New Blood: Chains of Command Book 1 Read online

  NEW BLOOD

  CHAINS OF COMMAND BOOK 1

  ZEN DIPIETRO

  PARALLEL WORLDS PRESS

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Message from the author

  About the Author

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  COPYRIGHT

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 BY ZEN DIPIETRO

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without express written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations for the purpose of review.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions. Distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  ISBN: 978-1-943931-17-0 (ebook)

  Published in the United States of America by Parallel Worlds Press

  DRAGONFIRE STATION UNIVERSE

  Original Series (complete)

  Dragonfire Station Book 1: Translucid

  Dragonfire Station Book 2: Fragments

  Dragonfire Station Book 3: Coalescence

  Intersections (Dragonfire Station Short Stories)

  Mercenary Warfare series (complete)

  Selling Out

  Blood Money

  Hell to Pay

  Calculated Risk

  Going for Broke

  Chains of Command

  New Blood

  Blood and Bone

  Cut to the Bone

  Out for Blood

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  1

  Emiko arrived on campus at the PAC Academy knowing she was different than the other students.

  At only sixteen years of age, she was among the youngest accepted. That wasn’t what set her apart, though.

  Being an overachiever was nothing special there, either. Most people with high aspirations in any field of study went to the PAC Academy.

  The thing that made Emiko different was that she was a brand-new person. Literally. While other students arrived on campus as the person they had always been from birth, she’d been assigned a whole new identity.

  An identity with a purpose. If she succeeded at the academy and continued on her intended path of becoming a clandestine operations agent, there would be no way to trace her past and use her family against her. A new identity was a necessary precaution for the safety of the officer, the family, and the PAC itself.

  No, not if. She would succeed. Failure was unacceptable. She would not wash out. She would put everything she had into her work to be the best.

  She would get accepted into officer training school.

  She would become a clandestine operations intelligence officer.

  There was no other acceptable outcome. She’d already spent years working toward it, ever since her father had explained to her what special ops meant. She’d known that was what she was meant to do. There was no backup plan. Nothing else would be acceptable.

  “Emiko Arashi.” She practiced the name, letting the sounds roll over her tongue. “Hello, I’m Emiko.”

  As she repeated the words over and over, trying to break them in like a pair of new shoes, she unpacked her bags. At least she had a dorm room to herself. She had little in common with most people her age, and doubted she’d have made a good roommate to the typical new student at the Planetary Alliance Cooperative Academy.

  She set her suitcase on the narrow bed and opened it. There wasn’t much inside. She’d packed several outfits and toiletries. That was about it, besides her favorite weapons. She needed little else.

  Everything but her sword and bo staff fit into the dresser alongside the bed.

  There. All moved in. She had two hours to kill, though, before the orientation meeting.

  Besides the bed and the dresser, her small room had a desk and a tiny closet. She wouldn’t really need the closet until she earned a uniform, hopefully in the third and final year of the academy. She might hang a chin-up bar in it so she could work out in her room during study breaks.

  When she opened the door to peek inside, she laughed when she saw a bar already spanning the width of the closet. Some previous occupant had had the same idea. Probably also an ambitious student who’d been aiming for officer training school—or OTS, as it was more commonly known.

  She wondered if that student had been accepted.

  She closed the closet. Her knife collection, sword, and bo would fit nicely in there.

  The chair tucked against the desk didn’t look comfortable. She sat and her suspicion was confirmed. She’d need to do something about that. With all the hours she’d put in at this desk, she’d need a place to sit that wouldn’t make her back ache.

  When she touched the voicecom display, it came to life. She sent a quick message to her parents to let them know she’d arrived and was settling in. She had brought no holo-images of them or her brother, or anything else that would tie her to her life back home or her parents’ little house just outside of Tokyo. Surely she wouldn’t need them, anyway. Her family was only a few hours away and she’d visit them during breaks.

  She’d miss her family, but she’d still be better off than the students who wouldn’t see their parents for years because they lived on another planet within the Planetary Alliance Cooperative. Compared to that, she had it easy.

  Her parents had always been supportive of her, even when she didn’t fit in easily because of her narrow focus on her academic studies and her martial arts skills. She hadn’t been ostracized, but she hadn’t been popular, either. Her parents had never suggested she be more like the other kids. They understood her, and for good reason. Her father was a captain with central intelligence, and her mother was a commander in the diplomatic corps.

  Serving the Alliance ran in her blood. Even her older brother had gotten into the business, studying to be a civil engineer to help cities operate efficiently.

  She caught her train of thought and stopped it in its tracks. While she was at the academy, she was not their daughter. She was not Kano’s sister. She’d been recruited as a clandestine ops hopeful, and as such, she had two sets of records: one official set, with birth name and information, and a second set of real records to go with the new identity. The records with her birth name would reflect a fictionalized account of her life, should anyone bother to look her up. The records for her new identity would reflect her actual career with the PAC.

  The new version of her would become the real her. She needed to get accustomed to thinking of herself as Emiko so that when she met people, she could immediately respond with Emiko’s fabricated personal details.

  It would take some getting used to.

  With nothing else to do, she configured the voicecom the way she liked it, with her calendar, messages, and favorite academic resources all arranged in a tidy row along the right side.

  She still had an hour and forty-five minutes before the orientation.

  “I should probably go and see if any of my neighbors have arrived.” She remained se
ated for a long moment. Sighing, she stood.

  She’d never had much luck fitting in with the crowd. She’d had a few good friends at her school, and more that she was friendly enough with, but for the most part, she’d found her peers to be aimless and undisciplined. Given that about half of her academy classmates had no intentions of going on to OTS to become officers, there would probably be a fair bit of youthful foolishness here as well.

  At least some of those students would be from other planets. That should give her a chance to practice her language and communication skills.

  She turned her attention to the voices echoing down the hall. They were distorted enough that she couldn’t make out the words, but the enthusiasm of two distinct voices was unmistakable. It seemed her neighbors were indeed moving in that day, too.

  She smoothed her fingers over her fine, black hair, gathered into a thin ponytail. She straightened her PAC-issued t-shirt and cargo pants, then set her jaw.

  “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  Her first undercover assignment would be to assume the role of a typical academy student. As she walked across the hall and down a few meters, she got into character, adopting a soft, friendly smile and wide eyes.

  A door stood open. A pair of young women sat with their heads bent over a comport. No one was talking, though, so they obviously weren’t in the middle of a call. Emiko knocked on the doorframe, peering in.

  Two heads turned, revealing her neighbors to be a human and a Bennite. Emiko found that interesting. Bennaris was devoted almost entirely to the medical profession, which they tended to dominate. Few Bennites attended the academy.

  “Hi!” chirped the human with short blond hair. She bounced up to her feet and executed the polite bow of one PAC student to another.

  The Bennite smiled and stood to bow. Her tanned skin complemented her dark hair and eyes. Emiko returned the bow in equal measure.

  “Did you just arrive?” the blond asked. “I’m Jane.”

  Was she really? Emiko wondered. Not that it was likely that the first person she met on campus was another covert ops hopeful. Very few, if any, were recruited each year. Nonetheless, she had to remember that not everyone around her would be who they seemed to be.

  It would be part of her education.

  “I’m Val,” the Bennite said.

  “Emiko.”

  Both of her neighbors were prettier than her. Emiko had average Japanese looks. Black hair, dark eyes, and a heart-shaped face. Nice enough, but also entirely forgettable. Not that she cared about her looks. Unlike these girls, she didn’t bother with cosmetics. She only wished to be clean and healthy, with a tidy appearance.

  Jane had a fresh-faced girl next door look, with a sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. Val had a more sophisticated look—youthful, but polished.

  “Did you just get in?” Val asked.

  “Yes, a bit ago. Are you going to the orientation?”

  Jane shook her head. “We went to the one last night. We got in early yesterday, but went out to get some things for the room to make it a bit more homey.”

  “Did you already know each other?” Emiko asked.

  Her neighbors nodded.

  “We met about a year ago at a medical career expo. We’re both studying to be doctors,” Jane said.

  Emiko nodded. “Officers?”

  “We hope so,” Val said. “If not, we’ll still have the best pre-med education possible, and be qualified to work at PAC facilities.”

  “What are you studying?” Val asked.

  “Security, with a pilot rating.” Emiko wasn’t lying. She simply wasn’t telling the entire truth.

  “Piloting! That sounds fun.” Jane’s eyes sparkled.

  Emiko nodded, smiling. She didn’t volunteer that she was already rated to pilot a PAC shuttle. She’d been working on her flying skills for years. But she wanted to fly big ships, too. The faster and more powerful, the better.

  “Sounds like you’ll have some intensive training classes,” Val said thoughtfully.

  “I’m looking forward to it.” Emiko couldn’t have meant it more. She couldn’t wait to get started.

  “Well, it’s good to meet you,” Jane said. “We look forward to getting to know you.”

  Emiko was relieved that Jane had so adeptly given her an out. For a first meeting, this had been pleasant. She wasn’t great at small talk, but hopefully she could get to know her neighbors organically. Maybe while taking part in campus activities.

  She gave them a polite bow and excused herself. It was too early to go to the orientation, but she didn’t want to go back to her room and sit. A walk around the campus seemed like a good idea. She already had the map memorized. Some people called her ability “photographic” or “eidetic” memory, but those were both inaccurate terms. She preferred to think of it of it simply as an ability to retain most of what she learned. She rarely forgot things.

  Seeing the campus with her own eyes would be different, though, and familiarizing herself with her new home would be a productive use of her time.

  She started by making a circuit around her dorm, noting the locations of all the windows and doors, the paths, and the lighting. Then she followed the path that created a circuit of similar dormitory buildings, all along the perimeter of the campus. Within that roughly circular shape, the other buildings resided.

  The campus had been thoughtfully designed, with plenty of trees and wide spaces for gathering. Benches and grassy areas practically begged for a student to settle in with an infoboard and a comport to get work done while enjoying sunshine and fresh air. She could imagine herself doing a fair amount of studying outdoors.

  A large area in the center of campus lay adjacent to the majority of the classrooms. Beautiful landscaping and trees that lined the outer walkway made it remarkably inviting. She could imagine groups of students out there, playing impromptu games of jump ball or throwing a disk back and forth. She looked forward to settling against a tree to read in between classes.

  She spent her remaining time leading up to the orientation committing every path, tree, and building to memory. Tomorrow, she’d begin casing each building.

  Her father and her training had taught her a lot about being aware of her surroundings, and taking every advantage she could get. She liked to think that this knowledge would give her an edge over other intelligence candidates.

  But then, perhaps they had backgrounds that eclipsed hers. There was no way to know. She’d just have to give everything she had to her studies, to make sure she succeeded.

  THE ORIENTATION HALL yawned large all around Emiko. She took a seat near the back and settled in, watching her fellow classmates.

  Her competition.

  She’d known most of the students would be older. Sixteen was young to begin the academy, and most of the faces she saw of the incoming students looked to be eighteen or nineteen.

  Emiko had put a lot of effort into not being average and meeting the application requirements early. She hadn’t taken summers off or wasted time on dating.

  She had a goal, and only that goal had mattered.

  While waiting for the dean to speak, she observed her competition. There would be four orientation sessions like this, with about five hundred people attending each. It was a decent enough cross-section. Since most of her classmates were older, they largely displayed proper maturity for the occasion. She didn’t see many students doing youthful, foolish things like clowning around with friends. This was the academy. Even the least-dedicated among them would feel the gravity of that.

  The grouping was diverse enough that she couldn’t discern much about it as a whole. A shame. She liked to have as much information as possible about her rivals. She’d have to keep an eye out for those whose performance rose above the others.

  “Welcome to the Planetary Alliance Cooperative Academy,” the dean began.

  Emiko focused her attention on him. He was a middle-aged human with gray hair, and in good
shape.

  “If you don’t already know, I’m Rob Delinger, Dean of the PAC academy. It’s a great pleasure to look out on all these faces, representing so many species and cultures. That’s what the PAC is all about. We hope that in coming together in the spirit of cooperation and mutual betterment, we can all become more than the sum of our parts.”

  The dean, projected on a screen for those in the back to see, smiled. “You’re probably expecting me to say something about looking to your left and to your right, and about how a bunch of you won’t make it through. I don’t do those speeches. For those who don’t make it through their three years here, I like to think that they’ve learned invaluable things that they’ll keep with them for the rest of their lives. Yes, some of you will leave before the first semester is over. And more will go before the second year begins. But those of you who make it through your third year will have received one of the finest educations in this galaxy. And some of you will even become officers. Who knows—maybe one of you in this room will eventually become the dean of this academy. You are all at the edge of possibility right now, and all you have to do is work your hardest to achieve your dreams.”

  A murmur went through the assemblage. This was a more chipper speech than incoming students, including Emiko, had expected. She’d been prepared for a very militant welcome. This touchy-feely approach felt different. Welcoming.

  Interesting. Her opinion of Dean Delinger went up.

  Some would say that, as a default, her opinion of the dean should be high. Emiko didn’t work that way. Every person she came across, regardless of how she behaved in their presence, had to earn her respect.