FTL…

Faster Than Light…

Faster Than Life…

It’s a saying a parable of sorts from the old days. It used to be you’d be dead and gone and your great grand kids would be the ones arriving to where you used to be heading. Then came the great invention of FTL space flight. The basic theory of it requires the ship involved to have a man made micro-singularity as the engine core. It creates its own gravity and when you jump it’s using a particle beam to link it to another gravity well or a star and your ship is attracted to the larger field.

People used to think that you couldn’t go faster than light but a black hole pulls light in so that’s like a catch 202 in the theory. The PTP or Point to Point travel required things to be shielded. You had to or when you crossed the light speed threshold you broke apart, became energy, so part of that gravity force that comes off the core is what holds you together. It’s another reason that you need a singularity; the power to hold things together is well you know what I mean.

So know you can go if you can afford to on a FTL ship and jump to other stars and do it well within your own life spans. You never feel it because the jump does this kind of time freeze or slow down inside a jump, but you can take anywhere from hours to weeks or even months according to GST. Galactic Standard Time. The closer you are to your jump point the faster you go so it’s all relative?

Is all of this safe? Yes? No? I’m not sure. The shielding keeps us from getting shredded by debris because we’re quantumly dense or something. But the thing is, coming out of jump. That you gotta do outside the solar system or you get snagged by the gravity well and you either get snagged by the gravity well and could damage your ship, or hit a well full of debris, or slam into the star. Not counting all the ones who end up hitting each other coming out of the jump but that’s all pretty rare. But it’s not just flying around either.

Bad and strange things are said to happen though if the shielding fails, or there’s a leak. You see there are these particles out there that we don’t know much about. Some of them get called Chronotons and other trippy head case names but what mankind knows so far is that getting exposed to this energy changes you. Random body parts getting exposed often leads to that part rapidly aging, or mutating like the cellular evolution went sideways or that it just sped up. There a fundamentalists that point to this as a sign than man was not to break god’s laws. “Let there be light.” Was to be taken literally, Keep off the grass, don’t proceed beyond this point, don’t touch the damned apple.

We’re Humanity do you think we’d ever listen?

And with that aplomb we hit the stars from our home system of Earth and hadn’t really looked back.

***

My alarm program woke me up buzzing my nervous system with neuro-stim sensations that woke me out of REM sleep. I opened my eyes and yawned still shaking out the haze of sleep as my implants were working overtime.

It’s the 43rd century and everyone is implanted. Just about anyone from civilization has an OBC or On-Body- Computer. It’s like how our ancestors used to use watches and phones and all that other stuff. It’s hooked through your brain by nano-connections and it lets you function as a member of normal society. It regulates the production of chemicals and hormones through you body to help you do stuff like control your breathing and heart rate, tells you when you’re getting sick and lets you do all sorts of computing functions.

You might think that it seems distracting but it’s not. You click thinks off as they appear in your visual perceptions and it’s almost autonomic for most of it. Like recognizing a shape or a color. Sending or receiving messages are just like thoughts, they’re bursts of information that you just get used to dealing with.

Human life span is now close to two hundred years, most organs get replaced by cloned ones except for the brain. All they can do is give you stem boosters after you hit one twenty or so the OBC’s actually help with cognitive functions well past the old human life spans.

And I’m being boring…Sorry I’m still not used to a narration about anything really I’m no Sim-Sense star/actor.

I guess what’s the point of this? Well you see it started like this…

Like I said I woke up at my preset time and did my daily routine and was getting myself some food, soy-bacon and synth-milk, perfect- egg, and then brushed my teeth. I set off jogging trying to work my way up to the requirements needed for starship duty. You had to be in a certain level of conditioning to get duty on a ship and being sedentary is a bit of an issue with cyber technology letting you live in your head so much. Or if you’ve grown up in a certain environment, the Colonies of United Humanities or the Colonial Union for short have certain requirements for anyone to be at while in service, if you’re not “Ship-Shape” then you’re a danger to the others around you.

I’ve really had enough of Arcadia.

Don’t get me wrong this is a beautiful place and I’ve net-jumped on Sim-Sense trips to places all over the colonies and Sim-worlds too with friends but there’s nothing like reality. Imagine eating a big juicy steak now compare that to actually having the steak.

See that’s the thing, I’m fifty three, still young but at the same time I’ve never really, really lived. Never had a physical relationship, never been off planet, hell never been physically off the continent.

I want to live, I want to eat steak.

I’m nearly there to the readiness levels to go to Fleet and enter one of the programs there. I’m good at Math and physics being touched with altered temporal and physical reality conformation. Aspergers they used to call it but now a days it’s actually seen as an advanced aptitude in your perceptual focus. We see the world in a way that others aren’t able to, most people get brain tied over the though of the math that goes into actually making the magnetic counter sheer event that creates a force field, us we’ll get fascinated by the math and the fact it was used to make the pretty shiny. Once socially awkward we’re more mainstream now with the OBC’s able to transmit our thoughts into transmissions we can be just like anyone else.

Actually we’re in high demand because of our skill-sets we often find ourselves drawn to. Me…I’m looking to actually get into navigation and really getting into fourth dimensional mathematics and using it to plot courses and move fifty thousand tones through space and bending time.

I run my route from my apartment and over the paved jogging paths and I’m tuned into a favorite selection of music that I’ve plotted out and I run, I’m doing quite good actually with the entire work out plan, there’s something to be said about actual physical activity. Oh I can get an endorphin rush from my system but it’s the aches and pains and the feeling of my body changing getting into a level of fitness that’s so addicting. Plus I’m doing something.

There’s so much we don’t do in the everyday because well…machines do it for us.

There’s about twenty percent of the population that really do anything. These are mostly the religious types though. Most of them don’t ascribe to the usage of cyberware. In fact religion is one of the few things that good clean logic hasn’t been able to erase.

The hard core ones actually are openly hostile to body-mod’d people of any kind and are against still a whole host of things. In fact there’s a planet or group of planets out there colonized with every different sect or faith some people can think of. They start wars and border and trade disputes and are still universal pains in the ass.

Arcadia is a very conservative world where the faithful have been here since it was colonized, we’re a mostly agricultural planet and have actual limits on body modification and cybernetics. A good example is me. I’ve been trapped in the pretty much straight male for that I was born in and despite the fact that being transgendered isn’t seen as anything more than a medical condition that can be re-wired by the right neuro-mapping when you get you OBC put in and hence “Cured” the medical need is ignored if you don’t want then messing with who you really are. The fact that I didn’t want them to rewire my brain is actually seen as freakish by people. I mean who would want to be like that or gay or whatever…thus this is why I’ve never told anyone just who the real me is. Aaron Stone is actually Erin Stone and always will be.

But when you join the fleet they will work with you to become the best you that you can be. As long as you fit the bill to do the job they don’t care about “Medical” issues.

My family is all for me leaving home and them because having a son who chooses to be a deviant is embarrassing for them.

Like the way some towns and regions used to be like this, so is my home colony. A close minded rinky dink mud ball of people who don’t want different in their lives. I’m just glad it’s not some of the really bad places where they’ll make you conform. But this is really just bad enough that it’s been slowly killing me for the last twenty years.

I spend most of the week doing that. Like I said I’m nearly at that point where leaving is becoming a reality. I work out, mostly running and swimming there’s a routine I have where I collect metal balls from the bottom of the pool. Holding my breath and swimming underwater are recommended in several net-tomes for getting ready for zero gravity. I’m linked up to several VR classes I do work outs in VR with other people instead of going to a gym which we don’t have, these are Pilates, Aerobics, Yoga, Tai-Chi all of them that we’re really doing and socializing in these classes. But I’m actually doing the exercises even though I’m wearing an avatar that’s female. I’m not beautiful here, not blushing hot thing just an extrapolated skin of what I’d look like based on my own bio-data and my family tendencies.

Light brown hair that I keep at regulation length, I’ve got dimples that are a tad too big for my personal tastes because they make me think I look chubby or a little so when I smile and freckles. My eyes are my only vanity, I’ve always wanted to have green eyes and here I do. B-Cup Breasts, a bit of a big butt because I’ve got big hips like this. It’s all a Sim though because when I move I can’t really feel the same things, the right things.

I give away or sell or ship away most of the things in my apartment and sell my lease as well and put the final down payments on a set of cottage domes out in lake country. I meet a few friends that are real people in town one last time and stop by the family house to say my farewells.

I rode my bicycle there. It’s a new vice for me. In a world of very good public transportation and a few personal vehicles bikes are a rare thing. It’s not efficient to get off your ass and actually do something. I attract a few stares as I pedal my way through the gently rolling streets and past all the neo-fiber homes with the solar siding and solar windows and all molded and designed to look like very pale tones but very nice homes with turreted windows and lovely yards and decks and everything looking just…well it is pretty much machine ordered. Yes you’re external maintenance bot keeps everything cut trimmed and pruned just so.

I grew up here, there’s almost no children playing just the really young ones out with their nurses or the rare mother making sure that the children get to perform their mandatory exercises so they develop normally and can be bust little clones just like everyone else here. I know I’m used to it, or I should be used to it but it’s a little creepy.

I pull into the house and set the kick stand of the bike and head up the walk smiling at bit at the calorie count and burn rate percentage. I walk up to the door and it doesn’t open. I send a net-signal with my ID to the house; I get dumped to the junk mail folder as an unregistered user.

Nice, really nice apparently they erased me from the family systems. My family unfriended me…Lovely.

I knock. I have to because we don’t use doorbells any more and the house isn’t recognizing my code.

I knock until I get an answer. My mother opens the door and looks at me. She’s got that fed up but uptight not impressed look. “Aaron.”

“Hey Mom, can I come in/”

“Why?”

“I’m leaving soon for the Fleet. I thought it would be nice if we spent some time together before I left. I mean I don’t know how long it’ll be before I come home again.”

“But You won’t be coming back will you? You’re gallivanting off to god knows were and you’re going to get changed while you’re out there with them.”

“Mom I’m still going to be me. I told you that before. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“You keep letting your illness do the talking for you Aaron. You could have had that disease in you fester away and causing all sorts of embarrassment for us. You should have just started to undergo the remapping and we’d never have had to live down the fact that our child is proud to be sick and an aberration.”

“Mom…I’m not sick! Why can’t you get if I let them do that to me that’d be the same thing as if I committed suicide. That’s against the rules in your bible isn’t it?”

“Aaron do not bring our faith into this after what you had the nerve to do.”

Yeah, my family and several hundred others attend a Sim-Service where the bible can be seen and explored in VR detail and that the faithful can gather without leaving their homes for all of the varied services and church events. I hadn’t logged in for a few years and when I finally went I went as My Avatar. Apparently it hadn’t gone over well with the Virt-Flock. I’ve been considered a pariah since.

“The house of the lord is the house of the lord mom even if it’s in virtual space, I went as myself and it’s not my fault that you and they were so small and hard hearted that you couldn’t empathize with my side of things.”

“You’re side of things is to be something you’re not supposed to be.”

“Mom there’s long held genetic evidence of transgenderism and gender having genetic components; I was just being myself as god made me.”

“You could have had the remapping done Son; with that nonsense out of your mind you could have undergone the gene-treatments to fix your disorder.”

“How is that any different than me getting myself fixed to fit the me inside of myself?!”

I’m getting upset and tears are leaking out now and I hate this. I hate that she just refuses to see me.

“It’s hugely different, when you were born you were born a boy, you’re an XY child and you have a disorder that makes you think that you’re something that you are not supposed to be. You are blatantly doing this, you glorify in causing this family embarrassment and pain. Why can’t you be more like your sister?”

“That’s the point! I want to be like my sister!”

“Good then you’ll come to your senses and get the remapping done like she did when she started to have that unnatural attraction to other women.”

“Dammit mom, Kelly practically killed herself! She erased who she was supposed to be because she was scared of being different!”

“Your sister is a successful well adjusted happily married you woman with a happy husband and six children.”

“Aargh! Goddammit! You’re fucking hopeless!”

My father moves the door open farther and he gives me this stare. “Aaron.”

“Dad.”

“You here to give up on this thing you’re going to do?”

“No sir.”

“I’ll not have a Deviant in this family. You’re hurting all of us son, just stop it before it’s too late.”

“Dad…Dad why can’t you see that this is the me that I’m going to become, the me that I’m supposed to be and…”

He closes the door in my face and I get a net-flash from the house’s home security sensors that I’m now listed as an unwanted visitor and that I have three minutes to vacate the property before the police are called to enforce trespassing laws on me.

It’s the same thing at my sister Lena, the one who changed herself and my brothers Nick and Danny I flash on trespassing alerts as soon as I step onto their property. I’ve always been the black sheep of the family but this hurts.

Being the girl I am I cycled home crying, making a right proper scene of myself to the neighbors if they’d care to look or see me which they don’t. Now a day’s people have more an excuse than ever to not interact. I throw myself down on my bed and cry myself to sleep, hell I stayed in bed all day long the next day mourning my life and drowning in loss.

It’s my bodily needs that got me up and after a shower and the last bit of food is eaten and the rest put in the garbage I pack everything up and order a transport to take my stuff to my new home out in Lake country.

It’s the first time I’ve ever been here and it’s a tiny village that’s up in the hills with faux stone molded to an old mining hole that had a spring feeding the area. So there’s steps going into the water and it’s like if you crossed a quarry lake with a swimming pool. There’s willows and evergreens and cedars everywhere and the actual town is like hundreds of tiny man made islands like docks if streets were the docks and your cottage is usually on an island block with others. If you’re rich you can get your own island with a proper house on it or like me get a dome cluster that’s pretty cheaply made.

It’s a prefab resin dome with built in insulation and a ceramic inside finish, the outside is solar film and they’re connected to each other by a prefab arch-way tube. You order the windows, and a story is usually a ring tube just as prefab as everything else. I look at mine when I get there. Two stories in the central dome, and three connected domes and an entry arch. Mine’s a used home 5th owner and thus it’s affordable. I have to unlock the door with a pulse but there’s no automation built into the house. I smile at having to just do things for myself. First floor is the living room and the master bedroom is upstairs, there’s the kitchen dome and one for laundry and the last one is for storage. One bathroom upstairs non-automated and really basic appliances. Stove, Chiller, Washer-Dryer combo, that’s it basic shelves and cupboards and power outlets. We used to go to these things to rough it. Well we went here once. Everyone in the family hated it and I loved it. I unpack and query the Lake-Net and get directions to the store. I walk there instead of biking there just to get a feel for the place. It’s strange with a few friendly nods from just people as I walk through the area and even see some kids swimming and playing in the water. Even some gardening being done. People come here to get away from it all here, or live a little closer to real life than other people do.

In the ancient days this would be considered very bohemian. It’s a very strange place. It’s kind of scary too. I’m a lot of things but everyone here is loud and extroverted. Mixed company eating places and the shops are small here and cramped so you get in the personal space of other people. Getting the cleaning supplies is actually trying for me with getting around the place and the people and the lines at the cash? They use real money here which means there’s unwired people here. I’ve never met someone who’s unwired before.

I get home and wash down my house and scrub it clean and set out sent pots of citrus peel and get my bed unpacked but without owning any real tools I sleep on the cushioning. Exhausted from the efforts.

The next day is packing everything up and locking my place up and call a transport to take me to the capitol city of Selene.

Selene is nice, it’s also terra-sculpted with it being carved out of the small mountains that go on in the central plains of the continent. It’s built in tiers and is close to seventy miles long with most of it carved out once for mining. Now you can’t really see much of the mountains for the buildings it’s very bust and our version of a mega city even if there’s only four million people living here. Industries however compete for living space and mostly for shuttle docks and the docking bays for light starcraft and other things like the Colonial Union military base.

I have a recruiting appointment.

I’m surprised at the people I see here. Tough capable looking soldiers and even the clerks and other personnel here are so self assured, capable and armed. We’re given pads by this buxom blonde in a uniform with a much shorter skirt than I thought they’d allow. Hell she looks like she came out of a porn-Sim-sense experience. Her patches say she’s a morale officer and a companion…I’ve heard of companions, they say that the military and others use them to pleasure the crews. The others there in the room with me are staring too. One rather awkwardly built young man in his twenties maybe raises his hand. She stops. “Yes recruit?”

“Yer ah Companion right Ma’am?”

“Yes, I’m a companion recruit why are you interested in becoming one?”
“Naw Ma’am I’m not sure thet I could be an Army hooker Ma’am. No offence.” He ducked his head turning red. “Ahm, sorry thet didn’t come out right.”

She smiled at him and us. “I’m a companion, I’m also by regulation a trained councilor, and rated for a lot of other things. Yes the rumors are true we do sleep with crewmen and women but it’s a mutual thing, sex and intimacy are tools I use in my job to get close to my charges. Sometimes it’s just a date, someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on. Lots of things.”

He’s still staring at her as we all sort of are. Then he nods. “They ain’t gonna make me be one are they?”

“No recruit, being a companion is voluntary only then you still have to pass a psyche eval.”

I cough then quietly ask. “Psyche eval?”

She smiles at me and nods. “As a companion you have to have this emotional flexibility to connect with a lot of people but also to have enough integrity to never abuse the trust that people have placed in you.”

“Sounds hard, sounds so strange.”

“It’s the most rewarding career I’ve ever had, or ever will.” Her smile is so real and true it’s like a sensory balm. I’ve never met someone so good at putting anyone, everyone at ease. As we fill out our forms, both actual hard copy and on a data-pad. No network connections are here. It’s quiet in our heads and I can see it bugging some people. Like a city person out in the country.

I fill out my forms and there’s things that I’d never expected in there. Like not just changing my sex but there’s stuff like requisitions for Amazon class that’s for combat girls and Futanari were you’re female but they make a sheath for your male parts that you can turn on/off that parts arousal connections so if you want to you can get a hard-on that slides out of a internal pouch to have that kind of sex. It’s an accepted deviation.

Deviants, real deviants are those who use bio-ware and cybernetics to bizarrely modify your body. Claws, tails, vestigial wings, horns are all some of the stuff seen in some of the extreme cases. In many cases it’s a life-style, a fetish thing and in some colonies it’s a way of life. It’s what my parents are accusing me of becoming. I’m not into any of that. And neither is the military. There’s a whole list of deviations you can’t have already or get. If it might get into the way of others or working on a ship then they nix it.

I just sign on for the gender change, a basic gene-shift…basic yeah right. I select a target breast size and the two deviations I say yes to are the functioning reproductive system and the mandatory low-light eyes with polarization required for fleet. You need that in case the power goes down to see in the darkness and there’s this shade of almost gem like emerald green I check off for a deviation in color. The rest is courses that I’ll have to take to work as a Navigator and it’s a lot of stuff. Sciences and piloting, basic military training and all sorts of stuff including languages I‘ll have to know and Stellar geography as well as emergency medical and some engineering courses it’ll take years for me to go through the training. It takes hours and my hand cramped up three times and the Officer leans down and presses and writes down on both my forms a penmanship requirement before smiling at me.

“Sorry Erin, your real life writing skills really suck.”

I nod. But offer her this shy smile. She used my real name. She does that for others and I notice out of the forty people here there’s seven being addressed by their real girl names ant two females getting addressed by their real boy names. There’s this look as we notice each other that sort of just say’s I’m not alone?! There’s some wet eyes and there’s smiles too.

My hands are shaking with adrenaline as I sign the final forms and they’re collected by other personnel. I’m called to a line and a nurse with the other transformees where we head off to a shuttle bay.

We’re all excited and scared as we’re hooked to the sleep beds so we go into suspended animation trance for the trip to the Jump ship. That’ll take all of new recruits to Union-1 the training headquarters planetary system for the Colonial Fleet.

I drift off feeling free and alive and scared at the hugest step I’ll ever take.

FTL-2... Faster Than Life.

Chapter 2

I’ve never been in Suspension before…I wake in pain, not pain, pain but this hurt, my lungs aren’t happy with the change in my breathing or the adjustment to room temperature. My skin prickles with waking sensations pins and needles like the entire surface was asleep and there’s dry mouth and a nasty headache.

“Good morning cadets, please get your belongings and get ready to transfer to the Apollo.”

We fall, shuffle and crawl out of the bed tubes we’re in. Sleep tubes are like coffins with this soft memory mattress stuff and the bio-connections. They slide into the walls like we’re rifles in a rack. I’m bare foot like the others in this simple jumpsuit that’s a light blue/grey and it feels strange. The gravity isn’t like home. I mean I don’t feel heavier or lighter but it’s just off.

Another thing they don’t tell you. That you can feel always when you’re in AG. It actually doesn’t feel like anything that I can place. It’s just strange. And that space ships are cooler places than we think.

We hang around as a group until we are met by thing tall lanky girl in a deep navy jacket with a lot of pockets and a uniform/jumpsuit of the same color but with this shiny, glossy grey pin striping and brocaded cuffs and hems it looks good on her. Did I mention tall? Six feet plus but no Amazon type not this girl, no she’s all legs, with a long torso and despite her lankiness she glides and has this aura of confidence coming off of her. “Morning Conversions and welcome to the Apollo, I’m your handler Sergeant Svenko. If you’re all ready I’d like to get you all set up and started into conversion before we Jump into the milk run. Any questions?”

I raise my hand. “Yes Cadet Stone?” she queries me verbally? Oh…there’s no network here than we/I can access…that’s creepy….it’s too quiet in my brain.

“Uhm, I’ve got a couple actually.” I flush as others are staring at me. I’m not used to the openness of the social situation. People get to be solitary in this age, we’re all a little socially awkward. I’m getting stares for being so forward.

“Go ahead Stone, now’s the time to ask.” She looks at me in an odd measuring way.

“Okay…Are we getting uhm, converted here on this ship?”

“Yes, we’ll be spending a lot of time here on the ship as we make our rounds to pick up. It’s more efficient to have you cadets ready for your training.” She raises an eyebrow in my direction.

“Okay, you said we’re on a milk run? What’s that?”

“It’s an ancient slang term. Milk used to be delivered to homes and it was all over the place travel wise as the delivered the milk. We’re doing the same thing hitting each colony system until we’re troop and supply full before heading out to Grail.”

“Grail?”

“Headquarters for Colonial Naval training. Anything else?” she smiles as she asks.

“Uhm just one more. Why’s the Net so quiet?”

“You’re not in a civilian access zone anymore, you’re not ranked high enough to gain access to higher functions and you’re not on liberty so no public net access. It’s for a reason…” She says holding a hand up stalling me and a couple of others from commenting. I guess I’m not the only one getting freaked by the quiet in our heads. “You are here to train; the lives you’ve led are no preparation for the lives you’ve signed on for. You’re all going to live new lives and be studying, training and all of you are going to need all the attention you can spare for that and that alone. Any more questions?”

I shook my head no and several others did too. Some look upset by this; some look like they don’t know what to do. I’m scared and excited by the idea of being that challenged by what I’m going to be living that I won’t need the Net.

“Alright then, let’s get your belongings stowed and get you to medical.”

***

It’s a much bigger ship than I thought. The Apollo is just over two kilometers long and is just over two hundred meters wide on most decks and there are twenty six decks give or take the room taken up by the various cargo holds and hangars and such. There’s not a lot of transports inside of the ship like you’d seen on luxury cruisers. No motorwalks or even a wheeled transport used for tours. Not for us at least. I’m actually feeling the exertion by the time we get to the locker area and there are several far worse off than me. I exercised myself and dieted down to fit the requirements, I’d lived a sedentary lifestyle as an engineer before this and did most of my spec and design work in my head for years and years. Apparently others who hadn’t had my weight challenges are in just as bad of shape as when I started. The Sergeant barely has a pleasant glow to her.

It’s really anti climatic once we’re taken into the medical and conversion wing where everything is going to take place. We’re injected with these clean cells, cloned versions of what they used to call stem cells. Then we’re fed these supplement shakes and pills until we feel really full. That’s when it gets worse we’re hooked into the most embarrassing thing like cybernetic underwear that has a tube thingy that goes up…you know for waste removal and another sheath like thing too and it’s all hooked to this padded plastic like diaper like thing and you feel…it’s embarrassing and humiliating and I haven’t been naked in front of anyone for so long and yeah they’re just doing their jobs but…Okay, it’s all new and scary and I cry a bit. I cry when they cut my hair and shave it down until it’s nearly nothing. My long hair was one of the only girl things that I had for myself. Yes men home have long hair but most don’t, to me it was a personal thing. Part of my feminine psyche.

Then comes the worst part. They inject you with a sedative and a local as they fit you with the breathing and feeding tubes. You kind of don’t feel it and they use some kind of drug that shuts down your gag reflex a lot but you still do, because it’s in your head. It’s all psychological but it still is horrible as they keep sliding it down and tubes go down your throat and you want to scream, gag, and fight it just on instinct but you can’t because you’re too drugged.

Then they lower you into another coffin tube and it begins to fill with this watery liquid that is a lot more like that congealed stuff in a can of ham than anything else. There was this horrible drugged unable to fight your way free claustrophobic moment before you’re totally immersed and then you drift away into the darkness.

***
Net-Space opens up while I’m under. It’s all stuff for training. Military protocols being taught to us, ranks, insignias, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, French the mother languages of the most prolific of human ethnic types I already know Americana or what’s descended from North American English. There’s a lot just getting us all up to speed just barely. Then there’s tests. Psyche tests, aptitude tests. But there’s a lot of just restful darkness and dreams.

I have a lot of pre-natal in the womb dreams. Warm and peaceful, the lull of the sound of a heartbeat.

When I’m woken up it’s as traumatic as child birth, as being reborn.

The slime is sucked away as stims flood me waking me up and the doors pop and I’m hit by the unholy cold of the ships standard temperature mixing with new skin and lower body mass and being naked and wet. Hands you’re/I’m not expecting are hauling me out of the tube and Pulling the tubes out of my throat and nose causing me to cry out and gag and cough all at the same time and getting the tubes getting pulled out of other places…I’m acutely aware of something being pulled from my vagina even though I’m not able to articulate it. I’d be throwing up if there was anything inside of myself.

The few minutes it happens feel like a few hours and I’m trying to get a hold of myself as there’s people in scrubs spraying me clean of the goop with hot water and some kind of soap. The other girls in my section of the medical area are freaking out too. Close to thirty of us, all like me. Newly remade boys who always should have been girls. There’s these moments in this freaky hell like moment when we lock eyes with each other and there’s this bond there forming, we’ll always get each other, we’ve gone through this together.

Today’s the day I have sisters. We have sisters.

A Corporal comes in with a bunch of other female privates pushing carts. “Attention Ladies!” we all snap to the response Net ingrained into us during conversion. My body is so…It feels right but so not what even my sim-avatars had been like. The water’s dripping off of my breasts and I’m cold and gooseflesh is rising on my skin and my nipples are hardening from the cold air, the grating to let the stuff sloughed off of us is hard on my bare feet. I can feel gravity touching and effecting my new form utterly differently than I could picture.

She walks in front of us. “I’m Corporal Stillwater, and you’re mine for the foreseeable future ladies. I know you’re feeling all messed up right now but you’re in the forces now so your times ours not yours. To your right there’s a door, go through it and shower and line up in the locker room adjoining it you’ve got twenty minutes….Go!”

We bustle into the showers and are rewarded by decent smelling soap and hot water and wash sudsing up and we’re all a chatter about how everything looks and feels and we’re all a little high on the whole thing. I feel it too, there’s this sexy, slinky, rightness to not having what I shouldn’t. To feeling hot soapy water running off my body and everything is intoxicating.

I’m surprised at myself as I dry off with the shammy towels and comb my hair back. I’m shorter, from five foot ten inches to five foot six. I’ve lost a ton of weight too from one hundred and seventy pounds to one hundred and thirty two pounds according to my OBC. My breasts are a generous B cup and I’ve a tiny waist and instead of my light brown hair from my sim-avatar I’ve got the slightly wavy, tumbly jet black locks that I’ve seen in pics of my paternal great grandmother, long lashes and these emerald green eyes that are bio-engineered but just scream Me, Erin to my soul. My nipples are smaller than I thought they’d be and a dusty rose kind of tone like my lips about the only thing I got right are my hips, I’ve got a nice bum but I’ve got these flaring away from me hips like a belly dancer from those old vids and sims you can find. They’re not huge, but there’s real curve there to this part of me….oh and my dimples are close. I’m sort of right in this spot between being sexy, beautiful, and cute. Really leaning more to being cute I guess. I’m more than good with it though, I’m actually right there in the average of the rest of the girls there with me. There’s none that are ugly or homely but most are on the better, cuter side of average like myself. There’s just a few beauties three out of the thirty of us.

Jesika whose Arabic looking but tall and lithe at six foot one inch and model thing with the entire model look. Her modified eyes are an icy blue that just sets off her cinnamon like rest of her. She’s quiet and says little and keeps staring at herself in the mirror like she really didn’t expect this.

Sunshine is this tall blonde with big full breasts and she looks like a sun goddess and she’s got this warmth that comes off of her like her name. She’s already talking and laughing and making friends and had been washing backs and helping to dry hair like this bubbly friend that’s happy but not ditzy. I love her big deep soulful coffee brown eyes. If there’s a girl who might fit the whole companion thing it’d be Sunshine.

And then there’s Anna, a lot like Jesika but she’s already getting this inkling in her eyes of knowing she’s beautiful. Anna is an ice princess though, pale platinum blonde hair, tall, thin, gorgeous. It’s strange seeing her already getting how different she is than the rest of us.

There’s a couple of other that stand out to me. Nelle, who went almost Celtic mythos Irish with the wavy red hair and a body covered in freckles. Literally covered in them like she’s speckled, and she chose that modification. It is oddly exotic though, they cluster under her arms and breasts and down her spine, inside her thighs. Her ears have slight points too like some kind of fantasy sim being. I don’t get why.

Carrington is another exotic, half Chinese and the other half a mixture of Caucasian and African American decent. She’s got this exotic shade of skin for an oriental type and C-cup breast on a tall for an Asian body and the Asian hair though, she has these light brown eyes that look almost amber. I’m not sure where she’s from but she has a UK Colonies accent.

I think already I’m going to be friends with most of these girls, Anna…I’m not sure of and Sunshine I’m sure of. We’re all still hyper but feeling a lot better after the shower and getting dry. We troop into the locker room where we begin learning from Corporal Stillwater and her aides the ins and outs of female hygiene and clothing basics from proper military dress in service wear, to full uniforms to properly fitted underwear and the R-suits that we’ll be wearing through basic. As we’re given out assigned clothes and changes of and our kits and duffels we sip away at shakes we’re given and the whole thing takes hours actually. She even goes through what hair styles are allowed when and what cosmetics are allowed. When she’s satisfied that we’ve got the basic idea she takes us to our barracks in the crew quarters set aside for the news.

It’s four beds to a bunkroom, a dresser/locker each and that’s it. We’re taught how to make our beds, to organize our lockers and that our rooms will be inspected as will we all will be at random times and every morning.

I’m bunked with Carrington, Nelle, and Bree. Bree; She’s a very attractively built OGG (Original Genetic Girl) soft brown hair in a neat braid, altered eyes that are blue kissed with lavender and lightly tanned skin she seems nice and speaks Americana with the slightest of an accent. She is already there and is standing at attention when we come through. She’s there like all the others that were here a month before us as an experienced live in example of barracks life. She shows us the basic and get’s us into acceptable bunk room shape by the time the corporal comes around. This isn’t what I expected. There’s a lot more hard work just living than most of us are used to.

A bunk quad is four bunks in a line, just a bit of room between each one about a foot and a half or so just the length of this dresser/night table thing that’s your personal FX storage. The bunks have curved top that locks down in case of emergencies and become a survival tube. It’s not an escape pod but a coffin with air reserves and an emergency beacon and basic survival pack. Each has a built in lamp for reading and a vid-com system. Our lockers/closets are one each side of the wall heading to the door and are compartmentalized everything is very precise and orderly.

It’s a little scary that there might be a time that you’ll be asleep and them the next thing you know you’re floating in a coffin with only enough air and heat and rations for three days. Space is big and lonely and…I’m looking at Nelle who looks paler that her fair skin usually is.

Bree tells us there’s really three sets of acceptable dress. Work out clothing or barracks sweats. Those are a dull blue grey that has white trim. R-suits which is what we are wearing now and are the standard training clothes for us all. They’re skin tight Lycra like suits with nano spring fibers that offer support and offer continual adjusting mild resistance whenever you move, even breathe. Used to speed us up getting into shape the idea was used before AG was invented to stave off the effects of zero gravity life somewhat.

And then there standard dress, which for some is fatigues and for others is a uniform but some of the time it can be both because you’ll be wearing fatigues if you’re setting feet down in action even if you’re usually in a uniform And there’s a huge difference between your standard uniform and the dress uniform but even we know that much.

“I feel like a sausage.” I mutter pulling at the suit. It’s not sticky hot but it hurts? No, but I’m getting sore.

“You get used to it but you don’t.” Bree offers with a cheerful smile.

“I just got rid of my damned sausage though.” I mutter it but kind of smile too. I’m kind of surprised at them laughing. I’m not used to this personal interaction yet but it really kind of feels good…It’s nice to feel like you fit in.

She tells us the suits are EVA and survival rated, and shows us where the survival hoods are stored. Like a ski mask with an open face and a clear face plate along with an oxygen tube cell that clicks to under the face mask with thirty minutes of air. Bree’s good enough to show us how to get them on and mag-seal them into place and everything. They’re stowed in the top shelf of our lockers. We stow them back where they go but keeping them in mind in case of drills to come.

We leave in a troop from there to the mess hall in and orderly fashion for lunch where we’re on a restricted meal until we’re ready for more solid foods after our changes. Juice with stuff in it like a protein drink, congee? Which is like this rice porridge that is made with some kind of meat stock in it and this blue green algae stuff that looks really gross and a mug of some kind of broth called miso? It’s got lumps of tofu balls in it.

It’s so not food that I’m used too and I’m not the only one. Nelle likes the congee because the algae makes it green which apparently tickles her Irish side. Still though I’m not paying that much attention to the food as to really get to go off on just how gross and weird it is. The people are just too different and strange here for me not to notice and stare.

There are people of almost every ethnic here and some have definite modifications made to them. There’s a ton of cosmetic stuff but there’s these really big massive guys and girls that I’m guessing are the Amazons and the Argonauts. They’re the gene-tweaked heavy combat types, but there’s others too. Thin ones that are graceful and tall but lean like a human greyhound or something, literally ebony skinned people with dark eyes and hair, pale ones with almost milky skin and washed out tones in their hair and eyes. Short stocky people barely reaching five feet even with thick bodies and massive shoulders and arms and legs there’s even quite a few cyborgs here especially amongst what looks like some of the seasoned troops. There’s even a guy two bench tables over with pale skin kissed with blue but he’s got this very fine thin membrane of something like clear snake scales over his skin and I see strange blue green eyes with an oval pupil and he has three slits on his neck that are without question gills, he’s actually strangely attractive with this dark blue grey hair. He’s in fatigues that look really good on him.

I’m looking for longer than’s polite really when he looks at me too and he gives me this bit of a stare and then gives me this shy kind of smile. I can feel this flushed warm feeling play over my skin and through my body. I’ve never seen anyone like him and he’s…he’s…god this feels strange, I think I’m…

I think I’m attracted to him? I don’t know, I think so…honestly I’ve never been attracted to anyone off Net or out of a sim. I’ve never felt like this before. I think I might be crushing on him?

He get’s up and leaves but still looks my way a few times and it just feels like the intensest thing ever. I can’t take my eyes off him until he leaves the mess hall.

Bree giggles at me. “OMG, Erin drool much?”

I color a deep red as I must have been so obvious. The others are chuckling or getting embarrassed themselves or are just still staring or rubber necking their entire area and everything that’s different. I suppose you can tell we’re all as green as grass. I cover my embarrassment by drinking my juice and kind of hunching…okay maybe not the r-suit really tenses at that. Apparently it corrects posture too.

“Oh god he’s so…”

“He’s definitely kind of cute.” Bree grins eating her real food, even if it’s a salad.

“Uhm…yeah? I’ve never seen anyone like him before.”

“He’s a bio-mod type a Triton.”

Nelle beams at that. “Hoy, now so he’s a merman is he now, I might jus fake a cramp next time I’ll be swimming if the life guards are all like him now.”

Anna’s frowning as she plays with her food. “He had scale stuff as part of his skin, gills too. It’d be like kissing a frog except no prince.”

I stare at her. “He’s a person too and his skin looked interesting…” I blush as I’m getting looks and grins.

Bree nods “He’d be all smooth too. And in great shape, he’s aquatic special ops so he literally swims all the time.”

Carrington sips at her Miso. “He’s actually a Deltan, they’re one of the few enviro-gene ethnics that’s part of the Union. He was born that way.”

I look over at her. She shrugs and looks back at me after a sip of her soup saying. “I’m planning on going into medical. You can tell Deltans by their eyes, we don’t have those bio-genetic codes for the advanced amphib eyes.”

I look at her interested. “Enviro-gene-ethnics?”

She nods. “EGE’s are people that had a long time ago bio-engineered themselves to adapt to certain environments so they could better survive. Water planets, super deserts, thermal worlds, high photon exposure worlds all sorts of things. They’re human mostly, so we can like breed with each other but in a lot of respects they’re almost different races.”

“Oh cool, so why aren’t there more of them in the mainstream of society? I’ve never heard of them before.”

“A lot of regular colonies and governments see some EGE’s as no longer human and are being assholes about it. That and the Aberrants.”

“Aberrants?”

“Yeah there a underground EGE type that believes there’s no limits to the gene mods that can be done to the human condition and are constantly “Improving” themselves into things that really aren’t human and see all non-believers as things to be either converted of wiped out. They’ve become zealots but to bio-genetic manipulation instead of religion. Or with religion sometimes too.”

“Sounds scary.” Nelle offers, we’re all nodding.

“It is, picture being forcibly converted into something that a mad scientist thinks up including neural remapping to be one of them, one of the legion.”

I stare and we all stare at her. “There’s not many of them are there?” Anna asks quietly.

The corporal stops at our table. “Yes, millions we think maybe more actually, they deep space it away from most known worlds and they’re not afraid of cloning either. They’re getting to be a bloody problem for everyone not just the Colonial Union.”

I look at her. “So we’re going to fight them?” I didn’t sign on to be in combat.

“Maybe, none of you have started your MOS right now and there’s a lot more out there than the Aberrants, everything from pirates to slavers to hostile governments and terrorists and even the Technarchy who are just as bad as the Aberrants. We leave the combat to the soldiers as a rule but everyone learns a minimum of combat training Stone. It’s why it’s called basic training.”

I nod and she moves on to likely scare the hell out of the other tables of recruits. It’s a much bigger and scarier universe than I thought. We’re all quiet and somber as we finish eating and prep for the ships tour.

Yes… I’m scared, but I’m me now, the real me and I’ll still take this life over my old one.

FTL-3 Faster Than Life.

Chapter 3

“Get up cadet! Get you’re butt moving! You’ve got to be faster than that! If this was combat you’d already be dead by now! A class three venting would have taken you out! Class three venting what’s that cadet Stone?!”

I’m running as fast as I can as fast as we all can running the two mile course they have us on while on ship. One mile through the corridors then up five flights of steps then over to the other mass stairwell and down it and running back down that same mile. My lungs are burning my muscles are screaming at me and I just really, really want to lay down the throw up. I thought I was in shape. These bloody resistance suits don’t help matters much either. And they quiz you while you’re running. It’s so you can think on your feet.

“Uhm…A class three venting is a hole in the hull roughly one foot or thirty base units in diameter Ma’am!”

“What! You don’t call me Ma’am, My Rank is Corporal! I’m the one doing this! So the sergeant doesn’t have to take the time out of doing real work to shoot you lazy slugs! What am I!?”

“Corporal!”

“That’s right! Now Move, move, move!”

I push the pain and my burning muscles out of my mind and concentrate on other things, anything. The new way I sway as I run, my torso swings more side to side than as a male. The feeling of my breasts even in the r-suit still having a real bounce and sway to them that no VR sim could ever achieve, the pressure on them from being restrained, the relief I’ll feel getting out of this suit. Then there’s the glide of my legs not impeded anymore by something I hated and the movement and wiggle of my new hips and filled out rear end.

VR and Sim-life can’t make you feel what it’s really like being female. It’s close but there’s things so missing. You don’t know really what it’s like to feel beat, dead tired and hurting as a woman. How good it feels to step into a shower like that and the feelings first thing just right, absolutely right. And there’s biological things too. You can pee and even feel it in VR but when you’re bursting and needing to the relief is just so different just because of the actual plumbing. Like sitting on a real female bottom, you can try to simulate it but there’s just now way. Like having to zap bar off your body hair. They used to shave it off and sometimes you can not get it as part of your package but I didn’t go for that. I zap-bar it off like every other woman does. Feeling that metal ultra fine comb scrape over my skin and the electric bite/tickle/hum as the light charge stuns out the hairs and they pull out easily without pain. I could get them removed and I might later but I’m enjoying this.

It’s been five days and most of us new to the service are sure we’re in hell. Bree isn’t as bad off as the rest of us and she has the advantage of having a month more than us facing the abusive training regimen. No, it’s not really abusive but it’s hard, it’s physically the hardest thing I’ve ever done and the willpower it takes to keep going is…It’s making me push myself harder than I ever have before.

It’s been the toughest week of my life bar losing my family and yet despite how hard it is this is a huge ship full of people that for the most part have the attitude that there is nothing that they’d rather do. I can’t help but to feel that resonating with me so much, I’ve always wanted to feel that way about something. I mean when we sit down to chow there’s the usual talking amongst ourselves but there’s the stories from the one’s who’ve been in longer and I love listening to them, we all do.

We’re in PT (physical training) most of the time, and that’s a lot of running and then there’s swimming, I was one of the one’s that didn’t have to learn first. Zero-gravity movement classes and weight training they push you and push you and then just to break things up they teach you stuff like the emergency drills or how to clean according to their tastes and carry supplies because why waist the batteries on a perfectly fine robot according to Corporal Stillwater. We get several hours of Scut-work a day and self defence training in a thing called Tae-Budo that’s a mixture of this old but very respected widespread for of fighting called Tae —Kwon-Do and boxing along with another ancient battle form called Judo. Tae-Budo is the most common mixed martial art in the known worlds and the easiest and most effective for us to learn while being green. It’s a huge class with many different levels of belts but everyone takes it, even the ones who came in the same time as us but are the combat types are taking it with us. I’m finding they’re getting it worse from the trainers because they’re all big and tough and feel invincible and they’re quickly shown they’re not.

The third day into training I was so beaten and bruised I cried myself to sleep roommates or not. The others were just as bad as me including Bree. Nelle actually spend time for awhile singing to me and the others even though at the time we were pounded and it took us all awhile before us new girls realized it was alright to cry. I didn’t just cry because of the pain that I was in but just stuff I held the hurt back for most of my life found an okay way to let itself out. Jesika and Carrington too had their moments and Nelle too only Anna our Ice princess ignored it and rolled on her side and ignored us too.

I sigh groan and pace with the others when we’re done and told to hit the showers then morning chow. I go into the showers with the others and they’re co-ed. We’re all fixed as it were so none of us can get pregnant while on duty there’s a few hook ups I guess the call it in this area as some people are just aroused way too easily or are equipped with new equipment that they’re dying to try out. The remade men are way too easy to spot, all of them are very hung and they are like teenaged boys getting hard at the drop of a hat? That’s a strange saying. Some of these newly made men have the grace to be embarrassed but the older ones; a lot of the standard males are so used to it now we don’t really stir things up too much. We get our share of looks and I get my own eyes full of very good looking men and boys. I’m definitely straight or that’s my primary attraction base. But that Triton guy…I can’t help but to enjoy my flush as I sort of enjoy my to the date favorite shower fantasy. I don’t go there but I’m enjoying the warm flushed skin and this me being alive feeling from it all. I’m just not ready for more yet.

Sunshine the very well endowed golden blonde goddess it seems has more than become friendly with the older staff and the newer made males and even the girls. She’s so uncannily confident with her new self it’s kind of intimidating if she wasn’t so open and friendly with everyone including the many people she’s already slept with.

Yes they allow fraternization in the corps. Like the ancient Romans? It’s encouraged to promote care and unity for your fellow soldier. Well not encouraged but hardly frowned upon either and there seems to be certain times and places for such things. It’s not like some have said that any army has ever really been able to stop it from happening it’s just this is a morale tool. Along with the companions who are like sex worker meets councilors. I’ve heard a few stories about how a companion has stopped a fight or something between or over lovers because they themselves had at one time or another been with all persons involved and used that intimate knowledge to diffuse the situation.

Sunshine’s already showing all the instincts for being one of those people. I see her sitting with a group of them this mornings as we’re in the mess getting chow. It’s I don’t know neat knowing that she’s going to likely be one of them but I’m from the same cradle group as she is and that she’s going through right now the exact same things in training as we are.

The rest of us are sort of developing too I guess. When you’ve lived in your head for most of your life as a group and now you’ve been thrust into a group of people who’ve gone through the same thing as you, and are going through real life more intense than anything you ever knew…you change, you change surprisingly faster than you thought.

Jesika… Arabic and tall has been finding something in our hand to hand training and dancing. She’s still quiet but not shy, she’s reserved. I like that she thinks things through really good.

Anna…is literally our ice princess, she’s aloof and quiet, she never ever cries and she socially avoids us as much as she can and she has this acerbic wit to her that leaves you hurt half the time just talking to her. It’s like she has no use for anyone and we’re all beneath her. It seems to go hand in hand with her looks and her pale beauty. I’ve said before she knows she’s one of the better looking ones, heck she’s one of the better looking girls on the ship period and she knows it. She doesn’t even deign to be social with the other elite cliques of the good looking, or well in this case the best looking of a good looking crew. I don’t understand her, I don’t because as bad as she is, and sharp tongued and bitchy she will turn that attitude on anyone who messes with her room/bunk mates five times as nasty as she does with us. Thanking her only gets you this look that’d peel paint.

I really wonder what happened in his now her life that has left them so damaged. I worry about her too, I can’t help it and of course I never will tell her that. She’d probably stare at me so hard I’d burst into flames.

Carrington…is very much my daunting first exposure to maybe either my first girl crush or we’re really becoming actual friends. I’ve never had very many friends outside the computer systems. Real life even then was full of parents who didn’t understand me, kids who’ve got no idea of how to deal with someone who’s different and why the different person doesn’t get fixed.

She reminds me of home in that way of myself and stuff but she had this whole race thing going on that just doesn’t make sense to me but where she’s from being part Africanized and another part Chinese that were consider not as socially right compared to the full ethnics of her home colony. Her family was fine except with her transgenderism and said that nature made her perfectly, that she was just gay. And the race stuff was of course unimportant with her family being so motley but like me the other children would never get it. Like me… but unlike me and most people I knew Carrington dove into books instead of online. It’s something she’s brought with her and she’s been sharing them with me. Books are this whole new experience to me, I’ll lean on her in the bunk as she reads to me and tells me what some of the old words mean and there’s this smell to them too. There’s something so visceral so real to actually cradle and hold a book, to curl up into your bunk and flip through the pages, scan along with the tip of your finger…

She showed me that, and brought that to me, plus I felt closer to her just by being close with her. It’s just simple being close to another person intimacy but I’ve never had that in my life. It fills a spot in me somewhere. And the English accent that’s always so sultry when it’s spoken clearly and in Carrington’s case softly.

Like I said. Girl crush? First friendship? I’ve never thought about her like that but I’m not sure I’d turn her away either.

I guess I’m rambling but if I’m talking about the rest of my Bunkie’s then I had really mention Nelle. Nelle could be a companion if she wasn’t so freckled, or just plain odd I guess. She talks all the time about everything and nothing, dances on a whim and can be so distracting. But Nelle’s the first one to lend you a hand, sing to you when you’re sick and everything. She’d be a great nurse but where she’s such a chatterbox I guess it’s good she’s going into communications.

Sorry, I head from the showers to the lockers and spray down with deodorant and some powder and fresh underwear and back into a fresh r-suit and then off to the mess hall. It’s busy and a hodge podge of so many kinds of people here and specialties and units. But there’s this us, thing here.

I’m getting used to the food. I’m getting used to the artificial gravity. It’s not easy but it’s getting to be less alien. Living without our OBC’s links to the network and stuff is hard. It’s harder when you’re not tired or between things and honestly I think that we’ve very much lost the ability to be okay with our own thoughts. It’s why I started writing here there’s some sort of withdrawal we’re all going through. My brain hurts sometimes from thinking. There’s a lot of apps you’d run like translators and calculators but search engines too. You’d say something to me that I wouldn’t get and it’d automatically find it and then refer me to just in case topics to have at the ready so I could contribute to the conversation. It wasn’t just me either, it’s everyone. Only like twelve percent of the people in the Colonial Union aren’t chipped up.

I’m finding it hard but some of them are complete nervous wrecks. It’s like they were more their on body computers and their programs and apps. That’s why they yell, and scream and push us. They’re thinking for us and most of the time we’re too beat to freak out. Then it’s eating and training and showering together. Depending on others for the information and input that we’ve been starved for. It builds socialization pretty fast. It forces us to bond in this whole new society, and like someone said we’re all offline, so this, this is ours and no one who isn’t here or one of us can access it.

I think I get it as I’m tucking into my granola and fruit and yogurt with a few strips of soy-bacon and a hot cup of caffeinated-meso soup. I stop eating and look around at my Bunkie’s and the others in the mess. This is real, more real than anything most of us have ever done and we’re choosing to do it together. Training together like a family and getting taught in order to do good for the family and for each other. I look at all of it and I can feel what they call l’esprit de corps? I really, am so feeling why I’m here. Why we’re all here and why after years and years tour after tour there’s nothing they’d rather do. Nothing that I’d rather do.

The ship lurches and the gravity plating goes off line as I see the blue drill condition lights go on and I grab another bite of my food before it floats away.

I’m ready for more. Bring it on.

FTL-4...Faster Than Life.

Chapter 4

Two weeks later…

There’s yelling and screaming as the drill kicks into gear in the middle of our sleep cycle. The lights kick off and the gravity goes off and the ship drops out of sub-light cruising fast and then there’s this horrible sick feeling of the ship going end over end.

The light pop off and we’re dropped into emergency lighting and even that’s in only a few areas. My low-light modified eyes are getting used to the dark revealing things with this washed out sort of black and white look to them. Some people look very odd with the infra-red and ultraviolet eyes shimmering different colors as the rods in those eyes become active.

I stick my feet into the bunk frame to anchor myself and grab my vacc-mask and my r-suit and slither into it as fast as I can while we’re trying to get seal-snap gloves and boots on as we’re being told to evacuate…

Evacuate…

This.. this isn’t a drill.

There’s panic and jostling around and I’m scared really scared. I lose track once we’re out in the halls as everyone’s panicking and there’s this wave of gravity that sort of washes like a wave of nausea as the entire ship does another end over end flip. The centrifugal force causing this wave of grav force not enough to do anything than make you sea sick.

Looking out the nearest window and the swirl of space all topsy-turvy almost makes me hurl in my mask. I’m shoved a few times and desperately trying to get a hold of things in my sparse zero gravity training. I get shoved again because I didn’t get away fast enough and I crash my arm into the wall and It breaks.

I curl into a ball shocked by the level of pain I’ve never felt before until Corporal Stillwater’s screaming at me, and screaming until that reflex of command and obey over rides the pain and I push along with the others until I get to and escape pod and get in and I seal the door and hit the button under the glass casing.

There’s this rush of getting blasted away then there’s a bit of a spin and then. It’s just you, and the crazy, crazy com traffic as the disaster is going on around you and all you have is sensors and coms to rely on. People freaking out causes them to cancel our frequencies to the ship limiting us to short range coms only.

The escape pod has one seat, and its six feet or so wide inside. I’m in pain but I soon try and focus on getting hooked into the recycling systems…which requires getting undressed and inserting things with adhesive patches…to keep you clean by sealing these devices while they takes care of your necessary bodily functions. Not easy with a broken arm. And very eeew.

That’s when the adrenaline wears off after a few hours. It’s when doubts start creeping in and that’s when it gets really scary. You can only get other pods part of the time through interference. Then there’s these times where you here people freaking out, some people are not going through this well. I don’t go through this well and turn off my com’s general channel leaving the emergency channel on but I turn my life support to conserve and curl up and cry. I cry and freak out in the dark and there’s times I’m sure I’m going to die. I worry about rations and power and water and if it wasn’t for my OBC I’d have lost track of time.

The first day the first twenty four hours are the worst of it. The others are in varying degrees of panic. Most of the people I here are cadets…no recruits like me and other staff a lot of the higher ranking staff stayed on ship. And we can’t raise the ship.

It’s slowly becoming a matter of survival and that’s becoming an issue of keeping your head, and being smart about how you do things and because we’re all in this together because you’re family you have to do your best to keep yourself calm and others calm too.

I rely on keeping calm, but there’s those out there that are doing more. Sunshine’s talking to people to most of us and calming people down. She takes over the coms a lot like a com-show host. Taking in callers, getting us to talk about who we are, where we’re from and why we joined. Nelle and a few others with vocal talents sing along with songs in voice only. My whole contribution is to recite technical details and trying to figure out what to do for those calling in and panicking with things going wrong. I’m no engineer and I’m doing this on the fly from what I know from the intro to escape pod classes and reading the tech manual. It helps to save my mind, keep me focused and we all keep busy.

But time takes it’s toll and things happen…Trey Hennessey a boy I don’t know from a month before us ends up with a pressure leak he can’t fix and it casts a huge pall over all of us as he runs out of air and we lose the first of us recruits and there’s crying and silence for hours more as we drift in what’s very close to solitary confinement.

I’ve never felt so bad in my life since and except being cut off from my family. Actually this is almost worse. Is worse I’m so unsure. It’s quiet for a bit after he dies and then someone tried a benediction or a prayer for him and that started an argument and that let loose all that fear based anger we all had going on inside of us. It led to screaming matches, name calling and swearing and people being really shitty to each other before it wore off/burned out after a few hours and once more we lapsed back into silence and a few bits of isolated crying.

After about four hours on silence more or less there’s someone a girl on the comlinks playing something called a harmonica? And she sings out some ancient ballad that sitting in the drifting lonely dark kind of fits…

“Put a candle in the window, but I feel I’ve got to move…”
“Though I’m going, going, I’ll be coming home soon.”
“As long as I can see the light…”

“Pack my bag and let’s get moving, ‘Cause I bound to drift awhile…”
“Well I’m gone, gone, you don’t have to worry no…”
“As long as I can see the light…”

It’s what they call an old warriors song and things like it have been sung and a part of military life for over a thousand years. There was more of it and it was very repetitive but there was this out in the void drifting wanting to find our way home soulfulness to the song that got to a lot of us.

Time even with the time clocks everyone has gets all distorted. It seems to drift and take forever. The walls/hull seems to close in on you if you let it and hours turn to days, you start to ration the three meal packs and seven meal bars and the water your using until you have to eat or drink, some are more successful with rationing that others. Some lose it every once in awhile and freak out in our prisons.

I rarely hear from my bunkmates. Bree a bit more than the others, Nelle is there a lot too but Jesika, Anna, Carrington are all out of range I think.

On day three Holly Ingram on of our fellow cadet trainees eats her side arm…she just couldn’t take it anymore…she did it over the comlink and I don’t think that we’ll ever get the sound out of our heads.

On day five it almost becomes an option for Jane Declan, Sunshine talks her down. Some people help or try to some people make it worse. But after ten hours Sunshine talks her down.

By day eight we’re right on the bare edge of survival. Half-way starved and freezing we’ve made out our wills and made voice letters goodbye to those we love and we care about then as we’re drifting off into that long cold sleep I keep getting disturbed by this ping on my pods systems. It takes awhile with hypoxia setting into most of us before I realize it’s a Colonial Union com signal.

It takes longer to rouse the others and to get us transmitting so they can pick us up.

I remember getting opened up once we’re on board. On board our ship and the look of Corporal Stillwater as she got us taken out of our escape pods and onto the deck plating of our ship, our perfectly fine ship.

“Congratulations recruits those of you who are here just made it through training op castaway.”

I’m not sure where the anger came from in me but a remember swinging on her. Then her swinging at me. Then darkness, I don’t even remember hitting the floor.

***
I wake up in the infirmary with a case of mild exposure, a urinary tract infection from the waste hole-tube-patch thing, and a mild concussion and a nano-mender cast fixing my arm. I’m there for two days mostly eating and sleeping. Bone-mender chalk shakes are gross by the way; they boost the stuff the nano’s use to fix you up but are like well chalk.

Corporal Stillwater stops by and looks in on me. “You did good stone, you kept your head even while injured, made your rations last, conserved power and were actually useful to your recruit-mates.” She took a drink from the coffee she was drinking. “The Two fatalities were both wash outs, we had people staged to get you out in case of an emergency.”

I blink. “But we heard the gunshot?”

“No you here A gunshot, we got to her before she got that far. It doesn’t matter the truth of it is you were really sent out there, none of you knew the truth and you all performed pretty well.”

“Oh.” I’m so not sure what to think about this whole thing. Honestly if you asked me before if I would have been strong enough to do that much time in a escape pod hurt with no gear or next to no gear I’d have said no.

Corporal Stillwater looks at me. “Now for striking a superior, you’re to report to astrometrics on a full shift and do whatever they tell you to do until further notice after mid-meal mess you go me?”

“Yes Corporal.”

***
Astrometrics is navigation and once I’m there they have me working on calculations mostly. I’m connected to the lab’s net-work and I spend my time waiting/monitoring live feeds from various ship systems or doing calculations that any computer could do, mass equations because every kilo or pound of mass counts in a jump or even to do figures for orbits and sub-light flight. I get to use a mind-board and that’s like a virtual chalk board in your mind where you can turn pages and write out your work on that VR screen. No apps or anything than doing the raw math to come up with the variables to send off to whoever needs them to run all navigation chores. Any and everyone of them makes me show them, down load to them my work. Mentally it’s hard and grueling work but occasionally I’m shown how these equations are used to do every aspect of moving this ship through space. I’ve got splitting headaches for days from using my brain this hard.

I’m require fleet uniform when I’m in the Astrometrics labs. Dress slacks that are always to be pressed. Tunic cotton dress tunic, over that I have to wear my tunic jacket fastened and also pressed, dress boots shined and my hair has to be either cut short or tightly braided and pinned up off of my neck. If I’m not dressed properly security won’t let me pass through the doors to the section.

I’m also expected to do secretarial duties as needed and to make beverages for when they are needed. Part of me hates that and loves it at the same time.

It’s from 13:00 to 21:00 hours and before that I get to spend from 08:00 to 12:00 hours of the day training in PT (physical training.) self defense, languages, survival skills and operating the light cargo equipment and the use of firearms.

That certainly doesn’t leave me with much personal time at all. I’m still not sure if it’s punishment or training. Like a lot of things here in fleet there’s a lot of sink or swim.

***

I’m at the small arms range with an assault carbine trying my hand at shooting moving target drones in some of my spare hours. As it turns out I’m a bad shot, my gamerness had never included combat games so I’ve been squeamish about guns. But I’m trying to get some practice in a half hour at a time.

I’m doing badly and missing a lot and frowning when I hear this smooth deep soft “Excuse me. Recruit…Stone is it? I think I see what you‘re doing wrong, would you be okay if I showed you a few things?”

I lower the carbine and look over to where that sexy voice came from and it’s that Triton guy, the Deltan native standing close by staring at me all built, buffed and exotic…I’m not one of those sim fantasy girls except to be one. I’ve been a sim mermaid once or twice trying it out, playing out fantasies from my inner little girl.

He takes those feelings and makes them real girl, real mature fantasies really fast…I bite my lower lip. I’m feeling flushes just being close to this beautiful man. “I’d really uhm appreciate the pointers, I’m not very good.”

“Here.” He slides in behind me then wraps his arms around me and gathers my arms and the carbine with his and he starts to guide me moving.

“Shooting is all about it becoming natural. There’s a rhythm to it. Alright…keep an eye on your target now just float, just follow it with the rifle and breathe, okay get the way you move it’s not about the target as much as the way you feel with the gun. Now when it feels relaxed…are you relaxed?”

Yes…No…His arms are like steel underneath the scale kissed…sorry; enhanced skin and he’s warmer that I thought. He’s actually pressed against me and I can feel more rock hard guy body touching my shoulder blades and his hips…groin is pressed tight to my bottom and I can feel him aroused.

He’s aroused by me. I’m doing this, the thrill of it and the way he feels against me is sooooo good, it’s making me ache good, It’s not wanting to be a virgin achingly good. I have a hot sexy, hard bodied mer-man pressed up against me and I’m turning him on.

I’m so wet right now that if he “went down on me.” he might just need those gills. My voice is tight with feeling and other things but I answer hoarsely. “Yes…”

“Okay, fire…fire…fire…fire…fire..” It’s soft, sultry man voiced, manly, whale song sensual…he has a voice like a vibrator. And after every shot, as I squeeze off each shot there’s this little push of me back into him and…I love it, the ache, the arousal in me and him and the attention. He helps me drill through almost the full thirty minutes I’ve signed in for and guiding me the whole time…I feel so sexy, slutty or maybe slutty, alive….I feel alive in a way that everything is awake and he pulls away… “You’re doing really good. You’ve great concentration, and focus. I’ve got to hit the dojo so I’ll maybe see you around again…?”

……………………It takes me a moment… “Oh Erin, and you’re?”

“Patrick,… Patrick Mako.” He smiles and shakes my hand gently and moves to go. “It was really nice meeting you Erin, we’ll have to try and do this again.”

He’s walking away and my mind is locked up in the so horned up, he’s got the best ass I’ve ever seen look…stare… “I..er..Uhm,…It was nice to meet you too…”

“Thanks…I like your perfume by the way…”

“I’m not wearing any…”

He’s gone and I’m there just…

Just….Oh…I need to talk to the girls, I got flirted with…I got flirted with like a real woman.

FTL-5 … Faster Than Life.

Chapter 5

………………. Six months later.

“Easy peezy it’s going to be just a short trip. Recruit Stone; please feed me the nav-vectors so we’re know where we’re going. Alright Takari run your checks and take us out.”

“Yes, sir.” was my reply as I streamed (transmitted/e-mail…slang for data-stream.) the 3-d vectors and measurement to Akira Takari. I had to adjust for the singularity curve from the core. It gives of G’s that influence flight when you’re out in space. I’m in Shuttle training or Skiff flight and while it’s not my turn behind the controls I am being trained in what is my job as a Navigation officer. Yes officer, I’ll be a bridge officer eventually.

Tak short for Takari was doing pretty good. Me I’m still fighting trans-vector vertigo. That’s when you’re moving in space doing zero gravity maneuvers and the inertial dampeners and artificial gravity systems keep you from being turned to goop at a slow eight thousand mph. about Mach 12 or medium low thrust for a shuttle. TVV is that feeling where what you see through the window translates into some really ugh feelings for some people especially when the shuttle moves in one way and your brain is telling your body to expect different. TVV immunity levels are marked and the highest scores are the ones who make it through to be pilots.

I can handle about a stress level of about four, four and a half is pushing it, five and I’m getting sick. We’re getting close to a five. I try to keep from blowing chunks. I knew there might be a five + on this run, but they encourage you to sigh onto these training runs. That’s the fleet for you, getting you to push and push until things that you thought were extraordinary are the ordinary.

“Alright Tak, spin it around and bring us back, back, back and stop.” I look to the captain and breathe once we’re sitting still. He get’s on the comlink and get’s us tethered to tow. Yes we’re literally flying a tug.

We get tethered to this huge cargo bunker that was dropped off in orbit around a gas giant with only one moon. These things have great obits we can use for drop off points reducing the time it takes to stop and re-supply for general goods and stuff. Specific orders are one of those things that either come on a docking supply ship or a resupply station.

You’d be surprised at the sheer number of what amounts to flying warehouses out in space. Or maybe not.

We get tethered up and the captain goes to check all the mooring lines and we can here him swearing at one of the greener kids that we picked up. Yeah I’m fifty and according the rule of general principal you’re a kid as long as you’re a recruit.

I’m piped the vectors, more slang okay it’s just another downloading slang and I’m given the size and mass specs on the cargo pod and we start pulling out of the orbital path. I take another deep breath saying as we get underway. “Okay Akira, take this vector and approach and we should come up on the dorsal bays just keep it around a thousand miles per hour.”

We or rather I still use miles per hour, in fact we use metric too and several others. In the colonies one way to distinguish your culture that you’ve created is to use a unique system of measurements.

Home was one of the NCC worlds in The Union, and that stands for The United-Christian-Colonies a very old American based culture. That was a nation on Earth. A lot of Colonies before and even after the formation of the Colonial Union government was formed are based off of the cultures of Earth.

Why is it when things go wrong it’s when everything is going good? I know we pulled a five and I didn’t hurl. It was a good day until the mass specs started to shift on the cargo pod, not just me being off but they were shifting.

“Captain I’ve got a problem. The mass-specs on the package is shifting.” I call out.

He turns looking between pissed and scared. “Tak, cut that thing loose now.”

Tak looks at him and goes to cut the tethers and there’s a flash to my implant of a fusion reaction kicking up and a spike a huge spike in the packages EM readings. It happen so fast that I can only remember it in slow motion. There were these pale blue streaks of light coming past us and red mist sprays out of Tak, and the Captain’s left arm just snaps off half way down his forearm and I get hit by the arm chunk and the jagged bone slices my face.

Then it was fast too fast as the Captain yelled at me. “Stone!, Stone! Get the heat shields down!” That’s the tinted glass-steel thing that slides over the window. Akira’s still in the seat dead as it get’s and it happened so fast I’m getting sprayed by his still pumping blood as I hit the buttons…it’s a good thing the Captain told me. My wet hair’s getting pulled at the spider webbing holes in our window. We’re venting…we’ve been shot….

The Captain is hitting the blast doors between the flight compartment and the back half of the shuttle. There’s stressed metal sounds as there’s fist sized dents in the dozens forming it the blast doors…. “Stone! Get your butt in that seat and get us out of here!” I sit and try to get us out of there, there’s blood all over the controls.

I blast us out of there and there’s this hard thump and the sound of metal tearing in back of the shuttle. The Captain is spraying quit clot bandage foam over his forearm stump. “Stone get us into the hangar, closest one ASAP!”

I’m trying and we’re swerving and swaying with me fucking up the pitch and yaw something bad. My heart’s in my throat as there’s another metallic scream and that horrible venting wind sound. I hear the Captain’s gun discharging and we hit the ship hull twice bouncing before we hit the hangar and the emergency catch nets.

The metal sound get’s worse and I turn to see this thing ripping it’s way through the blast doors. It’s huge, kind of hunchbacked made of metal and robotics and looks between humanoid and modular four lethal big arms are coming out of it’s torso and there’s some kind of mini-gun with a heavy flat armored cable coming from it.

But the most horrible thing is the eyes, the eyes are human or were…the eyes are flesh the pupils are not. It laughs as it’s forcing it’s way inside.

[Union scum, I shall show you the final reckoning you luddites deserve….and when the light of reason came to the people, we were shown the true way, we cast off the trappings of flesh that denied to us the wonders the creator meant for us to know, no more were man nor woman, father, mother, child all washed away as we were shown the one true way.] it’s voice was deep and terrible and synthetic as it quoted some Kind of scripture at us.

“Yeah your mother was a shit cycler (Slang for solid waste re-cycler.) Technark scumbag!”

The Captain’s yelling as he pops round after round into the thing. I pull my side arm and I’m firing too trying to keep calm as I can but the alloy 10mm rounds are just knocking the thing around…barely. It’s the first time I’ve ever fired it off the ranges.

The Borg thing…It lets out this electronic scream of anger from getting pounded by our guns and from behind it flips a pod up from a shoulder plate and there’s a thwip-pop sound of it firing a laser at me. It makes a sound from the literal cooking of the air as it fires not the light…I guess it doesn’t matter as it burns through the seat beside me and cuts my seat it half and kept going out of the shuttle. I barely get out of the way. It cut’s the poor Captain in half.

He falls in two cauterized halves screaming and still firing shots until the fact that he’s dead catches up with him.

A hail of weapons fire from behind it makes it turn from me and I hear the whine of a electromagnetic driver, the gun on it’s arm…Oh god, that’s…that’s a rail gun. It’s what it hit us with. The Borg thing turns from me I’m not a threat my gun’s doing nothing to it’s armor.

It’s firing on the others, it’s laughing again. I should be wetting myself or freaking out but I’m just seeing what it did to poor Akira and picture my friends, Bunkie’s, my new family getting hurt. I kneel and pop the floor panel off and grab the one thing that might do something the main power cords.

Mind you I’m no engineer but between it’s EM driver and it’s laser I’ve got a good idea of where it’s power systems are. I take two of the cables and step on the ends of their jacks and pull stripping them off and sparks fly, I’m not electrocuted…yet. The Technark thing is laughing again and firing and I take both exposed cables and scream as I shove them as close to the things power source and there’s a flare of light like welder’s flash that hurts and the thing screams. There’s something more organic in the scream but unfortunately it’s more almost bug like instead of human.

The light’s in the shuttle die. I feel my hands burn. But…but…I hear the rail gun grind to an un-powered stop. It turns and hits me with a hydraulic punch and sends me flying into the hull. I’m hurting, burned, stunned and it hurts to breathe and I can’t see.

I hear the gunfire and there’s the sound of more combat. I black out until I feel lips? Lips on mine and I can’t help the coughing. I hear. “We got her! She’s alive!” It’s hard to try to do anything. I hear voices around me. “Corneal burns!”

“Rads at 9 and a half she’s hot!”

“Broken ribs, punctured lung!”

I’m lifted and even though I got through the rating 5 maneuver getting lifted…I’m assuming on a stretcher makes me blow chunks. Then things fade to black.

***

I was out for a long time.

Waking in the rejuve tanks is a strange way to wake up and floating in the nutrient fluid while the stuff and the nanites work is kind of….well it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

First one’s in aside from the medics is Corporal Stillwater. She walks up and I feel the flicker of my On Body Computer linking up to the ship and then we’re in a comlink situation. She smiles at me. “I’ve no Idea where you got your guts from Stone but I’m damn glad that you did.”

“That thing, that…cyborg thing…what was it?”

“That was a Technarchy hunter killer unit. It cut and resealed the pod to set an ambush for us.”

“Us but we’re cadets?”

“Not a problem to them, we think it’s part of a spread offensive.”

“Spread offensive?”

“Tekker’s don’t need to live or breathe the same as we do so they send out suicide borgs out for their cause. They hitch rides in cargo pods and anywhere the can hide in order to ambush ships. This could have just as easily been one of our merchant ships.”

“But we got hit instead.”

“Yeah but you were on a training run, your Captain should have had you guys scan the pod as procedure and you might have caught the thing in there before what happened happened.”

“I knew the regs too Corporal I should have scanned it.”

“Yeah, you should have but you’re a recruit mistakes happen. He was your mission C.O. He was supposed to know better”

“How many did we lose?”

“Sixteen in the cargo bay, there was no one there ready for that rail gun. There would have been a lot more if you never did what you did.”

“I was desperate and playing it by ear.”

“That’s the way it goes in a real fight, adapt, overcome or die.”

“Yeah but I nearly died.”

“You did kid, you stopped breathing in there for awhile, you had to be revived.”

“I think I remember that.”

“Good, thank your medics when they pop you.”

“Yes Corporal.”

She walks up to my tank and puts her fist against it. It takes me a minute to swim there, I’m not used to this but once there I do the same.

“You did good Erin, I’m damn proud of you.” She gives me a curt nod then leaves. I’m choked up and it’s hard to cry with the mask on but I do a little.

I’ve wanted, needed to hear words like that all my life. Home I think the term is latch key or used to be but once you’re old enough where you’re learning and can do most things for yourself you pretty much get left alone. I mean after all…praise equals vanity and the rest of that rot. But I think a lot of that was my family too. Some of the recruits from home I’ve talked to had close families, some are even good with the ones that changed like me. Some even get mail.

Some, my family is directly in the middle of the herd of sheep and that’s what they like.

But I’ve never really had much praise. I’ve never had it said with my real name attached to it.

The Apollo’s Commander came in after that. I was still basking in the glow of Stillwater’s praise when he came in with his aids. I got a ping to my implant from one of them to warn me. It’s hard to salute in this stuff. He links up.

“At ease recruit. I’m glad you’re still with us Stone. It’s not everyday we get a non-combatant MOS (Military Operational Specialty…basically your job in the corps.) being a hero in a heavy combat situation. Hell of a job woman, hell of a job.”

“Thank you Commander sir.”

“I’ve put you in for several commendations, you deserved them.”

“But sir, all I did was get lucky.”

“You kept your head and followed order Stone in confined combat conditions and still had it in you to improvise a solution that save a lot of lives. You did the job that we’ve trained you for and then some Stone. Here in the fleet we actually reward those who do that. This was what it was Erin.”

I look at him and he looks at me. He’s an older man, bald but with a mustache and a van dyke beard that goes good with his mocha colored skin, built too he’s a handsome guy and even through the tank I can feel his presence, charisma.

“I’ve fought those things myself. I’ve lost friends too because of them. I’ve seen heavy combat troops lose their calm facing down the Tekker’s Erin. You deserve this and you’ll take the medals when they come through and that’s an order.”

“Yes sir.”

He does the fist to the tank thing with me too and he’s gone to see the other wounded.
I’m left in a little bit of a “Command me, Command me fantasy about the man for a few hours before I realize I’m still network connected.

I could just slip into my old habits of all the VR stuff and useless messing around. My VR mail box is full and between the recording of well wishes from friends and other’s here I don’t really know I’m crying again in my mask and I’ve never felt so…real, loved, acknowledged…it’s not the fame of it but there’s hundreds of people that know Erin Stone and not my old self so it’s this rush of really stepping into my life. I end up talking to a lot of people in VR windows and my Bunkie’s too Heck even Sergeant Svenko VR massaged me from her recovery tube and told me that I did good. She was in the response team that came in to deal with the Tekker.

Over the next ten days it really saves my sanity. I sleep a lot, have more than a few nightmares of the stuff that went down on that training run. With everything hooked up and my neural spike from my nightmares triggers an alert and has me talking with Caitlyn…she’s The Companion assigned to me for my therapy, Sunshine is with her a lot of the time it helped having them there and I’m pulled into full Sim-sense when that happens being with both of them in a feels next best thing to real being hugged and rocked and comforted by one of my friends and by a woman who becomes a friend and after talking about the action she’s seen. A woman I respect.

Caitlyn’s my first lesbian experience too. Not sex but after a real hellish nightmare were the Tekker was dissecting me and rebuilding me into one of them I freaked, I freaked really badly. Like I said it wasn’t sex but Cait, held me in a special way and she kissed me calm, kissed my away from that mental cliff I was heading for and it was Sim…but it was kiss, talk and cry for a long, long time. All of that, plus her experience and being trained helps more than and purely clinical shrink ever could.

It’s different in Fleet. Fleet is family, More and more I’m seeing that.

Even Anna thawed a little. She contacted me late at night and woke me. She looked like she’d been crying, her eyes were red and she glared at me. “I’m glad you weren’t stupid enough to get yourself killed Erin. You had to be the fucking glory hog though didn’t you? Well….If…If you got your fucking self killed I’d have never have forgiven you.” Then she clicked off. I know it wasn’t really friendly buy Anna, crying over it and bothering in the first place was a big thing.

It was day twelve when it happened. I was getting out in the morning and it was the middle of the night when Patrick Mako came in. I was up going over study materials through the link when he came in and he talked to my medic at the controls who nodded and got up and left…

I watched as he walked over like a predator peeling out of his clothes….as he got closer and closer. Until he was naked…

Patrick’s body is amazing, a professional soldier and swimmer with this muscles defined by the pressure from the depths he can handle. Six foot two, about two hundred ponds of lean muscle and that exotic skin with that merman like scales as part of his skin…the look is even more exotic when he’s naked. And with that dark hair loose and the way his eyes just seem to shimmer in the dim lighting and he really, really has a nice hard…well.

“Patrick?” I send to him through the link.

“Erin…I can’t wait, I can’t it’s too much.”

“What…?”

“I like you, I’ve liked you since I first seen you get in from conversion. I liked you when we connected in the gun range and there’s chemistry there….beside’s the scuttlebutt from your bunkmates says you’re into me too.”

“I…oh…nosey bitches.”

He laughs, it’s a nice laugh.

“Erin?”

“Yes Patrick?”

“Can I come in?”

“Please…”

He sinks into the tank and there’s an awkward moment as we get together and he takes my breathing mask off and he kisses me…then there’s something else as he breathes…he breathes for both of us and we never really end up breaking the kiss the entire time we make love.

Losing my virginity hurt. But it was a fulfilling hurt and the blood set off a few alarms that sent two medics in to check and seeing us making love in the tank they let us have our time together. It was up against the glass, it was floating while…it was being vocal in our link up while he breathed for me, while he kissed me. I’m not going to get into too much details but it changes you. If you’re like me or born like I was I should say. It was romantic though and one of the best nights ever. And it was nothing, nothing like any fantasy I could have had myself.

He stayed…even after he stayed and spooned with me even though I had to put the mask back on. But there was something so…

Falling asleep drifting in this place him spooned against me and feeling his body heat, his hard body and muscles against my back, his arms around me and his chin, head resting on my shoulder as I drifted off.

FTL-6 …Faster than Life.

Chapter 6

I wake up feeling well…I’m not sure? I’m in the tank and I feel Patrick’s arms around me still and him pressed to me still holding me, still floating together spooning. My breather mask is still on my face and I …sort of feel at peace.

Which is a welcome thing from the replaying of everything that has been going on in my head since the battle against that Technarch killing machine. The girls sent Patrick my way and while it wasn’t the way that I pictured losing my virginity…it was still better than I had imagined.

While there’s all these romantic types out there that me floating here recuperating might seem like he was taking advantage. I honestly like him. I’ve masturbated to him and there’s a real attraction there. Honestly I was just too chicken to act on my feelings because I was caught up in what I thought it should be like in my head and there’s even part of me that was clinging to my passed.

Life’s not a holo-game, it’s not some sim-feature or game it’s life. Patrick coming to me and us making love in the rejuve-tank in the middle of the night brought me back to life.

My family/bunkees/best friends sent a man I’ve been mooning over to me last night and he made love to me, kissed me and he breathed for me as he took me to places inside my heart I didn’t know were there.

How many girls can even claim to have that kind of a first time experience?

I can tell he’s awake and I smile a little bit and fire up the opaque privacy screen and ping him through our OBC links.

“Mmmm, morning Patrick.”

“Morning Erin, are you okay?”

“Yes, last night was…”

“I’m sorry, I was very….forward.”

“That’s what I needed, I think. You did me a lot of good last night.”

“I did?”

“Yes you did. I’ve been wanting you for a long time even if I was scared to go there.”

“Oh…I scare you?”

I shake my head no. “No not you, I went through this in joining up to start my real life but somewhere I stalled at taking this step.”

“But you’ve only been a woman for…”

“Less than a year but more than half just under eight months actually and I’m that very last girl to lose her virginity in the whole conversion batch. I’m not some blushing stumbling freshly converted teen or twenty something Patrick, I’m a grown woman I might have gotten a youth down to looking like this but I’m fifty some years old.”

“There’s no time limits on stuff like this Erin.”

“No but I’m old enough to get when I need something Patrick. I did it when I finally faced up to being who I really am. I’m grateful for this, for us being here and it being you.”

“Okay…but we’re good?”

“Oh Patrick, You’re such a guy. Yes we’re good.” I roll/turn in the tank to face him and I pull off the mask and kiss him. “Now are we done? Because I’d really like to try that again….”

“Oh…okay…”

This much time, this much human evolution and bio-technology and even on body computers and a guy apparently is still a guy.

It was good, better than last time actually I’m more self aware instead of that shocked by the fact that I was actually having sex. This time I’m enjoying it, feeling it and him moving inside of me, through me and riding the highs of this…It get’s to the point of him really not being able to breath for both of us and I get the mask on which is a relief because I’ve needed to scream, to be vocal since my last orgasm and I do a lot of that…and beating on the walls of the glass with my hands or my feet.

I really didn’t get just how freeing it is having sex, making love or how visceral it is. I’ve had sim sex; I’ve been a sim-girl. It’s not the same, it’s good, it’s cyber-dirty and it’s fun but it’s either someone else’s recorded sexual neural responses or a simulation.

It’s not me having an orgasm that leaves it with no comparisons.

Patrick leaves and the tank injects its nano-cleaners and I get a bit of crass because you’re in the military jeers and clapping from the medi-techs and the nurses as I lower the privacy screen.

I’m about midway through the morning when Corporal Stillwater comes in with a transipaper (Clear paper) bundle and she looks me over and then presses the “Flush” button.

“Get cleaned off and get dressed Stone, if you’re healthy enough to fuck them you’re healthy enough to do other things.”

“Yes Corporal.”

***

They start me out doing light duty and stuff for the first three days out of the tank. I was back into uniform and working back into astrometrics and something had changed. I was still doing the Scut work, still getting coffee and number crunching but there was this different look from them, from everyone actually like there was something better?

I get referred to as Stone rather than recruit in the Astrometrics decks. I get called Erin by a lot more people in my year, or close to it while in my off time. It’s like so many people know who I am.

My friends the girls in my bunk were ecstatic about having me back and I got hugged an awful lot and they all kind of spoil me except for Anna when I first got back to my bunk. She just sort of ignored me and kind of grunted? Is that the right word? No more like a hrumpf kind of a thing. “It’s a good thing you’re back I was getting tired of doing your share of the stuff around here.”

Later that night in the bathroom Carrington held me tightly and to me and cried. I held her through the worst of the quiet sobs while crying myself too.

“Oh Erin I was so scared when we heard what was going on over the comlinks.”

“I was scared to Care, I though for sure that I was going to die.”

“I was on training duty in the com center and we all could hear it and see it as they got vid feeds locked onto what was going on.”

“It was worse inside of there Care it was…..it was hell.”

I ended up having a really good cry with her and honestly its there that I really realized just what kind of friend I’ve got in her and not just a bunkee or a year mate but a real live best friend and it cemented things between us in a way after that that honestly I didn’t know about.

There’s friends you make online or out in the Net that are sometimes even closer than family. And in this day and age that’s honestly the bulk of most human interaction or at least from worlds where I’m from. There might be those that have a small tight knit group of friends in the real world but there’s not a lot of them. Sometimes there’s close families and more than often there’s not. Even as a child as most children the bulk of anyone that might have been a friend was a net-friend.

But this… this was something really new to both of us and grounding for us too. I mean our lives had been net-lives and then here in the forces and same years and bunkees but now there’s someone that I can honestly say will be a real part of my life even after my time in fleet.

***

I’d been out about three days when I was called to the command deck. Not the bridge but the level for the ship where there’s the bulk of the upper officers quartered and the officer’s mess and club as well as all the offices and meeting rooms and stuff.

I’m directed to the Ship commander’s ready room.

My palms are sweaty and I’m nervous as I guess nervous gets with Stillwater with me and insisting on me being in my full dress blacks. I knew it was something out of the ordinary when I seen Stillwater in her dress black’s as well.

I’ll admit she really cuts a striking figure in them. She’s opted for the woman’s dress pants version and the blouse and the vest along with the full dress jacket. She might be a corporal but there’s an impressive number of battle medals and citations there that tell of a career soldier. I’m not a lesbian but she’s very dapper and stunning in a beautiful tough capable way and the dress sabre on her hip and the gloves and the long perfect braid of her hair just makes here seem like a knight from those archaic world sims.

I’m proud and intimidated to stand beside her at the same time.

The commander comes into the ready room with his Ex-O and a few other officers, out of the tank and before him in person he’s even more impressive. Older with a balding shaved head and a salt and pepper trimmed beard he’s tall six three, broad shoulders and big arms and in really good shape. He’s got the most amazing blue eyes and that just something about him thing that just stirs this military bit in me he’s one of those officers that you’d follow into hell.

The woman side of me is insanely turned of by this ma being so close and I swear my nipple must be showing through my dress jacket. It’s only been a few minutes and I’m getting damp.

Oh … he just looked right at me and smiled. I get all fluttery and butterflies in my stomach as it were.

“Thank you for coming Corporal, Cadet Stone. I called you both her for one you as her training head as a witness Corporal Stillwater and you young lady are here to be awarded with these.”

One of his staff steps forward with a tray with boxes of polished to a shine of carved bakorite… (It’s a type of space coral found only in planets with rings, it looks like obsidian with glittery flecks in it like stars. It’s semi common, used a lot by the fleet though.) As nice as the boxes are there’s medals inside them.

He takes the first one out. A steel pip with red garnet inside it. “For being wounded in battle against an enemy of the wounded the red star.” He passes it to Stillwater who takes it and pins it on me. There’s this look in her eyes of pride that makes me fight this huge lump in my throat and I’m trying not to cry.

He takes out another medal. “For quickness of thought and deed on the battlefield, I present you with the Celera star.” It’s a steel pip with a light shiny blue silvery stone. Again he passes it to Stillwater who pins me.

There’s one more. A small black rectangle with a sword embossed in it. “For committing to an action that saved your fellow soldiers while facing death we award you with your first sword. And with this comes the rank of ensign 3rd class in a brevet rank until you complete your training where you will be fully promoted to the full rank of E3C. You will from this point on receive payment equal to your current rank.”

Stillwater pins me and they both, well all of them give me a salute before they leave. I stand there a little in shock at the promotion. In fleet I’d have come out as a crewman first, or if I was lucky enough to pass my bridge exams I’d start as E3C, but I’m getting out a full rank above everyone else.

Corporal Stillwater looks at me. “Congrats Stone, you get through training and you’re on your way.”

“Uhm thank you Corporal. I’m…I’m still shocked at all of this.”

“Yeah and you got some serious training to do?”

“Excuse me?”

“You got your first sword. It’s a valor medal but everyone of us that have that pin learn to use a sword.”

“Learn to use a sword?”

“You got it, this isn’t protocol, it’s custom stone. It’s an honor thing.”

I look at her and the sabre on her hip and it kind of hit’s me. Usually only officers and marines use swords. I look at her medals and sure enough she’s got this pin like mine only her swords are crossed on it. That’s for someone who got commended like I did at least ten times.

Ten times….

Seeing that map of what she’s done, gone through, lived through just starts to sink in and she said she was proud of me…tears leak out. Not happy or sad just moved.

“Ah fuck, C’mon Stone your friends are throwing you a bash and we need to be hung-over for the funerals tomorrow.”

“Hung-over?”

“Tradition girl tradition.”

With that she hauled me to a private party in one of the storerooms and there was a lot of my year mates there with me and all my Bunkees.

Patrick comes over with a long box made out of wood but like you’d see long-stemmed flowers in it.

“Congratulations Erin, I hope you like it.”

He passes it to me and I nearly drop it it’s that heavy. I set in on one of the makeshift tables and open it and move the synth-silk aside and there’s this shiny almost bluish colored steel blade in this flat slight curve.

“It’s called a Wakizashi, it’s a Japanese type of sword.”

I lift it out and stare at it and him and the others around me.

“They made it out of metal from the shuttle for you.” He tells me and gives a nod towards a bunch of the tech and engineering guys that were there.

I look at Patrick, Stillwater, my friends and everyone else.

“Th..thank you…I try to always do this justice.”

FTL-7…Faster Than Life.

Chapter 7

By the time the second shot is into me Stillwater’s strapping my sword to my hip. I’m not used to drinking and these shots are this stuff called reactor core which doesn’t bode well for me. It burns and kind of sucks the breath out of me.

Home alcohol isn’t a popular choice having gone seriously out of favor with most people since we all started having On-Body-Computers it and most drugs don’t mix well when you live in the networks and stuff so much.

Here though it’s different, there’s a cultural thing with being in the military itself but also there’s all the other colonial cultures where it’s see and used differently. Home it’s a smattering of light beers and a decent amount of wines and very little hard liquor.

This stuff I’m drinking is some kind of hot pepper and agave fermented product from Aztekina colony. I’m not sure why each time we do a shot of it people are yelling “Ole!”

There’s a lot of drinking and a lot of older and higher ranking people telling war stories of their own and I’m being passed a glass of beer between shots fairly regularly.

At first there was a lot of drinking and talking, then that and playing pool or darts. Then there’s a few times those of us who fly are in the simulator games. Booze is a funny thing for people some it turns their TTV to utter shit and others can actually do better while flying smashed.

I do a’right… I didn’t crash the fighter, I didn’t score all that well but I didn’t barf either.

***

I suck at pool and darts.

***

Whoo-hooo! I can drink beer upside-down!

***

“I likes Patrick, I really, really like Patrick….I like how hard he is…(Giggle)…no I mean like…like all musclelly and junk…junk…”

“Yeah….I like his junk too:)”

“I don’t get how much I can like…like…like him and how all like…like… (Hic) how like all muscle yummy good dick he is and not have ever liked the way I wuz born…”

“I mean that just kinda proves I was always a girl right? (Hic) ‘scuse me.”

“Y’know my family thought that I shoulda got my head fixed to make my brain work they way that they though it should have y’know?’

“They SUCK!!!”

“God made me and if he…huh?...gods a she?...oh that makes more sense…what? Sky pixie? Wait… wait you guys what’s the flying spaghetti monster?”

“Okay…anyway that why I’m me and why I’m me and why Patrick’s sooooo hawt.”

“Ooooh! Fries!” “But they taste better when their not mine.”

***

“Ooooh, hey Patrick, C’mon lets dance…”

***

“OH!!!, More!...More!, Harder, Patrick!, Harder!.......Ooooooooooh!!!”

***

……………………………… I wake up and I hurt, everything hurts even my implant hurts. There is this taste in my mouth that…I have no idea what it is or the left over’s of who knows what I did late night but it’s bad…vomit bad…which I can smell pretty well throughout our bunkroom.

The door pops open and there’s Stillwater there in her dress blacks in a garment/dry-cleaning sheath and she’s lighting something about as long as my thumb and three times as thick.

“Morning ladies, time to get up and shave your pussies you’ve got two hours before the funeral detail…Stone you’ve got one.”

With that she leaves and tosses in the firecracker and in our small bunkspace the boom is loud, but hung over it’s pure evil bitchiness. It brought tears to my eyes but poor Bree rolled over and grabbed her pillow and hurled into the pillowcase.

I’ve never had a real hangover in my entire life…no...well I tried a simulated one once. Oh…there’s no comparison.

Sitting and getting up my vagina hurts, and I’m examining myself and finding myself a little sore and raw and bruised with a little remaining semen making it’s way out now that I’m upright.

I get a bit of a flashback in the shower as I’m brushing my teeth of Patrick and I dancing and me trying to dance all sexy whore like bump and grind like the other girls…then there was kissing…and we were just about having sex there on the dance floor and somehow we made it into the storage room for the alcohol and I pulled him down ontop of me.

Hard plastic beer boxes…Okay that explains the bumps and bruises and scratches.

The memory does get me excited though. I’m not a rough sex person, I’m pretty sure of that but there is just something about having a man that you really want ripping your clothes open and taking you when you want it, really want it that’s like this sort of… crazy stamp on being a woman.

But god did it ever satisfy something primal inside of me, and that was something utterly woman.

I know it’s not exactly classy but I uhm rub one out there in the shower replaying that part of last night…it started as getting cleaned up but kind went off on a dirty tangent.

There’s one thing I have to say. It helped my hangover.

Two mild soy-café’s and I’m feeling better, the caffeine helps a lot and the protein in the soy helps with my stomach so by the time I’m in my dress blacks and sword strapped on I’m drinking slowly from a bottle of very cold water.

I’m met in the halls by Stillwater and she looks okay or mostly okay. I think she has a high threshold for hangovers as well as alcohol.

“You look alive Stone.”

“I’ve had better mornings Corporal but given what led us to this here this morning I’ve had a lot worse days too.”

“Good attitude Stone, I do the same anytime life decides to give me a break and I start thinking stupid. I just remember some of the things I’ve seen and late night paperwork doesn’t seem so bad.”

“My thought’s exactly Corporal.”

“Right, now you’re one of the survivors of the attack and the one who took out the Technarch so you’ll be a wreath bearer alright?”

“Yes Corporal will I be shown what to do?”

“Yeah, here you’ve got your sword belted wrong for this kind of thing.”

***

There’s close to seventy of us in the funeral procession into the hangar where they’d been killed and the fight had happened. Everyone who warranted being there was there in attendance in full uniforms.

The ship was at full stop outside of a large blue sun and seeing it and space beyond through the force field was so.

I’m at a funeral and holding this wreath made of black roses and white roses and something called Mistletoe and Holly. And there’s part of me that thinks it’s oddly beautiful? I’m crying just because… just because and were in the lead right behind the standard bearer and ahead of the musical escort.

I match steps with the march as the drums and the pipes start to play this ancient timeless song we play it home at some of our funerals and didn’t think that I’d hear amazing grace played here by a military band.

The Ex-O is giving the commands to the honor guard/pall bearers and it’s mostly them lining up and there is a sort of church like thing like when you sit or stand or kneel or stuff like let us pray from home but here it’s “Attention!” “Salute!” “About face!” and so on.

Once the caskets are laid in order of rank. It begins with the least in rank getting sent off first and as the casket was placed into the tube of the torpedo ship to ship torpedo launcher they use for funerals “at sea.” the Colonial Union flag is folded up as they play starting with drum then the bugle the song called “Butterfield’s lament.” Or as most call it Taps.

I place my wreath into the glass compartment built into the casket’s top where it rests on another flag that’s just for the fallen along with medals they’ve won or were awarded in death. They send other medals with the folded flag to the families if that was in their wishes.

I lay the wreath in the compartment and linger my fingers a moment before saluting the casket personally like the other wreath bearers before returning to the like up.

Taps ends and then the casket is fired into the sun. The path of each comes up on our implants and through a link to astrometrics and several probes that were set up we all get to see them burn up in the blue-white shimmer of the star.

Part of me loves the strange warrior poetry of the whole thing even as there’s tears running down my face. Part of me is just saying I’d rather this than being buried into the deep dark ground.

There’s speeches by some of the officers and the Commander for each one and honestly it takes a long time, close to three hours but no one is short changed their honourable funeral.

***

I’m hung over sore and tired but then so are a lot of people as we work out regular duty shifts but do this rotating attending of the wake. There’s more drinking and I’m off duty so I have a few but spend most of my time in the message booths recording my condolences for the families that will be getting things sent home.

I’m more than ready to crawl into my bunk by the time I’m done.

I’ve got a lot of thinking to do of whom if any in the family that I’d have my things sent to. It hurts thinking that they might not want anything to remember me by. They might have already written me off as dead to them.

FTL-8...Faster Than Life.

Chapter 8

I wake up to the sound of this low frequency vibration through the ship and through me. I get a flash on my implant saying. [Attention all personnel we are now entering a class two grav-front.]

A grav front is where you get two opposing forces of gravity or more too close together and the competing gravity sort of sucks space apart? It’s not really apart but it makes the stuff that makes up space sort of choppy. See the pull isn’t standard or constant there’s all these stellar conditions and variables that make ripples in space.

Chop (Shrugging).

It’s only class two so I’m pretty good but there’s a few moans, it’s kind of like what the used to call seasick? There’s more waves about every six to ten minutes and you just feel this sort of wave of kinetics wash over you/through you.

It’s been a few weeks since the funeral and there’s been even more adjustments in my life. I’m still in Astrometrics and doing more and more sit down at a station stuff even if I’m still kind of a gopher and secretary in a way I’m not going for coffee and stuff nearly as much. But I’m still a cadet. It’s interesting stuff and I’m learning stuff a bit ahead of the other astrometry/navigation recruits with the practical stuff.

Last week I ran skiff control for an hour. That’s like air traffic control between our smaller shuttles. Okay that was really cool getting on the comlink and talking to the pilots and the crews. I might like that as a job in Nav more than the actual Navigation stuff.

I still do PT (Physical training.) and doing hand to hand and firearms stuff too but not up to the combat trooper class or anything but I’m getting private instruction. Kendo for an hour every damned day with Stillwater and that’s out of my free time.

I’m bitchy because I hurt, I hurt every day because I’m getting hit with a bloody shinai. It’s the bamboo swords made up of all these strips held together by a series of rings and hilt and tip bindings.

Yes they hurt because they’re a lot harder than they look. I also think the old masters of this were sadists. See you get hit with a shinai and it will give, flex if you will and snap back before the blade leaves your flesh…yup…the things pinch you hard the while you’re still pinched the shinai gets pulled away.

Traditional Kendo you get armor, padding…Ha, ha, ha…no, no not when you’re training with Corporal Stillwater.

Why do I even do it?

Honor.

Yeah a pretty nebulous thing really something that wasn’t a big thing in practice home. But here it’s different. I walk into the mess all bruised and lined up with training welts and I swear it’s like some kind of weird make up.

Is it weird to have a guy watch your sword the same way he’d watch your butt?

But it’s so worth it with the officers and the higher ranked men and women in the rank and file. I mean I’m still a recruit but at the same time I’m not invisible.

It’s nice to actually have people see me.

……………………It’s up and off to the jogging and the gym and I’m okay but like I said this is like sea sickness it builds on you. Which is exactly why we’re flying through this crap. Testing, training and exposure. The ship has enough shielding and artificial gravity systems that if we wanted we could ignore most of this stuff.

But smaller ships won’t have the same luxury. We’re on a big ship, massive and it’s supposed to be. We recruit, train and run major supply runs as we’re doing it. Once we’re out in the fleets it’s a whole lot more frugal.

I’m good but going down the stairs had me swaying. We lose a few runners to the med bays with that. But this is going to be rough on all of us recruits. Carrington’s already looking almost menstrual with this. Sunshine too, It not too bad on the rest of us but about fifteen percent of people will feel prolonged grav sheer at twice the TVV ratings so if you’re in that grouping and you’re a three you’re in a bad way because after an hour of grav-chop that rating two sheer feels like a four.

I make my way to the mess and get my breakfast. It’s Thursday so I get the special biscuits and gravy. Like a lot of people I grew up on vat-foods, synthetic proteins and soy and such but here in the fleet we have real food put out for those of us that like the exotic.

Yeah exotic, mass populations and huge markets leave people going for these mass produced foods. I grew up on rice bowls and flavored soy and vat-meats. It was Holy Days we had real foods because they were so expensive. Of there were some things that were everyday like greens and sprouts and those things.

Here though we get a priority, plus we pay for the real food. I mean it’s only five credits but in a free mess that makes a difference. A big square biscuit gets brushed with oil or fat or something then grilled until brown. Then there’s this white cream sauce with herbs in it and real meat Turkey… I Love turkey. Home we have a semi-religious holy day called Turkey day, it’s supposed to be a holy bird these ancient biblical scholars had discovered and eating the turkeys when they were starving saved them and God told them to be ever thankful. It was one of the few times a year my family splurged for a turkey.

This stuff has turkey and sage and things in it and I always get slices of fresh tomatoes on mine before the sauce. I get a capsule of juice and a real coffee with full caf and I go and sit down not at the table with my bunkies but with Patrick.

I lean over and give him a kiss before sitting with him and smile. “Morning How’s Tricks?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s actually an ancient saying I found on the anthro-history network.”

“Why were you there?”

“Reading, learning, siming I wanted to pick up a few things on the side.”

“Oh and the saying?”

“Really old way of asking what’s up, but with you’re name…”

“Hmm, cute I guess?”

“Duh, I’m a girl I’m allowed to be cute.”

I start to eat and he pulls my fork of food away from my mouth and leans over the table and kisses me again. Yum…even if he’s eating fish for breakfast. He’s a Deltan though and his people metabolize food and stuff better like that.

Do we seem more together?

We are.

The funeral and parties had started it. I’m not sure if it was the foggy my vagina hurt memory of the party or the way he’d been good, just good to me after that but we started with just spending time together in my free time hours.

Talking it out, the combat stuff and having real coffee together. He took me to places on the ship you don’t know unless you’ve spent a lot of time on the Apollo or master fleet ships.

There’s something soulful when you’re up at the top of the ship in a one way (Five foot high by two feet wide maintenance hall.) with your back to the wall and boots off and stocking feet pressed to a big maintenance window and sharing a coffee with Patrick his arm around me holding me and us watching the stars go by and well that led to us kissing and spending time together like that more and more.

Having sex more and more.

I shouldn’t say stuff like having lots and lots of sex grounded me more into being me but it did and does. And it’s everything about the whole thing from the start of attraction in the moment to the romantic stuff around that to foreplay and then the tender sex, the happy laughing hard sex, the in a random one way hall or closet having a quick desperate fuck to the afterglow and cuddling or the good ache.

It’s a huge part of being a woman and feeling the way I do now.

Another part is being wanted. Patrick went through a minor hell getting his duty shifts moved around to match my training schedule and shifts. That’s huge really huge and even more in this really free hooking up sort of thing here that goes on it’s me and him right now. I mean I’m pretty, I wanted to be pretty but I still wanted to look like me if I was born like this and I’m in good shape too but I’m bruised all the time, so busy I yawn a lot and I’ve even dozed off in his arms a time or two.

And with all these women here who are moded out to be living wet dream fantasies he’s with me?

Having breakfast, kissing, talking just talking and having a relationship and for someone like me with my past that’s hugely defining. I get looks of all kinds from the other conversion girls from respect to encouragement to even jealousy. I sort of feel sorry for the ones still caught up in the thrills of sexuality.

I’m in a relationship, even it’s fated to be a short one. But if you’ve never been in a relationship before it’s amazing how you change because of it.

…………………… We eat and kiss each other goodbye for the hours we’ll be apart and we head off to our daily duties. I love what I’m doing, I do and there’s things that are just becoming important to me. Getting kitted up for my duties. Fresh uniform, my tunic and thin flak vest under my uniform jacket, the skirt, the putting up of my hair and the beret and the calf high boots all are so much me now. I get this look of this woman in the mirror on my final check that looks capable and professional and ever so much more than my self vision I knew that I was supposed to be.

My day goes normally with me on particle scan. That’s sort of like a old radar stuff and it sends out particles of different kinds that react to the different stuff in space that makes it up and I get introduced to shapes of the chop and where there’s carried rad pockets and magnetic fields and stuff. I guess it’s like when they used to give med patients stuff to drink in the ancient days to see stuff under different scans. I look at stuff in different ways using a host of sensors to get a weather report of sorts and to pass that on to the other departments. Why? Well take a magnetic pocket. Most of the smaller stuff will hit that and they’ll get an EMP effect and while they’ll not usually be harmed getting your thrust taken out and power until you get towed or move through the patch can be a pain in the ass or deadly.

This usually gets deadly if combat happens in the chop. Renegades, Raiders and other nasties use some of these pockets to hide from scans. Big ships like us can scan this stuff far better than smaller ships and for shuttles and fighters forget about it they’re blind relying on us.

The bust up lunch for fighter drills, all people to stations and back up positions. There’s more drills the next two days and I hardly get to see anyone I hit my rack alone in my bunk twice the only one in my room.

……………………….I’m woken by a bio-surge as we hit combat alert level one. My nervous system kicks in a shot of adrenaline and it’s up out of bed into the body suit and full pants vacc seal my boots and gloves, bind my hair back and arm up and run to Astrometrics.

There’s a heavy rattling shake of the ship heading into heavy chop rank three and my stomach’s a bit on edge but I can handle it.

[Going to lights dark.] comes over the Net.

Then the commanders voice. “We are heading into a heavy grav front zone, we have received a distress beacon from the Marie-Antoinette a heavy independent merchant transport under the protective charter contracts with the Union Government. Our probes have encountered unknown hostile resistance. We are duty bound to rescue and if we must engage. Cadets you have the option to join your assigned duty stations or move to the shelters until the mission is cleared.”

I head fast to my section and haul up short once I get there snapping into a salute. “Stone reporting for duty sir!” My section chief looks at me and points to a console. “There Erin, we need a body on select scan on stations D through G, this stuffs thick and there’s fog here too.”

“Yessir.” I take my seat, fog’s not good, it’s not real planet fog either but elements that get slammed together by heavier grav chop sometimes that mixes with the different particles to create a murky lightshow.

This stuff is a weird funky grey sort of streaky purple stuff and visibility is shit about ten miles.

[Combat silence conditions engaged.]

The ship goes quiet, low talking only when necessary Implant comlinks mostly.

That’s just taken not good to oh fuck. I’ve been studying this stuff up, this means that we’re playing cat and mouse with another warship in this soup.

Nav boring? Right now we’re our eyes and ears. We fuck this up and we’re dead freeze dried meat.

Please don’t let this be the Tekkers.

FTL-9...Faster Than Life.

Chapter 9

The rolling thrum of the grav sheer is running through of all of us like the breathing of some great unseen monster breathing down our necks. I’m reading scans on my section as thorough as I can I’m feeling the sweat building under my clothes and running down my spine.

It’s really tense and scary so quiet you can hear the sheer hitting the shields in what I imagine that waves would sound like.

Time gets this strange sort of fugue thing going where the minutes seem far too long and as scared as I am there are other cadets even more scared than me. There has to be something I can do right?

Think woman! Think!
Huh…woman?
I said that to myself without thinking.

“Something funny Stone?” My Nav-commander asks quietly.

“Yessir.”

“Care to share?”

“Nosir.”

“Share anyway.”

“It’s just it seems every time I seem to learn something big about myself I’m way too close to dying.”

“Welcome to the joyful wisdom of military service.”

We shut it for awhile after that and I’m watching scan on my section as best we can in this soup when we shake hard. There’s alarms going off around us and flashing light in my minds VR screens.

[Extreme Caution ship is under fire.]

My scanners are going frelling wonky on me there’s some random interference. There’s something else too the instruments are saying we’re dumping speed? All the gyros are off too.

It’s getting worse with every major shake.

We’re slowing down.

That can’t be good.

Slowing us down means capture right?

“Sir? What ever they’re hitting us with it’s blinding us we need to launch out some probes.”

“You’re right, good thinking Stone. Erikson send out a full set of orbiting drones. Let’s get a look out there.”

There’s a few moments between the order, the launch and the re-link to our sensor suites. We’re all assigned drones to use and the first thing I do is take a look back at ourselves and see what they hit us with.

Grey sparkly goo all over the shields. How the hell do you get something to stick to shields?

I fly one in and get a better look. Full scan and spectral too.

Mercury? Scan magnification shows nano-tech of some kind in there. “Sir? They’re splattering us with this stuff I can’t figure it out.”

He comes over and looks at my screens. “Mass-packets dammit!”

“Mass-packets sir?”

“Mercury is very dense but it’s also the liquid medium for the mass-packet nano. They are designed to taste the mag frequency of our shields and latch onto them by matching the polarity and then they cause chop in our shields.”

“So we drop the shields?”

“No, the same thing their doing to the shields they’ll do to the grav plating in the ship and the drag will make us so heavy that we’ll eventually stop.”

“But we’re getting blinded by the splatter and slowing anyway and aren’t these things painting us for them too?”

“Right again kid.” His eyes flicker in that On-Body-Computer link use. I get and idea and start getting a memory dump from shields on all or splatters. Add then together, judge movement and point of commonality… I send two of my probes there adjusting a bit in from and back and setting scans to full gain on the other two I have and… “Sir I have a firing solution.”

“What?! How? Never mind send it to tactical and hang on1”

“Yessir!” ………..hang on?

[AG field now off line, Inertial dampeners now offline, Shields offline, Engaging in full burst sub light jump, in 3…2…1…]

Full burst sub light.

No gravity, no inertial dampeners…It’s like ancient Earth’s recording of a planet to space Apollo launch…I think our ships aptly named and I do hang on. Again there are those caught unawares or just still in shock to react and people go flying into walls and bulk heads and some are alright.

0.18 light is fast. It’s the core in this case that keeps us from becoming goo but it’s still like being in zero gravity which we are and our ship/ place we’re in jerks forward several hundreds of mph.

Three thousand miles away in one tenth of a second give or take. We shed the mass-dampeners like a canine shaking off mud from its coat.

I blow my two drones I sent out and the thermo-nuclear explosions won’t do any damage but they make a frelling heck of a lightshow. And the enemy ship is a lot denser that the fog. We net a clear image shape and we can see the trails and tracer of our own weapons firing at them.

Three thousand miles is the edge of medium range ship to ship warfare. The speed of beam weapons, and rail guns, and missiles have limited range sub light thrusters.

We see hits and then a sub-light flash of them moving and we’re taking fire too…there’s damage and casualty reports going off everywhere.

I’m seeing a burst of multiple targets at multiple vectors and… “Sir I think they just launched fighters!”

“Pass everything to Tactical and keep you eyes open for weak spots all of you.”

“Yessir!” we all shout.

I see a symbol on one of the fighters with my drones. A red shield with a black sword crossed with a black sickle. I beam it to the commander and he sends it to tactical. “Sir what government is that, they’re not Tekkers?”

“Balkorvan, they aren’t part of the union and are a militant raider culture.”

“Are we at war with them?”

“No, not as a nation this ship is a privateering vessel. It won’t get back to them because each Captain is responsible for his crew and ship.”

“How?”

“They’re guild run; Each Captain is an independent government rank there.”

“That’s pretty crooked.”

“It is but they sell to enough non-union governments that they have enough friends if someone decides to fix their hash then it’ll definitely spark something.”

“Oh…thank you sir.”

“It’s okay Stone this is the Apollo we’re a training ship that means lessons in the middle of combat.” I can hear the smile in his voice. Fixing their hash…I’ll have to look that one up.

It comes to this heavy fighting. We’re bigger nearly four times their size but they’re faster and smaller and armed to the teeth and very well armored compared to us. We have more turrets and are able to cover ourselves better and they have fighters out there, two minutes after that so do we.

This little patch of space becomes very, very busy. We drive them off after a pitched battle; it ended after we stopped taking fire from their missile banks and rail guns. They must have run out of ammo. We have lots of ordinance on board so in the end they tuck tail and run.

There’s a lot of us that are upset and want to give chase to them but we contact our closest interceptor ships and we head out to attend to the adrift Merchant vessel. Well we don’t we’re scanning and navigating and they left mines adrift around the Merchant ship and it was a long shift as we hunted mines and looked for anything out of place.

By the time I was done I had worked a twenty six hour shift. I know that there were replacements but there was also a massive list of other duties from checking our ship going all over the hull and others were busy with repairs and section rescues the wounded and the dead.

Maybe there wasn’t bodies to spare and maybe this aftermath thing was a test too?

The Merchant ship had been heavily damages and we belly to belly locked them down and I guess they had been boarded. A lot of the crew had been killed and others badly hurt…women and children…I heard that these ships take their families with them.

I’ll ask Patrick about it he had been on the boarding parties. Between both ships not counting the enemies over five hundred wounded and seventy three dead.

There are names on the KIA (Killed in Action) holo list that I know.

I’m just too tired and numb to bawl right now this close to the Tekker attack. I do manage to have enough sense to hit the mess hall and request an On-Body-Computer sedative pulse for my system. I know I’ll freak out at some point maybe but I eat…Spaghetti, the real stuff and a slice of cheesecake after that and lulled by my system and a belly full of “Comfort food” I barely get to bed before bunking out.

FTL-10...Faster Than Life.

Chapter 10

*Two months later…

I’m in line up at the mess listening to people talking about stuff and sort of daydreaming in my own right as we’re heading into the Soleil system. We’re getting shore leave being here at the halfway point in out milk-run tour and we’re resupplying and we’re going to be doing a few things here.

I’m thinking about the beaches. I’m only ever been to a beach in RL twice and both were poor freshwater beaches. Soleil is a moon actually that’s mostly salt waters but with this full planet reef structure that makes the waters very warm but it’s such a total breakwater thing the waves are usually gentle so I’m told.

Actually told a lot.

Patrick’s really excited to get leave here.

Me, god it’s nearly been a year since I’ve joined and became my honest and real self. Just a year and I’ve been in combat, lost close to a dozen year mates and just about became a completely different person than the lost soul Aaron that had signed up and was remade.

I step up to the chow line and smile politely as several of the new bloods we’ve been picking up and some of the still new ones that’ve been here longer sort of whisper tell them to move and why.

There’s the flash of eyes over my pins and my sword. I’m so not used to getting the respect like that. I still sort of feel like I don’t really deserve it.

But I head over to Patrick’s table my tray laden down with some food to get my body acclimated to the stuff I might be eating. Rich with coconut in it and nuts, fried fish with sun sauce…my eyes tear up as I’m chewing the first bite and Patrick’s laughing at me.

“What…wa…what was that…!?” I reach for my water and he moves it away.

“Hot pepper, eat some rice and drink this.” He holds this pale yellow drink in his hand. I eye it warily the sauce on the fish was yellow.

“What’s this?”

“Mango and yogurt shake, the fat in the yogurt will block the heat off. Water just spreads the heat around more.”

“Okay…” It’s surprising good I could get used to this. He looks at me smiles and gets up. “Where you going?”

“You liked mine so much I’m getting another.”

“But you can have it back, we kiss so it’s not like it’s contaminated.”

“No but you like it and need it with your food.”

“But…but…”

“Erin…you have a nice butt. Does it taste better because it’s mine?”

I blush, look at my plate chew a bit on my lower lip. “Kinda…”

“And is it just a little cool that I’m giving you mine and getting another?”

“A little…” I can’t help but smile a bit. This is a girl thing and I don’t do these things like this like some people do but that boy girl song and dance thing is pretty neat and Patrick and I just sort of play with these moments…I never had them growing up and it feels good to have them now.

I can’t help but to smile at him as I watch him go get another drink. It takes a few more buts before I get the hang of eating this by cutting a forkful of the fish then piling some of the rice on it kills a lot of the burn but I still get the heat. I’m finding that I’m liking the flavors.

I have to get used to the different foods out there after a life with a whole lot of mass produce, super processed soys and vat foods…you have to literally train your body to real foods. I’m lucky because my remake has made that a lot easier but like everything else I’ve been really sheltered food wise.

Patrick comes back and we have a nice breakfast together before heading off for our duty shifts. I hear some of the others still complaining about the Balkorvan’s and why we haven’t gone into their systems and taken them down.

I’m frowning and walking the look at Patrick. “Why aren’t we?”

“Why are we what?”

“Going after the Balkorvan’s.”

“Politics and strategy.”

“I’m not sure that I’m getting that.” I say honestly. He stops looking out the window.

“As a people the Balkorvans are pirates by trade and tradition but they are also the biggest black market source around for several of our governments. They let us do things that are legal but need doing because as much as we love our laws and freedoms it’s a very hard universe out there and sometimes we need these places.”

“Okay, I get that but they attacked us and we can’t go after them?”

“One clan attacked us, it’s why they’re a pirate federation because of things like this. So when someone get’s stupid or greedy it comes down on his head and not all of them.”

“But they all know he did it, or they did it so they get away Scott free? Is that the term?”

“They’re not getting away, they’re looking the other way as we send it a team of night ops emissaries to sort out this unfortunate instance of friendly fire.”

He’s doing the air quotes thing and it takes me a minute to get it but I do get it. Like it no…it just seems kinda dirty. I know that the world has these things going on in them but when you’re in the event that’s being black op swept up it just rubs you like a cheap bra.

“Hey…Erin, you going to be okay?”

Patrick’s looking at me and I smile. “Yeah just adjusting a bit more to life is all. I’ll see you after shift?”

“Definitely unless you’re busy, I hear there’s going to be quite a few incoming cadet ships and stuff so you might have a full sky today.”

“That I’m actually looking forward to.”

We share a long kiss and part ways and my day runs into this long but really interesting day as my sky indeed gets full.

Soleil is a high traffic zone and there’s tourism, immigration, merchant coasters, and people like us and others. There’s a tense moment when the ID scan numbers come up for two Balkorvan ships but at the same time there’s nine Colonial Union military ships in system.. The system has five space stations or platforms running from mining rigs to gas giant skimmers and a few smaller refueling stations and such add that in with the local ships and civilian contractors and my sky is very full.

Oh and by Navigation Standards…every Colonial Union ship calls it their sky on the astrogation bridge. You get less mistakes on things heading in your ships space if you just take that approach. You don’t rely on fudged numbers and second, third or more handed information.

I’m busy on scan and tracking then sending my stuff to query station who identifies the ships and then to plotting who confirms the flight plans of the ships, skiffs or shuttles. The com officers are busy talking to the ships and the commander is passing it to the bridge com officers who adjust our headings.

We’ve all done this before on other stops but this is a lot busier. Some of those new recruit’s the slightly older ones are here as runners. Me I’m sort of running as the deck commander has me doing my job, showing the rookies how to cover for me and then I’m covering the more experienced stations. It feels like his every fifth word is “Stone!”

“Yessir!”

“I’m going to the head, them break. You’re in charge, don’t have us jam the traffic up.”

And with that I’m in command over people that outrank me normally. I’m nervous scared and wired when my On-body computer pops into full life with command features…oh it’s just so much information it…there are things going on the ship that I really barely figured effected the ship and the percentages but they do. There’s so much tracking of flights and flight control from the hangars as there’s shuttles of our own coming and going and our fighters out on a patrol escort. Every Erg of thrust and thrust wake and weights and masses and gravity from planet masses, stations and the bigger ships it’s all flickering through my brain so much more alive, ever changing and vital than net surfing.

I barely have time to breathe, that’s why he’s always issuing orders. Important things are always changing.

It was job wise without being in combat thrilling…it was like conducting an orchestra but it’s not an orchestra but a very large starship with thousands of people on it.

It only lasted thirty minutes but it was…

When I signed on for Navigation and Coms I had no idea that this would be so amazing.
I love this.

My shift ends and I’m leaving when the Deck commander comes over. “Good Job Stone, go download and report to command shuttle bay 1”

“Sir?” I’m going but my duty shift is over.

“Request from the ships commander, there’s a shuttle going out for a VIP pick up and he put in the order for you to fly scan on the flight.”

“Yessir, I’m on my way sir.”

“No you’ve got an hour before flight, this is VIP go get a bite, then shower and then your bridge dress uniform. Don’t make this deck look bad got it?”

“Yessir!” I salute him and head off to download my command experiences. It’s a bit of a downer getting command function turned off before I had va chance to really look at it but still it was really cool.

And scary, how do the upper ranks stay so people oriented when they have this going on?

I head out to “The” command shuttle the sleeked out looking with the flag based paint job and the very expensive interior, there’s staffers here in uniform to fit every need including some of our Companions and several of our heavy combat troopers too including two in the super heavy duty exo-suit armors. Stillwater’s there and she’s in full uniform and she nods to me.

“Stone, take your station.”

I sit and go through pre-flight and do the talk-chatter through command and get coded again for command functions right to my O.B.C. for the shuttle…oh…command class first rated Shuttles are really just small starships really.

I go through the motions with the piloting crew and the fact that Stillwater is our gunner and that we have a gunner doesn’t escape me either.

We go out on low burn until we get clear then the plasma coils ignite the metallic hydrogen and we’re off.

Heading just out of the star system to rendezvous with…

I think the co-pilot said it for all of us.

“What the hell is that?”

FTL-11…Faster Than Life.

Chapter 11

I sit back in the seat and I stare at the thing well…the ship that’s waiting for us as it comes into view.

I’ve never seen anything like this. I’m not an expert but there are a whole range of things that are very similar about all starships.

This was sleek.

Now most people don’t do bother with sleek designs not for starcraft. There is usually anti-gravity gear in place and while there’s some streamlining it’s usually about function than being something pretty.

Star yachts the rich owned things are pretty.

But this was over a thousand meters long and it was sleek and actually shaped very much like a spearhead or one of those double edged throwing knives the combat troops often have.

It’s actually right at the blade edge that we can see anything like windows or sensors the rest is very armored and that armor seems like its metal at least with this almost blue grey steel look.

I check my screens. “I’m not picking this thing up on our sensors.”

Stillwater nods. “We figured that, there are rumors they have a sensor foiling armor and apparently it’s not a rumor.”

“Okay…but who are they.”

“They call themselves the Makere.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“Neither had I until I was briefed a few hours ago.”

I look at some of the others in the crew and they’re doing the same. To keep this that hush hush is a big deal. It’s top secret stuff. It’s also…there’s something else I notice. Every member of the flight crew has their swords. Both with them but we’re all medaled with our blades.

“So what are we here for?”

“Political pick up we’re picking up an ambassadorial team.”

“They’re joining the C.U.?”

“No…they’re allies.”

“Oh…”

I don’t really get it but we get hailed and then there’s a data stream sent to us with the vectors and speed and coordinates for us to make out docking run.

I know military ships and these are way cleaner than our hangars when we land. They have troops out there in formation waiting for us as honor guards and we all notice one thing first.

“They’re blue?” one of the security detail says.

It’s true they’re dressed in more of flight suit or jumpsuit types of uniforms but they have blue skin the color of the sky and darker blue’s for the color of their hair. The combat armor that they wear is form fitted overlapping plates and it’s the same thing as the hull. The armor is very body hugging it looks like you could move very well in it actually and you can definitely tell the genders apart it looks actually almost robotic with that bare metal look except for this slightly v- shaved visor that sort of shimmers this emerald green. I’ve never seen their rifle types or their side arms either.

We get told to get into positions to welcome dignitaries and I stand at the ready at my station and I see an entourage coming of sorts. It’s so strange there’s no military fan fare no music being played no sounds at all on their sides.

They come up to us and Stillwater is out there with the welcoming party and there is the greetings and shaking of hands and then they board. They are all good looking, maybe bio sculpted? I see the head of the Makere delegation and she is stunning she has this very amazon like body of amazons produced waifs. She’s tall six foot six at least and thin, long thing legs coming from these seductive hips and narrow waist and everything but her very full and ample breasts is that thin and lovely look.

Not common beauty either she’s too tall for it to be our fashions no she’s stunning more because of the way she just seems so comfortable in who she is.

It’s kind of intimidating to see a woman like her she gives off this comfort and relaxed confidence in who and what she is like no woman that I’ve ever met and honestly I think even Stillwater’s nervous around her.

Her staff though seems relatively normal as people go except the things that I had mentioned. They are quiet though and I notice this very odd accent on the lady diplomat it’s pleasant almost Dutch/Danish like?

I see some of the staff look pretty young, like some of my peers like they are green members of this crew. There’s a dozen of them including the four soldiers that they have with them.

They get settled in and we head off once we’re granted clearance to go ahead and do so. Stillwater comes up and joins me up front.

“Let’s get some more speed in getting back to the ship okay. I don’t want to be out here with these people this vulnerable any more than we need to be.”

“Corporal? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah but I wasn’t filled in that this is a second contact mission.”

“Pardon?”

“Second contact as in what comes after first contact…”

I don’t get it but some of the others are getting it and staring.

It slowly sinks in.

No…that can’t be right can it?

“Corporal? They’re….”

She looks at me and she nods. “Yeah Stone…those are gene mods, they are actual real live no-human life forms.”

“Oh…”

Oh really doesn’t cut it I mean there are things out in the galaxy that are just so amazing and unique and even evil or just bent and twisted but all of the sentient life that we know of…well it’s human. Even the Tekkers had started out as humans.

This…

Oh god this changes everything…it changes god even…I mean we aren’t alone? Humanity isn’t alone.

I look back and I steal a glance or two at these Makere and I’ll admit this is huge and just the stuff I can think of is scaring me. And I catch the eyes of one of their uniformed staffer’s for the envoy and I can almost tell.

She’s as freaked out as I am.

I offer her a shy smile and a friendly head nod.

She offers one back.

Okay…the alien…she’s not that alien.

FTL…12 Faster Than Life.

Chapter 12

I’m really focused on scan now that we have real live alien VIP’s on board I have visions of something coming after us because of it and thankfully I’m wrong and the one thing I do notice is.

Nav-Command didn’t treat us any differently than any other VIP shuttle. We’re treated with the same respectful indifference. I know one thing and that’s I’m glad I’m not flying. There’s a lot of pressure I can imagine.

It’s uneventful except for the looks that we’re exchanging back and forth. The girl I sort of made eye contact with before is really trying hard not to do the wide eyes thing and rubberneck.

I’m not sure that I’d be able to hold back either.

We land and there’s words between on of their middle command people and the flight commander. Stillwater comes over. “Alright crew out first they want to thank you all before the rest of this goes on. And stick around command wants a word.”

It’s a bit tense as we line up and the alien…these Makere VIP’s get off the transport and they shake our hands like we do but it’s some thing they must have been taught because there’s no fluidity of the gesture.

I lock eyes with the young staffer and there’s a bit bigger of a smile between us. Then they’re escorted off by their guards or soldiers and some of ours with both the Consort majors the heads of the military companions. The ships, our ships commander comes up to us.

“I know that this goes without saying but this is a classified need to know only flight mission. You don’t talk to this about anyone other that command staff from this ship only. Are we clear?”

“Yessir!” we all answer.

“Alright dismissed, enjoy your leave.”

He leaves and I watch him go. I’m usually way too into him to be all reflective but this is something really serious. I mean real aliens, and me frying to figure out what it all means.

We’re not even out of the bay when Astrid Jenkins asks Stillwater. “So why are they here?”

Stillwater just looked at her. “Do I look like command Private?”

“No Corporal…”

“Exactly.” Two MP’s showed up likely called by her implant. “Take the Private here into secure holding and make sure she stays there under guard until command talks to her. Command staff only no one else.”

Jenkins looks panicked and scared but she goes with the guards.

“We’ve been ordered not to talk about that unless it’s with command staff for this ship only and that includes all of us…each other.”

One of the others asks. “Jenkins in serious shit Corporal?”

“Enough, she’ll likely get a good dressing down and she’ll be in segregation until this is open or she gets assigned into the middle of this. Loose lips people…we’re professionals, we are soldiers, we follow orders. Got that?”

“Yes Corporal!” we all call out.

It sort of seems harsh but then again what we just did is pretty huge. This is second contact…which means there was a first contact and we’ve never heard even a whiff of it so it’s very top secret stuff.

And I don’t blame the government for that.

Okay, we have lots of sciences and we’ve come a long way but there are also the religious ones for example. They’ve come right along too with us and they…well what happens to the whole creationist thing when you’re confronted with life, real intelligent life from non-earth backgrounds.

Then add it the paranoids, the conspiracy nuts types, anarchist, and the list of people that would run amok about all of this is huge. Some of the theocratic star colonies would very likely go to war.

So secret and quiet makes sense.

Even Soleil makes sense. I mean this place is our shore leave and is essentially our last hurrah before we get dropped into the crucible of what will be our academy days. It’s like that old earth college concept of spring break?

Who would even thing to look for aliens even blue ones in this place? The cosmetic mods and the gene mods of some of the different sections of the C.U. armed forces are that varied and widespread that they won’t really stick out that much.

A good place for a summit meeting really.

I’m sort of feeling better about things for figuring out the stuff that I have figured out and I head back to my quarters and start to pack my few things I’m taking with me for shore leave and then head to medical for my tint injection.

It’s just a type of nano-bot that works its way to the surface layers of your skin and it helps you tan safely rather than burn. It’s not a standard injection for non-desert op staff so it costs me about two hundred credits but I’m told that its money well spent.

I meet Patrick down at the transports and it feels so strange to be off duty and going out off ship all free and clear. This has kind of been my life for awhile now.

………………………….. The first thing I notice is our public implant functions get turned back on as we break into the atmosphere. I see a few relieved and glazed looks as people delve into VR headspace like they’re getting their fix.

Me…it’s too noisy and I shut down all but a few functions. I leave my translator on and here they speak natively earth french for the actual natives so I keep that app ready if I need it and my military message com up but that’s about it. I don’t even have the private chat function on between me and Patrick.

I like actually talking to him a whole lot better.

The second thing that hit’s me is the sheer plethora of kinds of people here when we hit the terminal, hundreds of different kinds of people here if you count the different ethnics and the different mods.

“Wow.”

“Hmm hon?”

He called me hon. Okay that’s seriously normal life boy girl stuff. I smile and lean on him just taking it in.

“There’s so many different kinds of people here it’s confusing and chaotic and busy. I wasn’t expecting this.”

“It’ll be like this at training for you Erin, the whole planet is set up as training and all the support stuff there plus command stuff and member embassies.”

“Oh.”

“It’ll be like this but about ten times the numbers and all in great big cities and stuff.”

“I’m glad I’ll be on base.”

“You’re going to be there for year’s hon. A lot of cadets get places off base to live.”

“Huh, that’s allowed?”

“It’s the training planet; the whole thing is really a base.”

“Oh okay why the apartments though. I mean doesn’t the closeness foster teamwork?”

“For some units but you’re going nav, that’s a lot of schooling and some people like their study space.”

“Wow, that’s a lot to think about.”

“Nah, don’t stress it they’ll keep your on base the first year pretty much for full on basic.”

“I though the ship was basic.”

“No, its training and it’s getting you cadets ready for basic but it’s really to eval people and to weed out the undesirables.”

“Oh…so do things we learn on ship count there?”

“Oh yeah they add into the requirement slots/course for you MOS. (Military occupational specialty.)

“Good I think I’ve been doing good.”

“Yeah, according to scuttlebutt you are.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah you’re being looked at by some interested parties.”

“So what does that mean?”

“You know what cherry-picking is?”

“Uhm…not fruit harvesting.”

“No it’s where you wait to get a turn ahead of someone else for something before someone else.”

“Uhm okay…”

“There’s certain ships and commands to get assigned to that are better than others right?”

“Right.”

“Well some of those aren’t just handed out to the ones with the scores but the cadets with the “right stuff.” Well they’re the ones that get cherry picked for these positions by the commanders.”

“Oh…and I’m going to get cherry picked?”

“From the rumors there’s a good chance of it unless you really screw up in training.”

“Oh…”

“Ready hon?”

“Ready.”

…………………………………..Oh I wasn’t ready. We stepped out of those doors for a hover-cab and I get hit by this wave of heat and humidity that staggers me almost. Ship’s are pretty much on the cool side, home was too…lush and green but misty and damp too. Summer heat was likely mid twenties in Celsius; thirty was a heat wave home. Here I’m betting it’s thirty easy in the shade…and then there’s the humidity…shallow ocean waters dumps a lot of evaporation in the air.

I’m sweat soaked by the time we get to our bungalow.

Yes, Patrick’s seriously spoiling me and we rented a bungalow for the whole stay and it’s right down on the water off of this really nice beach and it comes fully stocked and…and he’s paying for the whole thing.

We don’t even really unpack that first day that we’re there…we drink these fruit drinks that he makes and I get a bit loopy and we sleep, we tan…we tan naked and I get to rub coconut oil all over him and him rubbing it all over me and that leads to sex…to lovemaking five times! Five times and it wasn’t just sweet lovemaking but it was good…hard…fast…intense make me scream into the sheets lovemaking.

But the slow stuff was just as intense.

Naked in the bedroom of this small cabin like place with this big bed and this light sheets and the scents of the tropical plants, the salt water and us in the air and stirred by the breeze…as we slowly made love.

Three of those times were just that this cycle of making love in between periods of just letting the sex drain our energy to where we slept again.

I love it here already. The others can party it up and likely are but right now I’m just wearing this wrap around my waist, it’s 02:33 hours local and I’m on the beach where there’s a fire going and Patrick is cooking us food since we’re starving now. It was so cool watching him just take this net baggy and walk into the surf and catches our supper. He’s literally raised to forage like this. His people are all gene-mods from a seriously aquatic colony and he looked like……this much more exotic vision of Neptune coming out of the surf in just his swim wear and the coconut oil and the natural scaling parts in his skin glittering in the light thrown off by the planet.

I love planet light, it’s like so much stronger better moonlight….I have waited all of my life to live real moments like these. We come close to burning our fingers off the rock lobsters and the shellfish he brought up and the giant prawn things that are like the size of bananas…just simple stuff too eat them with…some cut lemons and limes, some butter in a bowl to dip the hot meat into that’s it and the spice of getting fed by my lover.

I’m going to treasure this…I have to soak this into my heart because after this we’re gone…he’s off to an assignment and I’ll be headed to fleet training.

But here and now absolutely everything’s been worth it.

FTL…13 Faster Than Life.

Chapter 13

There was part of me that wanted to stay in bed.
Maybe, just maybe get as far as the chaise out there on the sand.

But Patrick had started to massage me with coconut oil all over and was straddling me giving me this wonderful massage and it had gotten better…

Very surprising but better when he slipped back and he sank into me from behind and dammit he made love and he kept massaging me.

Worse yet?

“Erin, how many times have you told me that said that one of the things that you hated about your old life was the fact you sat around and hadn’t actually tried to live life?”

Don’t you hate men when they actually get all logical and use that against you…Patrick’s far more insidious than that because it’s really unfair him asking me stuff like that when I’m bubbling inside right on the edge of orgasm.

That man…that man was using feminine wiles against me in a male way and it was working.

“Fine…unnghn….”

It was regular fine not girl fine.

Girl “Fine.” As you know is never fine.

This was just that I was okay with it now…I was okay with a lot of things once I was all relaxed and shimmering with afterglow.

The big thing? Puns not included?

Patrick wants to take me reef diving and to some of the places he’s been checking out here. He wants to take me underwater into his world. He’s a Triton that’s marine Special Forces but also he’s a Deltan a bio-gene-modified human species that was meant for aquatic life. He grew up most of his life like that as much in the water as out of it.

Me I want to build on those memories like I said.

I’m so glad that I went with him.

I’ve got a gill breather for my mouth and fin gloves and fin socks on and a bathing suit and I’m swimming and I’m following Patrick who for him is swimming sedately but never in all the wildest sims have I ever seen anything like this.

Once we got under the water we swam descending into the warm waters into another world. I mean everyone’s pretty much seen diving vids of some kind but the reefs here are huge and they’re only covered by some pretty shallow seas and with the light and the food here being just ideal they just are like nothing my mind was ready for.

There’s been people here for hundreds of years some the reefs had been carved and shaped and tended to be a massive undersea colonial park. Some parts you can swim through like caves or buildings some are like archways and pillars and there’s so many colors and fish that slip through the water in schools of multicoloured bright and sponges that are like these whole alien sort of fields.

Some times we’ll stop and have a break…he’ll feed me something still sort of living and use his knife to fillet or open it. I’m past the squeamishness and way too into the adventure and romance of it to be bothered by the freshness.

Sometimes we’ll kiss…he can breathe for me…and there was this one spot that had these cross currents hitting the coral walls and it would spin you around as long as you let it and he led me there and he held me as the water slow danced us in circles and we kissed.

I had to take surfacing breaks and recover from being so water logged and wrinkled so we’d stop at these cabana boats and have a few drinks and hang out and tan.

We spent the whole day doing all of that and I was tired when we got home to out bungalow but pleasantly surprised when I had found out that we had swam close to forty kilometres during the span of the day. Okay we had been gone for close to twelve hours but still. Considering the lack of shape that I had been in when I enlisted.

I’m pretty damned proud of myself and enough when my OBC flashes me an invite to a party I accept.

It’s a military party and casual off duty clothes and it’s being held by Companion services for the assembled fleet and Patrick and I go. I’m wearing my hair loose for a change and a tropical red print with yellow and white and pink flowers on it one shoulder halter top and a matching long skirt. I like it it’s local sort of a sari of sorts and we arrive and there’s a huge party going on with a massive buffet and native colonists pulling whole roasted pigs from the ground or spits and huge grills with shellfish, fish, birds all cooked in everyway that you could think of.

I’m starved from the swimming and make for the buffets first and I’m looking things over when I see her. The young alien staffer. She’s not in uniform but in this lycra like bathing suit that looks like shiny green kissed with a golden sheen fish skin…it’s amazing and it really sets off the pale, pale blue skin and the green hair. She’s actually braver hair wise than I am with her hair done in corn rolls beaded at the ends with beads made of compressed abalone shell.

She smiles as she see’s me. We both look around and move close together while perusing the tables. “Hello…”

“Hi, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Yes, I have heard this a lot from those in the knowings. I am to be saying I’m a gene-mod human.”

“Are you gene-moded though? To look more like us?”

“No. But we have been asking why it is that you look so much like us as well.”

“So this is what you were born like?”

“No, this is what I look like now. I am in my second cycle.”

“Second cycle?”

“Yes, we’re born without gender. For the first part of our lives we just live and learn and become who we are on the inside…develop our sense of self. Then we enter our second cycle where we choose our gender until we are ready to return to our first cycle and have the chance to choose again.”

“You switch genders?”

“Yes…is this a bad thing?”

“No just…very different to us. How can you know what gender you want to be?”

“We live, we watch those already in cycles before us are our peers and birthers it’s all who we identify with really.”

“Can I ask why did you choose female?”

“Oh why did you?”

“It’s who I am?”

She looks at me and she smiles. I smile back I hold my hands up. “Okay, okay fair enough. So you decided on what to try?”

“There is so much here that I have never seen before. We do not have so much of these things here.”

“So food is like where you’re from?”

“Ah…different, most of our water is under the surface and the rest is dense jungles and mountains. We have some herder food but we live mostly on farmed goods like….nuts…fruits… (She points at rice.) that and insects.”

“Bugs?”

“Yes…”

She points at a shrimp. “We have something like that but they fly with four wings and they have a long front tube that they use to suck nectar and even tiny insects.”

“It sounds interesting. I’m not used to all of this either where I come from food’s not like this. It’s very beef heavy, grains and that’s if you are wealthy most people live from packaged and processed foods.”

She nods. “That is most common in our cities. It’s fast and convenient and tastes like repurposed and reflavored excrement.”

She blushes. “Sorry I am not a fan of canned foodstuffs.”

“That’s okay, I’m Erin.”

“I am Elleryrion.”

“Oh…” I’m trying to wrap my head around that one.

“I was told to shorten it even for the mission…I am Elle.”

“Elle…I like that.”

“Yes, as do I we may adopt the use of shortened names after this.”

“Well Elle-lair-yin? (I was sounding it out.) I like that too.”

“Thank you but it’s Elle-lair-ree-in.” she sounds it out for me.

“Thanks I want to get things right with you know. How about we both get things we’ve never tried and then we cane both look like spazzes together.”

“Spazzes? What is spazzes?”

“Goofy?” she give me the blank stare.

“Uhm, foolish but in a friendly way…”

“Ah…I think I understand.”

We get a whole bunch of things to try on these big eating boards and sit and have a drink of some kind of fruit punch and we both try the small octopus that was grilled in some sauce.

“Really…”

“Chewy…she says her mouth going and cheeks bulging I took a bite out of mine but she ate the whole thing. But it was just funny that we were sort of thinking the same thing and we giggle over it. My bites and her whole thing really did amount to use finishing it at the same time and she takes a drink then says… “Oh…excellent.”

I look at mine, it was okay. “It’s not bad but excellent?”

“No…look…”

I grin.

Patrick’s headed our way full tray of food with him.

“He’s my S.O.”

“You’re…I am sorry that acronym was not in the military speech pattern data base.”

“Oh he’s my significant other.”

Elle looks like she’s thinking, sounding out the term in her head. I’ve never really known someone that English is her second language before. “Oh…what you’d say is boyfriend?”

“Yes, yes he is.”

“Erin?”

“Yes Elle.”

“Does he have an attractive friend?”

I cough on my drink. I wasn’t expecting that one.

FTL-14...Faster Than Life.

Chapter 14

I can’t help but wonder if we’re being watched?

Command has shown me they’re fond of tests for things and even if this party was one of those military personnel only things and approved escorts and Elle’s people…if we’re being watched as to see just who’s going to say the wrong things. I noticed Elle had glanced at several people in a strange way and I didn’t know those people.

Yes past tense. The party is nearly over I think and we had a good time…I think I have finally gotten that old hand at drinking amusement thing when watching those new to it.

Like Elle…

She had “sampled” a lot of different drinks. And apparently they have alcohol but she’s still new to it and all of our variations of it.

I wonder just how the people watching us will take me holding her hair while she pukes her guts up into the toilet in the ladies room.

Beer, ale, dark ale, rum, dark rum, coconut rum…agave whiskey, mescal….and food all coming up…

Ewww…I must have missed her getting gelatin shots when I was dancing with Patrick.

Thankfully the scent of my skin lotion was combating the smells. That and I keep flushing the foulness away.

Thankfully her being drunk is a good cover for her babbling crying in her native language. It’s sort of this light sounding language with what I’d call lots of vowel sounds in it. It’s still nothing like the languages I’ve studied though.

I get her off the floor and to the sinks and actually pick he up and set her butt on the long counter top and get a pack of wipes out of my purse and I start to wipe off her face and it’s a good thing that she wasn’t wearing any make up I’m not sure that I could do the effects of whatever they’d use.

She’s blinking at me as I’m scrubbing her face. “Erin you are a goooooooood friend.”

“Well we just met Elle but I would like if we could be friends.”

“Yesh! Yesh we is goooood friends I can can not imagine going through all of this space to be at a place like this and to talk to one of you ish jus amazing…”

“Shush…yeah it’s amazing but where did you get your outfit for this because it looks like its local clothing.”

She gets all excited and hyper as only the really new to being really drunk get and she’s also doing the drunken burps thing too and I get her finally cleaned up and then help her off the counter, fix her skirt and we head out of the bathrooms.

Patrick’s looking at me and smiles. “She’s a little hammered.”

“She’s plastered.”

Elle stares at us and squinty scowls. “I don’t get youse…you...you…why are you talking about car…carpentry? (burp) I don’t get you stupid language.”

She starts talking and muttering in what I still think is her language and then she’s tilting to one side as she’s trying to take off her shoes and is almost falling over. “Stoopid heels, can’t walk straight.”

I’m smiling and I help Elle with her shoes and I carry them after she drops them twice and I actually head over to where I have seen what looked like her people mingling with mine. Two of them get up from the far off table they are at and walk to me they’re male and they look like they’re well built but at the same time sort of average? Five ten, one hundred and eighty pounds lean yet muscled. But they move like Patrick they move like fighters.

“Evening I’m afraid some of the local fare and drink didn’t sit too well with Elle, I thought it might be best if I dropped her off to her shipmates.”

They give me a look like they didn’t really understand me but take her and one makes a face and rolls his eyes when she burps in his face. The other one sniffs and makes a face and he nods at me and tries a smile. Oh he’s so do on their diplomatic side of things but I nod and smile back and I head off to find Patrick again.

Hopefully I handled the whole thing alright and without incident.

I head to where I see Patrick talking to a bunch of other Tritons and I just get myself a bottle of gingered ale and watch them. I think they’re his unit. Okay ladies and men if you’re that inclined picture seven hard bodied military men that are the sexy embodiment of the merman myth. I’m enjoying the view. I’m a little curious as one of them is passing them out these nano-gel pill packets and they’re all popping them as they’re talking and drinking beer.

I hold off from going over but get beckoned over to a group of other women. “Yes?”

“You’re Erin right?”

“Yes?”

“Patrick’s steady.”

“Yes.”

“We’re theirs.”

“Oh…” I understand sort of this is like the wives club kind of thing.

“So you and pat have the talk yet?”

“The talk?”

“Yeah about getting serious?”

“No, I’m a cadet still and I’ve got a lot of training to go through and he’s a Triton…he’ll be leaving to go out in the field soon.”

“Tomorrow.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow, they’re going out on a mission hence the shadow-drops.”

“Shadow-drops?”

“The nano pills.”

“Oh…?”

“It’s going to be a night op or something where getting darker will be an advantage.”

“Pardon?”

“The nano-pills have colorizers in them to darken their skin and hair and scales so they get darker and it makes them easier to blend in plus their blockers.”

“Blockers?”

“The nano’s in these drops down pull out until they’re preset time goes off but they actually emit an low level ECM kind of thing that drops them out of thermal, night vision and infrared.”

“How?”

“Dunno but it’s some kind of special forces SOP implant that works with the nano’s.”

“So you can’t see them on sensors?”

“Nope, cloaked out.”

“Wow so what about natural bio-senses that do the same?”

“That’s where their special forces training comes in.”

“Oh…” Okay I knew Patrick did stuff that was like that but there’s knowing and then there’s knowing.

“So are you two parting ways then?”

“Yes….I’m really not sure how to feel about it, he’s my first and my first real relationship too.”

“You go over and take him back to your place and you make love all night then.”

“But he’s with his team mates.”

“No worries girl we’re all going to do the same c’mon.”

With that she shoves herself off the table she was leaning on and we all go over as a group of women talking our men away from their gathering to our private places and to see them off properly.

I’ll make no bones I guess as they say about it. I took Patrick back to our cabana and we made love all night. I cried too and there was this intense desperation to the times when we made love…we barely dozed either in between the times that we made love. I had even done my very best at giving him oral sex though I’m not very skilled at it. It’s not like that’s not a kind of sex that I don’t enjoy either but it’s still sort of intimidating.

But he loves it.

Is there a man that doesn’t?

I’m shaky and crying in the morning as we eat breakfast as the sun comes up and his implants tell him it’s time to go and I go with him to the actual base grounds here and I’m not alone in seeing him off or being all sad and hurting and crying doing so.

I have no idea when or if I’ll ever see him again and that scares and hurts me.

There’s more than just his team leaving too there must be six teams and what looks like some of the combat pilots leaving too and there’s a lot of hurt going around but there’s pride there too because we’re almost all part of the same military here and we all know the risks and the score as they say.

But honestly…flat out this was harder on me than leaving home and getting cut off from my family.

It’s because he told me. “Erin…I love you.” before his last kiss and him watching me as he walked backwards up the ramp for the shuttle.

It’s the hardest thing because he meant it and I think honestly that’s the first time anyone had ever said those words to me and meant them.

I’m just standing here now like the others watching the sky and the slowly fading star shine lights of their thrusters carrying them away to war.

FTL-15…Faster Than Life.

Chapter 15

I guess that part of me wants to say that like any good girlfriend I pined away and mourned our relationship and the parting of ways. But I guess there was still too much of the old me still lingering in the fringes of my head and the first thing I did was go back to our cabana and packed my things and went and rented a single.

I just couldn’t face the rest of my time here in the place we had so much fun in and made love in so many times.

Then I bought a bottle of hard stuff on the way a rum the named Zombie after the bar drink and I got very, very badly drunk and really sick and spent time in the bathroom refamiliarizing myself with the idea of faith as I was praying to the porcelain one and cursing and begging for mercy to the ephemeral one.

I was passed out and had cried myself to sleep on the bathroom floor lulled into comfort by the cool kindness of the toilet when they had found me.

Sunshine and Carrington both help me to my feet and the rest of my bunkees are there and I’m carried out onto the beach and rudely tossed into the surf!

I come up sputtering and in shock having swallowed a good deal of sea water and I stand in just my shift and panties and I’m yelling which does not help my hangover.

“Hey! What’s the big idea!?”

Anna’s looking at me and there’s some other of our year there too but not from my bunk all sort of gathered together. There’s that look Anna usually has when she doesn’t like or approve of something we’ve done or are doing on her face.

“The idea Erin is to knock you out of the stupid loop you’re in.”

“Loop, what loop?”

Sunshine wades into the water to help me out. “Erin we know you and Patrick had a serious relationship going on but he’s gone on mission and we he gets done there’s a really small chance that he’s going to make it to Command and even less at the training base.”

“I know that, but we where…”

“Close, awesome and that’s great but its run it’s course honey don’t mourn what you had but treasure it and actually move on.”

“Move on!? This was a big deal for me; he was a big deal to me?”

“Yes but it’s been two days and we’re not going to be here a lot longer then it’s going to get even busier when we get into full time base training.”

“But I love him.”

“Good, love him but don’t let the first guy you’ve ever known cut you off from getting back those times you missed out on before you enlisted and became the real Erin Stone.”

“But…but…”

“No buts, we’re going to have fun and we’re going to do lots of stuff that none of us has ever done okay?”

(Sniffle…) “Okay…I’ll try…”

“No…Do or do not there is no try.”

I give her this funny look what a cryptic thing to say. But Sunshine is a companion and they’re definitely a certain breed of the different.

She and the others walk me back to my single and after another bout of getting sick from the sea water I’m showered and I get dressed in some casual wear and pack a bag to go with them.

I’m put into the shotgun seat of one of the big six wheeled jeeps and we head off driving in a group of close to twenty of us in three vehicles.

I was tired, sore and miserable for a good two hours and my friends kept me plied with recovery meds and water until the camaraderie and the music blaring out of the speakers wasn’t so bad and my mood started to get towards being human again.

Patrick and I never really thought about doing any of the other stuff other than us just being us at our beach cabana and keeping close to the water. I’ll never regret we did but I’m starting to feel better and the things we’re doing together are things that no way I’d ever do myself.

Our first stop is an actual volcano it’s an old one and mostly serves as a back vent for the other nearby ones so it’s safe and used as a tourist spot but we take the tour, walk thought the paths in the great cone then out through the lava tubes which is spooky and actually interesting and then we have a horse ride with some basic lessons from there to this volcanic soil attacked farm place where we get a look and samples of coffee and bananas and other tropical things before heading back to the jeeps and to our next adventure.

I’ll say this the recovery meds helped and the water but The really fresh roasted Kona? Coffee’s they made us in these really small shots and then these ice drinks with fresh pineapple and mango with sugar cane all juiced together the flash frozen to slush really made me feel better.

Though, I’m not sure if my female parts and horses are compatible. It was as sedate ride through the fields to the main buildings where we started but it was still seven kilometres and I’m feeling it.

The next place was good too and there we were part of several groups that were all checking out the local shopping and not really in the port part of the city but the other side of the city where the locals lived and ate and shopped. There might have been more than just us but we were a lot less than the swarm of military personnel that is on the other side of the port.

That night came around pretty quickly since we sort of killed the whole afternoon just shopping well mostly looking since there’s a limit to what you can store and there are a few things that I do get though and I’m intending on shipping home to my place back home. The base there has storage facilities that will put my stuff in holding until I’m done my first tour.

It feels so strange, so really strange to think of home and the things I had to sacrifice to be myself. And it’s so strange how long ago it feels even though time wise it hasn’t been that long.

What did I get? Mostly pictures, tourist things but a few of the local things I liked too like some of the coffee, vacc-sealed fruit packs and coconut and sea salt from here and some sand, a bit of jewellery and some very well made and decent palm frond mats and some clothing.

I take with me for my ship use. Some of the coffee and I get a bathing suit and a nice tropical styled dress.

By the time night time rolls around we head back to the compound and the big feast thing they have every night but instead of the more sit and eat areas I’m dragged along to where there’s dancing and sports going on.

Beach volleyball, Tae-Budo matches and even kendo matches all on these stages and lit by firelights and torches and they biggest thing is all of these things are matches for bragging rights between ships and even company units.

Stillwater is in the thick of all of it with her just being amazing as she plays the volleyball game with passion and almost lethal intent. If I was more into women I’d be swayed but she’s just damned impressive. Tight flexible black sport bikini and her body covered in sun block making her shine but it all blends in with the fact she’s got a lot of battle scars and tattoos form being in the service and she has her long blonde hair pulled through the back of a military issue black cap in a pony tail and aviator sunglasses on and add that look to her tall over six foot amazon like frame and she’s a force.

Watching her spike a ball with a four or five foot jump in the air and blast the other woman trying to block her with this combat scream grunt. Yeah you don’t have to like women to like Stillwater.

And watching her and other people we know with a handful of spicy BBQ and free…yes free draft beer get’s you yelling and cheering along with the rest of them.

Even funner is that everyone between matches and events is out with the rest of us eating and drinking and dancing or talking.

There’s a lot of inter ship and inter-unit trash talking.

Oh did I mention the free beer?

Or that sunshine somehow has me in this place where they’re all yelling and cheering at me and her and a few other people and there’s this pretty cute local guy in front of us and he’s pouring this huge line of shot glasses full of that agave liquor I’ve had before.

They keep shouting and chanting. “Drink, drink, drink!” at me as I take a shot and down it.

Then after this really good handful of kaluha pig and a beer there’s this guy with a hose and I’m getting my shirt soaked with water along with several other girls.

Some guy I don’t know yelled at me later to “Take off your shirt! I wanna see your titties!” I think I punched him?

I remember though more dancing and more shots, and this guy…no too guys and I’m in a medical chair and one guy’s down between my legs and it was oh, it was, it was very, very yay and the other guy was doing something to my arm and my shoulder and it really really hurt.

………………………………….It’s my O.B.C. that wakes me up with the alarm going off and I’m really hot and I’m moving? I crack an eyelid almost regretting it to find myself on a surfboard out in one of the beach area safe lagoons just floating in the water.

I’m felling really hot and warm and my bio-monitors are reporting that I’m way out of balance…too much sun and there’s damage to my skin that the shot couldn’t keep up with…I’m over salted, slightly toxic from the alcohol still in my system.

It all culminated to a hangover and really needing to pee. I don’t feel as bad as I did though as I did after my bender when Patrick had left…that’s a good thing to know, or well a good thing to remember.

Don’t drink alone, and don’t drink alcohol you’re not used to and keep stuff reasonably in your stomach.

I roll the surfboard hanging on and just sit underwater for a few minutes before flipping back over again and then paddling to shore…ow…my right shoulder is hurting and I see a slap-patch bandage on it and feel one on the shoulder blade as well.

I get to shove and carry the board to the rack and pick my way through the bodies of the passed out and head to the canteen on the beach and use the facilities and make my way around looking and I see Still water and some of the other older enlisted of the ship.

All of them are swords.

“Stone over here!” She yells and I make my way over and she gestures at a free seat and despite the respect I have for her and them I sort of flop into the large wicker chair.

“Rough night?”

“Yes Corporal just getting my feet under me I guess with the help of my bunkees and year mates since Patrick went off on mission.”

“Yeah I saw, you deserve it you’ve had a rough year and having your first guy ship off is hard shit.”

I nod and one of the other’s passes me a platter with leftovers on it and another a cold drink…not booze but a tall enriched soda water…cold too and that hits the spot.

But the one with the platter grins and he says. “You did pretty well in the shot contest?”

“Oh…ugh…I think I remember that.”

The one who got me the drink. “And not too shabby in the wet t-shirt contest either.”

“Wet t-shirt, I couldn’t have done that well.”

Stillwater smiles. “Well for someone who went straight conversion and didn’t go all enhanced you did well among the unadjusted girls.”

I cover my face. “Oh well as long as it was fair right?”

“Erin the showers and facilities are co-ed, relax and let the colony scrub off y’know. It was fun.”

“I guess but just not me.”

“Its leave, you’re allowed not to be you now and then.” Stillwater says as she’s eating something seafood looking and raw?

“I guess, I’m still new to all of this…but am I in trouble?”

She sucked down something that looked like a tentacle and shakes her head. “No, but I want to make a request.”

“From me?”

“Yes, you’ve been pretty diligent in your training and we ended up having a….a discussion with some of the swords from the Colonial Union Battle cruiser Frontier and we’re having a kendo competition and marksmanship and mixed martial arts.”

“It’s just between the swords for each group so…” The guy says.

I look at them and I’m not a combat type and it’s not really my forte but. I have the sword and I have the responsibility to at least try and give it my all and they’re asking me.

“Alright. I’ll do it.”

FTL-16...Faster Than Life.

Chapter 16

There’s some nods and some smiles from all of them and one of them takes out a holo emitter and is OBC’s typing and there’s files coming up of people. The competition I think.

“We get to see their files?”

Stillwater shakes her head. “Not files but fleet bios.”

“Huh?”

“Officers and staff of distinction get bio pages made with general information. Like a general info file.”

“Oh so they get to see ours too?”

“Yeah but the bios only like us.”

I watch and look as they go over the bois of our competition and it lists stuff like open book missions and some of their training and their hobbies and activities as well as a list of stuff like the medals that they have. And that leads to Stillwater and them talking about some of them like they know these people and even what they heard about who got what medal for what.

The breadth of their knowledge of scuttlebutt seems pretty intimidating given this is supposed to be a friendly tournament.

They’re talking and I’m listening and carefully eating with my still squeamish feeling from being hung over it’s actually hard to do any of it. I peel off the bandage on my arm and see a tattoo there of a sword like mine a wakazashi crossed with the Colonial Union flag and two small barcode lines under it. I read them through my On-Body-Computer and one is the date for the Tekker attack I was in and the other was for the ship skirmish with the Balkorvan. Action date bar codes are pretty common but you usually see them on combat personnel.

I carefully peel the bigger one off from my back shoulder and it’s a radar scanner screen and there’s like ten contacts on the screen with targeting lock on them. In tech-font letters under the bottom half of it reads.

Sense-Nav…Lock.

Okay that’s really…well it’s true, without us as eyes in combat the gunners don’t get to see and attack runs for the fighters don’t get plotted.

We’re the eyes and ears of the fleet.

Okay if you said I was going to get inked I would have said that you’re crazy because I never envisioned myself in any of the V-Sim versions of myself that I had played over the years as the whole tough military tattooed woman.

And I kind of like the Sense-nav one it’s quite okay, even maybe stirs up some pro-unit feelings in me but the sword and flag with my action codes on them. I earned those; I lose friends then, shipmates I find myself just staring at it and feeling on the edge of tears.

I look at the others blushing but I only get knowing looks. The flag and the sword…the swords are different but they all have them and some of their action lines those little barcoded strips…are like the length of poems on a page.

It’s humbling actually to see those. I have two, just two lines and the experiences from those have left me forever a different person…I can’t imagine a dozen lines or the thirty or fifty…the sheer fact that they’re here with me and able to talk and smile and act like people is like I said humbling.

We talk about the events and I’m tired just hearing about them all. Hand to hand stage bouts, bouts with practice swords, firearms with hand guns and rifles, and volleyball as well as other events.

No real practice time either with this being an impromptu challenge and a morale thing. I have a day’s grace that day being today before we start things in earnest. They leave me to do what I have to before the big day starts tomorrow and I thank them and I shake hands before heading off to my cabana.

Now I’d be normally be still really upset over Patrick shipping out and the fact that our bed still smells of him but the first thing I end up doing is taking a long shower and then drink a booster shake that we had in our mini fridge and half a big bottle of water and I pass out on our bed and try to sleep off the hangover.

Sleep…sleep is really really good and actually to be able to leisurely sleep as a woman for real? I’ve never slept as good as I do now when I was a man, or rather stuck in that shell. Even rolled over face down’s okay actually that’s the best way right now for me I like the feel of the sheets and the mattress pressed to my breasts. A lot of women don’t but I like the feeling as long as I don’t roll over and squish them.

But it’s sleep and up to use the bathroom then drink some more then sleep some more. Recovering from my sunburn and my hangover. At one point I just tub soak for awhile and that helped a lot with a large helping of a cocoa and shea butter lotion.

It’s just after sundown before I’m feeling better and I head out of my cabana to go and find out where my bunkmates are at and a few of the others. I find myself at a local pier that’s been turned out like one of those native places with a pealed roof of banana leaves supported by pillars and lots of local dancing.

I’m still taking it easy so I stick to thinks that seem light to me. Grilled fish, fruits I don’t care for the papaya there’s very little taste to me but pineapple wedges and passion fruit seem to be to my liking and I’m drinking club soda mixed with lime and coconut water. My OBC highly recommended to coconut water to help me balance out.

I sit with the others and talk a bit but watch the dancers both male and female. The men are exotic and buff and I wish that I could move my hips with that swing sway way these grass skirt girls do.

Well from the conversations with the other girls I’m not the only one even the big amazon augments seem to have the same reaction. I don’t know if it’s messed up or normal that even remade and rebuilt and even augmented beyond baselines we still look at some other women and have that sigh of feeling like if only…

I do notice that there seems to be more about it in the natural born females though than us. Personally I’m very grateful at just getting to be the real me.

But still to be able to move like that…that’d be nice. And It makes me wonder how these women are with their men in bed…I mean if they can move like that then…I’m sipping a ginger beer over lots of ice and actually picking at some of the crispy pork skin off the roast pigs while having my own little fantasy about what I could do in bed if I could move like that.

I don’t really intend to take someone home and do that but it’s actually kind of fun just to actually have the fantasy and even get a little turned on by it.

It’s not a quiet night but it’s an easy one. I drink but no alcohol and nibble most of the night and dance a little after the shows and once the band comes out. I just relax and have fun and though I wasn’t intending to have a bed partner Carrington comes back to my cabana with me and we settle in together.

No sex but we do share a bath together and snuggle into each others arms.

Sometimes it’s just enough to be held by someone that you care for. For me this was just right.

I’ll admit to some pretty strong lesbian urges in the morning. Or not…it was just waking up with her in bed with me and she’s so beautiful especially while she’d sleeping that I had really strong desires to kiss her awake and maybe more.

I’m not sure if she’d have welcomed the advances thought even if ….well. being with someone once doesn’t mean you’re given an open invite.
But she’s a bunkmate and my friend and apparently I’m selectively bisexual which is really another thing I’m still playing over in my mind. I was very certain that I was straight, as a woman I was hetero but it’s that I’m mostly hetero but some people.

I get ready and make some soy-caff and that wakes her up and we share a cup before heading off to these games that I’m competing in.

I follow the directions to the game/contest area it’s a beach on the bases compound and I’m surprised at the gathering crowds including at a glance our “visitors.” I wonder what they’re going to make out of all of this.

Heck I’m still wondering what to make of all of this. With the band that’s there and the announcers with this whole press stand on scaffolding it’s almost like a party complete with people cooking foods.

Disc football is the first event that we play. It’s called Frisbee? By some of the announcers and it’s like the run and carry game only with flags to pull from your clothes instead of being full contact.

And I’m next to useless, I can catch the thing and I can run but well…I throw like a girl. And I’ll admit right now that running barefoot on sand is harder than it looks.

From that and after a break we get into volleyball? Apparently a beach side shore leave staple and a tradition and it’s really challenging. Also something else to get my bum kicked at as the other ship has played this before. Heck everyone but me has played this before and I am the only cadet here in the whole thing.

That does get me noticed because I’m a sword, and I’ve two action lines to my bio and that seems to make me stand out.

But that doesn’t help me from getting spiked.

Oh I’ve brainloaded the rules and stuff to know how to play but playing something you only know the theory on is different than actually playing it. And spiking the ball is legal but it’s also not illegal to aim that spike at an opposing player. Sucks for them if someone can return or volley the ball but really sucks for me because I’m their prime target for this fun. I end up with three whacks to my head and one to my breasts…ow…maybe I should have worn armor to this and my fingers and forearms are getting bruised too.

I’m beat just after this even with the daily jogging we do and the swimming I just was never, ever athletic in my old life and these are all new sports to me. I’m drinking water to stay hydrated and some coconut water too but it’s really hard stuff.

Oh so far we lost the Disc football game but we won the volleyball game mostly because Stillwater is really tough and really good at that game and she’s able to use those long amazon legs of hers to jump a meter plus in height heck maybe even a hundred and thirty centimeters up and she has this almost demonic jump serve where she throws the ball into the air and just drives it towards the other team. That and her spikes are deadly.

The water part is next and that’s a plain race out to the buoy and back in a relay where I really hold my own in that thanks to all the time with Patrick in the water here or on ship. I beat my opponent in getting in and passing the baton…actually a combat knife. And that gives us the edge in that.

Then there’s the firearms section of the contest with targets for pistols and the rifles out on the water for us to shoot magnetic tracked ceramic rounds at the holo targets.

I slowly take aim at the targets taking into account the bobbing and swaying that their doing and adding it all up in my head like vectors…just treat the waves like gravity sheer like in the sensor drone drills on ship. Time it out breath and pull…pull not squeeze exhale and pull. I do it with the pistol and again for the assault rifle and try to keep myself in that zone, like the times that Patrick had coached me.

Like he said… “Take it easier Erin, you’re not in combat. You have all the time in the world to get the how down.”

“And when I’m in a fight?” I asked him.

“Same thing, getting outside of your calm will only make things worse, get you or someone else killed.”

“So….?”

“Make your shots like you have all the time in the world even if you don’t.”

“Oh thanks a lot, that’s some of that asian hoodoo.”

He laughed but eventually it made sense. It’s the whole reason behind training to make this familiar enough to do the things you need to do like nailing a moving target as just all one act instead of all the little actions that it actually entails.

A woman from the other ship is firing against me and there’s only so many targets out there at a time and its first come first serve in terms of scoring. By the time we’re done I’m kind of looking up and blinking from the near sort of trance that I was in and she’s scowling at me.

“Good shooting?”

“Hrmph, you’re a cadet?”

“Yes.”

“You shoot better than you ought to.”

“Sorry?”

She looks at me and she has this look I’ve seen before not a lot on our ship but I’ve seen it before and that’s the look that sometimes a combat MOS gives a non-combat MOS. There’s some disdain there like what we do isn’t important.

When one has ones head that far up her…

She give’s me this shoulder shove as she takes her rifle back to the event table. “I guess I’ll be seeing you in the ring then.”

Oh hell why do I feel like she’s going to turn this into a grudge match over four lousy rounds?

My unsettledness doesn’t last though and I’m getting cheered on by my teammates and my ship mates for the good scores that I got doing this round. It’s actually pretty nice to get the support and the cheers while I’m not doing something that requires me drinking way too much alcohol. I do a bit of a wave to my bunkmates and yearmates before sitting down and taking a break and getting rehydrated.

We win just by my four little rounds on the firearms section of the competition and that seems to set me apart again especially with the people from the other ship. I notice the pushy one pointing me out to her team mates and there’s a few looks like they want a piece of me.

Lucky for me I get a break as we get to watch the Iron-man competition they have set up and I’m not part of thankfully. But it’s great to watch and our main competitor is The Commander himself.

Of course he’s a sword.

And I’m experiencing that crush again with the man as I see him for the first time without his uniform and he’s….Well a civilian might find his combat scars hard to take but to me it’s proof that he’s survived and that he’s capable and oh my…

He’s an older man with the whole thing that men have when they get that great salt and pepper look to their hair and he’s decently tanned too, not too much just right but he’s tall and he has these really broad shoulders with a lot of hard bodied muscles…not the augmented type either where he’s a monster of muscle but this body from years and years of hard work even if he’s in command. Now just have him in flex cloth running shoes and dark navy blue flex cloth shorts that come down to just above his knees and sexually…he’s a Man with a capitol M.

My those shorts do not hide much.

Master Chief Armstrong’s there too as well as Stillwater and they take off running first down the beach and then through a military old styled confidence course where they go from that down the beach some more until they get to the end of the compound and run down this tarmac pier and dive off of that and swim all the way back to us at our spot on the compound beach and then they have to get on a stationary bike and pedal until they get in ten kilometers before it unlocks the next set of equipment which is a set of weights where they have to rep lift out a total of three thousand kilograms and then they have to do all of that twice more.

I’m aching just thinking of the strain they’re putting themselves through but at the same time The Commander is certainly very good to watch. He’s not doing the best and neither is Commander Jackson of the other team compared to the younger competitors but still watch him move and watch him lifting weights…

I’m so having the thought’s of I’d be so small and dainty and he’d be so strong and so commanding in the way that he’d hold me and then there’s all that endurance…that he could use on me for hours.

And I so have to get a cold bottle of water and set it between my legs. It’s a little embarrassing and yet it’s good too. Honestly the fact this is where my mind goes sometimes is really right feeling about me being me. I even chuckle to myself because it’s so kind of like me being glad that I get turned on by men like the commander is oddly as strange and funny as an old man getting happy because he woke up with a boner.

It really is kind of make you laugh stuff if you’re a person like me.

In the end Lt. Collin’s from the other ship comes in first and she’s…he’s…oddly attractive. Tall and slender with this almost androgynous look that’s very pretty in this blended sexuality way. Reshaped I’d guess but to an androgyne? Too pretty to be a male, too built to be a girl, not muscled like an augment and from their tank suit their wearing and the subtle sway they have they chose female genitalia.

I’m not really sure of the right pronouns for them either?

But their gender presentation aside they’re an exceptional athlete and they gave one hell of a showing here. You can almost see the determination in their eyes too as they were competing.

It’s not long after the Iron-man event that I get signaled by OBC to head to the sparring ring. The others are there waiting for me and I’m getting into my sparing gear being the lowest ranking and the least experienced of the fighters on our side I’m first.

Great nothing like getting the beating over with as fast as possible right?

And the shoulder bumper is getting ready on the other side of the ring. She’s smiling as her teammates are strapping her feet with tape?

“Careful Erin, Corporal Anderson’s a Muay-thai fighter.” The Commander says as he’s suddenly fixing my padded fighting gloves into place.

“Moo-tie sir?”

“She’s a kickboxer Stone.”

“Oh…lovely…”

FTL-17…Faster Than Life.

Chapter 17

I’m scared really as I’m sipping at my water and trying not to feel like I’m about to go through a great deal of pain. Sipping is important because if I drank a lot of water then there would be some or rather more of it in my stomach waiting for Corporal Armstrong to beat out of my in a spray of eww.

Before the likely sprays of blood…

My teeth…

Everyone’s ready but me and that includes her outside the ring with some of her people and she’s kicking this big pad one of them’s holding and the heavy "thud" is audible.

And she's staring me down with a savage grin.

Stillwater’s there and she’s helping me into the ring and we get to my corner and I’m nervous and sweating. I kind of feel ill too.

“Breathe Stone this is a competition bout it’s based on points you’ll make it through this.”

“Sorry Corporal she’s not interested in points unless she figures that she can beat me with impunity because of the skill difference between us.”

“Huh…I though she looked a little too eager to get in the ring.”

We watch Anderson hop from the ground to the ring edge and then ease herself in through the ropes.

“Oh she definitely wants a piece of you.”

“Why? I really didn’t do a thing to her.”

“You outshot her.”

“I was trying my best.”

“Exactly and to her she’s a combat MOS and you’re not so it was kind of insulting for you to be able to beat her.”

“I just did what Patrick taught me.”

“Erin…not everyone get’s to have lots of free range lessons from a member of the special forces.”

I blush. “He was scheduled for practice all the time…even when I was off so I…it was just going to him and doing or trying to do the stuff that he was doing.”

“Well did he show you any fighting moves?”

“No…well a couple of pins…”

“Good!”

I look at her and stare and she stares back and then slowly smiles and raises her eyebrow. “Oh those kinds of pins, yeah those mats have seen more action on them than most hotel rooms.”

I’m blushing until I look over and Corporal Anderson who’s dancing back and forth like she’s bouncing from foot to foot.

“What do I do?”

“She’ll likely try to kick you use that go for her other leg when she does.”

“Uhm okay…”

I get up and try to move and get loose and in my style it’s a light sort of boxing rhythm with closed in hand and not fists. Taebudo is a mix of Tae-kwon do a very wide spread style and judo and a little bit of boxing thrown in to be a well rounded form of military mixed martial arts.

Combat MOS usually study two or three more advance forms.

The signal sounds and the crowd cheers and I’m getting close more from her getting close enough to give me a beating. My last fight like this was when I was six with another child in a playground and the other child still had beaten me and my parents never took me back.

It was a waste of good credits for me to associate with ruffian children and hooligans and getting beat up.

What a messed up planet I’m from when it’s sort of widely held that going outside and having fun and exercise is for the poor people anyway that can’t afford most of the basic cyber systems.

And yet the parks we pay to access.

And I’m about to get into a fight with this woman from a combat MOS in the same forces as me because she’s angry I beat her shooting scores.

I thought that we were like on the same side…

Her first punch was too fast for me and my head snaps back and that really, really hurt…

I’m slowly starting to realise that people are kinda stupid.

Oh and hung over and tattooed because of a break up…I’m not too smart either huh.

Second hit I get my head down and she hit’s the top part and hisses and her third swing I get my arms up in a boxing block and roll my shoulders and torso as she hit’s me over and over trying to bleed off the force.

And wham! She kicks me in the ribs!

It really hurts and I really feel like caving in and falling over and possibly puking. That’d depend on just how soothing the mats are down there.

Stillwater’s slapping the canvas like it was a drum roaring. “Come on you can do better than that!”

It does keep me up…there’s something in my head now from her being my D.I.

She throws a few punches which I block again taking them on the arms and then she kicks me again. I drop like she downed me and I lash out as hard as I can and I sweep her leg.

Screw this punching and stuff we’re both down and she’s going for that kicking up move and I roll myself half throw myself at her on the mat and since her arms are up to push off the mat and my legs are facing her I kick/stomp her in the face.

I hear a crunch and an “Argh…fuck…”

I shift up to my knees and pull her to me by her legs and I punch and punch and punch and she got herself covered right away and I keep at it because she get’s to her feet and I’m…

She palm shoves me up and off her enough she cranks me with this hard fast shot of her knee right in where she kicked me in the ribs and I roll away holding my side and she’s up and I get up…oh that hurt and then…

The buzzer…

I almost stagger back to my corner and fall on my ass into the stool.

Stillwater’s there with water and a wet towel and she’s checking my ribs. “Ow…holy sh…” My eyes roll back when Stillwater probed something.

“They’re not broken…you’re doing good considering.”

“Considering?”

“Considering you’re a bridge cadet, it’s not like fighting’s why you signed up for.”

I give her this look like she’s out of her mind. “So what am I doing here?”

“You’re a sword, its ship’s honor.”

“Oh well that jus…”

The buzzer…

I get up and she half shoves me up and I head right towards Armstrong and I’m determined to get this insanity done with one way or another and I’m trying to get into her reach and grapple again.

She closes right fast and I catch her knee in my stomach…so high and so fast and it pushes me back just enough the she goes berserk and it’s this storm of right and left jabs and these right and left snap kicks and I’m covered up blocking but she’s hitting my arms and not just in the way you get hit while blocking but my wrists, the muscles on the outside of my forearms and even when she can my biceps pretty much making my arms hurt so bad that they’re screaming and she’s using those short kicks to hurt my claves and my thighs.

One of my arms slip and in a flash I’m feeling my head snap back and I taste blood.

Part of my brain is relieved though that the mouth guard kept me from losing teeth.

I get my arm up and push myself off and from the ropes. How did I get there?

She stepped back too got some space and I see her torso twist and I’m not that experienced but I know room means power…

Armstrong drives a full leg hard fast kick at my side again and that same area and I’m sure that she’s trying to break my ribs.

I step into the blow aiming part of that section of my side to take the hit and to cut out some of her power but when she hits it’s still too close to the last two kicks and I scream in pain as she lands the kick.

Oh…

I’m angry and hurt and desperate because she’s really going to hurt me and I trap the leg to my side with my arm and I sweep out her other leg.

There’s this look in her eyes and it’s not shock or surprise its gotcha.

It’s kind of a bitchy mean look too.

She jumps my sweep and she twists her body turning her leg in my grip and maybe it’s have broke or twisted her leg of I was a combat mod but I’m too weak to keep her leg from turning in my grip.

Her other leg come up with that spin and all that force and I feel this fast, hard connection of her foot and ankle to my neck and the back of my head.

Blackness is instant.

………………………………. I wake in a very drugged state in a medi-bed and Stillwater’s there in a whole new outfit and in a few bandages herself. I’m definitely high but it still hurts to move.

“Corporal?”

“Stone, how are you feeling?”

I hold my arm up and then poink out my thumb.

Stillwater laughs a little.

I blink at her. “What month is it?”

“You weren’t out that long.”

“Oh…okay what happened?”

“We lost; they’re really good at the MMA and the sword.”

“I missed the sword?”

“Yeah you were out That long.”

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t be you gave one hell of a fight. I lost my sword match too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah….” It was a dry yeah so she really wasn’t too pleased with that outcome.

“Sorry.”

She waves it off. “I’ll cross blades with them again at some point.”

I hold my thumb up again.

She chuckles again.

“So…how long?”

“Two days.”

“Oh…wow, what did she hit me with?”

“Insaguri.”

“Oh…it was pretty effective.”

“Yup. I just stopped in to see how you were holding up and to let you know that you’re back on board.”

“Damn…I was hoping to enjoy the rest of my leave.”

“You will, you’re being credited the days towards further leaves or a payout bonus for regular leave.”

“Okay…ow.” I tried to sit up. It hurt. “How bad am I?”

“You had to have some nano work for your neck and head but you’re cleared for training duties.”

“Yay me, so how bad was the damage from that kick?”

“Whiplash and a concussion, you’d have lived but its better we fixed you up so you could think straight with us leaving and getting back on schedule.”

“Yay, me.”

She grins at me and helps me sit up. “You’ll live it’s just some really heavy bruising, you’ll get used to it.”

“Why would I get used to it?”

“Because you haven’t gone into the main academy Erin, just wait for the combat trials and the survival courses.”

“But I’m in fleet. I’m not a combat MOS.”

“Sure and the training is scaled that way but ships get attacked, they take firs and get boarded and even crash in bad places.”

“Oh…”

She laughs and heads out of my room. “See now you have so much to look forward to cadet.”

I’d be tempted to say something snarky but my painkillers don’t have me that looped out of it. And now that I’m sitting up my bladder is telling me I need to pee.

Ow…that bathroom door looks a long way off.

FTL-18... Faster Than Life.

Previously…..

“Yay me, so how bad was the damage from that kick?”

“Whiplash and a concussion, you’d have lived but its better we fixed you up so you could think straight with us leaving and getting back on schedule.”
“Yay, me.”

She grins at me and helps me sit up. “You’ll live it’s just some really heavy bruising, you’ll get used to it.”

“Why would I get used to it?”

“Because you haven’t gone into the main academy Erin, just wait for the combat trials and the survival courses.”

“But I’m in fleet. I’m not a combat MOS.”

“Sure and the training is scaled that way but ships get attacked, they take firs and get boarded and even crash in bad places.”

“Oh…”

She laughs and heads out of my room. “See now you have so much to look forward to cadet.”

I’d be tempted to say something snarky but my painkillers don’t have me that looped out of it. And now that I’m sitting up my bladder is telling me I need to pee.

Ow…that bathroom door looks a long way off.

And currently…….

It was a long trip to the bathroom, actually for the next couple of days it was a long time and a lot of effort to do anything.

Walking wounded training they call it.

Good enough to do training and my regular duties I wasn’t spared the time really to get completely rested instead I was set off of PT (Physical Training) for a week and that’s it. I still had to get up, get dressed into uniform and do all my shift training at Sense-Nav and live with being tired and sore and just drug out from healing.

Oh rejuv-tanks are great medicine and we have some things that will fix you back up but that eats energy, even with feeding tubes and drips our body is put through faster…boosted healing. You feel like a left too long ramen noodle cup really.

On the plus side my make-up skills get a good boost as I’ve been learning how to look fresh and not too tired. Dark circles and stuff under your eyes are actually frowned on while you’re part of the command/bridge crew even in Sense-Nav.

Business professional is the way we’re expected to look under non-combat conditions.

And even though my regular PT is exempted Stillwater has me still at the firearm ranges and at sword drill.

More ow’s.

I pass Major Phillips her tea after making sure I looked good and crisp. She one of my new instructor officers and being a bridge officer she’s a stickler for all of the women under her care to be really ship shape all the time.

She’s a stickler for posture too while we’re sitting or at attention or parade rest. She’s damned hard on the rest of us girls.

I like her though since not only is she like that but she did show all of us new cadet girls things about the make-up and posture and even had us all re-measured for our undergarments.

I wasn’t wearing the right kind of bra for my job, or my body type. I hadn’t known that and neither did any other of the girls I’m training with…even the naturals. Apparently regular (read as civilian.) undergarments don’t cut it for actually being uniform dressed.

It’s actually been instruction that I’ve enjoyed besides my job.

“Stone, take your seat at chair sigma and get booted up to the telemetry satellites and start feeding the pilots their points.”

We’re just coming into Durandal system to pick up some more fresh recruits and we come out of FTL out of the system and we are flying in the rest of the way and the entire time we’re training in learning the sensors, experiencing as much as we can while we’re feeding what we’re seeing to the com people and the pilots.

We fly or they fly the patrols and shuttle and skiff runs and training missions all the way in as they’re picking up the basics of piloting and everything involved in that.

Being plugged into the telemetry satellites is a trip and it’s hard to get used to. You connect in and the data that the probes are getting is streamed right into you through your O.B.C. and you have to process all of that while you’re actually piloting the probe you’re connected to.

And I’m running six of them so it’s hopping from one POV to another and another with each switching to auto-pilot when you jump out of control with them.

Very easy to get headaches from for a lot of people, vertigo and motion sickness too. But then there’s the part that has me able to got through all of that and be one of the ones who’s pretty good at this.

The camera’s…It’s like my own eyes in the probes POV and you only get this kind of so close to things view in a space walk situation or in some piloting situations.

But only doing this are you flying though space through asteroids or going over other ships like you’re out there flying yourself and then there’s the rush of those flare drive thrusters letting you do all of this at like speeds of twelve hundred kilometers a minute.

My breath catches in my throat a little when I’m in four and I’m seeing Durandal from space just as we are getting close. The colony is the fifth moon and the planet is a gas giant but there are metals in there heated to a gas state? I’m no chemistry person as to why or what they are but the planet looks like this cascading prismatic pearl.

They mine the gasses here and it’s an industrial colony so the locals are probably blasé about it but I think it’s seriously an amazing sight.

Then it’s all business all too soon as we get to the traffic threshold and we’re all busy guiding and talking and massively co-coordinating with all our people out there and the traffic there too.

Industrial colonies so there’s a lot of trade and even if some ships are drones a lot aren’t and it’s a very busy sky out here.

I actually kind of like that about this job.

I know I’ve seen action and done a lot of sort of scary and over the top busy things but I do love this. The math and computations of tracking so many things it’s right in my math zone and if that’s one thing I’ve had that been good to me is Math.

Math is solid, it doesn’t care what your appearance is or your gender is or even your sexuality it’s just there.

And using it to do dozens of vital things so much of the time is one of the reasons why I love my job actually.

Theirs is something exciting about checking the rated speed of another ship and confirming it’s speeds and mass to project its movements. We do that with us and anything close to us…even if their beacon is saying they’re doing this maneuver or flight plan it doesn’t mean the can or will. There’s deviations and flubbs all the time so we tack and do our own numbers on as much out around us as we can.

And when something does happen it’s very cool that we’re already tracking it and working with the rest of the ship to either avoid it or do something.

Being actually useful is a really good thing, even plugged in this is very much more being alive than my old life was.

But then again me now and me then.

I was never meant to be that person.

I smile though at just feeling in my right place in the universe really, kind of a big thing thee days too considering how big the universe actually is.

Well not literally since we’ve never left the galaxy, but in that the world is that big and the possibilities are endless kind of way. You just have to be brave enough.

………….. Shift done, We’re docked at the orbital platforms now we have shore leave as we’ll be here a full day.

I wait until we switch out and the next person takes my chair with a happy expression. Sense-Nav is always working but docked the drones are the least boring of the jobs we’d be doing.

I head to quarters nodding and chatting at a few people as we pass each other. Lots of piloting stuff still going on and engineering too. We’re docked and that means flying all around the ship and inspecting things and of course cleaning it.

I see Care, Sun and Nelle there getting changed and I join them. “Anyone scan stats for the colony?”

Sunshine smiles as she’s slipping on her thigh highs and linking the garter stays. “Yeah I did and it sounds different, I’ve never been to a mining colony before so I’m looking forward to the big burly guys.”

Carrington smiles at me. “I’m going to try some of the food.”

“Food?”

“Durandal is a mostly old earth french colony culture ethically.”

“So….” I don’t get it and I’m not really going to net-link to find out trivia.

“Well the french culture is well known for their foods.”

Nelle pipes in. “They eat frogs.”

“What!” Care and I both are looking at her.

“It’s true, I went to New-Par-ree in a Simi venture and they had frog’s legs in a casino.”

Sunshine snickers. “Oh well if it was in a sim then it has to be true right? What’d they taste like?”

Nelle grins. “Like sim chicken.”

We all grin at the ancient joke and keep getting dressed. We’re all dong some variation on the uniform. No we’re not unreging them but I’m in the slacks and the short sleeved tunic and ladies cap and Carrington is too and Nelle and Sunshine are both going with the skirt and blouse and jacket look only Nelle’s going bare legged to flaunt her freckles and Sunshine is doing that sexy lingerie under her uniform thing.

We’re not breaking code by wearing them and they’re our everyday use ones and off duty you can wear whatever underwear you want to.

But Sunshine’s a companion so she’s almost in her actual uniform with the lingerie underneath.

Me I’m wearing synth-lace satin black underwear and hopefully they’re sexy if anyone gets to see them. But we all head out to the shuttle dressed in our naval uniforms and feeling pretty good about ourselves.

The shuttle takes us down to the moon colony and it’s instantly interesting as we clear the atmosphere and looking out the windows I see lots of water with the bulk of the land here being large islands all interconnected with causeways ad bridges and all the major cities and dwellings seem to follow the coastlines. I can see serious farms here with all these planted fields of greenery that sort of reminds me of home but done differently and of course likely far different from the grain fields of Avalon.

I see the industrial sections too whole islands made into factories the size of small cities it has this very separate feel to it from the other places here and we bank over and head into landing at their capitol of Lumiere.

It’s very pretty here with very odd and I’d say old architecture mixed with modern things here as well and like home there are people hooked into the networks but they’re also using it so differently than I’ve seen.

They seem far more active than we were home but they also completely more laid back here as well. Not lazy, or sedate but less…well less hide bound like home. I’m linking to their net and trying to adjust to the french language. And things are popping up in my optic interface…I see a vendor selling fruit and there’s info on her and her farm even the berries I’m looking over.

It’s just a whole different way of doing things and there’s even a core net name exchange and she greets me by name as she sells me this strange tart with a huge strawberry inside with jam but the crust isn’t crust but this egg white crusty thing called a meringue?

She made my eyelids flicker with yay as I bit into it.

I bought a dozen which the girls and I eat right off the paper she gave us as we head to go shopping.

Yes shopping, we have so much room in storage each but we’re very good at packing things too. But shopping is definitely fun for all of us and here it’s not the big galleries but all these cute very specific little shops that’s just so amazing to just see things in as it is to buy something.

It’s expensive though. I get this floral organic crafted made lipsticks for thirty credits each a tube of the regular brands are five at the PX. I spent a couple of hundred there and so did the other girls.

And we do some serious clothing shopping too and I end up with two nice country off the shoulder dresses with half sleeves and a lace up back and waist and I get a very sexy, very nice little black dress with a built in shelf push up and waist nipper.

The shoes though are nixed shoes and boots take up more space than clothes that can be tube packed or vacc-flat sealed for storage.

You can’t exactly flat pack shoes or boots and we as cadets have very limited space in personal stores. That’s a benefit or rank is extra room in personal storage. It’s also why the whole military theme works in space even with commercial ships. Uniforms are a lot easier to deal with than so much personal effects.

Still it’s fun in a way that all of us have held close inside and it’s just a good day or shore leave and shopping and even flirting.

Oh and the men here are truly not bad.

I get the whole ancient rumor about french speaking me and they dress very well and casually and they are very mannerly or at least they are to us.

Maybe they have a thing for ladies in uniforms.

We were looking at these series of places to eat called Bistros when several young men about six of them came over smiling and offering greetings and there’s that networking thing that says who they are and these fellows have theirs set to tell you their jobs and a hobby in a nano-flash file.

Like Jean-Marc who is twenty four and likes dancing and music and he plays a thing called a mandolin and he works as a fisherman.

I’m flashed this nano-clip of him in just pants in this small boat with sunglasses on as he’s sorting his catch into sea water bins to keep them live unto market.

Great smile, a nice job or I think it is and a nice body okay he’s got more hair than I’m used to seeing but it works with him and then there’s the cropped dirty blonde almost brown hair and a nice smile.

In realtime he’s wearing sandals with his faded denims and a very light thin and hugging his body brown sweater and just like that we’re shaking hands and they’re all welcoming me and the girls to our shore leave on Lumiere and we’re asking where they like to eat instead of the places that look like they’re catering to us tourists and it’s minutes, just minutes and they are escorting us and carrying our shopping bags down the streets and through a few small lanes to this down by the water bakery that does food along with all the things that they cook.

Jean-Marc holds my chair for me and he slides me in and then they us another table for our bags and we start to order or well look at the menu and we’re actually sort of talking and debating the food.

I look at JM and ask. “You fish so I suppose that you cook fish and eat in much of the time so…what do you recommend?”

“Well if we’re all having fish then I would suggest the bread and ocean stew.”

“Bread and ocean stew?”

“It’s a fish and shellfish broth with white wine and some vegetables but mostly shellfish and some other things added to it.”

“Other things?”

“Squid, sometime Uni and some pieces of fried real fish or small whole ones.”

“Uni?”

“It is the edible part of the sea urchin.”

“Oh that sounds good, girls?”

We all agree and it comes out four bottles of wine later in this shallow but long bowl and it smells very strange. There is this red from the shells broth with like he said these finely dice vegetables in it and then there’s these huge prawns and there’s clams and mussels along with razor clams and hidden here and there are these large black olives and there’s sun dried tomatoes softened by the broth and topping it all off on the top are these breaded and deep fried small crabs that you eat whole and battered spicy oysters and there’s fillets of fish pan fired with the skin al crispy and some grilled sardines.

It’s actually lovely looking and it comes with this huge basket of baguette and rolls along with three different butters and a big mixed green salad on the side for all of us and there’s just saucers or these small plates to have for the salad or to hold under the food as we dip the bread in and we use our fingers to get things from the bowl.

JM teaches me how to eat it without getting messy or too messy and he shows me how to dip the bread so you don’t mess with the compound butter and to eat a prawn and to suck the heads.

By that time I’ve had enough wine that him or me sucking on anything is interesting.

It’s one of those really good days that makes up for so much in my life that wasn’t.

We actually keep eating after that with dessert this amazing pie that is like a cake but with seven layers of pastry with these fillings and creams in different layers but they all play extremely well together and after that we walk to the shuttle station and we all sort of split up with each other as we take the time to privately thank the guys for such a wonderful night.

I mean well we do verbally thank them and there’s a whole lot of kissing and tongue on tongue between myself and JM.

We kiss and we make out and we get pretty close to doing other things when they’re announcing our flight.

I pull myself from his amazing mouth and handsomely rugged features. “I’m sorry I have to go.”

“I no, I wish we had more time it was an amazing evening Erin.”

“For me too, I’ve had such a great time here. I’ve done things here that I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Well I hope that you will come back to do the rest?’

“I will definitely come back here someday Jean-Marc.”

“Good.” He kisses me some more and he takes off his wrist watch and gives it to me.

“You don’t have to give me anything.”

“I want you to have a keepsake to pull at your heart so you will want to come back and see me.”

“Jean-Marc…”

“Take it I insist.”

He kisses me again and he slips it onto my wrist and its heavy and metal and a man’s watch but the strap self adjusts and it fits and there’s something sort of like how it’s a good thing to wear a guys shirt with this.

I kiss him back really darned hard and if we never hook up together and be together there is this part of my ego that want’s him at least getting a sore wrist out of all of this.

I break the kiss and walk backwards towards the check in and the others were making out too because not one of us has intact make up are we’re getting our bags and we just get the wipes out and cleaned off before we’re back in with everyone else that’s headed back well except for Sunshine who had vanished with Luc and Thedioux and she came back smiling like she was so…well she was still getting dresses and her stockings were ripped and it’s Sunshine…she might do stuff like that but she’s still Sunshine.

It’s not back to work but it’s just enough time off for our sleep shift and to get really cleaned up and Nelle flash cooks us some popped corn as a snack and we sit in our quarters and we dish over the day and the men and each one of us except Sunshine has a token from the men there. Sunny has two.

Apparently it’s a local spacer tradition for one to give the other a little something to make you wistful while you’re away.

All in all it was a good shore leave and we crash all pretty satisfied and yeah I’ve ready to get moving again and see what else my new life’s going to bring me.

FTL-19...Faster Than Life.

Chapter 19

I’ve been right back to my busy schedule and training but really as much as breaking it off with Patrick had hurt me the shore leave on Durandal had me happy for a few days. It was one of those fun girl things that you feel when you’re like the way I was…I got to really have part of the fantasy girl life thing.

Shopping and touring and food with cute men that are into you and other languages.

And I’m not the only one that loved it.

Training and duty shifts.

Learn buy doing and doing and doing. It’s where you’re supposed to be able to go to station to station in Sense-Nav and be able to pull any job they have.

And then there’s more stuff that I’m learning like internal operational logistics.

Paperwork.

I’m pulled off Sense-Nav since my marks are good enough by my commanders reckoning that the station positions for cadets that need more station time to get up to where I’m at and my reward for good marks and experience?

I’m shipped off to secretarial.

Okay, so it’s nowhere as bad as it sounds.

I’ve always had a thing for that genre of Sims. There has always been a sort of thing about female office work and the way that they do things in both a professional way and a femme way that appealed to me.

Oh yes there’s all those fetish Sims but aside from starting curiosity in well any crossing gender Sim I was in I was more for living as me but as a real girl/woman in the Sims and not the sexual stuff.

So in a lot of ways this, this is right up “My alley?”

There is a lot of aesthetics to the job just like working in any of the command sections and there’s a lot of paperwork and things to process.

I actually get to use a non-powered typewriter.

Okay it’s not part of the class but there’s a whole course for typing and we do need to take that as a class since we’re mostly an OBC culture and then even off our computers it’s a massive amount of iconography in computers now. And in some cases like if coms and computer intership systems are compromised like say if Tekkers hack into things some orders are still in times of emergency passed by written orders.

The typing teacher had three of these ancient relics in our classroom. It was actually very fun to try my hands on those.

But it might sound sexist that we have to dress a certain way but there are men here too and they have all their own standards they are held to rigidly and it’s a credit to our training and protocol that we all are to look and act and dress very professionally.

How to sit, cross your legs how the lines of your skirt short match your blouse or tunic the hats and hose and the shoes all for office work.

But when you’re on a base and you see all those fresh made women and super clean cut men there is something to all of this.

I’m actually learning too wear a sidearm with my skirt uniform and how to deal with the sword with all of this. Yes even surprising me I’m expected to wear my sword ever since I’ve won it.

Just off my draw hip and slightly to the rear.

And I’m doing it in uniform with our sword masters learning to draw it while being dressed like this.

Drawing a sword is an entirely different affair in a skirt and heels. It can be done yes but it’s like other things we are being taught as well. Like how to draw and shoot in a skirt and doing hand to hand in a skirt uniform since things happen without making appointments.

Okay that was fun…there we several jokes about enemies calling to make an appointment.

There’s a lot to learn even getting to learn dining manners as well as service. It’s expected for us to know who and how and what to serve when we’re doing a meeting for higher ups. Yesh that’s usually a job for our moral officers and such but there are times when we won’t have those or that they’ll need help so we’re learning the basics to that and how to eat in a mannered way as well.

And languages…I think I mentioned this before that we’re being taught languages but we’re using them too in these scenarios, at least getting out table manners polished with them.

It’s been about a week though since Durandal and things have worn down and we’ve settled into a normal routine and we’re heading towards our last few pick up stops here on this “milk run”.

Selkirk’s Drift….

It’s my first look at a drifter colony.

That’s a really large asteroid belt that actually travels on a sort of a set loop. Here it revolves around or rather between a gravity well and a small blue dwarf star. The thing is that this entire belt id inhabited by mining and industries that are making a living off of the belt and because of their location they’re also a good place to act as a port of sorts.

Selkirk’s Drift itself the main part is domes and carved out areas of asteroids all held together by these bridge tubes that make up the bulk of the living and trading spaces in this big sort of web that is in three dimensions instead of just two.

How big?

Well I’m actually being nav-chair on some of the shuttle rides in since our ship is too big to get that close but when we do fly by’s of some of these connections I’ve seen trains. These are continental sized.

Our ship could fit in here but a ship our size has some problems with fine scale flight maneuvers in rough situations.

Should an accident happen or something else we’d be less than able so we err on the side of caution.

In space you always err on the side of caution.

I didn’t have shore leave but those of us on the shuttle fly crews had little spots of time around an hour or so as we were picking up new recruits here and I did get a chance to look around here.

It’s pretty for one most of the stations here have these huge meter thick sections of glass-steel or transpar-alloy or other thing to give you a great view. That’s usually the case in all of the shuttle ports we’ve stopped in here there were nine altogether and most had these nice terraces in the sides of the asteroid under the shuttle port domes making a sort of shopping area.

If the rock had a sort of nice appeal to it I noticed it was used in the construction and was cut and polished and then coated.

Water was expensive here all of it recycled and otherwise produced by converted ice brought in by ice miners or harvesters. I paid eleven credits for a one liter bottle while I was there.
Though I did get a pair of basalt and silver earrings there for cheap and a matching necklace too.

I think the best part was seeing all the spacers there. It’s a serious port and small ships are here doing things all the time and it’s mostly civilians so the amount and variety of them was impressive.

It’s the first time really that the whole galactic culture thing really had a face to it for me.

Then they were getting settled in and converted into who they really felt if they needed to be and there is always a small group of them in every stop…every stop so far because we’re on the “milk run” the bigger and main stream colonies it’s barely an issue…you go to your doctor in most of these worlds and once they’re sure you have GID issues they schedule you to get right with yourself.

Modifications are a whole different thing though that’s like plastic surgery used to be in the ancient days.

*……………………..Over the next two weeks we stop at a few other places all agri-colonies like where I was raised.

Quaker….Small and a lunar colony around a gas planet and I still don’t get the oats joke that one of the Marines had made.

Desulth… Medium sized and mostly grain and cattle and such their big thing that I found was they were all very caucasian there and they spoke a version of Spanish there. From what I seen though on the shuttle during a pick up flight lots of rails even more that roads and the place was vastly small communities.

Trenton…Another medium sized planet and one frankly that really reminded me of home. I actually got a sort of chill there in just seeing how many people there were plugged in all the time. Way too many bots doing things and way too many people going around with half glazed looks.

It was the first time since I started that I switched a duty shift with another person and took a shift in supplies over going planet side.

Toro…Toro I went down too despite it being a pretty fundamentalist place. It’s a very large planet but a lower gravity from its placement and rotation just puts it over the standard for human norm.

I went because some of the girls were going on shore leave there for a shift and I wanted to go as well and it’s a very large produce of meat. Mostly lamb/mutton and beef and they grow a lot of it from the sheer amount of farms and pasture there as well as other farmed foods.

The atmosphere here is water rich and it’s relatively warm here year round so lots of rain and lots of plant growth here too. The shuttles are picking up new recruits here and a lot of fresh supplies as well.

There was a scene at the shuttle-port with some anti-conversion protestors gathered saying “Gender conversions are Aberrations!” and “Deviations are against God!”

They were behind the security fences and there were close to a few hundred of them with signs and yelling out slogans mostly stuff we didn’t understand since Toro’s native language in Portuguese but there was enough English there that I understood.

Part of me wanted to go back in sort of protest but sunny convinced me to go with them.

“Erin, they don’t speak for everyone here and it’s bound to happen in some of the places that we go to.”

I sighed. “I know but I got this at home, heck my family cut me out of their lives for doing this.”

Carrington nodded. “Mine too, heck mine wanted me to get brain fixed so I wasn’t feeling like I was in the wrong body. But this is the right body and this is the right me.”

We shared a hug and once we got away from the spaceport and into Savone the city itself it wasn’t anywhere near as bad.

Actually despite the protestors I had a very good time and I’d come back if I could.

We bought while we were there. Leather goods are stunningly cheap and I’m using up space in my storage room with this but I bought five pairs of shoes…okay three are ship ready and functional dress shoes and the other two are for going out and getting dressed up and then there’s a few skirts that I bought…the first time I have bought a leather mini-skirt and I felt amazing doing it and I bought a leather aviation styled leather jacket. Carrington bought a lot of the fine wool things there and she bought yarn as well as she apparently can knit.

The shopping was only broken up by eating and we stopped at the Marketa Plaza which was this huge sort of mall that was all shopping hawkers and food stalls and we ate at this place called Seville and they cooked the meats on these huge wood fired grills and we ate.

I had short ribs grill kissed and then slowly braised and they came with fire roasted squash just cut into chunks and roasted peppers and this flat bread made on the grill and with some beef drippings so there was this richness but also this grilled sauce and char flavors to it.

They serve this drink that’s called horchata? there that’s like a sort of spiced rice milk thing but it really cut the heat and it wasn’t too heavy.

I felt like I waddled back to the transports with all of my shopping. Most of the things went into storage except two pairs of shoes and one of the mini-skirts. I can wear it off duty.

*………………………………I was on my rotation in Sense-nav when I heard the news. We just received orders to head instead of to the last five system stops we were going to jump all the way to Zodiac space.

The Zodiac colonies aren’t exactly like the astrological stuff but they are as well. The colonies that rule that cluster are named after the astrological signs but it’s more because the signs are associated with animals.

The Zodiac colonies are deviants.

Deviants are genetic or nano tweaked people that do it for fashion or in the cases of these places as a form or adaptation to their planets they’ve colonized.

The Zodiac colonies are on the edge of Aberrant space.

Aberrant’s are people that have gone too far like the Tekkers and they believe that humanity is only able to evolve to it’s ultimate for if it keeps continuing to mutate and evolve into something…

Well not human.

They have a designated space only in the sense of deep in the system closest to The Zodiac colonies was were the movement had started and it took of like some sort of insane virus throughout that region of space. Within fifty years they had gone from a fringe cult on the planet Genesis the most advanced leader in bio-technology to an invading horde of monsters.

Monsters that called themselves The Awakened.

The Zodiac’s were part of their madness for awhile and had been under Aberrant occupation until they threw them off planet when the Colonial Union was force to strike back against Aberrant intrusion attacks and raids.

The Zodiac’s are technically part of The Colonial Union since then and have been a sort of DMZ border base but they’re kind of out there and ships like ours don’t really go out there so there’s a lot of talk right now about why.

It should be very interesting really since a lot of very specialized things come from those planets out there but something tells me that this, this might get to be too interesting at the same time.

FTL-20...Faster Than Life

Chapter 20

*Before…

I was on my rotation in Sense-nav when I heard the news. We just received orders to head instead of to the last five system stops we were going to jump all the way to Zodiac space.

The Zodiac colonies aren’t exactly like the astrological stuff but they are as well. The colonies that rule that cluster are named after the astrological signs but it’s more because the signs are associated with animals.

The Zodiac colonies are deviants.

Deviants are genetic or nano tweaked people that do it for fashion or in the cases of these places as a form or adaptation to their planets they’ve colonized.

The Zodiac colonies are on the edge of Aberrant space.

*And Now…

We’ve all been taking about this the entire time we’ve been getting ready to jump. It’s just there are minor deviation tweaks that some do these days and others that are necessary but these are Patrick and then some. Full on bio-tweaking and they do it right down to in the womb mods for the people there.

I mean technically they’re human but at the same time they’re not either.

We’re kind of scared and a bit excited.

And then we’re being suddenly joined by two frigates The Ballista and The Heritage of Falon.

Okay that’s different as are the orders we get to go to battle readiness.

And suddenly we’re switching off to get out of uniforms and into or K-flex jump suits. Battle gear, web vests and hooking on our vacc hoods side arms and mini breathing bottles.

I’m lucky because we’re in a busy hub and we’re doing too much right now to be the ones that are thinking of what we’re flying into.

My watch commander looks at me. “Stone we want you on scan drones.”

“Yessir.”

I get into the chair and I link up to my station and I’m being tapped out to twenty drones already being prepped and there’s that flash on the screen in my head that warns me FTL jump in progress.

I feel it but don’t as I’m too busy getting synched up to the drones and then the information comes flooding into my head and On-body-computer.

Three ships in four days have been lost all trader and merchant class vessels.

We’ve been requested by the Zodiac colonial sub-council to come in and investigate. We just got word of one of our other ships The Longbow was sent in a few days ahead of us had taken heavy damage.

One message part though definitely got through.

Mines.

Okay I had to take a deep breath because suddenly once again being in Sense-Nav’s a big deal and we’re looking for mines. I’m looking for mines and it’s a seriously big job because this isn’t a drill.

Mines in space are very, very illegal and are only used by the worst of the worst governments. Being out here in a space society you can be killed by the wrong size and kind of rock sometimes.

Mines…space mines are often sensor based and triggered by a whole lot of things like heat, electrical activity, radiation, movement…and in this day and age they are likely to have something like a micro-nuke warhead…not devastating to a big ship like this with full shields but smaller vessels…and the EMP the deliver they can cripple or right out destroy a smaller ship.

The thing is that where’s one mine there’s more.

And that’s what makes them deadly to everyone.

It’s why only the lowest of the low use them.

I’m trying to think who would use them out here and who might be that stupid and insane and I’m at the moment drawing a blank. The Aberrant’s are borderline anti-tech in a whole lot of ways so they’re pretty much a non-issue and even the space pirates like the Balkorans don’t go that far.

There’s a sort of code out here with spacers even with enemies there’s rules and honor even amongst the dishonorable ones.

We’re at a full stop and I’m linked into the other two ships with us and their Sense-nav teams and we’re all flying a net.

One all we need to find is one of them and that’ll give us the string to follow others, they are usually dropped by some kind of mine dropper like ship of some sort so there’s usually a pattern that you can find.

Hour one nothing.

We slowly begin to move the ships.

Hour two nothing.

Hour three nothing.

Hour four…

One of the Sense-nav crew men for The Heritage of Falon gets a blip then another and another their metallic and they’ve moving slowly…but not at a drift speed either but instead in a steady and continuous movement.

We all send some of our drones over to get a look and to help with flushing out the mass of mines and it’s.

“Commander this is very strange?”

“What is it Stone?”

“I think that we’ve found them but they’re not moving like mines.”

“Link it to me.”

I link it over to him and they look like what you’d expect a mine to look like. About two meters long and wide more of a bulging disc than the balls that most civilians think of. Shapes me a lot less in space but in a ship you can carry more flat things in a payload that round ones.

The only thing is the fact there’s these little bumps all over them that aren’t spikes it detonation rods but they’re micro thrusters. I’ve never read about micro thrusters on a mine before but they’re doing these tiny barely visible stealthy bursts of thrust to keep up their movement and speeds.

“Stone.”

“Yessir?”

“Ram one.”

“Sir?”

“Pass the advisory onto the others but let them know we’re going to do a touch test. I want to see what they’re carrying for payload.”

I pass the message along and the other’s pull their drones back hopefully to a safe range so we don’t lose any and I guise one of my drones right at it and set the thrust on it to max power for my drone.

It dodges my drone.

“Sir!?”

“I know Stone I saw it too, bring your drone around….”

My watch commander stops talking as the mines I’m passing move too and then we see them change…mechanical bug like legs slip out of the body and so does a head with a semi-human face only with a mouth like a shark would have and it pops out pincer like arms but with some kind of weapons instead of claws and there’s these beetle shell like bug casings that pop open to free up better thrusters.

There’s a burst of blue weapons fire and my drone goes white and I switch to others and I can see the mines all shifting and all changing and turning around and coming at our drones and we’re losing them fast.

My last drone the last thing I seen on the cameras was one of these shark-beetle things eating the camera…looked like it was coming to take a bite out of me.

“Sir!?”

I’m answered by our main bridge instead as the alert for battle stations goes off.

FTL-21... Faster Than Life.

*Before…

My watch commander stops talking as the mines I’m passing more too and then we see them change…mechanical bug like legs slip out of the body and so does a head with a semi-human face only with a mouth like a shark would have and it pops out pincer like arms but with some kind of weapons instead of claws and there’s these beetle shell like bug casings that pop open to free up better thrusters.
There’s a burst of blue weapons fire and my drone goes white and I switch to others and I can see the mines all shifting and all changing and turning around and coming at our drones and we’re losing them fast.
My last drone the last thing I seen on the cameras was one of these shark-beetle things eating the camera…looked like it was coming to take a bite out of me.
“Sir!?”
I’m answered by our main bridge instead as the alert for battle stations goes off.

*And Now…

The claxons are ringing and the auto-voice keeps going off. “This is not a drill, this is not a drill all hands to battle designated areas.”

It’s calmer than I am.

Part of me is remembering the escape pod drill.

Only if things go badly then we’ll be doing that for real with an enemy possibly still out there.

I look to the watch commander. “Sir, orders?”

He nods and he’s walking to the main screens. But in his head with his O.B.C he’s releasing commands for more drones. “I want to know how many that each of you can take, we’ll need eyes on more than just sensors from their sizes.”

I think for a minute, three’s my working usual…it’s the working usual for three points of Nav in a space. There’s others calling out Three’s and fours and even fives.

“Nine sir.”

He actually turns to me. “Nine Stone are you sure?”

“Yessir, I work with three so if I can bundle three of three than I should be able to do it.”

“Bundle you say?”

“Yessir.”

“Show me.”

I swallow and he grants me the links to nine of the remotes and I assign codes to each to bundle them into three groups of three. I tag the sensors on each one into radiant energy sensors, proximity and a geometric plotting in their Nav routine.

We scan see properly in a three point way just like most things that we have to do in space. I’m actually tethering each of the three together by their beacons to make a triad shape on my screens and I can do the control for each point by tagging a corner point that is a remote and moving that point moves that assigned drone.

The other sensors should give me indication of attacks by these beetle things on my drones and I can then tap into that specific remote to do more serious flying.

I launch and I use the information we still have coming in to get to the bulk of the swarm and I try at treat it like the greater cloud of it is a sphere and that I am trying to circle my three triangles to watch the sphere.

It moves and I move and adjust and I’m not the only one using remotes so that helps as the watch second is condensing all of the data and information we’re getting and sending it to High Command and into Tactical as well.

The first wave is still em hitting us and the other ships in the area. I breathe through it as we’re hit and there’s shield wash…it’s a form of turbulence when shields take impacts.

Impacts, beam weapons are soaked up so that means that they’re.

Rad sensors are going off registering micro-fusion explosions.

They’re doing Kamikaze attacks on our shields.

My mouth is dry.

I check the watch commander with a flicker of my eye. He seems good.

Then it’s our turn as battle stations come online and out turrets turn our local patch of sky into a very hostile place.

I won’t lie I cheer with the rest of us as we see blips that are patches of the swarm wink out.

Then they all wink out?

“This is it people they’ve broken up and gone single flyer, give us as much info and visuals as we can.”

I’ve already got a bad idea of things even as Kelsey Watkins a fellow cadet asks. “Single flyer sir, who has A.I. to spare like this?”

He’s grim sounding as he answers her. “They’re not A.I.’s Watkins they’re brain cases.”

“Brain cases sir?”

“Tekkers Watkins, they lost they’re human bodies and forms to become one of those…things…to become a living operating system.”

She’s frowning but trying to still do her remote job but still asks. “Who’d give that up to become one of those?”

He says. “They don’t, they harvest brains and people, torture them until they’re so insane their humanity isn’t even part of their cognitive thinking any more and then they transplant then into their tekker bodies.”

Two of our team throw up.

The faces on these things…I was half expecting it.

The encounter in the hangar with the skiff…I’ve seen their intent.

I don’t really want to know how he knows this.

But them here in this system?

They’re trying to start a war.

No…I think we’re at war but they’ve been attacking smaller things, places…ships even.

“Lost” in space happens.

Not all are accidents or pirates…not now.

Things get busy, there’s some of these tekker beetles after our remotes trying to blind us.

I take a deep breath and try to close everything else out to keep my remotes in the sky as long as possible.

I see them though, I can see those faces on my camera’s and the mouths moving as if they’re saying things. I can’t read lips since they don’t have them but I swear the hatred is there and palatable enough to feel.

But it’s not hate, it’s feralness, brainwashing, torture and… Identity death.

All in the name of some twisted biological hatred, of some twisted fundamentalist infection.

Like happened with my sister when they fixed her brain, rewired her not to be a lesbian anymore…just a thousand times worse but still the same thing.

I can see some of the few non-military ships here in the system burning…there’s some wrecks already and escape pods out there only making that drill more there in my head and making me more determined to not have that become a reality.

Our side sends up combat drones. It’d the first serious step in a defense situation like this and they go up before our fighters do.

Unfortunately as good as A.I.’s can be they don’t stack up enough against real live pilot of any kind when it comes to the chaos factors. Living things, even tekkers can and choose things that sometimes don’t make sense to machines.

I lose two remotes, they’re really getting aggressive on the remotes, they can tell our fighters are going to be launched soon.

I swear… a streak as I lose a third and a whole triumvirate.

“Stone…” The watch commander.

“Sorry sir.”

“See that it doesn’t, save the salt for rec time.”

Salt?

But yeah, regs and all.

Actually Patrick told me once swearing takes up too much time and it infects people on mission. Others will do it if too many others are doing it and that can also carry your emotional state to others around you or on com lines.

That cool calm voice on the other end can save your life.

“Yessir.”

Our launch alert goes off as our fighters take to the skies and while not very faithful after my past and home I cross myself, kiss two fingers and touch the bottom of my screens.

“Godspeed everyone.”

FTL-22...Faster Than Life.

Chapter 22

*Before…

Our launch alert goes off as our fighters take to the skies and while not very faithful after my past and home I cross myself, kiss two fingers and touch the bottom of my screens.

“Godspeed everyone.”

*And Now…

It happened in a blink of an eye some of them got through as we were launching the fighters and chaos ensued…

Three that tried to slip in didn’t and hit our shields hard and detonated with ship shaking micro-fusion explosions.

One I think made it into a hangar and it’s firing at personnel.

I don’t pay attention to that…we have people in the hangars in heavy combat exo-suits and battle turrets for that…hopefully they will shoot it down before it self-destructs.

I’m focused on what I’m doing but there are two that are skimming under the surface of our shields and are staffing away at things…antennae but worse shield emitters and weapon turrets.

I don’t know who gunner 66 is but they spun their turret around with these things bearing down on them and used the roto-cannons to take both of them out and it was close enough that some of the flaming debris went past our armor glassed windows.

In space that’s very close.

The watch-commander just says. “McMillan close the blast windows, everyone keep focused we need your eyes on those drones.”

There’s a carousal of “Yessirs!”

I get three more remotes as the watch commander switches control protocols to me and he sets them up to start from scratch and I’m doing my best to keep up the feeds and keep everyone in the loop and that includes a lot of stuff to signal for when I spot it. Like rendering when some of those beetle-tekker things are coming in on one of the fighters or on a gunship or even one of the regular ships.

Part of me is really impressed with the fighters…and the pilots.

Our standard is a plasma driven tri thruster thing that’s called a Shrike it’s named after some bird but not one of the standard bird of prey things which is one of the things I like best too many eagles and hawks and falcons and such. They’re sleek almost like an arrowhead and use anti-gravity systems to do all the maneuvering and stuff which is three points of maneuvering really and they do it so well…I mean the pilots and they’re so fast.

It’s that you can just about feel the thrust when you get to watch them in person from like one of the observation decks while their doing their thing. I know they have some sort of inertia dampening or compensating cage but it only dampens and the things that pilots do would make me lose my lunch.

I was never even a casual admirer of aero-space fighters before joining up and now after being on ship there is something about them even if I’m not a pilot that I can’t help but to love.

It’s bad enough getting that feeling while giving maneuver commands to my remotes and keeping track of all nine of them and trying not to take the kinds of risks that will get in the way of our fighters or our guns and not lose any more of my remotes than I absolutely have to.

Time seems to slow when you’re like this too. It’s an adrenaline reaction but where most of this is taking minutes to pass it feels like I’ve been doing this for an hour or more. There’s this very real thing of calming yourself down…especially when you see ours going down and you can feel your muscles get tight from sitting tensely your eyes and hands moving so much more than your body because you’re so invested in it and the slow trickle of sweat down your spine.

Slowly bug by bug we start to make head way here thinning them out and taking out more and that’s when it really gets harder.

Space is big, really big and these things are small comparatively so as they thin out they get reduced in size and that means the ships weapons are a lot less effective unless they’re right on top of us and it gets reduced now to dogfighting and with these things having a penchant for kamikaze attacks…things are desperate and not just for us but if we let them slip through to get to a planet and the set off one of those micro-fusion detonations…say in a hydrogen fusion power plant…refinery…the list goes on the death tolls could be staggering.

It’s so nerve wracking keeping that kind of concentration going, the waiting too the waiting is horrible really so much could still happen.

I try to do something a little different.

I have nine remotes and they’re by and large mostly sensor drones used for all sorts of things but if I remember things about when we pick up getting targeted that weapons lock is a laser lock followed by a radar pink right after it for confirmation. Getting hit by both of those will usually indicate weapons lock.

My drones have both.

Now I just have to program the shape of these scarabs into the logs as debris…more specifically mines and my remotes will follow/track them on their sensors.

I assign this to only three of my nine remotes and send then after the strays I’m seeing that are evading the fighters from sheer virtue of so much space in space.

I go for three of the scarabs and get lock and they freak out…well maybe not but their flying gets definitely erratic and evasive but I keep long enough to get a ink to tactical.

“Cadet Stone from Sense-Nav to tactical, I’ve solid lock on three bogies I’m shipping you the love.”

I got that from a movie.

The first response is seen on the screens as our ship’s roto-cannons start trap shooting them right into torpedo strikes.

“Many thanks, Commander if you can have the young lady do that again if you please.”

The Tac-Com’s voice.

“Stone, can you do this again?”

“Yessir.”

“If you please then.”

I don’t know but there’s a bit of a grim smile on my face. I know logically that I should feel pity for these things that I shouldn’t be smiling but at the same time part of me is there at the shuttle where they tried to kill us all and at the funerals afterwards and I’m doing something.

And it feels good to be doing it.

It’s fishing so to speak like using my other two triple sets to make a sensory net and when I get a fish my three other remotes set the hooks into them.

I’m just getting lock, painting targets and letting the real fighters do the work the tactical teams and the gunners and our pilots.

There’s a cheer even as things are as tense as they are as they report the hostile in the hangar is taken out.

“Incursion bogie down, Incursion Bogie down, fire and med teams to hangar twenty-eight.”

No breach, and it’s down, no micro-fusion explosion….

So yes in the middle of this we cheer.

And it makes a difference.

It made the difference here on ship with us as they just seem to start popping out of the sky as we get lock after lock or use lock and fire to chase them into the paths of our pilots who are now going from the dogfighting to devastating formation sweeps.

Then it’s over and The Commander…the ships commander comes on screens and over coms.

“Clear people, we’re clear….Get rescue and damage control teams running. Three of those things tried to get to the planet’s surface we stopped them all. Lives were saved, we did our jobs. Good work all of you.”

There’s this lump in my throat of just…hearing it, knowing it…

I’m what they say…feeling my colors, really wearing my uniform.

It’s that really getting why moment. That bit of clear where I actually know my place in the universe. I’m supposed to be here, saving people. People that I’ll never really know. And it’s enough.

I do a few sweeps looking for survivors and escape pods.

The watch commander comes over. “Stone you can switch out if you need to, the second shift is coming in early.”

“Yessir but until then I’d like to keep looking. We were out here when we saw some of the ships get hit. It’s still fresh…besides I’ve been out there and floating and scared.”

I side-eye see him nod. “Keep keeping on then.”

“Yessir.”

***………… I float my remote to the pod, it’s a civilian model from one of the trade ships and I check it for breaches and finding none I carefully pull up and plug into the outer utility ports. The EMP from the scarab’s micro fusion has caused basic coms to fail leaving whoever’s inside to silence, and in this case damage to the power supply. Air only and very little heat it’s negative six centigrade by the sensors and I divert power from my remote to the pod. And use direct link coms.

“Remote to pod, are you injured.”

“Uhm…no…who…who is this?”

“C.U.H. Brevet PFC Erin Stone.”

“Colonial Union?”

“Yes sir, did you launch with any one else sir?”

“My sons and two crewman were ejecting at the same time I don’t know if they got clear though.”

“I’ll see what I can find out sir do you have scanable I.D.?”

“Yes, I’ll input it in now.”

“Good, now you’re going to move and that’s me guiding you to the recovery ships.”

“Okay…uhm…Private?”

“Yes sir?”

“Can you stay linked to the line?”

“Don’t worry, I’m right here I’m not letting go until you’re with people again.”

I ask him where he’s from. New Ithaca…and what he does…he’s a planktonics engineer…and we do small talk as I use the sampler arms to hold the pod and float him to the recovery ship and I’m running trough the com-logs for the I.D.’s of his sons.

“Antonio, I’ve located your boys I’m putting their coms through to you.”

“They’re okay?”

“They’re alive and eager to talk to you too. I’ll let you get to it then.”

“Miss…uhm…Private?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

I smile. “You’re welcome Antonio, hug those sons for me okay? Stone…out.’

***………… It’s a few hours after that when we’ve got all accounted for that we know of and I finally switch out of my chair for Sofia Anderson who’s looking at me oddly and I’m getting that from the others logging on there too.

And from the other staff on shift with me this look of together, we just did something together.

The watch commander’s talking to his relief then he looks at us. “Alright you a have the next three shifts off, reports to be filed though by 09 tomorrow. Stone I want to see a paper explaining what you did with the drones both running the three and your combat adjustments by the time you return to duty.”

“Yessir.”

He actually smiles at us all and there’s a OBC message saying there’ll be a dessert option for us from the officers mess next dinner or lunch meal.

“Good work everyone, the pie’s on me.”

We head out and aside from most of us heading to the head a shower’s definitely on my mind.

I’ll think about the rest of this and what it means later.

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.

FTL-24…Faster Than Life.

Chapter 24

*Before…

“Will you be alright tonight?”
I give her a look and she looks down and she bites her lip a little and she looks 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.

*And Now…

Some things I think never change and one of those is thet fact that something and someone new like this is one of those situations that makes some people nervous.

I’m one of those people, from the fact this is a new person and my self-esteem has never been in that range of unflappable to the fact that Liz is really pretty in a very great but non-conventional way.

Is pretty even right? I mean she’s handsome too…. attractive…that’s likely better she’s attractive and appealing.

I love her personality a lot too.

I look at her when she looks back at me and there’s just enough of this vulnerable thing there that is really enticing, not enticing but… Oh dammit…okay she’s nervous too but she still wants to do this and that is giving me all kinds of feelings.

It means something nice, something not in the whole “Hooking up” thing when someone’s like that and I sort of think that it’s a compliment when there’s nervousness involved but two people still want to go ahead with connecting.

We exchange even these looks and shy smiles like shy kisses between each other and then we’re at her quarters.

“I’ve never been in quarters before.” I say as the doors is sliding open for us.

“Well it’s my first tour and stuff so it’s not much…after all my scores sort of landed me here.”

“Command track?”

“Yeah, here I thought that I wanted to see a whole lot of action and well I have I mean like recently and things but my persona profile said that I’d be better suited for command.”

“So you’re here for experience it makes sense you’re good with people Liz.”

She looks at me and it’s that sort of eyes forward but head bent semi-bashful sort of way and there’s almost a really? Sort of questioning look on her face that has me stepping closer and closer until we’re facing each other and I reach out a little shaky and I reach out and I touch her face and we sort of look at each other a moment and then she slips her hands around my waist holding me and she pulls me into a kiss.

It’s really nice too…this soft sweetness to it but there’s this sort of hard need there…want…and that’s so nice…powerful to have someone want to kiss you like that.

We do that sort of walk back and inside that you see in romance vids and sims. And her quarters are nice…well I had my own place before I joined up and I live in the barracks dorm rooms now which is a shared space and this is like neither it’s a compact space with a captain’s style bed with the drawers in the bottom.

There’s a large window showing outside and space and it’s nice to have a view there is surprisingly few that aren’t in public areas, it might be nice to have one to yourself.

She does a shy little smile at me and she pulls me in by my hands close to her and we meet face to face and there’s this slow moment of her face on my face and her skin smells good and it’s smooth more than soft with just the way that she’s built…strong but still Liz…it’s the first time that I’ve been with someone that’s like they are that kind of fits but doesn’t in the regular usual gender boxes but just themselves and being okay with not being in those boxes we put people in.

Sexuality, gender none of it is really better when it comes to someone being who they really feel they are in fact it’s even more complicated with choice meets need and that hits cultural norms and such.

But nevertheless this is nice, it’s so different but it’s nice especially as she kisses me and I kiss her back and there’s this whole evenness and want at the same time this sweet sexy sort of give and take as we kiss and kiss and our fingers dance and we explore each other and slowly take off each other’s clothes.

Her skin is this light ethnic tan that has to be genetic more than a tan but she might have gotten some sun while we had that shore leave. It’s a contrast to mine…I’m very white and I come from very white stock. Home was sort of like that really, racism didn’t play into things a lot because there’s so much room but at the same time there was a time where genetic purification of the ethnic groups was a thing in the know galaxy and it was quite the thing and I’m a bit descended from that. Everyone home was pretty much, mixed races happened in the bohemians types but every day it just wasn’t done.

It’s so odd that it’s all pyscho-somatic but she feels warmer because of that.

Actually she might just be warmer; I don’t know what body mods that she’s had.

She does this little smile and an “Oh...” when she gets my bra off and she sees my breasts.

“Non-mod?”

I bite my lip and nod. “I just wanted to be me, when I got the changeover that was pretty much it along with the bio-mods that were standard.”

“I think you’re amazing Erin.”

“You do?”

“Definitely yes, there’s so many people who are all modified and to see someone who just wants to be as natural as she could be is special, it’s brave.”

“Well I don’t know about brave. I just wanted familiar, I wanted the outside to match my insides without any like drama.”

I know it’s… I kiss Liz again….longer… “I like this…kissing; touching, talking…talking’s never been the normal for me and sex.”

She cups my breasts and it’s different, it’s this knowing touch but at the same it has that energy, that male like energy that you feel in the way that they want me, wants to hold them and she leans down and she kisses as she works my nipples really just such a right way that it makes an involuntary moan slip out of me.

“Just right…aah…just…just…nn..”

“You’ve never been with someone like this?”

“Once, she’s a friend and a roommate and it wasn’t like this, she’s a conversion too.”

“Well I’m not I’ve always been me and I guess that comes with some benefits of experience.”

I nod and she comes up from my breasts to kiss me and her hands are doing these amazing things with her body head and pressure of her touch and squeeze but not squeeze and these little almost breast sex sanding rubs over my areola and the nipples making them crinkle then expand and come to these hard little points that she really knows how to tease and touch and be right on the edge of pleasure that needs release and something more…bite…it’s like I want her to bite or to nibble or to do something to push me over that pleasure edge to the sexual ow pain but not pain thing.

It’s so hard to really describe but it’s me and Liz kissing really intensely now had me arching my back and pushing my chest into her hands in this needful autonomic sort of way as I can feel myself getting wetter and wetter and more and more aroused as this keeps going and I’m trying to return the favor to Liz as I reach up and try to touch her breasts and to do the same.

Oh that is a whole other experience as she has these small breasts and there’s that firmness there this sort of tightness of muscle and what fat she has is just this sort of natural bumps that just semi cushion everything and my eyes get a bit big as she twitches.

Not like her doing it like a bad thing but I’m touching her and she has this physical reaction with her pecs doing this muscle jump. It’s surprising and it’s sort of appealing in this whole Liz way where those traditional lines sort of blend or blur with her.

It’s just more of why this is good and why this is so different and interesting really like how she’s inviting and she’s open and she approached me and guided me to her room and her bed but it’s not aggression either it’s just such a nice thing and it’s Liz.

It’s gets better even as we kiss and touch and we struggle out of our clothes and then we’re naked and Liz’s body is really well muscled in a way that I like. There are plenty of these hard bodied ripped people in the forces especially in the combat trades and I’ve never been that kind of woman some of them are nice but it…it just seems that it attracts a certain type of personality.

I lay back this being the thing that I’m way more used to and she seems good with that and she slips over my and settles and there’s something sexy and yet kind of only semi-sexual about her skin to skin with me like that and straddling me.

That leads to more kissing and breast play and I get to use my fingertips to play with the shaved bits of her hair and it’s sort of sexy fun too and it makes her smile and her eyes sparkle which is a nice bonus.

Slowly she moves lower and lower until she’s straddling just one leg.

Oh...

I knew rubbing and I heard things sort of but in real life that stuff seems all overblown and way too overdone, you know fiction.

It’s not…Liz takes full advantage of my knee cap and her own sense of arousal and she slides and she grinds and she moves and she doesn’t stop what she’s doing either instead she is sort of using one hand to hold herself steady while her mouth works on my breasts and myself with hot deep kisses and then her free hand slips down and she touches.

More than touches she knows what to do, she knows what to do and how to do it with artistry…the way her nail tops slip over my mound to the way her fingertips touch and tickle and at the same time each tickle is a fingerlike feather stroke over my labia and especially the folds edges… I swear by the time she touches then I can feel the swirls and whorls of her fingerprint ridges I’m that aroused and teased into sensitivity.

And her entry isn’t a letdown either…it’s not even so much as entry as what her fingers do while they are inside me. Where to touch, where to touch with the pads of her fingers and where to push and press down on inside of me…her knowing what the soft but rough texture of her fingers will do.

Orgasm after orgasm and they’re not these long drawn out screamers like I had with Patrick but these are these short intense little girl grunt bursts of clench pleasure that leave me panting for a few seconds and feeling electric inside myself and I want more.

And Liz gives me more and she I…the leg thing gives her more and I pull her up or rather guide her up after her second so we’re more face to face and I slip my hand down to her vulva and start to returning the favor…

Then we’re on our sides and facing each other and kissing and our breasts will slip together as we do occasionally touching and legs sliding and slipping sheerly against each other now and then and our hands dipped into each other with our wrists meeting this sort of crossed way.

She bites her lip and she looks at me. “Sort of like…”

“Violins” I say.

“Cellos.” She says.

I smile. “Can I access your data node?”

“Okay that sounded sexy.”

That makes me smile and raise an eyebrow. “My On-body-computer shows me granted access and I pull up one of my music files *Singing in the Iosian Sea* it’s ancient but it’s considered one of the first spacefaring era’s real orchestra styled musical bits and it’s really nice but lots of strings in it.

I like the way her eyes go wide and she smiles. And I push my wrist against hers like the slide of a bow against strings and start touch-loving her all over again.

…..Then she joins in and we are in this really deep sort of erotic synch that ends with us going through that entire program and album until we’re spent.

It’s one of the best sexual times I’ve ever had and one of the most beautiful moments too as Liz slipped out of the bed and brought us some heated steam damp towels to clean up with and two cups of this hot date drink with coffee blended into it and she slips back into the sheets with me and we’re sipping and we’re spooning and setting the cups out on the little window edge as we snuggle and look out into space together.

It’s one of the best reasons right now I can feel about enlisting as we’re just doing that and the ship does this slow maneuver on its axis to a sideways movement as we’re slipping into an orbital track and I can see this huge grey mass of a moon and space bases on it so close that we can make out the vague city like shapes as it fills our window for almost a full seven seconds and then we’re passed it and then window gets partially filled by this lovely green and white profile of a planet.

I will never get tired of the view of a planet from orbit I don’t think and this is just…it’s the perfect end to a perfect night.

FTL-25... Faster Than Life.

Chapter 25

*Before…

It’s one of the best sexual times I’ve ever had and one of the most beautiful moments too as Liz slipped out of the bed and brought us some heated steam damp towels to clean up with and two cups of this hot date drink with coffee blended into it and she slips back into the sheets with me and we’re sipping and we’re spooning and setting the cups out on the little window edge as we snuggle and look out into space together.

It’s one of the best reasons right now I can feel about enlisting as we’re just doing that and the ship does this slow maneuver on its axis to a sideways movement as we’re slipping into an orbital track and I can see this huge grey mass of a moon and space bases on it so close that we can make out the vague city like shapes as it fills our window for almost a full seven seconds and then we’re passed it and then window gets partially filled by this lovely green and white profile of a planet.

I will never get tired of the view of a planet from orbit I don’t think and this is just…it’s the perfect end to a perfect night.

*And Now…

There’s a few hours left of me being off and we take our time with our drinks and watching the planet and there’s just something about being able to see something like that and the little motions and flickers of starcraft going back and forth across the sky.

I leaned back into Liz. “This was really nice I had an amazing time.”

They nodded and nuzzled my neck and played with my hair some. “I’ve duty up on the flight decks and in the mission rooms bur I’ve time for a shared shower.”

I lean into it and enjoy the feelings that Liz sort of brings out. They’re one of the Varied Gender people and more masculine than not or whatever the term is…I’m not good with the differences really I’m full on just a standard transition.

Funny that, home I’m seen as sick and wanting to be cured out here it’s a major procedure but it’s not that big a thing.

And being able to actually choose things medically that you feel whole as yourself on any of those levels is just not a big thing here in fleet as long as you’re biologically sound and fit for duty.

We share Liz’s shower which is really nice to have to one’s self or rather together.
I really liked washing her with all of her tone and muscles but not like one of the big amazon combat types she’s just built from working out and not being all binary gender curvy that we see now.

She was washing my hair which was wonderful when she asks. “Are you converted Erin?”

“Yes is that okay?”

“Sure, I’m not really picky with those kinds of details it’s just you’re really not like the other converted women I usually see.”

I shrug a little. “I used to do Sims and stuff pre-conversion and one of the things that I found off putting was there was this whole thing about beauty. Honestly I always sort of thought that I’d just be fine if I was me as I was supposed to be and that would be fine.”

Liz moves her hands lower to my neck letting the shampoo do its thing and bubble and fizz the dirt and things away. Oh…oh I think that I might actually try spending credits sometime on getting a massage because this feels wonderful and Liz knows how to do this.

There’s a thing…a star fighter pilot that gives massages.

She says. “I know a lot of conversion women and a lot of them are very nice and very beautiful.”

I slowly nod. “I was always of the opinion that I honestly didn’t know how to be beautiful in that whole popularized sort of menu choices I was just really satisfied with just being myself instead of ideal.”

“That’s kind of brave.”

“No that’s me being realistic maybe? I just think that I’d feel fake and if I felt fake then maybe I’d act fake.”

“I kind of like that you’re as genuinely you as you are.”

I turned to look at them with a hand on my forehead to keep the soap out of my eyes and I kiss them. “Thank you, that’s probably the best compliment I’ve had in a while Liz.”

“Denada Erin.” Then they kissed me back with a smile.

It was challenging in a good way too after that with the shower sex and then each of us getting dressed and out of her quarters in a timely fashion.

……………….. It’s a slow day getting back to regular duties now that we’re in orbit. With the general duty schedule being SOP right now and after so much that has been going on and has gone on getting back to the regular schedule seems like a luxury.

I’m in Sense-Nav doing the control for our local space and we’re in orbit over New Ithaca and I’m enjoying it really. There’s the traffic and there’s banter from the people and some of it ours when you’re doing easy flow on the coms and then you’re working with people that you know and keeping the sky safe and clear and I’m even fielding calls from some of the places we’re expecting deliveries and give then ETA’s.

I like doing this and I like hearing the other com traffic too with the other pilots that are working with us and the accents that they have and seeing the little occasional I.D. thumbnail pic or even better thumbnail vid of who I’m talking to as I guide them through our traffic.

And honestly as much as I like being the go to for the commander of Sense-Nav I like being in my chair too. I don’t ask to stand out or anything and I like doing my job and learning more on how to do my job really.

I know this sounds a lot like I’ve already been through the academy but it’s not this is practice, it’s the scrub duties that we’ll be doing everyday all the time and we need to learn it in the way we are to be familiar with the bustle and flow and the chatter.

We’re told that it’s so we can know what’s going on while and if we have to do other things. It’s like knowing what’s going on when you have a vid going on in the background and you’re familiar with the program.

Things like that are of critical important as our shift commander says. “When the screens decide to get full and space is giving you the hairy eyeball.”

I am not sure if he’s making a testicle reference with that one.

Even if he’s not…eeew, that’s some messed up genetics.

If space itself had genetics.

But the point is to get us used to the small stuff in this job before we get to the academy and we start doing serious training and the big number crunching maths for doing jumps and other things.

Things like I’ve heard about combat tracking and plotting to know where an enemy might be or to know when something like torpedoes are coming towards us and those kinds of things.

Hopefully interspersed with things like learning Nav skills to deal with gas clouds and nebulas and what to do in the Nav sense when we hit electrical storms and ion storms or how to chart things.

I’m actually pretty interested in things of that sort.

Honestly I never signed up for the action that I’ve seen and I really hope that it’s a rare thing in my career.

Though with these Tekker incursions and attacks I have a bad feeling about how things might be shaping up in the future or the near future.

My duty shift gets done and I head down the outer halls so I can watch things coming and going through the windows and I can see that there’s shuttles and skiff’s coming in for landing and that they look like the same sort of shuttles that I came here on.

The Zodiac’s are still part of the Colonial Union even if way sort of politically fringe and all so it’s still likely that we’re going to be picking up new recruits and all.

I’m heading back to my quarters when I get a ping from Logistics saying that I have mail?

Like packages mail?

I ping them back saying that I’ll be there shortly.

“Who would be sending me mail?”

I don’t really know anyone out here except who I’ve served with and well my family…well they’ve pretty much disowned me.

I head down and that whole section’s a busy place really especially now with things coming and going and I find the actual packages offices where you send physical mail out or get it and I ping them my I.D. scans from my OBC and the man behind the desk comes over with a data pad for me to retinal and thumb and a cadet behind him is pushing a dolly with several crates and smaller boxes and two of the crates look like they’re refrigerated?

I look at the data pad again and see it’s from the merchant and his sons that I had helped from the escape pod during the crisis and I look at the manifest.

“Food? They sent me food?”

The clerk looks at me. “That’s a lot of mass it’ll seriously eat up your allotted space.”

“Is it safe did it all pass bio-scan?”

“Oh sure it went through three times.”

I look at the manifest and there’s raw lamb and there’s things called figs and figs in honey? And then there’s cucumbers and yogurt and cheese and olives and olive oil?

“Well I’ve had some of these things. What should I do with the rest do I store it or what?”

“Can you cook?”

“No…not really?”

“You could maybe donate it then to the mess hall.”

I nod and look at him. “I’d still get to try it then right?”

He grins and he nods. “Yeah, you could even like spend credits and have a meal cooked for like people that you know and have an off duty dinner.”

“Really?”

“Yeah the fighter pilots and the combat crews do that a lot usually pooling their money together but yeah it’s a thing.”

“Expensive?”

He nods. “Seriously so it’s taking the mess crew’s time from other things.”

I nod and think. “I’ll take the figs and the figs in honey and leave the rest here for now until I can get a time from the kitchen.”

“Who you going to invite?” He asks as he’s passing me two smaller boxes.

“Well this is from some people I helped out while on duty so I was thinking that I’d use it to treat my duty cadet shift crew and maybe my bunkmates.”

He nods and I open up the figs and honey thing and look in it and it’s a box or a round box made of transparent glass but fitted with clamps around it and the label is all in the local Greek? I run a translation app and it’s summer fresh figs that have been steeped in fig-grove honey and brandy?

I try one a little hesitantly and it’s messy, like hold your hand underneath sort of messy and the fruit is strange and yet it’s like this sweet and gummy natural jam inside of a fruit but it’s also so soft and ripe but preserved right on that edge in this syrup.

I get it down and offer the clerks some. “They’re very good but I could so go for a caff right now.”

They all take one each and try them and the clerk passes me a soy-caff black as he’s sucking on the one he’s eating like it’s something he knows and likes quite well.

The caff helps cut the sweetness and the richness. “Thanks for that I’ll ping you soon as to what’s what.”

I leave with my figs heading for my quarters but I ping my duty commander as I’m going and offering up my idea to share the wealth as it were for like a team building thing.

We actually start to ping back and forth talking about what was sent and the first thing that I do need to do is to give a return thank you to those people for sending those up here to me because it was likely far from cheap.

I stop by the PX and I buy a small sheaf of real paper and an envelope and a pen and I go to my quarters and I start to write a thank you to them and a real letter.

The girls are coming in and I open the figs and the honey for them and they start to check it out too and some are trying the equally as unfamiliar with things as I was with them.

I ping the kitchens too and find out what that’ll cost and they ask what I have and they are going to call me back with a price and recommends.

I still want to do this, other people do this and I kind of want those kinds of memories too before we all are off ship and gone to do our different things.

FTL-26... Faster Than Life.

*Before…

We actually start to ping back and forth talking about what was sent and the first thing that I do need to do is to give a return thank you to those people for sending those up here to me because it was likely far from cheap.

I stop by the PX and I buy a small sheaf of real paper and an envelope and a pen and I go to my quarters and I start to write a thank you to them and a real letter.

The girls are coming in and I open the figs and the honey for them and they start to check it out too and some are trying the equally as unfamiliar with things as I was with them.

I ping the kitchens too and find out what that’ll cost and they ask what I have and they are going to call me back with a price and recommends.

I still want to do this, other people do this and I kind of want those kinds of memories too before we all are off ship and gone to do our different things.

*And Now…

It’s nice having a duty shift off in the first part of the day since we’re in orbit and essentially I’m waiting for shore leave and just in the queue for it and still being a cadet I’m fairly low on the list.

But it’s still nice to have the day to myself and that actually lets me enjoy some downtime and some of that’s the back and forth from the get-together that I want to have with my friends and other cadets and checking some of the things for it that might be and sound good.

My credits aren’t actually that bad since all I’ve ever spent them on is shore leave so they’re picked up a decent amount and unlike a lot of conversions I haven’t bought whole new wardrobes of things and have been relying mostly on what we get from what we can draw from stores.

Even now I’m not wearing civilian clothes just my R-suit and my boots and my flight/operations jacket so I’m just really dressed down military.

But there’s some things that is getting to be standard and the first thing I did this morning was get up duty shift off or not and joined the other cadets and those training in the rec-gym floor for the calisthenics and then went for my morning run.

Even with everything I have been doing there’s the morning runs even if you’re on nights there’s the morning runs…it’s just those ones as a cadet are set at the start of your duty shifts.

But today I’m off so it’s a nice jogging pace and enjoying it for what it is and enjoying the sensations of just being me.

The sways and the bounces all in this right way, a way that just actually says not wrong or sends all those error things flickering through my consciousness.

And yeas they’re a pain in the bottom sometimes. It’s like my sway is never sexy when I want it to be and I just sort of feel as clumsy as I ever was and then there’s my breasts which are in the way and they’re really sensitive and they are bruise magnets.

I run into things and they hurt, and then there’s the one's where I run into something and I get a bruise and I have no idea of how I did that to myself.

But all of those things are wanted things.

And after my run I go for a swim in the pool.

It’s not like just going swimming, not with the thing with the lanes and everything so there’s not too much just goofing around and all but even since Patrick and him and being with a Triton I want to actually be a good swimmer. It’s a simple matter of vanity really since I wasn’t a good swimmer home because home people just did do a whole lot of physical stuff.

Home was well it was a serious agricultural colony and we made grain and grew vegetables and things like soy and alfalfa and canola. But most of that was done by drones and the really poor people too and if you were middle classed like me you were born into a Co-op that ran those things like a trust while you lived in enough comfort to do whatever you really wanted to do which in my family was design.

Mostly for home goods and furniture and the like but we’d design it and others would make it and that’s actually what my day job used to be was clerking in the data stream for my families design company.

It was a decidedly sedentary lifestyle added to my depression and dysphoria I didn’t really want to do things, anything really not until I decided to move out from home after I rejected the family wanting me to get my head fixed so I wouldn’t feel the feelings that I had felt all my life.

And it’s a sad thing maybe but I honestly don’t miss me family that much or home with all of its conservatism in the everyday life and all.

I’ve taken a big chance at this new life and I’m not regretting a minute of any of it.

Not even the few horrible moments that I’ve had when things have happened and then as they say the shit hit the air-scrubbers.

I actually did some other working out too before getting changed and now I’m just with a large to go soy-caf and sitting on one of the observation decks watching the space scenes and the other ships and well New Ithaca below us. And I’m linked into the network and I’m looking things up there for when I get shore leave.

It’s a Zodiac colony and they’re in general non-moded people here but they have a lot of modified animals and produce here. The colony was a large swamp like planet when it was founded and colonized and the colonists literally have to harvest and create their home ground and they built and used a lot of air and hover vehicles and lives on stilts and such and that’s actually still really common as firm ground is an expensive commodity here.

Aquaculture is really big here and there are all sorts of things they breed here and then grow here and sometimes both.

Chief products include plankton and rice as well shellfish and frogs.

Frogs?

I look that up and I’m not sure if my stomach could go with fried frog’s legs or the second favorite protein here snails.

I’m actually pretty impressed with some of these things that I’m reading about like how they have marshes with shallow depths and raided beds for the things that they grow and just how much is produced and how little of it seems to be done by drone.

I honestly with the name of the colony thought that there would be much more of a Greek and Old Earth sort of thing happening here but apparently that’s not the case and it’s just sort of partially a thing for the systems here even though they all seem to be connected the connections are loose.

But they are sort of loosely considered linked to Pisces and it’s very marine like here in a lot of ways. I can’t really imagine something that is just so…so odd as an ancient belief system like this as a whole basic of the planning and themes like almost a cultural narrative for an entire planet.

And the fact that they’re not just one planet but a system cluster all like this it’s very odd. It’s in a good way odd since that was part of the whole point of everything and all with me joining up and coming out here and everything to see this kind of different up close and everything but it’s still odd seeing as I come from one of those hand of god colonies.

I’m just finished my soy-caf when I see lights changing on our ships and then I can see flight patterns changing as we shift to alert status.

My OBC is pinging me.

[Alert status, alert status all personnel to report to their duty station and auxiliary stations.]

And my soy-caf gets tossed into the nearest garbage recycler chute and I head off to my section to get my emergency kit on and everything.

That’s getting out or my R-flex which is a resistance training body suit and into my K-flex which is the light body armor that is a flexible body suit that hardens to resist kinetic impacts. Then the utility belt and my vacc-collar and comlink and then my side arm and in my case my telescopic blade.

That’s a recent issue, it’s a thin carbon blade that folds in like an antenna on those security batons and mine is a long flat blade quite similar to my awarded blade in my quarters.

Apparently it’s made for my hand with the eight and everything and all of those of us that carry swords have these telescopic blades for use in the field.

I’m logging in to the duty systems and I can’t find anything else so I make my way to Sense-nav and I grab my pack with me and through some of my foodstuffs and some rations in there.

I don’t know why I’m doing that but I’m doing it anyway like a drop pack and I head to the Sense-nav deck.

Lt. Miller is in command when I get there and it’s supposed to be a light duty shift and I see some of the others that were off duty there and we’re busy there directing traffic as there’s ships headed for planet dock and some heading out of system.

I don’t ask what’s going on but instead I go and I make a pot of soy-caff and bring a cup of it fresh to the lieutenant.

He looks at me. “Thanks Stone, never thought about it.”

“You don’t when it’s busy it was like that with those bugs.”

“They’re back.”

“Back?” I look to see if I can see it on screens.

“Not here but out further in the system, one of the long range patrols ran into a freighter cluster coming out of FTL and when they go close we lost them but not before they sent in confirmation of them being infested.”

A freighter cluster is essentially a bridge with a drive and everything else is this huge series of parking racks that hold shipping containers. They are literally flying warehouse yards and some are like close to a full kilometer in length easily and some can be ten times that.

“Infested? That doesn’t sound good.”

“No and as tech obsessed with things as the Tekker’s are they still need to eat and re-supply and the Zodes are right on the edge of Abby space.”

The Zodes are slang for Zodiac Space and Abby’s are what people call Aberrant’s and Aberrant’s are much like the Tekker’s only they are into bio-technical elevation of the human condition.

I nod. “So the Deviant systems are getting squashed in between?”

Deviants are people with bio-engineered body modifications and those usually are outside the generalized norms in society. But they’re not like the Aberrant’s that take it to the extremes.

He nods and takes a drink.

“It’s like a damned holy war really.”

I look out at the screens. “Are we going to be caught up in this sir?”

“Likely, we’re going to be support and help evac’s if needed but we’re not going to be right in the fighting. We’re a teaching flagship not a full on warship.”

“Should I take a position sir?”

“Not yet but stick close I might use you as a floating spotter.”

“Yessir.” I salute and then go to the semi-galley and lockers and stow my things and get a soy-caf and then wait and it’s an hour and some before I switch off with another tech as they’re headed to break.

It’s semi hard on the nerves knowing that all of this is so close and yet it’s happening a long ways from here and we’re only getting bits of information from the actual battle front and other than being on alert status we actually haven’t moved from orbit.

But our warships that were with us have engaged and there is a battle going on out there and I’m not sure exactly what it means in a tactical sense when we pick up three Colonial Union FTL signatures flashing in on the sensor grid out near the edge of the star system here.

There’s two laser classed battleships that just jumped in The Sigil Fire and The Jack of Spades and with them a medical frigate called The Heart of Belrain.

I see them on the link up and they’re heading directly to the combat zone with the medical ship hanging back a good distance from everything and I’m paying attention to the traffic out there at least over the comlink as best as I can and it’s sounding very aggressive out there.

I kind of would have liked to see a laser classed ship in action.

Combat lasers are highly impractical for personal use they take a huge amount of power to get to the point where they’re effective as a weapon.

But on a warship they have huge amounts of power being pushed into them and all of the industrial military levels of cooling and then there’s the size that they can be so it all fits quite well and they literally cut enemy ships into bits with their beam attacks and sweeps.

The one thing that they’re not as effective on is shields because shields have that electro-magnetic barrier that they create that actually soaks up the effect of the beams or something like that.

Which is why those laser classed ships are often armed with torpedoes for EMP attacks that blow huge disrupted holes in a ships shields and if the ship is actually small enough the backlash can actually blow the shield generators.

I used to think that a shield generator was the thing that made the shields but in the real world they’re just separate power systems so when they do blow they don’t take the ships power with them.

I’m actually going to be studying things with shields as part of my classes that I’m going to take at the academy.

I get switched out when the crewman comes back from her break and I wanted to stay and keep linked into the console but I have to move and it’s not long after that from what I can see on the screens that our ships are coming in at cruising speed.

And the alerts are standing down.

Twenty minutes maybe after our battleships have gone out there and we’re done.

I look at the lieutenant and he’s going through all the stuff we need to be doing and should be doing but he has this look on his face.

And it’s making me feel this sort of unease.

He gets this look on his face like he just got an OBC call and he pings me and sets me into temporary brevet command.

I look at him.

“I’ll be in the office Stone in heavy link you run the floor while I’m out.”

“Yessir.”

He heads into the office for the duty officer it’s just a glassed in sort of cubicle that they use to do other work and to do other things when things are running smoothly and when things need to be private.

I sit into his on deck chair and I link into the command computer link and I send two off to break and call two of my other co-cadets in that have been doing the same thing to spot us and then I’m getting orders for a recall of all of our ships personnel and to help direct them with the docking and then there’s orders for us to send out more drones out to our best operational limits and to pass on any oddities on scan to the bridge and to the weapons crews and the flight decks.

There are possible stragglers out there and we’re to keep all “eyes” peeled looking for any that might show up.

I have a bad feeling about all of this and we’re looking like we’re very possibly heading out of the system.

Which that might mean there might be more fighting headed this way.

I look out at space in the direction our combat ships are heading in from and I take a breath.

Those beetle tekker things are short range, no FTL and they took that freighter cluster which just really adds up to me that they have a ship out there.

Or more and that they might be headed this way.

FTL-27... Faster Than Life.

*Before…

“I’ll be in the office Stone in heavy link you run the floor while I’m out.”
“Yessir.”

He heads into the office for the duty officer it’s just a glassed in sort of cubicle that they use to do other work and to do other things when things are running smoothly and when things need to be private.
I sit into his on deck chair and I link into the command computer link and I send two off to break and call two of my other co-cadets in that have been doing the same thing to spot us and then I’m getting orders for a recall of all of our ships personnel and to help direct them with the docking and then there’s orders for us to send out more drones out to our best operational limits and to pass on any oddities on scan to the bridge and to the weapons crews and the flight decks.
There are possible stragglers out there and we’re to keep all “eyes” peeled looking for any that might show up.
I have a bad feeling about all of this and we’re looking like we’re very possibly heading out of the system.
Which that might mean there might be more fighting headed this way.
I look out at space in the direction our combat ships are heading in from and I take a breath.
Those beetle tekker things are short range, no FTL and they took that freighter cluster which just really adds up to me that they have a ship out there.

Or more and that they might be headed this way.

*And Now…

There’s times to be right and there’s times to really hate being right.

My stint in the temporary command chair actually left me there all the way into the next duty shift when Lt. Wilson showed up and she was not on the schedule for duty it was the actual commander’s turn but he wasn’t showing.

And there was still heavy link going on with the other Lt. which said there’s a lot of other stuff going on and I look to Lt. Wilson. “Should I stay here and pull my shift ma’am?’

“Ordinarily I’d say yes as a means of pushing you Stone but you’re a good hand with things I’d rather have you rested.’

I give up the chair and my status goes back to normal and I give her a salute and she dismisses us after each of us have our replacements going and I head first to the showers to get cleaned up before I hit the quarters.

It’s one of those times when my brain is not shutting off only its sort if still in Operations mode. I’m sort of thinking about the stuff that I’ve been seeing and what might be going on and what might be coming and then it just wondering what will be going on and what the situation is for The Zodes and what our fleet will be doing if anything or what The Zodes can do if anything and then there’s The Tekker’s and even The Abby’s and all of those things and the most frustrating thing there is to it that I have no clue what’s going on really.

And I shouldn’t obsess over things that are way beyond me.

But I guess this is what Sense-nav people are like we’re fast brained and multi-tracked and we crave information.

I smile at the whole parallel in my head with the fact that I crave information and therefore I’m kind of nosy and yet for most of my life I’ve been very much the introvert.

That has sort of changed too and sort of not.

You never really stop being an introverted person but there’s a big difference between being outgoing and everything and doing things that you have to do.

I am wondering if there’s some research link between people like myself and being transgendered and withdrawing away from the world and other things.

I wonder how much was me not being myself all of my life and how that shaped my everyday because Erin’s life is more open and different than it used to be before all of this.

I get changed into just another variation of what I was wearing before I was called up and I stow my emergency gear in my bag and I head for the mess lines and there’s the usual crowds of people and I see my friends or rather my roommates and I wave and do a fist nod to them and I get into line and I get some chow.

I’m not even feeling fussy enough to splurge on the credits from the basic stuff offered so I get synth-meat cutlets with roasty soy gravy sauce and then there’s the potatoes that are sort of semi-solid amalgam and then there’s the veggies of the day and I have no idea what they are but I get some of those and put pepper on the food and some sim-onion flake that are sort of a protein flake that has onion flavor in it like a cooked onion and I get a large bottle of water and a soy-choco-shake in a can.

I head over and I sit with the others and smile and look at Carrington who makes room for me.

“How’s things in your divisions?”

Carrington looks at me and swallows some pasta strands. “Busy, we’re in orbit and there’s so much going on we’ve sent out drones to boost the colony’s sat traffic com abilities so the network doesn’t collapse in on itself.”

I nod and start eating some of mine. “There’s a lot going on and things might get heavy out further in the systems and people are panicking.”

There’s some nods all around the table with that.

Jesika says. “I caught some bits of the com traffic and we’re going to be seeing some more warships for certain.”

Nelle asks. “We’re not going inta battle are we?”

Anna shakes her head. “No, The Apollo’s a cadet training ship we’re able but really we’re pretty damned close to being a decommissioned flagship.”

Now Jesika is actually training in communications and Nelle’s switched her focus from being in astrometrics like me and Sense-nav sense we did the escape pod trial to going over to medical training and Anna’s still in her ships arms classes.

Anna’s going to be one of those people that works with ships weapons and shields and the like so she is really up on some of the things for our ship.

I look at her. “We’re really that bad?”

She plays with some synth potato on her fork. “We’re not bad it’s just we’re old and we’re slow The Apollo’s a big bunch of mass and we’re good for armor and the like but really when you compare us to the current in like ships we’re a fossil, we’re a fossil with a bare minimum of fighters and we are carrying no heavy escorts with us because we’re all shuttles and cargo instead.”

Sunshine comes to join us and she sits and she’s sort of smiling and sort of not. I mean she’s usually pleasant in the extreme being one of the lovelies on the companion track MOs but she’s actually kind of serious too.

“We’re going to be holding back lines and supporting some of the other fleet ships and we might just be getting some heavy orders to help with the evacuation of some of the places if things get really bad.”

Jesika says. “But we’re a training ship we’re not ready for stuff like this.”

I shake my head. “We’re two kilometers long and we have lots of excess space here and even if we’re a training ship we have room and the biggest factor of us being right here already.”

Sunshine smiles. “Well then I think it might turn out all good anyways I mean we have you here Erin so that’s a serious bonus.’

I blush and shake my head. “I’m just keeping things in mind.”

Sunshine beams at me. “And you’re the girl that was giving Sergeant Svenko all those questions and stuff when we were all like pre-converted and things and you’re well thought of.”

I eat some of the soy-meat shoving it my mouth.

Anna looks at me and she makes that sort of a micro-pout. “Actually yeah Erin you’re kind of a mini celebrity even where I’m at people are like talking about the stuff you do especially that latest thing with you doing that whole like nine drone dance.”

The girls ask Anna what she’s talking about and she starts telling her what I figured out and the things that I did in like detail with the whole fight and everything with the Tekker-bugs.

She actually says it like she’s read my reports or a copy of it or something.

I swallow and look at her. “You read that?”

She says. “I read it after I kept hearing about it then things’ making the rounds in some of the tactical sim-theory rooms.”

I take a drink.

“I didn’t mean to step on any toes or anything.”

She stares at me like I just crashed a shuttle trying to park it. “Don’t be stupid Erin, it’s a good thing without you doing what you do in Sense-nav we don’t stand a chance of fighting y’know that right? If we can’t see things then we can’t hit things and that’s kind of important when you’re running a Strayser.”

A Strayser is a strobe laser or what some call a pulse weapon and it’s a multi lensed laser turret, I’m not too sure how they work but I am surprised that Anna was firing one.

“You were on guns?”

She nods and she almost smiles. “It made a difference; seriously we had a great kill-ratio.”

“Oh okay, well good.”

And Sunshine looks at her and me and then she says. “What Erin means is frikking cool you were on Strayser. And what she meant before all of that Anna is that you’re like so uptight and closed off that people don’t know if you’re like pissed off or offended by something or not.”

Anna rolls her eyes in one of the most expressive gestures I’ve ever seen her do and says. “Look, I didn’t get converted to be all about the girl-drama and stuff I did it to be myself.”

Jesika says. “Really? I mean you’re well moded into being incredibly beautiful that’s being yourself? I mean like no judgements I did it too and I really, really wanted to look like this and everything.”

Carrington actually says sipping her coffee. “Pretty much all of us except for Erin who went for like minimum conversion.”

Anna just sort of glares at us. “And do you see me flaunt it? Do you see me fraternize? No I’m just me.”

And she takes a breath and she opens a share file to our OBC’s and it’s a picture of the prettiest guy that I have ever seen. I mean he’s a he but at the same time he’s almost not and he’s pretty but in that Japanese-sim-boy on boy pretty fetish way.

“Erin’s not the only straight over conversion.”

There’s a bunch of “Oh wows.”

I look at her. “Ouch.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Ouch?”

“You were really close but still really light years away.”

She nods. “Exactly…and no one ever got that and people still don’t get it and I get constant shit for being moded when I’m not.”

Some of the girls started nodding too and quieted down until Sunshine perks up some more. “I’m getting moded again. I’m getting my breasts done.”

I stare at her and she already has really big breasts.

“You want bigger?”

“Naw they’re good that way I’m getting a nerve tweak so they’re more sexually sensitive.”

I stare at her. “Why?”

“Because I’m going full companion once we get to Grail and I’m actually nowhere near as sensitive as some of the other girls and I want to be. Getting off is an important part of moral.”

Anna snorts.

Okay her doing that made me smile some.

But Sunshine just grins and takes it. “No seriously if we can get off with a partner better and they can bring us to a big happy O then that makes them feel better too. It’s got lots of papers backing it all.”

Jesika shakes her head. “I like sex but that’s just too far for me.”

Sunshine shakes her head. “Sex is like just, just a really small part of it. I mean there’s a whole bunch of skills we learn plus psyche and counselling and some medical stuff and we even do like a nursing rotation to help out and learn how to be supporting staff there too, everywhere actually.”

I nod. “I think that you’ll be great at it.”

She smiles and perks up where she’s sitting enough and on purpose too to make her breasts bounce in that almost cliché way and in that way too perky way and that actually works, we all sort of laugh a little and smile a little.

And thinking on it the whole mood of the table’s pretty well diffused from everything.

I look at her and she looks at me and she knows that I know and she smiles and eats some of her food then she says.

“I hear you want to throw a party?”

The girls are looking at me.

I look at them. “I want to throw a dinner, like a feast kind of thing like ancient soldiers used to throw for their units and I kind of wanted to do it before we’re off the ship and on Grail. Sort of a last ships meal.”

Nelle grins. “I think that that’d be lovely, what are we having?”

I shrug. “I have some things in my stores and such and with the staff here I was just going to try and go for a meal without anything synth made.”

Carrington says. “Maybe we should have this sooner, I mean with everything that might happen and all we might be too busy to get together.”

I nod.

Honestly Care’s the closest thing to a close friend that I have and it does make sense really before we’re swamped with work or refugees or anything else.

“Okay, as soon as I can get things together I’ll post to our private message space and let you all know okay?’

We break after that and I go to the gun range and I go through a few of the different handgun types we use and then the carbine and a heavier rifle used by the infantry forces. It’s a lot bigger and it’s what they call an eleven long and that’s an eleven millimetre long shell with a liquid to gas compression cylinder inside the rifle for caseless firing and it kicks really hard with the recoil it has and it takes time to get used to it.

It has really thick wide slugs and it’s really bad at it but I keep going until I can at least get my rating percentage up with it. I even switch out shoulders when one gets tired and I’m getting looks.

The Gunny comes over and that’s slang for Gunnery Sergeant and he’s fairly young looking with a bit of a scruff going and sandy blonde hair and he’s watching me and he’s linked in and I can feel him rating me.

“Who taught you that Ensign?”

“No one Gunny.” I’m not siring him it’s not allowed either and Gunny is acceptable usually in these kinds of situations.

He doesn’t seem to mind me saying it either.

“You’re doing this on your own?”

“My shoulder was getting sore Gunny.”

“Well that’s a good reason seeing as you’re not a combat MOS…oh…well you have an interesting file here Stone.”

“If you say so Gunny.” I’m getting red faced though. My file is one thing but to get interesting tagged to it and to me is another.

He looks at me. “You’ve actually logged a good number of range hours here Ensign in your off time, why’s that?”

I reload and switch out shoulders again. “After the tekker thing I needed to know more and be better of at least better enough to survive.”

“That was a Hunter killer drone Stone even this eleven would barely piss it off.”

I stop and I look at him my mouth dry.

“What would then.”

“Hand held?”

I swallow and nod.

“Explosives, a shape charge or a directional explosive disk. Maybe an eleven with high explosive rounds but you’ll never be cleared for those off of a ship.”

“So, I’m screwed.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “No…well yeah. Now those bugs on the other hand we’ve had tactical look them over and they’re flying bombs with guns and a drive their armored really light and those, those you can take down so keep practicing Stone.”

“Yes Gunny.”

“And Stone?”

“Yes Gunny?”

“Keep up the switching but just be sure to get your primary up first and foremost you’ll rely on that the most and spend more time on your side arm you’re ship crew if you’re going to be shooting then most of the time it’ll be in close quarters.”

“Yes Gunny.’

He leaves to actually go and yell at someone to “Get your damned ear protection on!”

Part of it is being on edge me doing this but part of me just wants to do something before going to bunk out. I did PT and I ate so I kind of wanted to just do something that wasn’t in my bunk or sitting down.

I switch down to the carbine and try a submachine gun and that’s hard to use it’s nothing like I’m used to and not enough like a handgun or and assault weapon and I work my way back to the sidearms doing about a clip each and then I take them back to the cage and head for bed.

My ratings are up, and those are hit to effective hit ratios and their small numbers but I did improve a little at least.

The Gunny added note to my file about my shoulder switching. I didn’t know that, it was like a thing but I guess being able to be flexible in situations helps right?

(Mental Shrug.)

I head to my bunk and do a little light OBC reading of stuff here in Zode space and for New Ithaca.

Morning comes fairly fast and it’s all the same with PT and then the range again and then Tae Budo and then food and shower and I’m into the seat for more Sense-nav training. Not a duty shift but just the course work and it’s a lot of big full sky stuff and traffic and controlling said traffic and computing vectors and then times and keeping track of those and then there some drill of us talking down some of our own cadets that are in the flight simulators and they have problems.

You know what got me today?

It was that no one else in class even bothered to use a remote. We have drones, other ships have drones and even some of the stuff the other cadets are flying have drones as part of their compliment.

I link to the closet one and slave it to my system and I fly it with these cadets and I visually guide them or I do that while I run a positional graphic adjustment for them and link the probe’s coms to their system so they can see.

I got looks some for that too.

That’s uncomfortable and I’m not used to having a bunch of people in my class group that are asking me how I came up with these things.

There might be some of this with the age difference, I’m not the only older person to sign up and start over but like in most cadet situations we’re looking at mostly the younger people being here.

Thankfully I had downtime after that and I hit the PT rooms and tried out some of the machines for different things and ended up on the cycle and going for a bike ride in sim.

And I had a decent bowl of plankton chowder/soup too while I was looking at some things for the supper meal and I even spent some credits ordering some things from the surface in the next supply run.

Cucumbers and something called red courgettes and some varied but good sounding greens and some sort of bug/sea thing called prawns.

Tap-link and zip….there was a whole mess of credits gone.

It’s sort of the same thing then next day too but instead of free time I am slotted for an actual duty shift and I get dressed into gear and head for Sense-Nav and start my shift and end my shift working civilian traffic and using the drones for a com-net still and it’d actually be boring as far as actual work and experience would go but the girls were right.

As much as we’re seeing all these civilian ships pulling in here from trade routes and other close by things and places like some of the mining belt mines just out system and then there’s other’s from like refueling stations and even some of the farther out lunar established places as people are fleeing.

Or getting evacced just in case.

But my sky has many more Colonial Union ships here in the in system directory and I have gotten to see some of them including The Colonial Ranger.

It’s a flagship too like The Apollo but it really isn’t.

Long but with top and bottom sleek beveled armor and it looks sleek and then there’s the grand tower of the bridge and then there’s these huge arms/bridging sections that come off of it and extend out to these pods and each of these pods is like casing and FTL protections for smaller combat warships that it’s carrying.

Like sixteen of them in the two kilometer length ready to detach and disengage at will and that’s not even coming close to the hundred plus meter middle strip of the ship between the plate that is literally turrets and weapons and landing and fighter bays.

You know you’re really becoming part of the military culture when you see something like that and you smile.

I smiled because we were so close we could amplify to visual and see it in detail.

Heck I didn’t know what I was seeing with everything until I heard the watch commander talking about it with definite reverence.

The sound of someone who served on something like that.

I want to serve maybe on something like that.

FTL-28… Faster Than Life.

*Before…

It’s a flagship too like The Apollo but it really isn’t.

Long but with top and bottom sleek beveled armor and it looks sleek and then there’s the grand tower of the bridge and then there’s these huge arms/bridging sections that come off of it and extend out to these pods and each of these pods is like casing and FTL protections for smaller combat warships that it’s carrying.

Like sixteen of them in the two kilometer length ready to detach and disengage at will and that’s not even coming close to the hundred plus meter middle strip of the ship between the plate that is literally turrets and weapons and landing and fighter bays.

You know you’re really becoming part of the military culture when you see something like that and you smile.

I smiled because we were so close we could amplify to visual and see it in detail.

Heck I didn’t know what I was seeing with everything until I heard the watch commander talking about it with definite reverence.

The sound of someone who served on something like that.

I want to serve maybe on something like that.

*And Now…

I’m watching it go and so are others and I look over and Corporal Stillwater is there and she’s drinking a tall soy-caf that smells like it’s very strong so like double or triple brewed and she looks over the screens and she’s definitely checking out The Ranger as it passes through.

She looks at me and she has another drink. “You had a question, you link posted a query.”

I actually had I’ve still been listed as brevet ensign for a while now even during my downtime.

I wasn’t expecting Stillwater to show up just for this though.

“Yes Corporal I was wondering why my Brevet status was still ongoing?”

“Your brevet’s still standing Stone until this fracas is over but we’re cleared for regular duties so you can go about your works as per usual or put in for shore leave.”

I look at her and blink. “I didn’t get the message on my rank status Corporal.”

“I know but it’s in the reg-manuals which you should be more familiar with.”

“Yes Corporal can I ask why Corporal?”

“Because you’re placed over just a cadet, which means you’re until you’re returned to status functionally ship staff and when things come down to you doing something and you having to lead some other cadets then you’ll actually have a clue on how to do that in the right way.”

“Oh…”

She looks at me and she smiles around her soy-caf. “That’s alright Stone you’re still as green as grass yet. I’m just giving you a heads up so you don’t end up doing something that lands you in the soup.”

I breathe a little easier. “Thanks Corporal.”

She nods. “It’s just a little hand from a more experienced soldier.”

I nod and I kind of appreciate it. It might not sound like too much but all these little things get looked at all the time by the people in fleet that together the assessments and then pass that sort of stuff to the commanders.

I want to actually do well in this, in my new life here. “Thanks I’ll scan through all of the required reads when I’m off duty.”

She nods. “Can’t wait to try some of the things you have planned for that dinner thing.”

I nod. “Me too actually, ship food and a few things from my times on shore leave is as exotic as I’ve ever eaten really.”

“Synth food kid?”

I nod. “Mostly yeah it lasts long and it was pretty much the evolved standards for anyone in the middle class since actual food prep wasn’t a thing that people really did. It was considered lower class and gauche.”

She looks at me and she nods. “Dennan-7 was like that too.”

I tilt my head. “Is that where you’re from?”

She nods taking a drink of her soy-caf again.

“Just about everything was bot run, we’re a mining planet and there’s these huge deposits of stone that people actually find decorative and the most work that most folks do there from day to day as labor was running remote mining bots and the running fine work bots and things. My dad was the breadwinner and considered a low class menial type being a bot mechanic. I had the whole option of doing that for a living since I was spiked or getting out.”

“What’s spiked?”

“It’s when people go back in your data files when they’re looking to hire you or to let you into a school and the like and then they see you’re from a family that does manual labor and they get all uppity and they tag your file into the network with an item of interest tag. It’s illegal as hell but they still do it since it’s hard to prove. We call it spiking since it’s like someone drugged your life.”

“I hit a wall, I wasn’t me and it was never getting better and it was come here and do something and get my life fixed or have my head fixed and pretty much get erased.”

She finishes her coffee which is pretty much chugging the last third of it and I don’t think that I could learn that as a skill anytime soon and she tosses the cup in the bin.

“Yeah there’s a lot of that especially with Faithful colonies and the like. I’d say between gender and sexuality issues and that rewriting bullshit we get a few dozen every recruiting like you.”

I frown. “So much for humanity becoming more and more enlightened with the age of space and FTL travel.”

“Humans are assholes where and whenever we’re at Stone. And sometimes we’re even monsters or turn into it.”

I take a breath. “Yeah… I feel that way about the Tekkers.”

She nods. “You should, they’re a really good example of that. We’ve never been able to have any kind of neutral contact you know that? They just want to come in and to convert everything into more parts, more organic parts.”

She sounds bitter.

I lost friends and shipmates to them so I’m a bit bitter too.

We just sort of stay there for a few minutes before she heads off to speak to my duty chief about one of those endless things that a corporal must do. I see her and the other corporals all the time going back and forth and doing and commanding all sorts of things.

And then she’s off again.

Stillwater always gets me thinking, about how I feel about things and about how she thinks about things or that she’s been in how long? What it’s like being a corporal, or working on a ship like this with recruits like me?

How much I’ve changed in just so little time, and just being here and the training that is really just getting sort of set up with the basics of living in the military and in closed quarters.

I mean when I look back at my old self and just getting ready for signing up had me radically change my life, get tossed out from my family and then sold pretty much everything and bought myself a small little bohemian house in the non-cybered commune or immigrant quarters.

Heck after seeing people here and how really different things really are out here the fact that I have neighbors back home that aren’t the very white mono chrome, cyber living social clones is actually a relief.

It’s something I mull over for the rest of my duty shift and I’m in charge right up until the rest of it with the shift commander only coming out around ten minutes after mine was over but I went ahead and got the next shift underway and up to speed before he comes out since I’m the one left in charge getting out at the end of the shift isn’t an option.

And going to his office and bothering him while he’s there because my shift is ending isn’t an option either.

Just not done unless we’re under attack or the sense-nav suite is on fire.

It’s a pain sure sort of as some of my year mates are gone and there some others that I don’t usually have rotation with here now but it’s not like a big pain since I am one of those people that is an older conversion there’s just this sort of something there even if I led a really shelter life before this…there’s a difference?

Age of spirit maybe?

That and there’s a lot of conversions here. And that’s common outside of home it’s something a lot of like Core worlds in The C.U. have right into their healthcare.

Fixing the body to match the mind, not like the conversion therapy that my sister went through to change the mind to match the body.

But I’m not like a lot of the people that get converted.

I’m not as flash with it.

I went for pretty much what I figured I’d be if I was just me, born as my real self.

Some of them though and I can’t really blame them for going this route they’re very good looking, beautiful with long legs and the bottoms and the waists and such on and so forth.

One of the things I researched is the fact that those super model bodies require maintenance. You have to put in the diets and the workouts and a lot of other things or else you will end up like any other aging baseline.

I figure that me as me and not being too far from being me and myself would be a lot easier to just keep as myself.

It’s not like I could afford things like the very rich people have with gene-mods like increased metabolism and boosted collagen production and all of those things that just seem like way too much in the first place.

Actually I feel like an older baseline in a room full of kids.

Though some of these looks that I get and some of the eager to please attitudes are sort of unnerving.

I’m not used to the notice or feeling like I’m popular.

Or maybe known?

Even being known is really strange, being that woman the one that did this and that and the other thing that people had noticed. Even if it’s just that noticed, I’m used to a life or anonymity, pretty near no one was special or stand out home.

Back home even unintentional was seen as being vain.

I get dismissed from my shift thankfully and I head back to the bunks and I take a nap first thing. It’s that good nap when you hit your rack and it’s just so perfect that you actually smile, make a little sound and wiggle into the mattress.

Oh the feeling of a few hours of a really good nap is amazing.

I wake up when my OBC relays time for evening mess and I get up and I head to get some food and meet up with some of the others who are talking about the different duties that they’ve been doing and of course the whole thing that I was planning.

It’s enough that I schedule my shore leave for the morning giving the system enough time for my post to be filled by another cadet and its flickering approved in my mind’s eye as I go for dessert.

Red-bean pie… it’s more of a pudding pie like dessert and it’s a take-off of sweet red-bean from the human Asian ethnics with a very light crust made from crispy soy-egg foam like something called a pavlova? And it’s accented with ginger flavored sugar.

Very odd, but very good at the same time and something completely different from the foods from home which is a whole lot of the point.

It’s almost cliché for a bunch of women that we eat good and healthy and yet we all seem to go for all these varying desserts and tea.

I like tea for this sort of thing. It just sort of seems right to me.

After evening mess I take some time to go to the gym and do some time on the weights and then some time on the bikes. I like the bikes because they have Sim settings and before I signed up I bought a bicycle and used it to start to get into shape enough to qualify for admittance.

It was a lot of hard work actually after living a sedentary armchair life.

I stop after a good long ride through some very nice scenery with a selected theme from Asian heritage and I was biking through small roads along the side of these hills with tiers of gardens that were full of things and there was a nice sim-breeze to go with it.

It was really nice but even better was that I climbed a few hills and I cycled for an hour.

Done for the night I log out of the gym well satisfied that I gave dessert a good metabolic ass kicking and I head to my quarters area and shower then settle in for an early night going over my OBC classwork.

Yes there’s class work and it’s a lot of reading with a lot of theory and when it’s not theory it’s computational courses like computational navigation and physics.

That’s literally with all of the astrophysics and the knowledge of gravity fields, magnetic fields and all of those variable that come up how to factor them into scan and into navigation. And we’re at the point where we know so much about all of these things that we have ratings for each sort of thing and we have equations that we use for each of those things and then there’s the application of them with considerations for multiple things of these different things in any given situation.

I can actually dream of numbers and astrophysics and how all of these variables apply to moving through the universe…like flying as if I was the ship or a sim sometimes.

And I can just imagine the classes once we get to the actual academy.

Actually it’s much more like a Colonial Union Military University.

Literally a huge city combined with a star base and other bases.

I mean when you think about all of the MOS jobs and the specific jobs and all of the things that you have to learn while taking those jobs like The MC or Mechanized Calvary is more than just tanks and fast tracks it’s hover vehicles and all of those it’s jeeps and ARV’s and it’s a thousand other things that I would have to just guess at.

And then there’s things like all the planetary sensor stuff with me on a crew with these huge deep space signal dishes and a whole network to learn how to read and function.

And yes that’s a thing because Sense-nav is supposed to be able to reboot one of those stations if we land in a no-man’s zone or a place under attack.

I’m looking forward to all of that, to totally going into things that before I joined up I had no clue even were things that people did.

I finish my lessons and skip ahead with two of the ones that are the most tedious for me and that’s calibrations and drive signatures and because they’re tedious I push myself a little harder because the things I like I tend to learn really fast and see through and I even ask the system for a quiz in each before setting my alarm in my OBC to wake me in plenty of time to catch my shuttle down to the surface.

New Ithaca… I wonder what it’s really like down there instead of the vids and the sim stuff. It’ll be my first of The Zodes that I’ll have set foot on and there’ll be deviants or deviations there right in the populace.

I’m not nervous but it’s still very, very different.

It also makes me wonder about my first contact friend, where are they and what are they doing?

FTL-29… Faster Than Life.

*Before…

I finish my lessons and skip ahead with two of the ones that are the most tedious for me and that’s calibrations and drive signatures and because they’re tedious I push myself a little harder because the things I like I tend to learn really fast and see through and I even ask the system for a quiz in each before setting my alarm in my OBC to wake me in plenty of time to catch my shuttle down to the surface.

New Ithaca… I wonder what it’s really like down there instead of the vids and the sim stuff. It’ll be my first of The Zodes that I’ll have set foot on and there’ll be deviants or deviations there right in the populace.

I’m not nervous but it’s still very, very different.

It also makes me wonder about my first contact friend, where are they and what are they doing?

*And Now…

I pack a few things a spare cadet uniform as a change of civilian clothes just in case and then rest I actually think that I can fit into my bags if I buy anything that’s local and for me and the main thing is for me to shop for a few other things for the dinner I’m sort of planning for friends and yearmates and a few others.

Then it’s to the hangars and getting on a small transport shuttle down to the surface.

Most of us that are on board are kind of excited it’s all new to us to be out here to the Zodiac planets and that’s including the usual crew members that are on board.

It’s a real rarity to have us come out this way from everything that I know and we’re not here on the usual part of the milk-run. We’re here because of those Tekkers out there and whatever is going on with the battle part of the fleet.

The shuttle is more gear towards cargo and transport in a more of a civilian way so I get inside and there’s a few stairs that actually take you to an area raised over the cockpit area where it’s much more glassed in so as a passenger you get to see a whole lot more.

It’s actually a stunning experience and one that I still love as we head out from the ship and we use nav-thrust to skim along the ship and then we pull off and we’re into the queue in orbit to get a re-entry schedule. So it’s getting to see all of the other ships and there’s the other shuttles and small short rangers and then there’s all of the local Zodiac ships too and it’s a great scene in itself and that’s made even more by it having the planet or the moon in our background through part of this.

New Ithaca is brilliant…big and white green kissed with hints of blue. I can see a few ocean zones but they’re smaller so likely seas and it has white polar tops and the rest is varying shades of green.

And we’re orbiting in such a way that we all get this great view of the planet as we’re coming in for an approach and I link my OBC with the public links for the shuttle and download some shuttle vid of it all as we get closer and closer and we head down to Hemmingway Starport.

It’s not the capital which is fine it’s an accepted spaceport which is actually fairly standard practice as most capitals have that sort of security and only officially sanctioned ships and shuttle get anywhere close to them.

Hemmingway is nice actually from the look of it as we’re coming in on approach. It’s a coastal city with what looks like a very large river that actually flows into the surrounding farmlands that looks like canals for farming and then it remerges together and flows through the city with nice big bridges that we can see as we are coming down. The river goes right to the water splitting the city and there seems to be a very nice coastline here as well.

I see a lot of water boats and while I have seen them before they seem quite common here and they weren’t all that common home and there’s something that’s culturally nostalgic about them I guess.

Actually if I have a chance to learn when I’m at the academy then I would like to learn how to sail. It’s a naval thing and it’s one of those things that I have heard like close to seventy five percent of officers in the Colonial Union Space Navy know or have learned how to do.

It’s not really needed and it’s not even like socially fashionable a thing but at the same time it’s really something that I would actually like to learn.

I even see sails.

Which is just to me pleasant to even just look at.

We land at the space port and pass through customs and scan and answer a few questions while we’re doing it and I get a list of places and markets to look at since I had to disclose and mention why I was here and when they heard about the banquet idea everyone that I talked to was very enthusiastic and had some relative for me to contact.

It’s charming and yet a little daunting.

So many people so in your face and happy to see you is not the norm for me and how I’ve lived but I go with it and I really go with it and I ask one of them Anna to call her cousin Nikos and if he could drive me around instead of just getting any taxi.

You’d have thought that I gave her a million credits with her reaction and soon she’s calling Nikos and others and I’m trying not to be too overwhelmed at all of it and everything. I might want to come back here sometime and even if I don’t I want the people here to like me.

I know that’s sort of vain but I want folks to like me and I want them to like the C.U. too and I am going to hope that I can make a good impression while I’m here.

And really who actually takes people up on those recommendations that people give you? I want to try; I want to be able to thank these people that gave me the recommendations when I head back to the ship.

Nikos shows up in a truck, and it’s the first non-military truck that I have even really gotten close to and it’s big with rounded fenders and big fat tires with very nice looking wheel centers….rims…that’s right they call those things rims. It has a large box compartment in the back and it’s actually this wonderful sort of olive green color.

And then there’s Nikos.

There’s definitely something to be said for genetic engineering.

He’s tallish at six feet but he has long wavy brown hair with tanned highlights from the sunshine and working outdoors in that very tanned way and deep dark eyes. He’s wearing denim jeans and workmen’s boots in deep dark brown leather and he’s wearing what I could only say is a tunic. A sleeveless sort of thing with almost a rope like brocaded hem on all the outside parts that sort of fits but it’s loose enough to be really casual.

“Ello you are Serra Erin yes?”

“Uhm yes and you are Nikos?”

“Yes! I am Nikos! You have the places you want to go and see and buy from yes1?”

I nod and he’s taking my bags and I can’t help but smile a little and self-consciously as he’s so charming and he has this cute accent to his standard and he’s very enthusiastic too.

I let him take my things and he opens the door for his truck and makes sure that I get inside alright before going around and getting in himself and we’re soon speeding off or what passes for it in a ground vehicle and he’s chatting away about the first place that we’re going to see and it’s largely about olives and olive oil.

There’s a lot that I don’t understand about everything that he’s talking about. Olives home are imported as far as I have ever known about and well olive oil came in packets to go with ordered salads and foods.

I learn it’s going to be so much different than all of that when we get there. It’s thirty minutes from the city and out in those dykes and canals and there’s plantations of trees that just have this smell unlike anything I have ever smelled before.

The trees are in wire lattice wrapped rows of stacked stones and likely soil and farming things inside of them and the canals are on some kind of timer or something with water flooding some and going dry in others and there’s what I’m pretty sure are olives on them in all sorts of sizes and varieties and colors.

There’s pigs down in some of the mud too being used to glean it clear and fertilize I think and the same times and others I see children gathering fish from nets as the water gets lower and lower in others. It’s very impressive in an agrarian sort of way.

Nikos drives us through some of these canal roads until we come to this large walled sort of hub island that has windmills and solar sheets and there’s barns or buildings and that smell is everywhere.

“This, this is where my cousin Nunzio makes the olive oils and were the best olives are produced for the eating.”

He parks and gets my door. “You come, you taste and you enjoy yes!?”

“Uhm yes.”

It’s so oddly charming that he says things in this definition of things like he’s making a statement or even telling me what to do and he’s asking a question at the same time.

I get out to go with him and he helps me out of the truck and into a large barn where there’s packed and spaced crates of olives cushioned with some kind of sponge foam and they are aging some Nikos tells me and brining? others and some are going into other bins to go to other places but the main part of this is this system of machines that grind and eventually lead to where things are all pressed into oil.

The smell is heady and heavy and fruity in odd ways and there is Nunzio working with others and glass dipsticks and some kind of sampler that sucks up the oil and even wine glasses to check how it falls down the glass? Can oil have “Legs” and the only reason that I know that is from romance vids and sims.

There different colors and different grades and Nunzio’s standard is horrible but he seems sweet an in love with what he does and Nikos is translating for me and it’s really interesting and I’m already sold but when I’m taken outside to where Nunzio has this patio of stacked stones and an actual oven that is fired with wood and this charming older woman is there cooking and things and she bakes this flat loaf thing of fresh bread and it gets charred and bubbly in their oven and then Nunzio takes a bottle of oil and pours it over it while it’s still so hot it sizzles and these wholly different fumes almost like if this place was in bloom or something.

It’s the first time I ever smelled heated olive oil and it is one of the things that I think I will never forget.

The bread gets fresh ground pepper and salt tossed on it by the woman and I lose myself in the experience. I’ve never had pepper on bread or salt either and it seems odd and strange and even kind of decadent and the oil and the hot fresh bread and just how otherly and exotic this all is and everything.

This is one of the reasons why I joined up. To just have this sort of thing happen…and I’m really, really happy.

I buy two cases of the oil and it’s not remotely that expensive either for what I’m getting and Zode local credits where trade is local and close systems my Colonial Union Credits go a lot further which I didn’t know but I paid and tipped well.

And Nikos talks about how happy he is that I had a good time and a good experience at Nunzio’s all the way to his Aunt Claudia who grows figs.

This place was the same and yet a lot bigger and more elaborate and the canal watering system definitely makes for amazing figs as the fruit tends to suck up a lot of water and they actually have played around with how much sea tidal water apparently that they allow to mix in with the canal water from the river and then they still have the fish there too and other animals as well and it’s still very, very amazing and Claudia speaks way better standard than Nikos does and she’s very proud of her farm and it’s produce.

I have fresh figs ripe and right off the tree and their dark skin is so warm from the sun. I have one roasted with her in another one of those outdoor ovens they have here and I get three flats of the figs and a flat of her pears and she throws in tow lovely jugs of a mixed fig brandy strengthened pear wine she makes. And I mean jugs like these large glass bulbous five liter things with tiny handles and screw on caps and it’s not some precious thing but it’s wine, wine that was made to taste good and make you merry.

Then it’s to a roadside stand on a popular local side road that is run by Nikos sister Maria and there I get a deal on other things that she is selling and as long as the prices are good I’m buying things for the kitchen and for the meal.

I know it sounds so strange but it’s I guess something that’s done now and then and while it is sort of an officer thing for those that are under their command there’s no rules about us not doing it in our spare hours for our friends and companions.

And once we get to command and to the actual academy there’s people here that I know from ship that I might not ever see again.

So I sort of really want to do this while I can do it because it’s a big galaxy out there.

I get the rest of my things there with Nikos there at his sister’s place and it definitely pleases him and her and I’m treated really, really well and we head back with the back of his truck fairly full with all sorts of things from here and it’s back to the shuttle port to get things put through clearance and customs and then to get myself a shuttle back with all of the cargo.

That takes a little more form work and scans on our side of things to make sure that things that I’m taking up are safe for being taken up to the ship and that too is actually a good learning process for me and it’s Colonial Union customs so they’re more than willing to run me through the set ups of what is allowed and what’s required by our laws and standards even to the point of getting my OBC patched to the software that’s required.

Yes I’m Sense-Nav but a decent grounding in some of the logistics they say will definitely not hurt me at all according to the Sergeant Olsen who is in charge of the Logistics and Customs office down her on planet side.

We’re just getting done and she’s showing me how to secure the cargo in the skiff bay and we both get a ping to our OBC’s and we look at each other.

~Combat condition Yellow, Invasives are entering the system. ~

Invasives…Tekkers?

She’s getting combat notices I think and I’m getting commands to get back to our ship and we hurry it us and there’s a rush of other personnel cramming into the shuttle-skiff and we set off from the planet and as we’re getting ready the pilot looks over to me.

“Stone, get up here please I want you just in case on our sensors.”

“Yes sir lieutenant.” I get up front and sit in the small fold out seat from the space behind the co-pilot who is taking the gunning position and logging into the guns and I pull my cyber patch cord out of my neck and I plug into the system and start clearing us for take-off and getting our out of orbit sequences down and locked and then keep a mind’s-eye out for the civilian traffic and patch into the situational com traffic from our ship.

There’s heavy fighting not just in this star system’s edge but there’s a running retreat of civilian vessels from the oncoming rush of foes that are coming from the tekker enemy.

Swarm-beetle drones are being used in numbers that Intel had zero idea that the enemy had and there have been losses.

We’re trying to get out of the planet’s orbital system as fast as we can and there’s a red alert flashing in our heads and on the shuttle’s systems as soon as we leave the orbit of New Ithaca and I look on scan and I actually see it with my eyes as I get in on scan and it’s a large black ship of some kind that looks like a crazed amalgam of tech and asteroids and it’s lumpy and spikey all over and it’s huge on the sensors at least a few dozen kilometers long and it jumped in/popped in from a sub-light jump?

Sensors are picking up something that’s solid but not even there?

I see the New Ithacan and Colonial Union moon base get hit by this invisible thing and there’s an explosion of rock, debris, parts and moon dust?

What?

How?

That thing has no visible propulsion?

So…anti-gravity drive?

That’s just a theory for us as a means of propulsion but it if did exist and they used it and counter pulsed to put on “The brakes” then there would be an effect, like a wake.

A grav sheer wake…

“Lieutenant turn us forty seven degree by twenty three and twenty three again!”

“What!? That’s going to turn us to point right at them!”

“Yes sir, I think we have a grav-sheer wave coming at us and we best turn into that oncoming wave!”

“Gotcha right!”

I send alerts for the grav-sheer out on all channels as much as I can to everyone that I can…please, please listen, get up shields and turn into the wave.

He turns us into the invisible thing and I’m trying to readjust our grav sensors to get a reading and it’s seconds away and we’re not turning in time as it’s coming up on my screens and I hang on for dear life as we’re hit and we’re suddenly tossed and fuses blow and there’s puffs of smoke and things go dark.

FTL-30…Faster Than Life.

*Before…

“What!? That’s going to turn us to point right at them!”

“Yes sir, I think we have a grav-sheer wave coming at us and we best turn into that oncoming wave!”

“Gotcha right!”

I send alerts for the grav-sheer out on all channels as much as I can to everyone that I can…please, please listen, get up shields and turn into the wave.

He turns us into the invisible thing and I’m trying to readjust our grav sensors to get a reading and it’s seconds away and we’re not turning in time as it’s coming up on my screens and I hang on for dear life as we’re hit and we’re suddenly tossed and fuses blow and there’s puffs of smoke and things go dark.

*And Now…

I’m coughing and the first thing that I do is that I get out the emergency face mask breather out and then I get the ones for the flight crew and yell back to the passengers.

“We have smoke, get your breathers on and check for breaches!”

In space even tiny cracks are bad news.

I look at what’s damaged as the pilot and co-pilot are trying to get us going and we’ve blown lots of circuits and it looks like the anti-grav is shorted and the inertial dampeners and we took what looks like minor EMP damage. I scan it mentally focusing on the damage and lock it all down with my OBC and then I start to pull the good power breakers from the things that we don’t need like the life support in the cargo section and some of the spares from there for the anti-grav in there and I start putting them into the blown out ones we need working like propulsion and weapons and sensors.

I get a few shocks from the power still dancing around in the system as I really don’t have the time to shut down the relays for each thing that I’m trying to patch fix or have the time to shut it all down to be safe.

When I get sensors up it’s bad.

The whole area is in chaos as the grav wave hit things and knocked things out all over the orbital region and there’s the enemy ships firing large scale ship weapons at our ships and at the lunar base and at the surface and ours are engaging back and from what little I can see it looks like fighters have been scrambled and that there might be enemy fighters out as well.

But without sensor data sent to us from a bigger ship with much better and more accurate combat sensors we’re a little limited in what we or rather that I can see.

The pilot gets us moving and I sigh a breath of relief at that and he looks at me as does the co-pilot as they both nod.

This is shuttle duty and while they’re good pilots they’re usually not rated for serious combat like fighter pilots are and have none of the enhancements.

It’s touch and go, thrust and stop.

Apparently we don’t have full power, nothing that we can put to full burn before there’s too much strain on the power systems. Too much power will blow relays we really don’t have backups for from what I can tell.

Burn and go, burn and go and move around other ships.

I’m worried for some of those ships because as basic as our shuttle is it’s still military grade and there’s civilian ships that are in far worse straits than us and as much as I would like to stop and render aid we can’t. we’re simply not capable of doing that and I do tag them with the sensors and take in speed, roll, pitch, their numbers if I can get them and download them directly to my On-body-computer in case we lose power again.

I will try and do everything that I can do once we get back on board our ship.

Boost and go and turn and jink or slip out of a path of a small freighter and we still just ghost by it by close to a meter.

That’s too close and my heart as they say is in my throat and I’m paying hard attention to the sensors just in case something on it blows or vents or something shifts inside. Anything that might make it move or roll and I’m scared, scared as it gets because like in the ancient, ancient days of the early navies it takes so much less than you think to have an impact breach you.

Space is like that too.

And it’s like being in a ground vehicle as well because there’s always been a margin for error that borders on being actually dangerous especially with pilot driven ones. Well space is like that in you actually sort of tune out the dangers involved until you’re right in the danger zone like getting into a wreck or in this case a mid-space collision.

And then one of the sensor alarms starts to scream at me and I do mean scream at me as we just picked up on us getting targeted by targeting lasers and I track it back as fast as I can and I see three tekker beetles coming in at us fast. The black things actually look to be grinning from the almost skeletal face casings that are between the mandibles.

I see as the close up scam engages the mouth region on it open and there’s what looks like three linked barrels together and they are spinning fast and I’m picking up a large electromagnetic surge. It’s a linear surge too instead of a cyclic gather that you should see on an EMP weapon this is like the magnetic streams are corkscrewing up to…

I yell at the others. “Three scarab tekkers bearing thirty-twenty-two and zero, they’re cycling up railguns!”

Railguns are deadly and very efficient technology where you can push magnetic reactive ammunition at a target with opposing polarity streams. They can hook to most power supplies too and the actual ammunition can be very, very small really since it’s the sheer force and speed that does most of the damage.

Shields help a lot, they’re mostly shaped and tuned energy field of electromagnetic force that actually is layered to make resistance. In the case of rail runs it’s resistance and it’s also property negating so other weapons are very often used.

But we don’t have shields right now and likely none of the civilian targets do either.

We’re in trouble.

We’re a tub compared to these things and our pilot rolls us like a barrel side over side as we barely escape the first burst of these things firing at us. I look to the small freighter we just cleared.

“Back! Get us back the only way we’re going to make it out of this is if we have cover!”

I have an idea but it’s a crazy one.

Roll and roll again and there’s nothing keeping us in place but hands and belts. I call back to the other passengers. “Hang on to whatever you can this is going to be rough!”

I’m trying the coms and praying to a god that I never really had much faith in.

And it’s likely just as well that I’m not really a believer considering that I’m praying for the crew of the little freighter to be dead.

Or a remote, oh please let it be a remote.

Scan, scan… look for life signs…

The tekker scarabs getting closer moving fast and trying to block us in.

Our co-pilot on the guns firing the lasers.

Combat lasers are possible they’re just very high tech and usually limited to vehicles that can handle the power charge required to actually do damage to anything of any size. A personal beam weapon is possible but there’s the fact that you have energy output versus material strengths involved.

It’s like a laser pistol will mess you up and it’ll barely scratch the paint really on anything actually armored. And it takes a lot of power to generate a pistol sized laser beam so an e-clip has few charges somewhere between six to twelve and they’re expensive. Ballistic weapons however these days are cheap and made of polymers and ceramics and have rounds that are caseless and propelled with shaped explosive concentrate tabs. That’s why we still use ballistic weapons, we’ve just made cheaper and better ones.

But unless ballistic weapons are very powerful they don’t rank that well against military heavy armor.

And the scarabs have heavy carapace like armor that is at least as good as ours.

We’re getting hits in and it is damaging them decently but we’re still a tug and part of shooting in space is maneuvering and they’re at a better advantage.

I’m still scanning and I’m trying everything that I can so to help. I take control of the search beams and flash them at them and use the scan lasers as much as I can to try and to throw off their sensors by distracting them and firing off the distress beacon sphere and the plasma signal flares at them too.

Our co-pilot gets one squarely in the head and face with the lasers as I very much by fluke bounced a plasma flare off it’s armor and it moved itself just right, just right that he scored a perfect shot and the lasers cut right through that part and penetrated the insides of the thing and it blew in a blue-green burst of exploding fuel and explosives.

The explosion damages the one closest to us and it gets a few more shots from us before it recovers enough to outmaneuver us and it opens fire.

And the other one opens fire too flanking us from another side using the same freighter for cover to.

The shuttle’s plating literally screams with metal fatigue and stress as the rounds hit and there’s all these ten credit coin sized dents forming in the walls so fast it looks like it’s bubbling and our pilot’s trying to roll us again out of the way and then we’re taking rounds from the other one that we damaged too and this time it’s more metal sounds being made as the armor is being taken right to its limits.

It’s like this horrible staccato keening sound.

Then it happens and it happen so fast it like slow motion as there’s rounds hitting the claristeel window and it’s crack, crack, crack, crack, crack as rounds hit the space glass and then there’s this almost crystalline changing as they’re spider webbing and I’m lunging for the blast shield manual switch and an electric blue railgun round goes past my face and takes some hair and the co-pilot gets hit and his head and neck literally explode liquefied by the velocity and shockwave of the round and his blood starts to fountain as I pull the lever shutting the glass with the telescoping armor plates.

I hear screams out in back too and I…No, no, no!

Erin you freak out now we all die!

You everyone on board and all of the civilians out there in trouble!

I unbuckle and move and do the same for the co-pilot dumping him out to float and actually out and back from us and I’m getting coated in his spray. I swallow vomit because I have to especially since it would just float anyways.

I patch into the sensors and link to the guns and I start firing back.

I’m missing but I’m really firing for cover and I think through the piloting like to the pilot.

[Roll us but roll us under the scarab that’s under the ship.]

[Take us closer to the thing, are you crazy?]

[Likely, it’s not going to expect it and I have a plan.]

[A plan, you want to let me in on the plan?]

[That freighter is a remote.]

[And?]

[Remotes are used for hazardous goods, usually fuel and I’m pretty sure that logo is for a fuel company.]

[…..Oh shit you want to blow the freighter.]

[It’s our best bet, we really have zero chance at getting out of this they’re faster than us and we can’t take may more hits than we have.]

He actually looks at me and then he takes this long and hard look at my sword pin and he nods and he swallows and then we’re dropping and rolling backwards towards the scarab tekker that just shot the heck out of our sides and it’s doing it again too as we’re getting closer and the plates are screaming and the other passengers are screaming and then the rounds stop as we drop under the line of fire and I open fire as much and as fast as I can and I’m not shooting at the tekker scarab but into the freighter above us and hitting the area that looks actually like where the hoses couple to the tanks.

My brain gets a mass feedback flare as the ship goes up not even fast but instantly and the pilot is good enough he put the scarab between us as much as he could and dropped us away as fast as we could manage to the point where the cooling systems cut out our power and the engines.

And we’re drifting with the blood and people in back are crying and there’s still the damaged scarab tekker out there and I’m trying to get what power that I can to see what I can and it’s scary frustrating flickers.

And then it’s us getting shot some more and it’s ten twenty rounds before it stops and we rock again as we are hit by a force wave?

Then there’s a voice over personal coms.

“Shuttle 1408 respond, bogies are cleared, bogies are cleared what’s you situation.”

I sigh with relief and there’s tears starting to flow.

I look to the back and it’s the co-pilot and another person down a hole blow through her chest.

“We’re here, power and propulsion is at minimum we’re somehow not venting atmosphere but we’ve two down, repeat we’ve tow down.”

The com voice comes over again. “Hand tight we’ve a recovery ship coming, the battle’s over we pushed the tekkers back.”

It’s good news but hard to cheer for is with the way things are in here right now.

I do smile a little though as I say back. “We’ll be waiting, that’s good news sir, that’s good news.”

I try to not think about it as us being clear for now.

FTL-31…Faster Than Life.

*Before…

I sigh with relief and there’s tears starting to flow.

I look to the back and it’s the co-pilot and another person down a hole blow through her chest.

“We’re here, power and propulsion is at minimum we’re somehow not venting atmosphere but we’ve two down, repeat we’ve tow down.”

The com voice comes over again. “Hang tight we’ve a recovery ship coming, the battle’s over we pushed the tekkers back.”

It’s good news but hard to cheer for is with the way things are in here right now.

I do smile a little though as I say back. “We’ll be waiting, that’s good news sir, that’s good news.”

I try to not think about it as us being clear for now.

*And Now…

I’m very much numb and in shock as we’re landing and then we’re getting boarded by the medi-teams and there’s the really sickening splatter of blood hitting everything again as we’re suddenly in gravity and what was in free float falls.

Which makes me start to have the shakes.

I’m literally not sure if I’m scared to this point or I’m angry to this point and I’m right on the edge of screaming and just losing it or punching the hull or what’s left of it.

I jump a little when one of the medics touches me and then they’re walking me out of the carnage that had happened and I’m shaking for sure now and once I’m out of the skiff and on the regular deck plating my legs give and I’m sitting there while there’s other medics getting to me and I can sort of feel them synching up with my OBC and checking my vitals and things and then I’m getting a breather mask on me for oxygen and settled onto a stretcher and I’m being treated for shock.

It becomes a little blurry after that and at one point I think I was giving report or trying to and then it was getting seen too or it was before that and then it was getting cleaned up.

Washing the blood off.

And suddenly I needed that shower cycler more than anything that I have ever needed in my life.

And I’m washing off other people’s blood and I’m crying while I’m doing it and I can’t get why I’m not dead?

I’m glad that I’m not dead but why me?

I was right there in the line of fire maybe even more so and I wasn’t hit or wounded but those around me and beside me were.

Part of my brain actually gets all logic obsessed and I’m running the numbers while I’m in work-out sweats and Corporal Stillwater shows up to collect me.

Part of me had to know the numbers, trying to get some kind of rational reasoning behind the way that I’m feeling.

Then she says something that makes me sob unexpectedly.

“We’re clear; we’ve been ordered to and jumped out of Zodiac Space.”

The fact that we’re out of the combat zone…it just slams into the back of my brain and I start crying.

She actually comes over and she sits beside me and she pulls me over and does that shoulder to shoulder leaning hug thing.

“Bad one?”

“Very bad…why me?”

“Why you what?”

“Why did I live?”

“You’d rather the alternative?”

(Sniffle.) “No…”

“But you made it through in one piece.”

“It really just feels like pieces, lots of pieces piled way too organized.”

She actually chuckles. “Yeah, you get that way after things like this.”

“How do you deal with it? I never signed on for being on the front lines…I…why does this stuff keep happening?”

Stillwater looks at me. “Honestly I get help. I go to my councilors when I need to, they’re not a bunch of bullshit and they do know what they’re doing. And I take the time to heal…get my head on as right as I can get it.”

She pulls out a large can of Soycafe from this shoulder bag she has on her and she presses the tab in on the bottom and she pops the top and it makes this fizzy sound and then there’s steam rising up from it and she passes it to me.

It’s black but I can drink it that way it’s starting to be one of those military things that I’m learning to do.

She pulls another one and gets it going too and I’m holding mine letting the warmth from the can send heat through my fingers and that’s actually helping as is the hot coffee. I feel cold a little in my hands and feet and I’m fairly certain it’s a combination of shock and exposure from the venting and things that we had going on in the shuttle/skiff.

She takes a drink. “As for why this keeps happening honestly and it’s by no mean official or anything but I think we’re looking at a war.”

“A war?”

She takes a sip and she nods. “I’ve been hearing reports; the Tekkers are nibbling around the edges of their space and around the edges of other places too. I think this…I think this is them testing the waters.”

“Some tests……bastards.”

“Insane…soul killing cybernetic bastards actually. And I think that they’re coming and something had changed in their space that moved them to this way faster than the higher ups everywhere had once thought they might move.”

“That’s not good.”

“It’s not good and it’s conjecture too Stone. I’m just making guesses and too many of them really.”

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about?”

“And so do a lot of online crackpots too. Look Erin, it’s bad now, we’ve been through things that a cadet ship shouldn’t see and I’ll be the first one to admit to that but we’re pulling out and heading right in. and we’re going to need you. We’re going to need you training and learning and very importantly having your head in the game with Sense-nav. You have talent, and we’re going to need that with The Tekkers or Pirates or Terrorists or even with dicey nav stuff that we’ll need to get a ship through.”

I look at her and she gets up and she helps me stand with her. “Come on you need to get to medical and you need to see the doctors and you need to definitely talk to someone after all of this that’s not me.”

I nod and walk with her and sip my drink and it’s sort of just…it helps and I’m not really sure of the exact trip to medical but I’m met there by a few friendly faces that I knew from my last stay here when I was wounded and then I’m placed into their care.

The first thing was getting a little bit of something into me besides the Soycafe hot can and that was just some flavored syrup nutrient packs and some meds that made me feel a bit more floofy…like the world was fuzzy and from there it was spending some time getting cleaned up with a long bath and having help.

Yes some of the companion, councilor types will go and bath with you and I think some of it’s that touch and things are soothing if needed or wanted but it’s also to have someone that’s trained to be there and to just be there if things go wrong or we have a freak out.

Belinda the one assigned with me she listened as I washed and she took over when I had the shakes and it’s really odd how much when you’re falling apart having someone washing your back and your hair.

And yes even after the cycler another bath...something soft, cleaner in a deeper way I needed.

After that it’s soft workout clothes and then I was shown a room to sleep and where I could talk to people both out in the common part of the ward and even some of the online places in the medical system.

I sleep first.

Part of my brain is in wounded animal mode and Belinda helps my synch my OBC to the system and it’s a little strange, no it’s a lot strange knowing that I’m going to be seriously monitored with my sleep and breathing and neural activity and all sorts of things that have to do with taking mental trauma and shock.

It’s very big brotherly in a way and at the same time there’s something to be definitely said about having a sort of safety net where if I’m nightmaring bad that someone will know and either let someone know or even have the option of engaging me with stims and waking me up from it.

I settle in to the room/sleep pod that I’ve been given and it’s warm and cushiony and even that adjusts to my comfort levels through the OBC link and I’m soon drifting off as the gravity lessens and there’s soothing music being slid into my awareness through the cyber link.

I didn’t know that I could feel that exhausted on the inside.

Well a different kind of exhausted.

Before my change I was more than exhausted at being someone that I never really was.

At least that part is better.

FTL-32…Faster Than Life.

*Before…

Part of my brain is in wounded animal mode and Belinda helps my synch my OBC to the system and it’s a little strange, no it’s a lot strange knowing that I’m going to be seriously monitored with my sleep and breathing and neural activity and all sorts of things that have to do with taking mental trauma and shock.

It’s very big brotherly in a way and at the same time there’s something to be definitely said about having a sort of safety net where if I’m nightmaring bad that someone will know and either let someone know or even have the option of engaging me with stims and waking me up from it.

I settle in to the room/sleep pod that I’ve been given and it’s warm and cushiony and even that adjusts to my comfort levels through the OBC link and I’m soon drifting off as the gravity lessens and there’s soothing music being slid into my awareness through the cyber link.

I didn’t know that I could feel that exhausted on the inside.

Well a different kind of exhausted.

Before my change I was more than exhausted at being someone that I never really was.

At least that part is better.

*And Now…

Being in recovery is one of the hardest things to do in my life.

Home was…Well it was spartan, emotionally spartan and you either did as everyone else and sort of went along with the script that society gave you or your were on the outside.

And that’s different than on the outside that I am now.

But home…people, my family especially my family were cold people.

You had to be of value, be something of worth to the family which usually entailed doing your job and not complaining and never really being different or really being bothersome enough to be emotionally needy.

They didn’t quite hate you but if you couldn’t pull of this fake and content genial together thing well they found you bothersome.

And bothersome wasn’t really worth anyone’s time, you were expected to get through things, not be constantly going through things.

My family never talked about anything.

So in therapy and recovery I really didn’t have the tools to get things inside of me out.

Some things are nice I like the zero-grav float, with the music and the sub sonic pulse.

It just sounds…womb like and it’s supposed to be like that sort of soothing and everything.

It actually works on a really primal level.

And I like art therapy too as it turns out. I’m not a great drawer or sketcher past doing something technical but I like painting, most of it’s digital but we actually do some with actual paint which surprisingly not like any painting compound that I’ve seen really.

Like you’re making a picture with texture? Like it has mass…I know that technically it does have scientific mass but this is something I’m not even good at describing.

And I swear sometimes things come out at me from the painted swirls like the Tekkers and their bugs.

I guess it goes hand in hand with the nightmares.

Those are bad…The smell of blood lingers with me like it somehow got into my palate through my nose so that I can taste it but not taste it.

Waking up from being huddled up and under fire from the rail guns I can still smell the blood in the cabin. I can still feel the velocity wakes from the rounds that missed me, an effect that I completely blanked on during the action.

I wake up shaking and curled in a ball in my pod.

And the taste is there slight, sort of coppery, sort of not, and this odd sort of salt.

And then there’s being monitored.

I actually don’t notice it at all until we start having session where Belinda will bring up my dreams. And it’s all right there recorded live and in fully terror.

See in a universe where you can plug into a Sim world or reality they can reconstruct your brainwaves into images of what you’re free thinking.

It’s I hear a lot harder to nearly impossible to do when one’s awake or resisting.

But it’s still very unsettling seeing my horrors laid bare.

And seeing people I care about in there in the shuttle with me sometimes and getting killed.

Having everyone dying except me.

And I know I’m missing days and shifts and training and that family guilt of do it, be useful, and be useful or else there’s no use for you.

That bubbles up.

My not being able to save the people that I was with in both those situations bubbles up.

If I survived, I managed to save my useless ass.

They why couldn’t I save them, save more of them.

Lots of crying.

And they don’t judge me for it.

I’m not the only cadet here and I’m not the only actual member of the ship’s crew here either.

Heck it’s not even from these encounters for some of them.

Belinda says… “People are screwed up, we live with so much stuff that so many of us have been told it’s normal to just deal with.”

I nodded while we were in session and sipped my tea. “I feel just so responsible.”

She nodded. “From what you’ve been telling me of your upbringing you were raised to be responsible, to do and keep doing.”

I frown in my mug. “My father’s been long of the opinion that if you’re not doing something, not doing something that’s worthwhile then you’re a living waste of time.”

She asked. “What was worthwhile? You have no contact with him or the rest of your family since you joined up.”

I take a sip slowly letting the lemon and herbal flavors bite into the residue of watching that last strand of nightmares. “Work, family specifically for me getting married and fathering children and spending my time teaching them how to work and not be weak.”

“Weak?”

“Recreational sex, non-heterosexual sex…he and lots of others home see no point in it. Games, Sims.”

“Drugs and Alcohol?”

“Actually no, Drugs are used but only when prescribed and are used to make you better, smarter, more focused and alcohol well that’s all bound to being acceptable and tradition and well faith too. My father drinks a lot.”

“Was he abusive?”

“He’d have to care to be abusive.”

“He didn’t care?”

“I think he did in his own twisted sort of way. Home you’re measured constantly with this whole sort of social status thing…decent job, decent education, spouse, kids and then their successes and you’re still expected to do something to succeed.”

“You sound upset.”

I look at her. “I am, home I was a failure because I did enough to get by. The rest of the time I was dealing with being who I am now trapped in the body that god gave me. I was considered a failure in my family and worse too after they found out what was…wrong…with me.”

I’m hurting over that still.

“And they didn’t support this?”

“No…not by a long shot. My family has a long standing bias against The Colonial Union Navy and consider the armed forces the home of the dregs of humanity. Me joining was a slap to their collective faces and our family name. I mean they know I was going in for conversion and they see it as I’m a deviant, I’m a deviant and I never belonged to the family because I chose this over getting adjusted.”

Belinda actually makes a face. “Adjusted…where they re-write your neural pathways so that you aren’t affected by certain conditions…We don’t do that here…most planets actually frown on the procedure as it re-writes who the patient essentially is.”

I drink some more tea and sort of stare into my mug. “They got my sister to do it. She was a lesbian and they were so judgmental and so disappointed with her so intensely that she got adjusted.”

“Is she happy?”

“Yeah…well this version of her is happy and blessed with a whole bunch of children.”

“This bothers you.”

“They pressured her into erasing herself and she’s living a life that she never would have wanted if she’d just been allowed to live her life.”

“And you chose conversion and signing up over adjustment and all of them.”

I nod. “And I’ve been written off; my whole old life just doesn’t exist anymore.”

Belinda says. “Good.”

“Good?”

“Then you can stop living and doing things in this clean break life for them. You don’t have to please your father Erin you can stop unpacking that.”

“Pleasing my father?”

“That overwhelming wave of failure even when you lived, even when you lived and save lives that’s from him. That from being emotionally abused and gaslit to the point of he’s still trying to run and second guess your life.”

“Oh..”

There was more, there was a lot more actually with the survivor’s guilt and my family stuff and then there was some group therapy too with others sharing their messes.

It’s a lot easier to be objective with someone else’s problems than your own.

And it helps, it helps knowing that you’re not alone or even as screwed up as you feel.

And from there I end up getting into more therapy, harder things like going through work Sims.

Going through work Sims where things go wrong.

And fighting the pressure and getting over the pressure of screwing up.

Well not screwing up but having things not be perfect.

Of dealing with losses.

Learning how to see the good in the bad.

After that it was getting back into doing things physically as well as mentally.

Going to the gym and working out and going to PT running and swimming and training in self-defense and the sword again…going to the ranges. And seeing people and talking to my friends and yearmates. That was a huge step going from all that stuff in my head and things from the stuff I’d been through and all my growing up issues…really taking that step sideways to look at my life, my new life and see that it is really a fresh start.

Finding out that they give a shit.

Getting hugs and being held by them when they finally see me again.

Three months.

It’s been three months of really hard therapy and counselling before we’ve been together.

We have one planet stop left on our milk-run through the back colonies to pick up recruits.

And we’ll have shore leave there including me since Belinda thinks that it’ll be a good idea that I get off ship even though the jump after that will be at command.

It feels good to get dressed in my uniform again.

Better than good because it feels like I’m back on track with things and I’m headed out from my bunk to go to my Sense-Nav section and I’m met there by Stillwater who smiles a little bit in that sort of unofficial and fleeting way before she’s all back to business again.

“Cadet Stone, you’re not on shift yet your rotation’s been moved to the next shift.”

“Yes corporal.”

“I’m here to pick you up.”

“Up corporal?”

“You’re coming with me; the commander wants to see you.”

“Yes corporal.”

She points for me to head off and I know where the command decks are but I’ve seldom been there.

And I have no idea why the commander wants to see me.

*Before…

We have one planet stop left on our milk-run through the back colonies to pick up recruits.
And we’ll have shore leave there including me since Belinda thinks that it’ll be a good idea that I get off ship even though the jump after that will be at command.
It feels good to get dressed in my uniform again.
Better than good because it feels like I’m back on track with things and I’m headed out from my bunk to go to my Sense-Nav section and I’m met there by Stillwater who smiles a little bit in that sort of unofficial and fleeting way before she’s all back to business again.
“Cadet Stone, you’re not on shift yet your rotation’s been moved to the next shift.”
“Yes corporal.”
“I’m here to pick you up.”
“Up corporal?”
“You’re coming with me; the commander wants to see you.”
“Yes corporal.”
She points for me to head off and I know where the command decks are but I’ve seldom been there.
And I have no idea why the commander wants to see me.

*And Now…

I’m nervous as we make our way past the auxiliary decks where I’m usually on my duty and training shifts and we’re more into the command layer. The design here is a little different with altered bulkheads and other things I’m presuming to keep things safer in case of the worst.

Or just updates to this ship itself as The Apollo was once a command cruiser but it’s now a training ship.

I’m not even sure if we fly these in actual in theater operations.

There’s a lot more uniforms here too and they’re crisp and perfect as are the aesthetics for most of the crew no matter the other stuff they have going on like ethnics or alterations/deviations from baseline human. Everyone here is crisp looking to the point of even obvious cyberware is detailed and polished.

Stillwater passes me off to an officer who takes me to the commander’s offices and that sort of looks like this combination of these really antique halls? Wood actual wood used in accents and panels and even railings. There’s carpet here too as well as there are all these glassed off cases with awards for him or the ship or those under his command and then there’s a collection of various campaign memorabilia from other commands. There’s a meeting room, and offices, guards and other things that I can’t see.

We pass from those outer areas to the commander’s office itself and that’s impressive. Stunning actually it’s large and it’s very clean as well but there’s a huge armor glass window to look out into space with HUD windows showing views of the lengths of the ship from forwards out and from back and beyond and one for each side as well as our undersides.

There’s feeds too for the aux decks including where I usually am doing my training shifts and of the mess halls and other places where he can watch the crew. The biggest of course is the one for right below the office which is that main bridge.

Of course he’s there waiting and he’s handsome as always.

I don’t mean any disrespect to him or to go to some sort of older man thing but he really is and it’s just everything that he gives off. Tall and well muscled but not a combat mod type just someone in good shape and then there’s his age which I don’t know but there’s just enough grey in his hair that it sets things off with how mature that he is.

You know that way people talk about real men? He gives it off like low level radiation.

And that’s all combined with the ease he has in being him. That’d from the way that his grooming and carriage is part of him and how at ease he is in uniform without it even looking remotely sloppy.

And still he’s a military commander and that still comes with the hints of him still being dangerous and capable.

I’m announced and I’m left standing there at attention and he turns from the screen he was watching and he gives me a nod. “At easy Ensign.”

“Yes sir.”

I stand easy which I’m not used to doing in a setting like here.

It feels different.

He checks me out and it’s that professional go over and he seems to be okay with what he’s seeing.

He moves and he heads to a side cabinet and gets himself a coffee or something that smells like it and it must be the real thing because of the powerful smell.

“I’m sorry to call you away from your shift. But you’re doing exceptionally well Ensign Stone and I am sure that they can spare you for the time it takes you to be here.”

“Yes sir, it wasn’t a problem sir.”

He sips and looks at me. “First off you’re getting a commendation your brevet rank will be waved as of now. You’re a full fledged Ensign for the short remainder of your time with us until you get to Grail.”

“You work has been excellent Stone. You’re still just in your first year of training and you’ve survived some very trying and unfortunate encounters, you’ve been innovative and calm as well. I’ve heard of your actions on the mass shore leave with the ship games and that you struck up a casual friendship with one of our new allies The Makere.”

He sips again and sets the cup down. “I’ll be blunt Ensign. You’re a rarity, you’re a survivor as well as a plainly good soldier and I think more. You do well at Sense-Nav and You’ll like do just as well in Shield Dynamics and defense.”

“But command knows about you, some people have been looking into you and some have been watching you since the Mekker attack on the shuttle.”

It’s hard to just sit here and listen without responding and it feels really surreal to be getting praised like this.

My altered self aside I’m still me.

Inside I still sort of feel like the family disappointment.

“They and I want you to drop the bridge crew courses and apply for command.”

That shocks me. “Command?”

“Yes Erin, command.” he used my first name.

“Look command is full of mods and there’s even some folks in there that are considered fleet families with bloodlines dedicated to learning to be officers even with families marrying into other military families. And that’s actually great when you’re looking at a spatial navy spanning as many worlds as The Colonial Union. But...but while that’s all well and good that doesn’t ever replace those meant to do the job. You have a feel for this Erin, you have natural talent with this and more than that you’re walking in with actual live achievements and experience as well. You can’t train what you have into being, we can hone it but all the special breeding and pedigree doesn’t equal to it either.”

He stops and I do a big inhale and he holds up a hand. “You don’t have to answer now.”

I nod but hesitantly hold my hand up. “Permission to speak freely sir?”

“Granted.”

“I’ll do it.”

He looks at me. “That was fast.”

“Yes sir, but I think I really want this. I want to be there out in front when things happen and I’m not a combat mod sir but I want to be there. If I can make a bigger difference in command then i’ll take it.”

“No reservations?”

“Lots sir. I’m an ex-couch potato and network surfer sir. I thought that enlisting and taking an MOS that fit what I knew was enough for me...heck sir I even thought that that was extreme when I first was signing up.”

He smiles. “You really want to do more don’t you?”

I look him in the eyes. “I survived sir, good people didn’t and that’s just on this run.”

He looks at me. “You have something else on your mind Stone?”

I hold his gaze. “Yes sir, the mekkers went after us, went after training ships and they’re invading and attacking worlds, our allies like the Zodiac Colonies. If we’re not at war sir then we’re heading there aren’t we?”

He holds my gaze for a few moments. “And that’s why we need you. You can’t breed or teach that kind of instinct.”

I nod. I know he can’t say not without it being official but yeah...it’s there.

That unspoken thing that I’m finally getting.

He looks at me. “Well then there’s not time like the present.”

He walks to his desk and he has my new ranking and insignia already there in the boxes he has in his hands and he has the paperwork for my transfer from Bridge command to Fleet command.

I take off my Brevets and let him put everything on for my as in tradition.

“You knew I’d say yes?”

“Yes I did.”

“How sir?”

“Because everyone like you that I’ve ever served with or commanded has said yes.”

“Oh….”

It doesn’t take long and then he looks at me I salute and he nods. “Dismissed Ensign. Take the shift off and look at the command track courses and you can return to your regular duties tomorrow and then I’ll have your new schedule downloaded to you for the rest of the trip.”

“Yes sir, and thank you sir.”

I leave before it gets awkward with me staying too long and everything and I am still pretty stunned as I head back to my bunk already linking to the courses and downloads for the training offered and expected.

I grab some of the snacks from my locker and crawl into my pod linking to some light background music and get things transfered to my pods holoscreen to read rather than have it in my head.

How things change right? Before outcopy was something I’d have likely have avoided and just used my OBC.

Now I like reading and I like being able to have that separation between me and the data.

I nibble and read and enjoy the extra rack time while reading the huge amount of training and options that are there. I know a few things right off that I’m not going for and that’s Engineering, Medical, Security, Marines and the Specialists.

I’m already thinking Fleet and Ship command as my MOS and maybe MOS in Tactical.

The secondary classes though for all of them are densely packed from the basics in most other specialties with a lot of attention towards all these courses that range from combat basics to gunnery and ship weaponry and leadership and the list goes on and on.

I just watched some lectures for Fleet Command where they are talking about piracy and laws and what we can do and what we can’t do like in the case of The Balkorans.

That’s interesting but it’s also fresh enough to be frustrating.

I’m not sure that all the discussions of laws and trade and what we can do where and why would be something I’d enjoy.

As much as I hate to admit it.

I lived.

And because of that I can’t see myself just being that...passive.

And then there’s MOS Tactical which was talking not just weaponry but formations and fleet maneuvers and how to use space itself in stellar combat.

I even nap and sleep on it some.

I sign into MOS Tactical when I wake up and by the time I’m up and washing my face in the bunk’s head the others are here and congratulating me.

It’s a lot of hugs from Carrington and Sunshine and we’re talking about what it was like for the meeting and it’s a little embarrassing.

Sunshine says. “It won’t be long before we’ll be saluting you.”

I shake my head. “It’ll be a long time before that and you’re going to to do fine, both of you.”

Carrington smiles at me. “Well I knew that this was going to happen.”

I look at her. “Well I didn’t.”

She smiles. “I knew it from the day you survived the tekker and took it out and saved people. A lot of people knew it Erin.”

I blush. “I was scared to frak.”

“And you still did things, you still lived and you kept doing things.”

Sunshine nods. “And it’s you Erin you’re still going to be doing impressive and amazing things.”

I’m really blushing and I finish getting dressed. “I’m going to go and hit the gym and then get some food. I’ll see you later okay.”

Ships are worse than small towns for gossip and even worse when people have cybernetic access to social media.

I’m getting congratulated a few times as head to the PT center and I start working out. I go through the approved basic routines set up by the PT program that measures your fitness and progress via your OBC.

And then it shows you and recommends all these different exercises for you to do and once you reach a certain level with those then you sort of level up.

Most of what I’m doing is cardio work endurance is needed in the field as well as just on duty the longer you can last is literally mission critical. There’s toning weights and then there’s my three favorites. Cycling which is done on a stationary bike and VR and I learned to like cycling before I joined up and then there’s swimming because I just like to swim but I also like just being myself in a bathing suit. And lastly is Zero-G-confidence which is exactly as it says it’s like an on ground confidence course but designed for zero-gravity and that again is mission critical kind of things.

I get an alert from my training shift over to do the zero grav course again.

I’m 6 seconds short of their desired time.

I make that up in four attempts, I had been trying before but this is different this has timed requirements.

Which makes sense but I wasn’t expecting it.

I finish and I shower and change then I’m off to some of the other training areas to do some VR sword work and then some range work and that’s monitored as well and that does make me try harder.

There’s training help with the range training and monitoring and I use it.

That’s different it reads my body through my OBC and it gives me corrections to make in my stance and posture and I get a bell chime tone when I get it right.

That, that really helps, there’s even a tutorial like that for shooting breathing.

Which I honestly didn’t know was a thing.

I end up shooting longer than I had planned to getting a really good feeling for what the help application is showing me until I’m doing it and my scores improve some.

I head out after weapons check and cleaning to the mess hall feeling pretty good about all of that.

I’m still a nerd or a geek or whatever I like scoring well in things that I’m being tested for.

I hit the mess hall and I get some food.

I’m trying a few of the things that I don’t usually have this time trying to test my colonial and pretty regular palate. I like pasta and that’s always in several options I go for the angel hair with shellfish. Shellfish is actually pretty common in space sometimes more than it is on colonies, it grows fast relatively speaking when it’s grown at all often it’s cloned protein and one of the easier ones to do from things that I hear. It’s not a popular food back home at all. I do like the sauce which isn’t much more than I think thickened broth but it really goes well together especially with bread to dip it in.

I have a decent sized salad too with various greens that I don’t know and haven’t tried before and some other veggies in various combinations.

It turns out I don’t care for mushrooms in any for and not just the ones from home. I also dislike horned melon a lot and I like the white courgette.

Dessert I can’t help myself but I go with the chocolate soy cake which is like a cheesecake but mostly protein based. It is actually really good and dense and thick and it’s covered with a real heavy glaze that’s poured icing and it’s topped with shaves of real chocolate I have that with a large dark soy-caf and take it the the common lounge one deck below.

I don’t go here much and it’s just a walk down a staircase from the mess and it’s an alcohol free lounge where you can take your food or things you’re working on or just come here and be with friends, one half has a sort of game and hobby area and the other is comfy seating and booths. I get a booth near one of the other recruits that’s there and playing a guitar and he’s singing.

It’s in French and I’m not that well versed in that language but it’s pretty sounding the way he’s singing it and he’s playing in this sort of eurocentric way with the guitar I think they call Spanish?

I’ve seen him but we’ve never spent time together I think he’s one of the combat types by looking at his build. Handsome in that rebuilt and enhanced way.

It’s just nice though to listen to some organic music and savor my dessert and the contrast between that and the coffee while near one of the bigger widows watching the stars go by as we’re in FTL.

It really has this beauty to it that you really can’t Sim out. There’s something about being out here for real that is just that….real.

It looks so peaceful and beautiful but it’s deadly and dangerous and that’s just the natural state of things.

I’m reminded of tales of ancient earth and ships on the ocean.

Beautiful and entrancing.

Heartmoving and more.

A place that if you didn’t respect it you could and would most often die easily.

And like the oceans in holds wonders and terrors and borders friends and enemies.

Looking out the windows I’m sort of feeling all of that.

It’s like there’s just one more thing that makes everything that I left and gave up worth it.

I stayed there for a long time before heading back to the mess and dropping off my dishes and then headed back to my room and undressed and climbed into my bunk.

It was a pretty good day filled with surprises and some pretty big decisions.

The morning comes fast and it’s soon back to the routine. Up and PT, then breakfast and then getting ready for my duty shifts. It’s teaching by doing here with cadets like me learning the very basics in the auxiliary departments.

Instead my assignment gets shifted and I’m moved from Sense-Nav to Aux-Tac where I’m still looking at things with the same sort of way as Sense-Nav but this time it’s me and others looking at everything and learning how to do threat assessments and there’s a huge amount of stuff to learn and as we’re going and getting closer and closer to our last stop there’s more to look at.

More ships, more junk, more planets and masses and ice.

There is by times a lot of ice in space and some of it is large, especially at the outer periphery of a solar system.

There’s a barrier in many cases of slow moving this that were literally stopped as they came in system by solar wind.

It’s easy to see on sensors as you’re coming in with the star actually easily highlighting things.

But there are a lot of things.

And I’m almost doing the same thing as Sense-nav only this, this isn’t looking to steer and all of the asides of that this is looking at everything and listening and it’s non-stop.

Yes we have computers to do this but the first lesson we’re taught is that the human brain will develop threat analysis as we’re learning it though training we’ll have a feel for it that will sometimes even be faster than our combat computers and all of the database info we have.

We’re literally taught that “Gut instinct” is too important not to develop.

And it’s a lot busier.

My shifts are broken up with running too. Literally instead of sending e-messages and things through the coms we’re sent with hard copy to various departments with orders.

Because there might not be coms, there might not be power even, and we have to know the ships that we serve on.

I’m not the only cadet here in Tactical so I’m actually pretty far behind the others.

And there is a feeling of competition as well.

People here want to be here, they are looking to be the best, to be officers.

Even after duty shifts for us it’s more.

It’s into the classroom for Military History.

There is a lot of it and they’re very insistent on covering it all.

And after that more PT with hand to hand classes and firearms after that.

My days became three hours longer by the time that I get released and I hit my quarters and the mess.

It was nine days of this odd sort of fast moving crushing hell of busy and hard and exhaustion before we come into our last pick up and we pull into Kincade.

One of the oldest colonies and core planets in the Colonial Union.

Even at the meet up I’ve never seen space traffic like this.

There are space stations and mini-bases and platforms everywhere. There are bases in every planets locality and on many of the moons.

Home was settled, I thought that while sort of country like that we were really sort of like the standard for a world in The Colonial Union.

This...this is a solar system with more people than my brain can really get. Where mankind hasn’t had the limits of one planet and one ecosystem for a long, long time.

I’m like all the other “Farmers” and “Rock-hicks” just staring at it all as we’re settling into orbit over Kincade and I’m getting the socio-political term Galaxial even more now as I’m looking down on the daylight side of the colony and I can see cities.

Last stop to Grail.

If this is a colony even one of the biggest what will the fleet capital be like?

*Before…

This...this is a solar system with more people than my brain can really get. Where mankind hasn’t had the limits of one planet and one ecosystem for a long, long time.

I’m like all the other “Farmers” and “Rock-hicks” just staring at it all as we’re settling into orbit over Kincade and I’m getting the socio-political term Galaxial even more now as I’m looking down on the daylight side of the colony and I can see cities.

Last stop to Grail.

If this is a colony even one of the biggest what will the fleet capital be like?

*And Now…

We all pick up OBC alerts from command with a briefing as to behave and how to navigate while here on Kincaid.

We’re going to be doing some on duty things here as part of our cadet packages and we’re to help with some of the new recruits here that we will be picking up as well as ROTC cadets and meeting with other recruiting ships as we make our final trip into Grail.

We’re downloaded App ware so there will be icons that point out public transports, bathrooms, Colonial Union buildings and facilities plus we’re downloaded schedules and things as well as maps that we will need.

We will be housed on base as well since we will be doing things there.

The rest comes in slowly as allowed content and I buffer that away and I go and pack getting my things ready for when we’ll be down there.

We’re required to be in full uniforms when we depart and that comes with an inspection.

So we’re all hard at work getting ready for that but also getting our quarters spotless before we leave because we know that they will be checked.

There is something soothing to me as I’m getting ready about being in the right uniform and doing all of the things that I have to do as a woman in the service to get ready like the regulation cross braid, it’s an interlocking braid that leaves room for the tail end to actually be tucked under the cross woven top section.

Anything longer is not allowed.

Most of us bridge crew and command track women wear our this way as well as medical the engineering and combat MOS types they usually go with really short hair.

I’ve had short hair for too long in my life.

It’s still very exciting for all of us as we’re dressed in our uniformed best and we have our duffs packed and loaded onto the cargo shuttle while we get picked up by a military skybus.

That’s a large multi-purpose shuttle a lot like a urban hover bus with all of the windows so the passengers can see outside and we’re marveling over the views as we’re getting picked up and flown in.

I love this part.

The sights, the space traffic with everything in orbit and in suborbit it’s alive, it’s like sims of schools of fish in a lot of ways and it has a dazzle to it like nothing else.

Then we hit atmosphere and there’s this re-entry pop that used to be the thermal cone but in these days once you hit a certain point of re-entry they pop the air drag with a burst from the shields and you’ve gone from the dazzling darkness to the most brilliant of blues.

I know that in this age of galactic travel that atmospheric things shouldn’t be that poetic but so far it’s just true.

It is the most unbelievable of blues up here.

And then there’s the view of the world.

This high up there’s this horizon curve to the view, this high up you can see the curve.

And just above the curve there’s this light refraction bit that’s just this optical illusion created by rotation.

But still there’s this sort of line of light not light there that’s called planet rise.

I’ve only seen this four times and that includes leaving home and it makes me take a moment’s pause to just take it all in.

And then it’s gone as we’re descending.

Kincaid is big.

Actually this is called Kincaid Metro as the capital here and it’s shocking a lot of us.

The city’s coastline must be at least three hundred kilometers and it goes inland just as far and it stops just short of mountains where we’re heading to but our pilots have orders for a scenic flight path so we’re seeing four hundred story mega buildings that look more like fortresses than tall skyscrapers and the traffic, even the civilian traffic is not just like hover vehicles in the air but sky vehicles which is basically shuttle like technology extended into civilian vehicles and is everything from transports to personal rides and even taxis in the stereotyped checkered yellow and black.

Home sky-tech vehicles were for the ultra elites and were pretty much just seem going to other ultra elites and that was usually on the public vid-feeds.

I have no idea how they keep track of it all.

Or change levels or lanes or any of those things.

I want to know though.

One it just looks as cool as it does daunting and scary, Two it would be amazing help towards learning better piloting and three while it sounds petty no one back home would know how to do this.

Then again I’m definitely sure that none of my family could survive PT training or anything else that I’m doing.

We’re all shifting from whatever our thoughts are to awe as we pass through a stable shield dome and we’re on the base.

It is not as big as the city but it is a base.

And unlike anything that I have ever seen.

We pass through the shield and over blast walls big enough that they can and are driving on top of them and I know that there is staff inside. Past that is just kilometer after kilometer of pavement and some sort of contruct I don’t know because it’s all pristine from what I can see.

Docking cradles with actual starships in dock nothing like our flagship but cruisers, battleships, corvettes and others that I have no idea how to designate are there.

And the buildings are like temples.

I mean it sounds odd but like these ancient human earth temples like a squared off pyramid and build heavily.

I’m definitely not an expert but you can literally see how heavy they are constructed. Things here even under a shield dome are built to withstand orbital assault.

And the base just keeps going.

There’s a flicker in my eyesight and there’s this old and very large Argonaut bio-mod soldier in my virtual window.

“Take a good look cadets because this is where you will be stationed first and foremost once we get you trained to where you won’t get killed on the first pass an enemy does.”

There’s more of his image showing us things in our links as we do a circular pass of the base and then we’re dropped off at this large armored dome that had these rings around it up and down of geodesic windows and it was very wide across and high too likely seven hundred meters at the top of the dome and three times that across at the base.

C.U.R. Arkcology.

Colonial Union Recruitment.

Arkology is sort of like this all in one living facility with both quarters and various form of shops and services for the service members here cadets like us and recruits.

We disembark on a hangar level and there are corporals and sergeants there to tell us where to go as well as various upper versions of them overseeing all of us and by meaning all of us we’re talking about not just our ship but others from the look of it.

In this area alone with those of us that have been picked up by ships and coming in by shuttle there are close to five hundred of us.

We’re getting looks.

Not other shuttles from other ships but us, we’re getting looks.

I heard whisperings of our ship name too as we’re getting assembled and sorted.

It feels sad being separated from my other bunkmates.

And they’re not letting us say much right now either it’s a grab your bags and move to your division.

And I’m out of Sense-nav and now in Command Track.

I get nods as they’re still from my ship and I know them from duty shifts and things with the bridge work and sec-bridge (secondary) and sense-nav and tactical plus well PT and sword work.

All command track learn swords.

Not all are allowed to carry them.

Actually just me.

But they all are shouldering shinai.

It’s kind of nerve wracking and kind of exciting as we’re here and there are so many of us and then shifted and sorted and then we’re called to attention.

And the ranked men and women prowl through us looking us over and they’re evaluating each of us and I think what ships that we came off of as well.

I get circled by three, three different Sergeants in this pass and looked at I think a few times by some of the others including a few older officers.

Then we’re getting called by groups and we’re assigned a Corporal or we’re assigned to them and we’re jogged off to the dorms.

“Jogged.”

It reminds me of when we were starting PT on ship and started the morning runs.

The only warning we had is him shouting.

“By the left!”

“Keep pace!”

Then he started.

We were lucky in that we seen some others muff it up and not take their bags and get a strip tore off of them by the hovering Sergeants.

We go up three floors of stairs with the Corporal shouting out. “In the middle no rails.”

Keeping pace, with bags.

I swing my duff up and on my back slipping the handles over my shoulders like a backpack.

I’m self conscious as hell and I go OBC and I do a group link text.

[Shoulder your Duffs, you’ll be arms free and better balanced and it’ll reduce bounce.]

There’s like a few moments after that and they all do the same as me.

I’m sort of feeling pretty self conscious from that.

And then it was us going all the way around.

The floor that we are on.

Twice.

Twice?

Second time around I start paying attention and doing OBC snapshots of what is there just in case.

And then up another floor were we are shown to the dorms.

Directly so no run through of this floor.

Command track, private bunks for each of us and it’s literally us walking in through this archway and we see not cots but like these crafted cubicles that are open with no roof to them but like a four foot privacy wall and there are other cadets there hanging out.

Well hanging out or waiting.

There’s more people watching even coming over to watch as we’re getting assigned and taking our bunks by the numbers.

I hear them say hushedly. “The Apollo.”

And I can feel eyes on me.

Not just us but on me.

And people whispering. “It’s her.”

Oh dammit.

People know who I am?

It doesn’t help when the Corporal McVarden says. “Bunk out here you’ll find instructions on the basics on your On Body Computers there will be orders at various points during your stay but this is going to be your last R and R before you all hit Grail.”

He moves to leave. “Stone!”

I say. “Yes Corporal!”

“Good call you’re the only one today that shared that with their unit.”

He walks out and someone pulls up on this long, long hover scooter thing and he hangs onto their shoulder while stepping on and it speeds off.

Okay as bad as it feels with everyone staring at me from other places those that showed up here with me are giving me a few smiles and thankful looks.

***Before…

Command track, private bunks for each of us and it’s literally us walking in through this archway and we see not cots but like these crafted cubicles that are open with no roof to them but like a four foot privacy wall and there are other cadets there hanging out.
Well hanging out or waiting.
There’s more people watching, even coming over to watch as we’re getting assigned and taking our bunks by the numbers.
I hear them say hushedly. “The Apollo.”
And I can feel eyes on me.
Not just us but on me.
And people whispering. “It’s her.”
Oh dammit.
People know who I am?
It doesn’t help when Corporal McVarden says. “Bunk out here you’ll find instructions on the basics on your On Body Computers. There will be orders at various points during your stay but this is going to be your last R and R before you all hit Grail.”
He moves to leave. “Stone!”
I say. “Yes Corporal!”
“Good call, you're the only one today that shared that with their unit.”
He walks out and someone pulls up on this long, long hover scooter thing and he hangs onto their shoulder while stepping on and it speeds off.
Okay, as bad as it feels with everyone staring at me from other places, those that showed up here with me are giving me a few smiles and thankful looks.

***And Now….

I look around, take it all in, take them all in.

I take a few big breaths, one to help catch my breath and to calm myself.

“Should have thought there’d be gossip about us.”

I look for my bunk assignment and head over and start unpacking and I’m still getting some looks even with others doing the same and being busy.

I get a few thanks about the pack thing and say. “That was just me making it easier on me. It seemed to work so why keep it a secret gear jogging technique.”

We spent the rest of the time getting our things stowed and the place cleaned. We cleaned first because it was easier to do that before all of our things were in the way.

R & R is pretty much just loosely a given here, McFadden meant honestly to Check our OBC’s and to see what is here plus what is being “Offered” and what things are at what schedule times.

There are several tactical ship to ship lectures, there is times available for the holo-sims and these have some pretty important things on them like simmmed out time on Bridge simulations.

There’s touristy stuff too and loads of that we can access but no.

I just have this feeling that this is them looking at us in a different way that our choices are part work ethic and psyche eval.

It’s what I would do because we’ll be off for Grail after this and that is where we’ll hit the actual academy and go through basic and then our advanced track classes.

It will be a balanced and set schedule then and getting there from here will be a time for rest.

Actually I log into the transport log and see about the transit times from here to Grail in standard transport FTL and if things hold then yes, it’ll be enough time to rest.

I mull things over after going around the guest barracks and our section of the base looking things over and there are scan links that I can spin up to for the different floors with maps and sections and things going on.

I check crew and troop recommendations and head to the “PX level” where Union approved mini-shops and food hawkers are set up if we want to pay for things instead of eating at the mess.

I wander and windowshopped and look around and I get an expensive real soil grown coffee as a treat with all the fixings and I get some gum that has a decent flavour and cleanser in it and a nice student Union military store satchel/shoulder bag that I can carry a free things inside of.

Ration chews in a fudge flavour, bandage tape, utility tape, a pack of good digi-pens with ink, folded survival blanket, a compressed suit of thermal hose, a mini-med-kit and a few other odds and ends like a brush and comb and lint brush/roller and military deodorant.

Given what’s happened it’s an extra.

Kind of like a Go bag.

I try some of the smaller food hawkers trying things with good lines that look like something I might like to eat and stick to some finger food type of things or on a stick. My fave pretty much being this seafood flavoured crab stick coated with rice and served in a cup of soup. It’s all vat food and all of that but I like soup and the flavour and it’s just enough.

I go around and get a feeling for the place and make my plans while I’m here.

I finish snacking and my tour and I go and get changed and use the cadet gym here and go and work out for quite awhile burning off the food but also so I can sleep better in an unfamiliar space.

Treadmill and cycle plus light weights and callisthenics and then some boxing and martial training on the dummies and finishing with a swim.

I crash early compared to some of them and tired enough to sleep good and I get enough sleep to be awake by reveille and there is of course teachers and command personnel going through doing morning inspection before we go and do PT and then hit the mess and then showers and freetime.

Some poor people thought that we were getting unrestricted full time off R&R while we’re still on base.

A few others saw me getting up first and getting ready and they quickly shook off their sleep and followed suit and that was a little different.

Mess here is good, really good toasted soymilk and you can get it hot. Some people might baulk about that stuff but it's nutty and like a creamy hot drink so like dessert soup.

Add in some things to dip in it or to put into it and it’s good.

Everything here is better because they have actual full classed kitchens and food labshere so your vat grown cafeteria heating trays full of vat grown eggs are really fresh.

Then for me it’s going off to sword training classes they have offered and bringing my sword with me which has lots of looks but at the same time once i’m at those training halls for the sword I’m not alone.

There are a lot of people with the same award as I have and then there are some with like cultural Union things with swords like actually from their colony or society and ethnics.

It’s fascinating and imposing and I’m tested for my sabre and I’m placed still in the beginners ranks and I’m fine with that.

I’m still really serious and like doing this.

It’s also very social with talking, instruction and there is some degree of formal introductions before classes and training matches.

Then I’m off and taking some lectures and then it’s lunch and then a stint at the gun range and the motorpool where we are invited to test out how certain land and hover units drive and work.

The last part of my afternoon is trying the bridge sims.

It is immediately hard.

You’re in command.

Even simulated you have people asking you and wanting things and needing things from you all the time and you’re getting tons of OBC sensor linked info as well from your ship.

That’s not even counting the tasks.

And they start you with basic manoeuvres and runs to pick things up and drop things off and things like docking or piloting through an orbital queue.

And I fail in most of the sims in one way or another.

It’s frustrating.

I’ve never been an ambitious person really but I don’t like my scores.

And I take my breaks in the food court and then take out my frustrations in the gym.

It’s weird having others doing it too, failing as well.

We talk about it over snacks and food and while working out.

Again it’s strange having people doing the same things as me or some of the same things as me because they think I’m someone that has a plan.

I barely have a plan.

Actually my plan is don’t fail,don’t wash out and end up back home with my family and those looks of I told you so.

Especially over my transition/Transformation.

To them people like me could have been “fixed” in other ways.

I don’t try to convince the other recruits to do things other than what they told us and they’re not that bad but there’s a lot of gawking and getting caught up in not just a major system planet but the size of the city how available stuff is here compared to some of the “Milk run colonies.”

I mean a lot of us on this trip are picked up as recruits out of all these little backwater colonies that are likely very nice places but small towns are small towns even in space and the same for big cities.

Add it it’s exciting right now even to watch as we’re in a really big military base and there is all of this other traffic in the skies, their is loads of civilian stuff sure but here we see actual Union ships from skiffs and shuttles to lighter cruisers and other specialty vehicles to actual combat ships like corvettes and interceptor ships and that’s not counting we routinely have areo-space fighters going off on two manned patrols and training.

Honestly if I was less scared and paranoid about doing stuff wrong I’d be watching more but the biggest point in my brain is the fact this is a stopover, we’re meeting all the other cadets from all of the other ships and then we’ll be sent off to the training planet and system.

So this is honestly, smartly where I or others take every bit of training and simulation time as we can get so I’m that much more ready for what follows.

I get lots of sleep and I don’t really do the social life thing here instead getting as many hours rated in piloting and as soon as I clear for one thing I apply to train for another related unit and logging hours so shuttles and space military tugs and loaders and anti-gravity rafts for floating cargo and hover bikes and land cruisers which covers most cars and trucks and jeeps and I actually test out for my basic driving licences and was awarded them right off and that was cool and while most people have them I didn’t need them growing up much but now it’s nice to have.

I even take things online that they offer and some of it is dressing and etiquette and deportment and there multiple slices and sims where I try and find out things that are wrong and I really try and run through that several times again because I’m socially awkward and paranoid of making mistakes and I like feeling that at least I can dress and act the part on duty.

I noticed more people arriving and our building getting filled up on all the different student and cadet levels and still even with the other bodies there might be a dozen of us really putting the drive on in command track and we’re the smaller colony recruits so we’re like me and surprised to been picked for command or they want it.

I mean I get it, and I think that commanding a starship would be a great career.

Though I keep hearing that the fleet's long term families are different and that we really haven’t seen anything yet because some of them even unenhanced are a whole other breed.

And so I don’t find myself caught off guard. I keep my On-body-computer tuned to the incoming com traffic with incoming ships because what we leave on will be a big ship and we’re students so it’s probably an older ship of the line and something close to being retired but not yet.

I actually wrote a bit of programming to look up make and models and to alert me to anything that’s actually fit what I’m expecting and when I am pretty sure I have a day where we’re not shipping out then I do go into the city and I go for clothes mostly as I really don’t have enough civilian clothes and I don’t really have a personal clothing style or a go-to.

I see missing ship names daily and they’re not coming back and when I got too curious I looked and they’re all gone.

We’re being hammered by these machine tekker bastards.

But my idea works. I notice a shift in the staff and it looks like people are getting shifts organised for a lot of loading and in comes The FDR a big, big old ship that was used as a star carrier for shuttles and infantry ship drops and fighters.

Now I’m sure it’s here to pick us all up.