“What’s happening to him now?” Freddik said, lolling in his bunk while absently pretending to fly a model TIE fighter with his right hand.
Rand adjusted the focus on his monocular. “He just finished talking to Hublin...and he’s running with a big, big smile on his face.”
Freddik smiled. “Looks like he just made Flight Senior. That’s the only kind of good news Hublin would ever give a member of that clump of misfits. Eccles is the only one worth it, and he finally did something worthwhile enough to justify it. Well,” he said, getting out of his bunk and stretching, “looks like it’s time to make my move. Hand me my wristpad.”
Rand put down the monocular, grabbed Freddik’s wristpad from his desk and handed it to the blond boy. Freddik took it and strapped it on in a fluid motion. “I’m such a genius,” Freddik said as he called up a ready made message file, found Dav’s address in the network and fired it off to him.
#
Dav’s wristpad buzzed as he ran. He almost didn’t look at it- cadets were (ahem) strongly encouraged not to use it for personal messages between them.
What that meant in practice was that if you were caught, you were going to do push-ups until you felt your arms were going to fall off. As a result, cadets usually only used their wristpads to check schedules and other official information. If you did get a message, it was usually a superior chewing you out for not acting properly. They seemed to have eyes everywhere; whether they were cameras, lookouts, or séances no one really knew, and they were all kept too busy to really think much about it.
Still, Dav knew that if it was an official message, he’d have to heed it. Even if it did kill the amazing mood he was in. He sighed, stopped, and looked at what he’d been sent.
TO: Cadet- Dav Eccles
FROM: Anonymous
TEXT: Meet me at the sport facil where you box- and keep it CLASSIFIED! –Med.
What th’...Medea wanted to meet? He and Four Flight had the rest of the day off for helping Bondo, but why would she be...
More important: Why was he thinking about this so hard? The boys outnumbered the girls in this place by a ration of at least twenty or thirty to one.
And at least half of those girls were, to put it kindly, not the kind that Dav would be attracted to.
He ran to the sports facility, where in a couple of hours, a hundred and twenty cadets would begin their sports time, and all the folks from Four Flight might be there, or might not.
And Dav couldn’t wait to find out just what Medea was so interested in talking about...
#
“Is he running?” Freddik said, putting tape on his fists.
“Like a Benubian sun devil’s at his heels. What’d you say to him?”
“Just what I needed to.”
“You aren’t, ah, afraid of getting caught?”
“Nope,” Freddik said. Now finished taping his fists, he started pulling on a pair of black gloves. “I’ve got a few little tricks on my wristpad here, courtesy of Daddy. They won’t know it’s me pretending to be Medea, or that you helped. No fear, no worry. Now,” he stood. He wore the full tunic, grey pants, black boots and pillbox cap of a Cadet of the Empire, ready for action. “Let’s you and I show both Mr. Dav and Miss Medea and every flight who can see us who’s really in charge here in the squadron. Shall we?”
#
Dav arrived at the sports arena, still in full tunic and trousers. Many cadets were already there dressed for sports; other flights must have been slated for team games during this time, or something.
He ran past the running track, the gravball track/field enclosed in its giant flexiglass bubble, and made straight for the boxing ring where he’d had a few friendly sparring matches. Nothing serious, but it could prove to be a...
Medea was there, flanked by two other girls who were not quite as pretty nor near as popular as she was. Dav had to chuckle inside. Light years likely separated Dav’s old school and whatever planet Medea had grown up on, but girls were apparently the same all over the galaxy. Smart girls usually picked friends who weren’t as pretty or popular to be seen with in public. Doing so made them look better by comparison.
Medea spotted Dav, took a quick look around for some reason, and then shouted his name extra loud and long. “Hi, Dav!” she shouted loud enough for several nearby head to turn. “I got your message!”
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Dav paused. Medea was dressed in sport gear- black shorts and t-shirt, and black athletic shoes. She was wearing her wristpad, which stil glowed with whatever message she’d received. But...
“Medea, I think you mean the message I got from...”
The blow hit Dav in the back of the head. Too rough to be a friendly hit from a flight mate, but not rough enough to be the instant cause for a fight.
Dav yelped in surprise more than pain, and more than a little anger. Turning around he saw...
“Freddik?”
“Well, Dav Eccles,” Freddik said, “Looking at girls from my flight? It seems that your eyes have gotten a bit too big. We’ll have to remedy that. Congratulations on your promotion, by the way.”
“How’d you hear about that?” Dav said, keeping his distance.
“I have my sources,” Freddik continued. “Of course, being head of Four Flight isn’t quite the achievement that being Flight Senior of any other flight would be. Heading up Four Flight just means you’re on top of the dunghill.”
“Freddik, why are you acting this way?” Medea said, circling a bit until she stood at a right angle to both of them.
Freddik smiled.
“The lady asked you a question, Freddik,” Dav said, holding Freddik’s gaze. “What’s your issue with me?”
“I’ve been trying to get you to fight a match with me for a while now, Four-Flighter. But the only flying I’ve seen you do is to the locker room when I step up to the ring. I’ll take you on here and now. We can have taped hands, gloves, or even wear those safe, glowy little puffballs on your fists that you little wimps from Coruscant wear when you step into a fight.”
“You sure about that, Freddik?” Dav said. “I’ve fought guys like you before. Little rich boys who talk a big game, but crumple like tinfoil first solid hit I landed on the pretty little glass jaw of yours.”
Freddik, still smiling, walked straight to the ring even though there was a match already in progress.
“Alright you maggots!” Freddik said, interrupting the fight and checking their shoulder flashes. “You two apes and your girlfriends from Three Flight head out. We’ve got business here.”
“What are you talking about?” Dav said as the Three Flighters reluctantly moved out of and away from the ring. “Did you just challenge me? I’ll knock your head all the way down to Five Flight.”
“Eccles, there is no Five Flight.”
“I know, Freddik. They’ll have to make one for what’s left of your cranium.”
“Oh you’re good, Flight Senior. I’ll give you that.” Freddik had stripped to the waist, standing in his trousers while Rand and another toady taped Freddik’s wrists. “But can you actually hit something that’s moving? And trying to take you down, too? Or are you too afraid I’ll take you down...” he looked and saw Jada standing on the opposite side of the ring from Medea, “...in front of both your girlfriends?”
“Girlfriends?” said both Jada and Medea at the same time.
Dav looked at both of them, surprised as they were at Freddik’s words.
“Look, I...”
“Too timid, Eccles? I get it,” Freddik said, stepping into the ring and dancing in a boxer’s style. “Yeah, not too many people can go toe-to-toe with me for three periods, and no one in Four Flight could ever, ever hope to take me down for a count of five! Maybe your mommy will make you feel better that you went and took the coward’s way out...”
“What did you say?” Dav answered.
Something in his voice made the fifty or so people milling around stop their conversations and stare. There was a cold edge in his voice that made him and his words impossible to ignore.
“You heard me, Cityboy! You’ve never been in a fight in your life that grownups weren’t supervising, and you probably still lost half of those!”
“You shut your mouth!” Dav yelled.
“Make me, Eccles! You’re the politician’s son! My dad has to keep the pockets of men like your dad lined with money, just to do an honest day’s business!”
Dav didn’t answer. He acted. He jumped up and over the top holographic rope of the ring and bounded in, his eyes wild with anger. Three of the members of One Flight jumped up and grabbed Dav, holding him back.
“C’mere and say that, rich boy!” Dav yelled. “I’m here because my Dad took down crooked businessmen like your Dad!”
“You want to take him down, Cityboy?” one of the boys holding Dav growled in his ear, “then drop your tunic and fight him or get out of the ring so we can make fun of you for the rest of Training!”
Dav shook them off with one decisive movement. “Fine,” he said, collecting himself. “Fine! This’ll be fun. Give me a second,” he finished, unbuttoning his tunic.
Freddik smiled, and undid the belt on his trousers. All the cadets had learned in the first week that it was wise to have one’s athletic shorts on under the dress trousers, as sometimes the last fight to finish changing got to do extra exercises before they could play sports.
“This won’t end well,” Bondo murmured.
“Can’t you do something?” Jada said to him. “He saved you in the sims just a little while ago!”
“If I help him now, he’ll never hear the end of it. I...can only step in if...if he...if they cheat. Then we all can jump in and help. But not before.”
“Well, we’d better hope you, Norrin and Slak are...hey, where’d Slak go?”
#
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...TO BE CONTINUED...