Ten Thousand Fleets Chapter 21: 21: Intelligence

Read chapter 21 of Ten Thousand Fleets by DavidNiemitz on NovelPedia.

21: Intelligence Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum September 26, 2847 Cassie waited until they’d all been released from the infirmary and sent back to their dorms to open the video message from her brother. While Charlotte Sixkiller—the cadet who’d shared her recovery room after the operation—seemed nice enough in spite of a rather intimidating name, Cassie didn’t need anyone else listening to what she’d asked her brother to do. Instead, once she’d changed from the hospital gown into her cadet uniform, Cassie walked to the south end of Academy Hill, tablet tucked under one arm, bandaged head gleaming beneath the twin suns. She ignored more than a few comments from older cadets, all of which included the term ‘mole rat’ in some capacity or other. For the moment, she felt strangely anonymous: without her hair, apparently she looked different enough that a princess imperial wasn’t recognized on sight. Though a fourth class cadet just out of Hard Burn had, ostensibly, no business heading to the mech hangars unescorted, every security checkpoint blinked green when Cassie approached. She didn’t even have to take out the key card all the cadets had been given on arrival: Lyra took care of that all on her own. You’re supposed to be resting , Cassie’s new AI companion remarked, as she strode off across the tarmac toward Hangar 417. The last thing we need is you feeling a bit of vertigo, falling over, and cracking open the skull that we both need in one piece. Cassie scowled. “I’m not going to fall over,” she hissed. It was supposed to be possible to communicate with Lyra silently, just by thinking at her, but she hadn’t quite got the hang of it yet. “I just need someplace private for a little while, that’s all.” She could actually feel Lyra reach out to interact with the biometric lock on the hangar door—not the big one, through which the mechs themselves could pass, but the human-sized door off to one side. The light above the lock turned green, and then a click signalled that the door could be opened. Cassie slipped inside, into the darkness, and then closed the door behind her. The interior of Hangar 417 was dim, and the shadows made it difficult for Cassie to see anything clearly, even during the daytime. She waited for a moment for her eyes to adjust, and then walked over to the rope ladder which hung down from her cockpit. She stuffed her tablet down the back of her pants, reached for a bar just above her head, set her foot in another, and began to climb. Halfway up, the vertigo did come, and she had to close her eyes and simply cling to the ladder for a moment, until it passed. Finally, she made it up to where the RSiNC armor plating splayed open like the petals of a flower, opening the way to the interior. Cassie threw herself back into the cushioned pilot’s seat, then shifted her hip, reached back, and removed her folded tablet. When she unfolded it, the glow from the screen lit her face and the interior of the cockpit. I don’t feel any active interface to connect to , Lyra said. Also, someone has just accessed the hangar door. “That’s because there’s no batteries in her,” Cassie explained. She heard the click of the lock from down below, echoing through the hangar, and saw a wedge of bright sunlight stab into the darkness. For just a moment, gantries, cranes, and repair equipment stowed along the sides of the hangar were illuminated, and then the door swung closed again. “Is that you, Jessica?” she called out. “You’re not supposed to be in here yet, Your Imperial Highness,” Jessica called up. It was the first time they’d actually spoken in weeks; during the Hard Burn expedition out into the jungle of Vidako, she’d been considerate enough to keep her distance. Or perhaps, Cassie thought, the other woman’s cover as a cadet had simply kept her too busy to stick as close to her charge as she would have otherwise preferred. “I needed a bit of privacy to view a message from my brother,” Cassie said. “This is about the only pl