Chapter 18

****Part 1 - General of Academy ****

Lieutenant James pulled himself across the dirt, trying to ignore the trail of blood he was dragging behind him. The trail would make him trivial to track, of course, but if one of the Terrans got close enough to track him, he was as good as dead anyways.

"You should just give up, Jimmy." He said, his voice breaking as he moved another arm's-length. "Where are you even going Jimmy? Get to that clump of trees, and then what Jimmy?"

Is it normal to talk to myself like this? Probably not. I'm probably going into shock. James glanced behind him, surprisingly calm as he carefully looked down at his legs. "Well ain't that a pretty sight! Can you even tell where your legs end anymore Jimmy? Nah, you can't. Twists of meat now, ain't they Jimmy?"

Okay, stop. I need to pull myself together. James pushed himself onto his back and stared into the green-tinted sky.

"Deep breaths Jimmy. Focus Jimmy. And for god's sake Jimmy, stop talking to yourself." He lapsed into silence, taking deep breaths and blinking slowly.

The pain repressors would wear off within an hour or so, that was when he would really go into shock. In the meantime, besides the weariness, James felt almost peaceful. Unlike the quiet thrum of the Orbital, the silence on the surface wasn't true silence. Little snips of music reached his ears from far off, made by the animals that lived here. Irregular drones of tiny animals, the insect-class, filled the blanks between them.

"They're playing me a song, that's kind of them." James chuckled. "They should do that up in the Orbit, play some music to send a soul to sleep. Wish I could tell them that, music makes it hurt a little less. Makes the heart hurt, I mean, the legs'll still hurt plenty."

He lifted his head to check on his legs again. It was almost fascinating how much damage they'd incurred in the crash; they were a wreckage of mangled gore.

"Hate that it ends here though, so young and all." He sighed. It was tiring now, filling his lungs with air. "I suppose ... S'ppose it must be the same with everyone. Nobody's gonna die like this and think 'well, I suppose I'm done then'. Still, wish I could've..." another arduous, laborious breath " ... wish I could've done more with my life."

"What would you do with your life, space boy?" It was such a sweet, feminine voice that James wasn't sure he had actually heard it. He cast his eyes around for some time before his gaze settled on the woman. She was rosy and alert, squatting by a nearby tree with her arms resting on her knees. James was having trouble focusing, and he felt as if he was noticing things in the wrong order. He noticed her matronly air and comfortable confidence before he noticed the knife in her hand, and it took him long moments after he saw her short curls of lavender hair before he put two and two together.

"Terran?" He slurred.

"You say 'I would do more with my life'." The Terran approached, but James was too tired to be worried. He might even still have his pistol in his holster, he hadn't noticed.

"Yea, I think I'd ... think I'd do more with it. 'ventually." He tried to shrug. "Not much good now, but I would've gotten ... gotten my shit together." His voice was so weak that the Terran had to lean close just to hear him.

That would've been a great plan, pretending to be dying and killing her when her guard went down. James thought, absentmindedly staring at her face. If I weren't actually dying.

"Tell me, space boy. Talk to me. What would be your 'shit' that you got done?"

James chuckled. His last words were going to be reminiscing about what might have been, and with a Terran no less.

"Actually apply myself." He coughed, closing his eyes. "Get a promotion, get a girlfriend. Nah, fuck it, 'slong as I'm dreaming, I'd get all the promotions. I'd get promoted to Marshal of the Orbit, impress all the smart guys and fuck all the pretty girls. Then I'd fuck all the smart girls and lord it over all the pretty guys."

"That's very ABI(ambitious, adventurous, motivational)." The Terran girl's words burrowed into his mind, like an annoying insect's sting, but everything was fading out anyways. "I am Cha, what is your name?"

And ... now ... death... James thought, feeling himself slip under the darkness that had been hovering around him.

"What is your name, space boy?" He barely heard her, barely felt her arms around him.

"James." He mumbled. "James Auspus."

General Auspus sank into the depths of his chair, as if he could fall asleep if he got comfortable enough. Every day would always present a new set of challenges, but he didn't see that as a good thing. A day's challenges weren't opportunities, they weren't lovely little possibilities to highlight the strengths of a great leader. Auspus sifted through the messages on his screen, flipping most of them into a lower priority queue. Challenges were enemies to be slain.

"Sara, half of these requests could've been handled by the Captains." Auspus didn't look up from his work, but he knew his assistant would be taking notes. "I've asked you to please be cognisant of what matters you bring to my attention, I only have so many hours in a day." As if brought on by his words, a wave of exhaustion overtook him, and he set the screen down on the desk. Sara watched him carefully, too carefully for his liking. He had a reputation to uphold.

"I think I need another injection Miss Sara. Please have Ariel sent in to me.

"Yes sir." Sara gave him a worried look. "This will be your second injection this week sir. Is your condition getting worse? Should we perhaps schedule a visit to Orbital Basura to schedule an appointment?"

"Just the injection I think, but I appreciate your concern." Auspus gave a friendly smile instead of the snarl he wanted to provide. The girl meant well, and it was hardly her fault for being worried. She didn't know that all he wanted was for her to leave the room. None of them did.

"Right away sir." Sara left the room, and Auspus waited for a few moments before sealing the door to his office closed behind her. He loosened the collar of his uniform and leaned back in his chair in earnest, heaving a sigh of relief and letting the anxiety that he had been bottling up wash over him. Politics, war, worry, all on top of the typical challenges that plagued him.

His blood buzzed, as if millions of tiny creatures were inching their way along the inside of his veins. He had no way of knowing the science of what had happened to him, so for all he knew there might be.

Still, he thought, at least I'm more used to it now than I used to be.

"Oh god ... my skin ... my skin is crawling! There's something wrong with my skin!" Lieutenant Auspus tossed on the pile of furs.

"Shh, hush space boy. There is naught to fear, naught to fear." Cha crooned and stroked his hair, seeming to not mind that it was drenched in sweat. "It is always difficult, the first time." Auspus looked up at the woman, trying to make some sense of what he was feeling. He was lucid enough to know that he was feverish, his clammy forehead and shivering told him that much.

"Where am I? What happened? Why is your hair purple?" Auspus shivered again, swatting his skin, then scratching it.

Have to get them off of me. Out of me. Scratch them out, get them out, out out out. There were so many questions running through his mind that it was hard to focus on any one of them. The woman hovering above him was talking again as she held his hands down, something about losing legs and crashing ships, but try as he might Auspus couldn't quite focus on what she was saying. Later in his life, he would remember the last thing she said before he slipped back into fever dreams, although at the time it barely registered.

"You cannot help but achieve your dreams, now that I've given you the gift of magics."

Auspus gripped the edge of his desk, shivering at the intensity of the memory.

"Been running myself too ragged lately." He said to himself. Time always got a little slippery for him when it had been too long. He yanked the desk drawer open and removed the Coricia, running his fingers along the edge of the purple crystal without thinking. No matter how long it had been, his stomach jumped at the sight of it, his heartbeat quickened slightly. He hated his dependence on it.

He had already drawn the parallels between his reactions to the crystal and those of a drug addict. Like an addict, when he was running low his body crawled, and the more he put if off, the more intense his need was. Despite the obvious similarities, Auspus didn't like thinking of it that way. Treating the Coricia like a drug was dangerous. Start to think you couldn't live without it, and you would take risks to take another dose of the sparks within.

It had been one of those risks that had resulted in this entire mess, using the Coricia in the sight of two of the rookies. Auspus clenched his fists at the thought of them, but was distracted by the first purple spark that lept from the crystal, burrowing into his skin and leaving a trail of warmth inside of him. He settled back into his seat with a sigh.

"But where are the sparks actually going? And what are they made of?" Lieutenant Auspus watched the crystal suspiciously, flinching a little at each spark that jumped from it to land on his skin.

"You wish to know so much, space boy." Cha smiled at him from where she sat at the fire. "Why you not leave the MYA(the charm, the mystery, the thrill of discovery)?" Auspus jumped at the words that burrowed into his mind.

"I wish you wouldn't do that. Talk in my head like that."

"You will grow used to it. I try to speak your words, but one day you must get used to ours."

"And someday I'll be able to talk like that?"

"Yes, one day soon. You will be one of us."

Auspus leaned back with a frown. The prospect didn't sound appealing to him. Cha hadn't let him out of her hut yet, but compared to Orbital Academy the Terrans seemed to lead a horrible, primitive life. He flexed his legs again, wiggling the toes that had been regrown. True, magic saved his legs when nothing else would've. Cha clearly had great aspirations for him, and for whatever reason she helped him, but spending the rest of his life on the surface seemed too heavy of a cost. Auspus would've already tried to escape, but...

He opened his hand and focused. In his cupped palm, a purple flame sprang into being, warm and real. He flicked it back and forth between his fingers, trying to ignore Cha's amused look.

I can play along for a while, if it means getting so much power...

He must've turned the lights out at some point, because as the Coricia's flow of sparks died down, the room slowly descended into darkness. General Auspus lazily waved a hand to bring the lights to full level, stretching before he slipped the purple crystal back into his desk drawer. As usual, he felt as if he had just had a long sleep, and he felt ready to tackle another full day, even though he hadn't slept for 72 hours.

Ariel knocked discretely, but she entered without waiting for him to answer.

"I came as quickly as I could, General."

"Ah, my angel." General Auspus used magic to draw color from his skin and pull bags beneath his eyes, and he tried to slump in his chair as he looked Ariel up and down. Despite the fact that her medicines were utterly useless to him, she really did look like an angel this evening. She must've been sleeping when they summoned her, since she was wearing a white nightdress, contrasting with her strawberry blonde curls. It wasn't improper, but it was thin enough that he could follow the curve of her breasts as she busily unpacked her case on his desk and mixed the medication. Ariel caught him looking, and she blushed.

"Even in your state you have the energy to be perverted." She teased, filling a syringe.

"You wouldn't begrudge an old man his love of pretty girls, would you?" Auspus smiled.

"I always forget..." Ariel gave him his injection with a professional air, unaware that just beneath his skin, the magic ate away at the medication before it could even enter his bloodstream, devouring it and neutralizing it. "You always have so much energy after the injections, I sometimes forget your advanced years." She teased. Auspus leaned his head back and watched her from the corner of his eyes.

"Why do you look at me like that, whenever I use the Corincia?" Lieutenant Auspus had gotten used to the tingling feeling of energy that recharging gave him, but he was still annoyed. Cha's smile always looked as if she knew a secret he didn't.

"For the TER(we of the earth, the loyal), to use the COR(the crystal of light, the Corincia) of another is a sign of TRIU(intimate and trusting, like a lover)." Auspus still had trouble sometimes, following a sentence with many charged words of power within it and he had to think about what she said for a while before he could make sense of it.

"The crystals are private? Wait, like lovers? So it's as if you've been watching me change clothes this whole time?"

"I had to teach you how to use it." Cha said defensively, but she blushed furiously. "And then ... well you had it once. No hurt to use it AGA(once more)."

Auspus turned the information over in his mind.

An infatuation then. I suppose it explains why she's done so much for me. Despite the help, his confinement chaffed him. As always, Auspus took his frustration out on the nearest available target.

"Aren't you a hundred or something? Should you really be crushing on young guys like me?" He said dismissively. It was a slap in the face, but really what did the girl expect? He had been trapped in this house for five weeks, putting up with the pain of his ruined legs regrowing from the inside. The boredom and frustration was overwhelming, why would he be nice to her just because she fed him every day? As always, the hurt look Cha tried to hide made his frustration sting just a little bit less.

"Age makes no harm." Cha was avoiding his eyes. "The COR(crystal of light) keeps us young and BEA(pretty and attractive, beautiful in body), so what does it..."

"Well I don't know about the second, but it keeps you young at least." Auspus leaned back and closed his eyes. He didn't have to look to see what her face would look like at his words. Leaning into the stream of sparks, he smiled slightly.

"You seem to be looking better, General." Ariel's voice brought him out of his reverie with a small guilty start. He hadn't ever noticed before, but his medic looked a bit like Cha had. Hair in short curls, a comfortably plump frame.

"I am feeling much better, thank you. I ... appreciate what you do for me, Ariel."

Ariel gave him a curious look as she cleaned the medicinal instruments with a clean white cloth.

"Of course General, it's sort of my job." She said.

"I just mean ... I'm not sure what I mean." Auspus sighed. "Do you think it's possible to make up for past mistakes Ariel? To cancel out debts in a life the same way one cancels out monetary debt?"

"These drugs must be pretty strong, to get you so philosophical General." Ariel stopped cleaning and looked at him closely.

"I get vaguely philosophical in the evenings." Auspus chuckled.

"Is a past mistake weighing on you? I could try to heal your soul while I'm here healing your body." Ariel laughed. Auspus glanced sharply at her. She was keeping her back to him, putting the supplies away in their case, and she was clearly trying to keep her tone light to make it sound as if she wasn't prying. He never knew if it was due to the magic or to his own abilities, but Auspus had a particular talent for reading people, and it was clear to him that Ariel was searching for something.

He sighed, reaching into a second drawer of his desk. The same wisdom that made him regret what he had done to Cha told him he couldn't trust Ariel.

"I appreciate it, but I'm afraid some mistakes must remain in the past. Chocolate?" He offered her the silver bowl, and Ariel took a small handful and popped them in her mouth, giving him a smile that would be adorable if it wasn't so clearly calculated. Auspus paid close attention to how many she had grabbed.

Five. So I have five questions to get to the bottom of it.

"You know, General," Ariel closed the case with a sharp click, turning back to him and leaning against his desk, "there are many ways to heal a soul that don't require talking at all. Plenty of ways for a woman to heal a man..."

"Oh, are there?" General Auspus kept himself from rolling his eyes at the awkwardness of the line.

"Yes, there are." Ariel moved closer, until she stood just next to his seat, leaning forward slightly.

Oops. There's one question wasted. Auspus mentally cursed. The pellets of magic sealed within the chocolate would force a truthful answer to any question, real or rhetorical. Still, it wouldn't be too difficult to determine what the medic wanted.

"There are ways a girl can heal a man that heal her own soul as well." Ariel breathed, and she was closer to him now, her eyes closed, so close that he could spell the faint scent of fruit and flowers.

Auspus was tempted. Her awkward attempts at seduction were cute in a naive way, ironically more attractive than the type of temptress she was trying to be. With a hint of regret he placed his hands on her shoulders, stopping her inches away from him.

"Ariel," he said softly, "you don't want to sleep with me, do you?"

"No." Ariel's eyes widened in horror as the word left her lips. Auspus was used to this by now, how unnerved someone became when they spoke the truth without knowing why.

"I appreciate the honesty very much. It means a lot to me that our relationship means so much to you." He said quietly. If he gave her a reason she could use, her brain would reconcile it, deciding it was her own idea, not the effect of the chocolate-coated spheres of magic. "Now why, if you do not want to sleep with me, are you trying to seduce me?"

"I just ... I need some of the political power that you have, General." Ariel winced, stepping away from him. Auspus nodded gravely, keeping serious so that she could at least keep some of her dignity.

"And what would you use that power for?"

"My ... my boyfriend, sir." There were tears in Ariel's eyes now, and Auspus looked at his screen, embarrassed for her. "We just found out he's got Cherenial Syndrome. I thought ... I thought if I could pretend he was a relative, I could convince you to transfer him to Basura, where he could get treated. Please sir, it was stupid, I just ... may I be dismissed please?"

"You may go." General Auspus sighed. She had reached the door before he realized he had one questions left.

"Ariel, what is your young man's name?"

"Adam Laughley, sir, he works in the Medhall on deck seven." Ariel's eyes were wide, even as embarrassed tears still ran down her face. "Sir this wasn't his fault, it was my idea-"

"That will be all, Ariel."

"But General, he didn't even know! And if he had, he would've told me not to! Please don't-"

"That will be all." Auspus called up the rest of the day's business on his screens as the door closed behind the sniffling girl.

Before applying his newly renewed energy towards the waiting items, he spoke to the computer system in the empty room.

"Send message to Tech Evans: I'm authorizing a chit transfer, identified by auth-key. One medical chit, class B, to the account of Adam Laughley. Two transport chits each to the accounts of Adam Laughley and Ariel Robina. Move the chits from my account, make them non-refundable. End message. Attach my authorization key to that message." Auspus pulled up another screen, working on a minor schema problem as he spoke. "Send second message to Medic Pepperton: Please find replacements for Adam Laughley and Ariel Robina for the next week. They will be taking a trip to Orbital Basura and unable to come in to work."

The schema problem took up his attention for a few minutes before an answering message pinged on his screen.

"Adam told me about his Cherenial Syndrome. Said he didn't have the chits to get the treatment. You're a good man General Auspus.Medic Pepperton"

General Auspus stared at the message for a long time before he flicked it off of his screen and returned to work.

"Why are you doing this to me, space boy?" Cha's voice was just as weak as his had been the day they first met. In fact, Auspus noted, the entire scene was rather similar. There they were, surrounded by forest, flora and fauna. He was hunched over, arms on his knees, and it was the Terran girl who lay on the grass, injured and bloodied. The circumstances were different, but Auspus felt like they had come full circle. It was satisfying, in a way.

"It's funny." he stared off into the distance. The Orbital Academy ground station had come down through the clouds a few miles off, so it wasn't as if he could see the it through the trees, but he looked anyways. "You asked me, when we first met, what I wanted to do with my life. Do you remember?" Cha looked up at him through strands of blood-matted lavender hair.

"And then I saved you." She groaned. "I saved your life, space boy."

"Yes yes, I'm not talking about that." Auspus waved a hand impatiently. "I just mean that it's interesting, you didn't realize it at the time, but thanks to you, I don't just have the chance to live, I'll have the chance to live that dream life."

"Yes, thanks to me. And some great thanks you gave. You're a ... a..." Cha faltered for words, and winced with a gasp.

"You can't charge a word Cha, I've left you completely drained I'm afraid. Don't worry, I'm sure I can guess at whatever horrible names you were about to call me. I regret how it happened Cha, but did you really think I would just live here? On the surface? With savages? Especially now that I have the power of magic?"

"My... 'poa'..." Cha grunted, unable to charge the word. Her voice was weak, and she rolled to a side to lean her head against the tree trunk. "My... 'magi'."

"Not yours anymore, mine." Auspus barely paid her attention. "And with it ... just think about it, the magic of the Terrans mixed with life in the Orbit. I can be faster and stronger, I can have better reflexes than anyone else in the Academy. Smarter too, and without sleep I'll have more time to study. I'll have a leg up on everyone in my year ... hell, I'll have a leg up on the Captains. And the best part is that none of them even know about magic. They think you Terrans have some kind of alternate technology. Once they scan me and find no Terran technology, no one will suspect a thing." He bent down and ran his hands along Cha's body, and she whimpered and tried to move away from him. "Oh stop whining, no one's trying to feel you up you moronic creature ... I just want this." He pulled the purple crystal from her pocket and slipped it into his, where it rattled against his own crystal.

"But ... gave ... you ... one." Cha seemed to struggled through each word.

"Oh I know, but now I have a potential ally, you see? Someone I can give your magic to, who will also be on the fast track to success, and who will owe me." He stood, brushing his hands off. "Now, I've got to go meet my future. You've helped me quite a lot Cha, I'll always remember that."

If she said anything in response, he didn't hear it.

"General Auspus." The message came through his emergency line, and it came from the hangar chief. General Auspus didn't need any further information to determine the nature of the report, but he opened the comm anyways.

"Go ahead Paul."

"We just had to let a transport land, sir. It's the Red Forces from Basura. They didn't tell me where they were going, but I thought you'd want to know they were on the Orbital."

"Thank you Paul." Auspus was surprised at how calm he remained as he cut the connection.

Haven't I been expecting it, in a way? He thought, pulling screens to him and working quickly. Finishing directions. Wrapping up request tickets. Adding small notes here and there in his work, making it easy for someone else to take up the tasks. He pulled the crystal from his desk drawer and, after a moment's hesitation, slipped it into his pocket.

I wouldn't have expected it to be rookies who brought me down, in the end. He thought idly, looking around the large office. Hunter, maybe, but not the rookies. Rather than sit down, he paced up and down, arranging a small nicknack here, straightening a framed work of art there.

It was the problem with keeping so many secrets, with having so many plans. It was impossible to keep so many balls in the air at once, to keep straight such a huge network of lies and connections. He had known that sooner or later he would be caught, sooner or later he would be punished. There was no covenant about using magic, but the Marshal wouldn't allow Auspus to hold a source of power over him. Auspus could only hope that he would be imprisoned, rather than killed, for keeping that source from the Marshal for ... how long?

"Seventy years? Eighty?" General Auspus paused in his pacing, looking across the room at the hanging mirror. His skin was still smooth, his hair sleek and black. The effect would fool anyone, although it had to be meticulously applied once or twice a month. Any less frequently, and his shock of dark purple hair would begin to show through. "What would I have looked like, if things had gone differently? If I hadn't crashed on that mission?" He murmured to himself. "Aged and wrinkled? Enjoying retirement? I suppose that's what I'm about to do now, enjoy either a very long or a very short retirement."

An old memory tickled at him, and he chuckled in spite of himself. He turned to the mirror and spoke aloud at the reflection, to the young-faced man with world-weary eyes that looked back at him. "Whether you're twenty or ninety, you'll always talk to yourself just before you die, won't you Jimmy?" he smiled.

The door slid open despite the fact that he had locked it. Two men and a woman stepped into the room, surveying it with disinterest. They wore uniforms of muted grey and red, and though they carried no visible weapons, a shiver went down Auspus' spine.

"James Auspus." The man in the lead smiled, the expression just as neutral as his nondescript appearance. "We are here to escort you to Orbital Basura, to answer charges set against you."

"Has the Marshall decided on a set of charges then?" Auspus suppressed his nerves with practiced ease.

"You are accused of attempting to break the Marshal's covenant. If you will please come with us."

General Auspus privately thought to himself that one could learn a lot about a leader by the way they arranged their main base of operations. He had striven to make his office neat, severe, but open. His was a room where business got done, where hierarchy was respected, but where one of his could come for assistance. From what he had seen, General Poulay's office felt like a classroom, with herself at the head, holding court over rows of subordinates. Generals Hunter and Buramis both had offices laid out for efficiency, created to facilitate their work rather than to give off an impression.

As he looked around him, Auspus could tell that for the Marshal, the most important thing to remember was that the Marshal was the most important. From the tiers in front of him to the throne the Marshal sat on, every tiny aspect was designed to point out the Marshal's own godhood.

"General Auspus, the Marshal does not enjoy the turmoil in the Orbit. It makes the Marshal's tasks complicated." The Marshal glared at his screens, not looking at Auspus but still making it clear that he disapproved.

"I am sorry, Sir Marshal." Auspus bowed his head. In his youth, after returning from the surface, he never could've swallowed his pride like that. Age had given him wisdom and calmed his temper. "It was my understanding that you were understanding about General Hunter and my ... situation."

"The war between Pivot and Academy matters little to the Marshal. What matters are all of these accusations, flitting back and forth like angry Drakes that must be dealt with." Said the Marshal.

"I ... don't know of any accusations, sir." General Auspus said.

Hunter must've gone straight to the Marshal when the rookies told him about the crystal. If I had just killed them outright, this wouldn't have happened. Auspus pushed the thought to the back of his head.

"A synthetic stood before us, not two days ago, with one of General Auspus' Captains." The Marshal's habit of looking back and forth between his screens was annoying Auspus, it made it hard to focus on what he was saying. "There were many issues surrounding them, but in the end we decided to disassemble the synthetic and release the Captain, with no punishment meted out to any who were falsely accused. The synthetic escaped."