CHAPTER 18 LEE
“ON THREE?” Kat asked Lee later that evening.
They sat at opposite ends of his bed with their feet facing each other, their unopened Placement applications hovering above the holoblocks between them, taunting them with its inevitable pull.
His racing heartbeat pulsed in his ears as Lee sucked in a tight breath. It was now or never… “Let’s do this.”
Locking eyes with Kat’s to ensure they were in sync, he tapped into the message on his holoblock and read off the first line:
“Dear Leland Waters—”
“Dear Kat Hanneman—”
On behalf of the Academy and the Allies of the Mangorian Galaxy, we invite you to apply for Placement within our Raider Program.
Your responses, along with your rankings and accomplishments during your time at the Academy, will be taken into account and evaluated for the purpose of reserving your place at your preferred posts.
All applications must be completed within the timeframe as outlined below to be considered for this year’s Raider Placements.
Please see the recommended posts and availabilities below.
Sincerely, Commander Yvette Blanche.
Lee released another too-tight breath, his eyes going wide as he took in the pages and pages of available posts along with each of their lengthy descriptions and qualifications.
Not that they needed all of the pages. He and Kat had talked about one post, and one post alone, for years.
Sector XVII Raider.
The Sector XVII Raiders roamed the outer reaches of their galaxy with a focus on the exploration of the unknown. Their governing territory? Boundless. And accepting a Placement in Sector XVII would take them as far away from here as they could get.
The position title seared across the page. His prospective future was so tangible, he could already feel its burn under his fingertips, just a tap away.
It was a coveted position with limited availability.
Placement at one of its posts went only to the top graduating cadets each year.
Of course, he and Kat had known this and had been tailoring their Academy experience just so to ensure there would be no issue of plausibility or eligibility when the time came for application.
Request for Co-Raider Placement: (Note both applicants must qualify for Placement post in order to apply.)
He could already picture her name curled around the adjacent line in a messy scrawl, the letters as vivid as any on the page. It had been inked there alongside his from the very beginning.
As he stared at the empty application, more nicknames from their past raids glittered across the expanse of his mind, as if stolen from time itself:
Slinking Monster Defense.
Toroidal Belt Flat-liners.
Defenders of Quadrant III.
Emotion tremored along his jaw. Elation. Excitement. Fear. Uncertainty.
Had all of that really been last term?
Kat’s vanilla-blonde ponytail glowed in the bright lights of her holoblock opposite him, her pert face drawn as she processed the same words on the screen.
He didn’t know why he’d just assumed it would be all easy and uphill after this.
Here it was, right in front of them. The moment they’d been working their entire Academy careers towards.
And he could picture it. Void, he could picture it as vividly as he could Kat’s name next to his.
They’d have their own ship to command as they saw fit, zipping about the galaxy on a whim in between assignments, the missions theirs to interpret, with Kat at the pilot-seat and him hers to command.
The speed. The rush. The danger. And only the Commanding General to answer to…
And that’s where the mental picture froze and the dream went dark, his blood running cold.
He blinked, and the image in his head warped, strobing blue-green and then violet before fading to a set of piercing, coal-black eyes—the General’s eyes—staring back at him.
The hairs on his arms stood up, a chill creeping through his dorm.
They’d be at General Narron’s beck and call, at his service.
Like all of their missions once they left the Academy, raider assignments came down directly from the Commanding General himself.
They’d belong to the AMG—to the General.
And AMG Raiders didn’t question their assignments or the authority behind them.
They didn’t question loyalty or agendas; raiders did as they were told when they were told.
He rubbed his palms together to ward off the chill from before. He took in the warm overhead lights and Kat sitting here with him on his bed.
“We don’t have to complete everything right now,” Lee ground out, the waver in his voice betraying his attempt at nonchalance as he closed out his holoblock.
“This was a good first step,” Kat agreed, hastily closing out her own holoblock, her hands shaking as she clasped them together. She cast her eyes elsewhere about the walls of his dorm, so Lee did the same.
Like he’d told Kat before, they still had time to come to terms with serving the General. They had weeks to complete their actual applications and get them into the Commander’s hands. He could return to this another day.
Climbing over his comforter to reach the window bay, Kat picked up Lee’s mini-action hero figurine, redirecting him and his blaster out the window instead. “I feel like he’s judging me.”
Lee huffed a laugh, especially when she got sidetracked scoping out the aloe next to it. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she’d recently taken an interest in potted plants.
“You’re doing well with the star flower, you know that?”
She angled her gaze towards him, a haughty expression on her face that read only too clearly, of course I’m doing well.
Lee laughed softly again as he traced that arrogance with his gaze across stubborn cheekbones, gently lit against the starlight’s gleam. He traced the arch of her neck, graceful and flowing, down to the flat of her stomach, his mouth going dry as he took in the shape of her hips.
“So, what do you want to do instead?” Kat asked, peering up at him with too heavy eyelids. She batted her eyelashes almost subconsciously, and his eyes dipped down to her lips.
“We really ought to get out more,” he murmured as she rolled her tongue along her lower lip.
His holoblock actually toppled to the floor as he rose up to meet her.
They crashed into his blankets in a bedlam of teeth and tongues as he begged the universe to take a step back and leave them alone. Her body melded into his as he pleaded for some small insight that would make him okay with this darkness looming over them.
And still he held her tighter. Because this future they faced?
It scared him. It scared the shit out of him.
But this was the future where they ended up together.
This was the one where their plans aligned, and where he got to be with Kat.
And he could do it—he would do it for her, no matter what beliefs he had to compromise or set aside along the way. He would stay the course.
For her.
Always for her.
It was half-past-one before he finally walked Kat back to her dorm. They had early trainings in the morning, and although she’d never admit this to him, he had a feeling she wanted to check on her plant.
He was on his way back to his room, savoring the cool temperature of the hallway on his flushed skin, when he ran into Zane.
Lee hadn’t expected to see another face at this hour. He cleared his throat, and Zane looked up in surprise. His hair was wet, his eyes clouded.
“Good evening,” Lee said stiffly, dipping his chin.
Zane’s eyes flickered in the lowlights as he nodded back, and they fell into a stride together.
“You’re up late,” Zane said, his voice low so that it carried no more than a couple breaths ahead of them. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
“Wouldn’t know. I haven’t tried, I’ve been with Kat all night,” Lee said, savoring the boasting moment.
To his even greater enjoyment, Zane laughed. A dark chuckle, rumbling along with them. “You sly dog.”
They cleared a stretch between lowlights, the beams like hazy cones against the grates.
“How’s your dad taking the news with Placement?” Lee asked.
“He hasn’t seen it yet,” Zane said after a moment. “Mom says he’s been away a lot. They’ve been keeping him real busy with the new job.”
Busy. “You don’t know what they have him doing now, do you?”
“Outside of his fancy titles? I never ask. Why?”
“No reason,” Lee said quickly.
Zane glanced over at him sidelong. Tonight the silence was loaded, but he let it drop.
“Have a good night,” Lee said when they reached his dorm. Zane continued down the darkened hallway towards his own room.
Lee couldn’t sleep, though. Not with the gears churning in his head and the stress of the oncoming decision ahead of him.
Scooping up his holoblock from the floor, he sat back down at the head of his bed, stretching his legs out before him. Call it idle curiosity, call it intrigue. “What is it exactly that you do for the General, now, Colonel Accetta?”
It didn’t take him long to locate Zane’s father, and Lee understood why. Colonel Valien Accetta had only this past fortnight been appointed to run AAIR. The newly created Audit Authority for the Investigation of Research-fund distribution under the Intergalactic Trade and Security Administration.
They weren’t kidding when they’d said Zane had grown up in his dad’s military shadow. The guy didn’t just serve the General. He now led General Narron’s hottest division.
It made so much sense. The pressure. The unwanted spotlights.
And for Colonel Accetta’s own son to be involved with one of the very illegal energy experiments the trade administration worked hard to shut down…
With Placement hitting them, he imagined it was going to be a tough few weeks for Zane until this all died down.
But auditing… “Why do they have you away from home so much, Colonel?”
Lee searched for answers until he’d worn out the pipeline. But the division was so new the jurisdiction was vague at best. And there seemed to be about as few limitations to govern them.
As his eyes glazed over and he let his holoblock slip, he found himself once more pondering after General Narron, instead.