George Gradin

## Family Members

**wife**: Valeska Orlova

The End, and the New Beginning

## Biography

### Personality and Characteristics

Jarra devised a system to describe Gradin's mood while he was teaching her to fly.

* DEFCON 4, resigned grumpiness
* DEFCON 3, irritated grumpiness
* DEFCON 2, aggressive grumpiness
* DEFCON 1, quitting his job and stop teaching Jarra how to fly a plane.

### Early years

Gradin had no interest in studying anything after he left next step, so along with a friend they decided to live off the stipend that Hospital Earth gave them. They also decided that each day they would break one of the rules that they had had to live under during their years at Next Step.

So one day, being a bit short of credits, he and his friend while a bit powered up, decided to go for a walk on the outside of the safety fence near their settlement.

They encountered a pack of wolves, luckily while near some climbable trees which they quickly scampered up.

While in the trees they called for help and a pilot flew a plane to rescue them. It was on the journey back from being rescued that Gradin decided that is what he wanted to do, be a pilot. He loves flying and is one of the best pilots around, but he hates history. He claims that he only rescues people because their gratitude is great for his ego. He usually makes anyone he rescues spend hours thanking him and complementing him on his piloting skills.

At one point, Jarra wonders if he is really that egotistical or if it is his way of trying to get the archaeologists to be more careful so that they won't need rescuing. She never decides what the answer is.

## Summary

### Earth and Fire

During the Novella *Earth and Fire* Gradin reluctantly agrees to teach Jarra how to fly. While on their second lesson he is notified that there is a forest fire near the Athens ruins so he takes Jarra with him and they go off to fight the fire and rescue another pilot when her plane is damaged.

### Earth and Air

Jarra's pilot training continues in *Earth and Air* but because of Gradin's propensity to ignore regulations causes problems where they end up by not allowing him to teach any longer. Of course Jarra is upset as this is her only chance to get a pilots license for years if ever so she yells at him. He calls in Valeska to help fix everything.

Valeska has her own agenda so she agrees and ends up by fixing everything so Gradin can continue to give Jarra lessons. Valeska wrangles it around in such away that she has to accompany Jarra on the lessons.

It is during one of these lessons that Valeska tells Gradin that she will agree to marry him, based on a proposal that he had made 30 years before. Gradin is rather stunned by that and tells Valeska he isn't going to marry her because she only ever wanted a term of 10 years for a marriage and Gradin didn't believe in term limits on marriage. She said that she changed her mind now that she had retired from leading Earth 1.

Than there is a radiation spike across New York Fringe and everyone is evacuated. Gradin is flying during that time so he sets his plane to transmit the sensor's readings to New York Main, sets the plan to fly into the hot spot and than jumps from it. This results in the major medical units getting the information on the type of radiation sooner than they would have normally so everyone was treated quickly. But Gradin was held up due to his late arrival at a major medical emergency unit. When he finally escapes he meets up with Valeska and Jarra and finally agrees to marry Valeska as long as they do it right then without any ceremony just register their marriage.

### The End, and the New Beginning

While Jarra is up on the 30th Floor during her sky-scrapper training, she learns about the imminent attack and that George Gradin has just come in through the Dig Site fright portal for a rescue mission. When Jarra hears that she is immediately skeptical and ask Dig Site command to pass on her best wishes. When she hears the response she knows that it isn't Gradin that came in via the freight portal but probably the attacker.

Prior to the Next-of-Kin memorial service, Jarra discovers that Valeska and Gradin are working with the Military in training some of their officers in archaeology rescue and helping to design new tools.

## References

1. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Earth and Air. Chapter 23. Kindle Edition.
2. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Earth and Air. Chapter 6. Kindle Edition.