FTL-23...Faster Than Life.

Chapter 23

There is a difference between writing a report and then writing a paper on something. The reports come with forms and they want clear answers to questions posted in the forms to prompt you with events and things that were happening.

But to write a paper on something well especially that’s not about a topic that you’re learning about in training or classes.

Fifteen hundred plus years of civilian cut and paste and reference and link to culture did not prepare me for actually trying to sit down and to try and go through all the stuff that I was thinking when I had the idea to use the drones the way that I was doing and to take all that chaos and emotion and to turn it into a tactical paper.

I sigh and I rub my temples a little and I press the power button on my coffee mug and let the internal heat coil get it back up to temp. I lean back in the chair I’m in in the common mess and stretch and feel that pop in my spine from sitting bent over for too long and I pop my feet out of my shoes and do some toe curls.

The others are gone for a while now and we were treated to a bit of a victory meal after everything with some of the others that were directly involved.

It was nice too with us getting stuff from the officers mess which we can order but if you’re not an officer they charge you for the food from there and it’s fairly expensive but seeing as our regular meals are free it’s not that bad a thing usually something we treat ourselves to.

But like the watch commander said the pie was on him and the ship commander gave us credit to our meals from there too for a job well done.

I had pasta something called rigatoni with a meaty sauce and shave cheese of top and bread with garlic butter.

Honestly if I’m having pasta or what I’ve had the way it’s done here so far I like spaghetti better.

Home though, we had pasta home but like most fairly modern colonies it was machine made and set up in reheatable packages and it wasn’t really good, it wasn’t inedible but it was…

Well it’s shocking just how much food home was a lot like the MRE’s we have here for rations or worse actually. There was a plethora of stuff home that was flavored or drinks and there was a lot of re-formed or sequenced soys and other things like that.

Hand friendly fruits and vegetables were a price thing and usually upper middle class or better had that as a regular diet option.

But I liked the rigatoni, I liked the noodles more than the sauce, the sauce had too many herbs in it and my stomach if iffy with those since they’re not something that I’m used to eating.

But I had pie for my dessert on the watch commander’s cred balance and I had chocolate custard pie. And it’s kind of pudding but richer and it did have this skin on it from the egg? From that being baked thing. And I actually do enjoy chocolate right down to the stereotype.

It was good some soy-cloud on the top and I enjoyed it.

I get my soy-caf and I have a drink now that it’s re-heated and sort of pace a little or wander and stuff and look out one of the long commons windows out into space still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing that happened and I’m deep in thought when I’m approached by this girl and she has on a flight suit and she’s kind of unique looking which says a lot for here but dark skin more than a tan but not africagenic either and a strong nose which is surprising too in this day of mods and such and she had something modified because she’s sort of masculinized or something? I can tell she’s a she but she’s a she if her build was male with the exception of small breasts like a teenager, it’s a nice look actually athletic and strong.

Maybe that’s why she didn’t mod her nose to something “cuter”? Like I’m one to talk as I went in for just straight over conversion myself.

She has a Mohawk? Well it’s a thick lustrous strip of hair very dark and it’s sort of loose so it’s actually sort of sexy? Well maybe not exactly sexy but it’s not gelled so it’s loose and the rest of her head is smooth and there’s this very attractive look to the combination.

And she’s coming with a tray and a smile and two slices of pie?

“Erin? Erin Stone?”

“Yes lieutenant?” Okay it’s a little strange not to get called by my cadet status and everything but I’m still really a cadet even with the brevet attached.

“Liz Chavez, I’m…I’m…I just wanted to come over and thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“Uhm…yeah, I was out there in that mess and the stuff you did well I heard about it and I wanted to thank you for the help.”

“Thank you lieutenant but I was just doing my job.”

“And doing it really well and it’s not ever really your job yet.”

“I’m working on that lieutenant.”

And I think that she’s blushing a little, I mean she is but at the same time I’ve never been good with people or at least I wasn’t good with people in my old life. I move and offer her a seat. “Join me?”

“If you don’t mind…you looked like you were busy.”

“The watch commander want’s a technical paper on what I ended up doing and why and reducing what I did all into theory and practice.”

She grimaces a little and she takes a carbon foam plate off her tray. “I brought you a slice of pie.” She’s trying really hard now for an optimistic look on her face.

That makes me smile because it was sort of sheepish and she’s cute. I usually prefer men but I’m sort of open too and this was nice and sweet and a little embarrassing for me too.

“I would like another slice of pie ma’am.”

“Please call me Liz or Elizabeth.”

“Uhm I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.”

“It’s alright.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

She nods and sits and I get another chair and slide it over for myself. See like the Roman soldiers or the Greek ones of ancient old earth the military is okay with fraternizing, it encourages bonds between us all but there’s still some tread careful areas like when there’s such a difference in rank.

I think this is sort of compounded by if I’m reading her right and everything I think that I’m older than her.

And I’m looking at her and she’s blushing again so if she’d not younger than me she’s really very shy.

“I’m sure.” She says.

The pie is soy-nut and it’s good but thick and rich like soy-nut butter but like a cheesecake? It’s nutty and smooth but pretty sweet and it’s a good thing I drink my soy-caf black.

Yes, soy…soy is everywhere because it’s massively versatile and it’s a galactically stable crop so it’s literally just about everywhere and while we have real food here as some people call it I’m still used to what I know.

Oddly it’s a comfort food.

We sit and we eat and I let her look over what I have when she asks because another set of eyes never hurts with something like this and it’s also kind of good to get her perspective on things from her angle as she tells me what it was like to get the targeting feeds and to be able to hit the Tekker’s back.

And Elizabeth is smart too; it takes a lot of smarts to be a pilot to deal with all the sensors and all of the math calculations and just all the other stuff to do something so daring.

Then there’s us talking about the games…well she’s talking about the games and she’s looking at my sword.

“Is everything okay?”

“You’re really bladed aren’t you?”

I blush a little. “Yes, but I’m still incredibly green with it.”

“But you got it for duty that was above and beyond…I mean as a cadet.”

I shake my head. “It’s really not like that Liz.”

“You took out a Tekker hunter/slayer without armor and saved who knows how many lives.’

I look at her. “I survived, I survived and I was really lucky and too many good people didn’t.”

“It must have been terrifying?”

“At the time no, my brain was all in pure reptile brain fight mode since flight wasn’t an option. I wasn’t feel much right then in that moment and after…that’s when I freaked out, and still freak out about it all…I still have bad dreams.”

“Will you be alright tonight?”

I give her a look and she looks down and she bites her lip a little and she look back up at me.

“Is that an invitation?” I ask...my mouth’s a little dry. I’ve really never and yet at the same time there’s just. There’s just something that’s sweet about Liz…and honestly I’ve never had the whole experience of meeting someone young and having us…well not outside of the Sims and VR-life.

“It is.” She swallows.

I swallow too. “Let me log in where I’ll take you up on that.”

I close my eyes and link to my OBC and tag my I.D. code to hers and then she sort of surprises me by taking my hand and leading me away from the mess and towards quarters and I’m actually a little excited and at the same time a little relieved.

I was worried what after all of this would bring after all.