Chapter Nine

Lance walked into his office, his new office, and saw a woman sitting on his desk holding a bunch of files. She was wearing a black pantsuit and there was something familiar about her but he couldn't quit see her face due to the way her head was turned, and the shock of long dark hair that hid her face.

"Excuse me?" he said clearing his throat.

She turned around and gave him a wide welcoming and very familiar smile. "Hey," I was just putting these on the desk for you, they're just a few directions, kind of the schedule the old man and I did things on, how we worked it all out, had everything running ship shape. Though, since you're teaching four classes on top of all of this, we're going to have to figure out a few tweaks."

Lance walked around her, to sit down and he picked up the sheets she'd let fall onto the desk. "You know, when you told me you were a personal assistant, I don't recall you mentioning that it was for an Academy professor, let alone Ferris."

"Does it really matter, Lance?" she asked.

Lance read over things, his head already showing signs of a headache at the sheer amount of paperwork, phone calls, meetings, and miscellaneous bullshit he was going to have to deal with to do this job, on top of everything else. If Wade still asked him to go off on special missions, how/who was going to cover for him? He looked up at his new PA. "So, Sally?"

"Yeah?"

"Exactly how much do you do?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I have a busy schedule already, I don't stay here every weekend, and when I am here on weekends, I'm busy. And Wade, Wade has a habit of..."

"Sending you away on Need to Know missions? Yeah, I'm aware of that, they made Ferris intrigued every time."

"Right, so can you cover this adminstration crap when I'm gone?"

She rolled her eyes. "In my sleep."

"Uh, huh, so you can cover it while I'm here?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not doing your job for you," she said. "But I can do what I can to make it easier."

Lance nodded. "You need to make it easier," he started writing on the pages in front of him, the times of his classes, the time he needed right after them to deal with what happened during them; and the time he took out of everyday to connect with Hunk and Pidge. It was mandatory, by his own orders, if she asked why he needed that chunk of time he'd tell her need to know. He handed it back. "Those hours, have to be easier. It's nonnegotiable."

Sally read it over, frowned but then sighed. "Fine. I'll do what I can, but you may have meet me in the middle a bit, when you are around here, Lance."

Lance nodded. "Also, what do you know about my power."

"You're power?" she asked, an amused smile on her face. "Well, I know a bit but then we only dated on and off for about two months, a year ago and then I just never heard from you again..."

Lance had really hoped she wouldn't mention the fact they'd slept together, at all, let alone call it dating because that really wasn't what they'd done. He squirmed in his chair and cleared his throat. "I mean, do have say in who teaches what, firing, hiring?"

"You mean can you fire Erica Thrace," Sally said.

"Yes."

"Well, technically yes, but she's a Wade pet."

"So."

Sally eyed him. "Yeah, you really don't give a damn do you?"

"No."

She shook her head. "Okay, try it, see what happens. I'll put an advertisement out for a replacement."

"No, I know who I want her replacement to her. Tech Sergeant Hunk Reyes, you know what the red tape and official channels are on that to make that happen?"

"DeRosa's qualified him as a Substitute for you whenever you are gone, making him a full fledged teacher won't be much of an issue," Sally said. "I'll get the paperwork together."

Lance nodded. "Good."

"So, you're ignoring our Elephant."

Lance rolled his eyes. "It was over a year ago, Sally."

"You gonna love and leave the Princess of Arus too?" she asked, her tone light, teasing, completely flirtatious.

"No," Lance said, dead serious standing up and looking Sally in the eye. "I'm going to marry her. We aren't going to flirt, well as much as my personality allows for no flirting. What we are going to do is have a good friendly working relationship. Got it?"

He held her gaze, waiting, hoping it was sinking in, she seemed serious enough about the work, but she'd been doing the flirty body language thing since he walked in as well as the tone of voice. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a PA that was constantly flirting with him, he'd have to get a knew one and this one knew more about his new job than he did, he really didn't want the hassle. He was an inherently lazy guy, after all.

Sally slipped off his desk, stood straighter and nodded. "Okay, I'm sorry. It's just all the television and Internet shows, plus the tabloids..."

Lance arched his eyebrows at her. "Tabloids."

"Okay, bad source, but no one is really taken this relationship long term serious. They think your a rebellious phase."

Lance chuckled. "I know, but what they really know about Allura couldn't fill a thimble."

"Will, will I get to meet her?"

Lance cringed inwardly, great now he had to have a talk with Allura about his assistant was one of his sexual romps but she was also a big fan... he checked the urge to roll his eyes at his life. "I'm sure it will happen, Sally."

"I'll get to work on the Sergeant Reyes paperwork as well as Thrace. You'll have to tell her in person, and really, Wade might come down here. It happened when Ferris tried after her first evaluation performance. Wade made him keep her."

"Wade's not making me do a thing, he acknowledged I was the only possibility for the job, he's listening to me," Lance said. "I have to go teach a bunch of third years that they really know crap about flying, now, so catch you later."

Sally chuckled. "I'm sure they'll be delighted to find that out."

"They always are," Lance laughed as he walked off to the first class of the new semester. He had fresh meat, it was always his favorite class of every semester. The first time he had third years facing him, thinking this was it, the class when they finally got to set foot in a real spacecraft and really fly. He made them go in simulators. He had to, they're lessons before him were way to subpar, he had to catch them up to at least the minimum of basic knowledge before he could let them fly the real thing. It was always an interesting first month, where he weeded out those who should have been weeded out already, and figured out who really had the natural talent, and who could learn to be a great pilot.

~~.~~

David Early hated humidity.

He grabbed the cloth he had sitting in ice water, and wiped his face off with it, then placed it on the back of his neck again. He'd had his hair buzzed off, he looked like he belonged to the Alliance military himself, more than the damn soldiers that stood guard around the compound Wade had built for them just outside New Orleans Lousiana to continue their research on the Lyran Rose and it's mythical properties, it's relations to water and the possibilities of use of its pollens being merged with wiring for mechanical craft.

David was struggling still with the mythological, he'd done it only once and he'd managed that with manipulation and trickery. He'd hypnotized Lady Farla, he'd done it a few times, without her knowledge. A parlor trick he'd learned in college to help him impress girls, he was very adept at doing it without her knowledge, he'd then ask her to translate, or more simply explain the Lyran myths that his scientific brain was having to much of a struggle understanding, as he tried to take his science and merge it with the mythologies that Wade had pointed him towards, was still pointing him towards.

He'd found one ancient myth in a tiny tiny book, Farla had brought him, saying she'd found it at the bottom of a very old box, in the very back of the library archives and she hoped it helped. It was the one that most closely matched the perimeters of what Wade had told him to look for, had told him he wanted him to duplicate with the machinery he building with the pollen-merged wiring - it was turning out to not be so simple though. The Lyran Rose was more than one pollen, it had many pollens, coiled together, it's petals held energies as well. The scientist in him had brought that into the equation and Wade had been exited but he still wanted David to find the myths, find them and merge them with the science.

David Early was trying but he'd thought Wade crazy. It felt like magic to him and magic wasn't real, but he had to try to do it or Wade would make him a mockery in his field, ruin his reputation and his world. Therefore, David had started hypnotizing Farla to better understand the folklore, the music of Lyra that they held so dear, almost as dear as the Rose itself. He had her read the myths, outloud and explain them. He'd then let her think, she'd just been in the labortory during boring guard duty the entire time like she was supposed to be doing.

It'd been fine, until he'd had her read the myth from the tiny tiny book, the one that matched one of Wade's myths almost exactly. She'd read it, explained and he'd left her in her hypnotized state and asked her to go through it more slowly. As he applied the myth to his science, because suddenly he'd seen science in myth, he understood that the myth was true and someone at some other point and known the energies located in the core and even the stem, and the petals of the flower, and how it could be accessed and then used to create power...

And she spoke and he worked, what happened had shocked them both. He'd been dumbfounded because it'd been magic, he had no other way to define what he'd done. He'd done something magical, it was all he could think. Occult science, he could never put it on his resume. The world would think him crazy. He'd been so shocked by it and lost in that thought he hadn't noticed that Farla's own shock at what had happened in front of her had someone knocked her out of her hypnotized state.

She gasped, he turned, she pointed and then she screamed, then she was running and running. He ran after her, but she turned on him, fighting him like the leader of the Guardians she was, fearsome and ruthless, the bruises had faded but he still felt the one on his throat that had bruised his vocal chords for weeks. He'd heard her mutter Arus, Princess Allura, must know.

And he couldn't allow that, it was far too dangerous, Princess Allura couldn't know, if she found out what he'd done, what Lady Farla saw, they'd know Wade was looking into the ancient technology that ran Voltron, that he didn't fear it like he claimed. It could lead to all sorts of investigations.

He had helped Wade sabotage the Lions, he was in too deep, Wade could use him as scapegoat, his career could not just be ruined, he could be made a pariah. The man that made it look like Voltron was a danger when it was not. He'd made her own people chase her down.

It was too bad she hadn't been killed.

He was thrilled though her mind was a muddle. He was sure it was due to the hypnotism she never knew about.

David sighed, the problem was try as he might to recreate the moment he and her together had made on Lyra, he couldn't. Something was wrong, he wasn't grasping something as he looked at the words on the page. His translations of the Ancient Lyra language was off, his ability to understand it wasn't strong enough. He sighed. He needed another mind like Farla's, someone poetically, someone who believed in myth and magic.

He was near New Orleans. How hard really would a young woman, with an easily manipulated mind be? The only issue would be teaching her the Ancient Lyran language. But he had some time, it would go faster if he hypnotized her for the teaching, then he could have her read the myth in it's original form and translate. It was worth a try... It was the best he could do.

Wade had given him two months on his own, anyway, then he was coming down to breath fire down Early's neck. Like it wasn't hot enough under his collar. Early sighed.