Drew Karpyshyn - Ascension

"But she's not just a biotic," Kahlee objected, voicing the arguments that had been running through her mind. "She's a girl with a serious mental condition."

"You're not thinking of asking the board to expel her, are you?" he asked, looking horrified.

She turned and scowled at him. "That's a decision her father needs to make."

"So you're going to talk to Grayson about it?" Much of the anxiety had left his voice.

"I'll let him know what his options are. Gillian might be better off if she wasn't trying to develop her biotic abilities at the Academy. He could get her a private tutor; someone trained to deal with her condition. Lord knows he can afford it."

"What if he doesn't want to pull her out of the program?"

"Then I'll have to start wondering if he really has his daughter's best interests at heart." She regretted the words as soon as she said them.

"Now you're starting to sound like Hendel," he chastised her.

The remark stung more than it should have; Nick's comparison of her and the security chief yesterday was still fresh in her mind.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I'm just tired. I can't keep coming here night after night." Trying to make light of it, she added, "When you get to be my age, you need your sleep."

"You're kidding, right?" he asked, incredulous. "I hardly ever get to see you. You're always working. . or spending time with Hendel."

"He likes to keep tabs on the students," she explained. Especially Gillian.

"I'm starting to think you two are more than just friends," Jiro said darkly.

Kahlee actually laughed out loud. She saw Jiro stiffen, and he turned away from her.

"I'm sorry," she said, wrapping a comforting arm around his shoulder. "I didn't mean to laugh. But trust me, I'm not Hendel's type. You might be, though."

For a second he seemed puzzle, a look of confusion on his boyish face. "Ohhh," he said a moment later, grasping what she meant.

The phone in the bedroom beeped before either of them could say anything else. Jiro looked at the ID on the display, and his eyes went wide.

"It'sHendel!"

"So?" Kahlee said with a shrug. "Answer it."

He reached over and hit the button for the speaker phone.

"Hendel?"

"Grayson's shuttle just pinged us," the voice on the other end of the line snarled. "He'll be here in an hour.

"Figures the son-of-a-bitch would be running on his own clock," Hendel added.

Kahlee rolled her eyes. It was common for people visiting a planet or space station to schedule their visits so they would arrive at a convenient hour by the local time. But Grayson traveled a lot for his job, and constantly adjusting to different time zones could take its toll on a person. Gillian's father wasn't the only parent to show up in the middle of the night; he was just the only one Hendel complained about.

"Uh, yeah, okay," Jiro answered. "I'll get ready."

"I tried Kahlee's room, but she wasn't there," Hen-del added. "I assume she's with you."

Jiro turned to her with a shrug and a look that seemed to say, What should I tell him?

"I'm here," she answered after a long, awkward silence. "I'll come down with Jiro to the landing bay to meet him."

"Meet you both there in forty-five minutes." The phone call ended with a click.

"How did he know about us?" Kahlee wondered out loud. She didn't think anyone knew; she and Jiro had always been discreet.

"Wouldn't be much of a security chief if he didn't," Jiro chuckled, getting out of bed and heading for the small shower in his en suite.

Hendel was gruff and surly, and he tended to be overprotective toward his charges, but no one could ever accuse him of being bad at his job. Still, Kahlee wasn't satisfied.

"What do you think tipped him off?" she called out, stripping off her shirt.

Jiro popped his head out from the bathroom. "You, probably. I bet he can read you like an open book. You're not that great at keeping secrets."

"Maybe it was you," she countered as she unbuttoned her pants. "You're not much good at keeping secrets either."

"I might be better than you think," he said mysteriously. Then he laughed and disappeared back into the bathroom. A second later she heard the shower running.

Now completely naked, Kahlee crossed the room and entered the en suite. Jiro raised his eyebrows suggestively when she opened the shower stall door and squeezed in with him.

"Forget it," she told him. "We need to get there before Grayson's shuttle touches down. I'm afraid of what might happen if we leave him alone with Hen-del."

"Why does he hate Grayson so much?" Jiro asked, rubbing shampoo into her hair from behind.

Because he thinks Grayson is so prejudiced against biotics that he can only bear to see his own daughter twice a year. Because HendeVs own parents dumped him off with the ВAaT program when he was a kid, basically disowning him. Because part of him thinks helping Gillian learn to cope with her biotics might get rid of the memories of his own abandonment and childhood isolation.

"It's complicated" was all she said.

"Maybe Hendel's got a crush on him," Jiro teased.

Kahlee let out a disapproving sigh. "I just pray to God you aren't stupid enough to ever make that joke where he can hear vou."

Grissom Academy was a medium-sized space station with half a dozen small docking bays built along its exterior, each capable of accommodating small- to medium-sized vessels. Most of the arrivals were supply ships bringing in necessary resources from Elysium to keep the Academy running, along with twice-daily runs of the public passenger shuttle down to the surface of the planet below.

When Kahlee and Jiro arrived, Hendel was waiting for them, staring intently out the observation window toward the docking bays. She was disappointed to see that the station was currently oriented with the observation window looking out away from the planet they orbited; she always found the image of Elysium hovering below them in space to be particularly awe-inspiring.

Most visitors to the Academy — parents and friends of staff, typically — would come through Elysium, booking passage to the planet and then transferring to the passenger shuttle. Only those important or wealthy enough to have access to personal shuttles had the option to dock their vessels right on the station itself, eliminating the time and hassle necessitated by going through the public spaceports.

This direct access also allowed them to bypass the customs and security checks found planet-side, so by law there had to be a security officer on hand to clear them on arrival. This was more a formality than anything else, and Hendel normally delegated the task to one of his underlings. But on those rare occasions when Grayson arrived, the security chief was always there to greet him in person. Kahlee knew it was Hen-del's none-too-subtle way of letting Grayson know he was being watched.

Fortunately, Grayson's shuttle hadn't shown up yet. Hendel turned to look at them as they approached, breaking his vigil.

"I was starting to wonder if you were going to make it in time."

His comment was directed at Kahlee; it almost seemed as if he was intentionally ignoring Jiro's presence. She decided to let it slide.

"How long before they arrive?"

"Five, maybe ten mintues. I'll sign Grayson in, then he's yours to deal with. Take him to the cafeteria for a few hours or something."

"He's going to want to see his daughter right away," Jiro protested.

Hendel glared at the younger man as if he had interrupted a private conversation, then shook his head. "These surprise visits are hard enough on Gillian. I'm not going to wake her up in the middle of the night just because her father's too selfish to wait until morning to see her."