The rest of the short story. Enjoy and then have it for breakfast (that is, tear it apart).
A word on the ranks: I'm using US Navy (I feel like making a joke about "In the Heights" here...) ranks. "Ensign" is the lowest officer rank, and "Lieutenant Jr. Grade" is the rank just above. "Midshipman" is an officer in training, or a cadet. Just so there's no confusion. ^^
~*~
Imperia is unlike Miera in every respect. Truthfully, I am not living on the planet itself, but even in the space station that is the Naval Academy I can see enough to understand the massive divide between a tiny provincial planet like Miera and the capital of the Empire itself.
Mother was right. The sky out here—or rather, the vacuum of space—is pitch black, darker than the meteor metal used to make proper vareika blades. And the stars…it’s amazing. I can’t see myself ever returning to Miera’s dim purple skies with only a fitful sprinkling of stars. Here, stars are thick and golden, spreading like motes of dust across the midnight black and shining their cold light perpetually through the vaulted windows of the Academy Atrium. I could spend hours staring at them.
But of course, I do not. I have classes to attend and schoolwork to do, after all. In a way, classes are not much different than they were on Miera, except with a much greater emphasis on the history of the Empire as well as the sciences. Combat training is different from the sort on Miera as well. The very idea of using a blade as a main weapon is ridiculous to my classmates. We instead learn to use blasters and blast rifles as mainstay weapons with knives relegated to backup in the event we lose our firearm.
I learn quickly, though. I am determined to prove my worth to my teachers—and to my fellow students. There are so many of them there, more than I thought there could be people of my age. Students of all different species, so many that for my first few days I could barely do anything but stand around gawking at the variety. Slender, gray, large-eyed Grissians. Nolians so tall that even my father would appear a midget next to them. Aggressive, horned Endicotians. Bulging-skulled, floppy-eared Picotos. And humans just like my mother. There are even girls here, something that astonished me especially when I learned that many of them are training in combat. Yet unusual and varied as the students here might be, none of them seem to care. Different species mingle without a care for their different physiologies. On Miera, a Grissian would have been a cause for much commentary and perhaps even snickering. Here, no one bats an eye at a Grissian.
What they do stare at is me.
I should have been expecting that. How naïve could I have been, thinking that once I arrived on Imperia I would enter a paradise where all would accept me? Certainly no one cares if you are of a different species—so long as that species can be placed in a singular neat box beside which you can put a single fat check. No one would mistake a Grissian or Endicotian for one another.
But me. Their gazes linger on me even when I know they try not to. But they’re weighing conflicting thoughts in their minds. What is that? they asked themselves. My golden hair, build, and five fingers suggests I am human. But such alabaster-white skin, such narrow and slit-pupiled eyes, such flat nostrils, cannot possibly be human.
Eventually, though, my classmates have come to a judgment. Multiple judgments, that follow me every time I pass in the halls.
“What’s with that kid, anyway?”
“I hear he’s a mongrel, a half-breed—”
“Eww, really? Is that even possible?”
“Hey, I hear he’s never received a single piece of mail from his parents, they don’t even call him to ask if he’s okay—”
“If you ask me seems like they dumped him here, must be totally ashamed of him…”
“Maybe his mother was raped—”
I grit my teeth and block their whispers out. I tell myself that one day, I will show them. One day, it will not matter that I still have to check other in the box beneath my name.
~*~
“It doesn’t matter what anyone says to you, Midshipman Rione. You are a brilliant student—and you will be a brilliant officer in the Galactic Navy. And one of the best damned lawyers I’ll have the honor of working with.”
Every time Admiral Gray praises me, I try my hardest to hide my delight. It’s all I can do to keep myself from throwing my arms around him and squealing like a little girl at her birthday. But I cannot help it. He is the Judge Advocate General of all people, and yet he finds the time out of his busy schedule to personally mentor me—and praise me.
Oh, how I have come to view these monthly lessons with Admiral Gray as a sweet reprieve from the insidious whispers that follow me down the hallways. In fact, though I refuse to admit it, I anticipate our next meetings with the anxiousness of separated lovers. But how could I not? It’s the hours spent with Admiral Gray, reviewing historic military court cases in Galactic history (including some of his own), discussing what could have gone differently, what I would do if it were me, in which I can feel the most at ease with myself. Here, I am not the hated teacher’s pet top student, nor am I the disgusting mongrel that even my teachers treat with kid gloves. I am Midshipman Rione. I am me.
“Thank you, sir,” I say quietly, glancing up at my mentor. He is nearing his seventy-sixth birthday, and it shows. Age and the stresses of his job have reduced his skin to a valley of nut-brown wrinkles, and he has no hair save a few stubborn white wisps above his ears. Yet there is power to his large frame, the power and dignity of a much younger man. I do not admire any man in the Galaxy more.
Not even my father. Long gone are the days in which I viewed him as the fount of all wisdom.
“You’re thinking it too, aren’t you, boy?” says Admiral Gray with a low chuckle.
“Thinking what, sir?”
“About my supposed…‘upcoming retirement’.” The Admiral chuckles again, sounding almost resigned. “Oh, I won’t retire, Rione. Not yet, at the very least. I’m a selfish old man, you see.”
“Selfish, sir? And how is that?” I ask.
“Because I want to be around,” says Admiral Gray, “when you become a full-fledged Navy lawyer.”
I can’t speak. Any words of gratitude that I might think to say have been stopped by the enormous lump in my throat. I swallow but it doesn’t go down, and have to lower my eyes in case the Admiral sees the moisture gathering in them.
“You are brilliant,” says Gray, giving my shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “That you’re a so-called ‘half-breed’ means nothing to me. You’ll be a fine lawyer, mark my words. Don’t listen to what anyone else says, because—and here’s a lesson—most of what they say means nothing. A lawyer’s gotta have thick skin, you know.”
“Ah…of course, sir,” I manage, before offering him a wavering smile and a formal salute. “I’ll be sure to remember that.”
Admiral Gray smiles and returns my salute.
~*~
I’ve long accepted that my parents are never going to contact me in any way. Not to call, or send me hyperwave messages, or packages through the mail like other students’ parents do. For all I know, they have essentially disowned me.
So when an orderly awakens me in the middle of the night to inform me that I have a call, I jump up with such a violent start that I bang my head on the bunk above me.
Not very graceful, but I am still caught in the fog of sleep, and amazed to hear the orderly’s words. You have a call from your parents… What are the chances? It has been three years, after all. I am now sixteen—
And serving my six-month cadet cruise. I have spent the past three months aboard the S-class battleship the ISS Imperial Grandeur, one of four in the Galaxy. The ship is large, with a crew rivaling that of even many ground military bases, so I have never seen the Commodore in command of the ship. Instead, I work as a member of the Grandeur’s legal crew; in this capacity I aid the ship’s legal team in mediating onboard disputes and dealing with legal issues should they arise, such as when the ship takes in prisoners.
I blearily stumble to the nearest long-distance terminal, above which my mother’s holographic face is already floating. “Mother,” I mumble. The word feels foreign in my mouth, seeing as I have not said it in three years.
“Rione.” My name sounds just as unfamiliar on Mother’s tongue. “Listen…your father didn’t want me to do this. He doesn’t know, in fact. But I felt…I felt I should speak to you.”
“Yes, Mother,” I say. “What do you have to say?”
“It’s…nothing…just…” She turns to the side, biting her lip. “Rione, are you…are you well?”
“Yes, Mother,” I say. Then, I add, knowing it will annoy her, “I am number one in my class.”
“Oh…that’s…that’s wonderful,” she says in a tone that clearly implies the opposite. After a pause that stretches too long, she says, “So you don’t regret it. Joining the Navy.”
“Absolutely not,” I say bitingly. “The best decision I have made in my life.”
“I…I see…” says Mother. “I was just…I don’t know. It seems to me that you—that you joined because…”
She trails off, looking nervous. I fold my arms. “Do continue.”
“You joined…because you wanted to prove something. Something you couldn’t on Miera.” Mother’s words come in quick, sharp bursts. “I know. I’m—I’m your mother, after all. You’re trying to prove that you’re more than just a half-breed, aren’t you, I know it…”
I freeze. I have never viewed Mother as that perceptive—but she is right. She is my mother. My hands have begun shaking; I drive my claws into my palms to keep them still.
“But you don’t have to, Rione, do you understand?” she continues. “I—I’ve long accepted you for who you are. Me and your father both. You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. You’re fine the way you are—”
“Mother,” I say. “Then tell me…if this is true, how come the two of you kept trying to mold me in your own images?”
“Rione!” Mother doesn’t sound angry, but horrified. I do not know why; all I have done is tell her the truth. “That’s not—that isn’t right!”
“Do not deny it,” I sigh. “I am not in a mood for lies.”
“Don’t…please don’t say such things…”
Mother sounds ready to cry. A tendril of guilt rises within me, but I don’t know what to do with it. Apologize? When I have done nothing wrong?
“Mother,” I say, “I am not becoming a lawyer because I want approval. I want to become a lawyer because this is what I love. It’s my dream. Not yours, not Father’s. Mine.”
I reach over to terminate the connection, but Mother speaks hastily before I can. “Rione, I just want you to know—”
“Yes?” I arch an eyebrow. “Listen, Mother, I do not know what time it is on Miera, but where I am, it is in the middle of the night shift and I need to—”
“I just want you to know,” says Mother again, her voice watery, “that no matter what…you’re still my little boy, Rione. And I still…I still love you.”
The connection clicks off. I stand where I am, unable to draw breath, my heart pounding so loudly I fear that everyone on the ship can hear.
No. I mustn’t get sentimental. Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I turn and head back to my quarters. We have a long day ahead of us, given that we captured a band of pirates back around Nebulon-IV…
~*~
I wander through the Academy Atrium, surrounded by other newly-minted Ensigns in stiff new Navy dress uniforms. On the stage, earlier during the graduation ceremony, I felt perfectly at place, standing at stiff attention and reciting the Navy Officer’s Oath with the rest of my class. I felt like I had found the place where I truly belonged.
Now, though, I can’t help but feel awkward and out-of-place. My parents did not come to the ceremony. I had expected that, but still, it stung somewhere deep in my chest. In particular, I’d half-nursed the fantasy of my mother coming, given our conversation a year ago…
So now I watch my classmates embracing sobbing mothers, while fathers pound them on their backs and declare “I’m proud of you, sport!” and other iterations of the same phrase. Everyone is too caught up in their own joys to notice me, and even if they do, they probably expect me to be all alone. The half-breed loner whose parents never contacted him in any way.
Just as I begin to wish that the ship that will take me and the others who majored in Galactic Law to the Law Academy would arrive this instant, a familiar voice calls to me:
“Well, if it isn’t Ensign Rione!”
I jump to attention more by reflex than anything, but the sharp attention vanishes to be replaced by concern when I see Admiral Gray hobbling his way across the atrium (students and parents jump out of his way, the students offering him quick salutes which he impatiently returns), aided by a nursebot. He is wheezing for breath, I notice with a sick sinking feeling.
“Admiral Gray, sir,” I say as he returns my salute. “Are you all right?”
Gray waves off my concern, giving me his familiar roguish smile. “At ease—Ensign. So, how’s it feel to be wearing the uniform?”
He indicates the new dark blue uniform. I notice that it has begun riding up and give it a few corrective tugs, before answering truthfully, “Rather…uncomfortable.”
“You’ll get used to it, boy,” he says. “Made it through, eh? After everything…you made it through.”
I don’t know what to say in response. I have to duck my head so he does not see the flush rising in my cheeks. “Well, sir…I don’t…”
He casts an offhand glance at a loudly sobbing mother who has to be carried away by paramedics, before returning his attention to me. “I’ll see you in two years, all right, boy? In my office.”
He winks at me before thumping me hard on the back, the way I sometimes see friends do in the hyperwave dramas. The only reason I suppose I jump backwards in surprise is because I did not expect the old man to be that strong.
“Yes, sir,” I say, my voice barely able to break a whisper. Instead of berating, or beating, me for my weakness as Father would have done, he squeezes my shoulder and offers a smile, before going off to greet the Academy head more out of politeness than anything else.
I stand in place, my heart thumping, and it is then that I realize that I have been trying to prove myself to someone, all along.
~*~
The next time I see Admiral Gray, it is at his military funeral on his home planet Earth. It is three weeks before my graduation, and I know I ought to be studying for my bar exams, but who would I be if I did not pay my final respects to Admiral Gray?
Admiral Gray was right when he said I would become used to the dress uniform; it feels much less uncomfortable on me than it did the first time I wore it. I stand at quiet attention in a field of grass so green it is almost blinding, a cool breeze whispering past my ears.
Because of my comparatively low rank, I am near the back of the assembled mourners, most in military dress, but others black-clad civilians. I am told that even His August Majesty the Emperor has come to pay his respects. I can see his imperial palanquin at the head of all the mourners, only meters from the tall glass tube that holds a faint green mist—Admiral Gray’s atomized remains.
Even though it hurts, I force my eyes to focus on the tube. I do not know what to think now that the man who has mentored and guided me since I was twelve is nothing more than green mist. All this time, I had planned on graduating the Law Academy and then serving under Admiral Gray’s command. Now…
All people must die, and I must admit that Admiral Gray had been a man nearing his time ever since I fired off that first letter to him. Yet that doesn’t mean the Admiral’s death does not impact me any less. During all those years, Admiral Gray had been like a father for me, filling in for the parents who had forgotten about me after I refused to follow their individual dreams for me.
“—helped author the famous Galactic Peace Accords of Saxon-32, brought justice to the world of Klaseon, presided over the trial of Commander R’lel Tayuris—” A tall Nolian stands before the tube, droning with as much inflection as a newscaster. A flicker of annoyance runs through me. Even I could do the Admiral’s eulogy much more justice than that…
But I do not need to. Because for me, Admiral Gray exists not in a laundry list of deeds, court cases, and treaties. He exists in the smiles he gave, the salutes we exchanged, the lessons spent together.
The words he spoke. That you’re a so-called ‘half-breed’ means nothing to me. One of the best damned lawyers I’ll have the honor of working with. I’ll see you in two years, in my office… Perhaps that last is but a pipe dream. But I will honor his dream the best I can—by becoming the best lawyer I can be. In the end, it is what I do with my life that reflects more on Admiral Gray than any eulogy possibly could.
I will do the least that I can for the one man who did not see me as other, but as me.
~*~
I am now nineteen and Lieutenant Jr. Grade Rione, Junior Assistant Sector Attorney with the Judge Advocate General’s Office, and have solemnly sworn to uphold, honor, and defend the law.
Before I can embark on my first assignment—a tiny, out-of-the-way station, Starbase 420, in the Galaxy’s periphery—I must fill out a form. This form is to be my official Navy profile, one that will be updated either every five years or every time I receive a promotion. Hence, I plan on updating it quite often.
I stand in my quarters in the Galactic Naval Law Academy for the last time. There is nothing familiar here; all of my old posters and mementos have been taken down several days ago, leaving the room bare as a skeleton. In three hours, the ship that will take me on the thirty-hour journey to the Periphery will arrive, and I will leave behind the past six years of my life on Imperia without a glance back.
I balance a tablet in my one hand, filling it out with the other hand, my claws clacking against its cool surface. I have filled out so many forms over the years that it has become almost second nature to me.
Name: Rione. Date of birth: 29 September IE 1999. Sex: Male. Planet of birth: Miera.
Species.
I reach the list. On this official military document, it is much longer than the smattering of boxes the standardized test forms on Miera had. It stretches down an entire page. Yet you can still only check one box.
And at the very bottom of the list, still an afterthought, is the box that has come to define my life:
Other.
This is the box I will check. I have filled in enough documents over my years of schooling to no longer care, except to feel perhaps a tiny pang, every time I check in other. Yet, this time I hesitate. Because this document is far more important than any I have filled in before. It is the one that anyone, if they wish to search the hyperwave for information on me, will find. For at least several more years, it will be me.
Over the past few days, I have idly toyed with the notion of checking in a single box—Mieran or Human. Perhaps, after all, I feel more closely connected to one parent than the other, to one side of my heritage over the other. Perhaps I will let that be me.
But now that the moment has come…I cannot. I cannot simply trap myself in one of those boxes. Because like it or not, equal parts of each parent live on in me.
From my mother I received the drive to explore. The reason why I am here in the first place, light-years from my home.
From my father I received a sense of undying honor and duty. The reason why I am wearing a Navy officer’s uniform.
I tighten my grip on the tablet, biting my lip. No. There can be no other choice. I am still, after nineteen years, other.
And I find I do not care as much as I did when I was a child. Let others point and whisper and gingerly dance around me with platitudes about how it is perfectly all right to be different. Let them regale me with names and labels. Half-breed, mongrel, freak, hybrid.
I have already seen that this—the constant shunning—is not the way things have to be. One man saw through my bizarre appearance into the talented lawyer beneath. He saw because he was a clever man, a great man with years of experience in law, whose mind was unclouded with prejudice.
But he will not be the only one. One day, everyone in the Galaxy will see me the same way that Admiral Maxwell Gray did. It will take time, and effort. So much effort. And the battle uphill will not be easy. It never is, but for someone like me it will be doubly difficult. I will have to endure constant jibes and slights and stubborn superiors in addition to a young prosecutor’s usual burden of winning court cases. But I will endure. I will persevere. And I will make it through stronger than ever before.
When I do, no one will dare call me an abomination in my face. The Judge Advocate General, after all, is one whose position demands unequivocal respect.
I raise the tablet and for the first time, I check in the final box with proud defiance. Not hunched over, trying to hide my shame, but straight-backed, my chin up.
Now the entire Galaxy can see. I am other.
---------------------------
That's it for this story, though I may write more short stories set in the same universe (and have a vague idea already germinating for a story set on the starbase to which Rione gets assigned). For now, though, I'd like to focus on my novel.
Once again, what I'd really like (beyond just prose nitpicks) is examination of Rione's voice. I was aiming for his voice to become more "human", so to speak, as the story progresses, but I'm unsure how well I carried it out.
All critiques are welcome.
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