Chapter 14

My sister blatantly stepped in front of me, completely filling my field of vision with her black jumpsuited middle. It snapped me into reality and I jerked backward, the boot I was tying slipped off the bench and fell to the floor with a smack. My fingers, still in the laces, pulled my head downward toward the bench. I narrowly avoided bashing my face into it.

I looked up at her, put my boot back up and returned to tying it. “Looks like you’re ready,” I said. My cheeks and ears were burning and I wasn’t exactly sure why.

Erika glanced over her shoulder and then looked back to me. “Was she giving you a show or were you just being voyeuristic?”

“What?”

She flicked the side of my head. “Ow!” I yelped, jerking away.

Erika rolled her eyes. “You’ve been tying that boot for almost five minutes and starring at Celina failing to get into her jumpsuit.”

I finished the tie and looked up at her. “I was not,” I said indignantly. I straightened and looked over her shoulder. Celina was fighting with her jumpsuit trying to get it up over her shoulders. I jerked my eyes away, spun and sat down on the bench. “Was I?” Then it all came back to me.

Just as I was finishing, a drone had come in with a jumpsuit for Celina. She had immediately stripped down to nothing and started to dress. Thinking back on it, I felt like I wasn’t looking or paying attention, but I was and I had been. And I was enjoying it.

Erika sat down next to me on the side Celina was on. “You’re acting like a pervert.”

I put my elbows on my knees and put my head in my hands, running my fingernails over my scalp. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s not like you’ve never seen a naked woman before,” she said. “Sol. It’s not even like you’ve never seen Celina naked.” She looked over her shoulder at Celina for a second. “I mean, sure, she’s good looking, but you’ve seen better bodies than that plenty of times and never even blinked an eye.”

“Easy,” I scolded, then suddenly sat up straight. “You don’t think she realized I was staring do you?”

Erika laughed quietly. “If she did, she certainly didn’t mind.” She put her arm around my shoulders. “Now that I think about it a little, I can think of one other time you acted like this.”

“Melody,” I confirmed almost at once.

“Well good. Maybe we can have a double wedding.”

I cursed softly. “I think that’s going a little far. We have our first date set up tomorrow night, but how can we even be thinking about that when all this is going on.” I gestured around me.

Her arm still on my shoulder, she gave me a squeeze. “Not here,” she whispered. “We’ll be talking about all this once we get out of here.” She brought her voice back up to the quiet one we had been using this whole time. “Why don’t you go start the preflight and I’ll help Celina. We’ll meet you up there in just a bit.”

“I still don’t like this,” I said. “Bringing her along, I mean.”

“I know. Me neither, but it isn’t like we really have a choice.” She put her hand out in front of me and I dropped my hand into it. We pulled back simultaneously and our fingers snapped. We had been doing it our whole lives, and always brought a level of comfort to us just before a tough mission.

We stood together and turned in opposite directions. It would have been faster for me to go with Erika and just exit that side of the locker room, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk past Celina after what I had just done, so I took the slightly longer route. The extra few seconds were totally worth it, though admittedly when I passed the doorway I did look in. Erika was standing between the door and Celina, blocking her from my view. The gretter.

Thanks to Mother it didn’t take me long at all to get to the hanger we would be leaving from. The hanger wasn’t much different than any other hanger I had ever been in. Bulkheads protruded regularly leaving bays between that would easily fit eight fighters. The lights overhead were extremely bright and reflected off the white walls and floors. Everything had a very new feel to it, which I was unaccustomed to. It was like having your home that you have lived in your whole life replaced by a brand new exact duplicate, making the experience uncomfortable. The only major differences were the flight paths that exited. Where I was used to big hanger doors, I looked at shafts leading down and out of the ship.

As promised, the two fighters were waiting for my arrival. The Razor’s shape always reminded me of an arrow if someone were to make the flights a lot bigger and moved them up close to the front of the shaft. Each of the three massive wings were rounded at the front, but looked sharp from a distance no matter how they were painted; white in this case. The short triangular nose ended abruptly before the railgun that jutted out on top and the cockpit that followed close behind. The plasma cannon stuck out from each of its three wingtips by over a meter. It was never a beautiful fighter by any means, but it was perfectly designed for what it was intended for: space combat. A Razor was maneuverable and fast, with high powered weaponry.

The Jackal had some similarities to the Razor, but the differences were glaring. It lacked the top wing entirely and the plasma cannons, numbering only two, were stuck in close to the fuselage and were barely half the size. The fuselage itself was a little bulkier, needing more for its additional scanners and life support. The need for a second seat also extended the whole length of the ship by several meters. A railgun hid behind a port just in front of the cockpit, again half the size of the Razor. There was no front triangle, instead smoothly coming to a rounded nose like an atmospheric aircraft. Where the rear landing gear extended from the wings of the Razor, the Jackal’s wings were too thin and so the gear stuck out at angles from the back of the fuselage. While at rest, it looked like it was sitting on the wing tips.

Immediately going into the preflight of the Jackal I didn’t even notice the time pass before Celina and Erika showed up. I wouldn’t even have noticed that if Celina hadn’t climbed right into the surveillance seat. Neither one said a word to me which was more than fine by me. Erika began her preflight and Celina started going into her part of the preflight. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like she shook with every step up the ladder.

“Red,” Erika called at me as my preflight check carried me into the cockpit. I looked over at her and she tossed me a tiny device I didn’t recognize. “A gift from Jim,” she said to my look of inquiry and then tapped her ears. “Plug it into the delta port. Should save us an hour.”

Then I got it. What she was talking about was her little trick with the coms that would alert us when someone else was listening. She must have told the Senator about it and he must have had a quick device made. “You check it out yet?” I asked.

She stopped running her hand beneath the starboard thruster and looked over at me confused. “What are you talking about?”

I held it up. “Are you sure it will do the same thing?”

Her look of confusion stayed. I had no idea why I didn’t trust it, but for some reason, I really didn’t. Erika obviously trusted it completely. I looked up at Celina who had her head tilted back and was doing some kind of breathing exercise. Great.

“Never mind,” I said and continued with my preflight.

I was a little surprised that Celina had already finished her side of things and the surveillance packages were already standing by to be engaged. That in itself saved me over half an hour of preflight. It was maybe only a half hour more before we were all three helmeted and the engines were running. Erika and I were both pretty amazed. The engines weren’t causing the seats to shake in the least. Without saying a word, we lifted off as one and began to hover. I took in a deep breath of the ships air and exhaled slowly.

I set the coms to be just between Erika, Celina and I and then click them on. “Something unbelievably important just occurred to me,” I said. “Celina needs a callsign.”

“I need a what?” Celina said, sounding like she was on the verge of panicking.

Erika laughed. “A callsign. We need something to call you so we aren’t using your real name while we’re in flight. It’s tradition.”

I smiled at her, feeling very separated from her. By her response, I knew she was on the same page as me. Celina was terrified and was in desperate need of being calmed down. The best way to do that was to include her in every way possible. “You got any ideas, Valkyrie?”

“Not sure,” she hedged. “How full is her waste bag?”

“What?”

I checked the screen, “Empty,” I said with disappointment.

“Sol!” Erika exclaimed. “There’s a whole string I could’ve thought up if she was gretting herself.”

I laughed and the sound of Celina’s nervous laughter filtered into my ears. “She hasn’t vomited yet either so all my ideas are out the airlock.”

“Wait a minute,” Celina demanded. Her voice was clearing quickly. “Why do you guys get to choose?” she asked.

“Again,” Erika said with false impatience, “its tradition. I mean, you don’t think Red picked his own callsign do you? It doesn’t even make any sense. There isn’t anything on him that’s red.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “And when everyone started calling Erika Valkyrie she was furious, which made it fit even more. Valkyrie, didn’t you even punch the guy that came up with it in the mouth?”

“No!” she said derisively. Then after a long pause she said, “I kicked him in the mouth.”

Celina burst into laughter and my muscles relaxed a bit. She was letting go of her nervousness, which was the whole point of this. Obviously we couldn’t get rid of it all together, but we had to show her that we weren’t worried because there was nothing to worry about.

The coms squealed quietly to let us know someone else was listening and Utkin’s voice said, “Recon One, Red, it appears the three of you are ready, what’s the holdup.”

“I apologize, Sir,” I said, still keeping my tone light. “We realized after we went gear-up that Celina didn’t have a callsign. We can’t leave until she has one, Sir.”

“Good point, Red,” she replied without skipping a beat. “Do you have any options yet?” I was really starting to like Fleet Admiral Utkin.

“Not yet, Sir,” I said. “But I was thinking it should have something to do with her being in politics.”

“Agreed,” she said.

“Ticks are like parasites or something right? Don’t they suck blood too?” Erika said.

“Please,” Utkin scoffed. “That’s the oldest tope in the book. Besides, everyone knows that politicians suck life force, not blood.”

“Succubus?” I offered.

Erika burst into laughter immediately. I think she was trying to talk but she was laughing too hard. Beneath that, I could vaguely hear a room of people laughing as well. Then I heard Erika cut her mic off while she tried to contain herself.

“We have a winner,” the Admiral said with an audible smile.

“Now, wait one gretting minute,” Celina began hotly.

“Clear the channel, Succubus,” the Admiral said with authority. “Recon One, you are cleared through fighter bay exit three-seven, repeat, cleared to exit through fighter bay three-seven. Confirm.”

“Did she just tell me to shut my mouth?” Celina asked.

I fought back laughter, but I was sure everyone could hear it in my voice. “Confirmed, Protostar. Recon One and Two exiting via fighter bay three-seven.”

Erika and I nudged the throttle forward and headed for the exit. I felt much more comfortable with the mission, but I worried that would change before we got to Mercury.

As we exited the base, Celina muttered, “I’ll kick her in the mouth.”