by Jacob Holo
Seth fanned his wings out and turned slowly in space, facing the EN seraphs. With a mental command, all seraphs present entered a common channel.
“Would anyone care to explain the situation to me?” Seth asked.
The channel was silent for long seconds.
“Anyone? Anyone at all? I’m sure one of you is about to share a fascinating tale with me.”
The least damaged EN seraph flew forward slightly. He grabbed the still-spinning seraph-club and steadied it. The pilot’s name registered as Jared Daykin.
“Umm, we made a wager, sir.” Jared glanced over the mangled remains of his team. “And we appear to have lost.”
“I see. A wager, was it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And not an attack on another Alliance pilot?”
“No, sir. Nothing of the sort. Simply testing some of the tactics we learned today.”
“By letting one of your own be swung around like a club?”
“Well… the tactics were a bit on the unconventional side, sir. I will grant you that. We may have gotten a little out of hand.”
“A little out of hand, you say?” Seth asked.
“But this was purely due to our unfamiliarity with the tactics in question,” Jared added quickly. “Please accept my apologies on behalf of the Earth Nation. It was entirely my fault. We should not have engaged in such, uhh, advanced tactics without additional practice beforehand.”
“I see. Well, that is quite an interesting piece of fiction you just spouted.”
Jared’s wings twitched. “It’s all true, sir.”
Seth frowned. “I will take your apology under consideration. All five of you are grounded until further notice. Land immediately.”
“Yes, sir.” Jared slung the seraph-bludgeon under an arm and led the others to the JSDC asteroid’s hangar.
Seth linked to the red seraph on a private channel. “And as for you!”
Tevyr finished freeing his seraph from the crater. He shook his wings out, looked up, and shrugged.
“What did I do?”
Seth let out a slow seething exhale. “Indeed. Besides using one of the Earth Nation’s seraphs as a close combat weapon, indeed, what have you done?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Land at the JSDC. We will discuss this further in person.”
“Understood,” Tevyr said glumly.
***
Seth pushed out of the pilot alcove and stepped onto his seraph’s open cockpit hatch. The JSDC facility might have been an Earth Nation facility, but the seraph bays were of Aktenai manufacture, staffed by Aktenai technicians. Aktenzek still flatly refused to share the core seraph technologies with the Earth Nation, but this compromise had worked so far.
A gangplank extended from a ledge level with the seraph’s waist, and Seth walked across it. Spindly armatures like insects legs descended from the ceiling and clawed at his seraph, removing conformal weapon pods and opening patches in the mnemonic skin for servicing.
Seth’s interface-suit’s textured, storm-gray skin fit tightly around his body. He took off his helmet and ran gloved fingers through a short crop of damp black hair. He glanced over his surroundings with dark eyes.
The armband on his i-suit was a vivid purple that matched his chaos frequency and bore the Aktenai seal. To his Earther allies, it resembled an inverted cursive i holding a white sphere. To him, it was life and purpose given form.
One of the several seraph technicians in the bay approached. He stood a head taller than Seth. More people did.
“Pilot Elexen, does your seraph require any special attention?” the technician asked.
Seth handed over his helmet. “Not at this time. The standard checks will do.”
“Of course, Pilot.” The technician bowed his head.
“Has Pilot S’Kev arrived yet?”
“I believe so.” The technician motioned to Seth’s right. “She should be in the next bay over.”
“Thank you.” Seth headed over to meet Quennin.
Seth passed through the open airlock separating the two seraph bays. Within the second bay, another red seraph was being raised up. But unlike Tevyr’s, this one sported chaos shunts stylized as large kite-shaped crystals, one embedded in each forearm, leg, and wing. A single larger crystal pushed out from the center of the chest.
Its familiar sight brought a smile to his face.
The bay machinery finished hauling the seraph into position. A gangplank extended from the ledge, and a tall figure walked out, clad in a gray i-suit like his own.
Quennin S’Kev removed her helmet and handed it to the waiting technician. Thanks to Aktenai medical science, age had failed to blemish her beauty, and the tight i-suit complemented the fit curves of her tall, elegant body. She pulled her long red hair out of her i-suit’s neck ring, allowing it to sway with each step. A silver clasp, decorated with a single emerald, gripped the hair near the nape of her neck.
Quennin stopped next to him and smiled warmly, her bright green eyes lighting up.
Seth bowed his head slightly. “Beloved.”
“Have you talked to Tevyr, yet?” she asked.
“No, I thought having both of us present might help.”
“It didn’t last time.”
Seth shrugged, then motioned to the exit. “Shall we?”
“I’ll follow your lead this time.”
A few bays down, the flame-red seraph loomed above, its Litany shunts dark against its bright armor. Tevyr waited outside the seraph’s cockpit, a nervous expression on his face. A small crowd of EN pilots had gathered in the overlooking balcony.
The teenage pilot was already taller than Seth, though quite lanky. He made Seth think of a shorter person stretched to his current height by some archaic Earth torture device. Tevyr’s hair matched the fiery color scheme of his seraph. He tried to massage his right shoulder through the i-suit.
Seth glanced up at the seraph, eyes drawn to the collapsed right shoulder and limp right arm.
“I didn’t hit you with a dagger, Tevyr. If there had been any real damage, your i-suit would have fixed it.”
“I know, but it still stings.”
“Well? Don’t make me wait any longer. Explain yourself.”
Tevyr stopped rubbing his shoulder, looking troubled. He turned to Quennin, only to be confronted by her crossed arms and stern gaze. Clearly, no sympathy or support was forthcoming from that direction.
Tevyr took a deep breath and inclined his neck. “I started it, Father.”
“Very well. I think that’s enough flying for this exercise. Your seraph is grounded until I decide otherwise. You can assign command of your squadron to Pilot Nezrii.”
Tevyr Elexen did not move. He kept his head bowed, his eyes downcast.
“You can use the additional time for more studying,” Seth continued. “I understand your scholastic scores are disappointing.”
“My scores are above average, Father.”
“And when your scores have risen far above mere average, I will consider them acceptable. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Father.”
Good, Seth thought. You acknowledge your failure and accept your punishment. You don’t whine like some Earther child, complaining about fairness or parsing every last word.
Seth looked up at Quennin. She nodded her agreement.
“Now go!” Seth said sharply. “You have work to do.”
“Yes, Father. Mother.” Tevyr bowed to each parent, then departed the seraph bay.
With Tevyr gone, the crowd of EN personnel in the balcony dispersed.
When they were alone, Quennin shook her head. “You could have been a little easier on him. I don’t think any animosity was involved, just two groups of young pilots trying to show off. And those EN pilots weren’t faultless either.”
“Which is why I grounded them, too.”
Quennin sighed. “He’s had to grow up so fast.”
“Do you think I was too harsh?
”
“A little. He’s still just a kid.”
“He is also a warrior of Aktenzek. The time for such antics has passed.”
“Did you see him take on all five at once? They couldn’t touch him. His technique is superb.”
Seth nodded. “He’s a stronger pilot than I was at his age.”
“You think he’ll be better than you someday?” Quennin asked.
“Could be.” Seth gazed up at the seraph. Tevyr had chosen the flame-red colors of his mother’s seraph and the Litany shunts of his father’s. “Is it a good thing or a bad thing for a father to be surpassed by his son?”
Quennin kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I think you already know the answer.”
Chapter 3
The Kids
Tevyr Elexen lived in that period of life when evolution told him to leave the safety of family, seek a mate, and sire children. Society was not so keen on the idea and instructed him to dutifully repress those base urges. He was not yet an adult, not ready for the rights and responsibilities associated with the title.
Paradoxically, Tevyr was a pilot: one of the elite warrior youths of Aktenzek, one of only a handful of human beings in the entire universe who could pilot the awesome power of a seraph. He was a dangerous master of tactics and strategy, possessing lightning reflexes and brilliant cunning.
All of which made his grounding even worse. Since Tevyr couldn’t prove his superiority through flying, he had been reduced to this.
“Are you going to move or not?” Tevyr rested his head on a fist.
“Almost got it.” Jared Daykin sat opposite Tevyr in the JSDC’s pilot mess hall. Most of alpha and epsilon squadrons sat, ate, and talked at the rows of rectangular tables. The Earther was trying to find a way out of the trap he’d blundered into. With hands at the sides of his face pulling the skin back, he stared intensely at the playing board. His fingers flexed, gripping his sandy-blond hair tightly.
Tevyr surveyed the game with no small degree of satisfaction. He was winning, and he enjoyed winning.
“You don’t look like you’re enjoying this at all,” Tevyr said.
“Shush. I’m concentrating.”
“You’ve been concentrating for ten minutes.”
“I’ve almost got it figured out.”
Tevyr took a moment to appreciate the layout of white and black game pieces. His two bishops were projecting a nasty V of potential attacks into the heart of Jared’s formation. Jared could counterattack, but then he’d exchange either a queen or rook for a mere bishop.
No, the Earther’s only option remained to fall back and accept additional losses.
Such a simple game, really.
Jared reached for the black queen, but hesitated.
“Jared?”
“I’ve almost got this figured out.”
“Would you like to start over?”
“No, I’ll get you yet.” Slowly, Jared grasped the black queen and dragged it deeper into his defenses.
The moment Jared’s hand left the game piece, Tevyr picked up a bishop and knocked over Jared’s last knight.
“Check.”
Jared’s eyes narrowed. He tightened the death grip on his hair.
Tevyr draped one arm over the back of his chair and slouched. “Aren’t you supposed to be a genius?”
“Just in my seraph. My brain accelerates.”
“And how does that work, exactly?”
“Don’t know. How can you generate two chaos daggers at once when I can’t?”
Tevyr shrugged. “Don’t know. Just do.”
He took the moment to brush a few specks of lint off his uniform. Even though Jared served the Earth Nation’s seraph squadrons, his uniform shared much with Tevyr’s. Both were storm-gray ensembles with white six-winged hawks at the cuffs and collar.
The main differences were the colored armbands. Tevyr’s green armband displayed the Aktenai seal: an inverted cursive i done in black, looped around a white sphere. Jared’s bright red armband displayed the Earth Nation seal, with the Earth and Moon centered within a halo of sixteen stars.
A young woman walked over to their table carrying a tray of steaming Earther slop and one of their fizzing iced drinks. Yonu Nezrii wore her long black hair in a complex braid, twined with a translucent blue ribbon. Tevyr tried not to leer. He made a point of studying the ceiling instead of the ample breasts straining her uniform.
“I hate you,” Yonu said, sitting sat down next to him.
Tevyr blew out a breath. “Nice to see you too.”
“Why is it whenever you screw up it means extra work for me?”
Tevyr chuckled. “Funny how that always happens, huh?”
“Yeah. Real funny,” Yonu said. “I don’t even want to run your squadron. By the way, Dekin and V’Zen are at each other’s throats again. I scheduled a duel to sort it out.”
Tevyr rolled his eyes. “What else is new? I wish they’d start sleeping together and get it over with.”
“Seriously, I don’t have time to waste on their drama. Speaking of which, shouldn’t you two be studying for the history exam?”
Jared shook his head. “Not until I beat him.”
“Then you might as well leave your test blank,” Yonu said.
“I’m not doing that bad.”
“Oh, come on. Even I can see you’re getting thrashed.” Yonu set a d-scroll next to her tray and let it open. Historical texts and images activated on its translucent surface.
Yonu poked her fork into a repulsive slab of something called “meatloaf.” She thumbed through the d-scroll’s contents with her free hand.
“How can you eat that stuff?” Tevyr asked.
“It’s actually quite good. You should try it.” Yonu took a large bite and chewed with a cheerful grin.
“No, thank you.”
In truth, the Earth food wasn’t all that bad, just weird to Tevyr’s taste buds. However, Yonu’s other explorations into Earth trends were far stranger. She had actually had her ears pierced! Admittedly, the twin sapphire gems accentuated her beauty in an exotic way, but that sort of bodily mutilation was unheard of anywhere in Aktenzek.
“I still can’t believe you let them pierce your ears,” Tevyr said.
“It’s a fascinating, if primitive culture,” Yonu said. “It is our responsibility as members of the more advanced society to make efforts to understand them.”
“You just did it to annoy your mom.”
“Well. Maybe that too.”
“So, you hear that, Jared?” Tevyr said. “Yonu says Earth culture is primitive.”
“Whatever.”
“Are you even listening to us?” Yonu said.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“What have we been talking about?”
“Stuff.”
Tevyr snapped his fingers in front of Jared’s face.
Jared looked up from the chessboard. “Tevyr?”
“Yeah?”
“Are your parents getting divorced?”
Tevyr’s jaw flopped open.
Yonu dropped her fork.
“Jared, how can you even ask something like that?” Tevyr said.
“Don’t know. Just curious, I guess.”
Yonu leaned over and whispered, “I told you. Primitive culture.”
“What was that?” Jared asked.
“Nothing,” Yonu said.
“Okay. First, Pilot Seth Elexen and Pilot Quennin S’Kev aren’t married,” Tevyr said. “Aktenai don’t get married. They bond.”
“Oh,” Jared blinked. “Right. Forgot.” He let go of his hair and sat up. The quick removal of his fingers left his disheveled mop standing up. “What’s bonding again?”
“Oh, curse this,” Tevyr muttered.
“It’s really simple,” Yonu said. “Aktenai bond when they conceive a child. They stay bonded until that child reaches maturity. At that point, they are free to part ways if they desire or stay bonded. Typically they’ll conceive another child at this point i
f the bond continues.”
“My parents have that decision coming up soon,” Tevyr said.
“Mine too.” Yonu winked at Tevyr.
Aktenai pilots were almost always raised in male/female pairs. The Choir selected those pairings with care, but also expected them to bear fruit. Tevyr had already received words of encouragement from his parents.
And Yonu’s parents too, for that matter.
“So, NO,” Tevyr said, “my parents aren’t getting divorced.”
“I get it now.”
“Do you really?”
“Are they going to have another kid?” Jared asked.
“I don’t know! Go ask them yourself!”
Yonu shook her head and took another bite. “So primitive.” She thumbed down a screen of text on her d-scroll, then highlighted a line with a finger. The text updated via her neural link.
“What are you working on?” Tevyr asked.
“My speech for tomorrow.”
“What’s the topic?”
“Jack Donolon, the pilot massacre, and the founding of the Alliance. You?”
“Veketon and the creation of the Choir.”
“Uhh,” Yonu said. “That’s so boring. I bet half the class is going to do something on the Original Eleven.”
“Maybe, but the speech practically wrote itself. Just pick any old text and reword it a bit.” Tevyr wiped his hands off. “There. Done.”
“That won’t save you from the questions.”
“It’s our venerable master Veketon. Seriously, what are they going to ask me that I don’t know?”
“If you say so.” Yonu selected another line and deleted it with her neural link.
“How about you, Jared?” Tevyr asked.
“Hmm?”
“Your speech for tomorrow? What’s it on?”
“Speech? What speech?”
“Our big history speech? You know, the one every pilot at this event has to give?”
“I’m giving a speech tomorrow?”
“Uh oh,” Yonu whispered musically.
“Since when?” Jared asked.
“Since about a month ago,” Tevyr said.
“Are you kidding?”
“Nope.”
“Gosh darn it!” Jared uttered the words with all the gusto of a curse.
Tevyr wondered why Jared never utilized his culture’s rich swearing heritage. Earthers had so many good curses. It was the one place their culture had clearly advanced beyond the Aktenai.
