Compete (27 page)

Logan stands up, and makes another salute. Aeson watches him with an unreadable expression. For a moment they look at each other.

Aeson Kassiopei finally glances in our direction.

And when his serious gaze rests on me, I feel the pressure equivalent of the weight of a mountain. “Lark,” he tells me. “You may walk outside with Cadet Sangre. But return here shortly.”

I nod, and then I follow Logan outside the CCO.

A
s soon as Logan and I are in the hallway and around the corner, beyond the hearing of the guards, I turn around and glare at him.

“How could you do that to me? How?” I say, and my voice, my whole body, everything is trembling with an overflow of emotion. “You made me look like an idiot! And you put my reliability in question! How could you not
warn me
about what you were going to do?”

Logan watches me with a serious, gentle look in his hazel eyes, and turns his face sideways with an apologetic soft expression, as he continues to observe me. “Gwen, I couldn’t,” he says at last. His voice is mild and remorseful. “I couldn’t risk you saying no to me, and not letting me get here, get on that shuttle. It was too important that I make contact ASAP. Now that you know the gravity of the situation, you must see why it had to be done.”

“Okay, yes, I understand it’s bad. But you could have told me,
warned
me you were going to pull that awful gun trick. I thought you were going to
kill
him!”

“You need to trust me. You know me better than that.”

But I am not letting up. “Or—or, he was going to kill
you!
Don’t you get it? You were
both
this close to killing each other! All for a stupid, crappy demonstration! You could’ve simply showed him the gun in your pocket and explained how you got it, via a breach in security, or—or whatever! There was no need for a ridiculous Wild West showdown! I couldn’t bear it if
either
of you got hurt!”

In that moment Logan grows still and an odd frown appears on his face. “So you
do
care about him after all,” he says in a cool voice.

“Huh?” I stare at him, beginning to frown myself. “I what?”

“You care about him.”

My mouth drops. “What are you talking about? Hell yeah, I care about him getting hurt, just as I care about you getting hurt! He’s an honorable guy and a great commanding officer! What’s not to care?”

In that moment Logan shakes his head and smiles again, his intense expression evaporating—I am guessing, forcibly. “Never mind. Okay, let’s not worry about it. All right—I need to find my way around this ship, find my new Barracks. I am guessing the Cadet class schedule is the same?”

I blink at the lightning-fast change of topic. “So we’re done talking about what just happened in there?”

“Yeah, for now. The CP will call me if he has any more questions. But for the moment, he’s been warned about what’s coming, and he will handle it. Ball’s in his court.” Logan speaks almost casually, as we start to walk down the corridor, and then he cranes his neck at me and gives me his devastating smile. “So, babe, see you for lunch?”

“Don’t you babe me, you a-hole jerk!” But I am beginning to crack under the thousand-watt beauty of that smile.

Logan reaches out and brushes one finger against my cheek. “Later,” he says. And he starts walking away from me down the corridor.

“Jerk!” I say to his back.

And I return to the CCO.

W
hen I approach the CCO doors, there’s Anu and Gennio, standing outside, looking serious. “What?” I say. “What’s going on?”

Anu shrugs, with a cool expression. “Nothing. The CP kicked us out. We have to wait out here.”

“He’s talking to the Imperator, his Father,” Gennio adds. “Whenever he does that, we are not allowed to be inside for the duration of the call.”

“Oh.” I stand, looking at them, at the impassive guards. It occurs to me to wonder—
is Aeson Kassiopei discussing with the Imperator the news he’s just learned from Logan?
I wouldn’t be surprised.

“So what are we supposed to do now?”

Gennio examines his fingernails then scratches the back of his head. “We wait.”

“It’s almost eleven,” Anu says with a world-weary roll of his eyes. “We could have early lunch.”

Gennio glances at him in reproach. “We can’t just leave like that, we have work to do.”

“I know, fat-brain. I am only dreaming.”

So we stand like that for a few more minutes, milling about the hall, and probably getting on the guards’ nerves. The guys tell me about how Consul Denu made them set up his stuff all over his guest quarters and install three wall mirrors.

“Oh—the Consul said to tell you, Gwen, that he will see you for your first Court Protocol class at 3:00 PM today, in his quarters—it’s the same cabin, number eleven, just as it was on the flagship,” Gennio recalls.

“Okay.” I purse my lips.

“Lucky you,” Anu says.

E
ventually we are allowed back inside the CCO. There we see Command Pilot Kassiopei in a grim mood, pacing the room. He must have just ended his video call with the Imperator, because the screen still displays the Imperial logo at his desk.

Seeing me, Aeson gives me a quick piercing glance, then looks away. With one swift motion he passes one hand through his long metallic hair, sweeps it out of the way, almost with irritation, and moves a few strands from his forehead. Then he returns to his desk, barely acknowledging us, and starts making a series of calls.

For minutes he talks in a cold commanding tone, in Atlantean, to various ranking officers. Gennio and Anu listen discreetly, frequently glancing up from their consoles.

I tap Gennio with my hand. “What’s he saying?”

“Security. He’s talking to different ships security officers. Setting extra procedures in place.”

“Yeah,” Anu says. “Whatever news your boyfriend had about that hostage threat, the CP’s taking it seriously.”

“Good,” I say.

But my mood remains stressed, volatile, impossible to put into words. On the one hand, I am relieved that everything turned out okay with Logan coming here, that his intel was
real
. But I am still very disturbed with
how
it was all handled by Logan, the way he used our relationship, my trust in him, to do a risky thing that could have backfired terribly. And then there’s the nature of the situation itself, the whole thing with Earth Union, with what our President was planning. I am far from clear on the details, but it’s enough to know that shady dealings were being planned behind the scenes, things the general public was never aware of. Promises made by the Imperator of Atlantis to a handful of Earth bigwigs.
False
promises. And they in turn had made false promises and explanations to the rest of us.

And so I try to concentrate on my work, and instead end up distracted.

Eventually I give up trying. I think and brood.

A
fter a hasty lunch, eaten with the aides in the Blue Cadet Meal Hall, I have Pilot Training at 1:00 PM. It’s the only class on my schedule that I have every day, in addition to my secret voice training.

I get to the learning deck section allocated to our class, with the flight simulator consoles, in a big hurry—trying to be as early as possible, so as to have a seat. I manage to snag one in the second row. Once again, the room is packed and fills up fast, with more students than available double console desks. I see Blayne Dubois and wave to him, as he finds a console seat not too far away from me and skillfully moves his body and limbs over from the hoverboard into the chair.

“So, Lark. We meet again. Another day, another Pilot Training class, imagine that,” Blayne says with a faint smile, and stows the hoverboard away under the desk.

“Yeah, crazy, I know.” I smile back. “There’s more than one class! Who knew?”

My partner, Hugo Moreno, arrives and plops into the seat next to me, giving me a dull mumble for a greeting.

“Hey,” I say. “I grabbed us a decent console near the front.”

“Uh-huh,” he mumbles, then looks away from me as though I don’t exist and signals to a few Cadets he knows. One of those guys is Trey—that same alpha aggressive jerk who’s friends with the purple-streaked long-haired girl whose name I still don’t know, and who both made fun of Gennio that first day on the ICS-2 Observation Deck during the Mars orbital pass. Just lucky for me, they both settle down at the double console right next to Hugo and start blabbing loudly.

I look around for more familiar faces, and see the hotshot Tsai siblings arrive. Erin sits down right in front of me in the first row, so I have a view of her ramrod-straight back, and her spiked blue-black hair. Her brother Roy sits in the spot in front of Hugo.

There’s Kadeem Cantrell, sauntering easily, and his partner, some French girl I don’t know. Apparently Kadeem speaks French fluently, because they are talking together and laughing softly as they settle in.

And then I see Logan. My gut does a somersault, and my pulse starts racing. And then I tell myself,
Okay, so what?
Of course Logan would be in this class, this is the most advanced Cadet Pilot Training section. Where else would he be?

Logan sees me, smiles and waves to me. He then starts moving in my direction.

I’m not sure I’m ready to see him. So I keep my expression stern.

“Gwen. . . .” He stops next to our console desk and leans forward to rest his hand over mine. “Where were you? I thought we were going to have lunch?”

I raise my brows. “We were? Oh, I wasn’t sure if you made hard plans. Or if you were going to
spring it on me
.”

Logan’s mouth tightens. “Come on, that’s not fair.”

“Sure it is.” I look up at him. “I am still ticked off at you, Sangre. Really, I am.”

“Okay, I deserve it. But let’s talk about it later, okay?”

“Right,” I mutter.

Logan squeezes my hand, and then retreats to find a seat. As he does, I notice how Hugo and Trey and the purple-hair girl all look him over curiously.

Especially the girl.

Yeah, I bet
, I think. Logan’s so easy on the eyes, and he’s new in class and on this ship. It won’t be long before all the girls take notice and ogle him like hormonal vultures. Ugh. . . . I really should be used to it by now. That’s what I get for being with a hot guy.

Am I with this guy?
I think suddenly, out of left field. So far we’ve kissed a lot, and made out pretty heavily a few times, barely making it to second base, but nothing beyond that. Logan’s been a perfect gentleman, never insisting on anything more than what I’m ready for. . . . Which is good, because I don’t think I am ready for anything else, not now, not with the world being what it is, my parents, siblings, my family, Earth, Atlantis,
uncertainty
. . . . Damn.

Yeah, he’s the perfect boyfriend. And I have to admit it, he’s a true friend, not to mention, brilliant company. I know he really cares about me. And, my God, I’ve been in love, or “in obsession” with him for years—pretty much since I’ve started high school in Vermont. But this whole weird incident, the way he sometimes puts his so-called orders, duty, convictions, before everything else? On the one hand I admire him for it, but on the other hand, I feel a little
lost
. Trust is such a strange thing.

Okay, why am I even thinking about this now?

Again, the sickening onslaught of doubt—indeed, a real fancy cocktail of doubts and insecurities and stress—starts digging at me.

In a few moments, our Pilot Training Instructor arrives. Mithrat Okoi enters the room and immediately we all spring up and salute.

“You may sit,” he tells us curtly. His manner is the same as yesterday—hard, implacable, serious.

And then he gets right into it.

“Yesterday’s homework was to memorize the flight console layout,” Instructor Okoi says. “Today, we run the first simulation flight.”

He flicks the remote device he is holding and suddenly all our display screens come to life. Each smart screen shows the same identical view of a shuttle bay from a platform, the kind you would get from a parked shuttle.

“Today you will learn how to take a basic shuttle from the stop position into the launch tunnel and then outside. You will fly a short distance, return to the shuttle bay, and power off.”

The Instructor slowly paces before us, speaking. “You will also learn the four basic function grids and the roles they play during flight. . . .”

As he speaks, I realize suddenly that everything he’s saying so far,
I already know how to do
.

“First, you and your partner will decide who is the Pilot and who is the Co-Pilot on this simulation.”

The class erupts into whispers.

Hugo nudges me at once. “I’m the Pilot. Got it?”

“All right.” I nod.