Tennal’s heart was still a vicious beat in his rib cage. “Surit. Lieutenant Yeni. Our finest and best. Spend two minutes listening to me, since you apparently haven’t considered listening to your own common sense. You’re a perfect junior officer. Your shoes are shiny, you’ve memorized all the regulations, you’re practically vibrating with eagerness. I bet your academy teachers marked you as the cadet most likely to go out in a blaze of glory saving a ship full of kittens and senior officers’ children.” That was probably uncalled for. Tennal didn’t care. “You want a promotion, and you want it really badly. Why?”

He thought Surit wasn’t going to answer. But then the crease between his eyebrows deepened, and he looked away, as if he couldn’t meet Tennal’s eyes. “It’s the money,” Surit said. He sounded ashamed. Tennal should feel bad about that, but he didn’t have any energy left over from feeling shitty about everything else. “My alt-parent should be getting a bereavement pension. The army stopped it. If I make captain, I can get it reinstated.”

Surit’s alt-parent. Everyone had a gen-parent who formed their main ancestral line, whether genetically related or polite fiction. But it helped to have more adults around to raise a child, and so most children had an alt-parent, or more than one: a romantic partner, someone who had contributed genes, or just someone reliable who could help. Tennal’s alt-parent was his aunt. He was willing to believe most people loved their alt-parents; at least, Surit’s voice cracked a little when he talked about his.

“There you are, then.” Tennal couldn’t be kind, not when it felt like there were flakes of rusty metal circulating through his veins, but he could tell Surit the truth. “That’s what you’ll lose.”

“No,” Surit said. “I’ll earn it another way. There’ll be another chance.”

It was a nice story. It had the advantage of Surit already believing it. If Tennal was less stupid and less self-destructive, he could have agreed. All he needed to do was nod.

He should’ve agreed.

Instead, Tennal said, “You’re lying to yourself and, relatedly, you’re the most gullible person in the sector. I can’t believe I even have to explain this to you.”