"No! Absolutely not!"

"This isn't your decision to make."

"President, this is completely insane. You have to see that."

The two officers turned to look at the president of the UN who sat in his seat idly fiddling with a paperclip. It spun, once and then twice between the fingers of his right hand before he bothered to look up.

The UN president was a sturdy man in his late sixties with greying hair, dark eyes and a slight paunch. He wasn't a man of unusual intelligence or anything like that. In fact his greatest ability and charismatic character in front of a crowd, but behind the scenes, the man was racked with indecision and uncertainty.

Admiral Kelly stepped forward and looked around the table at the other ranking officers falling lastly on the UN president who she stuck with a steady gaze, one she had been told when she was captain, had the ability to freeze even the bravest man's blood in his veins.

"The GA has made their decision and I tend to agree with them."

"It's madness." Another officer said leaning forward in his seat.

"That boy doesn't have nearly enough experience. He was on your ship for less than a year, has only flown ten combat missions in his entire career, AND only a SINGLE ground Op."

Another Admiral stood in agreement to back them up, "The boy is barely old enough to grow a beard much less command a ship. He has no experience."

Admiral kelly kept her eyes narrowed.

She knew the kind of effect she had on people. Even though she was no more than five foot five, her parents had always said her personality added another three feet.

"With all due respect, Admirals, how many of you have more than a year of experience dealing with aliens?"

The men's jaws worked but they said nothing.

"How many of you have even fought in an alien war?"

More silence.

"How many of you have been on an alien ship?"

No one responded.

She stood from her seat, hands resting behind her back, "If you are expecting to find someone with more experience, you are kidding yourselves. And don't come at me with some bullshit about how other officers have more combat experience. You may be right but that was against HUMANS, human conflicts and human wars. We need someone who doesn't have their head so stuck in the past. If we send a vet in, MAYBE they will be able to deal with an alien conflict, and maybe they'd fowl it up by thinking humans are the same as aliens." She looked around the table, "If we look at this, really look at this, he has the most experience out of ANYONE in the UNSC. He was the first one to discover aliens, he offered himself as a subject to be tested by aliens, he helped to establish communication between our species. He fought in an alien war and lived, and afterwards he came back for more."

She turned to look around the room, her hands held wide, "The GA love him, the Chairwoman knows him by name, and they asked for him personally. Most of this isn't even about alien conflict. We don't have to worry about his prowess on the battlefield if there are never any battles. He doesn't want to fight them, which means he will do everything possible to avoid war, and, most importantly, he is still loyal to the UNSC."

She looked around at them with a very serious expression,

"I don't need to tell you about what It took to survive operation steel eye. I know you've all read the reports. By rights that boy should be suing the UNSC for all it's worth, but for some reason he is loyal enough to come limping back to lay at the feet of the UNSC. If I were him I would have gotten out at the first opportunity, but he's proven a loyalty to the UNSC that we can't just pass up. He has experience, he has guts, and he has loyalty to spare, and, lord forgive me for saying this, but if he does fail, no one will be surprised. But if he succeeds, he will be a success story the UNSC can front for the rest of this millenia."

Looking around the table she could see that her words were making some impact on the waiting generals. She felt bad about some of the things she was saying. She hated making it out to seem like the boy was just a pawn to be used and discarded if it didn't turn out, but that was the sort of thing these men understood. She could raise other points, the real points, but they wouldn't be likely to listen.

She could blab at them all day about her experience with the young man. How she knew him to be ready to work, honest to a fault, funny, charismatic in an awkward sort of way, and probably the most trustworthy young man on the face of the damn planet. If there was anyone she would trust to hold the entire world in the palm of their hand, she would let him do it. Granted she would supervise him to make sure he didn't accidentally drop it, but she KNEW that given time and some maturing the boy would make an excellent leader.

She could feel it in her bones.

Right into her marrow.

Andshe would always be there to watch him and provide her expertise if he ever needed it.

She wasn't worried.

Instead of saying any of this she took a deep breath, "We are going into a new age, and we need to have flexible minds. Old war dogs like us aren't going to cut it, too setin our ways." She turned to look around the room, "And if he fails, I will take full responsibility for his actions."

She knew what she was doing was rash, setting her entire career on one man, and no more than a boy at that, but she had faith, and more than that, she knew who had trained him, and had to admit that he had a pretty damn good mentor.

***

Adam Vir had fallen asleep.

No one could really blame him, his flight back from Andromeda had come in late, and he hadn't slept in over 24 hours, but still, slouched against the wall in a cheap plastic chair with his mouth open and a line of drool running down his face was hardly becoming. Despite this, no one gave him a second lance as they hurried up and down the hallway at fort harmony listening to the distant sounds of jet engines starting up on the runway crisp and cool in the early morning chill.

"Lieutenant." Adam Vir jerked in his seat as a boot gently kicked his shoe, nearly toppling over.

"YES!"

He looked up to find Admiral Kelly standing over him, and made an undignified scrambled to his feet wiping drool from his cheek feeling red rise up from under his collar as he made a wobbly and very undignified salute.

She only smiled, "At ease, Lieutenant, and come with me."

He let his hand dropped and he quickly followed her up the hall watching as eyes turned to look at them in mild curiosity as they passed.

Admirals didn't often speak to lowly first lieutenants, "Where are we going, ma'am."

She turned a corner and he nearly ran himself into the wall, dodging to the side only at the last minute and staggering a bit as he tried to keep pace with her. He was blushing madly now feeling like a clumsy idiot next to her graceful strides.

What he wouldn't give to be just a little bit more like her, so calm and cool and poised and...

She motioned him into the next door, and he stepped inside,holding it open for her as he did.

It was her office, which he guessed by the name plate on her desk and several shadow boxes on the wall behind her desk, each one of hem holding some medal or award or other she had received for distinguished service.

The glass on those boxes was old and mostly coated in dust not having been disturbed in a long time, as in comparison to the framed picture on her desk, which was lovingly dusted clean every morning. It looked like a picture of her family, brothers, sisters, mother and father. Her father being a very tall, very broad looking islander, while her mother was a very petite asian woman.

She clearly hadn't interhited her father's height, and looked more like her mother.

She Turned to sit behind the desk, hands clasped before her as the stars glittered lightly on the shoulders of her uniform.

Kelly nodded for him to sit and he did as requested.

She nodded to the yellow envelope on the desk before her, "Open it."

He paused, and did as told, opening the envelope and tipping it's contents out onto the desk.

His eyes were caught at first by a large folded blueprint, which he opened and spread out on half the desk before him.

It didn't take him long to figure out what it was.

He glanced up at her, "Is this the new ship?"

She nodded.

"Next generation?" he was practically drooling, "What I wouldn't give to fly one of these." He looked up at her, "Are you going to be flying her, she's beautiful." Granted all he could see were the white lines of the blueprint but he could just imagine."

She smiled slightly.

"Why don't you take a look at the rest of it."

He forced his eyes away from the blueprint and down to the rest of the packet.

On the table before him two glittering silver bars winked up at him.

He reached out with a hand and picked up the captain' bars frowning. He then turned his attention to a pile of white papers and quickly scanned his eyes over the pages. Aam Vir may have behaved like a big idiot but he had been top of his class at the academy, and unlike the big oaf he looked like, he had pretty good reading comprehension.

Didn't take him more than a few seconds to scan the page and.... freeze .

He blinked, re-read the lines five or six times.

Re read it again.

Looked up at kelly then back at the paper then back up at kelly.

"I.... what is this?"

She tried to contain the small smile that flickered over the front of his face, "What does it look like."

"It.... well it LOOKS like a written recommendation for a promotion... a promotion to captain and orders to loan out for the GA.... on the next constructed interstellar ship.. .but...."

He looked up knowing what he hoped but not daring to believe.

It was when her small knowing smile was split by a grin that he knew.

His ears went suddenly muffled, his heart sped up to light speed and he thought he could hear her speaking but he couldn't hear her.

"No way!" he said

"No way, no way no way. No friggin WAY."

She stood, and he stood, and he found he didn't know what to do with his hands he found himself walking in a small circle. He held the paper out to hre, "IS this serious, are you serious?"

"Serious as a heart attack."

"No way."

"Yes way."
"You're serious."

"I just said so."

He looked down at the page and then back up again one last time, and he was suddenly so overwhelmed that he just couldn't handle it anymore and he threw his arms around her. It was probably the most unprofessional show of emotion the UNSC had ever seen. No salute, no handshake none of that professional stuff.

Instead, he, a junior officer, was hugging the fleet commander, who he now realized was like almost nine inches shorter than he was, and.... Was he crying?

Yep, crying like a big ugly baby, ok maybe not so bad.

He was laughing and crying and completely overwhelmed to the point of probably losing his promotion.

Luckily for him Admiral Kelly laughed with him.

Man she was was fucking amazing.

Until he eventually pulled away grinning like an idiot and not bothering to wipe his eyes..

"Take a couple deep breaths for me, Captain."

Captain!

He loved the sound of that.

Captain Vir

Captain Adam Vir of the UNSC.

He took a few deep breaths, calmed himself down enough so he could speak, straightened up, "Thank you ma'am, I won't let you down."

"I know you won't. Now get out of here, and pull yourself together before the promotion ceremony."

He grinned again, "Yes Ma'am." In his enthusiasm turning away, he nearly tripped over his pushed out chair, but managed to right himself before hand, giving a rueful smile and running from the room.

He managed to make it outside before bursting with excitement jumping up into the air and pumping his fist, before dancing around in a circle shouting and chanting.

A couple columns of marching soldiers looked very confused as they walked past him like he was some kind of lunatic, but it didn't matter to him.

He had made it!

He had made it

His dream had come true and he had made it.