Ten Thousand Fleets Chapter 14: 14. Contact

Read chapter 14 of Ten Thousand Fleets by DavidNiemitz on NovelPedia.

14. Contact Southeast of San Teodoro, Vidako Imperium Stellarum September 11, 2847 Cassie was on her way back from the latrines when the psycher cornered her. Rain had gotten better, as the weeks had gone on—there was no doubt in Cassie’s mind of that. Having a group of friends had helped, and the Alu’kan girl had latched onto both her and Vee with the ferocity of a child clutching their favorite stuffed animal at night. Being chosen by Lieutenant Kekoa to help with unarmed combat training had been a clear boost to the girl’s confidence, as well; but she’d still been afraid to walk through the camp at night without having Cassie with her. So, Cassie had walked with her friend. It wasn’t the threat of Vidakan zombie flies or tree cats, or God knew what off in the jungle, that made Rain tremble. No, it was the approach of any man that she didn’t know, and that made Cassie furious. In all honesty, she was amazed that anyone had allowed Rain Makani into the academy; she couldn’t imagine how her friend had passed a psychiatric evaluation. But then again, Senator Dorotea Catalina had quite a lot of pull, and what wasn’t difficult to imagine was the woman quietly making a problem go away. It was one of the three reasons that Cassie had quietly been considering sending a message to her older brother. The second was Arc Sandhurst, and the third stepped out of the gloom and directly into their path, into a circle of light illuminated by one of the LED bulbs which had been strung up to light the camp, and connected to the grav-trucks. The light seemed to soak into C'rise of Bian’s headcrest, the pearlescent shell glistening in a rainbow of colors, like that of an oyster. Cassie doubted that many of the other cadets would have had a word for it, nevermind actually having seen it before; but she’d walked along the beaches of Terra as a child, at Cape Cod and Virginia Beach and Bermuda and a dozen other getaways. The privileges of being a princess imperial. Cassie stopped immediately upon seeing the pink-skinned LeShaii, but, to her surprise, Rain moved. Her roommate, usually so still and quiet, placed herself between Cassie and C’rise with all the bristling fury of a guard dog about to bite. C’rise’s disturbingly vibrant eyes, shading to magenta at the edges, flicked to Rain, and then back to Cassie. “I am not here to fight, or to argue,” the psycher said. Four weeks of Hard Burn had softened that accent, but not eliminated it. “I am here to warn you both that there are dangers in the trees.” “We know that.” Cassie chewed her lip for a moment. She didn’t like the psycher, and certainly didn’t like having someone who could read her mind close at hand, but if this was some sort of peace offering, she also didn’t want to be the one to immediately throw it back in the girl’s face. Or, more accurately, she knew that her father wouldn’t want that. Not after how hard he’d worked to bring the LeShaii into the imperium. “Doctor Vogel’s lectures were… thorough,” Cassie offered, after an uncomfortable moment’s silence. “But, we have sentries keeping watch, and four mechs. They’re keeping them powered up, I was there for the diagnostics. Those sensors will be running all night, and an alarm will go off if anything too big gets near the camp.” “I can hear them,” C’rise said, her voice dropping to a gentle murmur, so that Cassie almost had to strain to make out what she was saying. “So, so much life, all around us. Small frightened things, hiding from hungry, great things. It reaches beneath us, even here, where the trees and the roots have been cut away. You have to dig out the roots, princess. If you leave any of it behind, the organism will only grow back.” Rain stepped back, and turned her head to meet Cassie’s eyes, as if to ask a question. All Cassie could do was shrug and shake her head. “Is there something coming this way right now?” she asked. “Animal minds are easy,” the psycher answered. “They are aware of us. We intrude upon their territory,