33. Palacio de las Orquídeas

New Toledo, Vidako

Imperium Stellarum
October 4, 2847

To Arc’s surprise, they were not the only grav-car to arrive at the duke’s palace—though they were the only guests to be escorted onto the property by two mechs and a convoy of military vehicles. Once they’d passed the gates leading onto the grounds of the estate, he saw that a veritable parade of elegantly shaped, subtly armored transports crept forward, one by one, to deposit each glittering and glamorous cargo upon the steps of the duke’s home.

The palace itself—or at least the facade—was constructed of boldly veined white marble, carved into a series of abstract, geometric patterns. A row of pillars extended out from either side of the top of the marble steps, supporting a gracefully arched walkway along the outside wall. There were black leaved, potted plants set among the arches, and Arc imagined that, when both of Vidako’s suns were high in the sky, the entire affair would provide a shaded place to stroll among the flowers.

Now, in the dark of evening, light spilled out from the portal which led into the palace itself. More of the duke’s guards waited at the top and bottom of the steps, and at the entrance into the building, though they were overshadowed by the imposing presence of two additional mechs, placed to either side of the marble steps. There was hardly room for the line of grav-cars to squeeze past their enormous feet, but the mechs showed no sign of moving.

“Another Tagma,” Cassie remarked, leaning forward to crane her neck against the tinted window of the car. The motion exposed her bare back, and Arc had the sudden urge to run his fingers along the delicate line of her spine. By the time he tore his eyes away, Jessica was glaring at him.

“And a Mangonel, it looks like,” Arc said, after clearing his throat. He decided that he would simply ignore the bodyguard unless she said something to him. “That gives him a full squad. Do you think he has more in a hangar somewhere?”

“I doubt it,” Cassie scoffed, shaking her head. “He’s already fielding obsolete mechs. That tells me this is the best he could get his hands on. If he had something better, it would be out here to put on a show and impress all of the guests.”

“Huh.” Arc couldn’t help doing math. “There’s just under two hundred pilot candidates at the academy, and so far as I understand the commandant’s got enough mechs to put every one one of those pilots in the field, if she needed to. That makes the academy far and away the most powerful ground force in this system, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine he likes that, either, on top of the whole space-elevator thing.”

One-hundred and ninety four, Iceni broke in, helpfully. Though of course your class couldn’t be considered ready for the field yet, reducing the number somewhat.

“One-hundred and -” Cassie broke off. “They both said it at the same time, didn’t they?”

Arc couldn’t help but laugh. For a moment, it distracted him from the motion of their grav-car slowly drifting forward toward the steps, and the line of guests entering the palace. “She did, yes. But the point stands—the commandant could casually take control of the planet, with those numbers.”

“It’s the sort of thing that makes a duke think twice about defying the emperor, isn’t it?” Cassie asked him. “While at the same time assuring him that he has our support in defending this system. Though honestly, the fact he managed to tempt four pilots away from fleet is impressive enough on its own. Anyway, Arc—we’re about there. Are you ready?”

Suddenly, as if her question had made it real, his throat felt so dry that he couldn’t swallow. Just looking up at the marble facade of the palace, lit by floodlights from the ground, was enough to drive the point home that he had no place at all among these people. Every one of them would know it the moment he left the grav-car, wouldn’t they? He might be dressed like an officer, but he wasn’t even really that yet—just a kid who’d managed to win a tournament with a few lucky moves, and who’d been just stubborn enough not to wash out as a cadet yet.

“Arc.” Cassie wrapped her fingers around his hand. They were cool and soft, and the touch of her sent sparks of electricity up his arm. “Breathe.”

He was squeezing back on her hand before he’d even realized he’d done it. With a nod, Arc closed his eyes and took one deep breath, then held it for a moment. The motion, the feel of it, brought back the memory of going to the Taaran Temple in Avataran Shahar with Teo. The monks had been making a mandala from colored sand, and at the time Arc had never seen anything like it before. He remembered breathing in the incense, hearing the chanting, and watching as each precise curve was poured out in turn. He could have sat there for the rest of the day. Sometimes, he thought he could have lived the rest of his life like that. He moved his mouth, silently shaping the syllable the monks had used that day, as he let it go. He could almost feel the vibration of the word ‘om’ as it passed over his lips. Somehow, with Cassie’s hand in his as a kind of life-raft, it helped.

“Alright,” Arc declared, opening his eyes. “I’m ready.”

“You’re certain?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Wait for me to go first,” Jessica said. “Then follow. My drones have been with us the entire way, and I don’t see any problems, but there’s going to be a lot of cameras.” Then, the imperial guard opened the car door and slipped out.

The moment that the seal between the door and the body of the car was broken, a cacophony of voices broke upon Arc and Cassie like waves on the shore. There was only a moment of waiting before Jessica signalled them over the group chat that it was safe to duck out of the car.

“You first, and then help me out,” Cassie told him.

Arc stood, as much as he could inside the car, with his back and knees bent and his cap in his left hand. He climbed out, straightening as soon as his shoes were on the pavement, and fixed the cap back on his head before turning to help Cassie out. The flash of dozens of digital cameras, from a roped off area to which the duke had apparently consigned the press, created almost a strobe effect. The moment she took his hand and climbed out of the car, the shouting began.

There was no way to avoid it as they made their way along the carpet to the steps—media personalities, every one of them genetically engineered to be thin, youthful and beautiful, stretching out microphones over the velvet rope as they called out one question after another.

“Princess Cascada, who is that escorting you this evening?” a man in a sharp suit and stylish, tinted spectacles asked.

“Cadet Fourth Class Arcturus Sandhurst,” Cassie said, taking Arc by the arm so that when she leaned in toward the microphone he had to go with her. “He’s a classmate of mine.”

“Just a classmate?” the man asked, but she was already moving forward.

“Your Imperial Highness, are you here to support Duke Montalban’s initiative for a New Toledo space elevator?” a woman with perfectly coiffed blonde hair asked. Her teeth were so white Arc couldn’t bring himself to believe they were real.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I’m here because the duke was kind enough to invite me to dinner,” Cassie said, and laughed.

A graying, but still handsome man, held out a microphone just as they were reaching the bottom step. “Princess, what do you say to the people who question the emperor’s decision to send Imperial troops, our own sons and daughters, to risk their lives defending a species who has only just joined the Imperium? Are the LeShaii taking advantage of us?”

Arc could actually feel the moment Cassie hesitated. “I’ve been here on Vidako for eight weeks,” she said. “And most of my time has been spent running and doing pushups, or marching in the jungle. If you expect me to be briefed on ongoing military maneuvers, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she said.

“I wasn’t asking for classified information,” the man insisted, before they could escape. “I was asking for your opinion.”

And this, Arc saw, was why she hated it all. What did they expect—that she was going to speak out against her own father? When she’d been forced to be here in the first place, and would have been happier staying out of sight at the academy? He had the sudden feeling—and he knew it was unjust, even as the thought came into his head—that Jessica and the rest of the imperial guards should have put as much work into protecting her from this as from an assassin. He was speaking before he could think better of it.