass. It shouldn't have hurt his foot."

   Vice Admiral Chen consulted her desk readout. "Sick bay says Count Mastral has no detectable damage to his ankle, but we cannot assume that an Aristocrat is lying, so there is possibly some soft-tissue injury that does not show up on imaging or medscans." She settled back in her chair and gazed at Asteria, her expression unreadable. "These are serious charges, Cadet. Earl Kayser wants you expelled."

   "Commandant," Asteria said, swallowing hard, "I insist that is not fair. We were in class when it happened. I followed the instructor's orders. I played the game according to the rules."

   "Did you? The instructor tells me that he can't swear that you did. He says you moved so fast you were just a blur. Are you really that good?"

"When I need to be," Asteria said. "Commandant."

   Vice Admiral Chen said, "You will, I hope, be relieved to hear that in my opinion this is not a matter warranting expulsion. However, Earl Kayser is powerful on this planet. I am going to place you on behavioral warning, Cadet. Any further infractions will result in severe punishment. Your permission to leave campus on the Haven visits is rescinded for the remainder of the academic year. Now, I notice that you have applied for space duty during the off term. I'll have to reconsider that."

   "Commandant?"

   Patiently, the vice admiral explained, "I can't give you what amounts to a reward if your behavior is bad. I told you these are serious charges. It doesn't matter if they are true or not. You are on probation, Cadet. If you can keep yourself off report for the rest of the term—just four more weeks—then I'll allow you space duty. If not, your request for a space assignment is denied."

   "But, Commandant—I don't have anywhere to go in the summer if I don't get space duty," Asteria said desperately. "I don't have a home. You know that. I can't go back to Theron. The Bourse probably would arrest me."

   "If you are an outcast, Cadet Locke, it is because of your own decisions," the vice admiral said firmly. "Behave yourself from now on. And avoid Count Mastral. I don't want to hear any more complaints. Dismissed."

   The long summer of Dromia was coming on, and the campus lay in stifling midday heat and humidity—especially for someone who had grown up on a cool world. Asteria's temper simmered in the sweltering air. On her way back to the barracks, she passed the eroded statue of Empyrator Kyseros, brooding on the little round stone island in the center of his circular reflecting pool. Asteria had no tokens to toss to the God of 2.5. She had no requests to address to him. But standing in the harsh sunlight, feeling the muggy air lying thick in her lungs, she made him a promise: "No Aristo is going to kick me out of the Academy. Kayser can't do it. His father can't do it—even you couldn't do it. I'm staying."

   The statue gazed at her across the water and, like all statues, kept his thoughts to himself.

Asteria tried hard to keep her head down over the next few days. She forced herself to ignore Kayser and his friends. She approached classes with grim determination to study, to do well, and to avoid calling attention to herself. Bren seemed to have forgiven her for her short temper, but Bren acted subdued around her too. Asteria studied until she was exhausted, and then she fell into her cot and dreamed of cambots following her around, spying on her.

   Dai looked almost as tired as Asteria felt. They still studied together, but they didn't chat much outside of their study sessions. Final exams were coming up soon, and both of them were working hard to cram their heads with information. Dai gave up his visit to Haven the next weekbreak day in favor of reviewing chemistry.

   While the older students enjoyed time off, Asteria sat with Dai in the common room, working at her AI unit.

   Asteria's screen suddenly froze and a banner scrolled across:
Cadet Locke, report to Commandant's office now.

   "Oh, great," groaned Asteria.

Dai glanced at the screen and frowned. "What did you do now?"

   Asteria's face felt hot. "Nothing!" When he gave her a doubtful grimace, she insisted, "I mean it—I haven't done anything! I've stayed away from Kayser. I've concentrated on my studies. I've crammed for finals—that's it!"

   "Well, then, good luck," Dai said quietly. "I hope Mastral's stinking family hasn't cooked something else up against you."

   There was only one way to find out. Asteria double-timed to the administration building and stepped from a scorching day into the cool air-conditioning. Vice Admiral Chen saw her at once and waved her into a chair. "How are your studies going?" she asked.

   "Well, thank you, Commandant. I'm hoping for a high three average."

   "I see you have a perfect score in PT despite your demerits. And you seem to have quite a gift as a pilot. Concentrate on the chemistry, and you should reach your goal. I've called you here, Cadet Locke, to tell you that the matter of your father's estate has finally been resolved in your favor."