by Kal Spriggs
“Yeah, well, I'm glad you are alive,” he said.
“I'm glad to be alive,” I replied with a smile. For a moment we just smiled at one another. It felt good. My smile broadened as I remembered the Admiral's parting words. “The Admiral called you my boyfriend.”
His eyes went wide and he adopted a worried expression. “The Admiral... she knows, I mean, she what?”
“I kind of like the sound of that,” I said.
“You do?” His voice broke a bit and we both chuckled. “Well, I kind of like the sound of that too,” Kyle admitted. His eyes narrowed, “By the way, this is the second time you've been shot in two months. You're not allowed to make a habit of it.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, “take the fun out of life. I'll try to avoid it in the future.”
We didn't talk much more after that. He stood there, just being there and it was rather nice.
***
Ashiri visited me a few hours later. “Ashiri!” I said, with a smile. Kyle had just left, promising he'd come back after he got something to eat. That he seemed willing to set by my bed while I just lay there was both endearing and sort of alarming. I wasn't sure I was ready for that level of commitment.
“Jiden,” She took a seat. “You sure do spend a lot of time in the hospital. Maybe I should find another roommate.”
“Nah,” I smiled, “then you wouldn't have the room to yourself nearly as much.”
“True,” Ashiri snorted. Her expression went serious. “You had us all worried, there, Jiden. When the coroner van showed up, I thought it was for you, at first.”
I remembered about Webster, then. “Yeah. I guess it was pretty close. You heard about Webster?”
“The whole school has heard about Webster.” She shook her head, “There's a lot of shocked people. Commander Scarpitti and Commander Pannja are the ones who found him. The inspection of his room wasn't even done before we'd heard a lot of the details.”
I grimaced at that. It seemed unfair to Webster. It wasn't like he was a bad person, I thought to myself. Yet even as I thought that, I remembered the bombing attempt and the missile that had shot down the commercial skimmer I'd been on. Those didn't fit with what I'd seen of Webster. He'd been irritable. I felt like he hadn't liked me… but a mass murderer? I couldn't see that. But I didn't see a way to explain it.
“The investigators interviewed all of us, but it was like they already knew what they were going to decide before they even started asking questions,” Ashiri shook her head. “As soon as they found the drugs in his room, it was over.”
“Yeah,” I couldn't help but shiver. “I heard he was a Rex addict.”
Ashiri rubbed her arms, clearly unsettled by the idea. “Yeah. Rex is nasty stuff... my mom's brother, back at Ten Sisters, he got into Rex Tertious, it really messed him up.”
“What's it do?” I asked, despite myself.
“From what I heard, it made him confident, smarter, more focused,” Ashiri said. “But it also ate out his brain after a few years. By the end of it, it drove him nuts. He started screaming about alien parasites in people's heads and they locked him up so he wouldn't hurt anyone.” She hugged herself, “Bad stuff. Really, really, bad stuff.”
I didn't argue. I'd never seen the appeal of that sort of thing. Tony Champion had used alcohol and he'd convinced me, back when I was a bit more impressionable, to have some, but I'd never done much more than sip at it. I didn't even like the painkillers they had me on here in the hospital.
“Where's Alexander at?” I asked, eager to change the subject.
Ashiri blinked at me, “Karmazin? I dunno, probably in his room. I'm sure he'll come by sometime.” The way she said it was odd but I wasn't able to quite put my finger on it.
“Aren't you guys hanging out in all the free time we've got?” I asked.
My friend's expression went blank. “Uh, we're not together anymore.”
“What?” I asked in shock. “But, you guys were good together.”
She shrugged, “I dunno. I mean, I respect him and everything, but...” She sighed and flopped down in the chair, “You know when you spend so much time with someone that even when you like them, you just kind of want to kill them to get some space?”
“Uh, no,” I replied.
“All of Indoc, then the whole Grinder, and then for the rest of the Prep Course we worked together the whole time. And it was like, I guess week three of the Grinder that I realized that I wanted some space. That I was tired of all the little things that I'd found cute. We had a talk after the Grinder, and we just sort of decided to take a step back, be friends, you know?” She shook her head, “And did you know that he snores? Ugh, it drove me nuts back at the bunker. Every time we’d get a break and I’d finally get time to sleep, I kept waking up because he snored. When I told him, he just stared at me like I was crazy.”
I found that hilarious. I started laughing so hard that I had to double over in bed, gasping for air. “Jiden, what's wrong with you?” Ashiri demanded.
“He snores...” I shook my head, wiping tears out of my eyes. “Ashiri, you snore.”
She stared at me, “I do not.”
I started giggling, imagining Alexander's put upon expression when Ashiri must have told him he snored. “You sound like a freight train,” I giggled.
“Oh,” Ashiri said. “Okay, maybe I owe him an apology on that, I suppose...”
***
“Hey Jiden,” Alexander Karmazin visited me the next day. He gave Kyle a respectful nod. “The Doctor told me that she's ready to keep a room open just for you.”
“Hah,” I said, “ha, ha.”
“Might be a good idea,” Kyle admitted.
“Don't you start,” I waggled a finger at him. “I'll be out of here tomorrow. They're doing quick heal. I'll need to do a full physical therapy program, but I'll be able to hobble around on my own.”
Kyle just gave me a wave as he stepped out in the hallway to answer a call on his datapad.
“Good,” Alexander replied. “I got a message from Mackenzie, he wants us ready to start grav-shell practice as soon as he gets back. And Commander Pannja says he saw your clumsy take down of Sashi Drien, he told me to tell you that he expects you at kerala practice next Monday.”
“Ugh,” I said. I thought of the early morning practices. “Maybe I should stay in the hospital a few more days.” That wouldn't be much of a reprieve. Maybe I'll get lucky and injure myself again... where's a good assassination attempt when you need one?
Before I could even voice that joke, I had another visitor.
“Cadet Armstrong,” Commander Bonnadonna nodded at me. “I hear you're doing better.”
“Yes, sir,” I nodded. Some part of me wanted to apologize to him, to tell him that I'd thought he was the one out to get me. But then again, I'd be taking his classes so I probably shouldn't give him reason to dislike me.
“Excellent,” he said. “I just came by to let you know that you can take a couple of extra days to finish your military history and your civics papers.”
“My what?” I asked.
“The assignments for this coming semester,” Commander Bonnadonna replied. “I'm sure you worked on them during your free time in the summer, but you might have lost a few days here in the hospital.” He had the slightest smile as he said that. He knows very well I hadn't realized there were research papers due for those classes. “So take a couple extra days on them.”
He turned and left before I could come up with an appropriate response. My stomach sank as I thought about it. I shot Alexander a look, “Did you...”
He nodded, “Yeah, I knocked them out a few weeks back... you didn't see the read-ahead assignments?”
I hadn't done any of the readings. I'd done the homework for the other classes, but I'd put the rest of the work out of my mind. I had a week before class started. Plus two more days...
Alexander gave me a sympathetic look, “I guess you've got a lot of work to do.”
“Ye
ah,” I said, “I guess I do...”
Commander Scarpitti stepped in the room, “Cadet Armstrong! I'm glad to hear you're doing better!”
I adopted as friendly a smile as I could as she came over and patted me on the leg. The big blonde woman used a bit more force than I think she realized and I winced as she hit my leg. “You're a very lucky young woman! First that terrible crash and now this... this horrible incident.” Her harsh accent put added weight on it.
“Yeah,” I said. I guess someone could call it luck. Certainly not good luck, not that it all happened to me. Not for the first time, I wondered if I was cursed or something. I remembered that she'd worked with Webster, so on impulse, I asked, “Are you going to the services for Cadet Webster.”
She cocked her head, clearly taken by surprise, “Why would I do that?”
“You worked with him, at Admiral Drien's staff in Duncan City, right?” I asked. I remembered that he’d said she’d given him a game, so that implied some kind of familiarity, right?
“I believe I encountered him a few times, not really enough to make more than an impression,” She shook her head. “Maybe if I had more contact with him, I could have steered him away from the poor decisions that led to all this. As harsh as it sounds, I'm glad he took his life, so that he didn't do further damage to the Militia.” The coldness of her words startled me. It was one thing to regret what Webster had done. It was quite something different to express gratitude that he'd taken his own life. Even I, who'd been endangered and injured by his actions, regretted that he'd come to the point where he'd taken those actions.
I didn't really know how to respond to that. The room fell into an awkward silence.
“I've already received your engineering homework,” she said. “I really appreciate you doing that, especially with what happened. You always have such excellent attention to detail. You'll make a fine engineer, I'm certain. I just wanted to tell you that I'm pulling for you.”
Her enthusiasm apparently got the better of her and she patted me on the leg again. “Thanks,” I gritted out, trying to be as friendly as I could.
“Ah, Cadet Karmazin, I'm sorry I didn't see you there,” she turned and gave him a broad smile. She looked between us, “Are you... together?”
I didn't like the weight she put on that. I was seeing Kyle, not Alexander Karmazin. “No!” I blurted quickly. The last thing I wanted was the too-friendly officer giving me some kind of dating advice, especially since Kyle could be back at any moment. “We're just friends.”
“Well, I'm glad young Armstrong has such good friends,” Commander Scarpitti smiled. “Another bit of luck for you, right Armstrong?” She gave my leg a squeeze and I let out an involuntary groan.
“Oh, sorry,” she pulled her hand back. “Lots of weight training, sometimes I forget my own strength.” She took a step back and gave me a nod, “Keep up the good work, Armstrong, and keep up that lucky streak!”
I actually breathed a sigh of relief as she left. Sometimes the people trying to help were the worst of the lot. I've got plenty of luck, I thought to myself, all of it bad.
***
Chapter Twenty-Two: Racing The Clock
Classes started and before I knew it, things went back to the hectic cycle from the spring semester. But there was a different dynamic to it. A lot of cadets gave me a wide berth. The official story hadn't broke yet, but all kinds of rumors were flying. I tried to ignore it, but it was kind of hard when I'd hobble into a room on crutches and everyone would go quiet.
It was something of a relief when the Admiral had the entire school assemble a week into the semester and briefed us. She didn't linger on what Webster had done, she read off the investigation results in a brisk tone. Thankfully, the investigators didn't comment much on my role. If anything, they made it sound like I was just an innocent bystander. I was grateful for that.
The whole dynamic changed overnight. Suddenly no one was talking about me. It was a huge relief. Kyle Regan and I could spend the little bit of free time we had. I could focus more on classes. Things were actually much better.
Of course, better was relative. Cadet Commander Mackenzie was back. He hadn't sought me out to talk about my kissing him. Karmazin had been right, he'd taken a position on the Regimental staff. I'd messaged him once about grav-shell racing, telling him that until my leg healed, I didn't feel up to attending practice. He didn't respond to that.
There was no getting out of Commander Pannja's defense classes though. He seemed to take my injury as some kind of personal challenge. He had me practice moves with my crutches. He had me fight while standing on one leg. He seemed to relish getting me right after I came back from physical therapy and working me until I was trembling with exhaustion.
Ashiri wasn't very sympathetic when I'd drag myself back into our room every night. “You should have just shot her,” she said as I was complaining.
“What?” I asked.
“Drien,” Ashiri shrugged, “You should have just shot her.”
“I didn't want to kill her,” I said, feeling aghast.
“Well, not somewhere lethal... but she was trying to kill you. You could have winged her or something,” Ashiri said.
“Could you have been certain enough of your shooting not to kill her on accident?” I asked.
Ashiri shrugged, “No, but better her than me. Or her than you, I suppose.”
That was all a bit more cold-blooded than I'd expected. “Do you really dislike her that much?” I asked.
“I don't dislike her at all,” Ashiri said. “I just don't trust her... and that's the thing. Has she come by and apologized for nearly killing you?”
I shook my head. I hadn't really thought about it, actually. Technically, she'd been in the same set of rooms at the hospital for a few days. I'd hit her hard enough to give her a concussion, or so I'd heard. She hadn't come by once. Then again, I hadn't gone out of my way to see her either.
“Yeah,” Ashiri shrugged. “If she'd been in the same circumstances, she would have shot you. In fact, she did shoot you, even after you warned her.”
“I tried to warn her,” I pointed out. “She didn't believe me. She thought I was lying.”
Ashiri gave me a stern look, “Jiden, I love you like a sister... but I don't think you could lie well. You're painfully straightforward. Whenever you even think something isn't right, you get uncomfortable. There's no way that Sashi really thought you were lying.” She frowned, “That's something she might try, but you? Not likely.”
I wasn't really sure how to take that. I wanted to admit that I'd been sent to the Academy Prep School because I'd deceived my parents... but I almost felt like that was a different person. And in some regards, she was right. I did want to do the right thing. I hated to think I wasn't. That gave me pause though, especially as I considered the ethics classes I'd taken so far... and what Sashi had told me about them when we'd been roommates. She said that her brothers called it time to sleep.
Did Sashi feel that way? Did others? I couldn't say that I enjoyed those classes. I always came away from one of Commander Bonnadonna's lectures with a headache, thinking about the implications, thinking about how there were no easy answers. Had I bought into the idea of being a virtuous person, or was it just part of who I was?
***
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” Commander Bonnadonna said. “We've covered a lot of material in our civics classes, and today we're going to take a look at the idea of the citizen-soldiers.”
I restrained a groan. I recognized the term, because we'd just finished a section about Rome and Sparta in his history class. I found some of it interesting, sure, but it was ancient history. I didn't like the names and dates. It seemed silly to me to try to point out where battles had been fought on Old Earth, when it was so impossibly distant that none of us would ever go there in our lifetimes.
“Mister Regan,” Commander Bonnadonna pointed, “as members of the Militia, we swear our military oaths to the Colonial Charter
and the Colony of Century, why not to the government of Century?”
“Sir, because the Colonial Charter is the foundation of our government,” Kyle answered quickly. I couldn’t help but feel proud of him. He always seemed to have an answer.
“A point... but not entirely correct,” Commander Bonnadonna said, his deep voice clearly amused. “Is the Charter Council not the embodiment of our government? Do they not represent the people of our world? They pass our laws and they allocate our funding.”
“But the President is the executive power,” Duchan spoke up.
“Indeed, and she's also our Commander-in-Chief,” Commander Bonnadonna nodded. “Why not give our oaths to President Patricia McIntosh and the Charter Council, then, as our reigning government?”
No one answered. As the silence grew long, I heard myself speak, “Because the Colonial Charter guarantees our rights.”
“Ah... an interesting point, Miss Armstrong,” Commander Bonnadonna's dark eyes glittered as he looked at me. “Someone has clearly done the read-ahead. Please explain further.”
I flushed a bit, but I spoke up, “The Colonial Charter lays out what the government can and can't do, and it says what rights that citizens possess, it establishes how the government is supposed to do business.” I swallowed nervously as I considered how to say the next part. “We swear an oath to it and to the people of Century, in case we need to act to defend them from the government.”
The room had gone still. I'd basically said that we had a duty to take up arms against the Charter Council and the President... if the situation warranted it.
“That is correct, Miss Armstrong,” Commander Bonnadonna nodded. “It's a point I want all of you to understand. Our loyalty is to our world and the people of this world. As officers, we must always examine the intent of our orders and judge that against our oath to the Colonial Charter.” His deep voice went stern, “You will see it in our history classes again and again, it is often not the external foes that destroy nations, it is their internal foes, ambitious men and women who will twist and distort the law to suit themselves. As military officers, it falls to us to be the final guardian of our nation to defend it from itself, if necessary.”