Slak looked at the datapad, his eyes looking more and more strained as his lips moved.

“Do you...need help?” said a voice behind him.

Startled, Slak jumped in the air, dropping his datapad on the floor.

“What’re you doing, you big ape? You coulda made me break this, and then where’d I be, huh?” he yelled, seeing it was Bondo behind him. “If I want your help, I’ll tell you!”

“You’re...having trouble, reading,” Bondo said. “You’re having trouble, forming the words in your head, and making it work.”

“Shut up and leave me alone. We’re both late for...something.”

“You couldn’t read what we have next. But...I can fix that!”

“Bondo, you couldn’t fix hunger with a banquet. You can’t even fix your own weird way of talking!”

“How I talk, Slak, is better than it was. Let me take you to someone who helped me with my talking, maybe he’ll help you with your reading.”

“I already have help, you big, stupid Wookie. Now... leave ... alone...me!” Slak said, purposely sounding like Bondo’s halting speech pattern.

Bondo smiled. “I...I sound dumb, Daggart. But I-I am not. Who did you get to...fix your tests for you?”

Slak looked up, as if stung.

“I...I figured it out, Slak Daggart. You can’t read. How did you score enough to get in...in here, with top cadets?”

Slak stared at Bondo.

Bondo shrugged his shoulders. “You...you can’t do things this way, forever, Slak. You’ll get found out.”

“Why do you care?”

“Where I come from...a family, is family. We...” he looked around, trying to grab the words. “We don’t always like each other. But our...our survival, we have to...help each other, survive and succeed. If we don’t, we die.”

“You think I’m your family? Look in a mirror. You’re dreaming.”

“I...I am awake, not dreaming,” Bondo said, walking again, “and you’re in my Flight. If you...mess up, I do push ups, lousy jobs. I don’t like that. Not at all. If I help you, I help me, Eccles, Mek, Sanddancer, all of them. You...you see?”

Slak had continued walking. “How do you think I passed the tests?”

Bondo stopped, looked around the hallway, and smiled.

“Norrin?” Bondo said, seeming to speak to the air. “Norrin, I know you’re listening. It’s...good that you ...helped Slak. But he...he has to do...for himself, now.”

Bondo turned from talking to the ceiling and looked at Slak again.

Slak kept looking at Bondo. “How did you know?”

“You and Norrin served in Basic together. He’s smart. He can do...get into computers. I watch you. You never pick on him, or be mean to him, though you are to everyone else, like you just called me ‘Wookie,’ or Eccles ‘Cityboy.’ It didn’t take much to figure it.”

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“How did you know Mek’s listening in?”

“Because every time I see him, he’s listening in to someone or something with his datapad. Plugged...plugged into the...the wall, or the network. Here we are.”

They were at the infirmary.

“Why are we here? I’m not sick.”

“Slak, look...”

The medical doctor was older, in his fifties, with a dark smock and smooth, white hair. He smiled, and Slak felt at ease.

The doctor, if he was a doctor, looked like a nice, kind person. Slak liked that. Such people were usually easy to manipulate.

“Bondo!” The doctor said, his face lighting up as he recognized the large cadet. “Good to see you again. How is the speech coming?”

“Much...much better, Doctor Kor. This...is, my friend, Slak. He has a problem like...mine.”

“Does he now? Well, what seems to be the trouble, Slak?”

Slak took a breath, looked at Bondo, and then at the Doctor. “I...I don’t read so well.”

Doctor Kor smiled even wider, as if he heard a child’s nightmare about an angry stuffed toy.

“Today, that’s easily remedied. Have a seat in that chair. Let’s look at your eyes, and...”

“NO!” Slak said, bringing a protective hand over his right eye.

“Slak?” said Bondo, “what’s the matter?”

“I don’t want any more help,” Slak said. “I thought maybe you’d give me an excuse to get out of sports today. But if you’re not, I’m just gonna leave, and...”

“Cadet,” said the Doctor, his voice suddenly hard as plasteel. “You are mistaken. It seems you think you can leave at will. I’m not some little medic with a tube of plastiflesh spray. I am your superior officer, and I’m ordering you to sit in my examination chair, and let me see your eyes!”

Slak swallowed, and considered for a split second if he had any wiggle room. Looking at the Doctor now, he saw that the man was implacable and inflexible as a bar of iron. Slak could tell from the man’s eyes that he’d seen a lot- possibly soldiers with limbs blown off, screaming for help and aid, writhing in pain and anguish. A man who’d kept his composure through field surgery like that would have little trouble forcing Slak to undergo a routine eye exam.

“Yes, sir,” Slak said quietly, lying back on the examination table and staring up at the scanner.

Doctor Kor waited for a moment as the scanner quietly peeked at every cell in Slak’s head. After a few seconds, he had a curious expression that Slak had a hard time reading out of the corner of his eye.

“Cadet,” said Doctor Kor, “what is your last name again?”

“Daggart,” Slak said dutifully.

“Hm,” Doctor Kor said. “You have quite the academic record, Slak, for someone raised as a largely neglected child in the Blue Sector on Corellia.”

Slak was quiet.

“Perfect scores, no less.”

Slak stared at the ceiling.

“And even perfect scores on the...sims for battle, flight, tanks...tell me, Slak, I have two questions looking at your record. First, according to my scanner, your right eye is one-hundred percent non-functional. It’s just a ball of scar tissue on the inside, though the iris and the whites have no visible defect. An injury, in fact, consistent with early child abuse.”

Slak stayed silent. Bondo noticed his skinny hands had quietly slipped over the sides of the table and started to grip them.

“Did your father hurt you, Slak?”

“Which one? Scratch that. It doesn’t matter. They all did.”

“Hm. Still, even if you could get a decent enough education running the streets, there is simply no way possible for you to have achieved such a high set of scores on the sims without the depth perception that a second, functional eye would have provided. Yet, you received 100% in that area, too.”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

Doctor Kor stood up. “Slak, you received a perfect set of scores in your test of physical prowess and training. Now, such a feat usually translates to instant fame when your peers see the wonder of your skill on the playfield, be it slingball, gravball, or a host of other sporting events. Bondo, would you say that Slak has, ah, distinguished himself in this area?”

Bondo looked at Slak, who was staring at the ceiling. “Not...not yet, sir.”

“Ah. Slak, my last question is this: with a record like that, why is it you’re in Four Flight? Bondo here has a speech impediment he’s working to overcome. But you, with your record? You should be Flight Leader of One Flight, instead of young Freddik. Why is that, Slak?”

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TO BE CONTINUED....