CHAPTER 3 KAT
PROBATION. THEY had been put on probation.
Kat squeezed her eyelids shut, tipping her head back to lean against the warm wall of one of the airshafts. The metal walls hummed with the generators around her.
Okay, it wasn’t technically probation. It was a temporary thing, much like the internal review nonsense of past weeks.
Only this time, the four of them weren’t being asked to conduct a review or run secret tests behind doors.
Bylaw stipulation simply required they be kept at the Academy and off-raid temporarily, or until all business with the General and Commanding Council surrounding their raid was sorted out.
At least, that’s what she’d come to understand from the Commander’s cheerful message that Nolan had sent them the night before.
She replayed the Commander’s message once more in her mind, like an anamorphic billboard on a loop.
With this stipulation, I would like to reiterate that I, as your Commander, and a representative for the Council, do not hold you personally accountable for the events that occurred on Mission AX27-AR. We are merely taking precautions… blah blah blah.
Of course, their additional raider clearances had also been revoked in this same stroke. Although she was pretty sure that one was permanent. The Commander had struck two birds with this stone.
It was all being written off as technicalities. Although, that’s not what it would look like on their transcripts. Or in the hallways…
She glanced down at her hyperband, the latest string in the riveting conversation between her and Lee:
Kat: Please tell me this isn’t happening.
Lee: …
She didn’t know how early she’d awoken or how long she’d been down here, letting the warm metal mold and solder the edges of her mind, until the thoughts firing torpedoes against her organs had become more of a dull ache in her gut.
A day later, and she still felt like she had as little grip on the present as before she’d gone into that debriefing.
Yes, she trusted their Commander to protect them, even if a part of her still feared they could get kicked out.
She believed they’d made the right decision in submitting the truth behind Segura’s operations.
If there was anyone who could stand up to the General, it would be her.
Commander Blanche would do what was best. She would fight for the future of a better galaxy, and as Lee had said, she knew where to find them if they were needed.
They wouldn’t exactly be going very far anytime soon.
But that didn’t stop a part of her from wondering, again, where Gaia’s crew had ended up. Or if they’d ever get a chance to finish the work they’d started with the dark rays.
And it didn’t change the fact that the General had been a real tool in there. Even if they were, as he’d said, just raider cadets.
She let her body slump back further into the metal as she stared into the polished expanse of the box around her.
Eventually, she checked her hyperband again.
The rest of the Academy would be getting out of trainings, soon, for the day.
The hallways would be flooding. It was probably as good a time as any to come up for air, lest someone actually come looking for her and discover her secret generator space.
Her therapy would do her little good if the space became a metal zoo.
Some of her spatial-awareness had returned by the time she knocked on Lee’s door with an elbow, her backpack clutched in one arm and a couple of green drinks in the other. She still felt a bit like she was floating, but maybe her feet were a little closer to the ground.
She knocked on the door a second time, managing to take a swig from one of the drinks while she waited. She’d opted for something different than her usuals, going for an interesting melon flavor.
The door slid open, and Lee popped his lazr-pods from his ears. His eyes were bright, a tuft of hair poking up by his ear. While her day had been a mush of tangled thoughts with the generators, Lee looked like he’d already had a full day. And judging by the music in his ears, he probably had.
She smiled as she pressed the second drink into his hands.
“One of those for me?” he asked with mock surprise, even as he slipped the straw up to his lips.
“Ha, ha.” Careful not to bump his drink with her bag, she edged past him.
Lee’s room smelled as it always had, of teakwood and cedar. Although, she’d swear the aloe by the window had grown since she’d last been here. Could plants grow new limbs in only a couple weeks worth of time?
And his bed…
Heat rushed her face and her hands, the air crackling and fissuring around her as she drew in a shallow breath.
They’d shared a bed at least a hundred times. She knew the feel of the sheets, and that his body ran a high kelvin during the night. And while she hadn’t been over here much since they’d been back, she was no stranger to the space.
But this wasn’t like those times. This was... They were…
The rest of her thoughts fled her as she stared helplessly over at Lee’s bed, her green juice crushed between her arms as she fed that tension back and forth in pressured squeezes while Lee brushed past her to transfer the music over to his holoblock.
He flicked past a couple of the songs until he found something he liked.
She’d barely shuffled a step or two before he turned back to face her, one of his medium-brown curls falling down over his brow.
Void help her. It was all she could do to draw in another breath. When had these rooms gotten so compact?
Lee cleared his throat. Scooping up his holoblock, he motioned with his head to the bed.
Not waiting for her to follow, he tumbled backwards, taking a spot near the headboard. The bed sagged under him as he leaned his back to the wall, adjusting the pillows to make himself comfortable.
Grinning, Kat grabbed her own holoblock and dropped her bag to the floor before crawling after him.
Tossing her ponytail over her shoulder, she stretched out her legs, letting her heels knock as she reacquainted herself with oxygen and the teakwood settling around her.
Her knees bumping comfortingly into Lee’s. She had missed this.
She drew up the holofiles on the hub to see what was there, listening to the rhythmic sounds of the guitar in the background.
They hadn’t heard anything from Zane since the meeting yesterday, but Whistler had sent a message this morning, confirming his portion of the mission report had been uploaded.
He’d also included a personal addendum regarding one of the very tempting snacks he’d identified buried in the kitchen’s stockroom. Some fancy, red bean cookie.
She flipped through Whistler’s uploads before opening up a second set.
Zane’s were there as well. “He’s being quite chill about this.
He hasn’t raised the flag of rebellion,” Kat murmured, scanning through its contents.
Quantitatively, it was a slightly more comprehensive version than what had been showcased during their debriefing with the General.
Qualitatively, there was nothing new in there.
She would expect nothing less.
As for her own complementary portion and conclusion to the report, the AMG could take it to the void for all she cared. She stood by the version they’d presented yesterday, regardless of the holes the Commanding General had drilled into their story.
The operations onboard Segura may have been imperfect, their practices unethical. But at least they’d tried something. Which was more than the rest of them could say for their galaxy.
Lee leaned over to peer down at the hologram open on her lap, chuckling softly. “When you said you wanted to finish the reports, I assumed you’d started already.”
“I had.” She read through the line she’d typed two nights ago, amid confused dreams and a sleep-muddled brain.
They are the defense.
Let everyone make of that what they would. Kat left it as is, moving down to the next section. “It’s all old news, now, anyway.”
Lee didn’t say anything as he went back to his own portion of the report.
Kat had written all but the last section before she sat back again, leaning her head against the cool wall.
She feigned stiffness and cramping to ease the shakiness that had crept into her fingers while she waited for the images in her head to subside.
The echo of sparks. The blue-green lights.
The recollections imprinted on the back of her head after last night’s round of nightmares.
She flexed her fingers, rubbing at her temples.
Closure. She supposed completing these reports was supposed to be some sort of closure after all of the events on that ship. A way to put it all behind them.
Beside her, Lee toyed with the band on his left wrist, gifted to each of them to monitor radiation onboard Segura.
“You’re still wearing that?”
“What?” Lee looked up. “Oh, this. Yeah. Guess so.” She couldn’t remember where hers had even ended up, or if she even still had it. Those first couple days back had all been a blur.
Gingerly, he peeled the dark band from his wrist in measured spirals until it rested in his open palm. She didn’t know why, but seeing it lie there limp made her sad.
Lee seemed to harbor a similar attachment. They both studied it, and then, like freeing blades of grass or wish seeds, he tossed the band lightly over towards his desk.
Adjusting his position and using his arms for support, Lee leaned forward, swiping a hand through the glowing files in front of him to close out his holoblock.
“You done?” she asked him.
“I’ll finish it later.”
Shrugging, Kat closed out her own report files, bundling both holoblocks.
The bed sunk a little deeper as Lee readjusted once more, angling his head and upper body back down onto the pillows. She scooted forward to give his legs some room, depositing the holoblocks at the base of the bed, while Lee settled into the mattress, tucking his hands up behind his head.