Orbital Academy 10

"Lieutenant Center, you are drunk," Jane laughed, grabbing his drink from him as he groped for it.

"I think we've all earned a good drunkening, Lieutenant Cripshaw ma'am," Center pulled off a perfect salute that melted into a awkward muddle at the end, sending the whole squad into laughter.

"He's got a point Lieutenant," Lily grinned, lifting her hand to indicate another round of drinks.

"This 'calling each other Lieutenant' crap is gonna get old real fast, knock it off," Patrick growled good naturedly.

"Aw c'mon Patrick," Jack-pip elbowed him, "do you know how fuckin' miserable those exams were? We worked our asses off for the right to call each other Lieutenant."

"And anyways, we're Lieutenants too now! You no longer outrack us, *squaddie*" Jane teased. The rest of the squadmates burst into laughter again, and for the rest of the meal took great delight in refusing him every time he asked for a chip or another drink. The squaddies chatted and talked long past the mess hall's normal closing hours, until one by one they wandered off towards the barracks, going to sleep early in preparation for the big day tomorrow.

"How long we known each other now, Rook?" Patrick asked thoughtfully, after Acren had left, leaving the only Jane and him alone at the table..

"Come on Patrick, when are you gonna stop calling me that?" Jane whined, "it's been two years since I was a rookie."

"I've been your teacher for those two years, I'm allowed," Patrick puffed up his chest, "I can call you whippersnappers whatever the hell I want." He grew serious again,"but listen Jane. We've gotten close, over these years, yea? It's not just me who feels it?"

"Course it's not just you," the serious tone was sobering, and she didn't like it, "what kinda question is that? You're my best friend, you know that. What's the deal with you this evening?"

"I know that. And you're the best friend I have Jane-"

"Your only friend," Jane muttered, but Patrick made an impatient motion as if brushing her smartass comment aside.

"I just think...things can be different, now that I'm your teammate instead of your instructor. Can't they?"

"Patrick," Jane rolled her eyes, "if this is about my promise to fuck you when you weren't my instructor anymore, you don't need to worry, I haven't forgotten. I mean, if you're still interested..."

"Need I remind you that *you're* the one who's been forcing us to wait this long. I would've dropped my pants for you the first day." Patrick grinned, but he still seemed hesitant.

"What?" Jane asked. She was starting to get worried, self-conscious, "you *do* still want me too, don't you? Or has getting to know me better soured your feelings about me?"

"What? No!" Patrick seemed startled, "the opposite, actually. The more I get to know you, the more I enjoy your company."

"Then what's the problem?"

"I'm just interested in more with you. More than just the fucking."

Jane blinked, trying to gauge if he was being serious.

"What do you mean...'more' like dating?"

Patrick spread his hands in response, clearly waiting to see what she thought of the idea. Jane sat stunned for a moment, hope and disbelief warring inside her. Before the academy Patrick had simply been a hot guy in a uniform, someone convenient. In the first year with him as her instructor she had developed a schoolgirl crush, one that she only resisted because, true to his word, Lieutenant Appet had never made another advance to her. In the second year, Pilot Cripshaw's crush had matured into a fierce loyalty and friendship, a relationship somewhat deeper but plagued by sexual tension. She knew he saw her as a good friend, and she was fairly sure that he looked forward to their promised fucking almost as much as she did...but that he felt the same affection about her had never crossed her mind.

"I think..." Jane said slowly, "that that would be alright." The grin that broke across his face was instant, warming her from the inside out.

"Just as an experiment, to see how it works out," she warned, "I'm sure I'll fuck it up eventually, so be prepared for that."

"Oh I'm sure you will," Patrick teased. In spite of herself, Jane grinned back at him. The warm feeling wasn't going away...there he was, her schoolgirl crush, her hero, her first, and he looked as happy about having her as she had ever seen him before. *Not to mention how fucking hot he is...* Jane mentally added. The warmth in her heart was spreading to other areas...areas that needed his attention.

"So...how about that fuck?" she cut straight to the point, not bothering with coyness or subtlety.

"Believe me when I say how much I want it," Patrick chuckled, "but we've got a planetary to run and not a lot of time to sleep for it. We've waited this long, let's give it one more night." Jane wanted to argue, but it *was* her first planetary. She would need to be at the top of her game tomorrow.

"One more night," she growled, rising from the table, "after that I'm coming for you, Appet."

"Oh you definitely will be," Patrick grinned.

Shocked that she had left him with such a clear opening, Jane turned up her nose and walked away with a sniff.

***

"Attention temp pod, this is Pilot Gammon, we are within range and ready to latch tow lines," the comm crackled. The others were awake, and Captain Appet could feel their eyes on her as she walked across the small pod to reach the comms.

"Roger that Pilot Gammon," she said without feeling, "bracing for impact."

The pod shuddered as the towlines his, and the entire room jerked as Gammon began pulling them towards the orbital. Jane held onto the desk, staring blankly at the dull lights to avoid turning and meeting the gaze of Li, Aimee, Missy and Jackson. Her four surviving rookies. Pulsing blue indicators on the dash showed that the others were technically still alive, somewhere, or at least alive enough that their bodies were still powering their subdermal computers. Jane turned her back on the display. She would rather meet the others' gaze than be watching when the lights went out. None of the rookies met her eyes. *They're never going to forgive me,* Jan realized, *hell, I can't even say that I blame them.*

***

"GET INTO THE FUCKING POD," Jane shrieked, her fingers hovering over the red button, eyes wide with horror. Lily stumbled as she ran down the hill towards the ground team's temp pod, but miraculously was able to turn the stumble into a roll. To Jane's left, Arthur was taking shots at the Terrans whenever they showed themselves from behind the trees, but the blue-haired combatants were using some kind of shielding; sending the shots wide or absorbing them. Lily lost her footing yet again, which saved her life as a gout of blue flame flew past where she had been standing a moment ago. With a final burst of speed, Lily threw herself into the pod, and Jane slammed the button down.

Arthur continued suppressive fire until the walls of the ground pod closed completely, while Jane flicked the switches to set the engines began spinning. The pod shook as it slowly rose from the ground, hammered from the outside by blue fire, but the damage wasn't enough to keep them from taking off. Jane glanced around the room, confirming that Arthur and Lily were safely inside as the pod rose slowly into the air.

"It's alright, we're all inside, we're all okay," Arthur said soothingly, reading her distress with the help of the CPU in his head. Jane slumped to the ground, shaking.

"They came so fast!" She said with a shuddering breath, "how did they find us so fast?"

"Ground team come in, are you safe?" Patrick's voice sounded strained on the comms.

"We're safe, just took off," Lily gasped, holding her side, "everyone accounted for, we'll hit the fog layer and be away in a few minutes. How about you?"

"We're...we're not doing too well."

Jane identified a tone that she had missed the first time and sprang to the window. With the rising motion of the pod, Jane had to scan the sky for a moment before she caught sight of the satflyer.

There were creatures swarming the satflyer. Though they were hard to make out at distance, Jane thought she could count about six or seven of them. They flitted back and forth, first hovering, then moving quickly in sharp, straight angles of flight. The satflyer's guns were firing off in brief but constant bursts of fire, seeming more focused on keeping the creatures at bay than at hitting them.

"Air team this is ground team," Jane could hear Lily trying to keep calm, "we're away! Get out of there!"

"Roger that ground team," even as Patrick's voice sounded over the comms, escape pods began firing out from the top of the satflyer, leaving long columns of smoke in their wake. Jane counted them as they flew up into the fog. *...two...three...*

"Everyone's out!" Lily was no longer using proper transmission protocols, but no one cared. They were all transfixed by the sight of the satflyer, and by the tiny specks that were attacking it.

"Patrick, take off! Everyone's safe!" Lily's voice had risen to a high pitch.

"We're not safe," Jane said quietly, with horror. The temporary pod had risen quite a ways before the creatures noticed it, but now they were beginning to group up into two separate swarms. Four of them continued harassing the satflyer, swooping in close and then ducking back in the air when the guns opened fire. The second group of four had swung around, and were heading towards the ground pod.

"They know we don't have weapons," Jane realized aloud. The pod had grown deathly silent. "Patrick, those...things are coming at us," Lily said, her voice grim, "they know we can't keep them away."

"Copy that, ground team. How much longer before you hit the fog?"

"...one and a half minutes."

*Too long,* Jane felt herself slipping into a strange sort of morbid calm. The creatures would reach the defenseless ground pod before they hit the fog.

The flying things were close enough that Jane could see their features now. They were naked women, or at least partly so. Their arms were warped and twisted, forming wide feathered wings. At the knee their skin became tough and leathery, ending in three-toed claws. Their mouths were a little too big to seem human, their eyes a little too wild. Although she'd never seen a Harp in person, Jane had heard enough to know what they were capable of.

"Ground team..." Patrick paused for a moment.

*He'd better finish his sentence quick,* Jane thought dully, *it won't take the Harps long to rip through the walls once they get to us.*

"...listen, Arthur, you know me better than anyone, with your chip. You know what I'd have to say."

"Don't you fucking dare," Arthur roared into the comm, but Patrick was still talking, his speech rushed now.

"Lily, that thing we talked about last week? The answer is yes, of course yes. You've always been strong enough, and I've always known that." Jane looked confusedly back and forth between her squaddies. Arthur looked furious, Lily's eyes were watering.

*Why is he bothering to tell us things like this now?* she wondered, *why does it matter when he knows we're about to die?*

"And Jane...listen," she had never heard him sound so deadly serious, which was appropriate, she supposed, "it would've worked. You weren't some experiment to me. It would've worked all the way to the end, all the way until you were Mrs. Lieutenant Appet."

The full realization of what he was about to do hit Jane just as the first shots grazed the pod. The Harps that were attacking them were caught completely off-guard; Jane could see the shocked expression on the face of one as it was blown away. The other three spun, trying to dodge and spin out of the way of the barrage that the satflyer was firing. A second Harp was blown out of the sky, and the other two broke off, spinning in quick dives towards the surface to escape. Jane's attention wasn't on them, it was on the satflyer itself. As soon as the guns had turned to assist the temp pod, the first group of Harps had swung in, using sharp claws and oversized tough teeth to rip away strips and bites of metal from its sides.

Jane couldn't cry, couldn't look away, as the specks disappeared from sight, crawling through the holes and into the satflyer. The windows of the pod were suddenly obscured, covered by roiling green fog.

"P-Patrick no," she gasped, "no no no no." Her mind seemed fractured somehow, broken into pieces that refused to carry a thought from beginning to completion.

"Patrick no," if she said it enough times, it wouldn't be true, "no, I love you, no"

The comm crackled, his voice staticky through the distortion of the fog.

"I love you too Jane."

The screams only filled the radio for a few seconds before she slammed her hand down on the switch, shutting it off. She wasn't sure when it stopped and when it was replaced with her own screaming. In one of the fractured pieces of her mind she thought his scream might never stop.

***

Captain Appet tried to ignore the ten-year-old scream, as fresh in her memory as if she had heard it a few seconds ago, as the doors of the pod hissed open. Behind her Li and Aimee stood on either side of Missy, Jackson a little ways off but still clearly supporting the group. Jane was grateful for that, at least. Knowing that the rookies would be able to lean on each other took a small portion of the weight off of her mind. She realized with a start that the door was open, and the hangar in front of them was relatively packed with people. *They don't know,* Jane realized, *none of them know yet.* It seemed perverse, that such a horrible thing had happened and these people didn't know about it.

Her eyes wandered over the assembled people for a few moments. Her old team were there, Lily, Arthur, Jake-pip and Center. Arthur was frowning, stepping forward; he had already read the entire mission on her face. There were several teams of scrub, some Captains and Lieutenants. There was a healthy portion of Rookies there as well. *Do my rooks have friends in their year?* she thought with surprised. General Auspus was directly in front of the pod, one eyebrow raised in a question. Jane cleared her throat, and spoke to the entire group. She already knew the words, Lily had spoken them when she, Arthur, and Jane returned from their last planetary run.

"There was trouble on the mission. We're the only survivors."