Some Desperate Glory

by Emily Tesh

“Why haven’t you defected already?” she said. “They killed our world,” Avi said. “The agoge’s here.” He ticked the answers off on his fingers, one, two. Then he tapped a third finger and said, “And—Command doesn’t know how much I know about how Gaea actually manages to function, but they know I know more than I should. You defect by refusing assignment, you know. They let you go because it’s before you’ve got anything of value to tell the majo: unassigned kids don’t know anything. Except I knew too much by the time I was fourteen.” “They wouldn’t let you leave,” Kyr said. It was a reasonable precaution. “It was made very clear to me on the day I got my assignment that if I tried,” Avi said, “they’d just shoot me.” “Why didn’t they shoot you anyway?” “Probably because I’m a genius,” Avi said. “Gaea’s got plenty of people like you. Good soldiers prepared to die for humanity. It doesn’t have anyone else like me.”

Great Hugo-worthy lines here! This reads like a cheesy 50's pulp! 😂😂😂

“I’ll let you decide,” Avi said. “We can call the emergency services in from Raingold. I’m in all the planetary networks here. You can’t move him, I can’t move him, we should absolutely not be where we are, they’ll come with doctors to help him and police to arrest us.” His eyes darted down to Mags and away again, fast. “And that’ll be it, Valkyr. For whatever you were planning here, which I’m guessing was random and fairly stupid, and for what I was planning, which was brilliant.

Still cheesy! But I guess the Hugo voters were nostalgic for 50's stuff. We still have a brilliant man and a stupid woman, though. So what if she isn't wearing a skirt and popping out of her blouse! She's STILL stupid muscle. Makes it "modern", I guess. If I want a smart woman, I have to read another book!