“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 itexactlythat 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.
CHAPTER 19: KAT
LATE MONDAY morning, Kat headed over to Mission Assignment and Briefing to meet Lee.
It was barely a week into term, and they were already getting their first raid assignment. Between this and her trainings and their Placement applications, she felt like she hadn’t had a single moment to breathe.
Not that she had made any more progress where Placement was concerned. She was very experienced, as it turned out, at dumping her uncertainties off to the wayside and letting them simmer for too long until she was sprinting anxiously up stairways and fluttering across skywalks.
She tried to convince herself that her nerves were just excitement at the prospect of going out into the field, which was better than the alternative: that she’d been subconsciously sabotaging her squadron lead role by cutting things to the last minute to fuss over her new plant instead.
She rounded the landing to find Lee leaning outside the room with his back to the wall. A sweep of his medium-brown hair tangled just above his brow. He looked much too scrumptious and put together for this early in the morning; it set her heart thumping for an entirely different reason.
“You were almost late,” he said, pushing off the wall, his green eyes glimmering as he took in her frazzled appearance. “Rough night?”
Leaping those last couple of centimeters up onto her tippy toes to bring her head even with his, she slung her arms around his neck. “I think you know what my night was like.”
Lee wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her there, smoothing the hair from her cheek. He planted a teasing kiss there before she could shove him off.
It was business time.
But she didn’t wander far. She merely allowed the crackling promise of later to take his place while she bit her lip and stared back at him. There was one way to make the nerves go away.
Nolan arrived, then, looking snootier, and if it were possible, even more wound up than usual. He lowered his hyperband as he reached them, glancing warily between her and Lee. But what did he expect, some outburst? She had nothing today. She stole a glance over at Lee as she crossed her arms over her chest, but he looked as confounded as she.
“Nothing we can help with?” Lee prompted.
“Not unless you happen to hold the secrets to the galaxy,” Nolan grumbled. And from that edge to his face, she partially believed he was serious.
But as Nolan once more glanced down at his hyperband, the planes of his face shifted, dropping back into the usual couldn’t-be-bothered disposition he favored.
“It’s time,” he murmured.
Scanning his hyperband at the door, he stepped to the side, leaving she and Lee to navigate the weirdness as they took their places in the middle of the room.
She was used to the imposing ergonomics of Mission Assignment and Briefing. The feeling, like her submission to the Commander, was the only thing holding her aloft—like theseeggshell panels would surge forward and swallow her if she slipped up. She expected it. But today, the room also felt empty and swirling with too many unknowns.
