Memory Terminal Classification Omega Delta HOL: Begin Upload
Ked barged back into our quarters with a look on his face like he had been spit on in the council meeting. Drek trailed behind, hands shoved into his pockets and slouching. He looked like a kid. Zanti finally came into the room after them with a stormy look behind his eyes, his mind far away from here despite his presence in the room.
“How’d it go?” Wendy asked, standing from her seat to attempt to look Ked in the eye. He didn’t quite meet her gaze and instead focused on a point on the wall behind her.
“Not great,” he admitted, “We didn’t really learn anything about the attack or about Zentrial.”
“Why wouldn’t they be talking about that?” I asked him, “It was the biggest attack on the Agency’s homeworld ever.” Ignoring what just happened sounded just like the Agency. They never focused on the right things, even though everything still worked out for them in the end.
“I don’t know,” Ked said, “They were just talking about bringing everyone back.”
“That, I can agree with,” Elly piped up, still lounging in her seat, “Best way to keep the Academy safe while they start to rebuild is to bring everyone back and make a big deathball around home.”
“You’re ignoring the fact that Jetstream definitely has agents in sensitive areas keeping the peace,” Wendy pointed out, “If they drop everything to go home and wait for another attack, you’re leaving countless planets unsupervised. You can’t just leave somewhere that depends on you for their safety.”
“We come first,” Elly challenged, “If we can’t keep ourselves safe, how are we supposed to keep other places safe?”
“That is a question for another time, another division,” Zanti intoned, his voice trailing and pensive, “The only question that needs to be answered by our own volition is this: Where is Zentrial?”
“That’s not what we need to answer,” Ked cut him off, “What we need to do is help rebuild and make sure that we’re being useful. Like it or not, we’re a real division, and we need to do the work of a whole division, even though there’s only six of us.”
“Five,” Zanti corrected.
“We know,” Elly groaned. She had been complaining about Zanti’s weird way of speaking earlier, but I preferred it to his fighting. When there wasn’t a sword in his hand, he was just weird. But when he was fighting, he didn’t lose any of that weirdness. He was still cold, aloof, and formal, but with a sword. Ked was better. He was Ked most of the time, and then he took his swords out and turned into an entirely different person. He kept those two parts of his life separate, and it was way healthier than what Zanti did.
“Look, can I just go take a nap?” Drek asked. Ked shot him a cold, commanding look. Drek shrank back against the wall and slumped to the floor. “Okay, then.”
“It is our moral imperative that we find and stop this Shadow from wreaking his brand of havoc on the galaxy,” Zanti insisted, “His continued existence bodes poorly for the whole of creation.”
“Stop,” Ked ordered, “I’m the one making the decisions here. And we have rules. We can’t just go rushing into things blindly without the all-clear.”
“Well,” Drek said, drawing the word out cheekily, “You did hear Mr. High-and-Mighty Field Marshal Acting Head Grand Poobah Rallen Kell, did you not? And I quote, ‘Omega Squad does whatever they want’.”
“I believe the exact wording was, ‘Omega Squad is exempt from standard protocol,’” Zanti corrected. Drek shrugged in response.
“That makes it sound like we can do what we want,” I offered, gesturing to Drek. Ked raised a questioning eyebrow and cleared his throat slightly.
“I’m going to ask Rallen’s permission,” Ked announced firmly, “Normally, I’d hate to, but this isn’t anything close to standard protocol. Plus, he’ll definitely say yes. He knows that Lyra doesn’t want me around while she gets to be in charge.” His face soured.
“You want me to come with you?” Drek asked, beginning to pick himself up from the floor.
“No, that’s fine,” Ked said with a halfhearted grin, “I need to be able to do things on my own in front of the other division heads. Otherwise, I’d look weak. Besides, this is going to be easy. He’ll definitely say yes.”
Ked came back defeated.
“He said no.”
“Did he give you a reason why?” I asked, hoping to get a good answer out of him. This was the third important meeting today that I had been left out of, and nobody was really talking about the other two. I wanted to know at least some part of what was going on at the Academy, even if it was just secondhand gossip.
“He said that we were too important to the rebuilding effort,” Ked said, exasperated. He looked tired. It had been a stressful day or two for all of us, but him especially. Having to watch Master Kee die in front of him, then being under pressure to save the Academy and hold off Zentrial while backup arrived. And that was the easy part for him. I was shy enough around superiors, but Ked had to look veteran officers in the eye and treat them as equals. I was surprised that he lasted this long.
“The rebuilding effort?” Elly asked, “Lame. I don’t wanna be stuck here putting things back together and teaching classes, I wanna run around and hit things.”
“I think it’s going to be a good learning experience,” Wendy reflected, “I can even learn the same things you learned. I’ll actually be qualified.” She laughed a little bit and I couldn’t help but smile. When we picked her up, I never would have thought that Wendy would survive this long, both mentally and physically. But she was taking it really well under the circumstances.
“Suit yourselves,” Zanti said, “If you will not take action against the Shadow, I must go on this crusade alone.” He turned to leave.
“Not so fast,” Ked said, stopping Zanti with a hand, “Rallen also told me that you’re staying, too. You’re part of Jetstream now.” Zanti turned slowly, not looking Ked in the eye. He focused on a portion of the floor and spoke slowly.
“We had a deal.”
“We had a deal, but Rallen went over my head,” Ked explained, “He took our ship and he said that as long as you want your cargo protected, you’ll stay with the Agency.”
“My acolytes, the future of the Red Priests,” Zanti said, his anger rising, “Are not cargo.”
“Rallen doesn’t care,” Ked stressed, “He just wants to be able to control you. Here are your orders,” he continued, handing Zanti a datapad, “Make sure to follow them to the letter. He’s got his eye on you; I’m sorry that there’s nothing I can do to help you.” Ked turned away from Zanti and waited as he left the room.
“That’s a shame,” Drek said from the floor, “We were just starting to bond.”
“Actually, as much as I disliked him, I think we’re going to miss him,” I said, standing and rubbing one arm. He still made me uncomfortable, but he was a good addition to the team. He was a really good fighter and he didn’t argue like Elly did.
“Fine, whatever,” Elly said, waving a hand and lying back in her chair, “He was boring anyways.”
“We have orders, too,” Ked said. His head was low, and he looked ashamed to be bowing to Field Marshal Kell’s orders this easily. “For now, we’re reporting to Lyra. She’s sticking around and laying the groundwork for the restructuring of the Academy.”
“Restructuring?” Drek asked, perking up on the floor, “That doesn’t sound like rebuilding.”
“They’re calling it a top-down revamp of the Academy structure,” Ked elaborated, “They’re changing everything about how the Academy works.”
“I don’t like that,” I said. The Academy had worked this way since its very beginning, and changing it at a time like this just seemed like they were taking advantage of the situation. People had died, and they were already thinking of ways to reset everything that the Masters had done.
“I don’t like it either,” Ked admitted, “The way that Rallen said it, it felt like he had something planned that was going to make some big changes.”
“Like what?” Wendy asked, “Is he going to dissolve Omega Squad?”
“I hope not,” Ked said, “But I don’t know. We’re just going to have to wait.” Wendy raised an eyebrow and gestured lightly as someone came down the hallway. Ked turned briskly, performing an about-face to meet this aide.
“Commander Davras,” the aide said, holding out a datapad, “You and your Omega Division have been called for a special meeting with the Acting Head.” Drek began to pick himself up off the floor and slide up the wall to a standing position.
“Lead the way,” Ked commanded, and we set off to the lion’s den.
“Sir, Omega Division to see you,” the aide spoke into her comm as we approached the Alpha Team’s command center. The door slid open and revealed the Field Marshal and General Kell sitting at the head of a conference table.
“Omega Division,” Field Marshal Kell said warmly as we entered and the door slid closed behind us, “Please, take a seat.” I suddenly got the feeling that we were trapped in this room with him.
“Sir, there’s no need to call us a Division,” Ked said, looking over the Field Marshal’s shoulder instead of looking him in the eye. Drek noticed this, too. “We’re hardly a squad.”
“For now,” General Kell said cryptically.
“For now,” Field Marshal Kell agreed, then stood from the table, “As you know, there is a significant rebuilding effort to keep the Academy running at capacity again. The attack by the Xanthrel army took the lives of most of our faculty, but as your class had just graduated, there were no students left. Combined with the minor damage done to the infrastructure of the school, with new teachers and trainers, we can have the next class of the Academy running through basic training in less than a lunar cycle.” Marshal Kell motioned to his wife, who tapped on her datapad and swiped out toward us. The table in front of us lit up with electronic documents, one for each of us.
“These are the terms of your commission,” General Kell explained, highlighting sections of them, “They state that the Council of Masters can change the terms of any contract with a 75% majority vote in times of crisis. Seeing as all but three of the Council of Masters are dead and Field Marshal Kell is Acting Head of the Jetstream Agency, he is the majority.”
“What are you saying, Lyra?” Ked asked. Field Marshal Kell cracked his neck and cleared his throat with irritation. General Kell took a breath before continuing.
“The Acting Head of The Jetstream Agency hereby is officially restructuring the Omega Division. As the only division to have been decommissioned in the past, multiple times, in fact, Acting Head Kell is making Omega Division a permanent part of the Jetstream Agency, and specifically the Academy.”
“Wait, you’re demoting us to Academy duty?” Drek asked, standing up and leaning against the table in outrage.
“On the contrary, Specialist,” Field Marshal Kell said coldly, authority flashing in his eyes, “You’re all being promoted.”
“Congratulations, General Davras,” General Kell said sarcastically, “You finally outrank your sister.” Ked sat back, eyes wide. It looked like he was trying to process this all at once and failing miserably.
“Am I getting a pay raise?” Elly asked casually, leaning back like she didn’t care about any of this.
“Of course,” Field Marshal Kell said, “It’s all described in your new terms of commission. I’ll give you a moment to read it over.” He went and sat back down as Ked and Elly began tearing through the digital documents. It seemed like General Kell had been thoughtful enough to highlight the important parts for us. Nobody was talking, so I took a look through my own. The first thing I noticed was that I was being promoted. And it wasn’t just a one or two rank promotion, either. According to the Agency rank structures, I had been a specialist. But the pixels that made up my new rank told me that I was a Brigadier General. The looks on Elly’s and Wendy’s faces told me that they probably also were promoted to Brig. But Drek looked way more shocked than any of us, even Ked.
“Lieutenant General?” He asked out loud, “You realize that you just promoted me to Lieutenant General? I went from having, like, negative stars, to having three.”
“Of course, as you know, General Kell’s formal rank with the Agency is Lieutenant General, and she operates as my personal lieutenant. You will be playing a similar role in General Davras’s new Omega Division,” the Field Marshal explained, “As for the other three of you, your new rank reflects your importance to the Academy’s rebuilding. For too long, a council of Masters has ruled over the young minds entering the Academy, a geriatric group of traditionalists. Now, we will shape these students to fit the needs of the Agency, rather than to fulfill this grand ideal that could never be.” The Field Marshal stood and tapped on the table, which sprung to life, wiping away the commissions and showing a massive organizational structure. The divisions’ symbols stood off to one side, pushed away as an afterthought, while a large M branched off into different structures with the Academy crest.
“This is what the Academy used to be. The Agency was a side character, waiting in the wings for new recruits to appear on their doorstep without any agency, pun not intended. The Masters ran the scene, but never acted as their own person. They controlled the environment without having any skin in the game.” He stopped for a second to let the structure rearrange. The divisions moved to the center of the table and a line ran from each, trailing into an Omega at the bottom.
“Now, the Agency will be the deciding body,” the Field Marshal explained, “With the Omega Division as the primary actor here. You will take the place of the old Masters, but you will have the experience to know what we need. We, the Agency.” Ked nodded slowly, but I wasn’t following.
“But wasn’t it better that the Masters were there?” I asked, raising a hand slightly, “They weren’t distracted by their missions and daily tasks. They could listen to the needs of the galaxy and send the divisions where they were needed. The Masters knew the purpose of the Agency, so they could recruit students and send them to the divisions that needed them. You’re taking the neutral party out of the picture here.”
“The Masters were slow,” General Kell stepped in, “Unreliable when we needed them. Sending us their visions of what our divisions should be, rather than recognizing their strengths. They were outsiders, working against our goals rather than alongside them.”
“And you want us to teach?” Elly asked, “I don’t know if you’ve heard of me before, but I wasn’t very good as a student. What makes you think I’ll be a better teacher?”
“You don’t have to teach,” Field Marshal Kell said, “You will have people for that. What I’m asking you to do is be better than the Masters. You have the same responsibility that they did, but we know that you will take your job with the perspective of someone who has been on the front lines.” He waved a hand and the table went back to normal. He walked back around to his seat and sat down lightly, placing both hands palms down on the table.
“Thank you, sir,” Ked said, speaking for the first time since being promoted. Sir? From what Drek had said, Ked had never said a good word about Rallen in his life. Why was he calling him ‘sir’ now? “We won’t let you down. I understand how important this task is to the future of the Academy and the Jetstream Agency and I refuse to take it lightly. I apologize on behalf of my subordinates; they haven’t had the experience with the chain of command to respect it properly. If you’ll allow it, I’d like to retire to my quarters and work on the new curriculum for the Academy.”
“Dismissed, General,” Field Marshal Kell said, “My aide will show you to your new quarters in the Agency once you pack your things. A list will be forwarded to you with your new recruits, as discussed in the meeting earlier.” Ked stood and saluted, then motioned for us to follow him out. We all did without another word. The door slid shut behind us and we walked in silence to the B dormitory where we were staying.
“Pack your things,” Ked said, “I want us ready to go when Field Commander Kell’s aide comes to escort us to the Agency.”
“We’re not going to talk about what just happened?” Elly asked as Ked moved toward his room.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Ked replied too quickly.
“Yeah, right,” Drek said, cutting Ked off and standing in his way, “Ked, what in the frozen wastes of J’Duun was that? You hate Rallen, remember?”
“Field Marshal Kell and I may disagree on a personal level, but he’s still my superior officer,” Ked explained, “A direct order is a direct order. That’s something that you all should learn. Now, pack your bags. That’s an order.”
“Yeah, no, that ain’t happening,” Drek said, leaning back and blocking the door to Ked’s room completely, “What, Rallen’s got your number now ‘cause you got promoted? He’s got you by the short and curlies?”
“It has nothing to do with that,” Ked said, trying to wrestle Drek’s arm out of the way, “And don’t pretend you’re over the moon about getting promoted. Three stars? You’re insane if you aren’t celebrating that.”
“That’s not the point, although, yes, I am ecstatic, and yes I will be buying drinks tonight,” Drek said with a half smile, “But you’re acting like your balls dropped off the moment he handed you the new commission.”
“That’s not the reason,” Ked said quietly, “Let’s go. Pack your bags.”
“What are you trying to keep from us?” Drek demanded, pounding his hand against the door frame.
“Rallen’s threatened to kill Zanti’s acolytes!” Ked shouted, then threw Drek against the door. “Pack your damned bags,” he mumbled, not daring to look back at us, “We move out in ten.” His door slammed and I heard him storm into the back of his room. Nobody said anything. Elly quickly left and closed her door with a deafening click.
“We should pack,” I said quickly, leaving for my room. I tried to pull the door shut and found it blocked by Wendy’s foot.
“Go away and pack,” I insisted, trying to close the door again. She yanked it open and stepped inside.
“Don’t you have to pack?” I asked, irritated, “Ked said we’re leaving in ten.”
“I don’t have any clothes,” Wendy said with a shrug, “Everything I have is Academy standard, no alterations. I can just get more when we switch places. I need to get my tunics tailored, anyways.” She gestured to the baggy sleeves of her tunic and forced a smile out of my lips.
“Fine, I guess,” I said, reaching into a drawer and pulling out an extra pair of boots, “You can stay.”
“Is that legal?” Wendy wondered. I tried to ignore her. “There has to be someone we can report him to. Is there some kind of police or court system?”
“We are the police,” I said, trying my hardest to not look at her, “And forty-seven members of the court system were killed yesterday. Now Field Marshal Kell is getting rid of them.”
“That can’t be right,” Wendy said, “There have to be measures to deal with this kind of thing.”
“Nope,” I said, “When we’re the reigning security in the galaxy, we’re expected to be perfect. And when we’re not… well, we’re not, and nobody can tell us we’re not.”
“Why do you work here, then?” Wendy demanded, “You knew what you were signing up for and you still came here.”
“Because I’m not the one threatening cryo-frozen children,” I snapped, finally looking at her. I was barely blinking the tears from my eyes, but I didn’t care at this point. “Because I believe that I can do good for this organization. Because one person’s corruption doesn’t take away from the good that one group of people can do.” I pointed to the door. “I don’t want you in my room anymore. Please leave.” Wendy took a step backward and left the room silently. I finished packing in silence, feeling the tears drip down my cheeks. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at her like that. It wasn’t her fault; she didn’t know anything about it in the first place. But I did, and she was angry at me, and Ked was terrified, and Rallen was using dozens of children’s’ lives as a bargaining chip. After what felt like too long, I heard a soft knock on the door.
“Time to go,” Ked said softly through the door, “You ready?” I came out with my bag, not bothering to hide my puffy red eyes. The aide was waiting, pretending not to notice anything out of the ordinary with our group. It was a kind gesture, but everyone could tell. Drek wasn’t his usual mocking self, Elly wasn’t complaining about anything, and I had just finished crying. We were a broken team and nobody would tell us otherwise. We boarded a puddle jumper and zipped across the planet, crossing the expanse of ocean on Academia until we finally reached the Agency.
I’d never seen it in person before. We’d had briefings where we’d seen renders of the outside, but it was nothing like seeing it in front of me now. The ocean around it sparkled in the dying sunlight and painted the water gold.
“It’s…” Elly said at a loss for words.
“Beautiful,” Wendy finished.
“Yes, the Agency is lauded as one of the most beautiful locations in the galaxy,” the aide said without looking up from her datapad, “By those who have seen it, of course. There are few people aside from Agency members who have seen it in person.” We were speechless. The puddle jumper zoomed in and landed without another word. We followed the aide as she entered the massive complex that stood on the lonely island in the sea. The inside of the Agency was beautiful, with all of the white and silver that graced the Academy’s walls, but somehow making it look even more regal and awe-inspiring. The divisions’ insignias were inked on the white marble floors as we walked down the main hallway. It made me feel tiny and insignificant in the face of the legacy of the Agency and the thousands that called this place their home. It went in order: Alpha was prominently displayed first, then the rest of the divisions took their places. And at the end, I saw something too familiar: our Omega.
“I thought Omega Squad didn’t exist,” Ked said with a dry half-joke in his voice.
“I suppose you wouldn’t know,” the aide said mysteriously, “Omega Squad has always been off the books. Their realm was everywhere that Jetstream couldn’t be. Even Delta Ops could be traced back to the Agency. Omega Squad operated alone, without backup, with no official resources, and without supervision. They had to kill the stonemason that shaped the Omega into that floor.”
“Then why give us a ship with the insignia?” Ked questioned, moving up and walking side by side with the aide, “Why give us the standard compliment and monogrammed gear?”
“That was… the Masters’ doing,” the aide said with a hint of distaste in her voice, “They were getting sick of the idea of a squad that couldn’t be held accountable by them. Haven’t you been briefed on this? The Acting Head declassified all this when he decided to go public with Omega Division.”
“No, we weren’t informed,” Ked said bittersweetly, “So why were we chosen by the Masters for this Omega Squad? And why wasn’t the last Omega Squad involved with us?”
“They wanted to bring you into their fold,” the aide said, starting to get irritated. She clicked and clacked on her datapad until it beeped approvingly, “Read the documents. They can explain it better than I can.”
“But why didn’t we meet the rest of the Omega Squad?” Ked repeated. The aide brought us up to a massive roundabout with twenty-four different pathways, each marked by their own Division insignia. She gestured abruptly down the Omega hallway.
“Read the briefing,” she said, “The last Omega Squad was wiped out decades ago.”
We chose our rooms out of the dozens that Omega wing had to offer and unpacked quickly. Our wing was empty and cold, a testament to the last Omega Squad that apparently hadn’t been there for decades. It wasn’t even Omega Squad anymore, I suppose. We were Omega Division now, and all the mystery that surrounded them was now gone. I sighed and finished placing the last of my belongings on my bed. It was going to be an awkward conversation with everyone, but someone had to break the ice sooner or later. I just hoped that Wendy could forgive me for lashing out at her earlier.
“Hey, guys,” I began, leaving my room and stepping into the common area, but only one person was waiting there for me.
“Ked,” I said, surprised.
“Hey, Holly,” he said his voice betraying how tired he was, “Can we talk? I just… needed someone to talk to. You know, Drek’s fun and all, but he really isn’t the best for heart-to-hearts.”
“Uh, um, yeah, of course,” I said, trying not to tie my tongue in a knot before we even started talking.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for putting all this stress on you,” he said, wringing his hands in his lap while he found the words, “And not just you, all of you. I shouldn’t try to keep things to myself like I was, and it was stupid of me to not tell you all earlier about Rallen.”
“It’s fine,” I reassured him quickly, “Nobody blames you for that. It’s a lot to take in this quickly.”
“It’s not,” he said, getting more agitated, “I was chosen to lead, and the first rule of leading is trusting your lieutenants. I ignored that and I tried to shoulder all of it myself, and it just created more and more tension until it just… exploded in our faces.” He buried his head in his hands and stared at the floor in defeat
“It’s not just you,” I tried to console him, “I blew up at Wendy, and Drek’s been getting more and more jumpy. It’s because we don’t have someone to look to right now. I know you’re beating yourself up about messing up, but what we need right now is for you to lead. Nobody cares that you didn’t tell us right away because we know that we can trust you when we need it. We’re about to do a lot of things that we’ve never done before, and we need to know that it’s going to be okay. You have to tell us that.” He looked up from his intense stare at the ground.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted.
“None of us do,” I said, “But teaching is like leading. And you’re a natural leader. You’re the best equipped out of all of us to handle this. We have a lot riding on this, and I know that you can lead us through it. That’s what you do.” The words were just spilling out at this point, but they felt natural and right, so I kept doing what I could to help him. He sat back up, gazing down the long hallway in pensive thought.
“You know,” he said slowly, a smile beginning to creep across his face, “They picked me to lead, but you gave a way more convincing pep talk than I could ever try.” I blushed deeply and pretended to notice something really interesting on the door behind me.
“Thanks, Holly,” he said warmly, leaning over to me and wrapping one arm around my shoulders tightly. My heart melted.
“Anytime,” I managed to get out between gasps of breath from my failing lungs. Drek’s door opened and he walked out with an uncharacteristically grim look on his face.
“Howdy, General,” he said like someone had died.
“Hey, hey,” Ked said, a genuine smile stretching his face as he stood to greet his second in command, “We’re both generals now. We’ll have to figure something out.” He punched Drek on the shoulder lightly and laughed. Elly and Wendy came out, interested in the newfound energy in the common area.
“What’s going on?” Elly asked. I looked to Wendy for some sign of her mood; she just smiled back warmly.
“Well, I just got the reassuring talk of a lifetime,” Ked said, keeping his smile, “And I have something to say to all of you in return. This is going to be fine. We’ve faced way worse in the past two days than political backstabbing and being teachers. And Zanti’s going to be fine. He’s right at home with all those weirdos in Psi.” Drek laughed, something that was really good to hear after so much tension. “You heard the woman. We’re the first Omega Division in decades. Master Kee believed in us, and as much as Rallen was trashing the Masters, Master Kee was a good man. He knew what the galaxy needed, and he thought that we were the best choice to help bring peace. And even now that Rallen is trying to reassign us to school duty, we can take anything they throw at us. We’re the Omega Division, damn it.” He paused for a second, but nobody spoke. I couldn’t see my own face, but I’m pretty sure that I was somewhere halfway between beaming with pride and blushing madly.
“So, do we have orders, General Davras?” Drek asked, dead serious. Ked chuckled. I guess he couldn’t believe what he was about to say.
“Start your lesson plans,” he said with a smile, “We’ve got a long road ahead of us.”
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