by Zen DiPietro
“No.” She wanted to keep talking to him, but she began to drift off again.
“Something’s coming,” he murmured. “I feel it.”
“Go to sleep.” Her words were slurred with fatigue. “If the boogeyman comes, I’ll protect you.”
He chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “Okay, let’s sleep.”
He was right, though. Something was coming.
Emiko always approached flight training with absolute delight. It didn’t matter if it was hand-calculating vectors or weight loads or actually flying. She loved it all.
Especially the flying. As she took her seat in the classroom, she wondered what they’d be doing that day. Simulators, probably.
When her instructor, Captain Martinez, entered wearing a flight suit, Emiko perked up.
“I have good news and bad news today,” Martinez said. She was a fit woman in her forties, with short brown hair and an odd sense of humor.
Emiko liked her.
“The bad news is that some of you have come as far as you’re going to in the flight program. If you’re still here, that means you’ve been rated for small atmospheric crafts and cruisers up through class four. So, congratulations on that—those PAC flight ratings are hard to come by.” Martinez looked slowly around the room.
Emiko remained still, but she heard others shifting around nervously.
“If I call your name, the good news is that you will now have additional time to focus on your other studies. The final six months of the academy are notorious for their difficulty, which is why we thin out the flight program at this point.” Martinez recited name after name. Most did not surprise Emiko, but a few students shuffled out with obvious disappointment.
What did surprise her was that in the end, only she and one other remained.
Martinez smiled at them. “Congratulations, Emiko and Belen.”
They looked at each other. Belen was an intense Bennite she barely knew. He kept to himself, though she’d been curious about him. He wasn’t pursuing medicine, which made him unusual among his people.
Every planet needed a complement of all professions, including pilots, but unusual people interested her. However, he’d struck down any attempts at friendliness from anyone. Emiko had had to find out what little she knew about him via the voicecom.
She wondered if he might be competition for clandestine ops.
“I have good news and bad news for you, too,” Martinez continued. “You’ll be doing your first atmospheric launches today.”
Emiko contained herself with great effort. It wasn’t easy to hide the elation filling her chest like a balloon behind a mask of indifference.
She was still working on that.
“Will we be co-piloting with someone?” Belen asked.
“Here’s the thing about atmospheric launches,” Martinez said. “You’ve both launched via the simulators hundreds of times. Even when malfunctions and errors are intentionally created, you handled them as well as any experienced pilot. At this point, there is nothing for you to learn from shadowing someone else. You’ll each be piloting your own vessel.”
Should Emiko feel nervous about that? She dug deep, looking for a sense of foreboding, but didn’t find it. She felt only the sweet singing of adrenaline running through her veins.
Still, she hid all of that behind a mask of indifference.
“I’m glad to see you’re pleased.” Martinez looked amused.
Damn. Clearly, Emiko still needed to work at being inscrutable.
“So that’s it for now,” their teacher concluded. “Go change into your flight suits, pack an overnight bag with everything you’ll need for the weekend, and meet at the launchpad in three hours. Dismissed.”
Emiko steeled herself to walk normally when she really ached to run.
A solo atmospheric launch. This was huge.
She couldn’t wait.
Emiko ate a quick lunch in her room as she packed and changed, hoping to maximize her time there so she might see Drew before she left. No luck, though. He was used to her having weekend flight training, so he wouldn’t be too surprised to find her gone.
She left him a message on the voicecom and a handwritten note, which amused her. Notes to him were the only thing she wrote out by hand. Something about it was just more personal than a message on the voicecom.
Sometimes she drew a picture for him, too. In her opinion, her utter lack of artistic skill made her drawings endearing.
She tried to sketch a ship, but it looked more like a rock. She tried adding some lines beneath it, to suggest propulsion, but that made it look more like a faucet pouring water.
It was the thought that counted.
She hopped a tram to take her to the launchpad, a full hour away from campus. She wondered at the launch procedure to come. Atmospheric flights needed a lot of thrust to escape the atmosphere, so they couldn’t just set up two ships side by side. Maybe they had a remote location for a second launch, or maybe she and Belen would take off on different days.
The details didn’t matter. She was thrilled to be going on this adventure, no matter what shape it might take.
She had to admit that, as she walked into the flight command center, wearing her flight suit and knowing she was about to launch into space, she felt pretty badass. This was a moment she’d dreamed of her whole life. She savored every step.
It wasn’t every day a dream finally came true.
At the reception desk, she gave her name along with that of Captain Martinez. A stern young man escorted her down a short hall to what appeared to be a meeting room.
Captain Martinez was already inside, but the student sitting next to her wasn’t Belen.
It was Drew.
When he looked up to see her, his expression of surprise felt like a mirror of her own reaction.
Emiko said nothing. She bowed deeply to Martinez in deference to her rank, and gave the shallow bow of a fellow student to Drew. Then she sat, waiting for answers.
Martinez cleared her throat. “You’ve no doubt guessed that this isn’t just a training mission. The two of you have been paired to see how you work together, as well as how you perform your essential duties.”
Emiko eyed Drew, wondering exactly what his function on this mission would be. His expression was guarded, but she knew him well enough to see him sorting through his own suspicions.
They were both wondering if this was a head-to-head competition to get into the clandestine ops division.
If so, it didn’t matter. She’d do her best, he’d do his best, and the rest would be out of their hands.
She should play it cool. Be respectful. This was her chance to show Martinez and PAC command how professional she could be as an officer.
But a glow was growing within her. Adrenaline combined with ambition and a desire to push all of her limits.
She grinned at Drew. “Let’s do this.”
He broke into a broad grin of his own. “Absolutely.”
She felt like the world was expanding around her, to accommodate her growing hunger for adventure, and the sense she and Drew were a pairing that just couldn’t lose.
She looked to Captain Martinez, expecting a look of mild disdain or disapproval.
Instead, she saw…satisfaction.
Well. Prelin’s ass. It seemed like she was succeeding already. Wisely, though, she kept her mouth shut and waited to see what came next.
Martinez arched an eyebrow at them. “Your mission is to go to Luna, infiltrate the branch academy office there, and return with all of the internal correspondence that has been sent there for the last three days, at all classification levels.”
Emiko struggled not to look at Drew and to keep her expression guarded. Both took great effort.
“Are they aware of this?” she asked.
“Does it matter?” Martinez fired back. “Whether it’s a real mission or just a training exercise, do the stakes change?”
“Objectively, no,” Drew answered. �
�Though it would be nice to know if we’re up against an actual threat of bodily harm.”
“Assume you are. Always assume you’re up against a life-and-death situation.”
Emiko looked down at her hands, folded very business-like on the conference table. Martinez was right. She had to approach everything in life as a life-and-death situation from this point on.
Her eyes finally met Drew’s, and she knew he was down for this.
Oh, this was going to be good.
“You’re sure you can fly one of these, right?” Drew’s joking attitude struck Emiko as entirely appropriate. They’d reached a point of adrenaline-charged readiness that only humor put the brakes on the mania that threatened to claim them.
Well, at least her, anyway. She could only assume he felt the same way.
She went through the pre-launch checklist, ticking one thing after another off. It felt so right, and so natural. She’d wondered if she’d have jitters about doing this for real, on her own, but she didn’t.
She was ready to go.
Finally, the countdown came.
“Should I be scared?” Drew joked again.
She looked over at him and grinned. He was very cute wearing a flight headset. “Terrified. I think I forgot something. Pretty sure we’re going to die.”
She hadn’t forgotten a thing, but his laugh was a worthy reward.
Three…two…one…
“If you haven’t done one of these,” she said, “you might want to brace yourself.”
Engage.
Prelin’s ass, she was doing it. A fireball lit underneath them, providing the initial thrust to throw them out of Earth’s gravitational field. The sensation, though buffered through all the inertial dampening, felt much like having her skin peeled off her skeleton by the sheer onlay of force.
It was horrible, yet also fantastic. She held her breath. All training manuals said not to, but she’d found it necessary to counteract the pressure against her chest that made it impossible to breathe anyway.
She probably should have suggested that to Drew. Too late now.
Two thrilling minutes after launch, they cleared the exosphere, and she could breathe again.
Clearly, so could Drew, because he launched into a string of expletives that she’d never heard from him.
“You actually want to do that on a regular basis, on purpose?” he shouted.
She removed her headset, because he was about to deafen her. “We all do what we’re good at. Don’t worry. Atmospheric launches are rare, because ships that are capable of it are expensive and hard to come by. Plus, it eats up an enormous amount of fuel. Don’t worry. You’ll get your chance to show off the thing you’re good at soon enough.”
His wide-eyed look of outrage faded. “That makes me feel a little better. Though I doubt it will look like much to you. Mostly just keying stuff in. You might not know how impressed you should really be.”
“That would be a shame.” She smirked as she made a slight course correction and projected their arrival time.
“Huge,” he agreed, pulling off his own headset. “A massive shame. I’d be like one of those great artists, unappreciated in my own time.”
“Twelve hours to arrival. All systems optimal. We’re in good shape.” She communicated that information back to the control center, wondering how closely Martinez would follow their flight.
Not just Captain Martinez, though. She was certain that all the people pertinent to her entry into clandestine ops would be paying attention. She recognized that this was her final exam. A do-or-die test to see if she had what it took to do the job.
And Drew’s final exam, too. Did that mean they were in direct competition, or that maybe they’d even get to work together?
She barely dared to hope.
They didn’t discuss it, but he had to be thinking the same thing.
“Good.” Drew removed his safety straps and slid out of his seat. Artificial gravity allowed him to walk normally to the back of the ship’s cabin and sit at a science station.
As far as atmospheric ships went, this was the extra basic version. As small as possible, and with minimal amenities. Other than an access conduit beneath the deck plate, the ship was one cabin with multipurpose seats that would fold out into beds.
Not that she expected to sleep. All it would take was one moment of inattention for her future to go into the abyss. She wouldn’t let that happen.
Besides, she doubted she could sleep even if she tried. She was too hopped up on the excitement of the adventure.
“What are you doing?” she asked Drew, as she scanned the space ahead for asteroids or debris. The ship’s sensors should automatically alert her of such things based on their flight path, but she was leaving nothing to chance.
“Working on my part of all this.” His head lifted from the console. “I guess I can tell you now, since we’re working on this together.”
That came as a small surprise for her, too. They’d been so guarded about their work before that it had become natural to avoid discussing specifics.
He continued, “I’m seeking out all access ports on Luna and testing their vulnerabilities. When I’m done with that, I’ll start working on the specific nodes associated with the academy branch office, and monitoring their traffic.”
“You can do that?”
He grinned. “That’s just for starters. When we get closer, I’ll take over some of the interfaces, including their own security system. Then we can monitor the inside of the office.”
His smile slipped when he noticed her expression. “What?”
She returned to her own work. “Nothing. You just looked really hot to me, all of a sudden.”
“More than usual?”
“Definitely.”
“Hm.” He sounded thoughtful. “Good to know. For what it’s worth, you look awfully hot yourself, in the pilot’s seat looking all official.”
They grinned at each other like a pair of idiots.
She didn’t care if PAC intelligence, or anyone else, was listening in at the moment. Their attraction to each other couldn’t possibly be a secret to anyone who might be listening.
Was a big mission always like this?
She hoped so. She felt like she’d been sleepwalking through her whole life and she’d finally woken up.
The initial rush of excitement waned as the hours passed, but Emiko’s overall high remained. Drew didn’t talk much, since he was absorbed in his work. She kept herself busy checking and rechecking absolutely everything she could.
On one hand, she could hardly wait to arrive and do the job they’d been assigned. On the other, she didn’t want this heightened sense of anticipation and adventure to end.
Prior to coming to the academy, she hadn’t realized she was such a thrill-seeker. She’d always considered herself unusually serious.
Now here she was, piloting an atmospheric-launch-capable ship on a covert mission to the moon alongside the most attractive guy she’d ever known.
It was fantastic. One hundred percent pure joy.
When they moved in on Luna, Drew relayed the logistics of what they needed to do.
“Here’s the deal. We’re going to have to physically get into the office.”
“Why?” She’d expected him to work some sort of electronic wizardry and just strip the data remotely.
“Because that’s how this is set up. That’s obviously the job they want us to do. A physical infiltration and hack.”
“Tell me what you need.” She didn’t know the intricacies of what he did and would have to rely on him to handle those bits.
“I can get us past their security system, no problem. I can keep us off their security feeds. I hope to wipe out any evidence of my tampering, but I’ll have to be inside their system to be able to do it. Our problem is the risk of being seen by real, living people. They’re the main variable.”
She nodded slowly, thinking. “Can you get into their personnel system? See who all is in
the building?”
“Yes.”
“Can you get the data for entries and exits, and personnel, for every day for the past two weeks? And all messages for the person who sits at the reception desk.”
A slow smile slid across his face. “I see where you’re going. Nice.”
“I’ve been learning a thing or two in my security classes while you’ve been working on all this hacking stuff.”
During the remaining three hours before arrival, they huddled together over the voicecom terminal, analyzing behavior patterns and looking for any indicators of abnormalities to the daily routine.
“Okay. Now can you program a sensor lock on each of these people? Then we can establish location parameters, and, if the people go outside of them, your program can alert our comports.”
“I like it,” he said. “Here, hand me your comport and I’ll rig that up.”
He held out his hand for her small portable voicecom unit.
By the time they began their approach to Luna, they had their plan in place.
5
“Oh, I didn’t realize he’d be on vacation.” Emiko bit her lip. “You don’t think there’d be anyone else I could talk to, do you? He said he’d get back to me about my application.”
She was glad she’d packed a simple black knee-length skirt and a smart white blouse. Not knowing what to expect, she’d tried to go as generically multi-occasion as possible.
“I’ll check with the human resources department.” The middle-aged woman at the desk gave her a reassuring smile. “Would you like to have a seat?”
“Sure. Thank you.” She ducked her chin shyly.
Mr. Slivig in HR had gone on vacation the day before. It made for the perfect timing of a near miss, and the opportunity for Emiko to keep an eye on the receptionist, and any possible visitors to the building.
She chose a seat at the far end, where the camera wouldn’t get a good view of her face. They’d have no reason to believe she was not, in fact, Miss Heszenko, come to see about her application for the supply management position.
Drew would have gotten in through a service entrance at the side and, hopefully, was proceeding to the server room.