Katie Kincaid Space Cadet

by Andrew van Aardvark

  Katie had shown she had what it took, despite significant handicaps. Katie was only going to improve from here on in. Katie was determined that’d be the case.

  Katie returned to her room strangely at odds. It was too late to join the other cadets drilling. The mess hall didn’t open for at least an hour. There was no more work to be done on the room or her kit. Katie had nothing that needed studying.

  Katie’s time was her own temporarily. The first time in a year.

  It felt strange.

  Strange not to feel worried and stressed too. Katie had not noticed how constant it was. She noticed it now that it was gone.

  Katie noticed something else new. A sense of genuine hope. She’d given into despair without realizing it. It was only her stubbornness and her grandmother’s admonishments that had kept her going.

  Katie decided to enjoy it. She had to remember she was only human. Just like her fellow cadets. She took off her outer tunic and carefully put it away.

  Then she lay down on her carefully made bed and had a nap.

  Katie’s first non-fitful rest in a couple of months and sorely needed.

  Katie intended to be ready for whatever the future threw at her.

  * * *

  Andrew was angry. Numb, too. Odd, you could feel both.

  He was sitting in his room in front of the terminal the cadets had been given to perform administrative tasks. He had the page for submitting a resignation up.

  Andrew hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to start writing one.

  Andrew couldn’t quite believe what had happened and didn’t want to make it real. Andrew couldn’t imagine how angry his father and the rest of the family were going to be when they heard the news.

  He needed to get on with it. It wasn’t that long until supper. Not only would missing a meal not help his fragile state, but the optics would be bad. Many of his fellow cadets would go on to be politicians, high-level bureaucrats, and leaders of commerce and industry after doing their Space Force stints. Andrew had to consider his reputation with them.

  The board had made it clear that, formalities aside, his Space Force career was over.

  Given his family’s traditions, that left only politics.

  First step in that direction was making sure it was clear he’d left the Space Force because it wasn’t what he wanted, not because of any personal deficiency.

  It was true that if you wanted to excel at academics that the Academy wasn’t the best place.

  Andrew could work with that. His family could help. His father and uncles wouldn’t be happy with him, but he could make it clear his looking bad would look bad for the family too.

  It was in the family’s best interest to get him into a good school. Arrange a prestigious scholarship, even.

  So go to a good school. Write, or have ghost written, some outstanding papers.

  Spend some time at a policy institution of some sort while helping with the campaigns of up-and-coming politicians.

  Eventually allow himself to be drafted into running for office.

  It could work. And it’d free him from the hypocritical and unrealistic standards of behavior expected by the Space Force, too. Wasn’t like he’d wanted to spend his life drifting around in a tin can surrounded by vacuum after all. Boring and not that safe.

  Andrew started to write that to his great regret he found that the Academy simply didn’t have the high academic standards he aspired to. Having proven that he had what it took to be an officer to himself, he now realized he needed to go somewhere that allowed him to excel academically.

  By the time he was done, Andrew had almost convinced himself.

  Almost.

  * * *

  Captain Svenson was inured to the world not necessarily giving him what he wanted. A man did his best, and then the enemy, fate, and luck all got their votes. He didn’t wallow in it when the universe failed to unfold as he wished.

  He did allow himself to feel a certain solid satisfaction when events went as desired.

  Katie Kincaid getting through BOTC was a win in his books.

  Svenson sighed. He hadn’t realized how emotionally invested he’d become in the girl’s fate. He put down his reader. He’d been trying to read a book on the links between Persian agriculture and the ability of the Sassanids to maintain their force of heavy cavalry. It had seemed a useful thing to do while he was traveling back to the Academy in a Space Force issued auto car.

  Svenson looked out into the dark of mid-western America. It was only sporadically broken by the odd light of widely spaced homes and farms. He didn’t see any answers there.

  Apparently he needed to digest what had happened with Kincaid.

  The final result was acceptable. How they’d gotten to it wasn’t so edifying.

  Kincaid might yet embarrass him. Svenson didn’t think it likely. In any event, it wasn’t a risk that bothered him.

  What her tribulations had shown did.

  Fact was the Space Force had got complacent during a peaceful time in which it had become no more than a glorified space going police force.

  That wouldn’t last.

  And when the day came, it was going to need people like Katie Kincaid. So it was good it would have her.

  Svenson also looked forward to maybe winning the gold in next year’s World biathlon.

  You took your wins where you found them.

  * * *

  It was dark. Past lights out. Susan was in her bed. She wasn’t sleeping. As far as she could tell, her roommates were.

  None of them were yet fully recovered from five weeks in the field and not enough sleep. Susan bigger and fitter than many of the men even had suffered less than most. Still didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling bone tired. Not as tired as she had been, but she ought to be sleeping.

  It had been an ordeal. One she wanted to think about. Susan liked to take her time and think about things at leisure.

  Susan knew she had a reputation as being cold and unfeeling.

  Susan felt this was unfair. She thought her peers inclined to overindulging themselves emoting about things that weren’t worth it.

  And perhaps not caring enough about things that did matter. Maybe because they didn’t want to think about those.

  Whatever.

  The fact was, she’d been surprised at how relieved she was that Katie had managed to pass the review board. She hadn’t realized how worried she’d been by it. Susan had grown attached to Katie.

  At first she’d befriended and helped the young Belter girl mostly out of annoyance at their peer’s unfair attitude to her. That and to be honest, a cold calculation that she’d help raise the profile of the biathlon team Susan was also a member of.

  That calculation had panned out, but somewhere along the line Susan had developed a genuine affection for Katie. She wondered why. She suspected that it was that Katie was a refreshing change from the rest of the other all too predictable cadets.

  Susan had been in danger of falling into a cynical go along to get along rut.

  Katie, brash, ambitious, and innocent as she was, had rescued Susan from that.

  Susan would have missed her.

  You never know what you have until you lose it.

  So, yeah, Susan was glad Katie had managed to eke out a pass.

  She was going to make a conscious effort to be a better friend to her in the future.

  And maybe now she could get some sleep.

  15: Sunny Days

  Katie woke early. It felt like an unearned luxury to be allowed to remain in bed until after the sun was up. She was happy. The night before had been one of the best of her life.

  She’d been on cloud nine already as the fact she’d passed the course penetrated.

  The pleasure with which her fellow cadets had greeted the news was just icing on the cake.

  Susan had gone so far as to give her a big hug. An unusual gesture from a girl sometimes referred to as the big blond ice queen. Katie figured that was unfair, but it was
true that Susan was not normally what you’d call emotionally demonstrative.

  More in character, Susan had organized a pizza and spit polish party. Taken up a collection and arranged for the pizza to be delivered.

  Katie had enjoyed that. At one time she’d wondered why, with all the modern materials available, the Space Force insisted on drill boots made out of real dead animal skins. Ones that could only be polished to a high gloss with considerable ongoing expenditure in time and effort.

  Now she thought she understood. The particular technology was obsolete. The concept that you needed to make the effort to keep all the kit you needed in good shape at all times wasn’t.

  That community could be built by doing things together and eating together was another fact that had remained constant. The other cadets had told stories about their lives and how they hoped to spend the balance of the summer that made them more real as people to Katie.

  Katie had herself admitted she was looking forward to exploring the New England woods around her grandmother’s place. She was hoping to learn how to canoe. Susan had thought that was a good idea.

  Katie was even looking forward to practicing her swimming in a natural lake.

  It was all good.

  Katie was sure she was going to have to work hard next year. She knew there’d be challenges.

  Only before she’d felt she was in an uphill fight alone.

  Not any more.

  * * *

  It was Wednesday morning as the cadets piled out of their barracks to form up on the pavement in front of it. It was their last day of practice before graduation.

  Colleen bumped into Katie in the rush. Katie gave her a big grin. Colleen grinned back. After she’d formed up and before their marching orders came, she had a few moments to contemplate that.

  Colleen was glad, guilty, and glad in turns.

  Colleen had been glad Katie had managed to pass. Katie had her rough spots, and she hadn’t seen much of her during the first part of the year, but she’d come to appreciate her more in the second half of it. Katie might stumble, but she picked herself up and kept going.

  Colleen felt guilty because she was convinced she could have been a better friend. She’d meant to stand up to Andrew during the prisoner escape, and she had to a degree, but not enough. She’d been too weak. She’d failed.

  Katie probably didn’t know Colleen had tried. Colleen wouldn’t have blamed Katie if she’d been mad at Colleen.

  Only she wasn’t. She seemed like she either didn’t blame Colleen in the first place or as if she was willing to let bygones be bygones.

  That made Colleen glad.

  It was looking like Katie would be a lifelong friend. A good one.

  Colleen intended to be a good friend, too.

  If that meant she had to learn to be stronger, that was good too.

  * * *

  Andrew had passed the Basic Officer’s Training Course. Despite having submitted his resignation and having had it quickly accepted that resignation wasn’t effective until midnight Friday, when the course formally ended.

  Technically, Andrew could have marched in the graduation parade along with his former classmates.

  It would have been odd though. Andrew had done as had apparently been expected and elected not to. Best to make a clean, quick, largely unnoticed break as far as the other cadets were concerned.

  Andrew certainly didn’t want to answer any questions they might have. As soon as his resignation had been accepted, he’d asked for and been given permission to rent a room off base.

  He could have spared himself further pain by going straight home. He hadn’t.

  Andrew was watching the graduation parade from the back rows of the grandstand set up for proud families and friends.

  Andrew hadn’t been honest.

  He hadn’t been honest with his fellow cadets, Kincaid, and most of all he hadn’t been honest with himself. He’d come more or less clean with the review board, but he didn’t know himself how much of that was due to his suspecting he had no choice.

  That lack of honesty had cost him dearly.

  In the future, he was going to be unrelentingly honest with himself. When ever he felt he might be backsliding he’d remember this day, and this parade, and the pain the lack of such honesty had cost him.

  If he should feel the need to be less than honest with others, he’d be cold and deliberate about it. He’d be careful. Hopefully, he’d learned an important lesson for an aspiring politician.

  As for Katie Kincaid, his future would be free of her for a few years at least.

  In an ideal world, their paths would never cross again. He’d had enough of Kincaid for one lifetime.

  Too bad the world wasn’t ideal.

  He had ambitions. He thought Kincaid did too.

  Somehow he had the sense they’d clash.

  Sometime years from now, thankfully.

  * * *

  It was a lovely late summer day.

  Warm without being hot. A light cooling breeze, and a benevolent not harsh sun.

  The strains of Force of Light, the Space Force anthem, drifted over the parade ground. Tradition might not make sense, but it served a purpose.

  Katie could barely imagine that a year ago this was all strange. Unfamiliar and not making any sense she could discern.

  She was inured to weather now. A bright summer’s day on a paved surface had nothing on slogging through Fall rains, Winter snow drifts, or the mud of Spring.

  “The Space Force in its immense generosity pays you to stand around in the sunshine and listen to music,” she could remember her marine drill instructors yelling. “It’s a wonderful life isn’t it, cadets?” She remembered thinking it was cruel sarcasm. Now she recognized the cynical, humorous, literal truth of the words.

  What a difference a year can make.

  “Caadeets! Aaa-tenn-SHUN!”

  Snap. Bang. Katie came to attention with the rest of her graduating class. All in perfect unison.

  Which was after all the point of drill. To practice working in unison, automatically and without need for conscious effort, with the rest of one’s unit.

  To work as one despite whatever initial differences you might have had as individuals.

  The band struck up a march.

  “Caadeets! By your right! Leeffft, TURN!”

  One, two, turn. One, two, bring foot down. Crash.

  The moves were instinctive now. Embedded in muscle memory for all of them.

  “Caadeets! By your right! Foorrrwaard, MARCH!”

  And they were off.

  Their graduation parade had begun.

  As always, Katie was happy to be moving. In step with her fellows, her arms swinging in the same jaunty manner. It was a glorious day, and she didn’t doubt it was going to be one of the happiest of her life. There’d be trials in the future. There’d been trials in the last year. Those were past, the present was good, and she’d deal with the future when it came. Remembering today would be part of that.

  They were coming up on the podium where the school’s commandant and the base commander were waiting.

  “Caadeets! To your right! Saaa-LUTE!”

  Up, one, two, three, down. Katie saluted their commander in unison with the rest of her squadron.

  With them, she marched into place. They halted and were allowed to stand at parade rest awaiting the commandant’s speech.

  Her eyes front, Katie could only see the back of the cadet in front of her. It was Colleen McGinnis’ back as it happened. Colleen had been a friend from the start. The others in the squadron, she knew them all and where each of them was without having to look, it’d taken longer to get to know.

  But in the end, she had.

  She knew everyone of them now. Not all of them were personal friends, but she knew she could depend on them. It’d been a rocky road acquiring that knowledge. There’d been times she wasn’t sure she could take another step. She had, though. Now here she was, with her classmates,
at the end of that road, about to graduate Basic Officer’s Training.

  The biggest step yet in the long journey she was on.

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