“According to our data, that wouldn’t appear to be the case. It says here that your parents are both SLDF veterans. A trooper, your dad. Fine record. Your mother rose to Sergeant Major in military administration. I’d think they’d be honored to see their son follow in their footsteps.”
“Ah, but Colonel,” Alek’s voice grew tight, “my parents would have accepted my original decision. I’m here to study history and poli-sci on a Star League scholarship, and glad for it. Education is also a weapon, sir. ‘Its effects depend on who holds it in their hands, and at whom it is aimed.’ Stalin.”
Baumgarten reddened. “I’ll have you know, ‘that a sound military practice—’” he began before Michael leaped in to cut him off.
“Look, look, look, Colonel, you don’t want to get into this. Once Alek pulls out dead Russians, you’re fighting his battle.” Even against a Star League officer, the Archon’s brother could throw some weight. He steered the flustered man toward the door of Alek’s room. “Let the boy think about it. He’s had a hard week, after all—” his voice was lost outside in the passage.
The boy. Alek silently thanked Michael for the nice diminutive. He relaxed back into his thin hospital pillow for all of three seconds before realizing that Cadet Luvon hadn’t followed the others out.
“Now you think you’re too good for us?” Elias sneered.
Alek sat back up, reached for his glass of melting ice chips. He sloshed around the icy water. “I hope you aren’t going to pretend you actually wanted me to accept,” Alek said, then sipped around the spoon. “I’d be very disappointed.”
“Why should I care what you think, Terran? Just because your “Royal” divisions think they run the Star League?”
The noble scion was picking a fight no matter what. Alek didn’t need to provide more ammunition. “It’s not what I want, all right, Elias? Let’s leave it at that.”
“You think we have nothing to offer a guy like you?”
Alek should have let it go. “Of course not.” And, before he thought better of it, “After all, look what the military is making of you.”
A pettiness buried deep within Alek took some pleasure at Elias Luvon’s expression of outrage. He’d scored deeply with that remark, but it could hardly be called a fair fight. Elias studied to fight with weapons. Alek with words.
With exact military bearing, Elias toed himself about-face and stiff-marched from the room to catch up with his commanding officer. Michael passed him just outside the door. “Do I want to know what passed between you two while I escorted our good friend Colonel Baumgarten back to the waiting room?” he asked Alek as he entered the room.
“Just a difference of opinion.” Michael winced, and Alek remembered describing his first set of bruises last year, shortly after his transfer, as a difference of opinion. “It’s nothing.”
“The last ‘nothing’ put you in the hospital,” Michael reminded him.
“You think I didn’t consider their offer.”
Michael Steiner rubbed one hand along his beard, as if checking for exact edges. “I know you considered it, Alek. I’m just wondering if you gave them their fair due.”
“If you can’t beat them, join them?”
“Pushkin,” Michael said, as if Alek had been quoting again. The two men grinned, and the somber mood evaporated. “Truly, Alek, there would be advantages, to the Star League as well as to you. Not the least of which is the more stringent rules inside a military organization that protect its own.”
Everything you needed to know could, sooner or later, be found in Tolstoi. “‘The two most powerful warriors are patience and time,’ Michael.” Alek rested back, exhaustion threatening to overwhelm him. “I already have them on my side.”
But remembering Elias’s expression, and the cadet’s suddenly cold demeanor, Alek wondered if that was actually the case anymore.
• • •
Alek sat on the frozen ground, his winter gear safeguarding him from snowmelt, and leaned back against a massive cedar. A plasticized poster calling students to a pro-Skye rally protected his uncovered head from the tree’s scaly bark. It was one of his favorite spots. Camped on the university commons right out in front of the main administration building, few bothered him here. Right now that was what he needed.
His breath frosted in front of his face, and he blew out a long, misty cloud of exasperation. Tension knotted behind his shoulders. His left ear still burned from being slammed hard with a lacrosse stick and his knuckles bled where he’d skinned them against the door on his way out of the dorms.
Served him right for letting the torments get to him.
He expected the hostile behavior from Elias Luvon and his cadet cronies, but what shocked Alek was how fast other students joined in after learning that he’d turned down a post at the Nagelring.
“Too good for a non-Terran academy,” Elias spun it.
Patently absurd. Alek attended a non-Terran university after all. But still the feet thrust into his way and snowballs with rocks in them increased. Students took to kicking his dorm room door as they passed, making it hard to study for the preliminary exams being given this week. It finally drove him outside, hauling along his notes and data wafers, with a few hours in which to relax.
With his ‘corder tucked safely away inside his carry-all pack, Alek untangled the wires and stuck plugs into each ear. Musical strains filled his head with deep viola and soft, whimsical flute, then the melodies faded into the background and Professor Kleppinger’s monotone filtered in to explain the latest political fallout on Terra. A compilation of his own design: the soothing melodies helped him focus, allowing him to replay his Political Science lectures over and over.
This month’s political dialog centered around two JumpShips which had been interdicted and destroyed by the Terran Hegemony’s new Space Defense System. A problem with their IFF codes,
