Orbital Academy 19

"Now the problem is that we'll need to cut off our lines to the existing generators before we hook up the new ones. No sir, cut them off completely." Jackson stroked up and down around her slit, his fingers slick with her juices. Whenever he saw her firm grip on the console loosen, he would change what he was doing and get her excited anew.

"I understand there's a risk sir, but your teams are the best at what they do, and they are all saying it can be done. Yes, technically it will cut our life support, but only for a few seconds."

Jackson pulled his hand away, concerned. This suddenly sounded like more that the average throughput call, and while keeping Sam in optimal emotional condition was his top priority, distracting her while she was making potentially life-threatening calls would probably threaten that emotional condition.

Sam gave him a small smile over her shoulder and rubbed her butt in small circles in his lap, her smile widening into a grin when she felt his member harden against her. She then turned back to the call. Jackson consoled himself with watching the way her red locks bounced when her official voice got more animated.

"I know that depending on the engineers is a risk General Hunter, but personally I find it more of a risk to trust the Terrans than to trust the engineers. I think so sir, yes. The fact of the matter is, if we wait for the Terrans to cut the last lines, we leave ourselves open to more damage. Yes sir I agree. Alright sir, Chief Adamsly will let me know how that discussion goes. Yes sir, you too."

Samantha pulled her headset off with a sigh and leaned forward to rest her head on the console.

"You're hot when you're all professional, you know that?" Jackson teased

"I wouldn't really call it professional to have you doing...that...while I'm trying to talk to the General." Samantha murmured into the console.

"Sam, are you falling asleep with the console as a pillow?"

"No." Sam yawned again, her nose smudging the console. "Not until you finish what you started."

Jackson grinned. His fingers returned to their gentle sliding motions, and then without warning he slid a finger inside her. Samantha moaned and pushed her hips back, sliding his finger into her wet opening all the way down to his knuckle. She was surprisingly tight, and Jackson idly tried to remember when the last time he had penetrated her was.

Last month? Has it really been that long? He mused, as Samantha rocked her hips back and forth to slid his finger in and out of her warm sex. It was with Cynthia, so it would've been...what, back on Academy? There's no way...

"Oh god Jackson." Samantha breathed, snapping him back into the moment. He was yet again relieved that women couldn't read his mind. Even with the chip to refocus him, it would've made for several awkward moments. Samantha suddenly clenched the edge of the console hard, and her snached quivered and clenched at his finger. Jackson let her ride at her own pace as she came, moaning into the console as her body trembled. When she finally came down from her high, Jackson kissed the back of her head again. She gasped as he slowly withdrew his finger.

"God I needed that." She panted.

"Now I'm taking you to bed." Jackson said firmly, hoisting her to her feet and tugging her wet underwear back up.

"Mmm cot in the corner." She mumbled. Jackson noticed the small bed for the first time, and helped her walk to it unsteadily.

"I'm going to go stop by sick bay, will you promise to actually sleep?"

"Say hi to Cynthia for me." Samantha had already collapsed into the cot, eyes half-shut.

"Oh I will." Jackson winked, and popped his finger in his mouth, sucking her juices off of it.

"Ew. You know I hate it when you do that." Samantha sighed.

"You love it almost as much as I do and we both know it." Jackson teased. Samantha was already asleep by the time he reached the door, a tired and satisfied smile on her face. The bulge in his pants cried out for attention, but the surge of dopamine he got when the "Force Sam to sleep" subtask ticked "Completed" was even better than an orgasm.

***

Jackson was having a problem unique to him when he entered the sick bay a little while later; similar to a feedback loop but with a little more hesitation. A series of priorities was warring for dominance within his chip, flipping back and forth in quick succession. As far as he could tell, as soon as he gave a certain task his attention, he could see the path to take to achieve it, and thus it felt just a tiny bit less urgent, driving the other one up into first place.

It was up to him, in these situations, to decide which he should follow, but he was so used to being told what to do by the CPU that he found the analysis paralysis intimidating. Luckily for him, both priorities took him to the sick bay.

Even more fortunately, Cynthia was sleeping on her cot, so the first priority sulkily slunk lower in his list. He turned instead to the beds on the other side of the wide, gleaming room, where his squaddy would be.

*>>Task 8223: Maintain squadmate relationships >> Subtask: increase perceived social connections by increasing connection with wounded teammate.*

After the darkness of the corridor and the dimness of the other rooms, the sick bay seemed blinding, but Jackson supposed that if anywhere needed full power while other rooms were rationed, it was here. Jackson stepped past the brilliant white curtains that gave the patients their privacy until he reached the very end of the room.

"Wow, you look so horrible Aimee!" Jackson rushed over to the side of her bed. "They told me it was bad, they didn't say your face had been so messed up in the crash! I...I'm sorry. It must be horrible for you, looking like that, you don't need me bringing it up even further." Tears built in his eyes, rather convincingly he thought.

"Sometimes you're even worse than Preston for asshole jokes, has anyone ever told you that?" Aimee growled from her bed. Her words were angry, but she grinned nonetheless.

"Seriously though, you look great. Sorry about the teasing, you know I had to." Jackson grinned back and sat at the foot of her bed, careful not to disturb her. Her leg would still be in pain, but she didn't have permanent injuries, an unheard-of luck for a pilot actually *caught* by a lake Drake. The only damage had been due to shearing metal pinching her leg into vice-like grip. No one was sure why the Drake hadn't destroyed the ships it caught, but given the damage that *had* occurred, Jackson wasn't the only one who was glad of it.

"Don't be sorry, I'd probably have made the same joke if I'd thought of it first. I don't know how you did it, but you managed to make me smile more in two minutes that some of the others all day. Even though you are officially the last squaddie to come visit me." Jackson wasn't quite sure what other people found so complicated about social interaction. Most peoples' buttons were so easy to find, and pushing them was just a matter of determining what buttons would lead to the result you wanted. In the space of a millisecond, Jackson expanded his priority's tasks down to the last detail.

*>> Subtask: increase connection with Aimee >> Subsub: lighten Aimee's mood >> Subsubsub: Increase boundaries of relationship >> Subsubsubsub: Affect a mock-enmity to provide non-threatening competition.*

"Eh, well, you know some of us are out there being useful with our lives, instead of laying in bed reading trashy romance novels." Jackson joked in an easy manner. Aimee threw her head back and laughed.

"I'll have you know these are the classiest of romance novels jackass." She chuckled. "Believe me, I'd much rather be running around and helping out. I will too, soon as I can get up on this leg."

"Well, I'll be sure to save the worst jobs for you then." Jackson glanced at the flowers on her bedside table. "I see Li has been here though, at least."

"Huh? Oh, the flowers. Yea, you'd think wouldn't you?"Aimee's face darkened. "The flowers are from Cap App. Li came by once or twice, but he was his same fucking- his same old self."

*>> Subsubsub: Assess whether romantic relationship in need of repair.*

"Trouble with your better half?" Jackson asked, concerned.

"I don't know. It's not like it was before, you know? I don't think it ever was."

"It was never the way it was huh? That's real clear Squadpet." Using her old hated callsign at least got a chuckle out of her, so Jackson counted it as a win.

"I just don't think there was ever a point where I sat down and thought 'I want Li to be my boyfriend', you know? We just...we screwed, and then we happened to screw again, and then we sort of happened. If I had ever stopped to consider him as my boyfriend, would I have chosen to be with him?"

"You're making the choice for him to be your boyfriend every second you're still with him." Jackson pointed out.

"Wow. I guess I didn't really think of it that way." Aimee frowned in thought. "That was really deep Jackson." Jackson didn't say anything, mostly because he hadn't thought it was that deep.

*It's just common sense, isn't it?*

"So I suppose that's the question, isn't it? Knowing what I know now, is it worth all of the...bullshit. He acts like I'm a burden instead of fun to be with. Sometimes I feel like I'm less of a girl he's into and more of just a hole he likes being inside, you know? Sometimes..." her voice lowered and she stared at the covers in front of her. "...sometimes I think maybe he's just a pole I like in me, instead of a boy I actually like being with. Does that make me a shitty person? Or just a slut? Am I such a horrible hypocrite that I'm pissed off at him for treating me kinda-sorta the same way I might feel about him?"

Jackson spent a moment wondering if the question was rhetorical, when a silvery voice called from the other side of the hospital room.

"Are you hogging my man over there?" Cynthia yelled.

"Does he really count as 'your' man if you've got a timeshare on his cock?" Aimee yelled back, her pensive look replaced by a grin.

"Yelling that kind of language, really?" Jackson stood and rolled his eyes, relieved that the awkward track of conversation had been interrupted.

"Payback for the 'messed up face' thing earlier." Aimee stuck her tongue out. "Jackson...thanks. As usual, you helped a lot. I mean that."

*>>Subsubsub: Transition from mock-enmity to gesture of friend-level intimacy. Replicated friend-level intimacy by stating redundancies.*

"Yea, well, out of the nine of us it stands to reason one of us squaddies would be halfway helpful." He said, then turned serious. "But really Aimes; you have to do what you have to do. If Li isn't satisfying you, you won't be happy until you find someone who does. And if you're not happy, you won't be the best girlfriend to him either."

"God, when did you get all smart all of a sudden? Get out of here you fuckin' wiseman." Aimee threw a small pillow at him, and when he left Jackson could almost feel their relationship grow stronger.

*That makes full close-friendship with the entire set, besides Tess and Julia.* He thought, satisfied as the priorities ticked over in his head.

Cynthia was sitting up in her bed, something that the doctors told her not to do. He knew it was useless to argue with her about.

"Don't even start." She said, apparently interpreting his look. "I feel so cooped up in here I can barely stand it, I had to at least change my view from the ceiling tiles. I don't know what the big deal is about it anyways."

"You've been shot!" Jackson said, exasperated.

"Details." Cynthia wrapped her arms around Jackson's neck as he kissed her, deep and enthusiastically. "Oh god, you taste like her!" She broke away from the kiss and looked at him, her look halfway between accusation and desire. Jackson glanced around them, unsure of how much sound the curtains blocked out, and Cynthia lowered her voice obligingly.

"You were eating Samantha out before you came here you selfish jerk!" Cynthia licked her lips as if to collect every hint of the taste from them.

"How is that selfish? Sam's got needs, she's my girlfriend, I have to take care of her." Jackson protested, though he kept his voice down.

"But she's my girlfriend too! I want to 'take care of her'! And I want to take care of my boyfriend too." Cynthia pouted. "Why can't you guys just come get me next time?"

"You've been shot!" Jackson repeated.

"This is so unfair, I hated being cooped up like this even before I knew you two were screwing around without me."

"There's not a lot of time to be screwing around, unfortunately." Jackson remarked. "Not with everything going on recently."

"Oh god! I've been trying to ask around but it seems like no one knows everything and everyone is too busy to explain what they do know! You have to tell me! Are there really Terrans on the Orbital?" Cynthia grabbed Jackson's hand as if he would escape, her previous pout apparently forgotten.

"It's not exactly something to be excited about." Jackson pulled up a seat and sat down, a little surprised at how worn out he was. He was tempted to review how many hours of sleep he had tallied in the last few weeks, but his CPU kept him on track. "Have you heard of Shrike attacks before?"

"Yeah, I've heard of them, but I didn't know they included Drakes, and I've never heard of them actually making it to the Orbital."

"That's because this is the first one of its kind. We call any attack of would-be invaders a 'Shrike', but there's really three different kinds." Jackson ticked them off on his fingers. "The first is a wave of little Drakes; we're not sure if they're babies or just smaller versions, but we do know that they're a lot easier to put down. The second kind is a group of Terrans, alone without ships, just flying out of the fog towards the Orbital. I've seen the vids, and it's completely terrifying, especially since they're firing weapons the entire time. They're also pretty easy to handle though; you don't even have to hit them to take them out, just fire the munitions close enough and it knocks them off course and sends them flying off into space."

"That's horrible! What a nasty way to go!" Cynthia looked offended.

"They kind of ask for it for flying out towards us in the first place. But anyways, the third kind is full of these little bird things. We're...well, we're not entirely sure what the bird things do. We shoot them down just in case, but we've never seen them do anything."

"So what kind was this Shrike?"

"It was Terrans riding on top of the baby Drakes, more than we've ever seen before, and joined by a full-sized lake Drake."

"Holy shit!" Cynthia breathed.

"So they actually made it here. Landed on the surface and started digging, that's probably when you heard about it."

"I heard we were evacuating, they didn't tell us why. They didn't tell us how they decided who was leaving on ships and who was staying though."

"I think it was just a mad dash." Jackson said. "Anyone they could get on the ships, they got on ships and out. Anyone they couldn't they moved in here."

"'Here' being?"

"The center of Pivot. We've got shielding system set up, so if the Terrans get too close we can slam it up. So far they haven't been able to get through."

"Wait so-" Cynthia was interrupted by the sound of the door opening, and Jackson turned to look at the curtain that lay behind them. There were several pairs of feet walking towards Aimee's bed, and Jackson felt a knot in his stomach at the sound.

"H...hello there?" Aimee sounded as if she was asking a question rather than stammering a greeting.

"Look at this girl's injuries." The growl of General Hunter was full of so much hatred it was almost unrecognizable. "And tell me again how it's not your fault."

*** Part 3 - Grains of Sand ***

He probably shouldn't be embarrassing the Academy rookie like this, and she did look rather embarrassed, but General Hunter was too angry to care.

"Jesus Hunter, you don't have to do this." General Winchest looked at the Academy rookie sadly, as she glanced uncertainly back and forth between them.

"Rookie Nesbit, please inform the new General of Orbital Academy about the extent of your injuries." Hunter pressed.

"Nothing too bad sir." Aimee Nesbit shrugged, and the brief motion was apparently enough to shake her leg, and she winced. "I could've been messed up a lot worse, but I just took some incidental damage to my leg."

"How would you rate the combat, Rookie Nesbit?"

"It...it wasn't really a combat sir, speaking frankly. It was a bloodbath. There just weren't enough ships, not with the Drake picking us off as easily as it was. Us Rookies hadn't ever been on a Shrike mission before, and those energy weapons they were using were...intimidating, to say the least."

"I get it, Hunter. I get your point." The wizened General Winchest seemed even more worn down and aged than he normally did. "There's no need to pester the poor girl any longer."

"Thank you Rookie Nesbit." General Hunter gave a fierce nod of approval before he realized that it would mean nothing to her. She was Academy trained, and raised god-knows-where, so she wouldn't know how rare he gave out his approval.

It seemed strange to him, that he had known the Academy rooks for so short a time. Even with the separation that was typical between a General and an entry-level, he had interacted with them more than the majority of his pilots, and they'd been in his thoughts even when he wasn't interacting with them. He mused as the two Generals made their way out of sick bay, jerking a nod of greeting to Rookie Rade as they left. Errisa liked Rade, something about 'solidarity among synthetics'.

"That was a low blow Hunter." General Winchest's tired protests brought Hunter out of his reverie. "You could've just made your point without layering on the guilt."

"You deserve the guilt." General Hunter snapped. "By all the covenants man, I've got fucking Terrans aboard my Orbital, and they've torn it apart from tip to tip. I'm at half-crew, our supplies are dwindling, and we're down to two generators that will only last until the Terrans out there decide to rip them out. And all of this could've been avoided."

"We don't know that." Winchest protested, but they both knew it was a weak argument.

"We know that we'd have had a shot at repelling them if the Academy ships had gotten here in time."

"My ships got here in time to evacuate half of Pivot."

"Not enough. You didn't get here in time to *help* when it mattered. And why?"

"Because you refused to accept the very reasonable deal I offered."

Hunter stopped and jabbed a finger into the other General's chest.

"Because you decided that politics and posturing was more important than the lives and safety of my men and women. And now you want me to trust that you'll take care of those same men and women? I should send you past the shield and let you talk to the Terrans."

"The Terrans would probably be easier to talk to." Winchest ran a hand through his hair, and at the small gesture Hunter almost forgave him. He was an old man, wise and experienced, but none of that experience meant he would make a good General. With General Poulay whispering her tripe into his ear, it was no wonder that he made bad calls so early in his career, and it was also no wonder that he was feeling overwhelmed at the moment.

"I've got too much to deal with to have this discussion twice Winchest, and I'm sure you plan on bringing it up at the meeting."

"Whether or not I let you down, Hunter, we made a deal, and my ships came. We helped you, risked our resources to help you, and there are enough of us stuck here that we're affected just like you."

"Save it for the meeting." Every cell of General Hunter was weary, he could feel the exhaustion seeping into his joints and bones, but there was still far too much to do to allow him to rest. "I understand you're in a rough spot, but I'm afraid I don't have the time to work it out with you."