"MAAAAIIL CAAAAALL!" The recruits of the Sky Army looked up as their Commander hopped up onto the stage on the left side of the mess hall, it's curtain closed behind him, and started to read off names. "We got Lorenz, Therbs, Definy, Dreds, Arenoff..." He tossed each letter he found onto the floor in front of him as he read the recipient. "Yuri, Westley, Sothern, Adamson (nice name), Eberhart, Kauza, Murphy, Jackson, and a hell of a lot more so have fun." He tossed the rest of the letters casually onto the floor and hopped down to meet Ty and Jason by their usual table.
But before he could make it there, he was stopped.
"Um... Commander?" He stopped and raised an eyebrow over his sunglasses, a small smirk on his lips.
"Yeah?"
Thalia looked up at him from where she was crouched on the ground near a bunch of other recruits looking to see if they got a letter. "There's one for you here."
Sky stopped, his smile slowly fading. "No... I don't get mail."
"It says right here, and it's not from squids or anything either." Thalia looked at it. "It's from someone named Arya Transent... Is that your dad or something?"
At their table, Ty slowly stood up. "Adam?" He called. The mess hall grew quiet as Sky froze, his eyes widening behind his glasses. Sky glanced around as he noticed them, and Thalia saw him look almost nervous for the first time as he shook his head. "I-I don't get mail, Vaerin."
He lowered his head and strode quickly out of the hall, almost to the point of running. Ty quickly vaulted over the table, grabbing the letter as he ran past Thalia. "Adam!" He called. He ran to the left out of the hall, then changed his mind and went right, passing the large doorway.
Thalia started to follow but heard a voice behind her. "Don't."
She turned and blinked in surprise. "General?" She asked.
Jason shook his head. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that when Adam runs out with his head down like that, there's one and only one thing to do."
"...What's that?"
"Leave him be."
Thalia blinked. "Then what's General Ellis doing?"
Jason smiled a little. "Probably something stupid, but... Somebody has to do it. And I don't think anybody's better for the job than Ty."
"I don't understand." Thalia said. "What's so bad about getting a letter from home? I'd give anything for my dad to write me back."
"I don't know." Jason said. "But all I know is that if Adam got a letter from home, there won't be anything good inside."
"Why?" Thalia asked. "How can you know that for sure?"
"Because Adam told his parents not to write to him unless someone was hurt - safety precaution I guess." Jason sighed. "God, I hope it's not serious..." He looked at Thalia. "I met his family once. They were nice people... Crazy though. His grandfather tried to get me to help him plant mines in the front yard to keep kids from smashing his flowers and his brother rubbed pollen all over my helmet - I was sneezing for weeks."
Thalia could help but laugh a little.
Jason smiled. "Then there was the raccoon situation, but don't even get me started on that... God, that was messy."
"I don't understand." Thalia said. "Why is the General so concerned about this?"
"Oh, he grew up with Adam. He lived next door." Jason said. He nodded. "Oh yeah, he was like one of the boys..."
"Can you tell me?" Thalia asked.
"What, are you crazy?! Don't be stupid, that's confidential information! Strictly classified!" He said, then leaned a little closer, lowering his voice. "Ask Clancy." Then he winked fondly and turned away. "As you were, recruits! Back to eating, ya got nothing to worry about!" He said.

"The Commander?" Clancy asked in surprise, poking his head around the monitor. "Now, why on earth would I know anything about that brawny twat?"
"Clanker, you and I both know General Provst isn't one to give false leads." Thalia said. "I'm just curious."
"Well, I don't actually know anything." He glanced around him cautiously before rolling over to a different desk in his spinny-chair and opened a drawer, pulling out a flash drive and waving it in front of him. "But this does."
Thalia opened her mouth to ask him a question, but he went on before she could speak. "It's protocol that when a recruit becomes a Commander, his or her file is wiped from the archives. I dug deep in the system and I saved all the Commanders on that flash drive. Void, Baxter, Dahlburg; even Farpoint." He stopped. "Hang on, isn't that funny..."
"What?"
"Technically, our dear leader should be called Commander Dahlburg, but he's not. I wonder why that is... Hmm." He stood up, handing Thalia the flash drive. "You can plug this into one of those computers over there. File 6, Dahlburg. Do what you want; change the whole thing if you feel like it, I couldn't care less. Just don't open file 7."
Thalia raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"
"Just don't." Clancy said. He stood with a sigh. "I'll see you later." With that, he left the room.
Thalia shrugged and walked over to the computer, plugging in the flash drive. She didn't norther to grab a chair as she opened the key and moved the cursor casually to file 7, thinking Clancy was joking. But when she opened it, the screen went red and said, "LOCKED: ENTER PASSCODE _ _ _ _ _"
"I'm not serious about a lot of things." Thalia blinked in surprise and turned to see Clancy leaning in the door to the lab. "But I'm serious about this."
Thalia stared at him. "You didn't tell the Commander about this, did you?"
Clancy snorted. "No." He said. "Or Jason."
"You must've broken a lot of rules to be too scared to tell the General."
"That's just it, Vaerin." Clancy smirked. "I'm breaking rules a lot bigger than the Sky Army." With that, he winked and left the lab again. "Face it, Kal. The world just isn't ready for some things. Not yet, anyway..."
Thalia simply rolled her eyes in spite of the Cadet's cryptic goodbye and opened file 6 instead, clicking on "Dahlburg, Adam"
She sat down and leaned on the table as she began to read.