The counter on the wall in front of me ticked over to twenty-five and I released the resistance bar. Aching from my neck down to the balls of my feet, I slumped over the chest rest on the curling station, allowing myself a few moments rest before moving on to my cardio workout. My gaze wandered around the room, taking in the wide variety of equipment cleverly tucked into a relatively small space. I'd deliberately chosen the officer's gym to avoid any other Cadets, hoping that this far into the ship's night cycle I would avoid any of the ship's Instructors as well. I'd been given an impromptu quiz on calisthenics regimens two nights ago, and I didn't need any more extra assignments.

One thing caught my eye; a bench sitting under a rack festooned with heavy metal plates and bars. From the day's research for my paper on the history of exercise I recognized it as a compact free weight setup. Idly I pondered who might have such an anachronistic setup in their gym. A growing sense of dread bubbled up from my subconscious the moment before I remembered where I'd seen such old-fashioned gear before.

One thing I did not need was for Commandant De'Lann to walk in on me working out in the middle of the night. Tiamat was willing to be patient with me. So far De'Lann had been anything but. I saw her once a day at the senior officer's staff meeting, where all her department heads gave her their daily reports. While I'd found out Tiamat was De'Lann's first command, she'd been a First Officer on more ships than I'd had birthdays, commanded squadrons of powered armor, and generally knew everything I needed to learn about how to manage a starship's crew. I watched her carefully as she asked each department head at least one question about their department, and I'd even begun mimicking her when I met with a random group of Middies every day just before the staff meeting.

Of course, I'd started doing that because on the first day, she'd asked me about a situation between two of the Cadets in the mess hall, and I'd had no idea what she was talking about. This way I actually had a chance of finding out who was mad at who, what could be done about it, and even try to fix things before they came to the attention of the Cadre.

I'd been working out for a while, and I was tired enough to sleep, but I didn't know how much time I had until breakfast. An adult would just have their essie feed the time to her eyes. With a sigh, I addressed my query to Tiamat instead.

"What time is it?"

"About quarter after five, give or take five minutes." Cadet Quick's answer made me leap out of my seat, or try to. My thighs slammed into the bottom of the chest rest just before I made it halfway to standing, bouncing me back onto my butt, leaving a line of fire across my already tired thighs.

"Clutter! Don't flaming do that!" My language has never been what you might call perfect, but since I arrived on Tiamat it had gotten steadily worse. So far, I'd confined my profanity to mutters too low for even Tiamat to pick up, but at that moment I was tired, frightened, and in a lot of pain.

"Excuse me, Cadet Captain, sir, but I thought you were asking me a question. My apologies, Cadet Captain." Tomas' reply was perfectly respectful, but I could hear the tension of resentment lurking beneath the surface. I had to ferret out my classmates' issues by myself because I couldn't very well ask the person I'd displaced to help me do the job I'd taken from him. Before I spoke, I took a deep breath, forcing back my shock at seeing him, waiting for the sudden knots in my thighs to unclench. Rubbing at them released a little of the tension and gave me an excuse for not looking at him directly as well.

"I'm sorry, Quick. You startled me, and I hurt myself on the bottom of the chest rest. It's not really as well padded as the top."

"No, sir, it's not. I'm familiar with that problem."

The wry humor in his statement drew my gaze around. He was wearing standard Middie Cadet sweats with Tiamat's 'Mother of Dragons' motto surrounding a stylized flight of dragons on the chest. Fantasy dragons, I mean, not the First Dragon powered armor kind. The logo warped a bit where the fabric strained to cover his chest. I'm familiar with the effect, if not the reason. I glanced down at his thighs, wondering what he'd meant about the problem with the chest rest.

I let out a low whistle. His thighs were each as big around as my waist. My clone-father's tinkering had left me with bigger thighs than most of my classmates, but Quick was just outrageously muscled. I could pick up some of the definition through the straining fabric, and his thighs couldn't have much fat on them.

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"Uh, sir?" My gaze snapped back up to his face. He was staring at the wall behind my head and blushing. I shoved myself free of the weight bench and turned to face him.

"Sorry, Quick. I didn't sleep well last night, and I'm a little out of it. I'm done on the machine if you wanted it."

I stared at his face, fascinated by how open he was, how clearly he telegraphed his emotions. Retreads don't do that, but no natural human could have such extravagant muscles at his age, and Noobs weren't allowed to have their essies tweak them until they hit sixteen. Blanks like me, of course, get the worst of both worlds. Wide eyed frustration chased blushing embarrassment from his face, pushed away itself by tight-jawed determination.

"No, sir. I'm actually here to talk to you, if you have some time?"

I wasn't in any shape to deal with an angry subordinate right then. I'd wind up in a shouting match. I couldn't just send him away for no reason, though.

"I was about to take a run. You're welcome to join me if you like."

Quick clenched his jaw, biting back his first response. From the corner of my eye, I caught him shaking his head again, arguing with himself. Odd behavior for a Retread, but then they always seemed odd to me, old souls stuffed into new bodies time after time. I walked over to the running station, set it to ten clicks an hour with a low curve, and set off. I shifted to the inner track, just in case Quick wanted to join me, but I remembered how he'd labored in the halls.

Just when I was sure I'd successfully avoided him, a rhythmic thudding sounded from my right.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" He heaved the words out despite his labors to keep up with me.

"Sure." I needed to do something to bring him around. If he wanted a heart-to-heart talk, it behooved me to give him one. "I don't know what you've heard about the Rim fleet, but I'm not hung up on formality. Perfunctory bowing and scraping will do."

That brought wheezing and muttering from behind. A few moments later, the panicked thumping of Quick's feet settled into a slow, steady rhythm similar to my own ground-eating lope.

"That's better. Thank you, sir. You really do run like a gazelle, you know." Before I'd digested that comment, he quietly muttered to himself again.

"Call me Dustie. I'm not used to outranking anyone my own age." I glanced over at him; he was trundling along at a respectable pace, but there was no way he was doing ten clicks an hour.

"Tiamat, increase pace by ten percent," I muttered. The floor slipping past beneath me sped up, and my thighs tingled as my run started to push me.

"I'm not... I'd prefer Dabig, if that's okay with you, sir." He wasn't even wheezing any more. If he could do it, I could.

"Tiamat, please increase pace by an additional ten percent." I was into my stride now; if he thought he could outrun me, he had another think coming. Out loud I tried to keep him talking. "Well, Quick, was that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Ah, no sir. Dabig. Dustie." A note of rueful self-amusement entered his voice. "Yeah, I'll just stick with 'sir' for now. I'm surprised you haven't had a command slot before this. You had to be one of the oldest Middies on your old ship."

"Nah, there was that Mech' flanking attempt back about two decades ago. There were a lot of Retreads just a little bit older than me." My face heated as I realized I'd used the slang term out loud. Before I could open my mouth to apologize, Quick let out a snort.

"Yeah. Must be hell out there for Noobs, what with you Retreads getting preferential placement most of the time." He slipped past the slur Noobs used to refer to reincarnates quickly, as if he weren't sure I'd let it pass. I sighed, wishing I could be just another cadet, able to commiserate about the unfair nature of the universe.

"That's 'reincarnates', Cadet Quick. I shouldn't have used it myself. You know there's officially no preferential treatment." I let that dangle, seeing if he would take the bait. After a few moments filled by thumping feet, he snapped it up.

"Yeah, well. Official or not, it's there. Sure, positions go to the most qualified, but most of them have more qualifications as Juniors than I've managed to accrue as a Middie." By the end of his speech, his feet slammed into the floor like twin pile drivers. I'd never heard someone stomp while running before.

Something finally caught up to my sleep-deprived brain. "You keep talking like you're not one of them."

"I'm not."

I glanced back to meet his gaze for a second, quirking an eyebrow. "Really, Quick? You're going to tell me you're as broad across as a suit of battle armor naturally?"

Crimson washed across his skin. I'd never seen someone blush that easily. Then again, I'd only known half a dozen Noobs in my entire life. Most parents wanted a known quantity if they were going to invest a minimum of eight years in a child. His reply came in a rush, the words spilling out against his will.

"Mom and dad wanted a kid, but there wasn't anybody up for reincarnation. No recent battles, no noncombat losses. They were clutter free with me being fresh. They wanted to give me something special, something unique. They gave their essies free rein with me. The little clutters had an update of an old set of specs they wanted to try out. That's... that's how I got this way."

"Isn't there an Imperial edict against testing new builds on Noobs?"

"Yeah, well. They got around it with that 'update' clutter. Besides, it's not like the Dragon doesn't have a history of thumbing its collective nose at the Empress." His mouth twisted into a wry smile. The First Dragon had disobeyed the Empress more than once. Each time, she had the commanders responsible executed. I opened my mouth to remind him of that, but before I could speak memory washed over me, pulling me into a waking nightmare.