Chapter 2106: Borrowed Pride

"Of course you do. Of course you do."

Choo shook his head fondly, his eyes going distant as though he were seeing the memory unfold in front of him. "That little training program, out in the middle of nowhere. I almost didn’t go. I had three other inspections that week and that one was at the bottom of the list. I only went because my aide insisted. And there you were."

He spread his hands.

"A skinny little thing at the back of the room, waiting for your turn at the simulator. Everyone else had gone before you, and they’d all done about as well as you’d expect from children who’d never sat in a cockpit. And then you sat down, and you flew that simulation like you’d been born in it. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not before, not since. I knew right then, right in that moment, that I was looking at something special."

He leaned forward slightly.

"I said to my aide, I said, ’Mark my words, that boy will be the finest pilot this Federation has ever seen.’ And he laughed at me. He laughed at me!" Choo laughed again himself. "Well. I don’t think he’s laughing now."

Ning smiled politely and let the general talk.

Choo talked for a long time. He described the conversation they had supposedly shared after that first simulation, the questions he had asked and the answers Ning had given.

He described writing the recommendation for the academy, and the trouble he had gone to in convincing Greeves to accept a transfer so late in the program. He described every report he had received since, every score and every result, and the pride he had felt with each one.

Ning listened, nodded, and answered when he was asked to, drawing on the fabricated memories the System had given him.

And as he listened, he felt a faint flicker of discomfort.

General Choo was not lying. He believed every word he was saying. He remembered that day on Rossin as clearly as any other memory in his life, the skinny boy at the back of the room, the simulator, the moment he had known. He remembered the conversation afterward and the recommendation he had written. He had told this story to his staff and his colleagues, probably many times, with the same delight he was showing now.

And none of it was real.

The System had reached into this man’s past and rewritten it to fit Ning’s needs. It had built memories he would carry for the rest of his life, and placed correspondence in his records that he would never think to question. It had given him a pride that rested on something that had never happened.

Ning had done things like this before. It was one of the costs of hiding among people, of living a life that had to be built from nothing so that others would accept it. Most of the time, he did not think about it much.

But sitting here, watching the genuine warmth in General Choo’s face as he spoke about a boy he had never actually met, Ning found it harder to ignore than usual.

He made a quiet note of it in the back of his mind. It was one of the less pleasant parts of what he did, and something he would have to remember.

Eventually, Choo’s reminiscing wound down, and his expression shifted into something slightly more businesslike.

"But you didn’t come all this way to listen to an old man tell stories," he said, finally returning to his own chair behind the desk. "We need to talk about what comes next."

Ning straightened slightly.

"You’re going to be a pilot," Choo said. "A real one, on active duty. And soon, I suspect, a very good one. But before that happens, there’s something we need to take care of."

He tapped the desk with one thick finger.

"You don’t have a Calling."

Ning said nothing.

"Every pilot of note in the Federation has a Calling," Choo continued. "Every officer, every commander, every soldier whose name means anything at all. It’s tradition, and it’s more than tradition. A Calling gives a pilot knowledge and skills that would take years to develop otherwise. It makes them better, faster, and smarter in the field."

He leaned back.

"You’re the rare exception. You’ve reached the highest scores this Federation has seen from a cadet in decades, and you’ve done it without a Calling at all. That’s remarkable, and believe me, people have noticed. But it also reflects poorly on everyone involved."

Ning raised an eyebrow slightly.

"It makes it look as though we’ve neglected you," Choo explained. "As though the academy didn’t care enough to send you, or the military didn’t think you were worth the cost. And it makes people wonder what you could do if you did have one. I won’t have either of those things said about one of my pilots."

He smiled broadly.

"So I’m sending you to Avelis."

He said it as though it were a gift, and Ning supposed that to most people in the Federation, it would have been.

"You’ll leave in two days," Choo said. "The trip will take some time, even through the matrices, but it’ll be worth it. You’ll receive your Calling there, in the proper way, at the heart of it all. And when you come back, you’ll be ready for whatever this war throws at you."

He stood and came around the desk again, holding out his hand.

Ning stood and shook it.

"I’m proud of you, son," Choo said, his voice warm and sincere. "I always knew you’d make it this far. I always knew."

"Thank you, sir," Ning said.

And he smiled, because there was nothing else he could do.

Ning left the general’s office and headed to his room to rest. In two days’ time, he would board another ship, having had no actual time to rest, and be on his way to receive a Calling from the Heavenly Records for a second time.