Notes: I had planned
for this chapter to come from another perspective, but then I remembered that I’d
kind of been neglecting the other POVs for a while. So instead of Cody or Ten, today you get
Darrell. And he even gets some personal
development thrown in there as well;)
Next week will be EPIC, btw!
Title: The Academy
Part Sixteen: If You Can’t Be Happy, At Least Be Something
***
Darrell
had known for a long time that no matter what he did with himself, it was never
going to be quite enough for his family.
More than once he’d wondered whether it wouldn’t have been easier to
have failed massively as a child instead of striving for perfection. If he had disappointed them more early on, by
now they might not care what he did with every second of his time. Instead—
“Honestly,
Darry,” Nana sighed as she stared at him through the holoprojector. “You couldn’t find time for the Athenian
Society, but you’ve got room in your schedule for this little…culture club?”
“Admiral
Liang accredited it,” Darrell pointed out, yet again. “It’s not like I’m wasting my time.”
“But
the Athenian Society is all about making connections! Those are the people who are going to be
allies to you for the length of your entire career. The ones who will be in a position to help
you, honey! I just don’t see why—”
“I did
mention that it’s Grennson’s club, didn’t I?” Darrell demanded. His grandparents always called him on
Saturday mornings, and while the conversations were supposed to be brief,
lately they’d been dragging on and on.
His mother usually poked her head in for a moment to say hello, but he
never got to speak with her alone. “It’s
an honor to be included.”
“If I
were you, I’d be more careful about how much time of mine I let that alien
monopolize,” Papa warned. “He may have a
certain cachet because of his…uniqueness, but he isn’t going to do much for you
in the long run, Darrell. You need human
friends.”
“I have
human friends,” Darrell said, stung by his grandparents dismissal of probably
the most important person in his life right now. “They all want to know him too. Grennson is—”
“He’s a
fad, honey,” his nana said. “Don’t
worry, it’ll pass. At least President
Alexander’s brother is in your little club, right?”
“Yes,”
Darrell said numbly.
“Well
then, that’s good! Try and cozy up to
him. Knowing a boy like that will get
you far once you have your own command.”
He
tried to stop it, he tried gritting his teeth and clenching his jaw and holding
back the words, but they wouldn’t be stayed.
“What if I don’t want my own command?”
“Darry!” Nana looked shocked. “Of course you want your own command! Your father had his own command by the age of
twenty-seven, don’t you want to follow in his footsteps?”
“My
father started off by commanding a Gage-class ship with less than a hundred
crew,” Darrell snapped. “He didn’t
advance beyond that for almost a decade.
And even when, even when he
was finally promoted to captain a larger vessel, instead of giving him a
Basilisk or a Firebird, the admiralty put him in charge of Space Station
17. A middle of nowhere, mining-support
station with a skeleton crew and undersupplied defenses, and it didn’t seem to
matter who he knew in school or how high up the chain of command his friends
were, he still died in a raid,
outgunned and outclassed and ignored.”
“Darrell!”
Papa shouted, actually shouted. Nana was
too paralyzed to shout, one hand covering her mouth. “You will not
speak about your father that way! He was
a hero! It’s his legacy that got you
into the Academy, you should show him some respect!”
“I do
respect him!” Darrell shouted back.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this was a bad idea, but he
didn’t care. It had been grating on him
all week, Cody’s happiness about talking with his grandfather and the impending
visit from his dads, Grennson’s frequent discussions with Ferran and
Jason. Even Ten was surprisingly
sanguine in hir own way, not bothering to talk about hir absent parents simply
because ze really didn’t care about them.
Whereas Darrell lived in a constant state of anxiety, under the shadow
of his father and the voluntary absence of his mother from his life, all
control handed over to his grandparents like they could orchestrate him into
actually being their real son. Well, they couldn’t.
“I
respect him,” Darrell repeated more slowly.
“I respect his sacrifice, I respect that he was a great man. But I’m not a clone. I can’t do everything that he did, in exactly
the way that he did it. I just can’t,
and asking me to is only going to make you upset with me.”
“This
isn’t you,” Nana spoke up firmly. “This
isn’t you, Darry, you wouldn’t never say these sorts of things without being
provoked. It’s that Perel, isn’t
it? He put you up to this, he’s making
you feel things you shouldn’t be feeling.
They’re empaths, aren’t they?
They can control a person’s emotions.
I’m going to petition Admiral Liang immediately to get you removed from
that quad, that alien is a destabilizing influence.”
“I won’t
go,” Darrell said immediately. “I’m old
enough to make these choices for myself, and I won’t leave my quad. Grennson is my friend, and being an empath just
means you can sense another person’s emotions, not that you can influence them.”
“But we
don’t know that!” Nana wailed. “We don’t
know what they’re hiding from us, Darry!
They’re aliens. And Captain Kim has lived with them for too
long, he actually married one of
them, we can’t take his word for anything either. No, I want you out of there.”
“I’m
not leaving.”
“We’ll
see about that,” Papa said. He glared so
fiercely that Darrell was suddenly glad to be on another planet, well out of
hitting range.
“I’m
not leaving,” he repeated, and then turned off the projection, ending the
call. Darrell leaned back against the
wall and stared at the blank space in front of him for a while. He absently wondered why he was feeling…well,
nothing, actually. It seemed like he
should be upset at his grandparents, at their interference, at how they
constantly tried to diminish who he was so that they could turn him into
someone else. They hadn’t even asked
about his studies, staunchly ignoring the fact that he was multi-track in command
(naturally) and linguistics. They didn’t bother to find out that after
three months of private lessons, Darrell was able to speak Perel with more
fluency than any person at the Academy other than Grennson, and that his extra
efforts had gotten him a commendation from the Dean of the Linguistics
Department. They didn’t care that he was
finally getting along with his quad mates, that he enjoyed Cody’s easy company
and could actually stand to be in the same room as Ten now. All they cared about were his efforts as a
social climber.
Well,
fuck that. Darrell knew what he was and
wasn’t good at, and he’d done far better for himself getting to know people by
being nice to his quad mates than trying to ingratiate himself with the other
Legacies and members of the Athenian Society.
Darrell would never have approached someone like Kyle Alexander even to
ask the time of day, much less talked him into joining Grennson’s culture
club. Yet Cody had not only managed it,
but seemed to make Kyle glad to do it.
And the whole idea of the club in the first place…that was all
Grennson.
What
was their problem with Grennson, anyway?
They’d never been bothered by aliens before. In fact, they’d been pleased when he’d first
told them who his roommate was.
The
knock on the door pulled Darrell out of his reverie. “Yes?”
Grennson
came inside, quietly shutting the door behind him. “General Caractacus is due to call in about
five minutes,” he said. “Everyone is
here.” His voice was a familiar,
soothing rumble, and Darrell just stared for a moment before nodding
jerkily. Right. The club, yes.
“I’ll
be right out.”
“You
should feel free to take your time,” Grennson said, his quills ruffling a
bit. Darrell knew that expression; even
though he felt comfortably distant from his emotions at the moment, that didn’t
mean they weren’t there. Grennson
probably knew better than he did what was going on inside his head right
now. “No one will be upset if you’re a
bit late.”
Darrell
shook his head. “Xenia will make fun of
me if I am.”
“Xenia likes
to do that, for many reasons. That doesn’t
mean it matters.” Grennson paused for a
moment before saying, “Your grandparents…”
“I don’t
want to talk about them right now, please.”
“All
right,” Grennson said equably. “But I’ll
be here to talk with when you do want to.
If you do want to.” He wrinkled
his milky nose. “Did that make
sense? My Federation is more instinctual
than practiced. Matriarch Jlinn despaired of teaching me proper grammar before
my fathers and I left Perelan.”
“It was
fine,” Darrell assured him. “I
understood you. Thanks.”
“You’re
welcome.”
After a
little bit more quiet, Darrell got to his feet.
“All right. We better get going,
or we’ll miss out on some brilliant policy discussion.” He rolled his eyes and Grennson chuckled.
“Policy
can be a very interesting topic,” he said as he opened the door. “It’s quite important.”
“I know
it is, but—”
“Shut
it!” Xenia whispered from her place in front of the couch. Cody already had his private holoprojector
set up in the common room, and it was in the middle of connecting right
now. “We’re starting already, what the
hell were you doing in there?”
“Meditating,”
Grennson said, at the same time that Darrell said, “Jerking off,” casually,
like he didn’t care what any of them thought.
Not even Kyle Alexander, in the center of their couch like the sun of
their particular solar system. Cody and
Ten were on his right, Pamela on his left, and Bartholomew and Xenai had the
floor. That meant Darrell and Grennson
would be standing behind the couch if they wanted to see. Not a problem.
“Is meditating
while jerking off some kind of tantric sex?” Ten asked curiously, but then the
holoprojector came on and a warm, weathered face filled the screen.
“Hi
General Caractacus,” Cody said cheekily.
“Thanks for being here today.”
“Hello,
Cadets,” the general replied with a smile.
“Sorry to rush this, but I’ve only got half a standard hour, so let’s
get going.” They got through
introductions fast, and then jumped into a discussion of FB-458-D9.
Policy
had never interested Darrell. He thought
it was boring, he just couldn’t help it.
In that way, at least, he’d been well-suited for command track: command
was all about quick thinking and action, less about figuring out the ever-expanding
web of Federation rules and regulations.
Listening to the general and Cody and Kyle made it interesting though,
and even Ten and Bartholomew had some relevant questions that made Darrell stop
and think.
The
Drifter bill led to a discussion of other controversial bills, including one
that made Grennson’s quills stand on end.
“Closing the Mazzi embassies?” he said, utterly taken aback. “Why?
They’ve been Federation allies for over a millennia!”
“Just
the embassies on Hartford and Whynot,” General—no, Miles, he said they could
call him that—said, but he didn’t look happy.
“The only reasons cited in the actual bill are ‘security concerns’ but
word is that the new local governments aren’t supportive of the idea of Mazzi
in their cities. The Mazzi have never
allowed us to examine them—”
“Nor
should they!”
“And
there were some questions about whether or not a Mazzi swarm could have infiltrated
government buildings or used pieces of itself as listening devices in private
offices,” Miles finished.
“What…they…”
Darrell
spoke up over Grennson’s stuttering. “Do
they have reason to believe the Mazzi actually have any interest in spying on
us? Like Grennson said, they’ve been
allies for…since before we left the Home System. They’ve never acted with aggression against
us.”
“They
have when threatened by us,” Miles corrected, “but point taken. And most people think that these are very
thinly veiled excuses for xenophobia.
There’s growing support in a lot of local governments for this kind of
action, though. I’m not sure where the
groundswell started, but it’s a reality in the Central System.”
“But
why is the Federation Parliament condoning it?” Cody asked.
“They
haven’t, officially. Not yet. But they haven’t vetoed the measures
either. It’s one of many things I’ll be
looking into once I get there next week.
Speaking of that, Cody, you should expect a call from your dads today or
tomorrow. They should have all of one
night’s layover on Olympus before they have to continue on.” Miles shook his head. “I’m sorry it couldn’t be for longer, but I
really need their support.”
“I
understand,” Cody said quickly. “It’s
okay.”
“I have
to sign off, I’m afraid. Good to meet
you, Cadets.”
“And
you, sir.”
“Thank
you, sir.”
“An
honor, sir.” They thanked him quickly
and Miles’ end of the connection cut off a moment later.
“Wow,”
Pamela said after a moment. “He’s handsome. I see where you get it from, Cody.”
Cody started
to laugh.
Very interesting. Im glad darrell is finally standing up to his family so he can be himself! Dads visiting is going to be funnnnn next week!! I expected the new drifter policy to take up more time in this chapter, but you tricked me lol
ReplyDeleteGreat as always Cari!
Scottie
Thank you, Scottie darlin! Yes, I'm tricksome...don't worry, there's going to be lots of everything in the future, from policy to action to awkward teenage getting it on...I will fill your cup, my dear.
DeleteWell done! I always like character growth so it's nice to see Darrel coming to his own.
ReplyDeleteThanks, yanah! Darrell still has some growing pains ahead of him, but I needed to kickstart him a bit. :)
DeleteSo glad Darrell is finally telling off his family. I think Darrell's grandmother would get along well with Garrett's grandmother!
ReplyDeleteAvid!
DeleteOh, the grandmas. Maybe I have a grandmother thing. I picture them as fundamentally different in their approach to their grandchildren, in that Garrett's grandmother prefers not to think of him at all, focusing on people she thinks are worth her time, while Darrell's is very unrealistic about her place in his life, but determined to hang on tooth and nail. The comparison is still apt, though.
Party time next week:)