The letter said a craft would be waiting for her in the hangar.

  For their first class, 1-Epiphyllum had been slated to do a loaded flyover of the landing zone—cursory, of course, since the Academy had a "real" escort in the form of some Imperial Navy frigates riding the Academy's jump wake. 1-E had an overwhelming majority of cadets, which explained the schedule.

  The Arrowhead mkI lacked a real windshield, at least while it was underway. After you strapped into the Z-cradle through a glass cupola in the front, it would retract deep into the armored belly of the craft, the blue of the sky wired in through cameras. It was several times the size of a Rehoboam, but just as responsive as Io tipped it into the thick atmosphere of the planet Tyumen.

  She gained altitude and joined a 'V' of Arrowheads cutting a cat-scratch of contrails above the Academy, which had come to rest in the dusty red soil on gracile legs. She observed a cluster of flat buildings not far from the landing site, their flumes white with the smoke of habitation. The Imperial Navy escort was a pair of gold spindles hovering a few kilometers away.

  Suddenly, the radar detector beeped. Her blood pressure rose immediately. Someone in the back had turned off their IFF.

  Io held the yoke steady. Her stomach turned when she recalled her encounter with Diane and how that nearly killed her. Looking over her shoulder she saw the offending Arrowhead flying level and tucking into her wake, matching speeds. Eventually it might abandon the idea, and say 'my mistake,' and flip back to green.

  That might've been ruder, though.

  Io banked into a dive and the other one followed suit. She led it through a series of tight banks that she could hear the heavy spaceframe struggling to take. Left to right, left to right—a small scissor exercise. She imagined her attacker was coming close to getting a guns picture and punched the airbrakes, the straps digging into her shoulders as she lurched forward in her seat.

  The other one zoomed ahead into view. Io tipped the nose slightly and whispered into her push to talk, "Bang."

  The enemy fighter stilled its course, its contrail straightening as if stretched taut.

  "Good kata." A voice came through, a student who sounded a bit older. Her voice was muddy and distant. "My name is Nausicaa Vogel, of House Benetnasch. How long have you been flying an Arrowhead?"

  "A few hundred hours," Io lied. She hadn't much experience with it. Some cycles back, the Zeb's technician Rikka had obtained an Arrowhead through unscrupulous means, but she'd given up maintaining it within a month: too expensive to buy replacements when they could make Rehoboam parts themselves.

  "I just wanted to thank you for rescuing my classmate the other day," Nausicaa's voice filtered in. "She spoke ill of you, but I think we should get to know each other—maybe after Lin's expedition?"

  Io smiled. "If I see you."

  "Do you really think we'll install a new Emperor some day?"

  Fredda's voice sounded crushed through her rebreather as she used her Athame to bleed her finger onto a dais carved into the red rock. The halo on her head muttered some spiel about User Elevation before its searing light raced its way through a carving on the wall: a larger-than-life icon of the incumbent monarch on a throne as tall as a house, a halo behind his crowned head and broad, powerful shoulders.

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  "That's the hope," Lin said as she dithered around the dig holding a ruggedized tablet. Her eyes looked sunken despite her optimism. "We don't study the Succession because it's easy. It's like a chore you've been procrastinating—like taking the trash out after 700 years. No disrespect to His Grace."

  Fredda smirked. "His Grace hasn't looked his best lately. I guess it gets harder the longer you put it off."

  Io listened from the periphery of the expedition of 40 or so girls, her hands in the pockets of Patricia's jacket, now dried and pressed. She didn't like the way her own breath tasted in the oxygen set or how the dust got inside her boots. Most of her class had already skipped to the nearby waystation because of the buffeting cold winds.

  "This download is taking forever," Fredda groaned, rapping her tablet. "With our luck, the Feds will lynch us before the second waystation."

  "W... Well, we're at least safe in this system," Lin assured her. "Without a Benetnasch to help tune the Spine, there's no way to even reach this place."

  Suddenly, Io felt a tug on her sleeve, which she recognized at this point was a thing only shorter girls did to her. Her neck broke out in an icy sweat when she noticed it was the tiara-wearing Vineta, who even Lin seemed to lose her composure around.

  "I rather fancy your uniform, you know," the little girl said. Her voice was thin and raspy in her oxygen set, like a seashell. "It's an older Vesta style, like one my mother would've worn."

  "O-Oh?" Io wasn't quite sure she heard that right, or if Vineta was talking to someone else.

  "I do mean yourself, of course."

  Well, that settled that.

  She tugged Io's sleeve again. "Say, shall we retire to the waystation for a spot of tea? I tire of Lin; she is terribly wooden."

  "Me?" Io pointed between her collarbones.

  "I do mean yourself."

  "Oh I do love bao," Vineta said with a full mouth. The sight of her tiny lips nibbling a meat bun nearly the size of her face—Io couldn't help but feel something nurturing in her chest. It was strange, since she normally hated children, although Vineta was likely older than her: you could see the beginnings of crows' feet at the corners of her eyes.

  It was warm and dark in the waystation's cafeteria. An icon of the Emperor overlooked the wooden booth, his head framed by golden halo. Most of the customers were waystation workers in dusty coveralls, but she also spotted a few truants from 1-H whispering to each other in the dimly-lit booths, although she struggled to pick out anyone she recognized.

  Vineta had ticked an unusual black tea on the order chit. Golden Eyebrow. The ruby liquor was so rich that it was difficult to swallow, and it didn't seem to get weaker with successive steeps.

  "You know, Io. I know how you feel." Vineta held Io's hand in her cold, white fingers. "It feels like nobody really respects you. They've all been rather shite to you, haven't they?"

  The word was a very particular Vestan affectation. Io grimaced and looked away. She didn't want to be told her feelings in a dialect that so recalled Patricia's.

  "On top of that, it must be so hard being alone for the first time in your life. You lot always stick together, don't you?" Vineta curled her fists on the corners of her eyes and pretended to bawl. "It's even in your name; Harmony."

  Her father's face flashed through her mind. It hadn't even occurred to her to be homesick, but the way Vineta said it made her throat tighten.

  Io clicked her tongue. "What do you want?"

  "I just want you to know that I'm in your corner. You can tell me anything you want. Simply being here, at this Academy, is proof that your existence has worth." She smiled. "As for my dear Diane, I've told her to apologize to you in time. You needn't worry about her again."

  Io didn't even realize she'd been instinctively looking out for Diane. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She scanned the girl's eyes for anything like condescension, but her doll-like face held a precisely guarded expression. She was a gargoyle of platitude.

  "Oh, where are my manners."

  The small girl wiped her mouth and offered her hand to Io, her wrist slack like a leaf in the rain.

  "My name is Vineta Yellowknife. Please, don't be polite. Feel free to treat me like any other student."

  "What?"

  Vineta covered her mouth and giggled, her tiara twinkling under the fluorescent tubes.

  "Oh, you know what."