“You don’t need to worry about that,” Targeemos said. “The Warborn… They’re a piece of our past we’re ambivalent about. We honor them for their sacrifice in defending the homeworld, but we see them as victims of an unenlightened practice, created to be exploited for our benefit. We’ve grown past that now.” She cleared her throat. “Or we like to think we have. I can’t believe the Arcturian government would have let them join Starfleet if they thought it would lead to them being exploited again. The people back home would never stand for it. We wouldn’t force them to fight.”

Vekal gazed at the Warborn, who had taken up positions in an open plaza and begun performing martial-arts exercises with strict, regimented precision, ignoring the wary spectators who gave them a wide berth. “Perhaps. But do they know that?”

It had made Portia uncomfortable to be paraded before the Academy’s other first-year cadets at the opening assembly. Ever since she and the others had been revived from cryosleep, the citizens of Arcturus had looked on them as outsiders, anomalies with no place in their world. She had longed to have an enemy to fight, a battle to be sent to so that she would not feel so purposeless. Now she finally had a mission—to attend the Academy, to integrate with the Starfleet community, to learn the ways of exploration and diplomacy. Yet being sent here had only worsened her sense of being out of place and unwanted.

Not that she could blame that entirely on the cadets who scrutinized them warily, keeping an uneasy distance. In some ways, she felt just as out of place among her own group, unsure if she saw their mission the same way the others did. That became clear when she downloaded her course schedule and texts onto her Academy-issue data slate and began to look them over. Horatio was standing beside her, doing the same with his own slate, but he had always been inquisitive, so he looked over hers as well. What he saw made him frown, and he turned to confront Portia.

“You are registered for Tactics 101? That is a combat course!”

She stared at him. “Why shouldn’t I be? This is the core curriculum. We must take all its courses, regardless of the order we take them in.”

Bertram stepped forward, facing down Horatio. “I’m in that course as well. Why not? It’s what I know.”

Horatio was unimpressed. “We’re here to learn what we do not already know. Diplomacy, history, science.”

Another male, Benedick, moved in alongside Horatio, nodding eagerly. “That’s right. There are so many fascinating new subjects here to learn, so many exciting new challenges. I had a hard time choosing among them. I want to master them all!”

Portia chuckled. Benedick had gestated at the same time as the others, yet he always seemed more youthful and innocent.