Never fear, and my upcoming schedule.

I do have a Garrett and Jonah vignette coming, probably tomorrow.  I thought I'd get it done sooner, but then the weekend caught up to me.  My sister and her fiance are flying in to Denver to do wedding stuff until Wednesday, and will be staying with us in between rushing from tasting to fitting to...whatever else people getting married do.  Seriously, I don't know, I got married in a state park by a shaman.  No fuss, no muss, people had to hike to the ceremony and then we had a big party.  Done.  Needless to say, my little sis is not going that route.  My father already tried bribing her to elope, but my mother and her fiance's family shot that idea down.  It's gonna be a big deal when it happens.

Anyway, more schedule stuff: next Wednesday, when my guests leave, my man and I are also leaving for Florida and RainbowCon, where we're volunteers for the inaugural year.  I expect excitement, chaos and a paucity of free time.  Additionally, I'm switching a lot of clients from Wednesday to Tuesday, so I'm going to try my best to write the next part of The Academy this weekend instead of waiting for Tuesday, because I just won't have the time.  Even then, I'm not sure how much time I'll have, since family will be here.

I come back to Boulder the following Monday, and that next weekend a darling friend of mine and her husband will be coming out to visit for a few days, so!  From here on out, April is pretty much booked.  I've got to finish my goodreads story and write on Academy, and that's pretty much all the free time I anticipate when it comes to my writing.  Fuckin' yikes.

So, that's what I'll be doing.  If something is late, I do apologize, but life is going to get insane, so have patience with me, darlins.

The Academy Post #18

Notes:  Aaand goodbye fluff, hello plot.  Okay, well, so there’s still some fluff in here, but we’re also kicking off the major plot arc, so that’s fun!  I’ll probably write a Garrett/Jonah vignette later in the week, because I love them, so stay tuned. 

Title: The Academy

Part Eighteen: Better Safe Than Dead

***

                Cody woke up with reluctance, rolling away from the gentle hand on his shoulder.  “Ten, stop’t,” he muttered.

                “Not Ten, darling,” an amused voice said.

                “Garrett?”  Cody blinked his eyes open and looked up at his parent, then around the room.  Oh, right—he’d opted to sleep on board their ship last night.  Ten, being the only sober one out of the group, had had the unenviable task of herding Grennson and Darrell back to their quad, which ze’d complained about—loudly—while Cody had settled into his old bed with a sigh of satisfaction. 

                It was still so early, though, and there were no classes today.  “Why’m I awake?” Cody moaned, turning his face back into his pillow.

                “Your dad and I have to leave soon, Cody.  He’s off dealing with the bay officer getting our clearance now, and you and I need to talk.”

                That sounded serious.  Cody forced his eyes open and sat up.  “What’s wrong?” he asked, a little taken aback by how different Garrett looked this morning compared to last night, when he’d been so warm and charming.

                “Probably nothing,” Garrett said, “but I have to make sure.  Cody, do you remember the civil war on Paradise?”

                “A little of it,” he said, frowning as he tried to remember.  “You left Pandora for a long time after Miles was attacked.”

                “Right,” Garrett nodded.  “There are a lot of ways to resolve political disputes, Cody.  The most civilized ways involve compromise and diplomacy, but a lot of people who rise to power are uncivil.  The assassination attempt against Miles was one group’s bid to get their way through force.  A lot of Central System elitists say that sort of thing only happens on the Fringe, but I’m here to tell you that that’s simply not true.  Central dissidents are just more subtle about how they do their damage.”

                Cody felt a shiver travel down his spine.  “Are you saying you and dad could be in danger from…what, assassins?” he hissed incredulously.  “Garrett!”  His father was already shaking his head, though.

                “The danger exists, but we’re going to be very well protected once we get to Liberty,” he said.  “Honestly, I was more worried while we were travelling, but we’re nearly there now.  My father has long experience with this sort of thing, and he’s not taking any chances with Claudia or the girls.  Your dad and I will be with them, and we’ll be fine.  The person I’m more worried about is you.”

                “But I’m not even involved,” Cody protested.  “I’m just a cadet, I don’t make any decisions.”

                “But you matter to the people who are deep in the fight,” Garrett explained.  “Miles is very persuasive, and once I’m with him and his mother is shamed enough to throw her weight behind us, we’ll be formidable.  There are a lot of people who agree with us in the Federation parliament, but without a leader it’s easy for their views to be overshadowed by the people with the loudest voices and the closest supporters.  Fringe planets have been ignored for a long time, but the piracy issue is a starting point for a whole referendum of change that Miles is trying to push through.  This is making a lot of people very uncomfortable, and some of them would be more than happy to distract Miles from his goal by hurting the people he cares about.”

                The shiver turned into a chill and settled into Cody’s bones.  “Are you saying I’m in danger?  Here?”  The Academy was supposed to be a safe place for all cadets.

                “It’s a possibility,” Garrett said unhappily.  “That’s part of what I talked to Admiral Liang about yesterday.  He assured me he’s got measures in place to keep you and others who might be at risk safe, but your dad and I don’t want to rely on that.”  Garrett held out three small silver discs, identical to the buttons on the front of the cadet uniform. 

                “What are they?” Cody asked.  Most buttons were just for show these days, since fabrics could be made self-sealing.  These had to be something else.

                “Wyl made them.  They’re single-shot, five second inertial dampeners.  They project a force field around you and will slow, and in some cases, completely repulse an object that gets within two feet of you.  They’re single-shot because Wyl couldn’t fit a bigger battery into something that had to look like a part of your uniform, but they’re powerful.”  Garrett poured them into Cody’s hand and closed his fingers over them.  “Just in case.  Only use one at a time, Wyl didn’t have time to test how the fields would interact with each other.  You’ll have to hit them pretty hard to activate them, but be careful anyway.”

                “Okay.”  Cody looked at Garrett, so solemn and serious.  “I’ll be very careful,” he promised.  “You don’t have to worry about me.”

                “Spoken like someone who doesn’t have a kid,” Garrett said, but he chuckled, and the atmosphere lightened a bit.  “Worrying about you is our right, we’re your family.”

                “I think you should be more worried about yourself,” Cody said, and now it was his turn to be serious.  “Miles might be good at this, but he wasn’t good enough to save himself back on Paradise.  He almost died.  And now he’s going to be so busy, and you’re all going to be there with him.  What if someone tries something on Renee or Yvaine?”  Just the thought made Cody’s heart lurch.

                “They’re going to be staying in my grandmother’s home,” Garrett said.  “They’ll be lucky if she lets her little princesses out of the tower at all.  They’ll be safe, though.  My grandmother is a lot of things, but she knows how to secure a position.”

                “Oh good.” Cody breathed a sigh of relief.  “Will you be staying with her too?”

                Garrett laughed sharply.  “No, not even close.  I’m made other arrangements for me and Jonah.  We’ll be fine.”

                “She’s kind of a bitch, isn’t she?”

                “You’ve no idea,” Garrett agreed.  “But she’s got her good points, and Miles isn’t above using her if it means his little girls are safe.  Don’t be affronted for my sake.”

                “I’m not,” Cody said easily.  “Just wondering how many incredible presents I missed out on by not being perfect enough for her.”

                “Perfect is overrated,” Garrett replied, but he was smiling now, so Cody counted that as a win.  “And I think I hear your dad returning.  Get dressed and we’ll have breakfast.”  He left Cody’s room and Cody stared down at the buttons in his hand, vacillating between touched and scared.  It seemed impossible that someone could be interested in hurting him, of all people.  He was still a kid, for all that he’d insisted on being treated like an adult before coming to the Academy. 

Cody put the buttons into the pocket of his uniform pants, sealed it closed, and headed for the bathroom.  Ideally this would all come to nothing, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t wear the inertial dampeners.  Cody was hopeful, not stupid.

                A few minutes later he joined his parents in the ship’s mess, where Garrett was just serving up waffles.  They were made just the way he liked, soft and airy and smelling like cinnamon, and Cody shoved down the part of himself that clamored with homesickness and sat down to eat.

                “Are you even botherin’ to chew?” his dad asked after a minute.

                “Hmphgg?”

                “Chew.  Swallow.  Then speak.”  Jonah swatted the back of his head lightly.  “You’d think we never taught you any manners.”

                “These are the best thing ever,” Cody said, not at all apologetic.  “If you didn’t get them all the time, you’d realize that.”

                “You think Garrett makes these for me when you’re not around?”

                “I would if you asked,” Garrett said, pouring cream over his own waffle.  “Which you don’t.  Your dad is usually too busy in the mornings to wait around for breakfast.”

                “Someone’s got to get to work on time,” Jonah pointed out, and Garrett snickered.  “But I guess I have missed them.”

                “I knew this vacation would be good for you,” Garrett said smugly.  “Four standard months of rest and relaxation, and now waffles with our son.  Perfect.”

                “It’s been a good break,” Jonah agreed, then he frowned.  “I’m not happy about staying away from home for so long, though.”

                “I said you could go back—”

                “I said there was no way in hell I was gonna go without you—”

                “I told you it was no problem, I’ve done this sort of thing a dozen times and you’re just going to be bored, but you insisted—”

                “If you think I’m gonna go back to Pandora without any of my family, you’re crazy,” Jonah said decisively.  “That’s never gonna happen, darlin’.  Doesn’t matter if I’m next to useless out here, there’s no way I could leave you.”

                “You’re not useless,” Garrett said, and his face was getting that mushy expression that Cody knew meant blatant affection was coming.  Which, okay, he was glad his parents were still in love, but did he have to see all of that?

                “When do you have to leave?” he asked, interrupting the eye-sex his folks were in the middle of.

                “Soon,” Jonah said with a sigh.  “Real soon, actually.  Eat up, bucko.”

                Cody cleaned his plate, had one more waffle even though he was stuffed, and a few minutes later stood on the landing platform and hugged his parents hard.

                “Garrett talked to you this morning?” his dad asked quietly.

                “Yeah,” Cody said around the lump in his throat.  “I’ll be careful.  You too, don’t do anything stupid just because you’re bored.”

                “Think you’ve got me confused with someone else,” Jonah scoffed, then he ruffled Cody’s curls and stepped back.

                “I’ve got something for Ten,” Garrett said, handing Cody a small, cloth-wrapped package before pulling him into an embrace.  “Give it to hir for me, please?”

                “Sure,” Cody said.  “What is it?”

                “It’s primarily decorative,” Garrett explained.  “Something for hir hair.  There are a few little surprises built in, but mostly it just looks nice.  I had some made for me once I realized we were going to be subjected to the battlefield that is parliament, but I can spare one for Ten.”  Garrett smiled coyly.  “Ze’s nice, isn’t ze?”

                “Not…exactly?”

                “Well no, not exactly, but hir heart’s in the right place.  And ze’s brilliant, so that counts for something.”  Garrett kissed Cody’s forehead.  “You’ve got good friends.  Hold onto them.”

                “I will.”  A few more goodbyes and then his parents boarded their ship, and Cody stepped away from the landing pad and watched them take off a few minutes later.  His eyes stung from the rush of wind, but he couldn’t look away.  He didn’t even blink until they vanished into the sky.

***

                Admiral Liang, after his meeting with Garrett Caractacus-Helms the previous day, had spent the entire night watching holofeeds from all over the Central System, but primarily from Liberty.  Good tactics, he’d learned at an early age, were largely a matter of good intel, and he insisted on making himself as well-informed as he could possibly be, shackled as he was by his current position.  Not that he’d willingly give it up, but there were times when he missed the freedom and maneuverability of a single command in space.

                The holofeeds, coupled with reports he wasn’t allowed to let his Chief of Staff know about, were worrying.  Things were moving at a faster pace than initial indicators had led him to believe, and if he wasn’t careful he’d be in danger of losing control of the local situation.  Sigurd knew better than to underestimate the importance of the Academy in the grand scheme of the Federation’s military dominance, and so did others that he simply couldn’t ignore.  If trouble came to him or his cadets, he needed to be ready for it.

                And trouble, it seemed, was already here.

                “Hermes, initiate Mercury protocol.”

                “Initiated.  What may I do for you, Admiral?”

                “Mercury, I need you to securely contact Fledgling.  Say that we’re moving to Phase Two.”

                “Phase Two was not scheduled to begin for another seven-point-nine standard months, Admiral.”

                “Apparently politics waits for no one,” Sigurd replied.  “I need Fledgling to act on this as soon as possible.”

                “I will pass on this information, Admiral.”

                “Thank you, Mercury.”

                “My duty, sir.”  The AI subsided and Sigurd stared tiredly at the holofeeds, clicking them off one at a time before preparing for his day.

                His duty, too.

The Academy Post #17

Notes:  This was so much fun to write.  Not exactly what I’d envisioned, again; this time the POV is Ten’s.  But it has Jonah and Garrett and happy fun times, which Ten finds kind of perplexing, and man, now I want to write more Jonah and Garrett.  Damn it.  Anyway, enjoy, guys.  It’s a longer post today, so hopefully that’s gratifyingJ

(PS-thanks for the help with corrections, guys, I wrote this in two hours this morning and clearly missed some editing issues going through.  I like to know when I need to clean things up.)

Title: The Academy

Part Seventeen: Positively Shattering

***

                Ten didn’t care about hir parents.

                It sounded callow and insensitive, but it was true.  Ten had stopped caring about hir parents when they left hir to the tender mercies of Symone St. Clair so they could go and do whatever it was that drove them away from Solaydor and their fledgling family.  Ten had been five, and utterly unsurprised when they had left hir behind.  Ze was more than a handful, as Symone complained constantly, and there was no room for a third person in the galaxy of hir parents’ existence.  They lived for each other and the grand adventure, whatever it happened to be at the moment.  They had never cradled hir, never tucked hir in at night, never read hir stories or built holographic cities with hir or educated hir in anything beyond the feeling of neglect, so Ten decided very early on not to care about them.  It was an easy decision, and Ten had ruthlessly ignored the entire concept of caring after that.  Caring about someone else, beyond what they could do for you, was ridiculous.

                That wasn’t to say that Ten was completely ignorant.  Ze thought of hirself as the most observant of their little cabal, actually; perhaps after Grennson, but Grennson’s perceptions were all tinted with the rosy perspective of someone who looked at everything in his new life with delight, so his accuracy was entirely suspect.  Empath or not, Ten was certain that hir own observations were more reliable.  And what ze saw around hir mostly confirmed hir own stance on the matter: caring was dangerous, painful and mostly a waste of time.

                Look at Darrell, drowning under the weight of his family’s expectations and trying to do them proud regardless of the impossibility of success.  Look at Grennson himself, coddled and adored because he was special but the target of much more societal dislike than he realized.  Look at Kyle, cold and aloof because his brother didn’t have time for him and almost everyone who met him only played nice because they wanted something from him.  Huh, at least he knew it, though.  Look at Cody…

                Damn Cody.

                Cody was the outlier, the one point on the graph that didn’t fall in line with Ten’s expectations.  Cody was…well, he was an idiot.  Not stupid, but so terribly trusting with everything except the things he should have been telling Ten about all along, like his naturalism.  Honestly, how could Ten fix it if Cody didn’t bring it up?  And despite Cody’s firm responses to the contrary, Ten knew that he wanted to be fixed.  Who wouldn’t?  Who wanted to limit the span of their life when everyone around them would live for so much longer?  Centuries more of discovery and learning, of course Cody wanted to be fixed.  It was probably his parents’ fault that he had the silly perspective that he did. 

                Cody loved his parents.  That wasn’t hard to realize.  And why wouldn’t he?  They’d obviously showered him with affection, the way people did when they were given something very breakable and tried to protect it against loss and damage.  They’d covered him with love like an insurance policy, so that he would get something good out of his life despite the issue of his longevity.  How could they demand the things they probably wanted out of him, when he had so little time?  No, they were kind, so they didn’t do that.  They let him come here, to the Academy, which was a stupid move in Ten’s mind because how could they guard him here?  Kindness overruling their common sense, clearly.  And now they were coming to visit, which meant everyone would have to put up with their kindness, but Ten could see right through that sort of thing.  It was probably going to be very pitiable.  Oh well, Ten would put in an appearance for Cody’s sake, and ze did kind of want to meet Garrett after all ze’d heard about him from Symone, but after that ze’d get back to the important work of curing Cody, not just indulging him.

                The knock at the door wasn’t a surprise, Cody had clearly been waiting for it, and he shot off the couch like he’d been launched from a blaster and jerked open the door.  “Dad!” he exclaimed happily, and Ten rolled hir eyes and turned back to hir experiment.  The resequencing was at a critical stage, and ze needed to give it hir full attention…

                “Hey, Bucko.”  Oh yay, cloying childish nicknames, check.  The sound of an embrace, soft and punctuated by grunting exhales as they squeezed each other to within an inch of their lives.  Typical.

                “Where’s Garrett?”

                “He had a quick meeting with Admiral Liang, he’ll be here soon.  Who are the rest of your quad mates?”

                “Right, Dad, this is Darrell Parrish.”

                “Pleased to meet you, sir.”  That was a handshake, Ten was sure.  Firm and polite, boring boring boring.

                “Just call me Jonah, Darrell.”  And there was the folksy Fringe manners coming into play, how adorable.  Ten scowled into hir microscope.

                “And this is Grennson Kim.”

                “It’s a pleasure to meet you!”  Oh, typical Grennson, so excited about everyone.  “Cody told me you were a Drifter in your youth.”

                “Oh he did?”  Now would come the recriminations, because really, who wanted to be outed as a former Drifter? 

                “Yes, and I would love to learn more about it.  We have nothing like that sort of life on Perelan.”

                “I’d be happy to talk about it with you,” and wait, what?  That wasn’t in the script.  “Aren’t we missing someone here, though?”

                “Yeah.  Ten!”  A second later Cody was in their bedroom, placing a hand on Ten’s shoulder.  “Ten, come meet my dad.”

                “Later.”

                “No.  Now.”

                Ten sighed but turned around, because ze was smart enough to know when arguing with Cody was hopeless, and now was one of those times.  He was so pleased to see his father again, and he wanted to share that pleasure with others because he was soft, soft, soft.  Ten firmly kept hirself from acknowledging the little frisson ze got when ze looked Cody in the eyes.  “I’m at a delicate place here, I can’t—”

                “Si-mu-la-tion,” Cody sing-songed annoyingly.  “Put it on pause and get out here.”

                “But—”  Oh shit, big eyes, earnest expression, no no no—“Fine,” ze muttered, and pushed the stasis button.  “Let’s get this over with.”  The look of hurt that flickered over Cody’s face made Ten feel like an ass, and ze hated feeling like that.  Ze plowed ahead of Cody and out into the common room.

                Ten had seen Jonah a few times on the projector, but he was taller in person, the tallest one in the room by several inches.  He was pretty normal looking beyond that, blonde-brown hair down to his shoulders, a little scruffy, long and lanky.  He turned to look at Ten and—oh.  Ah.  The eyes, then.  Some people had a little something special that made them stand out even when they didn’t work for it, and for Jonah Helms it was his eyes.  Light brown, sort of amber, they shouldn’t have been anything special but when they connected with Ten’s, ze thought they were possibly the warmest, kindest eyes ze’d ever seen.  This…this was where Cody got it from.  Cody’s eyes were exactly the same, like they were being so honest with you that you couldn’t help being honest right back.  Then he smiled, and Ten wanted to throw something, because this guy was the reason Cody was causing hir so many problems, ze was sure of it now.  People shouldn’t be allowed to look like this, it was too vulnerable.  How this man had lived to adulthood, Ten had no idea.

                “Tiennan,” Ten blurted.  “Or Ten, that was Cody’s idea and I haven’t been able to shake it.  St. Florian.  Is my surname, I mean.” Shit, shit, shit.

                “I’ll go with Ten, I think,” Jonah said, and he shook Ten’s limp hand and wow, warm.  Cody’s were usually cool, it was strange that—oh, no, Regen, right, this man could handle Regen, of course his circulation and body temperature were regularized, just like everyone else’s.  Ten should have realized—

                That he was still holding on.  Ten jerked hir hand back and wished desperately not to blush.  No, no…”Nice to meet you,” Jonah said, and great, now Ten was definitely blushing.

                “You too.”

                The potentially awkward moment was broken by the arrival of Garrett Caractacus-Helms, and Ten sighed with relief.  Now here was someone he could understand.  Garrett was, in a word, gorgeous, precisely put together platinum perfection, just the sort of person Ten had grown up surrounded by on Solaydor.

                “Garrett!”  Cody threw himself into the embrace and Garrett caught him with a grin.  Ten watched closely for signs of what the man was really thinking, but he was good.  All that came through was happy affection.

                “My god, are you taller?  You’re not supposed to grow any more, at this rate you’ll be Jonah’s height.”

                “Maybe an inch?” Cody said.  “It’s been almost five months, that’s not too fast.”

                “It feels like a mile,” Garrett said before he kissed Cody’s cheek.  He pulled back and looked around the room.  “Let’s see—Grennson Kim.”  Garrett smiled charmingly.  “It’s lovely to meet a Perel again. The first Perel I met were your uncles, actually.”

                Grennson’s enormous brown eyes grew even larger.  “Neyarr and Parrel?”

                “On their famed year abroad, yes.  They were delightful.  Very friendly, and very, very flexible.”

                “Agh, Garrett!”  Cody made a face.  “Do you have to talk about that?”

                “It was well before I met you or your dad, Cody,” Garrett said soothingly.

                “That doesn’t mean I want to hear about you and…Dad, tell him.”

                “You and two Perel?” Jonah said, perfectly deadpan, and Garrett grinned.  “Why’m I not surprised?”

                “Because you know me so well, darling,” Garrett replied.  “At any rate, it’s lovely to meet you, Grennson.  You must be far better behaved than your uncles to make it to the Academy.”

                “I am,” Grennson said, and oh, there were stars in his eyes.  He was done for.  No resilience, Ten thought.

                Darrell was Garrett’s next prey.  Ten waited for him to make some comment about Darrell’s father, but he didn’t.  All he said after they were introduced was, “I hear you’re brilliant with languages.”

                That cracked Darrell’s composure.  “Really?”  He glanced at Cody.  “You told them?”

                “Why wouldn’t I?” Cody said.

                “Because it’s not really interesting…”

                “On the contrary, it’s amazing,” Garrett said.  “Too many people rely on the automatic translators, but those lose so much intonation and don’t help with body language at all.”

                “It’s true,” Grennson put in. 

                “It’s much better to tackle it yourself,” Garrett continued.  “You’ll have a deeper understanding and be a much better diplomat for it.”

                “I’m not…I’m not going to be a diplomat,” Darrell said falteringly.

                “Then it will serve you well when you escort a diplomat to Perelan,” Garrett said smoothly.  “A skill is a skill, everything has its use.”  He turned to Ten, and ze tensed, ready to fend off any false compliments or ingratiating pablum. 

                All Garrett said was, “Nice hair.”

                “What?”  Nice…hair?  Not that it wasn’t, it was, but no one bothered to compliment it.  He should have said something about Ten’s brilliance, hir ability as a scientist, not…

                “You must have made that dye yourself, there’s no way they sell something like that commercially on Olympus.”

                “I did make it.”  Ten’s hair was a silvery-blue from one angle, and a warm pinkish-gold from another.  The two-toned wraparound treatment was devilishly hard to get right, you had to take into account the geometry of the hair, and the application process was tricky, especially when you were doing it yourself.

                “It looks good.  Professional.”

                “I’m better than any professional,” Ten snapped, because ze wasn’t going to be cozened.  “You couldn’t get something this nice done on Solaydor or Ceyla City, and don’t even get me started on the Central System.”

                “Don’t worry, I won’t,” Garrett said, and then he turned back to Cody, leaving Ten flat-footed.  That was supposed to be an argument…where had it gone?

                “So, according to the admiral, we can have you guys on the ship, but not beyond.”

                “Aw, really?”

                “Yep.  Those are the rules during term, you have to stay on campus, and our ship is temporarily an extension of that.  Not that that’s stopping me,” Garrett said with a grin.  “I’ve booked us the rooftop of Zenith.  We can have a gourmet dinner on the roof and watch the suns set and drink their very expensive booze—yes, we can and we will, it’s a special occasion,” he added without looking at his husband, who gave in with a sigh.  “And we’ll have you all back before midnight.  Except you, Cody, we’d love for you to spend the night on the ship with us, but it’s your choice.”

                “That’d be perfect,” Cody said.

                “You got reservations at Zenith?” Darrell said, gaping just a little.  “I thought they only let officers and politicians eat there.”

                Garrett waved away the concern.  “I know people who are both, happily.  They’re making our dinner right now, we should go before they have to preserve anything.”  He pulled Cody in close and swung and arm over his shoulder.  Jonah fell in on Cody’s other side, and they headed out of the common room.  They looked…huh.  Comfortable.

                “Ten, come on!” Cody called out, and Ten realized ze was the only one left in the room.  Ze shut the door and hurried after the group before ze had a chance to talk hirself out of it.  Ze had other things to do, after all, important things, and ze wasn’t at all impressed by going to fancy restaurants and getting special service as a way of showing how special you were, but this…it was more like they’d done it for Cody, than for themselves.  It was something nice for him, and for the rest of them, and it was gaudy and elaborate but…nice.

                Whatever.  Ten would go, but ze didn’t have to like it.

                It ended up being kind of hard not to like it, actually.  Zenith’s staff had cleared the top of the building, and there was plenty of room for the Helms’ not-quite-space-legal ship to land.  There were controls on the pilot’s panel for thrusters that just weren’t supposed to be there, Ten was sure of it,  but ze didn’t say anything.  A heavy base beat was pumped through the roof into the landing gear of the ship, reverberating in a way that should have felt cavernous but was more energetic than annoying, and true to his word, Garrett led them all up onto the top of the ship, where they had a brilliant view of the city.

                Cody had never seen it like this before, Ten knew, and Cody's breath caught as he looked out over the shining scene, bright and glittering in the sinking sunlight.  Jonah stood close and they shared a few quiet words while Garrett organized the food with the very friendly waiter, who used a hovering lift to get up to their level.

                They sat on blankets and ate delicate tapas and drank wine, and the conversation was…well, it was strange.  They didn’t talk about politics or Drifters or any of the stuff Ten had expected, because wasn’t that why Cody’s parents were going to Parliament?  To fight about policy?  Instead they talked about friends on Pandora, they asked Cody about his classes and about the club, they asked Darrell about paraball and Grennson about his family, and they didn’t ask Ten anything other than, “Want some of this?”

                It deflated hir.  Ze was ready for an argument, ready for sharpness, ready to defend Cody against anything, but especially his family.  Family were the worst, they used their intimate knowledge of you to their advantage and hit you where it hurt, and Cody had probably lived with that all his life and didn’t even realize it, and…

                It was possible, Ten admitted after hir second glass of wine, that ze was wrong.  Garrett seemed genuinely interested in everything they had to say, and if he was lying it was a lot of work to go to for the benefit of very few people, because Cody clearly thought the suns revolved around his dads.  And Jonah was just…perfect.  He was so nice, and his drawl was colloquial but alluring, and he and Cody were so much alike it was almost painful to watch them together.  That was what Cody could become, that was the way he could stay if Ten was good enough to figure out a cure.  The universe needed more people like Jonah Helms.  Ten had to figure out a cure, because it was clear to hir now that losing Cody would devastate his parents, and that would be a terrible, terrible thing.  Apocalyptically terrible.  Like, so, so…terrible.

                How had ze ended up with hir head on Garrett’s lap again?

                “I really do like your hair,” Garrett said, running his long fingers through the loose strands.  Grennson was trying to teach Darrell and Cody a Perel dance, and they were failing miserably but enjoying themselves immensely if the laughter was anything to go by.  Jonah was keeping them all from falling off the edge of the ship.

                “Thank you,” Ten said, feeling inexplicably sad.  Was this what ze’d missed out on, without hir own parents around?  Thoughtless kindness, easy compliments, no sense of stress or disappointment?  Sure, they could have been like Darrell’s, but maybe…maybe if ze’d been an easier child, if ze had been just a little better, ze could have had this instead of Symone’s well-meaning distance.

                “And thank you, for looking after Cody.”  Ten tilted hir head up to look at Garrett, who was smiling faintly at hir.  “I know he wouldn’t thank me for bringing it up, but he was really nervous to come here, and it’s been harder in some ways than he imagined.  You’ve been a very good friend to him.”

                “No I haven’t,” Ten said miserably.  “I’m not a good friend.  I spend all my time in my experiments, I ignore him, I get him into trouble.  I’m a terrible friend.”

                “That’s not what Cody says.”

                “Cody’s too nice,” Ten grumped, rolling over and shutting hir eyes resolutely.

                “I know.  That’s why he needs you around.  You’re a realist, my dear, and our high flying optimists need us to keep them grounded sometimes.  You are good to him, and we appreciate it.  Not everyone is lucky enough to have a genius on their side.”

                Ten snorted.  “Did Cody tell you I was a genius?”

                “Yes, but Symone did first.”

                “Really?”

                “Really.  She used to talk to me about you all the time, about your latest experiment, how school was too easy for you, how smart you are.  I think she misses having you around, her calls have been very dour lately.  You might consider calling her, just to let her know how you are.”

                “I’ve been called into the Admiral’s office twice since I’ve been here, I’m sure they contacted her.”

                Garrett shrugged.  “That’s just discipline, it doesn’t mean anything.  It doesn’t tell her anything about how you actually are.  Just something to consider.”

                Ten sighed long-sufferingly.  “Fine.”

                “Thank you.”

                Ten looked blurrily out across the roof, where Cody stumbled over a twirling step and fell into his dad’s arms, and Grennson and Darrell burst into laughter, all of them finding it hilarious for some reason.  Garrett chuckled, and the motion rocked Ten’s head gently.  Warm fingers brushed hair out of hir face, and Ten had to shut hir eyes.  Too much.  So much that ze might cry if ze saw any more.

The Academy Post #16

 

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.