They both sat there incompanionable silence for a while, looking out at the swirling colorsof path-space.
“How are you feelingabout all this so far?” Adelina asked her. “This is a lot ofchange to take in all at once.”
“It is,”Gabriella admitted, “but it’s also pretty cool. I mean, findingout you live in, essentially, a science fiction story is pretty wild.Two days ago we were planning on taking a big trip up to Oregon. Nowwe’re on our way to watch a new colony get started on analien world.”
She leaned her head onher mother’s shoulder, putting an arm around her back. “Whatabout you? Must be a shock to find out your little sister’s got thefate of the species on her shoulders.”
Adelina snorted.“Better her than me! You know, when we were kids, we used to playsuperhero. Your aunt was usually the one in the cape beating the crapout of your uncles. Nobody was surprised to hear she got into OfficerCadet School.”
“Yeah, but that’sstill not the same as this,” Gabriella said. “In the Navy, shecould still be a teenager, act like a rebel.”
“A teenager, huh?”
“Yeah. Somebodymore senior had authority over her. She might have gone out to dropbombs on a target or shoot down some bad guy but she had commandingofficers telling her to do it.Now, she’s it… Judge,jury and trigger hand. Gotta be stressful.”
She tossed the coversoff her legs and gave her mom a peck on the cheek, grinning at thethoughtful look on her face. “She could use her big sister’ssupport, I think. Now more than ever.”
She scrambled off thebed. “That’s just my teenager’s take on the strains of absolutepower. I’m gonna take a shower and then stroll around the ship fora while.”
“Mind if I joinyou?”
Gabriella lookedup. The voice belonged to one of her aunt’s genetically engineeredsuper-soldiers. He had a tray in his hands and a question, askedin Imperial Standard, that shestill hadn’t answered. Great… How long have I beensitting here staring at him?
He was kind ofcute, for one of the mostfeared killers in the Milky Way. “Um, sure,” she said, tryingsound casual. She saw the disappointment on his face. Whatthe hells? Oh, shit! I basically said I mind…“I mean, sure, go ahead and have a seat,” she corrected hastily.
“What’s thatthing?” he asked, setting his tray down and taking the seatopposite her.
“It’s mye-reader.” She turned it so he couldsee the text on her screen. It stores about a thousand books.”
“Books?” He lookedat the device with a frown. “What are books?”
“You know, astory in printed form?” She frowned at him. Don’t theseguys have stories? “You guyshave entertainment, right?”
“Well, of course,”he replied instantly, “but it’s in holo form or direct retinalprojection for long story formats. You know, you choose whichcharacter’s point of view and you then see what they see or you canchoose the producer’s cut, seeing from the perspectives that tellthe best story.”
“That soundscool! I’d like to try that sometime.” She said before her brainhad a chance to overthink it. Smooth move, idiot. Now itsounds like I’m fishing for a date. Stop staring at his face! He’sgonna think you’re a weirdo.
“I can give youa few recommendations,” he offered. “But this reader,you use it for stories, like a noble?”
“A noble?”Are the commoners illiterate here?
“Yeah, I mean, we allknow how to read but we just use it for work, for interfaces andsuch. It’s only the nobles who develop the speed needed to read forpleasure.” He had a slightly guarded look now. “I’m sorry, Iforgot…”
“Forgot what?”
“That I’m talkingto a noble.” He bowed his head.
“Wait, are youbowing?”
“I haven’t greetedyou properly, as befits a noble of the republic…”
“How does arepublic even have nobles? And knock it off with the courtlymanners!” She had her arms crossed over her belly. “Justcall me Gabriella.”
“Yes, my… Yes,Gabriella.”
He almost called me my Gabriella,she thought. A girl could get used to that… Oh gods! Howlong have I been staring at his pecs?She looked away, making sure the entire room wasn’t watching herembarrassing performance.
“So, Gabriella,”the young man said, putting a slight emphasis on her name, “what isit that you’re reading? The nobles I spoke of tend to read epicprose.”
“No doubt sothey can drop little quotes in conversation to prove how accomplishedthey are,” she said archly, pleased to see he wasn’t shocked ather irreverence.
“This is just a bitof mildly amusing historical fiction.” She waved the reader. “It’sset about five hundred years ago. Lot’s of damsels in distress,besieged castles…”
He frowned,looking at the reader. “I don’t know this word… besieged.”
She set the readerdown. “Okay, imagine this is the castle but it has a high wall ofstone all the way around it.”
“Isn’t that a wasteof labor?” He wrinkled his nose at her in a way that reminded herthat she was still feeling a little awkward. “It would be easy toinsert troops with a shuttle or even…”
“This is fivehundred years ago,” she cut him off. “Nobody was flyingback then. If you showed up in a shuttle they’d think you were awitch and burn you at the stake...”
She stoppedtalking. Yep. Now he thinks we’re all a bunch of ignorantsavages, sitting around in caves and hunting with pointy sticks…
“Oh, that’sright,” he said. “I forgot about that. Our people on Irth wentfrom first flight to quantum circuits in less than two centuries.”He leaned forward. “You know the old kingdom took about fifteentimes as long?”
“Really?”
“Hells yeah!You wild Humans hitass!” He frowned. “Did I translate that Irth-phrase correctly?Hitass?”
“Kick,” shecorrected. “It’s‘kick ass’.” Don’tthink about his ass. She knewher face was starting to turn red. “I didn’t even realize you’dsaid it in Imperial, just now.”
“Ah,no doubt the specific word-choice can make a difference.Now, you were explaining a… besieged?”
“Besiegedis the thingmod.The thing wouldbe ‘siege’, am I using the right Imperial grammatical terms?”
He nodded. “I thinkso. You seem to be making sense.”
She put her handsaround his side of the reader. “Imagine my hands are the wall…”
“Oh! Wait amoment,” he said. He brought up a holo menu and pulled out a filethat he dropped on the desk. A three dimensional model of a fortifiedtown now sat above the e-reader.
“You mean like this?”
“Really?” Shetilted her head back so she could look
