“I know they know how to do that. Will do that? That’s the problem.”
#
Dav wanted to answer, but suddenly was too tired. “Okay,” he said, facing the group members that remained, “get some sleep, everyone. We’ve got to be at the top of our game tomorrow. This isn’t an escort mission, this is the real thing. And we can expect the bad guys to try and stop us.”
Norrin and Bondo nodded, and headed off to their room. Dav and Slak walked into theirs.
In his bunk that night, Dav stared at the top where Slak slept. Dav envied the other cadets, who slept fine, worrying about nothing save how much they were going to be yelled at the next day, and who might crush them in sports.
Tomorrow is a real mission, Dav thought. Real combat. I’m going to be flying a ship and Jada will be dropping bombs. This is the real thing.
But eventually, despite everything and the terrible day they’d all been through, Dav slept.
#
The next morning Dav woke early. He’d gone to bed early, and as a result even with his upset he’d gotten a full night’s sleep and woken on his own a half hour before his wake-alarm had gone off. He shaved, dressed in his athletic shorts, shirt and shoes, and ran ten laps to help get rid of his jitters.
It didn’t work.
Jada woke up before her alarum sounded as well. People from different flights didn’t mix, and being the only girl in the flight, she had no roommate since her last one had washed out a day or so into the Academy. She laid in place, staring at the flat board of the empty bunk above her. Thoughts of her father, mother and brothers suddenly crowded into her head, and she spent the next hour crying and sobbing until she thought her insides would turn out.
After a good cry, she rose, splashed cold water on her face to bring down the swelling, dressed in her sport clothes and hit the track. She knew that today of all days she needed to stay focused. Tears led to self-pity, self pity would lead to weakness, and weakness in the face of an enemy would lead to a pointless death. She knew this, somehow, without ever having been taught. It was as if some mentor had been sitting on her shoulder the entire time, whispering thoughts into her ear silently just when she needed to hear them.
Slak woke before his alarum did. Sleeping with the artificial eye had become bearable; for the first while, it had been bulky and uncomfortable, especially when he turned over to that side in his sleep. A few adjustments from the creepy doctor (Slak made sure Bondo accompanied him to every visit, just in case), along with a few technical ‘adjustments’ of his eyepiece from Norrin, and his eye was in many ways better than it had been before. Not only could he see clearly for the first time in years, but with a few taps in the right place Slak could see on different spectrums, magnify sights from far away until it looked like he could almost touch them, even spot people behind walls using the heat from their bodies. He couldn’t see with as much resolution as he would have liked, but maybe someday...
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But he knew that there was a very real possibility that all the gadgets in his head wouldn’t save him from a lucky shot of a Rebel’s blaster. When he heard Dav leave their room, he feigned sleep until he heard the door shut. He then rose, groomed, dressed, and started doing push-ups and sit-ups until his body ached and his arms wouldn’t move.
He still felt tense, and for the first time since his enlistment wished he were living on the streets again. While there, he didn’t know where his next meal would come from, nor where he’d sleep that night. But he did know with reasonable certainty where threats to his life might come from. And there were more girls to chase. Way more, tanjit!
Plus, on the street he could rise and rest when he wanted to. Here? If Slak refused an order, he could see Hublin sign the termination order with no more regret or pleasure than if he threw a machine part into a trash compactor.
The thought of being that part gave Slak extra motivation, and he did another twenty pushups and thirty situps until the fear passed.
Bondo awoke a few minutes before his alarm did, and looked left and right. Seeing all was in place as it had been when he’d turned in for the night, he slipped out of bed and knelt by his bedside. He had been taught since he was a youngling to ask the Maker each day to guide his steps, but he’d gotten out of the habit since he’d stepped onto the Adeptus. Now, with death a very real possibility, especially in his next few missions, he felt it would be a good idea to rekindle that relationship.
In his own words and dialect, Bondo asked for strength for the day, and the ability to meet whatever challenges were placed before him. He asked for protection for those who flew with him, and for the souls of Porkins, S’Vip and even Gaab to be sped on their journey to their reward, whatever it might be.
And after he was done, Bondo stood, feeling taller and stronger than he had in a long, long while. He dressed, shaved, and took a walk through the quiet corridors of the Adeptus, taking the long route to the cafeteria while quietly singing a song his mother used to sing when she began the day.
Norrin, lying in his top bunk, heard Bondo galumph out of his bed, talk to himself, dress, and then go out into the hall and begin singing tunelessly as he went to who-knows-where. Norrin felt grouchy and prickly inside. And though he’d never admit it, it was the kind of short-temperedness that came from fear.
And so, he dealt with fear and upset-ness the way he’d always had: He plugged a device he’d cobbled together into the nearby monitor set into the wall, pulled up one of the austere, uncomfortable chairs in the room, and started playing a game.
Nothing with starfighters in it. No way. Nothing like that at all this morning.
#
TO BE CONTINUED...