Lui pulled her hand away from Angel a second later.
She turned around in a completely no-nonsense manner, without the slightest hesitation. She pulled open the door, and—to Angel or to herself, she didn’t know—said, “Let’s go.”
The frigid handle sapped the warmth from her palm. Lui twisted the knob, but it didn’t budge.
She’d almost forgotten that the door was operated via the control panel. There was no way to open it from the inside.
Lui was met with Angel’s schadenfreude smile when she turned her head.
“What do you think?”
Angel’s voice was a tad hoarse. Considering that she hadn’t eaten breakfast or had a sip of water this morning, as well as the chilling breeze, it would have been weirder if she hadn’t had a rasp in her voice.
But Lui couldn’t help but feel that her voice sounded like the brush of sand against barefeet. As white waves crested on turquoise waters of the sea beside her, the undulating roar of the waves could not drown out the sand shifting against her insteps. From the tips of toes up to her heart, she shivered, feeling an itching sensation in her chest.
Click.
Lui’s life was spared by the timely opening of the door.
She strode out of the cramped room, feeling that an additional second with Angel was another spent on the rack.
Old Wang was not outside.
But this didn’t hinder Lui from finding the exit of a single-cabin vessel.
Angel padded along behind her to the ship’s door. In the time they spent getting to the exit, the door had already been opened, revealing a long pathway outside.
Old Wang was standing by the door. He whistled at them then jabbed a thumb towards the pathway, saying perfunctorily, “Follow this path, someone’ll be there to pick you up. Good luck.”
Then he proceeded to herd them out of the ship like geese.
The steps were quite steep. Angel had her eyes glued on Lui’s pin-straight back and couldn’t see clearly, so she almost rolled down the steps.
…In the end, Lui snagged the other by the collar and carried her down the steps expressionlessly.
The route this time was far shorter than the one they’d taken to get to the ship.
Shortly after putting Angel down, Lui caught sight of two ‘soldiers’ in khaki ‘uniforms’ on door guard duty.
Lui subconsciously furrowed her brow.
Khaki uniforms were not in standard use nowadays. Most warfare was fought in space mechs, so the majority of uniforms were black and white.
Even while fighting on-planet…this type of camouflage only suited a portion of the known planets.
Khaki uniforms were only picked by a small section of the marine corps…and with the visible threads, Lui knew that these could only have been imitations created by civilian military enthusiasts for wholesale retail.
Or, to put it another way—
“Trash.”
Angel chipped in from behind her.
Lui had never agreed more with Angel than she did now.
The uniforms were too big, their postures non-standard, their breathing too rapid—although they’d done their damnedest to mimic the proper military, both of their entire beings oozed civilian militia knock-off.
Against the real-deal, a proper soldier like Lui, the contrast was even starker.
A growing pressure bore down on them with every regulation-compliant stride.
The other party was evidently not expecting them to behave like this. They both were stunned for a moment before finding their voices again. The one on the left, a tall and skinny man, stood up and forced a solemn expression, “Newcomers follow me. I’ll take you to see the commandant.”
Commandant?
This was an academy?
Lui observed the building, her manner poised.
It looked like a project from Cold War Soviet Russia.
Square, austere structures constructed of bare reinforced concrete, entirely in gray-scale. Not even the latest polymeric materials were used—not an ounce of beauty to be seen.
Everything seemed to have been built for utilitarian purposes, utterly irreconcilable to human character.
Even the detainment facility Lui had been imprisoned in before had more humanity than this place.
The layout was far more straightforward than the transfer station’s.
By the time Lui had counted three corners in her head they arrived at a door.
The young man leading the way seems to be rather nervous. Lui could clearly see his elevated pulse, his trembling legs, his clenched fists, the cold sweat dripping from his forehead, the trepidation seeping out of each of his pores.
“Hey!”
Angel suddenly scampered up to the young man and, doing her utmost to play the part of a curious child, whispered into his ear, “Is there a monster inside?”
“Shut up!”
The young man reflexively gave her a fierce look, “Don’t talk!”
Lui didn’t know why, but she hauled her away from the man, dissatisfied. She said in a low voice, “Quiet down.”
“Oh, you’re jealous!” Angel cooed, like she’d discovered a new world.
“Shut up!”
Lui and the young man shouted in unison, clenching their teeth in vexation.
Tap, tap, tap.
The young man knocked on the door in front of him, his legs shaking even more.
“Enter.”
Against her expectations, the voice was even and genial, belonging to a middle-aged man.
Lui was not one to dwell on the past, but the memory of her debriefing with the commander following her secret mission and subsequent exile was still fresh in her mind.
How similar set of circumstances this was!
She followed the young man and Angel into the room in a single-file line and scanned the room’s furnishings—a most normal office space.
But in the craftsmanship and materials—even the person sitting in the chair himself—lay a vast world of difference.
Sitting behind the desk was a man getting a bit up there in years, around forty or fifty years old. His hair was dyed black like a young man and he wore a pair of small, round-frame glasses, lending his square face an understated cheer.
His hair was brushed back and gathered up into a short ponytail at the back of his head, about the length of a thumb. He wore a knee-length white doctor’s coat—even after so many years, medical personnel and researchers alike still kept the ‘tradition’ alive.
“Commandant.” The young man performed a military salute which, to Lui’s eyes, was riddled with mistakes, “I’ve brought the newcomers.”
“Okay, thank you.”
The commandant’s gaze oscillated between Angel and Lui. He had crow’s feet and looked remarkably kind.
He was holding a finger-length screen in his hand. He glanced down, then looked up at Angel, “Looks like we’ve got one here outside of regular procedure…”
Angel put on a smile she thought was quite cute.
This expression of hers may have been handy when dealing with other people, but when facing the commandant, a ‘smiling tiger’ of similar ilk, it appeared all the more disingenuous.
“My name’s Qi Yong. I’m in charge of the academy here. You can call me Commandant Qi or Headmaster Qi, either one.”
He introduced himself and, without waiting for their response, squinted his eyes to look at the material displayed on the screen, “…Hm, our ‘accidental’ guest. An Ran, right?”
This was the information Old Wang was responsible for gathering when Angel landed, transmitted via the internal communications network to Qi Yong previously.
“…Encountered turbulence at the transfer point…I’m very sorry for what happened to you.” Qi Yong nodded slightly and pushed back his glasses, “I can see that you want to leave here as soon as possible.”
Angel kept mum.
If it had been enough for him to let her go, he wouldn’t have had his current bearing.
“I apologize, but…”
Sure enough.
“This is a top-secret location. Unless one has passed an internal ideological evaluation, leaving would not easily be permitted.”
Qi Yong’s tone did not contain a trace of regret.
“Ideological…evaluation?” Angel tilted her head.
She’d never heard of such a thing.
“It’s similar to our final exam. So…An Ran, I’m very sorry, but you don’t have any other option but to join our program.”
Qi Yong said, his voice carrying a bit of pity, “Raj, bring this newcomer down to take the entrance benchmark test. I want to have a chat with this…Miss Lui.”
There were too many unfamiliar terms. Angel did not dare to act recklessly at this moment, so she could only go with the flow and follow that young man named Raj out of the room, weighing whether or not she’d be able to get some information out of him.
The door closed swiftly behind them.
Lui clicked her heels together and saluted properly, “Soldier E49749, under orders to accept assignment from the commanding officer. Please instruct!”
Qi Yong stretched out a hand and gestured to Lui, indicating that she didn’t need to be so reserved. He tapped a button on the screen, Lui’s information appearing on the white wall beside them, “I’d always wanted a dispatch of regular soldiers, but was always rejected. Unexpectedly, there’s someone sent my way this time…even though it’s only one person, that’s better than nothing, isn’t it.”
“But I’m curious. Why were you sent here, then?” Qi Yong pushed his glasses back, “From what I can tell, the government places great importance on graduates of the military academy. They couldn’t even bear to send some to me.”
Lui was silent.
The reason was too complicated, the involved factors too numerous. She had no way of explaining at the moment.
“But that’s fine, I’m not a very curious person.” Qi Yong smiled openly. To be honest, he did not carry any of the temperament of a high-level professional. He seemed more like an ordinary civilian, “Since you’re here, be sure to remember our most important principle. That is, no questions are welcome here—got it?”
“Understood!”
“Ah…The regular army is indeed different from what we have here.” Qi Yong shrugged his shoulders. He rummaged through the drawer, pulling out a stack of assorted, disorderly materials, before at last finding a duty roster, “You’ve just arrived, so there’s a lot that you don’t know. First, report to the lowest rank instructor and have them show you around. We’ll speak again later.”
As Qi Yong spoke, he pressed the communications button on his desk, preparing to call someone over to show her the way.
“…Headmaster Qi!”
Lui subconsciously abandoned the idea of using the address of ‘commandant’. In the minds of every military academy student, ‘commandant’ could only refer to one person and one person only.
“On my journey here, the hidden star map indicated that this place was called ‘Planet No.13,’ but this detached, numerical form of naming has been abandoned since the establishment of the Federation. I wish to ask…what is this place, exactly?’
This matter has been weighing on Lui’s mind since she arrived.
She would receive basic instructions for even top-secret missions, but this time she had received nothing.
Lui was entirely ill-at-ease by this missing information.
The commander had dispatched her here without any explanation. ‘Planet No.13’ seemed to have a particular existence under the law, and if she asked someone else about it, she’d wager that they would deny all knowledge too. Lui instinctively wanted to gather all of the intel she could.
…There was also that faintest itch of curiosity within her since the onset of her ‘illness.’
“I think I know why you’ve been set here, now.” Qi Yong read the final line in her file at that moment. He repeated it aloud verbatim, “Challenged a superior officer’s order to their face…That’s quite the taboo to break.”
No, she hadn’t.
She’d just suddenly…asked.
In other words, she’d questioned.
She’d never thought to disobey.
“Have you forgotten our iron rule so quickly?” Qi Yong hardened his tone and stared at Lui, his smile only skin deep. He repeated, “First, no questions are welcome here—that means none.”
“Looks like they did not send you here to be an instructor.”
Qi Yong closed the file with a crisp pah, “They sent you here to become a cadet.”