Now Crow had betrayed everything the Knights, Paladins, and The Republic stood for by abandoning The Republic on Northwind, on Terra. His name was no longer celebrated. Invoking it was more often an attempt at black humor. Crow, come to pick on the bones of The Republic.

David certainly wasn’t going to defend the fallen Paladin. “Yeah,” he said. “Crow accomplished something good here. He made it easier for The Republic to pick out old-school Capellans.” Then a sharp gust of wind caught his burrito’s wadded wrapper and scooted it off the table. He went after it.

Another gust sent David chasing over to the next table. Jenna pulled her hands up into her parka sleeves and hunched in closer to Evan’s legs, trying to hide from the damp touch of approaching winter. Evan sat up, thrust his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “He might be right,” he said to Mark, quietly, needing to say something just then.

Mark nodded glumly. “Yeah. But I’m never gonna tell him that.”

David didn’t need anyone’s encouragement. Returning with wrapper in hand, he clambered up onto the cement bench and yelled out, “Would all Capellans please raise your hand and wave at your nearest military recruiter?”

A few nearby students laughed. Others started guiltily. Still more frowned—whether at David’s lack of tact or his pointed example, Evan couldn’t be certain.

David jumped back down, straddling the bench. “I guess I don’t have Hahn’s knack with people.”

Evan didn’t feel much like laughing today, but he still chuckled. Even Mark managed a weak smile. “Hahn would be a touch more …subtle,” Evan finally offered as critique. “Not everything can be assaulted like a fortified base.”

“Better than filing endless paperwork just for a right that most other Republic academies enjoy.”

Hahn Soom Gui was filing paperwork, in fact. Preparing for another pro-Capellan rally. Evan often wondered if his friend actually hoped to commit career suicide with regard to the military, so he could run on Governor Lu Pohl’s next People First campaign drive. He knew that Hahn had rebuffed efforts from the Cult of Liao to recruit him into their underground political movement: too small for his tastes, apparently.

“To each his own,” Evan said evenly. “Honeyed words, spoken at the right time, can often shake a world.”

Jenna elbowed him in the knee. “Confucius say, man get farther with kind word and gun, than he can with kind word alone.”

“Master Kung said no such thing,” Mark said, laughing, the tension draining out of his face. Jenna stuck her tongue out at him. “Though it does sound close to something you could pick out of the writings of Lao-tse.”

Kung fu-tsu? Lao Tse? Evan leaned over Jenna. “You’ve been reading,” he said, eyes narrowing in mock severity. “I thought that was forbidden to infantry.”

“That—right.” Mark stone-faced the entire cabal. “Big—men—no—need—books. Got—big—gun.”

“I heard it was more like a derringer,” David said, leering across the table and waggling his eyebrows at Jenna. “That true?”

Jenna’s green eyes sparkled playfully. To Mark’s embarrassment and Evan’s relief—he really didn’t want to get into a discussion of his friends’ relationship, not at that level—she merely smiled and shrugged. Lo flushed a healthy pink and Evan pretended to cover his ears with his hands.

“Too—much—information,” he chanted, mocking Mark’s earlier routine.

Everyone laughed, and on a gray day with news of the budding war storming the campus, it was a welcome sound. Their lunch rendezvous broke apart on that note. Mark gave Jenna a quick squeeze and David shot each of them with finger guns, blowing the smoke off the barrels after and then holstering them at his sides. “Sim time,” he said, and jogged off to the simulator complex. Mark zipped up his windbreaker and pushed off for the gym. Evan hooked his backpack over one shoulder and ambled out toward the edge of the covered park to stare into the rain.

“Self-absorbed, aren’t we?” Jen asked, bumping him with a hip check as she stepped up on his left side. She hugged her CH&C books against her chest. “You thinking about the fighting?”

Evan reached out to grab a sprinkling of water, and scrubbed it over his face. The chill pleasantly shocked his skin and distracted him from Jenna’s close proximity. “We’ll be late for class,” he said, avoiding an answer.

Weaving past tables and knots of students, they chose a covered walkway that led toward the social sciences buildings. The smell of damp cement and fresh mud followed them. They walked close enough that their arms rubbed from time to time, sending an uneasy burst of warmth up to Evan’s shoulder.

“Okay, give,” she said as they came to the intersection of two paths. From here, all three choices took them out into the rain. Turning left, it was a short fifty meters to social sciences, and part of that was shielded by a couple of large red cedars. “You’ve been moody for a couple of days and I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”

Evan considered the silent treatment, and knew he would never hold up against Jenna’s constant badgering. Reaching into his jacket’s inside pocket for the tightly folded letter he’d tucked away, he handed it over.

Jenna snapped it open and read. “You’ve been offered your citizenship.” Her eyes glanced between the letter and Evan, glowing like polished jade. “We’ve always known you were holding out on us, Evan Kurst. All that community service and campaign work. You’re really going legit, aren’t you?”

Her teasing needled him gently, but Evan still tensed. “You don’t think it’s a bit suspect?”

“Why? Oh, the war?” To her credit, she didn’t dismiss it out of hand. “You think David might be right, that the government is going to step up the pressure to put us in the field faster?”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

Republic citizenship was not a right, it was earned. Residents knew mostly the same privileges as anyone else. They simply couldn’t hold titles, or large landholds. And they couldn’t vote. Part of Governor Lu Pohl’s triumph, in fact, was that she had persuaded enough citizens–people who thought enough of The Republic to actually work for its betterment—that their old heritage was still something of which to be proud.

Evan’s foster parents had believed that, even though their pro-Capellan bias had kept them from earning citizenship despite sixteen years running a foster home for war orphans. In the fantasy all orphans created, Evan liked to believe that his real parents would have thought the same. That was the reason Evan had volunteered. Never to specifically earn citizenship for himself.

And to offer it to him now?

“‘Based on your earlier contribution to The Republic,’” Jenna read out loud, tasting the words, “‘and your continued commitment to its defense.’” She handed it back. “You could’ve gotten this letter at any time, you know. You earned it.”

Tucking the letter away, Evan nodded out into the rain. Jenna stepped out first, careless of the rain that soaked into her tightly braided hair. Evan handed her his backpack and hiked his jacket up to form a temporary umbrella for them both. It got them under the trees, where big, fat drops leaked down, but not so hard that either of them cared. Evan settled his jacket back on his shoulders.

“The fact is,” he began, almost thought better of it, then continued, “I earned it two years ago. Double service for my political work on the campaign and my academy years… why didn’t it come then?”

Because he was flagged as a potential Capellan sympathizer? Because The Republic wasn’t worried about him then, planning to shuffle him off to the side in a dead-end militia post or cashier him due to lack of billets? Jenna didn’t make any other suggestions because deep down both students felt the truth of it. The Republic wanted to buy him off now because he might be called up for off-planet duty. And an enfranchised soldier had more to fight for, didn’t he?