Defender of the Empire: Cadet #1 by Catherine Beery Page B

It would just take a lot of time to keep his plan from being noticed by the lurking Soul Shadow.
     
    Chapter 9- Trin and Winter
                 
                  It was early, even by Academy standards. But 1 st Cadet Westley Trin wanted to arrive before his student did. So he walked briskly to the room he had been assigned to tutor the new arrivals in their classes. His first duty was to teach Rylynn the basic technology of the Citizenry. He suppressed a shudder, thinking that this may be a task in futility.
    That’s not fair. A small part thought whispered. You cannot judge what you yourself had not lived. Westley sighed. There were times when he wished that annoying voice did not exist. It made it hard to stay closed minded and be angry. To claim that it was all Rylynn’s fault for refusing to let him guide her to the Academy and to forget that he hadn’t wanted to guide her in the first place. He had not expected the little colonist to stand up to him and verbally force his feet into her small shoes. She had
been so quiet and timid looking that he had easily dismissed her. And he had heard the stories from the other colonists the ship had picked up. They had called her a coward for running. He had been comfortable in thinking that Rylynn was a cowardly mouse. Westley didn’t want a coward wearing the uniform he had worked so hard to wear. So he had tried to abandon her in an environment so outside of her experience that she would realize she didn’t belong and go back to the hovel from whence she had come from.
    The irony of his current situation was not lost on him. He had never expected that he woul d have been the one sent back.
    You are such a fool, Westley . Even you know mice have sharp teeth! But he had forgotten. When the gray eyed Rylynn rounded on him and opened her mouth he had realized she wasn’t a simple coward. Worse yet, she made him unsure. What would have done if he had been in her position with a hunting pair of nine foot tall Telmicks bearing down on him? Would he have done the easy thing and followed orders? Or would he have made himself a target like Rylynn did? Being unable to answer those questions he had tried to make amends. But the girl had denied him and she had found her way, despite the testing detour that he had honestly forgotten to tell her about, to the Academy Branch. And they had reported that he hadn’t guided her there.
    Thus his demotion and reassignment.
    Westley reached the room assigned to him and slid his tutor’s card through the reader. The door clicked open and he absently turned on the lights as he remembered the meeting that had finished with him being kicked off the Hail Mary . Captain Wingstar had stared at him with hard gray eyes when he had entered the captain’s study. Westley had saluted and had stood at attention. He knew he had been in trouble. Captain Wingstar had never looked at him with such cold eyes before.
    “I understand that you did not escort Rylynn to the Academy Branch.” The captain had begun simply.
    He had swallowed uneasily. “That is correct, Captain.”
    “Why, pray tell, did you decide to go against direct orders? It was a simple assignment.” The captain had asked in a deceptively calm tone.
    “I had thought her a coward, sir.” He had confessed. “In the end, though, I had tried to gu ide her as ordered, but Rylynn would not let me.”
    Captain Wingstar had snorted. “I wouldn’t have either, ensign. Let me guess, you had changed your mind after she had told you about how she had saved her party by leading the Telmicks away. That she had been willing to trade her life to save the lives of others at the age of thirteen!” The captain had stood up then and turned his back on Westley in favor of staring into the depths of space that lay on the other side of the window.  The Captain’s right hand held his left wrist behind his back.
    In the moment of silence that followed, Westley had struggled to