He swallowed hard, discovering the back of his throat had gone bone-dry.
She kept her unblinking eyes locked on his. “Do you want to find out on your first day how very creative I can be?”
He raised an eyebrow. “No?”
Rake regarded him placidly for a few moments, then dropped him to his feet. “So you are capable of self-preservation.”
He scratched the back of his neck.
She sat on the edge of her desk and folded her arms. “Say it with me, though.”
“What?”
“No … sir.”
Cavalon licked his dry lips. “No, sir.”
“No, Excubitor Rake, sir.”
“No, Excubitor Rake, sir.”
“All right. Good job, soldier.”
“All right. Good job—”
She cut him off with an effusive sigh. She buried her face in her hands, then took a sharp breath in before looking back at him, eyes almost … amused. “You obviously need to be babysat.”
He lifted his shoulders in a poor attempt at a shrug. She wasn’t wrong. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him.
She rounded the desk and sat, reopening her terminal interface. “I’m assigning you to bridge duty so I can keep an eye on you myself.”
“Uh, what about janitorial? Sir?”
“Janitorial bridge duty,” she confirmed. “And a homework assignment. Are you ready for it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Try to learn some fucking humility? And learn to respect what we do here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Extra credit? Maybe go five seconds without causing a major uproar.”
“You got it.”
Rake blinked, her stare level.
“… sir.”
She refocused on her terminal and silently slid through files. After a few minutes, she landed on one and quirked an eyebrow. “You’ve got quite a list of credentials.”
Cavalon scratched his chin, unsure of what could possibly be in his file that Rake would consider a “credential.”
“Sir?”
“Three degrees?”
“Oh.” That. He nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Astrophysics, astromechanical engineering, and … genetic engineering. No surprise there.”
“That one was forced on me.”
“Top of your class, high marks in everything?”
“My fraternity also voted me most likely to die before graduation. Is that in there?”
Her eyes narrowed.
He shifted his feet. “Joke’s on them, I guess.”
“How can you be at once highly intelligent and utterly idiotic?”
“I know, right? You’d think all the selective breeding would have created a nice, clean crop of Mercers by now.”
“Well,” she said, leaning back in her chair, “I’m glad to see proof that human nature’s fighting eugenics.”
He laughed, despite himself.
He prepared himself for another glare, but her scowl had faded and she shook her head. “You seem like a lot of work, but we’re in short supply of educated soldiers right now.”