There it sat, undisturbed in her window bay.
Her star flower.
It was as pretty and perfect as she remembered. Like the boy who’d gifted it to her. She was going to have to think of some way to repay him.
She’d padded her morning with extra time before trainings while she figured out a care routine. She wasn’t sure what sort of daily nourishing her star flower would require, but she was determined to keep it alive.
Psh. As if she couldn’t take care of a plant. It wasn’t like it was an orchard.
But as she sat there staring at its delicate sliver-like stem, she didn’t have a clue what sort of care was needed. Plant food? Daily watering? And how much? Just a trickle? A droplet? Lee hadn’t said anything last night when he’d walked back with her and she’d perched it in her window bay, so it seemed like starlight was okay.
She hovered over its moon-dust bloom like one of their RIM vehicles. It wasn’t like she could research the dang thing, she was pretty certain it was a one-of-a-kind by now.
She pulled her holoblock over onto her lap anyway and quickly searched “rare flowering breeds,” and clicked the first entry she saw.
“Keep the soil damp,” she read. That sounded easy enough.
She leaned up onto her knees to peer into the narrow pot.
Damp. Was this considered damp, or was the soil a little dry? Maybe it needed just a couple drops of liquid.
She scrounged up her water bottle. Unscrewing the lid, she slowly tipped it sideways. The water was almost to the lip when she righted the bottle again. What if she poured too much? A plant couldn’t die in one single day, could it?
Biting her lip, she sent Lee a quick message.
She kept an eye on her hyperband while she pulled on the newer of her all-terrain suits and tied her hair back.
She was heading into Care of Foreign Ecosystems, the irony of the training she was leading not lost on her, when Lee finally messaged her back. A single line that calmed her ecosystem.
Lee: just give it a dropper of water every couple days.
She released a very pent-up breath. She carried a fresh spring in her step as she walked into that first training.
Her morning scattered in a flurry of too-bland questions on microbes. It seemed as if last term truly had been shelved in the past. One-year-ago-Kat—void, six-months-ago-Kat—would have been almost disappointed by how quickly everyone had gotten bored of talking about her. As it stood, present-day-Katwas more than happy to field the fungi-microorganism-related questions and move the day along. She was anxious to get back up to her room and see about getting herself a “dropper.”
Of course, her new plant obsession was forced to make room for a different sort of present that came in during study hour, in the form of an alert on her hyperband.
Their Placement applications had arrived.
She stared down at the tiny, all-caps lettering of the Commander’s invitation gracing the device, the words seeming to swell and shrink in time with her pulse. This was the ultimate prize. The pinnacle of their Academy achievements, and the gateway to a shiny life as a Raider.
“Hey Kat?” Jed asked, the toes of his boots swimming into her line of vision. “I had a question about crisis protocol for one of Sean’s—”
“Not now.” She waved her hand, letting it curl delicately against the back of her flex-backed chair. “I’m having a moment.”
“Something wrong?” he asked, misinterpreting her dismissal.
“Nothing’s wrong. Just—just Gamma stuff,” she said in airy tones, surprising herself when she didn’t elaborate. But Jed wasn’t the one she needed to process this with.
She flicked her eyes up. Jed stood just a hand-width closer than most cadets would have probably dared. Closer than she would usually allow. But there was something about seeing the cadet’s face... Seeing one ofhercadets, that made it feel real. Placement was no longer a fairy dream, it was boots by the door, she may as well start packing her bag. In a matter of months she’d be leaving this place behind for good. There would be no more training exercises. No more do-overs. No second chances. Once they left these walls behind, everything counted.
“Tell me what you wanted?” she asked, as the oxygen flexed her lungs, using his face as an anchor point to hold her system accountable.
He regarded her with tentative eyes—with caring eyes—under the gelled hair hanging well below his eyebrow as she forced another steady breath down. “I just had a question on crisis protocol, the reasoning behind our post-mission surveys, but maybe it’s a bad time...”
It certainly could have been better. But she addressed him anyway, meeting his too-observant gaze. If she’d learned anything, it was that sometimes people just needed someone. Whether it was to hold their hand or just to listen.
“The surveys are meant to assess cadet health—all aspectsof cadet health—to ensure that raiders are ready to accept another assignment and go back out into the field.” She shook her head. Never mind that she’d already been back out into the field and currently questioned her mental sanity, even without the addition of the Placement application now charring a hole into her wrist and her lungs.
