COMPETE: The Atlantis Grail (Book Two) - Preview

CHAPTER TEN (draft)

CHAPTER TEN

We finish eating eventually, Blayne gets back on his board, and we escape the Officers Meal Hall without seeing anyone else familiar. Blayne tells me he is beat, and then flies off to his Cadet Deck for a supposed nap. Knowing Blayne, I bet he'll just go to read his ebooks until lights out, hiding somewhere in a corner of his barracks, maybe lying on his bunk. He'd told me at one point, when we were still back on Earth during Qualification, that he prefers the really old-school text-and-image ebooks, not the Holo-Stories or 3Dbooks, and he's downloaded enough ebooks reading material onto his tablet to last him ten lifetimes. Lucky guy!

I head back to my own cabin. Suddenly I am exhausted too. It's as if the weight of the strange day has come crashing down on me. It is not even 7:00 PM, and I definitely need to get some rest before my 8:00 PM secret voice training class with Command Pilot Aeson Kassiopei.

I turn down into the corridor on Command Deck Four and walk the length of it, staring at the Atlantean numerals on each door until I get to cabin #28.

As soon as I enter my room, the sensor lights go on. Then a small beep comes from the wall over the table with the built-in computer display console area.

I turn toward it, and the screen lights up. The system tells me there's a video phone message from Laronda Aimes. The time stamp says she called about twenty minutes ago.

Laronda! OMG! She made it! Yes! Laronda made it!

I plop on the chair with excitement and call up the vid-phone message.

There's loud noise in the background, and then Laronda's familiar grin and short relaxed bob-hair with its blond streak highlights falling over her forehead fills up the screen, and she practically yells into the camera. "Gwen! Gwen Lark! Hey, girlfriend! It's me! Me, moi! Where are you, Shoelace Girl? Hanging out with your fancy-pants Command Pilot? Call me! I'm in my Barracks, baby! Ark-Ship 809, Cadet Deck Four!" And she points to the Cadet star button on her chest with her nails, freshly painted dark red and sleek-looking against her dark brown skin, and sticks her tongue out at me. Then the picture fades out.

Oh my lord, I think, Laronda is a Cadet! How in the world did that happen?

I immediately activate the callback function, and then wait as the ship-to-ship system tries to access her direct line.

Five seconds later, the screen comes back on again, and there's Laronda, this time live. At once, both and she and I scream and squeal and make kissy-faces at each other.

"Oh wow, you are a Cadet, you crazy, cray cray craaazy!" I exclaim.

"I know!" Laronda again points to her Cadet star insignia. "I figured, what have I got to lose? And as a Cadet I'll get better opportunities and probably more dough eventually—or whatever they use for currency."

And then she opens her eyes wide at me, and points at my own chest with only an ID token. "And you! What is this? What are you? Civilian? No way! I was so sure you went military too, what with the Imperial Command Ship assignment—"

"I'm neither, actually." And then I tell her the whole story.

"An Aide to the CCO? Holy crap! What is that?" Laronda shakes her head. "And your Phoebos guy, the CP—oh my gawd!" she suddenly screams. "He's a prince! A goddamn Imperial Crown Prince! What the Eff, Girl? How did that happen? Did you know? That he's a prince? Kass is Kassiopei? Oh. My. Gawd!"

"I know!" I chuckle and snort.

"So—how is he? Any different? All 'princey' and full of himself?"