Mike’s grin was back, wide and genuine. “Language, Dave. You are a Divine Paladin, a shining example of morality and justice to the masses, an Icon of everything that’s good and right with the universe. Try not to sink to the verbal level of a dockside goblin.”

  I shook my head, the weight of it all pressing down on me. “I am a broken-down ex-warrior that’s just looking for a good way to go out so I don’t have to spend the next couple of centuries trying to figure out how to live with a burnt-out body and a world of regrets, or end up as an undead slave to pay off a debt. But fine. You win. It probably qualifies as a noble quest anyway, or it should.” The words felt like a surrender, but also like taking up a shield I thought I’d laid down for good.

  He grinned, “Yoda can stick it in his pointy ear, you will train this girl.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “I never should have let you near that reward cache of old vids. Especially not the Weird Al parody collections.”

  He shrugged, “Too late for that. Seriously, though… she could probably fix your Caliban without the help of a full magitech surgery team. Push her, test her limits. But don’t push her aura control too hard, or you WILL bond her. Your aura, even crippled, is like sunshine and clean water to a sensitive like her. That’s why you still get hit on all the time, even looking like you spent the best part of your life being dragged under a grav-lift over dirty concrete. Be very, very careful.”

  “If you can, also get her to push her spiritual gift,” he added. “The stronger her spiritual core is, the better she will be at resisting… unapproved bonds. Sensei Ramuel is already a good start; he’ll push her a bit, and he’s an ascetic neuter—he’s NOT in the know… It’s just you, me, and fleet command. Make her a mushroom.”

  “Keep her in the dark and feed her shit?” I asked, my lip curling.

  “I know you won’t lie,” Mike said, holding up a placating hand. “But you don’t have to share fleet-level secrets or drop hints about her future either. Oh, and Dave?”

  I looked at him closely as I stood, wincing as the Caliban sent a fresh jolt of pain through me, making the motion jerky.

  “Try really hard not to bond her. She’s young enough to be your daughter. That won’t matter biologically in a few years, and it wouldn’t be the worst outcome for her, but command wants to have a say in who’s directing that much power, and they’d feel bad about getting cut out of the loop. You can rest assured, whoever they pick won’t be a paladin. Too independent.”

  I growled. ‘Feel bad’ meant they’d bring a pile of scrot down on my head that could make a neutron star collapse. Getting ‘disappeared’ would be the least of my worries if I screwed this up. Then again, if I couldn’t handle a challenge, I wouldn’t have walked the Path in the first place. It just bugged me that they’d probably try to bond her to some political climber or a ‘safe’ old-guard family type with the personality of a damp sponge.

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  He grinned, “Remember, Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side.”

  I shook my head, the old argument surfacing. “That’s bullshit, Mike, and you know it. Fear leads to making smart decisions if you don’t let it paralyze you. Anger leads to righteous action against injustice. And hate is the only sane way to respond to genuine, unrepentant evil. That media was fun nonsense. Selfishness leads to evil. Not hate. Never hate.”

  Rule number one of being a paladin. Courage is not the absence of fear; it is overcoming it to do what’s right. And maybe, just maybe, refusing to give in to the despair of a destroyed future was what a paladin should do. This wasn’t about my pain. It was about protecting something innocent from a universe that wanted to devour it.

  “So where do we go from here?” I asked, my voice steady now, my purpose clarified.

  “Push her. If she can make a good showing in this class, she gains solid certification for when we ‘technically’ find out she’s in violation of the fleet’s physical standards. We play the good guys, drop her someplace safe for further assessment, like Luminous, and that will tell the ones in the know where to pick her up when she’s ready to bond.”

  “Meanwhile,” he continued, “after this class, you will be on detached duty. We might even be able to spring for some high-level essence rehabilitation. You’ve been doing this for twenty years, Dave. Call it an extended vacation while you keep an eye on her from afar and try to recover what you can. Who knows? Luminous is a well-known destination for some of the richest people in the UP. Maybe you can hook up with some billionaire trust fund girl who’s desperate to fix a broken man, and can afford to get you some actual regeneration treatments from a silver-circle shaman.”

  He looked at me carefully, and all traces of his nice-guy personality vanished, replaced by the iron will of a fleet commander. “Orders-wise, she’s valuable. A lot more valuable in the long run than you or me. Keep her safe, keep her unbonded, and make sure she doesn’t hate the fleet for our little screw-up with the hunters. I am almost certain that a few of the First Families will be grooming the ‘perfect’ bond for her, and if it works out, well, it’s a lot easier for someone like the Chancellor to make sure that the guy that made it happen gets the best treatment known to man… including Meridian regeneration.”

  I nodded slowly. Meridian regeneration. The dream. The thing that could make me whole again, not just patch me up. I knew I might have to make some moral sacrifices someday, but this kind of an assignment, protecting a VIP who fit every definition of innocent, was squarely in my wheelhouse. Mike knew exactly what he was doing when he called me for a favor. He knew that dangling a future, a real future, was an offer I couldn’t refuse, even if the strings attached were made of adamantine.

  “You know, the last time someone said I could look forward to a paid vacation, I wound up soloing a necrotic rift and burned half my meridians,” I said dryly.

  Mike nodded, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Well, this should be a lot easier than that, then.”

  I highly doubted that. I turned and left, my Caliban humming its painful tune against my spine. I had a class to teach, and a lost girl to watch over. The paladin’s path, it seemed, wasn't done with me yet.