Free Defender of the Empire: Cadet #1 by Catherine Beery Page B

I expected to hear from him and my shock must have been all over my face because he chuckled dryly.
                  “I’m from Ser-etten. We don’t have any colonies because we see how the others treat theirs. I, like the rest of my people, do not agree that colonists have no rights. Everyone was created by God, thus everyone deserves to be respected.”  I had never heard this before, but I could tell he wasn’t lying to me. There was something real about him that I had to believe. It was also nice hearing that someone didn’t see me as less than them simply because of where I was from. Even so, I knew what he was going to say next would be less welcome and more expected.
                  “Unfortunately,” He continued as I knew he would, “my view point is not shared by many. Especially Miss Morgan. She is from Coronaius. A noble. She sees those not of her class as less than she. Once she learns that she is rooming with a colonist, she will probably get very… nasty.”
                  I sighed. “Thanks for the warning. I kind of expected it from everyone, so thank you for being different. She can hate me if she wants. She can pretend that I am not even there. I’ve seen worse things than a girl who thinks her pedigree makes her better.”
                  He smiled at my words, humor lighting his eyes. Putting a finger to his lips he glanced exaggeratedly around before saying “There are worse things than a girl with a pedigree, just don’t let anyone else hear that.” He came around the desk then and offered me his hand. I managed to shift things so I could shake it. “My name is Michel Serra. If you ever need to get away from Miss P,” I grinned at his shortening of ‘pedigree’, “I work the desk every evening. You can come and visit.”
                  “Thank you, Michel.”
                  I left him feeling better now that I had at least one friend in the whole academy. I wasn’t totally alone. I could face my roommate. I would treat her with the respect another person deserves and try not to think about how she may very well treat me. As I had told Michel, I was prepared for negative reactions. I knew how to let them slide off of me. In recent months I had had a lot of practice.
     
                 
    Lassie Morgan was a budding Jewel Rose. Statuesque with long auburn hair and golden eyes. If I had cared about complexion, like she obviously did, I would be suffering from awed jealousy. Her skin was a creamy golden color that must draw male attention even though she was still a girl. She was about my age, perhaps a year older at fourteen. Regardless, she was beautiful and I knew that Ace and Carden would have been drooling and wondering how best to get her to work for them once she was a little bit older.
                  Yeah, I said those two were honorable. And compared to some, they are. They would wait until she was an adult before selling her contract around. The honor of thieves does not apply to good men.
                  And as Michel had warned me, Lassie had looked down her nose at me from the start. And that was before she had asked where I was from…
                  “If I hadn’t known that it was impossible for dirt like you to make it through the Admissions Branch without permission I would be kicking you out. And you couldn’t possibly be intelligent enough to slip past them.” Those were the first things she said to me after I answered her questions: ‘who are you?’ and ‘where are you from?” I had wondered at her naiveté because I was quite sure that someone who knew how things worked would have been able to slip through. With a disgusted look she had pointed me toward the far side of the room.
                  She was definitely not anything like the heroic character with whom she shared a name. Mentally smiling, I figured she would be