“Sure thing, Captain.” The half-smile turned into a full one, even if it was forced.
“You know, it’s not really a sign of respect when you say it like that.” Cole grinned and popped the hatch, letting in the sound of soldier boots as they clanged down the metal platforms outside the musky, slept-in simulators.
Jakobs and Dinks loitered by the rear of their pod. Molly could guess why.
“Nice shooting out there,” Jakobs said, smiling from ear to ear with the demented visage of the sleep-deprived. “Oh, I’m sorry, you never even got a shot off, didja?” He checked with Dinks, who validated his joke with a silent, breathy laugh.
Molly glared at Jakobs. “Your lapdog is panting,” she said. “Does he need some water?” She tried to push past them, but Jakobs grabbed her arm, spinning her around.
They glared at one another while the other two boys sized up the situation. Jakobs was tall for a 17-year-old, and he had the sort of good looks that inspired poor behavior in boys. He’d been getting away with figurative murder his entire life—soon the Navy would pay him to do it for real.
“Go to hyperspace,” she told him.
“Flank you,” he said, his dark eyes sparkling with a glint of superiority. Molly knew better. He bullied for acceptance, scaring people into liking him. She focused on his Roman nose and dreamed about punching it.
“Go watch the replay, ass’troid.” Cole spat the words and tugged Molly away from trouble. She wondered if he was sticking up for her or protecting Jakobs from a beating. And if he was defending her, was it simply as his navigator?
She turned and marched out of the simulator room with her eyes fixed straight ahead, the rims of her ears burning. The hyperspace nausea, induced with subsonic bass speakers, churned up her stomach acid. Or maybe that was just Jakobs and Dinks.
From behind, the duo kept hounding her during the long walk down the hallway. She couldn’t hear them over the pounding of her own pulse, but she could see the effects of their taunting. Sneers of petty delight spread across the faces of every cadet they walked by. Everyone was ignoring Saunders’s commands, reveling in how well they’d done.
All except for the Academy reject, of course.
Outside Captain Saunders’s office, Molly and Cole joined Peters and Simons on a well-worn wooden bench. The four clustered together, shoulders touching, as muffled shouts wormed their way through the wall panels. It was somehow worse that they couldn’t make out specific words. The Captain’s tone was more torturous—raw and full of all kinds of nasty potential.
At the tirade’s end, a moment of silence descended as excuses were likely made. Everyone on the bench could imagine the lame apologies; they were all busy rehearsing their own. The door opened with a slight click, and two despondent students shuffled out, not even pausing to wish their comrades luck.
As second-worst performers, Peters and Simons went in next. The muffled shouting resumed. The space between Molly and Cole felt more oppressive and stuffy than the crowded bench had seemed just moments ago. She wanted to talk, but she could tell Cole didn’t. It was like being back in the cockpit—next to his corpse. She needed a partner, but he was unable to reciprocate thanks to some external command to do nothing—that pressure from the other boys in the Academy to see her as a girl in every way but the one that mattered.
Or was it an internal command Cole felt? Was it a complete lack of the type of feelings Molly had to force herself to keep in check?
There was a third and far worse possibility: Maybe he felt the same way and kept waiting for her to engage, while Molly’s need to be a man amongst boys prevented her from finding out.
A period of silence jolted her back to her senses, and she and Cole sat up as straight as possible. After another round of muted apologies, the door clicked and the two boys filed out of the office. Simons glanced over his shoulder at Molly. The beat look on his face made her want to rush to him—give him a hug and tell him everything was going to be okay. She didn’t know him that well, but a few minutes on that bench together had been as much of a bond as she got out of most cadets in the Academy. She hoped her expression communicated her concern for him.
It probably just looked like fear.
Following protocol, Cole stepped into the office first. Molly took up a space to his right, her hands overlapped behind her back. She forced herself to meet Captain Saunders’s gaze and saw how tired he looked.
He was a big man, but still not fat enough to fill his skin. It hung down around his face, sagging in leathery flaps, as if he’d spent most of his career on a large planet. His white uniform, so immaculate and crisp it seemed to glow, squeezed folds of flesh from his collar. A wall of small, rectangular medals stood bricked up over his left breast—accolades from a lifetime of service.
He didn’t begin by yelling at them the way he had the others, which worried Molly even more.
“What in the hell am I going to do with you two?” he asked. He sounded sad. Confused. Molly wondered if he really wanted their input, but she wasn’t going to say anything unless she was addressed. Cole stayed mum as well.
“There were enough targets up there that you could’ve fired blindly and hit something.” He looked at Cole. “Mendonça, I’m disappointed in how quickly you were knocked out of action. I blame you for that—but everything else falls on this young lady.”
Saunders turned to Molly and looked her straight in the eye. His disappointment was worse than the anger she’d been expecting. She felt her mouth go dry and knew if she spoke—her voice would sound unnatural. Broken.
Saunders listed her offenses, referencing a report projected onto his desk. “You misfired a missile, you went into hyperspace during a battle—” At this, he glanced up to ensure his disgust registered. After a pause, he went on. “You pulled over 40 Gs in battle. You deployed your landing gear?” He shook his head. “But the worst is that it appears you released your full ration of chaff at once, which is a tactical mistake, you didn’t even arm them first, which is inexcusable, and you did this with the worst timing possible—taking out the rear half of your bird in the explosion.”
He looked up at Molly. “Navigators go through flight school for a reason, Cadet Fyde. The basics are expected out of you in the event your lesser talents are needed from the nav chair. I didn’t expect you to shoot down any enemy, but you did everything you could today to get yourself killed and the Navy’s equipment destroyed.
“I’m not certain this is a problem we can fix, to tell you the truth. You’ve had a hard time fitting in here, and I’m sure you know I was against your enrollment from the beginning. I never cared that the Admiral and your old man were close. I have a lot of respect for both of them, but I will not be held responsible for graduating someone who might get my boys killed in a real battle.”
Cole raised his hand. “Sir, I—”
“Can it, Mendonça!” Saunders pushed his bulk up from the chair and rose slowly. His jowls were still moving from the outburst, and he jabbed a meaty finger in Cole’s direction. “If you spent less time sticking up for her and more time getting her up to speed, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I’ve had it with you putting her ahead of the rest of the fleet, son. You’re dismissed. Now get out of my office.”
At this, tears drizzled out of Molly’s eyes and started rolling toward the corners of her mouth. She licked away the salt, ashamed her partner might see her like this.
Cole stepped forward to salute Saunders. He clicked his heels together and jerked his arm down to his side. As he spun around, his eyes met Molly’s tear-filled ones, and she saw his cheeks twitch. Water had already formed a reflective barrier on his brown eyes. For a brief moment, they were looking into each other’s visors again. Molly’s lips trembled at the sight, and with the thought of being expelled and never seeing him again.