I had travelled twenty-five thousand light years, a quarter of the width of the Milky Way, just to get away from people who assumed I was my clone father. Apparently I'd done so, but now my new commanding officer assumed I was my clone father's equally dead wife.

"Sir, I..."

"Did I ask you a question?" Commandant De'Lann's voice was cold as space.

"No, sir."

"Did you really think anyone in the Dragon had forgotten you?"

This was getting worse by the second. "I'm afraid I don't understand the question, sir. There appears..."

"You don't understand the question? Well, let me spell it out for you. Did you think anyone would forget how you got everyone in this unit killed? Not just once. A couple commanders have done that. Not that anyone would trust you with command. But that hasn't stopped you, has it? You just change your name, tart yourself up, and try to sneak into command school. Not. On. My. Watch." She spat the last words out, her face scrunched up like she'd been sucking on a raw lemon. She clutched at the surface of her desk like she wished she could grab at me instead.

Before I could reply, the door chimed.

"Middle Grade Cadet First Officer Quick, escorting Cadet Dustie Dabig, reporting, Commandant." Tiamat's voice was a balm after my new commanding officer's venom. "Shall I send him in?"

The change that swept over the Commandant amazed me. One moment she was vicious, almost a raving lunatic. Her face smoothed, she straightened her already pristine uniform, and laid her hands against the surface of her desk, perfectly still.

"Yes, Tiamat. Thank you."

The Middie First came through the door, his face flushed, his lungs still shuddering to take in air despite his attempt to hide it.

"Middle Grade Cadet First Officer Tomas Quick reporting with Middle Grade Cadet Dustie Dabig, sir!" He snapped to attention as he said it, a parade ground salute a pitiful defense against the commanding officer's cold glare.

"Is there a reason Cadet 'Dabig' got here first, Cadet Quick?" The way she emphasized my name, as if daring me to claim it as my own, lit an angry fire in my belly, one I could do nothing about without making my situation worse.

"No excuse, sir. Just slow, sir." He stared over the commandant's head, his eyes perfectly level. If he didn't see her glare, he didn't have to acknowledge it, didn't have to wonder what ill it boded. She tapped the fingernails of one hand across the smooth, polished surface of her desk, a slow staccato rhythm.

For a moment, her nails drew my own gaze. Imperial Military Personnel tended toward short hair and nails, but it wasn't a regulation. Long hair and long nails got in the way. A pregnant woman, on the other hand, was on light duty until she gave birth, and usually on Instructor duty for a while after, at least until her child graduated from Junior Grade to Middle Grade at age eight. Commandant De'Lann's nails gleamed, an inch of red so deep it was almost black.

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Her eyes flickered toward me, and I jerked my gaze to the level. When she realized what I'd been staring at, she pulled her hand back as if to comb her fingers through her hair. The deep maroon of her nails clashed with the honey blonde of her hair. Halfway through the motion, her fingers caught; she wasn't used to hair long enough to braid.

I'd wanted command track for as long as I could remember. I'd trained myself to read body language for nearly eight years. At this point, every inch of my new commanding officer told me she wanted nothing more than to space the three of us and pretend we'd never arrived on her ship.

It also told me she didn't dare, and I had no idea why.

Finally, she turned her basilisk glare from the First back to me. "So. What am I going to do with you, Cadet Li?"

"I prefer Cadet Delnot, Commandant."

My gaze was drawn to my left like someone had hooked tow cables to my eyeballs. Pulled by a voice smooth as hundred-year-old whiskey, even when reporting to his commanding officer. I recognized that voice. Hair carved from age darkened cherry wood surrounded perfect features cast of amber. Worst of all were the cinnamon eyes that stared at a point just over the commandant's head. For an instant of frozen time, they flickered toward me. Our eyes met...

...across the office my gaze met eyes the color of spring grass on rolling hills. Lightning played across those eyes, echoed in the feral grin beneath them. I tried to look away, but her eyes captivated me. Hair like flame danced around her face, animated by the static crackling across the bridge of her nose...

...his jaw dropped open, his hands dropping to his desk. A face made of planes and angles, softened by the faint fleshiness I knew ought to be there, surrounded brown eyes. Until today they'd always been hard, like cheap formed plastic, but looking at me they melted into pools of liquid chocolate. I'd known since the first time I saw him that I was his, but now I knew he was mine...

...a thick braid of jet-black hair draped over her shoulders, lay between her breasts, and pooled in her lap. Lips like milk curved in amusement, and I fell into her eyes, into depths black as space. I was lost, and my world lost with me...

...we looked down upon the supplicant kneeling before us. His words pulled at us, unearthing deep conditioning, echoing poetry from before the dawn of our world. He raised his gaze to meet ours, and hunger for eyes of pale jade consumed us. We drank him in, pale jade pouring into the endless aching void. We mourned his passing, hoping it would be quick, for his sake. We waited...

Eyes front, cadet!

Cadet Delnot's command echoed through my head. Before I could even see for the memories still overwhelming me, my gaze snapped back to the wall above the commandant's head. She still stared daggers at Delnot's interruption; I hadn't been gone long.

"I am unaccustomed to being interrupted in my own office, Cadet Delnot." Her glare made it abundantly clear she would like him out of her office and out of her ship. Commandants could do that; expulsion was the ultimate penalty, one only the commandant could apply. "Now you've done so twice in one day."

"I apologize, sir. I have orders."

"So you've said." Commandant De'Lann's glare tracked from Delnot across to me. "Cadet Dabig, is it?"

"Yes, sir!" My response was pure reflex; my brain cycled round and round on one bit of data. Creepy Stalker Guy had a name. Delnot. He had a name and a face, and his face was even better than his voice. One look, and I'd been tossed through the most intense memories of four lifetimes. I wasn't the only one saddled with memories not her own. My clone father had been carrying around Grace's, and she'd been carrying around her parents'. I'd never met her parents. Until that moment, I'd avoided thinking about who they were. Now I knew their faces. Worse, I recognized them.

Every cadet in the empire knew the face of the Empress and her Consort.