Blood Debts

Chapter 6

"I'm here to help you study. We need to get your grades up."

Whenever he mentioned that cooperation, Thanatyos exploded. This time was no different. "Go study your own classes! You know you have to maintain your ninetieth percentile in everything! Gods below take me if you, the perfect Phyllip, ever drop below the eighty-fifth percentile in any one class..."

Phyllip sighed in frustration, "Please let me help you Thanatyos."

"Are you serious Phyllip!?" Phyllip had heard this before too, it always began the same way. "My older brother comes to save weak little failing me! Why do you need to be such a patronizing jerk all the time!"

Phyllip went for a different tack this time. Typically he denied that he was patronizing but Thanatyos was in a tight spot now and really needed the help. "Yes! I'm here to patronize you! I'm going to patronize you directly into passing your classes! Seriously Thanatyos! You are thirteen! And in fourth grade classes! Do you have any idea how many strings Dad had to pull to get things arranged so you could be tutored for two years before entering the Academy! Do you have any idea how much it cost!? This is the most important and prestigious school in our corporatized empire!"

"Oh, to Hades with the costs! You know that! We own the whole planet and hundreds of others just like it. "

"We don't own the planet! The corporation controls the infrastructure and power utilities! You know that as well as anyone."

"Oh shut your mouth Phyllip! You don't know what the hell you are talking about," Thanatyos added sarcastically, "yet again. If they don't pay we turn them off and they are begging for our power and more than willing to pay the surcharges. We own this s**t heap of a world, because if they don't pay they go out of business and die of starvation. We can do whatever we want, so stop quibbling about a few tutors!"

Phyllip wanted to punch his brother in the nose for that last, but knew better. That would land them both on the expelled roles. "Sometimes you really are a selfish turd peanut! Dad had to sequester you. He had to fake a coma. He had to mind wipe the two years that the tutors spent with you which cost lots by itself without the tutor's extra compensation for losing the year on an 'anonymous' contract. Then he had to beg ... our father begged the Academy, to get you a slot starting from the first year so you could have the advantage and possibly make it through the Academy."

"Thanks Phyllip! Your chicken-s**t guilt trip won't work on me. I'm still thirteen and in fourth grade!"

"That's right you arrogant jerk! I'm two years older then you and can sign my name at the top of my final exams this year, hand them in blank, and move forward to my ninth year! I am offering you help to pass."

"I'm not interested." Thanatyos looked down at his studies. "I can do it on my own."

Phyllip replied flatly, "No you can't." Thanatyos looked up angrily. "Your earth sciences and astronomy grades are horrible! The only thing that kept you from the chopping block last term was your writing, history and math. You're in the middle of the pack for your physical stuff so you were not kicked last term. But you are on probation. You don't have the physical scores or the stand out grades in a few classes to pad your average" Phyllip tried another angle, "You know how much this school means to the family and our father in particular."

"Don't give me that line again!" retorted Thanatyos.

Phyllip fired back, "Line or not, it is no less true! Our grandfather founded this school! It produces our Hegemony's elite. It means a lot to the family that we graduate."

"Stop pimping that raft of nonsense to me!" said Thanatyos. "Do you know what happens if I graduate with honors?"

"You graduate, become a Guardsman, serve the family and we govern the empire until our children supersede us," replied Phyllip.

"No Phyllip. Your children 'supersede' us, and I help you govern the empire ... Do you know what happens if I fail to graduate?"

Phyllip snapped sarcastically, "Enlighten me."

"If I fail, I have still attended the 'finest and most selective school'," Thanatyos quoted, "In the empire, for four years. I can get into any private academy I look at. Regardless, I will still be a 'peer of the empire' as Harold calls us."

"Thanatyos! You know Dad hates it when you call him 'Harold'!"

"Whatever! I'm still going to be a peer of the empire. I still maintain the same minority interest. I still help you govern the empire. And the best part is, I don't have to get shot full of holes, on some rock, fighting over mineral rights, in the process."

"You're not going to get shot full of holes," Phyllip consoled.

Thanatyos rolled his eyes and sighed. He chuckled at his older brother. "How is it that I'm younger but you are the naive one? Didn't you ever look at Guardsman casualty rates?"

"Well ... yeah ... but most survive the wounds, or are reconstituted in the corpular regeneration facilities."

"Phyllip, you're so dumb!" Thanatyos finally smiled, "Those poor bastards spend months in there regrowing their arms and legs. I have better things to do with my time than sit in a nutrient rich, antibiotic tank while the replacement flesh grows layer by layer over whatever precious body part is ripped off me by some explosive device ... No thank you!"

"Chicken," countered Phyllip.

"No! Not chicken. Smart. Seriously, we have soldiers for a reason. I have no interest in wading across plains of vacuum sealed rock just to get shot and blown up."

"That's not all Guardsmen do and you know it."

"Yea right! Like Harold is going to let one of his sons guard some fat CEO's trophy wife on contract deployment."

"Thanatyos, you know Guardsmen assignments are not influenced by the Guardsman's family..."

"How can you be so naive?" It was more of a statement than a question. "You actually think that our father isn't going to put his finger on the scales at some point to direct our careers somewhere he wants. He would never set either of us to guard some society wife or brat. I'm going to study. I'm going to study on my own. I'm going to do the best I can. If I fail, I fail and go to a different academy next year, one not so good, but still one that is top in the Hegemony. If I pass, I pass this year and will probably fail out next year. Class rankings don't move around that much and the bottom half of every year's consolidated class disappears. I'm the next 'half' on the chopping block. If I can climb over the other guys to make next year, I start at the very bottom again next year." Thanatyos sighed and shrugged in disappointment. "It's going to catch up with me this year or next. I won't see the sixth year of the Guardsmen Academy."

Phyllip spent several minutes watching his younger brother. He finally decided his brother was resigned to his fate and there was nothing Phyllip could do to help him. Even if he did sacrifice all of his classes for Thanatyos, his heart would not be in it and Thanatyos would have no payoff for all Phyllip's efforts.

Phyllip received his first real life lesson in Machiavellian politics, as he thought about the history report he had just written about the amazing ancient earth philosopher.

"Alright Thanatyos, good luck. I'm going to my room to study. Let me know if you need anything." Thanatyos nodded in response and looked back to his studies.

Phyllip stood, walked to the hall, and closed the door to Thanatyos' room along with Thanatyos' last semester at the Guardsmen Academy.

44)

Samson was not a happy camper. Samson was not a happy tourist. Samson was not a happy anything. In general he was not much of a 'people' person. Conversation was a societal necessity and a task ably performed. Chitter-chatter and gossip failed to amuse him. And that was just what was going on. The 'gossip generators' were at full capacity and he was at the center of it ... again.

He was also displeased by the press of civilians on all sides.

He was doubly displeased by the severely limiting presence of his hood. The last thing he wanted was his face broadcast to the galaxy ... again. Samson sighed and thought to himself, 'I hate the news'.

The coat hung open but anyone could wear black on black clothing. The thin gold trim on a civilian was a touch ostentatious. Gold and black was typically, and traditionally, reserved for those in the military corporations who had earned it. But no one was paying Persephone's shadow any mind as he paced back and forth with hands behind his back.

The empty shoulder holster was black too. So it disappeared into the shadowed recesses of his overcoat.

While his impaired peripheral vision was irritating, Samson decided that the additional edge the pre-drawn weapon offered made him feel better about the absurd situation.

With the second firm warning with the right index and middle finger, paired and pressing the camera man's shoulder, Samson opened more space for himself. The man unknowingly was crowding Samson's sword draw.

Reporters in general pissed him off. They recorded everything. They misquoted and took things out of context and then blasted the most absurd packages they could fabricate over the air waves. Samson's was the only opinion that counted at the moment, as he grumbled silently to himself about annoying reporters.

The all too skinny reporterette had accosted them while she was doing a standard human interest piece on some other mish-mash story in the building.

Bad luck was all it was. The chance meeting and the fantastically foul odds that a reporterette and her pet cameraman would be leaving at exactly the same moment that Persephone arrived was irritating.

How was it that the astronomically bad odds of Persephone dropping her hood as the reporter was walking out, having finished her assigned piece on the mating habits of concrete-dwelling-larval-slug-gliding-bat-whatevers she was there reporting on, conspired to attach the two annoying reporters to Persephone was fantastically bothersome.

Fortunately for the reporter, and much to Samson's irritation, the camera had something on the order of twenty-two and a half hours more recording space available in its memory. So there was no chance that Samson could run them out of recording time and force them to leave. There was also no way that he was going to let them broadcast Persephone's location to the universe either. He was stuck with them now.

As an orphan, Samson had never been on anything resembling a family vacation, but nevertheless the phrase 'are we there yet', echoed through his head repeatedly.

So he was bumped and jostled, tossed and pressed, by the eager crowd, then hampered by his assumed necessity of the hood, all the while keeping Persephone in arm's reach, himself out of the picture and the reporter and camera man out of his draw path. Most importantly, he kept the accursed camera in sight to make sure it wasn't broadcasting live, giving away their position.

Persephone had made it clear that the woman reporter had an exclusive story with her during their visit to the ship yards that day. Samson had made it clear that if her cameraman broadcast live or if the reporter, or her editor, made themselves or Persephone look like an a*s, they should never set foot within a capital ship's armor piercing gauss penetrator range of her ever again.

Bargain struck, costs and benefits weighed and measured and the final verdict being that the reporterette and cameraman could both tolerate the risk of a few dozen penetrator holes for the story of a career, an exclusive at that, they promised they would behave themselves. Samson hoped to scare them away but failed miserably and apparently only wet their appetite.