Tex’s prediction was spot on, though. For two hours, Coda was grilled about his time at the academy, including every minor and major success and failure. Fortunately, his time there had been marked more with awards of excellence than demerits. They reviewed his scores and recommendations, even shared statements his former squad mates had made about him, always asking him to respond.
Admiral Orlovsky, whom Coda couldn’t believe was overseeing the review, asked specific questions about Coda’s first interactions with Moscow: when and where they’d met, how, and in Coda’s estimation, why their feud had escalated.
Coda attempted to keep his answers short and succinct, relaying the facts as he remembered them. When it came to the why, he purposely left out all knowledge of Moscow’s mother’s death. The information had helped Coda understand the true depths of Moscow’s hatred and even helped him understand Moscow himself, but it wouldn’t do anything to help his case with the board.
The questions about his time in Commander Coleman’s squadron were even more tedious. They questioned the speed of the training and the mental and physical strain it put on all the pilots. They compared brain scans, heart rates, and other information taken during his physicals on the Jamestown with his previous records from the academy to show his deteriorating psychological state.
The longer the questions about the squadron’s training wore on, the more Coda began to get the impression that he and Moscow weren’t the only people under review. Commander Coleman didn’t flinch or show any outward sign of emotion, but Coda could feel the anxiety emanating from him like heat from a fire. But why would the commander be under review? Accidents happened, and death was no stranger to the pilots. So why the extra scrutiny now?
Because not everyone in the fleet wants the commander to succeed, Coda realized. The idea was tantamount to treason. Commander Coleman’s squadron was the ultimate fallback, a redundancy of a redundancy of a redundancy, only to be used if all other methods to counteract the Baranyk disrupter failed. Rooting for the squadron’s failure was the equivalent of rooting for the destruction of the human race.
But it was never that simple. The military was the ultimate bureaucracy full of competing desires, agendas, and methodologies that all battled for the same limited budget. On some line of some memo in some stack of papers on some admiral’s desk there was a cost breakdown of Commander Coleman’s efforts. From the direct costs of transporting, housing, and feeding the pilots to the indirect costs of pulling them from other service, everything had a dollar sign. And even those paled in comparison to the money required to supply, retrofit, and repair a full squadron of aging X-23 Nighthawks.
Surely someone somewhere thought that money could be better spent elsewhere. More scientists researching the Baranyk weapon. More engineers trying to counteract its effects. More manufacturing equipment to rebuild the drones that had been destroyed during battle. It was no wonder the entire squadron had been grounded.
The realization that he wasn’t just fighting for his own future but the future of everything they had been working toward woke something inside him. The anger strengthened his resolve, banishing the self-pity that had been plaguing him since he’d woken up in the infirmary. He knew what he was fighting for now, and he wasn’t going to go down without giving it everything he had.
His first answers had been short and succinct, offering little additional insight. However, Coda let himself embellish his answers about the squadron. He talked about the growing camaraderie, their unprecedented skill and confidence, and how they would be ready when the fleet called on their aid. Keeping his flattery to a minimum, he praised the commander’s instruction, using specific examples of how his one-on-one evaluations had improved their piloting skills and how his reputation meant his students listened to him all the more.
He fell into a groove, his words coming out smoothly and exactly as he intended them. When the conversation shifted abruptly to his father, Coda went blank. He stared at the camera recording the interview as if he had just been bludgeoned in the back of the head and forgotten his name.
“Coda?” Commander Coleman said from behind the device.
“I’m sorry,” Coda said. “Could you repeat the question?”
“The captain asked what you know of your father.”
“Right,” Coda said. “Thank you, sir. My father…” He’d known the question was coming and had followed Tex’s advice. He’d even written out his responses beforehand, but in that moment, his mind was as empty as space itself. “I know what most anyone knows, I suppose. The official information is classified, but the general understanding is that he turned on his wingmen, resulting in the loss of his squadron and the subsequent deaths of hundreds more aboard the Benjamin Franklin. He was executed for treason and wasn’t given a proper military burial. But I doubt that’s what you were asking.
“Unlike the rest of the other sixteen billion people that populate the Sol System, I also knew Lieutenant O’Neil as my father. He taught me how to play catch, how to ride a bike, a hoverboard. He…” Coda’s vision went blurry. “He wasn’t the man I saw on the vids or the man I read about on the web. To me, as much as they’re the same person, they’re different.
“Lieutenant O’Neil betrayed those he had sworn to protect, but Joseph O’Neil tucked me in at night and read me stories of great heroes. He taught me what it meant to be selfless, how to put others ahead of myself. That man, the man I knew, loved the fleet. He loved flying. I don’t know why he did what he did, but I know in my heart that he would have had a damn fine explanation.”
Coda blinked. The words had slipped out of his mouth as little more than a stream of consciousness. For those
