Blue Horizon: Sequel of Eleven

Canto of the Cadets

Prologue

Aboard the Orbital Zeppelin en route to the Space Elevator Yokosuka, Kobo Kanaeru and Zeta Vestia shouted at each other until their faces went red. Their voices bounced off the walls of the pressurized cabin and drowned out the din of the hundreds of other passengers and the cheerful elevator music playing onboard.

"HUH!?!?!? What the hell are you doing here!?" Kobo shrieked, her fountain-like locks of hair bristled furiously like crashing waves, "Go back to whatever stupid rich girl school you're going to or something!"

"Oh yeah!? You're the one who should go back!" Zeta shouted back, standing tiptoed to tower over Kobo and her hyperactive hair, "Aren't you running away from your poor-kid school? Do you know who I am!?"

"No! I don't! And I don't care!!" Kobo hissed and stuck out her tongue.

"Why you...!!"

This was the reality that Olivia Kureiji had to deal with.

The grounded, starfighter-less I.D.O.L. Frame pilot stood between Kobo and Zeta like a wall of frizzled red hair and worsening eye bags, furrowing her brow and wrinkling her nose in frustrated silence. Somehow, she managed to whisk the two bickering brats from the Skyport Banda Aceh onto their scheduled zeppelin flight, but it was taking its toll on her.

It took every ounce of her patience and calmness to stop Kobo and Zeta from starting the Third World War.

' If the screaming doesn't kill me and rupture my eardrums, then I'm gonna end up trending on Pink Rabbit's Twitter hashtag. ' Olivia rolled her eyes, ' I can already see the other passengers bringing out their cameras. Hooh boy. '

Eleven minutes into the word war between the two brats, Kobo and Zeta started running out of ammunition. Their bickering grew less and less coherent and more erratic, devolving into calling each other 'stupid' over and over and over again.

' They're scraping the barrel. Thank goodness... ' Olivia thought.

She heaved a sigh of relief.

Olivia watched the zeppelin slow down and dock with one of the bridges of the Space Elevator Yokosuka, tapping her feet impatiently. She was eager to put the nightmare of practically herding a cat and a water fountain behind her.

' The sooner I can drop these kids off at the Academy, the sooner I can... ' Olivia pondered, but her thoughts were interrupted.

Unfortunately for her, she misjudged just how much of the barrel the two brats still had left to scrape!

"Stupid cat didn't let me enjoy the space view on the zeppelin." Kobo grumbled on their way out, speaking just loud enough for Zeta to hear her.

"Dumb fountain just can't shut up and leave me in peace." Zeta answered too, baring her teeth viciously, "... and I'm not a cat!!"

Kobo and Zeta butted heads.

Again.

Olivia's red eyes twitched.

Passengers all around them were bringing out their phones again. They didn't bother to put their phones on silent mode. It wasn't a matter of whether or not Olivia would be trending on orbital platform Twitter anymore. It was a matter of how high up the list she got.

Olivia's had enough.

"Hey. Kids." Olivia snapped, barely hiding her fury any longer, "Would the two of you mind behaving for a -freaking- second? You gals are pushing my buttons right now and I'm trying really, REALLY hard to keep it in check."