“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?”
Slak, now back in control of himself, looked again at the ceiling and answered with an even voice. “Back in Basic Training, there was a terrible misunderstanding, sir, regarding my intentions with the daughter of the base commander. Apparently he couldn’t stop me from coming out here, but it affected his recommendation for my placement here at the academy.”
“Ah, political difficulties,” Doctor Kor said, standing. And looking closer at Slak. The overhead lights gleamed off of his black smock as he stood. “Slak, when I was a cadet, there was a young fellow who didn’t fit in quite well. Very good with altering records, in fact, but not much else. He made quite a few friends, though, by helping to make embarrassing things disappear from permanent records. Do you follow me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In fact, I find it quite the coincidence that a young man, named Norrin Mek, who was in your Basic Training platoon, according to the records I just read, is also in your flight. Correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You see, Daggart, I happen to be from Norrin’s world, the world he was originally sired in, anyway. The Meks are something of a local celebrated family for their genius with technology. Perhaps, you saw to it that young Norrin had a few boots shined for him? Or maybe you convinced a few young ladies to have dinner with him on shore leave? In short, Cadet Daggart, it is quite possible that your high grades are the result of an arrangement between you and Cadet Norrin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which explains why you’re even here. You shouldn’t be here, Daggart. Not on the Adeptus. Do you understand that? Somewhere, there’s a young man wearing a stormtrooper’s uniform who should be here, but isn’t, because of you and Mek.”
“Not true, sir! If you look...if you look at the roster, this year? Usually, there’s four flights of thirty cadets each, a hundred and twenty in each class. But there were a hundred and twenty-two cadets admitted at a different school, the one over on Carida. So...so even if it was like you said, no deserving cadet didn’t get where he was supposed to go.”
Doctor Kor stood and paused. “Do you know, Cadet Slak Daggart, what the punishment is for fraud at this level?”
Slak said nothing, but stared at the Doctor.
“Death, Cadet Daggart. Summary execution. Not by a firing squad. Just as well. Far too many of the new stormtroopers they train today couldn’t hit the broad side of an argo freighter. No, you’d be shipped out with the garbage, flushed out into the vacuum of space without so much as a drumhead trial.”
“Really,” Slak said quietly.
Without a sound, Bondo stood up from his chair. Doctor Kor, his back to Bondo, neither heard nor saw the very, very large cadet as he stepped closer behind the Doctor in absolute silence.
“Yes, Cadet Daggart. But, I am a compassionate man. Some have said too much so,” Doctor Kor continued, slowly walking towards Slak while Bondo followed, his hands raised halfway towards the Doctor, ready to strike and break.
“I can’t imagine why,” Slak said, “since if you really had any intentions of turning me in you would have called a guard with your datapad, instead of giving me that little speech.”
Doctor Kor smiled even wider, and clapped a hand on Slak’s shoulder. “I do, however, believe in rewarding people who are highly motivated. And you, Slak, have shown much motivation, without hurting anyone I care about. And it is for that reason I’m going to help you today.”
Bondo had stopped moving behind Doctor Kor. His large hands remained at Bondo’s sides. Slak tried hard to hold the Doctor’s gaze.
“That’s- that’s very good to hear, Doctor. Um- what- what were you planning on giving me?”
“Something you haven’t had up until now. I’m going to give you a level playing field, Cadet Daggart. Your friend Bondo needed help with his speech to have an even chance. You need two working eyes, and a correction of a few neural pathways to make the words you read make sense. I don’t have a spare eye made of flesh- you’d have to be at least a well-connected Captain in order to merit one of those. But I can have the surgery droid take out that ball of scar tissue in your head, and replace it with a cybernetic model until something more suitable is delivered to us.”
Slak paused. “A new eye?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to turn me in?’
“No. Our little secret.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Bondo lowered his hands, and silently returned to his seat.
“Now,” said Doctor Kor, turning back to his work station, giving no indication he knew just how close to serious injury or death he’d come, “I’ll be able to say this was done to correct a particularly well-hidden case of dyslexia. You’ll have a new, working eye that’ll shine out of your skull, and you’ll have the same chance everyone else in your flight has to succeed here at the Academy Adeptus.”
Slak smiled, until something the Doctor said sank the rest of the way in.
“Shine?” Slak said.
#
Freddik yawned and put his pad down with one hand while rubbing his eyes with the other. He rubbed his eyes carefully, making sure he didn’t push a single one of his carefully styled hairs out of place. Pilots, unlike troopers, were allowed the privilege of hair that could be colored or styled any way that one’s culture dictated or preference desired, so long as no hair went down past the earhole. Some cadets pushed the limit, but that was rare.
In Freddik’s case, he’d been gifted both by genetics and unconscious training by his family to know and follow the shortest route to success, wherever he found himself. By observing the officers at the higher ranks, for example, Freddik learned that having short, styled hair was one of the many things that separated the up-and-comers and already-theres from the has-beens and the never-weres.
Hence, the carefully styled wave in his blond hair. But in addition to good grades, being in top physical condition and the right number of hours in the sims, there was one last social point he needed to put into place to ensure his place as the top cadet in the squadron after they graduated to their first mission in a few weeks.
The perfect girlfriend.
Few officers were married, he long ago realized. But many had mistresses or long-term love-interests. And the most successful officers, the ones given command of Imperial Star Destroyers, all had discreet relationships with female pilots or officers of slightly lower ranks.
And he already had his eye on one in his own flight.
“Rand,” Freddik said to his roommate, “what’s the status of that girl in our flight...Madea?”
“She made it through the grey room with only a few bruises. She’s also still single, and still related to Lieutenant Hublin. Why? You thinking about making your move?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, which is why no one else has made one. Now that her little embarrassment is over and out of everyone’s minds, I’m thinking it might be an idea to see if she’d be, ah, amenable to moving things forward a little.”
“You’re going to have a bit of competition, you know,” Rand said. As Freddik’s number one ‘friend,’ he would give advice but never be too warm or forward. “When the boys outnumber the girls by a ratio of over twenty to one, you’re going to find competition pretty stiff. And it gets worse when you want one of the pretty ones, like Medea or that little redhead from Tatooine in Four Flight.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Rand. You’re going to have competition, like everyone else. And that competition is me.”
Rand smiled. He knew Feddik was right; he was handsome, and a top cadet with a rich, powerful father besides. “Yeah, but did you look outside? Looks like you’ve got some competition. For Medea, anyway.”
“What?”
Rand pointed at the window. Like all the rooms, it’s single window opened out to a view of the main parade square. Jada was walking away from Dav, who was standing at one of the soft-metal slabs in place where people could sit and study.
And Medea had walked up and was talking to Dav, standing while turning slightly, balanced on her right leg and tilting her head. Dav said something, and Medea laughed, putting her hand gently on Dav’s shoulder as she did so. The laugh was loud enough that Jada and a few other people turned to see, and Jada’s eye lingered a little longer than the other people milling about the main bay.
“Well,” Freddik said, “that’s too bad. I was getting to like Eccles, but it looks like he’s gotten sucked into something without knowing it.”
“What’s that?” Rand asked.
“A star opera,” Freddik said. His voice had shifted-he was more talking to himself now, working out a situation in his head more than talking to Rand about it. “I want Medea, and I’d stake a week’s worth of visits to the Grey Room she doesn’t particularly want Eccles. She’s from a hardcore military family, and that type of girl usually doesn’t take kindly to a soft-headed politicians’ son. I’ve been watching her. She only flirts like that with people she can get something out of. Maybe she wants to punish that little redheaded farm girl he was talking to. I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care.
“What I do care about,” Freddik said, standing and slowly pacing about the room as he spoke more to himself than to Rand, “is that I’ve staked out Medea for myself, and others know about it. And she’s flirting with a Four-Flight boy who’s led a pampered life since the moment the natal-droid delivered him. He’s likely never been denied anything substantial, had his mother and father around all the time, cooing over everything he did and praising him for every picture he drew on the...”
Freddik stopped. Rand was looking at him. Freddik realized he’d been getting angrier the more he speculated n Eccles’ home life.
“Anyways,” Freddik said, now calm, “she’s mine to have. I can’t just tell him to back off- it’s her doing the chasing. So...I can do this one of two ways. I can just make myself more attractive, or I could make him look like a soft fool.”
“I’d watch yourself, FreDdik. He kick-boxes.”
Freddik waved his hand. “He’s never been in a fight that didn’t have a sportsmaster watching over his shoulder. A sportsmaster wringing his hands with worry if the precious politician’s son came home with a bruise. But I wonder how he’d do in a fight that wasn’t supervised by anyone but me and One Flight.”
Rand was going to speak, but paused for a second. There was something in Freddik’s speech and the look on his face that made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. “Are you sure you’re alright, Freddik?”
“Perfect,” Freddik said, the upper portion of his face in shadow as he smiled, his eyes narrowed like ice-blue daggers at the two laughing young people a few stories below.
-----
TO BE CONTINUED...