“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jeron asked, faintly bored.
“That he looked like you. Just… less cocky. You know, cleaner.”
Jeron smirked. “Sounds awful. Hope he grows out of it.”
Tamor pressed on. “No, seriously. Same eyes, same cheekbones. And that expression that says, ‘Don’t bother me, I’m working.’” He leaned closer. “I’m just saying—if you’ve got a secret brother, he’s here at our academy.”
“I’ve only got two sisters. Both from my mom’s second marriage,” Jeron said flatly this time, his tone losing its humor. “So no. No brothers. And definitely not here.”
A moment of silence fell between them. Not awkward—just the kind that happens when someone steps a bit too far. Tamor sensed it, raising his hands.
“Hey, fine. Anyone can be wrong. But seriously, if you saw him…”
“Maybe I’ll see him one day,” Jeron allowed, turning his gaze back to the bar.
Behind it, a navigation-year cadet was taking bets on who’d get drunk first, while two older boys argued over whether the T-85 had better thrust than the old X-wing model.
Music pounded, lights pulsed to the beat, and Jeron smiled. In this chaos, he knew his world. And he had a place in it.
The dining hall had its own rhythm.
Every day, at the same time, the doors opened, trays clattered, coffee dispensers hissed, and cadets shuffled along the line like starfighters in a hangar. First-years kept quiet, upper-years were loud. Tamor sat across from Jeron, chewing on something officially labeled a “vegetable wrap,” and gestured with his spoon.
“There he is,” he said after swallowing, nodding toward a table. “That’s the one I told you about. Mini-Jeron.”
Jeron only glanced up to roll his eyes—but his gaze caught and held.
Three tables away sat a freshman. His uniform was unnaturally neat—not just regulation, but meticulous. Shoulders tight, elbows tucked in. No gestures. No presence. Like one of those shadows you only notice at the last moment.
He ate slowly, head down. And then—as if by reflex—he looked up.
Green eyes.
Intense, guarded. The kind of look that says nothing but notices everything. And though it lasted barely a second, Jeron felt as if he’d been measured like a target in a simulator.
“Well?” Tamor asked, watching him like a hawk.
Jeron didn’t look away. He studied the sharp cheekbones, the curve of the nose, the quiet defiance in his posture.
“Looks a little… familiar,” he admitted slowly.
“Not a little,” Tamor grinned. “It’s like someone took you, deleted the charisma, added introversion, and shaved off two years.”
Jeron chuckled. “Thanks. I feel so flattered.”
“No, really—those eyes, that jaw. If I didn’t know you, I’d swear he’s your brother.”
Jeron pushed his tray aside and leaned back. “Telling you again. I have sisters. No brothers.”
He leaned in, spelling it out.
“Look, my father died when I was barely a year old. You know when he died—I grew up hearing where and how. The timeline doesn’t match at all. For it to be true, his ghost would have had to wander the galaxy making babies. And yes—he’s dead. Every year we bring flowers to his grave on Voran. No chance.”
Tamor laughed, but his gaze drifted one last time to the table where Kael Soria sat.
He shrugged. “Then either the galaxy recycles faces, or you’ve got a genetic twin in the lower year.”
“Or maybe he just chose the same haircut and has similarly shaped cheekbones.”
“And the same look when someone interrupts him at lunch?”
Jeron glanced back at the cadet. He was eating again, calmly, uninterested. If he’d overheard, he gave no sign.
“They say everyone’s got a double somewhere in the galaxy,” Jeron said, reaching for his glass.It could have been just a coincidence.
Jeron kept telling himself that—right up until the second time in three days he spotted the newcomer, Kael Soria. First in the dining hall, then in the hangar, moving almost soundlessly among the other cadets—never standing out, but never disappearing either. There was something about him. Not bad, just… unreadable.
And Jeron hated that.
It wasn’t the resemblance. It wasn’t even the look that mirrored something faint and unplaceable back at him. It was the fact that the kid was like a locked archive: unremarkable on the surface, but with something scratching from the inside hard enough to seep through the walls.
So Jeron went where he always went when something kept scratching at him.
The second floor, administration wing.
The department that officially knew nothing, but unofficially knew everything. Where Rinna Valen sat—a woman with a weakness for charming cadets and an even bigger one for those who knew when to say please.
“So… Cadet Soria, huh?” Rinna said, smiling in a way that fell somewhere between casual interest and too much afternoon caf. She clearly knew who Jeron meant. And she clearly enjoyed that it was him asking.
“Just a quick check,” Jeron said casually, leaning against the counter. “Upper-year curiosity. Want to know who’s growing under our noses.”
“Of course,” she replied, fingers already tapping the console. “Who could resist such selfless concern for one’s fellow cadets?”
Jeron’s smile deepened. He didn’t look in a hurry.
“Kael Soria. Accepted this year. First-year. Born on Silvarin, independent sector. Scholarship program. Rated as an exceptional candidate with high sensitivity to flight interfaces. No prior service record.”
“High sensitivity, huh?” Jeron raised an eyebrow. “So, in a sim, he’s like a starfighter that can smell a storm coming?”
“Not every pilot just has fast reflexes. Some hear the ship,” Rinna replied, looking at him a little differently now. “Like you.”
“Oh, I don’t hear the ship. The ship hears me.”
She laughed. “Parents: Caden and Jenna Soria. Locals, from what it seems. No records, no issues.”
“So—clean slate. Sounds boring.”
“Sometimes the boring ones are the most dangerous,” Rinna noted, studying him a second longer than propriety allowed.
She closed the terminal, signaling she’d said all she would. But Jeron didn’t move just yet.
“Any siblings?” he asked lightly, as if it were mere habit.
“Family day for you, huh?” she teased, but her gaze flicked back to the console. “Hm… record says one sister. Kessa Soria, fourteen. Local schoolgirl, enrolled at basic-level education in the town of Aurin, Silvarin.”
“Kessa,” Jeron repeated thoughtfully. “Sounds like someone who’s always taking your stuff and claiming you left it behind.”
“Thanks, Rinna.”
“Anytime you come with a polite question… and an even better smile.”
“And maybe one day, chocolate.”
“Bring two, and I’ll tell you which sector his dorm’s in.”
Jeron laughed, walking away with his hands in his pockets. Kael Soria. Eighteen. From a small planet, with a vast quiet in his eyes.
But Jeron wasn’t the only one watching.
Kael had noticed him almost immediately—at first, just another familiar face drifting through the academy halls like a fighter without a flight plan. But this one was different.
Not because of his laugh—though he laughed often, and loudly.
Not because of the way he always stood slightly askew, as if never fully trusting the floor to stay in place.
No—it was something… more familiar. Mirrored.
He looked like him.
Not exactly. His hair was darker. His movements were looser, as if life had been spent being invited in rather than having doors shut in his face.
But that face. The jawline. The way he looked at you—not directly, and yet somehow right through you.
And then one night, heading back from the library, Kael found himself in a cramped lift with a tipsy second-year who smelled of revnog and sarcasm.
“Hey, rookie. You know you kinda look like Jeron Andor?”
Kael only frowned slightly. “Who?”
“Jeron. Third-year. Flight lead, sim champion, cadet heartthrob. The academy’s golden boy.”
A pause.
“Something in the cheekbones. But he’s, you know… louder.”
Kael said nothing.
Just stepped out on his floor.
But afterward, when he caught his reflection, he lingered a moment longer.
It started quietly.
First, one first-year sim record—a course Jeron had once run penalty-free in eight minutes and nine seconds.
Now the board read: 8:06 — K. Soria.
“Three seconds,” Tamor noted when they spotted it. “Doesn’t mean anything.”
Jeron shrugged. “Of course not. That’s a beginner’s course.”
A week later, his record in the “Asteroid Belt – Basic” maneuver test was gone. The next day, so was his emergency landing time under simulated damage.
“That’s the third,” Tamor observed as they passed the board.
“All first-year records,” Jeron said, scanning the numbers.
But a few days later, K. Soria had posted a new best time in “Blind Jump”—an advanced course for third-years. Now that was a different league.
“You realize that’s an attack on your legacy,” Tamor teased, while Jeron stared at the board, wondering if it might be easier to just kidnap Kael and lock him in the spare parts storage.
“It’s not an attack,” Jeron said slowly. “It’s a war.”
