“Cadet Lisse?” The woman in the black and grey uniform looked up from her pad just long enough to see the strawberry blonde rise to her feet. “Follow me, please.”
Lisse followed the woman’s neat bun down the narrow corridor, running a hand over the rivets briefly before trying to emulate her bobbing walk.
“You’ll get used to it soon enough.”
She startled, catching the other woman’s eyes as the bun was replaced with a brief flash of sparkling blue eyes. “How…?”
“Everyone does it. Especially the Earthborn. Your body can tell the gravity isn’t the same. Hold here for a moment.”
Lisse followed her into an alcove and pummeled her brain to read the insignia. She’d studied, but there was so much to learn. Maybe spacers had it easier, having the military drop by on shore leave, but they rarely came Earthside anymore. The shuttles weren’t affordable to the rank and file, anyway, and it wasn’t like she’d have been hanging out with the top brass as a wavering high school graduate.
Maybe if her father had bothered to come home at all. She blinked, hard, and refocused. “Lieutenant Jamison. Intelligence specialist. Celestial marksmanship. Good conduct. Laser deterrence. Um, Halian campaign? Honor Academy graduate. And, I think…Robundan planetary liberation?”
Lt Jamison waved a hand dismissively. “It means little up here, but we have to put on a show for the takeoff cams. Vids everywhere groundside, you know? It’s all for the politicians. No one cares up here. Now.” She narrowed her eyes. “Straighten your shoulders. Yes, like that.”
Strong fingers brushed Lisse’s shoulder, and she glanced down to find her uniform as spotless as when the vacuum chamber had sucked the lint away.
“Okay. Pat your hair. You ready? Captain lets a few cadets watch each time.” Lt Jamison snapped her shoulders back and spun on her bootheel. “Ask questions while you still can. The Academy’s kind of stupid about it. Thinks it builds character to throw you into what you don’t know and make you figure it out.”
They marched out of the alcove and toward a sealed hatch. Lisse watched Lt Jamison spin the wheel and strained her ears. “What’s that sound?”
Lt Jamison sighed. “The Captain.” A guitar squealed wildly as the hatch door swung open, and the woman raised her voice to be heard over it. “Go! And be polite!”
She hurried through, barking both shins against the unfamiliar entrance and lower gravity. Lisse caught herself from falling and straightened again, trying out an unfamiliar salute. “Cadet Lisse Montoro reporting as requested, Captain!”
The volume lowered as she shouted, leaving her words echoing too loudly in the enclosed space, and she realized her reflection showed in the screens spread before the Captain’s command post.
“Hand down, Cadet.” The chair spun to reveal a woman with the short-cropped hair and deathly-white skin of a long-term spacer. “No saluting indoors. Welcome to the USS Haugh.” The word sounded like the bird. “Here we ferry cadets and listen to classic rockinrolla from 150 years ago. If you don’t like it, I don’t want to know.”
Lisse dropped her hand and eyes, feeling her face warm. “Sorry, Sir.”
“Academy’s the place to make mistakes, Cadet, make no mistake about it.” She unsnapped her harness and stood, extending a hand. “Captain Sommers. Pleased to meet you. I hope to see you out here some day. Just me on the bridge for the moment, so speak freely. Now.” Her eyes narrowed, and Lisse saw where Lt Jamison had obtained her rapid way of speaking. “Space is unforgiving, even on easy flights. You’re sure it’s for you?”
Taking the hand, she dared to raise her eyes. “Honestly, not yet, Sir. I love computers, but not video games. This seemed like a patriotic way to make a difference.”
Captain Sommers grunted and sat back down, each movement precise and economical. “Good answer. Well reasoned. Don’t tell the Academy that or you’ll never make it out here in the ether. You’ll find that you know by the end of sophomore year, if you make it that far. That’s why we risk bringing cadets to space.”
The woman kept talking as Lisse stared at the screens. The tech behind them was years beyond what she’d had Earthside, if the displays were anything to go by. “I have so much to learn.”
She stopped and barked a laugh. “Sure and you do, Cadet. Sure and you do. Now sit over there and strap in for a few minutes. Yes, copilot seat. The LT will bring the next victim by in fifteen minutes, so ask the questions you need to before then.”
As it turned out, the comms system wasn’t far from what she’d used playing around with old school radios. Contacting point A from point B wasn’t that different after all.
“You’ll do well in the techo classes, eh?” Lisse reddened again at the praise. Captain Sommers ignored it and pressed buttons until the screen changed. “Let me show you space surveillance. Key to lasering debris before it can hit the ship, although this path’s usually well-trafficked enough to be fairly clear.”
The Haugh chose that moment to lurch sideways. A thud reverberated through her bones. Straps burned against her shoulders, and her chin snapped painfully into her chest. One wrist banged against Captain Sommer’s command chair. Over the sounds of the blaring unfamiliar music came a snap, and with it, white-blinding pain.
Blessed darkness followed.
Drums thundered inside her head when she cracked sticky eyes open. Droplets of blood floated in front of her face, as did both her hands. Artificial grav was off, then. Lisse coughed and looked for Capt Sommers. “Sir.”
Her voice rasped thinly, and the drums were louder than ever. “Sir!”
The blood tracing through the air couldn’t have supported life outside a physical body. Too much of it, and the physical body ceased to be. “Captain!”
The chair had snapped, and a single pale arm lay unmoving beneath it.
Drums were joined by guitar, a man yelling, and a screech of static. Lisse brushed the droplets out of her face with her good arm, mourning the stains on the brand-new grey sleeve of her cadet uniform.
She brushed the inappropriate non sequitur aside, pushed a green button, and held her breath that the brief lesson had been sufficent.
“Command.” She coughed again, and felt her ribs protest. “Command, this is…USS Haugh. We’ve been, um…” Her mind went blank. “Thunder stormed. No. Struck. By something? Starburst. We had just begun looking at space surveillance before impact. Haugh Actual has been injured, possibly killed, en route to academy. We are damaged and carrying…”
She pressed her lips together, trying to remember. “…approximately seventy Earthside cadets and the rest Stationers. I have no pilot experience and am not certain about the rest of the crew’s status at this time.”
“Copy, Haugh. Are you cadet or crew?” The voice was deep and soothing, steadying her nerves.
“Cadet. Lisse Montoro. I don’t hear engines and believe we are drifting.”
“Good job, Cadet Montoro.” She could hear the smile in the man’s voice. “Starting early in your spacer career, I see. Are you injured?”
“Yes. Mostly minor, possible -” she glanced down at her previously pristine cuff “-make that probable broken wrist.”
“Copy, Cadet Montoro. Any flight experience?”
“No. I mean, negative.”
This time, he laughed out loud.
“Simulation dismissed,” a robotic voice announced in her ear.
“What?” Lisse shivered with reaction. Her entire body felt cold, so cold her wrist didn’t ache anymore. Her hand worked perfectly, and pushed the glass open. Her legs didn’t work as well, and she slid onto the grated floor.
A man in the ubiquitous black and grey uniform grinned at her from the next pod over. “Happens to everybody, but especially Earthsiders. Welcome to the Academy.” His hands flew over the touchpad, and familiar, confused noises emerged from a glass coffin filled with condensation. “How’d you like the psych profile?”
***
This week on the More Odds Than Ends prompt challenge, AC Young challenged me with a prompt I twisted out of all recognition: The hawk flew through the thunderstorm. My prompt went to Becky Jones: The castle was filled with the friendliest vampires [character] had ever encountered.
Psst! Interested? You can play, too!
