Page 8 of Reformation
There was nothing as mortifying as being called out of a class at the Academy.
Beingkickedout of a class was one thing; at least when that happened, you knew why. Cody hadn’t personally been kicked out of any of his classes so far, but Ten had a running tally from the year before that was getting perilously close to three digits. It was almost a point of pride with hir, the ability to completely annoy, disrupt, and otherwise harass hir instructors into throwing hir out of class, and then acing every test, quiz, and lab that came up. Ten’s attendance wasn’t an issue, because ze always showed up even if ze didn’t end up staying long.
Beingcalledout of a class, though … that meant something was really wrong. Either you’d been caught for something so awful that Admiral Liang refused to wait until you were done with class to address it, or something had happened to someone else and informing you shouldn’t be put off. Cody hadn’t beenthe one to set their room on fire that morning, and so as soon as Hermes spoke through the implant in his head, it felt like the bottom dropped out of his stomach.
“Cadet Helms, please proceed immediately to Admiral Liang’s office.”
Oh, no. “What’s this about, Hermes?” After months of practice, Cody had finally gotten the hang of communicating with the Academy’s built-in AI system without speaking aloud.
“The Admiral can explain things to you. Please proceed directly to his office.Your instructor has already been informed.”
Well, that tore it. Cody fumbled his bag closed and walked down to the exit, careful not to make eye contact with any of the other students. His instructor glanced his way and nodded, then resolutely turned back to the rest of the class to continue the lecture.
Cody’s legs were shaking so hard he could barely walk. He wanted to run—hell, he wanted toteleportto the admin building so he could get the newsright now. Nothing was worse than hanging in limbo, not when there were so many things that could have gone wrong.
Had Ten had an accident in the lab? Was it one of his dads? Was it one of hiscousins?Shit, if something had happened to one of the girls, Cody was going to lose it.
He made it to the administrative headquarters in a little under three minutes, which felt like a lifetime of hearing nothing but the frantic beat of his own heart, reverberating through his ears. His legs finally picked up the pace as he entered the building, and by the time he got to Admiral Liang’s office, Cody had worked himself up to a sprint.
Chief Jessup stood outside the door and latched onto Cody’s arm before he could power his way through. “Slow down, Cadet.”The compassion in his flinty eyes was almost enough to make Cody faint.
“No, please, let me in, I have to—”
“He’s setting up a secure call. It’ll just take another minute or two.”
“A call to whom?” Chief Jessup shook his head. “Towhom?I need to know!”
The door opened before Cody annoyed Chief Jessup so badly he threw him in the brig. “A call to your father,” Admiral Liang said as he stood aside, ushering Cody into his office. It was a big, impressive room, the walls covered with moving holos of different battles and ships, the floor sumptuously carpeted in the blue and gold of the Academy, and the furniture real dark wood. Cody had never been less interested in his surroundings in all his life. “Your stepfather,” Admiral Liang clarified, and Cody’s breath suddenly came a bit easier. Garrett could handle anything. No matter what was going on, he’d know what to do.
“The comm is already set up at my desk, just press your finger to verify. Visual and audio and none of this is being recorded.” He gently patted Cody’s shoulder, then turned and left as quiet as a whisper.
Cody sat down in the admiral’s chair. It felt huge, so much bigger than him, just like the desk and the office and the news he was about to get. He sat down, pressed his index finger to the ID pad, and waited for it to identify his print, blood type, and vitals, then the holo sprang into existence above the desk. It was Garrett, and Cody felt himself slump with desperate relief.
The feeling only lasted a moment, though. Garrett lookedterrible. He looked like he’d been running wind sprints for hours; he was pale and exhausted, visibly unwell. Cody had never seen him look this bad: not when Miles had been caught in an explosion, not even when Garrett had lost his eyes in a lab accident. His hair was a mess, his clothes were rumpled despitebeing made of cloth that was supposed to be impossible to wrinkle, and he wasn’t smiling. Healwayssmiled for Cody even if he followed it up with hard news.
That could only mean one thing.
“Garrett?” Cody’s voice sounded weak to his ears, but he couldn’t make himself care. “What’s wrong with Dad?”
“I don’t know for sure.” His voice was gravelly with fatigue and fear. “He made it to Pandora fine, I know that much, but it looks like the colony has come under attack.”
Cody shut his eyes and bit the inside of his cheek so hard it began to bleed. “Pirates?” he forced out.
Garrett scoffed. “This is no act of piracy. Pirates don’t persist in wasting energy against an ion shield. They wouldn’t have demolished the Eye, either; they’d have boarded it and taken it apart to sell or trade.”
The Eye is gone? Shit, shit.That was Pandora’s first line of defense, one that had worked against incursions ever since it was built. And now it was just … gone?
“This is an attack that’s supposed to make everyone think pirates, when nothing could be further from the truth,” Garrett continued.
Cody forced himself to focus. “How do you know?”
“Because a move like this only makes sense if it’s political. It keeps coming back to that, with Alexander in charge. All of the attacks on Fringe planets have been curious moves for pirates and going after a colony as large and well affiliated as Pandora would be suicide for a pirate ship, much less afleetof ships numerous enough to track, which is what I’m seeing.” He shook his head. “This is Raymond Alexander moving the focus around and hurting his opponents in the process.”
“You mean you.”
“Among other people.”
“No, you meanyouspecifically,” Cody bit out, his worry manifesting as anger at the only person he had to take it out on right then. “He’s going after Pandora because ofyou. Because it’s important to you and Dad, and he knew Dad would be there, didn’t he?”
