When the airborne vehicle came to a hover above the black market, the wind it kicked up was strong enough to send several stalls flying. The black market vendors scrambled to gather up the goods they had laid out. A few people made a run for it.
“Well, this is royally screwed.”
Doyun muttered to himself, released the Lieutenant Colonel’s hair, raised both palms, and dropped to his knees. He hadn’t managed to sell anything at the black market yet, but he’d slipped out of the dorms without permission, beaten someone several ranks above him, and to top it all off, gotten caught at the black market of all places.
And then there was the prohibited ability suppressor. Doyun stared at the white ring glinting on the Lieutenant Colonel’s wrist. Before the soldiers could disembark from the airborne vehicle, he stomped down on the suppressor with his boot, over and over, until electricity was arcing out of both suppressor pieces.
“Aaagh! My wrist!”
“Hey — freeze! Move and we shoot.”
Soldiers poured out of the vehicle the moment it landed and pinned Doyun to the ground. His backpack was kicked away by a boot and sent rolling, and the items he hadn’t managed to sell yet scattered across the floor.
Doyun couldn’t take his eyes off the items strewn across the ground. 300 silang. 600 silang. 700 silang. He was mentally tallying the value of everything he’d lost when a low laugh escaped him, and he closed his eyes against the impact he felt at the back of his head.
He’d come all the way to the black market and walked away with nothing to show for it — and on the very first night of his enlistment, he had become the new recruit warrant officer who assaulted a Lieutenant Colonel and went AWOL.
“…Seriously royally screwed.”
Doyun muttered under his breath and stared through bleary eyes at the chaos the black market had become. Just before he’d boarded the shuttle, his younger sibling’s face floated up before him — the one who had begged him, please, just don’t cause any trouble.
Odin was jolted awake at four in the morning by his bio-clock suddenly vibrating.
He swept his disheveled blond hair back with one hand and checked the screen. He read the emergency disciplinary committee summons that had been sent to him and let out a short, humorless laugh.
Genius Commandos
Emergency Disciplinary Committee Summons
- Subject
Warrant Officer Ahn Doyun (Genius Strike Force Dedicated Guide)
- Violations
- Unauthorized absence during nighttime hours
- Unauthorized removal of military supplies
- Entry into and attempted transactions at the black market
- Possession of prohibited items
- Assault of a superior officer
- Other violations of Command security regulations
- Date, Time, and Location
Date and Time: March 18, 5179, 05:30
Location: Command Headquarters Main Building, Conference Room 6
March 18, 5179
United Space Forces Command
Warrant Officer Ahn Doyun.
It was a remarkable record for someone supposedly on day one of enlistment. Thanks to that, Odin immediately committed the new guide’s unfamiliar name to memory.
He buttoned his jacket all the way to the collar, smoothed out the creases in his uniform with his palm, and put on his beret. Beneath the precisely pressed uniform, the body that had just been woken from sleep was laced with irritation.
Standing before the conference room door, he waited one beat before taking the handle. The moment he opened the door and took in the scene inside, Odin’s gaze went almost imperceptibly rigid.
Of the three military personnel arrested at the black market, only the new guide was seated in a chair with his hands and feet bound.
The new recruit turned to look back, and their eyes met. It was only for an instant, but the air in the room seemed to settle slowly.
Odin closed the door without a word. His expression was impassive, but the natural lines of his build and the sound of his boots as he crossed the room drew every pair of eyes in the conference room toward him.
At one end of the long table sat the three disciplinary committee members, and along the side of the table, Doyun’s superior officer Odin had taken his seat as an observer.
“Next. Warrant Officer Ahn Doyun, step forward.”
Doyun entered the court. He stood in an awkward posture owing to his bound wrists, and his expression was full of dissatisfaction.
“You will answer the following questions. Unauthorized absence from base, entry into and attempted transactions at the black market, removal of military supplies, possession of prohibited items, assault of a superior officer. Are all charges accurate?”
In their earlier statements, the Lieutenant Colonel and the Master Sergeant had coordinated their story — that they had confirmed Doyun’s unauthorized absence, found it suspicious, and followed him to the black market.
Doyun glanced back at the Lieutenant Colonel and his lackey sitting behind him, then opened his mouth.
“I did enter the black market, but I did not attempt any transactions.”
The new recruit dragged in on his first day of enlistment spoke in a tone so unbothered it could not be called nervous in any way, and the personnel in the disciplinary committee began to quietly stir.
“I had no intention of removing military supplies. I simply brought them along because I needed them for going out. As for the prohibited item — it was not mine. It belonged to the market, and it was broken to begin with, so I never used it.”
“This bastard is lying! My wrist was burning — and he’s calling it broken?!”
“It’s not a lie.”
As Doyun and the Lieutenant Colonel exchanged volleys, the committee chair quickly struck his gavel to quiet the room.
While the new recruit gave his statement, Odin quickly scanned through the investigation report that had been sent to his bio-clock.
Doyun cleared his throat before the court.
“It was not assault of a superior officer — it was self-defense. The Esper used his ability first against an unarmed guide…”
“He is a Lieutenant Colonel, not an Esper.”
The committee chair cut Doyun off and corrected him, and a moment of silence followed. A brief smile flickered across the Lieutenant Colonel’s face as he watched Doyun be called out so openly.
“Yes, I stand corrected. I ask that the fact the Lieutenant Colonel used his ability first be taken into consideration.”
“That is incorrect! We only intervened because we detected suspicious circumstances suggesting the new recruit was attempting to traffic military supplies at the black market. The altercation arose from our attempt to stop him.”
“That’s right! He was the one who used violence first.”
The committee chair, who moments ago had told Doyun to wait his turn when he tried to respond, imposed no such restriction on the Lieutenant Colonel and the Master Sergeant’s interruptions.
Without quite meaning to, Doyun found himself glancing toward where Odin was seated. The gaze observing him without so much as a flicker of distraction carried something that felt distinctly colder and more openly evaluating than even the committee chair’s scrutiny. Doyun turned his head back to the front. His superior was not going to be much help.
The committee chair’s voice rang out again.
“Warrant Officer Ahn Doyun, please explain why you went to the black market in the first place.”
“It was my first time on a space station, so I went out of curiosity. I didn’t even know it was a black market.”
The follow-up questions kept coming at Doyun alone, while the other two had not received any additional questioning. What that meant, Doyun understood perfectly well himself.
The other parties were a Lieutenant Colonel and a Master Sergeant. He was a nobody new recruit guide who had just enlisted the day before. No connections here, being from Earth. He must have rubbed them the wrong way something fierce.
On top of that, the other side appeared to have been conducting black market dealings for quite some time — and that kind of activity was absolutely impossible without someone covering for you. Doyun endured the committee chair’s pointed glare and made one more attempt to push back. He had nothing to lose.
“At the black market, I witnessed the two of them being thrown out of the shop with the blue sign for failing to meet their payment deadline.”
“Hey!”
The Lieutenant Colonel snapped immediately when Doyun reported that they had failed to meet their payment deadline. Doyun looked up to see if any other ranking officer was reacting to this news.
The officer seated to the right of the committee chair’s expression darkened sharply. At that, the Lieutenant Colonel shot to his feet and raised his voice even louder.
“Oh, trust a backwater Earth bumpkin to lie through his teeth without a second thought!”
It was then that Odin quietly raised his palm. The committee chair’s gaze shifted toward him.
“Colonel Quaid, your assessment as the superior officer?”
Odin opened his mouth slowly.
“As the accounts differ, I formally request a separate investigation into the black market dealings. Given that a routine inspection of supply management within the unit is currently underway, I request approval to incorporate this matter into that investigation.”
At Odin’s official request for an investigation, the Lieutenant Colonel’s face began draining of color. Whether the man liked it or not, Odin did not take his eyes off Doyun. As if recording every detail of how he conducted himself in this moment.
“Additionally, I request that the disciplinary level be reduced to a pay cut as a provisional measure for the remaining charges during the investigation period.”
The disciplinary committee was, in name, a proceeding that formally heard the subject’s account — but if all the charges were applied as-is, the minimum outcome was solitary confinement in the brig. The committee chair looked down at Colonel Odin Quaid, who had just made a demand that bordered on absurd leniency.
“Your reason?”
“The strike force is currently short on manpower, and the new guide must be returned to training immediately. I request expedient action, taking into consideration that the Genius Strike Force’s next mission is scheduled for the following month.”
“But — !”
The Lieutenant Colonel, visibly unnerved, tried to cut into the exchange, but Odin silenced him with a look. His gaze settled on the Lieutenant Colonel’s sorry state — nose bone bent out of shape, face mottled with bruises, clearly the work of the new guide — and one eyebrow lifted.
“As for the charge of assaulting a superior officer, I ask that it be overlooked generously this time, in consideration of the disruption it would cause within the unit.”
People murmured at the audacity of so openly dismissing an entire charge. The committee chair struck his gavel again and asked in a more exhausted tone than before.
“Colonel Quaid, what do you mean by that?”
Odin said out loud, without a trace of self-consciousness, what everyone had only been thinking to themselves.
“I am concerned about the effect on military discipline. If it goes on record that a Lieutenant Colonel was subdued by a Warrant Officer — and an Esper overpowered by a guide at that — it is by no means a trivial matter for the reputation of the United Space Forces.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the conference room, but Odin simply settled back in his seat.
“That is all.”
Doyun stared at Odin with an uncertain look on his face.
For someone who had just taken his side, the Colonel’s eyes still held unmistakable contempt. That gaze — more hostile than even the committee chair’s — made his mouth run dry for no good reason.
