Secondborn

I grasp his wrist and squeeze it lightly. “Think about it fast. I don’t have much time.”

Jakes begins to nod when a rough hand falls on his shoulder and forces him back down into his seat. “Aw, this is a pretty picture.” A snub-nosed Sword cadet with a shaved head crouches between us. “Are yous having a date night or something? Is this an automated pay-to-play meetin’?” Behind us, four Tropos laugh. “I says it has to be random because no one would ever sleep with this guy on purpose.” The beefy hand of the Sword comes down hard again on Jakes’s shoulder.

The malicious man turns to me and sneers. “Look here! We have a celebrity in our midst! Tell me, Roselle”—his eyebrows come down in a thoughtful look—“do you plan to sleep with every male you meet? I hear that you and Clifton Salloway are quite the thing. What would your mother say?”

I reach up, grip the back of his bald head, and slam his forehead on the table. His head bounces and leaves a bloody indentation in the veneer. He slides to the floor and groans. I lift my fusionblade, ignite it, and swing its golden glow between me and the man on the ground’s entourage. They back away warily. I look at Jakes’s pale, strained face. “You can go now.”

He lurches to his feet, a bead of sweat dropping from his brow. Gathering his possessions, he slips away from the table and out of the dining hall. I extinguish my sword, tuck it back into my scabbard, sit, and resume eating as if nothing had happened. The groaning soldier’s friends drag him away as he holds his head. I pretend not to notice the thousand pairs of eyes fixated on me. I finish my meal and leave the hall in time to make the next appointment on my schedule.

Jump training is my first class. I suit up in lightweight combat armor and am pushed out of a simulator module that mimics the velocity of being tossed out of a troopship. The free fall to the simulated terrain is the easy part. I learn to stretch out as the air pushes against me, and the terrain detector on my suit activates, creating a force that fights gravity and slows my descent. Then I feel as if I’m being torn apart; my limbs want to keep falling while my torso is held back. The instructor screams, “Back straight and chest out!” I use every muscle available as he hollers at me to lift my head before it smashes into the ground when the gravity regulator turns off. I hit the simulated dirt hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

I’m not unhappy to strip off the armor at the end of the training session. I rub my sore neck and hurry to my next class: weapons training. I’m instructed on the parts of a rifle. I listen to the instructor with only half an ear because I already know everything he explains. He notices my inattention and calls on me. “You there. Come ’ere. You think you’re too clever for this class?”

“No, Patrøn.”

“I want you to reassemble this rifle and shoot that target there.” He pulls a timepiece from his pocket. “Go.”

I reassemble the rifle in under ten seconds and shoot the target. The shot is dead-on. An unbidden smile crosses his lips, and his eyes narrow in mirth. He turns his timepiece to show the other instructor, whose mouth shapes an O. For the rest of the session, they make me shoot at everything that moves on their simulated battlefield. A crowd forms to watch me take down simulated enemies with one-shot-one-kill accuracy, eliciting wary and envious stares from my fellow classmates.

My next class is fusionblade training. I’d like to skip this one. I’m already a pariah, my advanced training alienating me from my fellow Tropo cadets, but there’s no way of avoiding it, so I enter the training room and stretch while we await the instructor.

The instructor’s name is Chaplan. He’s Meso, two ranks above me. Tall and strong with a full beard and green eyes, he instructs us to call him “Master of Swords” or “Master” for short. He gives us an initial demonstration of his skills, and although he has a decent understanding of how to wield a fusionblade, he doesn’t strike me as someone who has mastered it.

We pair off and use modified training swords capable of leaving burns and bruises but not removing limbs. The first cadet I pair with has had next to no training. He’s not happy that I know more than he does and asks to switch partners during our first break.

I beat several cadets in mock battles, and then I’m asked to spar with Master Chaplan’s assistant, Brody. Master Chaplan stops the fight when it’s plain that I could take Brody’s head off. The Master taps in, relieving his assistant. He indicates that I should switch from my training fusionblade to my combat sword.