Read Online Compete by Norilana Books - Free Book Online Page B

few minutes later we walk through the Command Deck of the Yellow Quadrant, pass the neighboring Red Quadrant Command Deck and cross over into Blue. The Quadrant sections are marked by appropriately colored square logos on the walls of each corridor, which indicates the end of one Quadrant and beginning of another.
    “The Command Pilot Quarters and Central Command Office are in the Blue Quadrant,” my guide tells me, giving me periodic glances of curiosity. “So why did he assign you to live in Yellow?”
    “I’ve been training with the Yellow Quadrant all this time,” I say. “I don’t see why that should change.”
    “But you are a Cadet? How is it that you report directly to the CP?”
    “I am not a Cadet,” I say.
    I think I’ve managed to confuse the boy enough to render him silent for the moment.
    The Atlantean does not speak again until we arrive at a large wide corridor that bears a grand square rainbow logo on the wall. On one side of this hallway is the inner rounded wall that encircles the Resonance Chamber—that central hub that marks the very heart of the ship. And on the other side I see a row of doors, each marked with special ornate insignias, one of which is particularly grand and impressive. There are also two security guards posted at the door.
    Here we stop.
    “This is the Central Command Office, or CCO,” the Atlantean guide tells me in a loud voice, and I realize that he is a little overwhelmed himself. The boy then turns to the guards, and gives a brief salute and then tells them something in Atlantean.
    One of the guards glances at me with a blank scrutiny, then raises his wrist, activates some kind of comm device and speaks into it.
    A moment later, the door slides open and the guards on both sides step aside.
    “Command Pilot Kassiopei will see you now,” the guard tells me. “Proceed inside.”
     
     
    I walk past the guards at the door, as my heart begins once again hammering wildly. I take shallow breaths—because it’s all I can manage—and enter the chamber.
    The Central Command Office is not particularly large, but it is impressive. A wide desk and high-backed chair takes up half the space, and there are four comfortable visitor chairs across from it. About a dozen computer display screens take up the back wall, and directly above is what appears to be a grand digital photograph—a landscape image of impossible beauty, with tall green mountains framing a deep lake, with a castle-like structure of fragile antiquity perched at the cliff-edge of a plateau above the lake, all of it illuminated by a white sun.
    Aeson Kassiopei sits working at his desk, and something strange happens to me at the sight of him.
    Aeson is the same as I remember him—a composed intelligent face of refined lines and striking lean angles, with serious dark-rimmed eyes of a deep lapis lazuli blue, underneath black brows with a similar faint lapis tint, and lightly bronzed skin, all vaguely reminiscent of Ancient Egypt. Those fine dark lines of contrast around his eyelids—now that I know the truth of his heritage—are beautiful natural markings, not some kind of kohl-based eyeliner or permanent tattoo. And his long hair, a mane of pale metallic gold, is also a true color with which he was born, not a gilded dye that most other Atlanteans wear to honor his Imperial Family Kassiopei.
    He is wearing the grey Fleet uniform, and I notice there is an additional gold emblem on his chest, with an insignia similar to what was on the doors of this office. I am guessing it indicates his high rank. And on his left bicep, over his sleeve, I see the black armband—a hero’s honor that almost no Atlantean has earned while still living—a mystery about which I still know nothing.
    As soon as I approach, he looks up at me.
    I feel a painful jolt in my chest and a burning sensation in my cheeks. In fact, I think my entire face explodes in a flaming red blush, and also some kind of crazy choking thing rises up in my