49. Scandal

Academy Hill, Vidako

Imperium Stellarum

December 20, 2847

When Arc pulled his suitcase out of the elevator and wheeled it into the foyer of Tycho Hall, he found that Cassie and Jessica Morrow were already there waiting. Like him, Cassie was wearing her cadet’s uniform, but Jessica had changed into the black of an imperial guard. The building itself felt strangely empty; Arc knew that students had been leaving throughout the morning as they finished their exams, but he hadn’t really been confronted by the fact until just that moment.

“Ready,” Arc said, as he approached them. “Is the car here yet?”

“Just outside,” Jessica answered. “I’d like the two of you to wait in here while I check it over. Shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.” Without waiting for a response, she ducked out through the door, leaving Arc and Cassie to watch over three suitcases between them.

“It’s disorienting how quickly she changes roles,” Arc said, keeping his voice low. He supposed there might be someone in the dining hall who could overhear them.

“There’s a pretty clear line,” Cassie explained. “As long as we’re here on campus, she’ll stay out of sight and do what every other cadet is doing. She’ll match my qualifications, and then she’ll follow me on my first tour of duty. Otherwise, she’ll try to stay out of our way.”

Except for when she makes her presence inconveniently known, Arc complained to himself. “But now that we’re leaving campus, you turn back into a princess, and she turns back into an imperial guard.”

Cassie nodded. “Exactly. And that means she checks the car for bombs or bugs. It means when we get to the spaceport she works with security to keep the media back. All of that.” She looked down at the floor for a moment, and then stepped closer to him, reached down, and took his hand in hers. “Can you be alright with this?” she asked, quietly. “This is my life.”

“It still feels pretty strange,” Arc admitted, but he pulled her closer, until he could put his arms around her waist. “I’ve got a video file from my parents waiting. I haven’t watched it yet. I’m a little afraid to.”

“Yeah, the news must have got as far as Zurah by now,” Cassie agreed, leaning her head forward so that it was the easiest thing in the world for him to gently press his lips against her forehead. “We can watch it together, if you want. I’ve, um, I’ve got one from my parents, too.”

“I hope they’re not too angry you didn’t go home.” That was the last thing Arc needed, the emperor angry at him, personally.

The door swung open, and Jessica stepped back in. Her eyes flicked over the two of them, the way they stood there together, and when she looked at Arc, he felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over his head.

“The car’s clean,” she said. “Let’s get the two of you moving.”

There was a uniformed chauffeur waiting outside, next to the grav-car’s popped trunk, and he wrestled each suitcase in turn into place, packing them like an engineer. Then, to Arc’s surprise, he stepped aside so that Jessica could get into the driver’s seat. Cassie didn’t react at all, so after she slid into the backseat, he followed her. A moment later, the grav-car rose, hovered perhaps two feet off the ground, and set off slowly through the campus toward the city.

“We’re just leaving him there?” Arc asked, glancing out the tinted windows. He was certain that every piece of the car was armored.

“He isn’t cleared to drive the princess,” Jessica called back. “The car’s computers do most of the work anyway, but there’s always an emergency manual override, and that’s a point of vulnerability.”

Arc nodded, and settled back into the cushions of the bench-seat. “Pika left earlier this morning,” he told Cassie.

“Rain and Vee, too,” she confirmed. “Did you know Pika invited her to Stellar Abyss?”

“I didn’t.” Arc sighed. “It tracks, though.”

“Oh?” Cassie looked sideways at him and raised her eyebrows.

“He said something when we spent the day in The Valley,” Arc explained. He didn’t think it was actually a secret from her that he’d been shopping for a present, but as long as she was willing to pretend that she didn’t know, he’d do the same. “I think he likes her.”

Cassie let out a long, low whistle. “I don’t envy him,” she said. “Not that I don’t like Rain—she’s my friend. But she’s been through a lot. I don’t think any relationship she has is going to be simple, and I’m not certain Pika really understands what he’d be getting into.”

“Trauma wrecks marriages,” Jessica called back from the front. “Sure, people say they’ll be there, no matter what happens. But once you actually get in it—most partners can’t take that.”

Arc almost asked whether she knew that from personal experience, but thought better of the idea. “If she didn’t go with Pika, where’d she head to?”

“She’s spending the break with Senator Catalina,” Cassie explained. “I get the impression that Dorotea’s become something like a mother-figure.”

“Is that a problem?” Arc asked. “I never really paid attention to politics before meeting you.”

“Dorotea Catalina?” Cassie shook her head. “No. I mean, she’s not exactly an imperial family loyalist, but there’s nothing she wants that we object to. She does good work. She’s saved a lot of women and children from some pretty horrible conditions. There’s plenty of senators that Rain could have connections to that would be a lot worse for us.”

“Speaking of,” Jessica said, from the front of the car. “You should be aware that Fletcher Radecki managed to get himself in front of a few cameras on his way off-world. The footage is circulating all around the planetary net, and with so many ships leaving over the next day or two, you can expect it to spread through the imperium pretty quickly.”

Cassie winced. “Do I even want to watch it?” she asked.

“You should. Both of you should, before we get to the spaceport,” Jessica continued. “There are bound to be questions.”

Arc reached into the pocket of his tunic, pulled out his tablet, unfolded it, and searched for Radecki’s name. A dozen hits came up immediately, still images of Radecki with a microphone in front of him. The headlines were all similar: Duel of Honor for Imperial Princess’s Hand, or Senator’s Son Fights for Princess Cascada.

“What is this horseshit,” he grumbled, clicking on the top video and tilting the tablet so that Cassie could see as well.

“—of course, if he’d simply offered an apology, I would have accepted,” Radecki was saying, and Arc felt the immediate and strong urge to punch the man in his face. “But once the honor of my family had been insulted, I didn’t have a choice.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Particularly as the son of a senator, I imagine,” a woman’s voice broke in, and the camera pulled back to show the very attractive, very polished media-type holding the microphone. “And this entire thing is over Princess Imperial Cascada Sabran-Solaris?”

“I’m not here to comment on any private relationship with Her Imperial Highness,” Radecki said, shaking his head.

“But there is a relationship?” the woman insisted.

“No comment, and my ship is nearly ready to depart,” Radecki said, turning away from the camera.

Once he’d left the frame, the view centered on the woman who now held a microphone in front of her own chin. “There you have it. The Emperor’s youngest child is, apparently, all grown up and already embroiled in the kind of passionate trysts that we usually only see in a holo-drama,” she said, with a smile that reminded Arc of a predator. “Two young officers will fight a duel on, we’re told, the artificial moon of Chel, over the honor of her affections. One wonders whether the imperial family or Senator Radecki’s office will make an official comment, but –”

Cassie stabbed her finger at the screen to stop the video. “Fuck! That slimy son of a bitch! I can’t believe he—he’s trying to make it look like I—fuck!”

“I don’t get it,” Arc said, as he scanned through the comments posted under the video. “I don’t understand what he gets out of all this. He’s already risking his life, but there’s no way you’re going to have anything to do with him. Anyone who actually knows what’s happening is going to know that he’s lying.”