“What the hell was that?!” I shouted at Amy as she leaves her pod.

She had been climbing out of her pod with a smile and froze as I laid into her. I was pretty angry. No, scratch that, I was downright furious.

“You disobeyed orders, violated almost every rule of space flight, and could have easily gotten both of us killed. We don’t need any cowboys in this wing!” I continued hammering her, spending my rage at her utter lack of ability and discipline.

“C-commander…” She began, her face fading from the smile slowly, eyes watering.

“No, there’s no excuse for this. You’re a pilot. I don’t know what your last post was like and frankly I don’t care. You need to pull your head out of your butt and get your mind in the game. Right now you’re a danger to the entire wing and we’re grounded until you are at least minimally capable at handling your lancer.” I turned away, shaking a bit with anger. “Gwayne, Daren, you guys go ahead and shower. I need to get our newest member with the program.”

“Yessir.” They saluted and headed down the hall, heading into the showers.

I slowly turned back to Amy, taking in her wet eyes and tear striped face. I saw how my words had crushed her and while I didn’t enjoy breaking her like this, her performance wasn’t even remotely acceptable. I could not afford to have that rogue flying during an operation.

“You need to get up to flying form yesterday. What I just saw in there was completely unacceptable. There are a thousand ways that could have ended with one or both of us dead. What you just saw was me pulling you out of the jaws of death by the seat of my pants. I could only pull that off because I knew exactly what was coming, which I won’t know in any battle we ever engage in.”

“I just wanted to have a fun time… to show off…”

“There’s no room for showing off or fun here. This is a war. If you just want to have fun, I can ask Lukas to reassign you to some other unit that has time for such things. But if you’re serious about being a pilot, you’re going to need to step it up and quickly. We can’t fly with you in this shape.”

“I...I understand commander. I will redouble my efforts.” She said with a teary smile, looking up at me.

“I’m glad to hear that. I will send you a list of books you need to read and the exercises you need to complete. I want you logging over six hours of sim time every day. I’ll be reviewing flight recordings and giving feedback.”

“I won’t let you down.”

“See that you don’t. This was a warning.”

I turned to leave and was stopped by arms suddenly wrapping around me. Amy was… hugging me? I didn’t understand what was happening. I had just reamed her a new one and she was giving me a hug.

“I will see you soon and give you the list of materials for study then.” I pulled away slowly and walked into my cabin, closing the door behind me. I began undoing my flight suit, peeling it off me piece by piece. I felt disgusting, both from the exertion from training and the blood boiling anger I had wielded against Amy.

It’s not that she didn’t deserve every minute of it. Every word was true and necessary. But making someone break down and cry like that pulled at my heart. I didn’t want to be That Guy who made the girls cry with harsh words, but she needed to know, she needed to change. I turned on the shower, waterfall of hot water crashing to the ground, drowning out my thoughts. I stepped into the shower and closed my eyes, thinking back to my old job.

“Dwayne! Where is that report?” My boss, Harrold, barked at me, looking over my shoulder at the screen I was working at.

“I’m working on it, boss.” I kept typing, messing with my data to try to get it cleaned and formatted. He leaned in and I cringed away. “I should have it done soon. There was more data to format than I anticipated. The techs just sent me all of their data raw with no formatting or parsing.”

“I thought you said you’d have it done yesterday.” He said with a bit of bite.

“That was before I was pulled to deal with Heinlix and the system deficiencies there. If I had spent all of yesterday on this, you would have it already. But Heinlix was important, so I did that first.”

“Well get it done. I need that report for a meeting with SinTell tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, Sir.” I muttered as I moved around some more data, deleting useless columns and changing formatting for better use.

It was just another typical day: Why isn’t this done yet? This is so very important! Our customers need this yesterday. Why is all your documentation so incomplete? What do you mean, we don’t have any data on that? I just wanted to hurl.

The strange thing was, once in a great while I got to do some work I really enjoyed and that made the entire rest of the job seem worthwhile for a bit. It was like gambling, most of the time you’re losing, but once in a while you get a jackpot, and that keeps you coming back for more and more. I cringed at my own inner monologue, and made a new chart from the data, setting everything on it just so before importing it into the report and saving the spreadsheets to a folder I kept around for raw data. It was something I had adopted early on, as it never failed that after I showed someone a graph, they didn’t believe that I was using real data and wanted to double check my work. I couldn’t explain it, but that was how things were, so I adapted to it.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I sighed and drummed my fingers on my pressboard desk. It was cheap furniture, purchased by even cheaper management, who would have us just working from chairs if we could manage it. Thankfully, we couldn’t, so we had actual desks. It’s remarkable, really, what people will regard as luxury when they’re trying to save a buck. Nobody drank the office coffee anymore because we had finally gone from good coffee to stuff that looked like it came out of a sewer pipe.

I pulled up the report and began to write notes on the data, interpreting it for any and all who might care to take a look. It wasn’t interesting, but it might help keep things running for a few more months, who knows. I wrapped things up and printed a copy to do proofs on before I turned it over to Harold.

Finishing with my proofs, I turned to stand and turn the report over to Harold. I went to the printer and stood by it, waiting for the twenty page document to finish printing, feeling my life and soul drain from my body. This job was sucking the color out of my life and I needed to escape, to get free. I’d meet up with the guys tonight and see how they were doing, maybe one of them had a solution.

Shaking my head to clear the cobwebs of memory, I shut the shower off and stepping through the wisps of steam to grab a towel and dry myself. Coming down on Amy reminded me of my old life back at the office and how bleak and terrible everything felt. Even though this vessel looked far more sterile, the community here couldn’t be matched at a baptist church picnic with fried chicken and barbeque ribs.

I dressed in my uniform and typed into my pad a message to Lukas letting him know I needed to see him. I then went through my library of astrophysics books and sent Amy copies of at least half of them, indicating what exercises she needed to complete before the end of the week. I hope she applies herself to this, because otherwise I’m going to have to insist she gets transferred to some other duty.

I left my room and went to the squadron commander’s office. Stepping down the plain white halls, illuminated at regular intervals with warm LED lighting, I sighed as I appreciated the fact that I was no longer under halogen bulbs with excessive intensity. Arriving at Lukas’s office, I knocked then stepped in and faced him behind the desk, coming to attention and giving him a textbook salute.

“Thank you for seeing me sir.” I said respectfully. “I regret to inform you that Alpha wing is not currently fit for battle or operations.”

“This is because of Amy?”

“Yes, sir. She’s completely incapable at the moment of grasping the most basic maneuvers required of a pilot and doesn’t listen orders one bit once we’re in the thick of things.”

“I see,” Lukas nodded slowly. “She came to see me, you know?”

“No sir, I didn’t. I hope you listened to her fully and grasped what happened fully.”

“Yeah, I got the picture. She was driven to tears by blunt and brutal honesty about her performance today. She went in believing herself to be truly talented, and you shattered that idea like a glass vase. It was a rough approach and one you need to be careful with. Command is very sensitive to complaints about harassment.”

“Of course, sir. I will be firm but fair. I won’t let you down, but I certainly need time to get Amy up to speed.”

“And you can have some. But not too much time, we are fighting a war after all.”

“Most certainly. That is something I intend to press upon my wing with the most certain of words.”

“Glad to hear it. Dismissed.”

I saluted and turned to leave, pulling out my pad to check on things as I walked the sterile halls. It seemed Amy was at least making an effort, as I already had a couple of assignments marked in progress. I hoped that she was actually applying herself and not attempting to copy off someone else. I decided to stop by the mess to grab some lunch? Dinner? Food. It had been hours and I needed the fuel to keep everything working as it should.

The mess hall was nearly empty when I entered, leading me to believe that I had arrived between major meals. I sighed and walked through the food lines, getting a helping of salisbury steak and mashed potatoes. Sure, it wasn’t the best food, but it kept well enough and filled one with the calories needed to keep functioning.

Sitting down in a corner booth, I sipped on my tea as I cut up my food into bite sized pieces. “Still being meticulous as ever?” a voice from my side said.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, nice to see you Carlos.” I was momentarily lost in my own mind and it took a second to actually realize who was standing beside me.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all.” I gestured at the seat across from me.

Carlos nodded and took the seat as I finished cutting up my food and began to eat.

“I heard about you laying into the new recruit.”

“Word certainly travels fast around here. If only we could get our ships to go that fast.”

“Yeah, well, maybe lighten up a little.” He ate a spoonful of mashed potatoes, looking at me pointedly.

“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t accurate and necessary.” I defended myself, taking a few more bites.

“Maybe not, but approach can be everything. You don’t shout at Daren and Gwayne like that.”

“Not anymore, I don’t.”

“It could be taken as hazing to be yelling at Amy. Not a good look.”

“I’m not doing anything except what needs to be done to get my wing into combat shape.”

“You do what needs to be done, man. I’m just recommending you take a less aggressive approach. Anyways, get some rest. It’s nearly midnight and I know you were up before 0600. You aren’t sleeping enough and are going to make mistakes if you keep it up.”

“We can sleep when we’re dead.” I spat, giving him some side eye.

“Yeah, yeah, but not getting what you need results in being dead much sooner.” He got up to go, “think about what I said. I’ll leave you to your meal.”

I sighed and finished my food quickly after that. Was I too harsh? I didn’t think so, but both Carlos and Lukas had suggested I had been. Had Amy spoken to them? Was this from Gwayne and Daren? I didn’t know but doubts were slowly creeping in. I put the tray in the receptacle for used food trays and turned to leave, walking out of the mess hall and down a corridor, lost in thought.