You know, I've been a man for some time now and there comes moments when a man must take stock and remember who he is and where he came from. For me, that ain't a story that I enjoy telling, hell, this here account is for posterity and for my family, past and hopefully future, who I will love without let or hindrance for all time. It might seem crazy now that I've graduated but to anyone who knew me before I was such a fine and upstanding member of society, there was once a time when I was actually afraid of my own name and when I wasn't just some eccentric, soon-to-be-dead helmsman in the UNSC. I was downright criminal. See, that's where all this really begins. My name is its own story. See, my father, God rest his soul, happened to be a man in love with theatre. He lived and breathed other people's skins to the point where I scarcely remember the real him. According to my mother, he was a starving artist, a man obsessed with the culture of acting. It weren't just that he wanted to be an actor, it was that he was never comfortable being just one guy. Randall Van Graff was basically mist, or rather, he was a husk for whichever personality suited him that day. Now, I call him my father but the truth is that some days, he weren't even a man. Course, that didn't bother anyone much, save for me. I was his only kid, which makes sense because he was too busy being other people to be a stable father.
He was an idiot, truth be told, the man wanted to act but wouldn't move from the outer colonies to the inners because it didn't have a 'real' industry. It was all fake and engineered by big corps and advertising conglomerates. That being said, and forgive me for getting ahead of myself, when two big covvie cruisers showed up and melted my home like a ring-light on make-up, he got a gig shilling for the man. Turns out communes and crack ain't nothing in the face of a fat pay check from old uncle Earth. I tell you, that was the first thing he ever did that I actually respected. Ruthless pragmatism always did hold a spot in my heart, not least because I'd lived on the short end of the stick of idealism.
Yeah, my daddy had problems but who doesn't, right? One of the many things that I learned from my father was that we pick up our parent's issues. We can't help it; God knows I've tried kicking the habits but they come back eventually in the way that you respond to trauma or surprise or the kiss of a lover. The point is that my family was odd, which made me kinda odd. The tone was set for my life the day my Dad popped a pill with my Mom and convinced themselves that 'Aurelian Teigen Van Graff' was an acceptable name for an outer colony kid. Folks out there are simple and they didn't understand my family or the commune they set up for drifters or the obsession with weed and psychedelics so I'd get it in the neck at school. Well, I say, get it in the neck, what I mean is twenty years of merciless bullying.
Kids are evil and mean, I know that because I was as bad as the rest of them. I had to be, of course. Father always got mad when I came home suspended or covered with bruises, toxic masculinity he called it. I usually called it tour de force or aggressive diplomacy, you know, something quick witted that'd push his buttons. I remember, one day coming home, covered in bruises and too much blood for it to be just mine, and he hit the roof.
"Aurelian Teigen Van Graff!" he yelled, loud enough for the whole commune to hear, "How many times have I told you that we are pacifists! We turn the other cheek and we rise above them! Sticks and stones, remember?" I remember looking at him, his eyes a little red and puffy from whatever happy fumes he was on and just feeling nothing but irritation. I was damn proud of that fight, still am, truth be told.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones" I'd said, breaking into a grin a mile wide, "but Goddamn does peace get tiring"
Often, I would try to push my Father, get him to react and get him angry. I wanted to test those beliefs of his that made my formative years such a damn hellscape. He never did. He'd get up, walk out, and take a week out in the hills or something. I never knew what he did but I used to like to pretend he was out killing animals for meat or breaking some other dumb rule he'd invented as catharsis or something like that. Obviously, I regret it now that he's gone. This last year made me rethink my past. There's a lot I wish was different and a whole lot more that I wish I'd said… but I'm happy with how I finally turned out. It was touch and go for a while, I got pretty lucky, in all honesty. That bullying made me something worse, it made me bitter and jealous. Bitterness, jealousy, and righteous violence is a nasty cocktail.
Now, I'd always enjoyed racing and I was pretty good at it, what with living out on a farming commune with quad bikes and the like. The whole place was one miasma of tracks, endless fun for a lonely kid with only thrills for friendship. It was exhilarating and that rush inspired me to spend days on end at the public library watching archival footage of everything from documentaries on ancient chariot racing to modern formula racing, slip jumping, sub-light broadsword racing, and Gravity Sling's. Each one was as daring and exciting as the last and as my isolation grew, my passion grew in concert. The problem with the obsessive and reckless pursuit of adrenaline is that when you recognise it in, say, an unhealthy behaviour like fist fighting, things can quickly get out of hand. That happened for me the day I finally matched a bully in height for the first time. That time I was blameless, I was attacked first. From that point on, however, little Ollie Van Graff weren't so innocent any more.
So began my descent into delinquency, it started with escapism, grew into thrill seeking, mutated into violence, spiralled into petty theft, and before I know it, I'm running an illegal smuggling op with the United Rebel Front. Crazy bunch of guys. Had their own Frigate from the time when the insurrection actually scared the UNSC. That was how I cut my teeth as a helmsman. For five years I was the deputy, then senior helmsman of the URF Revenge which was actually the CMA Peony Sky if you consulted the UEG's ship registry. See, I came up with the idea to make our slip jumps into void space where nothing would hit us, cryo up, and sub-light burn into the system so that local UNSC forces couldn't detect the slipspace rupture of our drives.
Worked like a charm, too. Until it didn't. Like all pirate crews we got too greedy when we tried supplying insurgent militia on Reach in late '47. Admiral Harper's entire damned fleet was in town, ready to jet off to Meridian and we lit up their sensors like a Christmas tree when they moved out of the system to perform their jump. I gave them hell, they had to fire a MAC round through the aft of the Revenge tostop me outmanoeuvring them. Took a couple shots as well but they got us eventually. When they boarded most of my crew were killed but I got lucky, I got a military tribunal and then thrown into the deepest darkest cell that the UNSC and old Admiral Harper could find for me. There hasn't been legal unchartered human space flight for years, the bigwigs in the UNSC, some guy called Cole, had found a great way of keeping mother Earth a secret from the Covenant. It was Gospel to them and I get it, it was important to stay safe but I was just there to fly. Anyway, that's where I spent the middle half my twenties, kept alive only because some A.I flagged me as useful when the war inevitably got desperate. A year ago, the war must have gotten that desperate, that or there was some kind of power game going on between the military and the Spooks, but like I said, luck played a pretty big part in my getting into the academy.
A couple Spooks even came to visit me, dress me down and make sure I wasn't some crazy person. Which I am, I just had to keep that quiet. It must have worked, too, because they actually accepted me, frogmarched me to Luna and plopped me into the final year of helmsman school. Apparently, I'd shown enough skill to be fast tracked into the last year, which must have hurt Admiral Harper's sensibilities because he made sure my time there wasn't easy.
Unfortunately for him, I have issues with authority.
《》《》《》
One year earlier...
When I arrived at the academy, I was still in my cuffs. They chafed at my wrists like no one's business, jangling about like I was some kind of one-man band. There were two rather angry men looking at me, grinning like the kids back home used to when they were spoiling for a fight. It didn't bother me much; I was about to turn twenty-nine by that point and I was more than used to it. At least I was a criminal to these men, in their eyes I deserved it. I did deserve it. My motivation might have just been to fly a big ship and not take any crap from someone but I had still "endangered earth and all her colonies" as old Admiral Harper had put it.
"Move." The meaty one spat.
"Alright, fellas calm down, don't want you boys to damage a valuable military asset now, do we?"
The skinny one paused, giving the meaty one a sort of sad look, a look that told me that they were the kinda guys who would exercise their liberal interpretation of the rules if only they didn't have someone above them that they feared. I'd seen that before; the Revenge wasn't exactly crewed by good men. I might even have crewed with these guys had the war not been on. Still, they pushed me on and that's how I entered Luna Naval Academy. Tripping on my laces and trying not to fall.
The guys laughed at that, but only briefly, there was an angry looking man stood in front me whose glare silenced them like a fifty cal silences most men. He smirked a little and jerked his head. The thugs departed, leaving me alone in a foyer with nothing but a pair of shackles and a jumpsuit to my name. I sighed and stepped forward.
"I'm your supervisor and tutor, my name is Percival Akron, it's good to meet you, Mister Van Graff."
Now, I have already said that respect ain't freely given to me and the fact this man was respecting, if only out of professional courtesy, immediately made me feel on edge.
"Good to meet you too, Percy." I said, eyeing him carefully.
"Percy is a name I reserve for my close friends. Here, you will call me Akron or Percival."
"Ah, uh, apologies, boss." I said, doing my best to salute and not seem like I was making fun of him. He scowled at me so I didn't think it worked but he continued on to the tour instead.
It was early morning and before term had started so the campus was quiet. Earth sat in the sky like it were nothing, a normal thing on a normal day. Never mind the fact that it was the cradle of humanity, the breadbasket and beating cultural heart of all mankind. It was beautiful.
"First time in Sol?" Akron asked, as we walked through the park.
"Yeah, I was a colony kid, heard the stories but I didn't believe most of them."
"Your file didn't specify which colony you're from."
"Does it matter?" I asked, flatly.
"Matters a lot to some."
"Where are you from?" I asked, shifting the conversation away from me. Akron didn't seem to mind that and he pointed up at the sky. "Earth?" I asked, cursing his luck. He nodded but didn't go into detail, I figured that was a personal thing so I didn't pry. "Travel much before you retired?" I added, testing to see if he got offended that I'd called him old.
"I worked on Skopje for years and had a hell of a time trying to get off that planet."
"Ah yeah, heard stories about that one." Akron winced and I knew he'd seen something. I'm a curious man at times and a trouble maker on the regular so I asked him, feeling him out for his limits. If you're an expert at pushing boundaries, you always need to know where those boundaries lie.
"There were a few famous ones to come from that hell hole that's for sure."
I shrugged, "Propaganda I bet. Ain't a lick of truth to any of it." Akron didn't bite but he smirked to himself like he knew something I didn't. He wasn't an easy man to annoy in casual conversation. "Did you serve?" I asked, changing tactic as we left the park and reached a series of old looking buildings, probably in that earth style that was typical of the innermost planets.
Akron nodded, "From Harvest to Miridem, I was a marine."
"You retire?" I pushed again. Still, he shook his head.
"Took a job working security for Chalybs on Skopje, was there right up until the last transport left the continent."
I gave up, the man was clearly attuned to insubordination of my kind and had chosen to bore me into compliance. I wasn't a kid anymore; I didn't have the energy to push it. Maybe that's not the whole truth though, the truth was that I had something to lose now. Four years in the darkest hole the UNSC can find is not a fun way to spend some of your best years and every moment I was locked up was a moment I couldn't fly. I wanted to feel the weight of a Frigate beneath my fingertips again and I figured that Akron knew it. I could see it in the way he absorbed my probing, the way that he glanced at me. He was a man in control.
"And now you teach?" I asked, after accepting defeat for the time being.
"Yes. Though I won't be teaching you much, my subject is small unit tactics and you are going to be a helmsman, God willing. You'll be taught defensive boarding techniques and how to scuttle a ship in my class and that's about it. Most of the time, it's too late once the Covenant are on board, you would have executed Cole Protocol and engaged the self-destruct sequence. You'll be taking all of your other classes with the new XO, Lieutenant Commander Kohli."
"Learning already, eh, Chief?"
"Something like that."
Something occurred to me as I watched two young students heading towards a bowling alley and I felt an odd sense of anticipation washing over me. "So, what's the catch?"
"Hm?"
"I'm supposed to believe ya'll just let a convicted terrorist behind the wheel of state-of-the-art military hardware? I'm literally still wearing the cuffs. Are things really that bad?" Akron paused, eyeing me with a new hunger, like I was some field horse that needed breaking in. He grinned, a savage one if ever I'd seen it. Clearly, he'd known about the elephant in the room, he just wanted me to ask first. We were stood outside a large building, it was for admin, from what I could tell because it was the only place there looked to be any working going on. He jerked his head as if to say, not here and led me inside.
I got strange looks from the preppy looking girl behind the front desk and everyone else in that building. Who could blame them though, Akron was a teacher leading a handcuffed student to his office? It wasn't something that happened regularly, clearly, even for a state as desperate as the UEG. I kept my head held high, I'd made a few walks like these in my time, frog marched to see the head teacher after a fight, hauled before my Captain on the Revenge for causing trouble in the galley. They wouldn't see a man broken by the boot; they'd see a man who didn't care about the boot.
Akron's office was a plush affair. It was all wood, a strange sight in the age of prefabrication and hydrocarbon. I couldn't help but run my fingers over the desk, Mahogany was everything. It had a smell and a look and for some reason it reminded me of my father. It was the sort of experience he called a 'latch key'. Apparently, the key to acting is experience. I didn't know until then that he was being serious. I always thought it was an excuse for all those psychedelics and grass he liked to pump himself full of. No, there was something real about experience and I knew, from the smell and feel of that wood, that I would carry this moment with me and be able to repeat it for whomever and however I wished.
"I know your kind perfectly well, Mister Van Graff." Akron said, taking an easy seat in his large leather chair. I chose to remain standing, mainly because I knew that people often struggled to see if it was out of politeness and respect or stubbornness and challenge. Akron glared and didn't ask me to sit. Again, he did know my kind and I took my seat like the good little felon I was. When I finally sat comfy in my chair, he continued. "The board were impressed with my last charge so they've seen to it that I handle the special cases that come through this Academy."
"Lucky you." I said, failing to hide the smirk that had been tugging at my lips. This guy wasn't important then, he was being punished. "Saddled with the prisoners at the back, eh? What went wrong for you to end up here with me, Sir?"
Akron frowned, then smiled. It was a predatory smile. I'd been wrong. "My last charge was Admiral Harper's granddaughter, Mister Van Graff. She was a bigger pain in my arse than you could ever be. She had the backing of two Admirals, the board hated her, she compromised our base security on a bet and she was ruthless to her fellow students. No ONI spook is gonna come knocking on my door when you're late back from furlough, Aurelian. They'll knock on yours and put a bullet through your skull."
Now that was interesting. Old Admiral Harper had a wayward Granddaughter? That I needed to know more about. "Sounds like you actually respected her, Sir." I said, leaving the sarcasm out of it this time.
I expected him to be evasive but the Professor sat back in his chair. "She saved my life."
I felt my face tense in surprise, Akron wasn't the suicidal type, he was confident not proud. No, this was about Skopje. "On Skopje?" I asked, cautiously, trying not to anger him out of talking. If anyone could make my life hell, it'd be Akron.
He nodded, slowly. "Unless you want Spook's knocking on your door, you'll never ask me about it again, am I clear."
I nodded, lying bare faced to the man who likely didn't believe me for a second.
"In any event, I'm to orient you before classes get under way in a week. You'll be assigned to a training crew. As a helmsman these people shall be your shipmates for the year, each of them has been hand selected in order to iron out each other's flaws as best we can. You will be paired with two other training crews as part of a training squadron and will practice in a variety of simulated UNSC vessels. There is another fast-tracked Ensign on the course who we shall meet with shortly and you will spend the next week getting brought up to speed on military protocol. I expect total obedience if you wish to ever fly in the Navy. We might be desperate but there are good men and women who could easily take your place, is that understood."
"Crystal, Sir."
"Good. Now, let's get you settled in, shall we?"
Just a short story, this one, will update as I write.
Enjoy!