Following her rescue, Bella Penrose moved to the other side of the planet Ares to Madira Beach and quickly made it through NROTC and college with a double load of courses that she, along with her super-AIC, had no problem with. After two years of college and NROTC, she was selected—with a little hacking help from Allison—to the Aviation Preflight Indoctrination (API) program. After fourteen weeks of API she did six weeks as a student naval flight officer, and then she had twenty-two weeks of training at the Navy Flight Officer Training Command at the Madira Valley Beach Spaceport Armored Mecha Flight Training Grounds, and then another thirty-six weeks in mecha combat tactics training.
Following that she had a pip "pinned on," and she became U.S.R. Navy Ensign Bella Penrose. Although the process and military structure was very, very similar to that of the United States military, there were some cultural differences. One difference was that call signs didn't stick with the person, they stuck with the job. And as soon as she was assigned to the USR Deborah Sampson Flight Wing 1, Group 2, Tiger Squad, she became "Tiger 5." Of course, the other cultural difference was that everything was done in praise of Elle Ahmi. Although Ahmi's tactics had been extremely bloody to the American people, the Separatists were now free of the U.S. government and had a planet of their own, a very nice planet. The Separatist people viewed that fact as being solely due to Ahmi herself. It wasn't hard to understand why they followed the charismatic terrorist. But then again, most of the Separatist people had never met the crazy bitch. It took all of her training to mask her hatred for the Separatist leader and to appear as a loyal servant of the U.S.R. Navy, but Bella managed. After all, that is what she had done all of her adult life—pretend to be somebody else.
So, after escaping from the QMT facility over six years prior and lying low for several months, after about six months of goldbrickin' on the beach, after a few weeks of rehab from a natural disaster, after two years of college and NROTC, and about another two years of mecha training, Ensign Bella Penrose found herself staring out the viewport of the USR Deborah Sampson while trying to stomach the galley food, figure out just what Elle Ahmi was up to, and how she was going to kill her. Well, killing Ahmi hadn't been part of her original orders, but Bella was going to do that one for herself. It would be good therapy.
As Bella let her mind wander, something caught her eye. Actually, it caught the eye of everybody on the ship, as it was hard to miss a QMT. A ship approached the center of the teleport-pad towers, and then a large green and blue sphere of light began to grow, centered directly over the central tower. The sphere grew to several kilometers in diameter and looked like a giant plasma ball resting atop the tallest spire. Then the giant ball of plasma instantaneously collapsed to a flat disk of light with blue and white lightning shooting across the surface. A ripple, like waves on a pond, traveled in a circular wavefront from the center of the disk, and then the ship vanished into the event horizon of the disk. As soon as the ships appeared in local space, the disk collapsed inward on itself and vanished with a final flash of white light from the center.
It was a scene that humanity throughout the colonies was beginning to become accustomed to. The intel that the Seppies were getting from the colonists of Ross 128 was that the U.S. had built teleport platforms now at each colony and one near Mars. The only route to the inner Sol System, though, was still through the original Seppy-built QMT pad in the Oort. From there, ships could teleport to Mars and then hyperspace jaunt inward to Earth. As far as the Seppies knew, the American scientists had not yet figured out how to hack any of the systems to go from any pad to another. Elle Ahmi had often laughed at the Americans in public broadcasts for that—of course, she knew how to do this. There was even rumor that the new battleship fleet didn't need the pads. Bella hadn't confirmed that yet. But if that was the case, the U.S. military needed to know.
Ensign Penrose hadn't seen the Sampson do a QMT without a facility yet, but she had seen it go back and forth between Ross 128 and Tau Ceti. And she also knew that the U.S.R. had the QMT schedule for the Ross 128 facility, because they often would hide behind one of the moons and run in silent mode to avoid being seen by incoming teleporting ships.
"General quarters! General quarters. All hands, prepare for hyperspace jaunt in one minute. Prepare for battlestations call and silent running," the Sampson's AIC said over the ship's 1-MC intercom.
Allison? Bella asked her AIC.
Regularly scheduled jaunt behind one of the moons, it looks like. We must be expecting an incoming QMT from Earthspace, Allison replied.
Well, it's my day off. Let's do some snooping, shall we?
About time.
Chapter 10
July 1, 2394 AD
Mars Orbit, Sol System
Friday, 11:40 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
DeathRay finally decided that he had to flip a coin to be fair. Dee won the toss and chose to fly in the FM-12 mecha with Jawbone. The other cadet was with Fish in the Ares-T trainer. DeathRay led the other two Navy mecha out of the cat bay and into a standard patrol orbit a safe distance from the supercarrier. The three mecha flew in a staggered V formation with DeathRay in the lead, Stavros and Fish in the trainer on his left wing, and Poser and Fink off his right, but farther back.
I've got the marines just coming off cat and into the engagement zone, Jack, his AIC, Candis, alerted him.
Yeah, I've got them. Let's see how long it takes our nugget to spot them. DeathRay relaxed his grip on the HOTAS and adjusted his position in the pilot's couch, something he wouldn't be able to do if they went to high-g maneuvers. He centered his mind by breathing deep a few times and relaxing his body from head to toe. Soon every muscle in his body from head to toe would be wishing it could relax.
Right.
"DeathRay, DeathRay, this is Navy2," Stavros said over the net.
"Go Navy2." DeathRay rolled his helmet from shoulder to shoulder. Shit, not bad. Get ready, Candis. Here we go.