Scott Air Force Base, St. Clair County, Illinois, USA, Earth
Adam Arés
Baby I know its your rest day today, call me when you can please xx
BASEBALL considered the text message for several seconds before offering his sage and experienced wisdom.
“Sounds serious, bro.”
“Yeah.” Adam nodded, and jerked his head toward the back of the plane. “I’ll be back there.”
They were on stopover at Scott AFB, after a full two days of loading every scrap of the SOR’s accumulated gear and personal effects onto the Galaxy. Huge as a C5’s lift and fuel capacities were, the gym gear alone accounted for several tonnes which, when coupled with the reinforced furniture, the armory, the lucky reinforced Gravball goal, not to mention the suits, protective and maintenance equipment for the suits, plus the techs and all THEIR stuff…
While a Galaxy had plenty of seating on the upper deck, the operators were all big enough to find the seats uncomfortably small, and they were prone to overheating anyway. Noisy as it was, the cargo deck was pleasantly cold, and so they’d set up a sort of nest in one of the few corners not completely given over to cargo, and were playing Texas Hold ‘em.
It had taken a whale-sized gulp of fuel just to get them aloft. Hence the stopover in Illinois and the hour of leisure time while the plane was checked, fuelled and took on a few items of cargo bound for HMS Sharman.
The hell with the cost of international calls. He could afford it, and she needed him.
…“Hello?”
He smiled. She sounded so cute when she was tired. “Ava? Did I wake you, babe?”
”…It’s three in the morning baby.” she griped, just a little. “I mean, I’m real glad to hear from you but why didn’t you call sooner?”
“I’m on a plane.” he explained. “We just landed in Illinois.”
“Oh…what are you doing on a plane in Illinois?”
“It’s refuelling. We’re on our way up to Scotch Creek.”
“Why are you–?” There was a sharp rustling of bedding on her end of the line. “Are you going back to Cimbrean?!”
“Yeah! The SOR’s going to be permanently posted there! Isn’t that cool?”
“Adam, when the hell were you planning on telling me this?!”
“First chance I got!” Adam said. “Which is now.”
“What about- what about your contract? What’s going on with that?” She asked, Adam frowned, wondering what was getting her so worked up.
“I re-enlisted. They offered us this amazing homesteading incentive seeing as Folctha’s going to be the SOR’s permanent home and, you know, it’s home, so–”
“Homesteading incentive?” Ava interrupted him.
“Yeah! It’s this big grant and maybe a low-interest loan for…you know, building a life out there. Buying a house or whatever. All they need from me is a few more years.”
”…How many years, Adam?”
“Uh…for the full grant, they want a career enlistment.”
“Which is…how long?”
“Uh…” he said sheepishly, “Well, I mean it’s…twenty years total commitment. But that includes–”
“TWENTY YEARS?!” Adam jerked the phone away from his ear and winced. He could still hear her anyway. “You re-enlisted for twenty years and you’re on a plane going back to Cimbrean where I won’t be able to call you or anything and you’re only telling me now?!”
“Baby,” he argued. “That includes what I’ve already done, so it’s only sixteen–”
There was a sharp sound and the line went dead. “Ava? Baby? Hello?”
Re-dialling sent him straight to her answerphone. He tried twice more just in case, then gave up and turned the phone off in disgust, and mooched back over to where the guys were lying around in one of the few clear spaces on the plane.
“You guys had a fight?” Stevenson asked.
“Yeah. Beats the fuck out of me why though.” Adam smashed down onto the deck, cross-legged. “I mean, Cimbrean’s home for us, I thought she’d be delighted!”
“Uh-huh.” Legsy muttered, in a noise that was equal parts agreement and scepticism. “And what did she actually want to talk to you about?”
Adam paused. “Well, uh…I mean, I, um…”
Every last one of his buddies pantomimed and voiced dismay. Legsy just pressed three fingers to his forehead and looked pained. “You fuckin’ tit.” he groaned.
Adam looked around at their reactions, then down at his knees. “…I really suck at this, huh?”
“Brother.” BASEBALL said, putting an arm round him. “She’s a goddamn saint for putting up with your stupid ass.”
‘Saint’ Ava had in fact thrown her phone at the wall hard enough to wreck it and was now patrolling furiously around the room, desperate to rant and scream and throw more things and sweep her possessions dramatically onto the floor, and she was only holding herself back because she didn’t want to wake Charlotte and Ben in the next room.
She settled for half an hour of angry tears as she spun snarling circles in the middle of the room, playing out sotto voce all of the vicious, hateful thoughts about Adam that she would have really, REALLY liked to say to his face.
She called him an idiot, a jackass, a fucking dickhead, an inconsiderate cocksucker, a selfish son of a fucking whore and worse. She described in vivid and scatological Spanish exactly what she would do with his guts once she’d finished extracting them, between bouts of sitting on her bed raking her scalp with her fingernails and wanting, wishing, NEEDING to punch him as hard as she possibly could right in his stupid sexy puppy-dog face.
In the end, she was so hoarse and exhausted from the outburst that she found herself waking up at a misty six am with no idea of where to go or what to do or who to talk to.
She sat up, blinked at the sad remains of her phone in the middle of the floor, and more out of hopelessness than anything else, held down the power button.
To her utter astonishment, smashed screen or not, it turned on and booted up. She nearly dismissed the three missed calls from Adam, but instead she sat and stared at them for nearly twenty minutes before finally arriving at a decision. One that was, she considered, perfectly reasonable, and entirely fair and balanced.
”…Fuck it.”
She stood, took a shower, brushed her teeth, put on her clothes, grabbed her keys and the damaged device, and left the room.
Sean Harvey
Sean’s phone rang five times before he swiped the green control to answer. Three of those rings were him staring at the name on screen.
He answered cautiously. “Hey.”
”…Hey.”
“I uh…I was worried I wouldn’t hear from you again. After…”
“That was…” Ava sighed down the phone. ”…We need to talk about it.”
“I’ll come over.”
“Or you could just let me in. It’s…kinda cold out here.”
He frowned, leaned over and twitched the curtain aside. Ava gave him a sheepish wave through the glass. She was hovering outside his front door, bobbing, fidgeting and pacing.
He let her in. “You could have just knocked…”
“Yeah.” she agreed, but shrugged. “Didn’t, though.”
“What happened to your phone?”
“Don’t ask.”
”…Cup of tea?”
She sighed a sort of laugh. “Sure.”
By the time the tea was made, she’d warmed up a bit on the couch, using the chocolate-brown throw for a blanket.
“So, uh…look, I’m sorry-” he began.
“No, I understand.” Ava told him. “In fact…I think you were right. I think we needed that question answered.”
Sean sat back, feeling his pulse raise a good notch. “Are you saying…What are you saying?”
Ava stood up and paced the room, still draped in the throw. “Look…You’re right. I don’t…I’ve been lonely as fuck for a long time, and I’m tired of being jerked around and taken for granted.” she told him. “And you…you make all of that better. I’m not lonely around you, and I know you don’t take me for granted.”
“But…?”
She sighed. “But for all the shit he puts me through, I really do love Adam with all my heart, and he’s really doing something amazing. Okay? And I know that part of what keeps him going is…well, me.”
Sean just listened to her.
“But at the same time…You’re right. I’ve got to live for myself a bit, don’t I? I’ve got to…to be happy and fulfilled myself or else…I know I’m just going to take it out on him one day. I can’t afford to resent him, and I don’t want to. But right now I do.”
“I think I get you.” Sean said.
“Do you?” she asked. It was neither skeptical nor a challenge, nor even a plea for him to say what she wanted to hear. Just an honest query.
It was Sean’s turn to stand up, and he put his hands on her upper arms, rubbing gently. “Ava…You know bloody well how I feel about you. I’m not asking for forever, I just…I want you to feel loved. That’s all. There’s room for more love in your life, isn’t there?”
She looked down, then away, then up at his face again. There were a tense few seconds of thoughtful silence.
“Ground rules.” she announced, at last.
“Okay…?”
“This is going to end. I can put an exact date on it, okay? After I’ve graduated, and I go back to CImbrean, that’s it. If you can’t live with that, then we don’t do this and I guess we both get friendzoned.”
“That’s rule one.” Sean nodded.
“Rule two…” She continued. “We enjoy it. As much as we can, for as long as we’ve got.”
“Rule three.” Sean told her, nodding. “This is about you.”
Ava hesitated “Sean, I-” she began.
“No, shut up. Look, I…fuck it, I love you. Bit early maybe to tell you that, but it’s been, what…three years, hasn’t it? Since we met.”
“But w-”
“Ava. This is about you. End of discussion, okay? What I want from us is for you to not feel lonely and neglected any more. That’s all, I promise.”
“Sean-”
“Just stop being the Great Pagliacci for once and let somebody do something for YOU, okay?! Let yourself be selfish fo-!”
She kissed him.
Several minutes later, hair and clothing thoroughly disrupted, they finally paused, breathing heavily. She gulped down a sigh, and settled her head onto his chest, wriggling down until they were a warm knot of limbs on the couch.
Sean just held her and played gently with her hair, until she fell asleep.
He knew how she felt. He hadn’t slept much last night either.
A few minutes after she fell asleep, he did as well.
Date point: 8y 4m AV
HMS Sharman, Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
John “BASEBALL” Burgess
“Hey.”
Adam had been in a bad way the whole trip. Several more calls to Ava’s phone once they had landed in Scotch Creek had gone to messages, and they’d just been able to hear him sounding despondent and desperate as he finally gave up and left her a voicemail, begging her to email him.
It was heart-wrenching. The Spaceborne Operators were brothers nowadays, closer than, but Adam—being the youngest on the team and the only one in a permanent relationship—definitely inspired the strongest brotherly instincts. He was usually the composed and calm one too, always happy to join in with the rough-housing and free-flowing loving insults, but never going overboard.
Seeing him so distressed had killed all of that.
But that had to stop now. The long journey was over now, and BASEBALL had to get his best friend back into soldier mode. “You okay?”
“I dunno man.” Adam swallowed. Hell, his eyes were red around the edge. “I think I really fucked up this time. I think I fucked up bad.”
“Brother, you didn’t do shit.” BASEBALL grabbed Adam’s bag from him. “The old man says we’re coming to Cimbrean, we’re coming to Cimbrean. Not your fault we’re here.”
“I know, but…she’s right, I shoulda told her sooner.”
“When? We found out about this three days ago, we’ve been loading our shit the whole time since. You told her first chance you got, man.”
Adam didn’t say anything, he just nodded helplessly.
“Come on.” BASEBALL slapped him on the back. “We got shit to unload and get stowed and then it’s the weekend. Get your mind off it, huh?”
”…Yeah.”
Hard work was always a good balm for a troubled mind, and nobody could work harder than Protectors. By the time all the pallets had been cleared out of the Jump Array and moved to their respective final destinations, by the time the Operators had been shown to their new barrack and had got their possessions tidied away, and by the time the SOR was finally ensconced and ready to get on with business, Adam had relaxed a little, even cracked a smile and a joke.
It wasn’t until they were squared away and he got a chance to sign into the barracks wifi that he finally truly settled, though, because there was an email waiting for him.
John read it over his shoulder, at Adam’s invitation—practically a request to have somebody holding his hand in case of the worst.
“I’m sorry baby. If that was your first chance to tell me then yeah, I shouldn’t have blown up like I did. I’m just really frustrated sometimes. I’ll try and find some way to keep on top of it. Love you – Ava.” he read.
Adam was sighing with relief. “She’s a saint, you’re right.”
Outwardly, John just nodded, and patted his buddy on the shoulder, leaving him to write his return.
Internally, however…
Legsy was reclining on the new couch, which was already groaning under the weight. They’d all but destroyed the last couch through piling onto it en masse for movie night, and roughhousing, and this one looked to be rather less sturdy—Vandenberg was already talking about welding together something more appropriate out of a material that was up to spec, like steel I-beam.
“How is ‘e?”
“Got an email. She said sorry for getting mad, says she’s gonna try to keep on top of it…” John vaulted the back of the couch to sit down and ignored the way it creaked as he landed.
“Don’t know if I buy that.” Legsy grunted.
“Well, I mean…” John shrugged. “She’s pretty fucking dedicated to him.”
“Too fuckin’ dedicated.” Legsy agreed. “I dunno mate, she can’t just go on writing off their fights and saying it’s fine, can she?”
“When does she graduate? Year and a half?”
“Somethin’ like that.” Legsy agreed. “You think she’s going to tough on through then have it out with ‘im once she’s back here?”
“I hope so.”
“Difficult, if she’s struggling now…”
“You know, if you two worry about WARHORSE’s love life too much, we’re gonna wind up with THREE guys off their game.” Vandenberg commented, joining them.
“He’ll be okay for now.” BASEBALL said. “He just got a making up email.”
“Good, ‘cause I know the old man’s noticed.” Rebar joined them on the couch, which was already about at its limit. Something cracked deep inside it and it sagged under their combined weight. None of them paid any attention.
”‘E’s not gonna weigh in unless Adam actually fucks up, though.” Legsy said. “Anyway, all we can do is keep him on task, let it all sort itself out, one way or another.”
“Yyyep.” BASEBALL shifted his seat a bit, and the couch finally gave up,—with a crackle of disintegrating wood, it tilted to one side and folded up like a house of cards.
There was a long silence. “…Base?”
“Yeah, Legs?”
“You got a medkit?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Something sharp’s stabbed into my bum.” Legsy informed them. “I think it’s a screw.”
“Sounds serious, Base.” Rebar said, hauling himself to his feet.
“Yeah, can’t have the NCOIC getting screwed in the ass.” John agreed, standing up himself. This earned a groan from the two older men, and a middle finger from Legsy. “Alright, I’ll patch up your butt.”
Vandenberg contemplated the wreckage. “Guess I’ll get started on some actual furniture…Hey, Sikes!”
Snapshot’s voice floated out of his room. “Yeah?”
“Gimme a hand willya? The couch just gave and screwed Legsy in the ass!”
”…What?” Sikes’ head poked round the corner, as did everyone else’s with varying expressions of confusion and delight.
“You big bastards broke it already?” Murray grinned.
“Yeah, that’s right, laugh at the man with a bit of metal stickin’ out of his bum.” Legsy grumbled, wincing as he gingerly lifted himself out of the couch wreckage with his hand pressed to his left buttock.
BASEBALL just chuckled and went to fetch his medkit, while the Defenders put their heads together on designing a new couch. He passed Adam on the way, who was leaning against his door, smirking.
“Y’aight?”
“Yup.”
He gave his friend a slap on the shoulder and carried on.
Whatever was going on with Ava, Adam at least was okay. That was all they could ask for.
Date Point: 8y 5m AV
London, England, Earth
Sean Harvey
Ava had once told Sean that she had learned early on in practicing her photography that rain didn’t show up well on camera. It could be the wettest, most miserable day ever, but all you actually got in the picture was a general sense of grey dampness. Rain in movies and on TV had to be hugely exaggerated to even show up.
Today, the rain would have shown up without the exaggeration.
Which meant that even at a dead run, the hundred yards or so between the bus stop and Sean’s house was more than enough time for every inch of them both to get comprehensively drenched. Sean’s shaking hands didn’t help matter, as he fumbled and dropped the keys, and by the time they’d managed to barge through the door and into the hallway they were both spitting water and shivering.
Other than that, it had been a successful date. They’d gone to a movie, eaten at Frankie and Benny’s, and had been strolling round the park when the first roll of thunder had driven them underground.
Sean was the first to speak. Or pant. “Jesus…CHRIST!”
“I hear ya. We shoulda got a cab” Ava clutched at her elbows and hugged over. She wasn’t out of breath, but she had never coped well with the cold. “Yuuuurgh.”
“Yeah.” Sean looked at her and made a calculation about size “I’ve got some dry clothes upstairs if you want. I’ll just shove everything in the tumble dryer.”
“You mean that thing works?”
“Course it does!” Sean said.
“You never use it.”
“Using the washing line’s just cheaper though, innit?”
He kicked off his shoes, stripped sodden socks onto the hallway tiles, and grumbled his way into kitchen. “Cup of tea?” he asked.
“God yes. Please.” Ava called through. A few seconds later she added “Man, everything’s wet.”
“Yeah, give me a minute and I’ll go get you something to wear while the kettle’s on.” Sean told her, filling it.
“It’s okay, I’ll find something!” she called, and he heard her trot upstairs.
“Hey, what about your clothes!?” he called.
“They’re by the door!”
Sean frowned and leaned back to look out into the hallway. Sure enough, there was a sad little pile of wet cloth slapped down on the tiles by the door, and it wasn’t just the outers. There was a bra and underwear in there too.
He blinked, coughed, and considered what that meant.
Probably nothing, he decided. Ava wasn’t the type to drop hints that subtle—she was more of the “lean against the door frame wearing goosebumps and a smile” school of thought when it came to the subtle game of seduction. That lumbering meathead Adam had forced her to be refreshingly direct.
She came back down a few minutes later with her hair wrapped in a towel and wearing one of his T-shirts, a pair of his board-shorts, and a black hoodie he’d picked up at Reading Festival years ago.
“You okay?”
“Warming up.” she replied, and took her mug of tea. “You’ve still not changed?”
“Well, if you’re okay with me wandering the house naked…”
“Why not? It’s your house.”
“Well, yeah, but-”
She leaned against the fridge. “But what?”
“Ah, never mind. It’s too cold round here. I’ma go get changed.”
“Sure.”
She’d set up on the couch and was wrapped up in a throw with the TV on by the time he came downstairs again. When he sat next to her, she just snuggled up and put her head on his hip.
He put his arm around her. “You okay?”
“Still cold.”
“I put the heating on for a blast.”
“Thanks.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching the news.
”–criticized by some civil activists in India, where eighty million people still lack access to clean drinking water. However India’s minister of water resources, Suresh Gadkari, was supportive of the idea.”
“The greatest obstacle still bedevilling our efforts at universal access to sanitation and safe drinking water continues to be population. The declining cost of energy has helped us reach more people and improve their access to basic hygiene, but the fact is that our population is still growing, putting ever more strain on our already-overworked natural resources. If however we can encourage people to emigrate to an alien world where the water resources can be properly managed from the start, then that will take off the pressure here on Earth and allow us, for the first time ever, to seriously talk about reaching one hundred percent access to clean water. I’m personally very excited.”
“India and China aren’t the only nations interested in emulating the example set by Folctha, however. The USA and Russia have both also expressed interest in founding colonies of their own, and EU ministers in Brussels have also been considering proposals for a colony, despite some outspoken opposition.”
“Humanity has already spread to one world and killed it. Millions of unique alien species, extinct because of just one person. Now, this era of the Earth’s geological history is already known as the “anthropocene” and it’s defined by a mass extinction event. Wherever we go, we kill things! And until we get that basic problem sorted out, then I don’t care HOW many new antibiotics or whatever we find on these alien worlds, we’ve got no business going out there!”
French EU minister Noémie Perrin said that although such concerns were well-founded, there were still grounds for optimism.
“Bien sûr, nous devons être prudents, mais…<Of course we need to be cautious, but I don’t think that we will learn anything if we remain stuck on one planet. Already, contact with alien life promises to end our dependence on fossil fuels and has–”
Ava shifted against him. “Hey, Sean?”
“Yeah?”
He looked left, and she kissed him.
It was a gentle kiss, accompanied by a happy sigh, and it lasted for a good few warm and comfortable seconds. Ava didn’t kiss him all that often, but when she did…!
When it was over, he gave her a little squeeze. “Mmm. That was nice. What was it for?”
“You just make me feel loved.”
“By sitting here and watching the news with you?”
“By holding me, wafer-thin.” she smiled, then pulled herself up, put a hand on the back of his head and kissed him again.
And again.
And a third time, just below his ear, a move which he answered by putting a thumb on her chin, gently pushing her to tilt her head up, and kissing her throat, then a little lower on her throat, and a little lower still…
She grabbed his hand, worrying him that he’d gone too far, but instead she guided it up onto her chest and…oh, yeah. She wasn’t wearing a bra, was she? He could feel something small and hard press against his palm, through the cloth. Fuck that cloth. He lowered his hand, unzipped the hoodie, grabbed the bottom of her t-shirt and pulled it up, awarding himself a mental medal at the noise she made when he put his lips and tongue to work on her nipple instead.
Her hands weren’t idle, either. They roamed his back, curled in his hair, hauled up on his own clothing until he finally had to pull back and let her pull his shirt off.
She made a little laugh, and he was still trying to figure out if it was a mocking sound or a happy one when one of those roaming hands traced down his centre-line, from his chest, to his tummy, to his belt buckle, then just a little lower where she stopped, and pressed down, stopping his breath for an instant.
They paused, both breathing heavily, and then there was a new expression in her eye, a witchy one that he’d never seen there before.
She leaned forward, and kissed his throat. Then his chest. Then a little lower…and a little lower…
And a little lower.
Date Point: 8y 6m AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches.
Major Rylee Jackson
“Jeez! Powell, you got pretty!”
The advantage to having been promoted at about the same time as the SOR’s commanding officer was that Rylee could still crack a joke like that on seeing him for the first time in years.
That said, it wasn’t truly a joke. The SOR’s Crue-D regime had clearly agreed with Powell who, in addition to packing on the muscle, had shed a few apparent years. Several of the deep stress lines in his face were smoothed out, his hairline had advanced back down into territory it had once abandoned, and his nose was transformed– the old crooked break was now fine, strong and straight.
“Fookin’ everybody’s sayin’ that nowadays.” He’d been working on some of the endless pile of paperwork that was any commander’s lot, and stood up to greet her. “I didn’t exactly sign up for the fountain of youth, mind.”
“Got any for me?”
“You don’t need it.”
Surprise caused Rylee to shift her weight onto her back foot, and her smile widened a notch. “My God, are you being charming too? That stuff really IS a miracle drug!”
He actually chuckled. “Good to see you, Jackson. Congratulations on the oak leaf.”
“Good to see you. Congratulations on the crown.”
Powell gestured to a seat, inviting her to sit. “Cup of tea? Coffee?”
“Coffee’d be nice, thankyou.” She settled onto the offered seat. “Straight black.”
Powell nodded, and hit the kettle’s switch.
“So you’re on a PR tour.” he said, rummaging through the cupboard beneath it to retrieve a sturdy cafetiere and a bag of decent-looking coffee. “The generals finally decided to shove you back into the limelight?”
“Eh, it’s a promotion fitness thing.” Rylee sighed. “Gotta keep climbing the ladder or else they kick you off it.”
“Yyyep.”
“And I’m the one who flew FTL first, so of course I get to dick around in front of the cameras for a few months rather than do something useful. You know they want me to do a fucking documentary?”
“Dreadful.” Powell deadpanned.
“End of the world!” Rylee rolled her eyes skywards, though she smiled. “Anyway, I figured if I took on a unit that’s currently all classified and stuff then by the time the footage is de-classified I won’t have to answer stupid questions about it.”
“Hence why you’ve come to us.”
“I’d take it as a favor.” she said, a little less animatedly.
“Aye, I don’t see why not.” Powell agreed, spooning a generous measure of coffee grounds into the cafetiere. “Never know when I might need some clout with your mob.”
“That’s the spirit!”
Powell returned to his desk as the water boiled. “You must have known you’d wind up in the public eye after flying Pandora, though.” He pointed out. “Why do it if you’re not comfortable with the fame?”
“Well there’s the funny thing. People are like ‘Rylee who?’ nowadays. A lot of folks have no idea who I am, y’know? I was thinking I’d be dodging paparazzi and the military would protect me, but it turns out the paparazzi don’t give a fuck because I’m always wearing the same clothes, and they can’t comment when I put on a pound or two ‘cause I’m not on the French Riviera in a bikini every weekend. They can’t make any money off me, so the actual vultures are Public Relations. How’s that for bullshit?”
“Thought you were up there with Armstrong and Gagarin?”
“How many people actually know those names, though?” Rylee asked. “I heard one time that only 40% of the American public recognized Neil Armstrong and…Hell, something like ten percent of Americans think the Apollo missions were faked!”
“Aye, I heard that one too. I have my doubts.” Powell shrugged. “People are interested in space again. When colonising an alien planet’s on the cards…”
“True. And things have changed fast.” Rylee agreed with him. “Hell, you know the total tonnage of private space vehicles launched into orbit now beats the combined lifetime tonnage of both NASA and the Russians? And most of that is Hephaestus, which spent less doing it than the Gemini program cost.”
“Which means that you’re probably better known than you think.” Powell shrugged. “They’d have to be pretty fookin’ stupid not to want to get the best out of you, wouldn’t they?”
The kettle clicked off and he stood to pour the coffee.
“I know, I know…” Rylee conceded. “I just like to bitch about it, you know? I’d rather be flying.”
“You know, you are allowed to enjoy other things besides flying.” Powell told her.
“You ever met a pilot who wanted to admit to that, though?”
He chuckled. “Nope.”
The cafetiere rattled when he set it down on his desk alongside two scuffed but sturdy mugs. “But I’d wager there are worse duties. You’ll like my lads, I promise you that.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Getting the interviews started already?”
“Hey, I’m going to take this job seriously.” She insisted. “I want to do them justice.”
Powell nodded as he filtered the coffee and poured it before answering.
“I have never worked with a unit that had a higher background rate of pranks, hijinks and general shenanigans.” He said, fondly. “They’re completely fookin’ nuts, the lot of ‘em, and I totally sympathize. We’re all eating well above our energy needs to try and get some reserves up, and all the PT in the world won’t cut it nowadays. Every man jack of us is a fizzing ball of energy in the morning, and a half-trashed wreck come bedtime. And yet, discipline is not a problem here—they’re all mature, sensible lads one an’ all. It’s just…bonkers in their dorm when they’re letting off steam. But never once has it crossed the line, and I’m quite confident it never will.”
“You make them sound like a puppy farm.” Rylee observed.
“They fookin’ are a puppy farm.” Powell laughed. “In fact, hell wi’ it, that’s what I’m calling their dorm from now on. ‘The Puppy Farm’. They’ll love it.”
Rylee laughed. “Okay, yeah. It sounds like I’m going to have fun with these guys.”
“Oh, you are: They’ll love you. Hope you’re ready to take part in a boatload of selfies.”
“Eh, I think I can put up with that.”
Powell sipped his drink. “I take it you’re going to want me in front of the camera too?”
“I’d take it as a favor.”
“A few ground rules then: I’d rather we used callsigns rather than actual names. These lads have family, friends, and we’re doin’ summat pretty extreme here with the Crue-D and the training. Fair?”
“Fair enough. What’s yours?”
Powell hesitated. “Um…STAINLESS.”
“Nice!”
“The lads gave it me. It’s a damnsight better than the one I used to have.”
“Which was?”
“I’d rather not say.” Powell scratched his nose awkwardly. “Just say it harked back to a stupider and, er…more racist time in my life and leave it at that.”
Rylee blinked at him. “You don’t seem racist.” she said.
“I’m not, now. Once upon a time, though…You wouldn’t have liked me, and for good fookin’ reason. I’d rather not say more than that.”
“Hey, I’m not interviewing you right now, Powell.”
“Yeah but…Look, I don’t have a lot of mates. I’m not about to alienate one of the few I’ve got by sharing exactly what I’d have thought when I was an idiot fookin’ kid, arright?”
“I think I can guess, anyway.” she commented, drily.
“Rylee…” Powell cleared his throat. “Look, if you’re gonna go with an angle for the SOR, the best one you can go with is self-improvement. We’re not just aiming for better, we’re aiming for best.”
“Owen.” She interrupted. “Relax. I’m just surprised, not upset.” Where he was sipping his coffee, she took a decent-sized gulp of it. “Hell, I guess I was the same, you don’t grow up black in Arkansas without…What I’m saying is, we’re all allowed to grow older and wiser.”
“Ah, to hell wi’ the older part, just so long as I keep getting’ wiser.” Powell chuckled. “I tell you what, I DON’T miss all the aches and pains I was havin’. My knees haven’t felt so good in years!”
Rylee’s smile returned. “…So. You’re okay with me doing this.”
“Absolutely.”
“And you want the whole angle to be self-improvement.”
“Well…” Powell looked to his right and slightly downwards as he marshalled his thoughts. “We both know at least some of this material is going to end up as a recruiting video, most likely.” He said. “Right now, the SOR has one operational unit, which isn’t even active yet. Now, we might be able to keep the training up just fine, but missions? One mission and we’ll be knocked on our backsides and have to build up again. Sure, we’ve got guys coming up the pipeline behind us, but the full unit MTOE calls for, uh…”
He rolled his head back and frowned at the ceiling, searching his memory. “Thirty six, seventy-two…About a hundred and eleven operators all told, plus three times as many specialists in support roles. All of those operators have got to meet some already high standards and then clear a rigorous elimination round before they so much as see a vial of Crue-D, let alone their spacesuit. And by the time they’re ready for active duty…” he gestured a hand down the mid-line of his own body. “Permanent physical and psychological changes.”
“You want me to stress that?”
“We’re only going to want people who can hack the idea of never being the same again. Go talk to WARHORSE sometime—Staff Sergeant Arés. I used to work closely with his old man, who’s a slim, small, little guy. Not unfit or anything, just…small. Four years ago, the lad was just, like, a younger version of ‘is dad, but now he’s fookin’ huge! And he’ll still be huge when he’s in his eighties.”
Rylee nodded, thoughtfully. “I mean…I’m just going to be narrating and interviewing on this thing, it’s up to the director in the end.” she said. “But I’ll pass that along.”
“That’s all I can ask for.”
They finished their coffee, and Powell indicated his paperwork. “I could do with some time to finish this. Why don’t you go meet the lads, form an impression of them? We’ll have a drink later.”
Rylee smiled as she stood up. “I look forward to it.”
Powell had been right. The SOR operators were a puppy farm—eleven enormous, intelligent, hyper-competent puppies who practically fell over each other to “tidy up” a dormitory that was already spotless to the point that only a training instructor in full Motivation Mode could have found something to comment on.
He’d been right about how well-known she was too: They recognised her without her having to introduce herself, and fought to get photos and, in Stevenson’s case, her autograph in a little book alongside assorted athletes, actors and celebrities.
Once they calmed down a bit and got used to the idea that she was there, though, she was invited to take part in “Bad Movie Morning”, which was apparently their weekly Saturday ritual. They watched ‘Night of the Lepus’, a golden-age classic from the age of fedoras and dames in which an assortment of ordinary bunny rabbits filmed close-up lolloped and flopped around in a completely unthreatening way, composited behind footage of people screaming and running away.
Oddly, though, Sergeant Arés gave her an unambiguously frosty reception. It wasn’t anything overt—she doubted the young man even knew he was doing it—but his attitude with her, while perfectly polite and respectful, was nevertheless decidedly cooler than those of his squadmates, and she noticed a few little frowns among the guys which suggested they were asking each other ‘what’s up with WARHORSE?’.
Which was why, when he went to cook between movies, she engineered an excuse that she needed a glass of water and joined him in the kitchen.
He stood aside to let her get at the faucet. “Ma’am.”
“Y’know, if you’ve got a problem with me, I’d like to hear it.” Rylee told him, putting it straight out there. “I’m going to be interviewing you in a couple months, after all.”
Arés blinked. “Problem, ma’am?”
“You’ve been kind of giving me the ‘I don’t like you much’ thing this whole time, and I’m curious why.”
”…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” He stopped himself, but that sentence had revealed the nice guy underneath the chilly attitude. “…You never called the Tisdales, is all.”
”…Who?”
He frowned. “Mark and Hayley?”
Memory stirred. “Oh! I, uh…I never learned their…wait shit, Tisdale? As in Sara Tisdale?”
“Yeah.”
“She was their daughter?”
“Yep.”
Rylee dragged a chair out from under the table—a huge, metal, heavy one built by Rebar to SOR standards—and collapsed onto it. “Jeez, no wonder you- God damn!”
“You didn’t know their surnames?”
“We had fun together, that’s all!” Rylee told him. “We’re not friends or anything. We just…yeah.”
She frowned at him. “Actually, how did you even know about that?”
“My, uh…my girlfriend saw you with them. Ma’am.”
“Huh…” She went still and silent for a second, and then rubbed her face. “Christ.”
Arés scratched the back of his head. “I…Guess I owe you an apology.”
“No, no.” Rylee shook her head. “If I’d known I’d have called them. But, I didn’t and I guess that’s…Jesus, their little girl.”
“And my friend.”
”…I’m sorry, Arés.”
“Was that an apology or condolences, ma’am?”
“Bit of both…” She sighed, and ran a hand over her head. Realising that her hair was out of its bun, she let it out and re-did it. “Thanks for being straight with me though.”
“You asked.”
She sat awkwardly silent as he studied a chart stuck to the refrigerator, and then he seemed to thaw out entirely. “So, hey. I’ve actually been kinda curious…”
“Yeah?”
“What’s FTL like?”
Rylee almost laughed. No wonder she’d detected the chilly attitude instantly, the question had been so guileless and honest that it was clear that disliking anybody just wasn’t in Arés’ nature.
“You know what’s weird about it? No special effects.” she said. “Like, none. It’s really undramatic, y’know?”
He pulled a bowl of soaked beans out of the fridge. “None at all?”
“Nope. It’s one of those weird quirks of how it all works, right? You’d think you’d see Lorentz contraction and blue-shifting and whatever, but in fact you’re not moving at lightspeed, technically.” She held one hand up like a spaceship and orbited it with the other to illustrate the point. “As far as your own inertial frame of reference goes, you’re moving normally and it’s just that everywhere’s closer so you don’t have to travel as far. It’s only from the outside that you appear to be going faster than light. So, anyway, everything moves around, just way faster than usual. It’s all so far away that it’s just points of light, anyway.”
“Man, that sounds kind of disappointing.”
“It is!” Rylee agreed. “I jumped these two huge space stations into Earth orbit a few years back and that was just like-” she stuck a finger in her mouth and flicked it out again to create a popping sound. “And there’s a station there. Warp most of the way to the moon?” she snapped her fingers. “It just gets bigger. FTL’s actually kinda dull.”
“That’s kind of a shame.” Arés said. He’d produced some celery and a knife and cutting board and set about combining them with bewildering speed. It seemed impossible that he wouldn’t slice off a fingertip, but in fact he didn’t inflict so much a scratch on himself.
“Eh. I can live with shitty special effects.” Rylee said. “It’s still an exciting time to be alive, y’know?”
“True.”
“Speaking of shitty special effects…” BASEBALL stuck his head in the kitchen. “We’re watching the Power Rangers movie next, if you’re interested Major?”
“Oh man, I’ve not watched that since I was a kid!” Rylee stood up. “See you through there, Arés?”
“I’ll be a few minutes.” he said. “But sure.”
Rylee gave him her best smile and followed Burgess back through into the living area, pleased to have cleaned matters up. It would make the documentary so much easier.