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“The Agency does not have that jurisdiction,” Alvon said.
“Surely you can intervene?” questioned the lawyer on the screen before him.
Alvon had gotten increasingly good at keeping his face unreadable and his voice even. “I assure you, the CSA has no interest in intervening on behalf of Mira-Acarron Shael.”
“But she has been unfairly held by the Acarran government...”
“As opposed to any number of other governments that, given the extent of her former operations and the number of different crimes committed by them, would treat her far more harshly than the Kingdom of Acarron has treated her? Like her attempts to claim the throne of Acarron, she keeps thinking she can find an angle out of her current predicament.”
Alvon paused for dramatic effect, then went on. “Her imprisonment is wholly in the jurisdiction of Acarron as a sovereign nation. End of discussion. And I would advise you to find a better employer, because whatever leverage she thinks she has, she does not. Also, tell your associate that if she ever uses favors to bypass the regular channels and waste my time again, she will dislike how much attention that will draw to her and her office. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Deputy Director Gargarm,” the lawyer said, obviously deflated.
Alvon disconnected the communication without another word.
“I am sorry about that,” stated the sector bureau chief who’d brought the issue to CSA headquarters.
Alvon waved a hand dismissively, “We’re square, Kiiva. Please put someone on the senator and find out what Mira Acarron-Shael has on her, or thinks she has on her, that she’d stick her neck out like that.”
“Of course, Deputy Director. Want it done quietly or publicly?”
“Publicly. Let’s make it very, very clear that advocating for Mira Acarron-Shael is both bad business and bad politics. Anything you do turn up, give to the Kingdom to handle.”
“Will do, sir,” said Kiiva.
“Thank you.”
Kiiva left Alvon’s office.
He took a moment, looking at the multiple datapads on his desk. It wasn’t like it couldn’t all be moved to a single datapad, it was just that each came from different people.
Alvon looked to his calendar and saw he had no appointments until later in the day. Granted, there were five of them back-to-back, but he had a couple of hours.
The Deputy Director of the Cosmic Security Agency turned to look at the beautiful landscape of Korimar III. He considered the view from his office window one of the perks of his job.
Alvon was a frequently busy man. As the number one deputy to director Hectir, Alvon constantly had work to do. But it seldom felt like work to him. Despite never aspiring to be where he’d landed, Alvon loved his life and his job.
The alliance created between the IITO and the Torvodach Heptumvirate had vastly expanded CSA operations. With the new races mixing and gaining familiarity with one another, the Heptumvirate decided that, rather than reinvent the hyperdrive, they brought the CSA and their law enforcement mandate and methodology to their sectors of space.
Adding the Torvodach Heptumvirate to the Cosmic Security Agency was not just seven more races and their vast territories, but more than a dozen new races and a range of space larger than the entirety of their prior accepted neutral jurisdiction.
The logistics of organizing the vastly expanded CSA had been complicated and astounding. It had taken Alvon, Hectir, and the rest of the directorate quite some time to work it all out. While four new deputy directors had been created to oversee matters within and adjacent to the Heptumvirate, Hectir retained overall directorship while Alvon remained the first deputy.
Granted, the DDCSA7 was technically equal to Alvon. But in the overall organizational flowchart, they were a level between Alvon and the deputy directors in the original jurisdiction.
The number of people now under the jurisdiction of the CSA and its mandate was expanded by the trillions. It was mind-boggling, and still being fully worked out logistically.
Alvon had developed a system for prioritizing the datapads that came in alongside the transmissions he received and oversaw. Normally, it worked just fine. With the Director a long, long way away on the outskirts of Heptumvirate space, it was busier and more complex than normal.
With Hectir operationally away for the months he would be gone, Alvon was effectively the acting CSA director. That meant tons more datawork.
Alvon was glad that he still had Tara Kreth backing him up.
Tara, however, had been given a new and unique role in the CSA. Given its increased and rapid expansion, there was a greater need for a high-level assistant to both the director and immediate deputy director. Thus, Tara had been named the first-ever General Special Advisor (GSA). Though it was not too dissimilar to the senior special advisor – there were two of those, presently, reporting to Tara – the GSA was next in line ahead of the deputy directors and after the director and DDCSA.
Tara was still not just his top advisor but also Alvon’s closest confidant. He was always appreciative that she would frequently take meals with him and Hectir (despite his not needing to eat) outside regular CSA activities.
Alvon considered his other close friends. The crew of the Dawnstrider, though incredibly busy in their post-incursion business ventures, still visited Alvon a few times a year. Granted, they only made it to Korimar III once or twice each year, but they always found time for Alvon.
A tone sounded, bringing Alvon fully back to his office. As if summoned, Tara Kreth was entering.
“Afternoon,” Alvon said to her.
“Deputy Director,” Tara said. “Your assistant says you have nothing pressing just now. Can you spare some time for an unusual matter?”
Alvon looked at one of the screens before him. “Today’s good for that. What can I do for you?”
Tara shook her head. “This has nothing to do with me. I’ll show your guest in.”
As she left his office, Alvon wondered who might be visiting. It wasn’t like Tara to be coy like this. Particularly if the unexpected guest were a member of the Dawnstrider crew, Avra, one of the Xorcerizts, or a leader from the IITO or IITA.
Tara stood outside Alvon’s door, and a young man, probably in his early twenties, tentatively entered Alvon’s office.
Alvon had never expected to see this man again. He knew immediately that the man entering his office now had been only a boy the last time he’d seen him.
“Saron?” Alvon breathed.
The young man dipped his head. “Hi, Dad.”
Alvon was utterly unsure how to react. Tara, he noted, had gone away.
“Please,” Alvon gestured. “Have a seat.”
“You have a very impressive office,” Saron said.
Alvon looked at his son more closely now. There was no mistaking that he was the boy Alvon had not seen in almost a decade and a half. He looked like both his father and his mother.
Alvon had survived being captured, enslaved, raped, and displaced from his life. He’d single-handedly devised a written language translator that had eluded scientists and entrepreneurs for millennia. He’d spoken before a delegation of the most diverse Human and non-Human peoples ever gathered. Alvon had opened a dialogue with the Ditufgne when all prior attempts had failed.
Yet this moment had him more perplexed than anything else had since back when he’d been a middle-management employee of Vector Corp.
“You,” Alvon began, then cleared his throat. “You probably have a lot of questions for me, son.”
Now Saron looked uncomfortable as he shrugged. “I guess I do.”
Alvon sighed. “You have to understand. I was abducted, enslaved, and presumed dead. I’d been taken a long, long way from home. By the time I made it back to anywhere remotely familiar, three years had passed, and I looked like this,” Alvon gestured at himself and his oddly hued skin.
He continued, “When I tried to reach out to your mother, I learned I’d been declared dead, and she had met a new man and remarried. What’s more, you all left Tetran Centauri and moved to Galatos in the Dwarfstar Union. Which, I might add, is one of very few Human systems to not join the IITO.” Alvon waved a hand. “Never mind that. I just knew that after all I had been through and all that you had been through, it would be best for everyone that I let you go on without me.”
Saron nodded his head. He was silent for a moment, and then said, “Was that an easy choice to make?”
“No,” Alvon replied without hesitation, old emotions long buried threatening to overwhelm him. He took a deep breath before continuing. “No, Saron, it was not easy at all. By the time I learned where you had all landed, you had a new half-sibling. All evidence showed that your stepfather was a good man.
“I believed that my return would cause unnecessary confusion and harm. I didn’t wish to cause you more pain than you had all already suffered. It was probably the hardest decision I’ve ever made.”
Saron nodded again but said, “I think I understand. And I can tell you mean it and aren’t just saying that to spare my feelings.”
Saron sighed. “Kiven is a good dad; he raised Gralm and I like we were his own, and we never felt any less than our younger siblings.”
Alvon had checked in on Shara and his kids a time or two. He knew that she and her new spouse had welcomed three more children into their lives.
Saron continued, “Despite the Dwarfstar Union’s Human-centric government, they don’t censor HAEN broadcasts or intergalactic news. When all that insanity with the Ditufgne was going down, I saw a man named Alvon Gargarm, CSA Deputy Director, constantly speaking. And when I heard you, even though you didn’t look like you, I knew you were my dad.”
Alvon said nothing. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Saron went on. “We never talked about it, but I think Mom knew, too. Gralm had spent the first year you were gone crying with every mention of your name. So even if she knows, we never spoke of it. After university, I recognized that the Union’s refusal to join the IITO is really limiting, so I took a job working logistics for Dawnstrider Enterprises.”
Alvon grinned. “Have you met the original crew?”
Saron shook his head. “No, though I sat in on a few conference comms with them. Anyhow, I made enough credits and banked enough time to come here to Korimar III. And now, here I am.”
“Here you are,” Alvon agreed. “I am sorry, son, that I missed your life. Maybe I made the wrong choice, but I thought it was right at the time, and I can’t take it back.”
“No,” Saron said. “No, Dad, I get it. I think it would have been more traumatic to have you back, and so different in so many ways from who you were. And I think that’s really why I needed to come here and see you.”
“Oh?”
Saron smiled shyly. “It’s not every kid whose dad saves the galaxy.”
Alvon blinked. “What?”
“Come on,” Saron chided. “You helped to assemble the IITO. It was your initiative that opened the dialogue that ended the incursion of the Ditutfgne and prevented endless bloodshed. You’ve been part of everything that has opened the galaxy even wider than it was in my childhood. I had to see you because I wanted you to know that I know you are my dad. And I am deeply proud of you and who you are.”
Alvon felt himself tearing up. “Thank you, son.”
Saron smiled, then stood up. “I know you are probably beyond busy, and I would bet you need to get back to work.”
Alvon wiped away his tears, standing. “I do have work to do, but...it can wait. Would you like to grab a meal and catch up? It’s been almost fifteen years. I’ve missed a lot.”
“Yeah, Dad, I’d like that.”
“Good,” Alvon said. He tapped at his comm. “Tara?”
“Go ahead, Deputy Director.”
“Would you come and escort my son to a conference room for a few minutes while I clear up my afternoon.”
“Sure.”
Alvon looked to Saron. “I just need to send out a few messages, and then we can take more time to get reacquainted.”
“That would be great,” Saron said.
Tara entered the room. “Mister Gargarm?” she addressed Saron. “This way.”
As they began to leave, Tara said, “Let me tell you a story about the first time I met your dad...”
Once the door closed, Alvon sat down again, feeling a combination of utter relief and emotional exhaustion. He had not realized that he’d missed the son who had spent more than half his life without him.
But Saron told him he was proud of Alvon. That made Alvon feel elated.
Alvon reflected on the reunion, as well as the words his son had said. “It’s not every kid whose dad saves the galaxy.”
Alvon knew he had played a crucial role in the affairs of the galaxy. But he didn’t see himself as any kind of hero. He did his job.
But it was a job he loved, and though he’d endured some harsh realities and awful tragedies, he had no regrets. And every day, he looked forward to his unbelievable role in shaping the galaxy.
Today, however, would be for him, as he would get a chance he never thought he’d have to connect with the son he’d had to leave behind so long ago.
Alvon grinned.