“We were told to come directly here!” Hasmik says with wonder, patting my sleeve. “I did not know this Palace was so big! So many huge buildings! Are we getting jobs here too? This is so wonderful!”
“I am not sure what it’s all about,” Dawn says. “But thanks for recommending us! Rumor has it, getting Poseidon-based urban assignments was close to impossible! Thanks so much, Gwen! I have no idea what you did to get us these spots—”
“You have no idea . . .” Anu mutters without looking up. Then I hear a thud under the desk, because this time Gennio actually kicks him.
“Tell them the big news!” Gracie exclaims.
I open my mouth and glance at Gracie, feeling my pulse starting to race again.
“What big news?” Dawn has been momentarily examining the workroom, and now turns back to me, while Hasmik smiles and waves to the others in the room.
“Okay, you might need to sit down for this,” I say with a resigned big smile. “I’m engaged to be married.”
“Voch! Inchpes?” Hasmik puts her hands up to her cheeks. “No! How? Really?”
“Is it Logan?” Dawn says after a stunned pause. “I thought you two had broken up?”
I turn a very bright shade of red. The mention of Logan brings a flood of embarrassment. “No, it’s not. It’s Aeson Kassiopei . . .” I mumble.
“What? No!” Dawn says. “That’s crazy! He’s your CP!”
“And he’s also the Imperial Crown Prince of Atlantida!” Gracie cuts in with animation. “My sister is going to be a princess!”
Hasmik lets out a squeak and starts speaking rapidly in her native Armenian, then recovers. “Gwen, oh my God, congratulations! I can’t believe it! Voch! And oh, I always think, even if he is a jerk, he is so handsome! Inch sirun tgha! Shat geghetsik! But oh, of course he is not a jerk, so sorry, of course, he is—”
“Okay, how did all this happen?” Dawn says with typical composure, shaking her head.
I start to give her the details when the door opens yet again, this time a crack. A girl peeks in cautiously and then opens it all the way and takes a hesitant step, and then I see her and oh wow, it’s my Cadet flight pilot partner, Chiyoko Sato!
“Chiyoko! Chiyoko!” I exclaim, at this point not even able to express sufficient levels of surprise with my words, but just with my mouth falling open. I think my surprise reserves are being seriously depleted this morning.
Chiyoko is a very large and tall Japanese girl in a white Cadet uniform and green armband. She has a round face and a permanently nervous expression that has not changed much from the first time I met her on the ICS-2 ark-ship. Though, right now she looks more exhausted than normal, and her forehead glistens with a sheen of sweat—yeah, it’s the dratted gravity. The moment she sees a room full of people, she hesitates, even though she knows most of them.
“Oh my lord, come in, Chiyoko, please, come in!” I say, quickly walking toward her.
“Good thing this door security lock has been disabled,” Anu says. “Oh wait, did someone disable the Imperial Crown Prince’s high security personal lock? Now anyone off the street can just walk in here. Nice job.” And he throws an accusing glance at Manala.
“Oh . . .” Manala makes a little sound. “Sorry, I didn’t think. . . .”
“Getting a little crowded here, plus this gravity is no fun.” Blayne says. “I think I’ll take up your offer of a sofa seat. Or I could just hover up there near the ceiling and make room for all you floor people.”
“Yeah, me too,” Gordie says, and heads to the sofa. “I mean, not the hovering, but the sitting down. Hey, Gee Two, is there anything to eat around here?”
“So glad to see you, Gwen!” Chiyoko says meanwhile, as we exchange a quick hug. “Thank you for your reference, I am so happy to be assigned here in Poseidon—”
“Nearly forgot—Laronda’s coming too,” Dawn tells me with a light tap on my shoulder. “We were all supposed to be on the same transport shuttle coming here, but there was a screw-up, and she wasn’t notified until last minute, so she ended up being on some other shuttle. But she should be here soon!”
“Great!” I exclaim. “Oh, I’m so glad!”
And then I tell Chiyoko my big news.
Chiyoko reacts with her mouth falling open. “Oh! Wow! The CP! He is so nice!” she says, and her eyes grow very big. “I did not know you were dating, but that’s so amazing! Congratulations, Gwen, to both of you!” And she gives me another hug, this time pressing me closer, which is kind of a record for shy Chiyoko who, not unlike Gordie, is not much of a hugger either.
“Hey, if this were Earth, now’d be the time to order a pizza,” Gordie says from the sofa.
“Oh, Gordie!” I glance at my brother fondly, shaking my head. “Give me a second, there’s food in that refrigerator closet—”
But Manala eagerly responds, glancing from me to Gordie, “What is pizza? An Earth food, yes? I remember something about it when studying Earth customs, but please remind me, and I am sure our Palace kitchen can make it—”
“Oh yeah?” Gordie turns to her with serious interest.
In that moment the door opens yet again. . . . There’s a minor bang and shuffle, as luggage collides with the wall, and in comes Laronda Aimes, panting with exertion.
Laronda is wearing that same crisp white Cadet dress uniform of the Fleet, with a yellow armband. Her dark hair is in its usual sassy bob with light highlights, and she looks very well put together. I notice how she has well-defined muscles now, in place of skinny arms.
“Wow!” She exhales loudly, pausing at the doors to catch a breath and staring at everyone until she sees me.
Seeing her, Anu stares then makes a stifled sound while holding his head. “Oh, no, no. . . .”
And then Laronda screams “Girlfriend!” and drops her bags—basically on top of the pile of other people’s previously abandoned luggage—and she rushes at me.
I meet Laronda halfway, and we collide and it’s a hug explosion, with the two of us almost jumping, and hands patting and rubbing backs and randomly letting out squeals. . . .
And then Laronda lets me go and again places her hands on my arms and stares at me, opening her mouth. “Okay, explain everything!” she says. “You—the Bride of the Imperial Crown Prince? What the hackety-heck, girl? What happened in two days?”
“How did you know?” I stare at her in shock.
In reply Laronda shakes me hard, and then begins rattling off: “Listen, Shoelace Girl, it is all over the Atlantean news! You are on their TV and media and everything!”
“Oh—”
“Okay, let me explain,” Laronda says. “First—it’s a total zoo up there on the Fleet ark-ships! First, I got notified last night, just like Dawn and Hasmik, that I was supposed to report to the Imperial Palace on Poseidon, and you were asking for me—right? Great, so far so good! So this morning, I’m all ready to go, and when I get to Shuttle Bay Two, there are like ten billion people there all getting ready to land, in the first wave of surface arrivals. Complete and utter madhouse! Shuttles coming and going, everybody and their luggage and their mama getting scanned, so . . . they scan me, and tell me to get over to that transport shuttle. So I get on the damn shuttle, and we’re about to take off when the Atlantean pilot comes over and tells me there’s been a mistake. He just got a message from dispatch, and I was supposed to be on a different special shuttle going directly to the Palace, and my ID token has been properly flagged but someone didn’t notice, and so I am now on the wrong shuttle. But—he tells me—the other shuttle has already taken off, so now I am stuck on this one and I am going to be deposited in a public airfield in the middle of downtown Poseidon, with all these other people.”
“Oh, no!” I say.
“Oh, it gets better!” Laronda rolls her eyes. “So I stay on the shuttle and we land, and turns out they let us out in this mid-town airport area and it’s total and absolute insanity. We get out in this huge airport and the entire damn sky is burning white hellfire, so we put
our sunglasses on. There are gleaming gold-covered skyscrapers all around, and some kind of mega-structure convention center thing, and the sky is filled with flying transports and cars and crap, and there are millions of people parking and landing because—get this—they are all going to the local area stadiums for the Games, those same damn Games of the Atlantis Grail, they are having Pre-Game Trials all week. It’s like football game day traffic on Earth, but worse, because they also have flying traffic, ugh. So the transportation in the city is impossible—between us new Earth arrivals and the local idiots going to the Pre-Games, there is literally no place to park, nowhere to sit your booty down, and you just feel lost! Imagine us newly arrived from orbit and outer space, with nothing but a couple of bags that now weigh like a ton of bricks because we’re in super gravity hell, and some kind of local address assignments, not knowing where to go, and our Atlanteo language skills suck—”
“Wow, Laronda,” I say. “Though, I must say, many of the locals do seem to know English here, more than I expected.”
“Yeah, well, I found that out soon enough,” she says. “Turns out the entire population’s been mass-studying English in preparation for our arrival all year, and to make the assimilation easier. They get incentives for Earth language skills—anyway, let me finish telling you this.”
“Yes, okay.” I maneuver Laronda closer to the sofa, and we pull up a couple of chairs for the others.
“So here’s what happened,” Laronda continues, plopping down on the sofa next to Gordie, while I sit in a chair across from her, and Dawn and Hasmik and Chiyoko move in closer. “So there I was, on their equivalent of the tarmac, with my bizarrely heavy bags, looking lost, and other newly arrived people kind of stumbling around like penguins, asking the locals for directions, until our shuttle pilots came out and told us where to go, pointed out buildings, and so on. I was scanned and given some kind of pass code on my ID token and told to grab a specific kind of public transport to the Imperial Palace. So I found one of the red stripe marked bus things hovering near the end of the airfield, got on, got scanned, and we took off. The transport was packed, all seats full. All local Atlanteans, probably from their hood, staring at me and my Fleet uniform. I’m like, ‘Whatcha looking at? Never seen an Earth female before? Well, here I am, baby!’ And one guy checks me out and goes, in decent English, ‘You are good—baby?’ What a slime-hole! Anyway, the walls of the bus were covered in live screens and they were all playing their media. Mostly the Games stuff, and then other news feeds including Earth refugee landings footage, as our Fleet shuttles came down all over the planet, they were showing different landing sites, kind of amazing. But then, Gwen, oh my God—”
Laronda pauses and puts her hand up to cover her mouth. I stare at her in anticipation, having a good idea where this is leading.
“And then, suddenly, there was you. A picture of you was plastered all over the bus screens, and I’m guessing it was an old yearbook picture or something from school, because, sorry, girl, but it was awful.”
I bite my lip. “Oh yeah, that one. So they’re still showing it, oh, crap. . . .”
“Yeah, anyway, I was so mind-blown I almost didn’t believe it was you, but then saw the caption in Atlanteo and English, which said: Gwenevere Lark of Earth, Chosen Bride and Imperial Consort. And then they showed footage of the Imperial Court, and the throne and the Imperator, and there was you all fancy-dressed and your hottie Prince Aeson! And he smooched you right in front of everyone! Girl, I just about died!”
“Oh no, you saw that too!” I moan, covering my face in embarrassment. Hasmik gives me sympathetic looks, while Gordie takes a small stuffed pastry that Manala hands him silently, and begins to chew.
Laronda shakes her head and just watches me, with big round eyes. And then she gets up from her seat and pulls me up from the chair and takes me in another big, this time gentle hug.
“Congratulations to you and Mr. Atlantean Hot Stuff. I knew something like this was eventually going to happen!” Laronda says. “Don’t ask me how, but I just knew. . . . I guess, I kind of believe in fairytales!”
My eyes start to glisten with tears again.
In that moment the door to the Imperial Crown Prince’s bedroom opens, and Aeson enters the room.
Chapter 12
The moment Aeson steps into the workroom, Gennio and Anu get up from their seats and bow. Immediately, they are followed by everyone else in the room—Fleet Cadets spring up from their seats and salute, except for Blayne who remains seated and salutes from the sofa. As for the Civilians, Dawn, Hasmik, Gordie, those guys stand up but kind of nod their heads awkwardly, since they don’t have the military protocol to follow. . . .
Manala and I are the only ones who literally need to do nothing, it occurs to me. Manala continues perching on one edge of the desk, her feet dangling from it, as she watches her brother enter. However, I get up from my chair with everyone else, because it’s Aeson.
Oh, but he looks fine this morning. . . . His golden hair is sleeked back in a segmented tail, still casually wet from the swim, and he is wearing a simple white long-sleeved shirt with a crisp folded collar and dark pants, very much in Earth style—is he doing this on purpose? I wonder.
Aeson stops momentarily, his mouth held in a tight line, holding back what I am certain is amusement, and also a kind of quiet reserve. His glance caresses me briefly before moving on to encompass the others. “At ease,” he says calmly. “And, welcome, everyone. Gwen’s family and friends, today you’re all our guests here.”
“Thank you, Command Pilot Kassiopei—or should I say, My Imperial Lord?” Blayne says comfortably from the sofa.
Aeson smiles. “As a rule, my Imperial title supersedes the Fleet title in civilian circumstances, so the latter is correct. But for now, let’s not worry about it. Good to see you here, Dubois.”
He glances around the room. “And all the rest of you, make yourselves at home.”
“Aeson!” I say, my eyes wide with joy, coming up to him and taking his arm warmly. “Thank you! I can’t believe you had everyone show up like this! This is the best, most wonderful thing! Let me introduce you to everyone—”
Gordie steps forward suddenly, and stands before Aeson. “Gordon Lark, Gwen’s brother,” he says in a firm and confident voice, the like of which I’ve never heard Gordie use. “Nice to meet you.” And Gordie offers his hand for a formal handshake.
Aeson nods and takes Gordie’s hand, and they shake. “Aeson Kassiopei, Gwen’s husband-to-be.”
And the next moment, Gracie is at my side. “This is my sister, Gracie!” I say with a wide, slightly nervous smile.
“Grace Lark!” she corrects me gently, and offers her hand to Aeson. Her expression is serious, and I notice she is standing up very straight.
Aeson looks at her for a moment, and there’s a little pause, while he does not take her hand. “So you are Gracie. Well, well, well.”
Gracie continues watching him and holding out her hand, but her face pales, and her composed expression falls apart in alarm.
But then Aeson raises one brow, and his lips start turning up at the corners. He takes Gracie’s now-shaking hand in his and squeezes it, and glances across the room at his own sister. “See that one?” he says, pointing. “She is precisely your kind. Very, very bad—Manala!”
The Imperial Princess hurries over immediately. “Aeson?” She says curiously, looking from him to all of us.
“Gracie,” he says, “this is my sister Manala. Manala, this is Gwen’s sister Gracie. You are obviously two of a kind, and I think you need to have a little chat in order to plan and coordinate your next disaster incident.”
“Oh!” Gracie exhales in relief and starts to smile. “Hi!” she says to Manala, “Really nice to meet you!”
“You too!” Manala’s face instantly lights up with welcome. “You’re going to be my sister-in-law!”
On the sofa where he’d just sat down again, Gordie pauses while reaching for a bowl of smal
l edible nuggets of baked dough similar to Earth potato chips, and makes a grunt noise, then laughs. "Whoa! Wait! That’s why you called me brother-in-law! I get it now!”
In the next few minutes Aeson and I go around the room and all my friends are introduced. He shakes hands and smiles generously and basically makes everyone feel welcome. Thing is, he already knows most of my friends, having seen them in my company at one point or another, but this is just a formal acknowledgement of who they are. Eventually I notice a very subtle tension in him, and realize that although he might not show it, he is feeling a little overwhelmed too. . . .
And so, after the initial greetings are over, I pull Aeson by the hand and we step out into my bedroom for a moment.
Here I close the door and then put my arms around him and rest my face against his chest. “Thank you . . .” I whisper, looking up at last. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me. All my favorite people in one place! Well—almost all, if my Mom and Dad and George were here too. . . .”
Aeson gazes into my upturned eyes with a warm intensity. “I am glad. I’d hoped it would be this way for you when they all arrived.”
“Where were you earlier?” I say, moving my hand against his chest. “For a while there I thought you were hiding!”
He makes an amused sound. “Oh, I was! I was in fact terrified. It’s not every day that I get to meet so many friends and relatives of my Bride, all at once. Very intimidating.”
I snort and pat his muscular chest with my hand.
But he just smiles lightly at me. “I also wanted to give you some space. You needed to explain things and to see everyone first, on your own terms.”
“Thank you . . . yes!” I continue looking at him with wonder. “Now—how is it possible that Aeson Kassiopei is intimidated by anyone or anything?”
He sweeps back a few strands of hair on my forehead, his fingers lingering. “There are quite a number of things that frighten me, Gwen,” he tells me softly. “And much of it involves you—your happiness, your safety. If something were to happen to you, I would lose my mind.”