Ten Thousand Fleets Chapter 7: 7. They Also Serve

Read chapter 7 of Ten Thousand Fleets by DavidNiemitz on NovelPedia.

7. They Also Serve Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum August 13, 2847 “Come on, Rain, you can do it,” Cassie urged her bunkmate. She wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about stripping down to the plain gray underwear the academy had provided them herself, but the Alu’kan girl was actually trembling. “Maybe we can ask for an exception,” Vee said. She was standing at the front of their little group of three, while Cassie brought up the back, so that Rain was sandwiched between them. “We’ve already seen how much they care about making exceptions for anyone,” Cassie grumbled. She was still nursing a grudge over the fact that Cadet Lynstan-Hanigata had flat out refused to even consider moving the LeShaii, C'rise, to a different room. To be fair, the psycher had been just as upset, if for her own reasons. “The Alu’kan’s thoughts are like spikes driven through my eyes,” C’rise had railed, without much apparent concern for how the girl in question might feel. “You can’t expect me to sleep, or study, or live with a mind like hers!” It had all seemed rather hysterical, Cassie thought. Her own reasoning, on the other hand, had been utterly practical, and not based on her own personal feelings at all. “As a member of the Imperial Family, I have security clearances and access to sensitive information that she isn’t cleared for,” Cassie had explained. “It’s my responsibility to safeguard that information. I could be legally culpable if it is leaked. And I have no way of knowing what a psycher is pulling from my mind.” And yet, faced with both entreaties, the RA had done little more than roll her eyes—while petting Flopsy with one hand. “You can try to go above my head to the commandant,” Karisa Lynstan-Hanigata had said, while they all stood in front of her in her room. Her single occupancy RA room, where she didn’t have to put up with anyone sharing her space at all, except for a shadow-rabbit. “But I can already tell you what Captain Marlowe is going to say,” the older woman had continued. “It’s going to be the same thing she says to everyone who thinks they’ve got some special reason they need to change roommates. ‘Personal conflicts are your responsibility to work out. As a part of fleet, you need to be able to work and live with anyone you are assigned to. Figure it out.’ And then she’ll issue you demerits for wasting her time.” Which was utter junk, because Cassie was willing to bet that neither the commandant, nor Karisa Lynstan-Hanigata had ever been forced to sleep in the same room as someone who could read their mind. None of which helped them convince Rain to get ready for her examinations, and none of which made Cassie feel any less angry. “I’ll snag the RA,” Vee said, leaning out of line. “She’s right over there.” The Torean girl waved her hands energetically. Unlike Cassie and the other women in line, she was bare-chested. It was a bit jarring, but Torean women weren’t mammals, and so they didn’t have breasts, or even nipples—though a few had been known to get implants, for cosmetic purposes. There really wasn’t any reason for her to wear anything, and she certainly didn’t seem at all self conscious. “Well, if it isn’t the three musketeers again,” Karisa Lynstan-Hanigata grumbled, making her way over. “Where’s D’Artagnon?” Her shadow-rabbit hopped along at her feet, its nose bent to occasionally snuffle along the ground. “Rain isn’t comfortable undressing until she’s in private,” Cassie explained. Cadet Lynstan-Hanigata looked over the Alu’kan girl, and sighed. “Cadet Makani, I understand why you’d have a hard time with this, but you need to get over it right now. There’s a reason we do this. Your body is imperial property as of the moment you stepped onto this campus, and we will do with it what the Emperor demands. Part of that is breaking you of whatever body-image hang-ups or self-consciousness you have. You don’t get to wait for a female doctor when your leg gets torn off by a bad ejection seat launch. No one cares wha