The scent of oil was sharp on the hangar's edge. The air shimmered over a row of mag-launchers red with the heat of scrambling an entire wing, the cool outside air swirling in like cold milk into tea. Io didn't need to be told to doff her uniform; she felt like she might topple over from the exhaustion of running here after the train stopped halfway up the Spine.

  All she could think about was the two girls she knew from the downed 1-E: Mica and Nausicaa. She hadn't had the best ending with Mica, but she could still feel her nervous green eyes in the space in front of her. And she'd understood something of Nausicaa's character just from sparring over the red sands of Tyumen. A pit opened in the bottom of Io's stomach at the idea that she might never talk to them again.

  Tallulah had wanted her to come here for help. The idea was that the solitary Zeb would court the 'real' military of the Houses to protect itself from its enemies. So what happened? Who fucked up on top?

  That was always the case. Io stepped aside as students in dayglo vests stamped past her with marshalling sticks—just following orders, making the best of a bad situation. She understood the person who'd put them in this mess to be Lin Carrageenan, but she couldn't bear to say it where Ema might hear.

  The truce between her and Diane still felt fragile.

  Ema carefully folded her sportcoat onto a crate, still hyperventilating, her face completely red from running. It seemed like she hadn't wanted to look out of shape next to Diane—the Vesta's arms crossed as she leaned on the railing, her expression dry as she waited for orders. Or was it loyalty; would the bigger girl humiliate herself for the president?

  Maybe it wasn't even the president's idea, but some foul, corrupt court intrigue Io didn't even know existed. There always was, behind every shitty idea.

  Ema turned to Io, her brow knit with concern. "You look a little pale. Are you sure you're alright to...?"

  "Yeah."

  No. Io felt like throwing up.

  It was hard to forget why she felt this way. There was a part of her that thought it would be better if she accepted that things sometimes moved behind her comprehension, behind doors she'd never know existed let alone to open.

  In fact, there was a moment, however brief, when she was very young and they'd let her inside.

  The Council of the Seven convened in the cupola at the head of the Zeb, moonlight shining through the glass. On the stand, a relative outsider—a man she'd seen hovering around the docks on occasion—gestured towards the captain of the Guard.

  "He's talking out of his ass! I've seen these mercenaries' tactics before... out there." The stranger slammed the dais. "We have to—"

  "There's no reason for you to overturn the Council on such a small matter. Isaac is our strongest warrior."

  A young Io, barely 12, clawed away from her mother and stood on the bench, her hands on her hips in her newly made white suit. She had been good and precocious and knew how to fly her Rehoboam better than any civilian.

  "Yeah," Io pointed at the man, her voice breaking. "Know your place, trader!"

  The Council broke out in laughter. But gradually, their eyes narrowed on the stranger again, until he deflated into his bench, like something plastic withering under a heatlamp.

  And so, having deflected the interloper—

  "Io, all you did was fly your orders. It wasn't your fault. We have to go!"

  Melchizedek rocked her shoulders back and forth. It was hot and flickering in the corridor and both children were sweating. The fire suppression system wouldn't hold forever.

  "I can't. I can't I can't I can't." The little girl cried so hard she wasn't breathing right. Her knees wouldn't hold her when she stood.

  And besides, there was that man from before, in the doorway in his red leather jacket.

  He met eyes with Io. He could've said 'I told you so,' but he didn't.

  His eyes were red and glassy but he hid them in his palms, and walked towards the escape pod alone. The scent of tobacco lingered in his wake.

  "Girls, thank you for coming—it is a heavy thing to risk your life for that of another. If you would only sit down."

  A barely-familiar voice snapped her back to the different, dark heat of the hangar. Io rubbed her eyes in such a way that Ema might mistake it for grogginess, and looked past her tears into the domino black-and-white of an ankle-length maid uniform. It was Akira from 1-A cradling a thick, ruggedized tablet.

  Ema's eyes suddenly lit up. She went from red and winded to smothering Akira in a cannonball hug. "Akira!" she swooned. "You're a sight for sore eyes. I was getting soooo lonely with these two sticks in the mud."

  Akira had the merest hint of a scowl as she untangled her limbs. "Ms. Ema, please sit down. I have your orders from Madam President."

  "Aww... last time you said you'd let me see your insides. What happened to that?"

  "I was merely trying to appease your vile character. I advise you unhand me, as your own parts would be bothersome to put back in your body."

  With Ema plopped on a crate like a scolded dog, Akira cleared her throat. She braced the tablet on her knee amid a motley circle of other cadets from unfamiliar houses, sitting on whatever hangar paraphernalia the engineers hadn't told them off of, including a few sour faces from 1-H.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Io wasn't alone in feeling suspicious. From the cold wire spool on which she sat, she could hear whispering all around. We're gonna die. No, this is just like slum clearing in Calcutta. Maybe half the cadets she remembered had failed to make an appearance; a calculated absence. Fucking heiresses. You and I are cannon fodder.

  Akira quickly broke down President Lin's plan over the wireframe terrain in the tablet.

  "The forward detachment will consist of the Academy's most experienced pilots and will ensure air superiority over the operational area. 1-Nightshade's Alice Specter is their C/O—and above us."

  Suddenly, something blocked out the lights, bathing the crowd in darkness.

  The shadow and groan of a ship descending the rails briefly diverted their attention overhead. It was a Satori, a smaller, flattened fighter meant as a more advanced successor to the Imperial Arrowhead, though still bulky enough to crush them all if those vibrating rails gave away. The hull was a dull black with gold filigree across its leading edges—the first appreciably customized ship Io had seen on the Academy.

  She gulped. There were tally marks. Some of them had to be for decoration, or else they were staring at a 3-digit bodycount.

  Akira's finger traced a second arrow on the tablet.

  "With the Federal interceptors occupied, a search party under 1-C's Vineta Yellowknife will fly roughly over the dig site in search of the remaining scholars, as well as any survivors from 1-E." Finally, she drew the longest red line, out over the horizon. "The collection of pilots with the least relevant combat experience—that is to say, all of yourselves—are tasked with assaulting the Federalist beam frigates."

  She's kidding. The low whisper. We're so done.

  Io herself winced at this 'least relevant experience'. But it might've been hubris to think that her own service on the Zeb was even worth considering. 'Captain' stood for nothing here.

  "The President shall be directing you personally once you are underway." Akira attempted a placid smile, but she looked neutral at best. "This has been a calculated decision on the part of President Lin to ensure that there are no further casualties. Based on imaging and identification, we expect little resistance from the frigates themselves... I trust there are no objections?"

  "Seems sensible," Ema said, sort of half-heartedly raising her hand. Her teeth were clenched ambivalently. "Apart from the part where we have to blow up those thick bastards with Arrowheads. What are we even packing?"

  Akira scanned over the group as if taking stock of everyone who'd appeared. There was an intelligence in her eyes, as if no face escaped her memory.

  "...Well, I only see two gunship pilots. We'd need one more for a kinetic attack. Lin will not be happy, but I'll tell the engineers to load the appropriate megatonnage."

  "R... Reaction warheads!" Diane shouted from the back. The way she stood at attention suggested most of the briefing had gone over her head and these had been the first words she actually recognized. She puffed up her chest and swept aside her cape. "I... I happen to be an expert on those! Leave the deployment timing to me!"

  "Of course, Diane." Akira closed her eyes nonchalantly and turned towards the exit. "I shall give you further instructions underway."

  Diane reached her hand out towards the maid. "Wait, I can—"

  "Diane Levenger! Have you no shame!" A girl's hoarse voice echoed over the hangar.

  Diane jumped when she heard someone call her name from behind. The flat whine of a electric motor took up the silence as the students watched a low shape emerge from behind the crates.

  "...Remy Meursault, House Methuselah, class 1-Heliotrope. Your final gunship pilot apologizes for her tardiness."

  A young lady in a large, swooping wheelchair cut through the crowd, her fingers tweaking a small joystick not unlike a yoke. Once in front, the girl bowed as much as she physically could, her long lavender tresses sweeping elegantly over her lap, where she was cradling a straight sword in a black scabbard.

  Io remembered seeing a disabled classmate around the dormitory, but not that particular detail. Her body still tense from seeing Ema pull a knife earlier, she couldn't help but point out the fact that this girl also had a weapon.

  "W...Why does she have a sword?"

  "Madame... A knight's blade is the instrument of his conscience and spirit. If there's anything I leave at home, it shall not be mon panache." Remy said, her pale hands closing around the hilt. "This one shall be your blade. I am all you need."

  Knight. That was not an expression Io recognized. The girl spoke in an unusual dialect, unmistakably Huang but with cluttered turns of phrase.

  "Diane Levenger!" Remy went on the attack again, steering her wheelchair in front of the anxious Vesta. "We have no choice but to deploy the gunships and take them on from close range! Or do you intend to spray radiation all over the waystation, hein?"

  "W-Well of course I considered that factor." Diane took a step back, as if fearing that Remy might run over her shoe. "But it's the most straightforward way, and so—" she glanced at the stone-faced Akira, trying to remember anything she'd said that might help her argument. "—the best way to ensure the safety of the student body. And besides, why should we place all of our trust in someone who wasn't even here for the briefing? And a Methuselah of all the scum houses?"

  It wasn't the damning word that 'Cairnbrae' was, but Remy gritted her teeth all the same. Somewhere in her eyes was a wet tinge of pain.

  Io felt her head grow hot again. She looked to the others, to see if anyone else was about to stand up for Remy. Even Ema was staring at her shoes, her arms crossed. She didn't seem like the type to pick a fight with Diane just on principle; she likely didn't know enough about the situation to argue.

  Io took a deep breath, and shuffled to her feet. She clicked her tongue.

  Alerted, Diane met her eyes for just a moment, but just as soon turned back to Remy.

  The seated girl gripped her scabbard. "Diane—"

  "Calm yourself." Diane put her hands on her hips and loomed over the disabled student, well aware that she was pushing an advantage. "There is no reason for you to overturn an Admiral's granddaughter on a sorted matter—"

  "Diane?" Io said.

  It came out louder than she'd wanted. She felt a cold sweat run down her neck as she tasted her next words on her tongue. She could feel her classmates' eyes on her back. Oh no. She's doing it again.

  "This is serious." She said it from the stomach. "I know how bad you want to play hero, but this is not one of your dipshit wargames. You need to let her talk."

  "Io, you..." Diane crossed her arms, her eyes wandering to the side. Her shoulders slumped as if injured, and her lips quivered as if holding back the words. Without her sycophants to support her, Diane looked almost... pathetic?

  Io felt a twinge of remorse at doing this, but it was necessary. The Vesta hadn't just been pulling rank, she'd been pulling nonexistent rank. If Io's background wasn't worth a damn here, neither was Diane's.

  "T... Thank you." Remy bowed again, this time rigidly as if she'd been frozen the entire time.

  She cleared her throat and began again, her voice a little shaky.

  "Madames..." she began. "If we begin a nuclear exchange above this holy site, I doubt we shall ever come back to it within our lifetimes. There will be no more Succession studies, and one hundred more years of a dead king. Even if we should survive, there will be no honor in doing so."

  She thumped her chest, still seated.

  "Railguns are the standard for urban combat, but they actually do better in open theaters like this one. We'll have to get a little close, but I think we can manage." She smiled. "All in favor, say..."

  There were a couple of half-hearted 'aye's. But more importantly, she looked around and found that her opponent Diane had vanished during the little speech. Remy put her hands on her hips and beamed victoriously from her chair.

  Io felt a chill run down her spine. That was the first time she'd Diane enter or leave without making a deal out of it. What had she done?

  Before anyone realized it, Ema appeared conscientiously behind Remy's wheelchair. "Do you need any help, Remy? You sure you can get in your gunship by yourself?"

  "Do you think I was joking, hein? Espèce de chien."

  She didn't understand Remy's dialect, but understood it to be an epithet.