by Zen DiPietro
Emiko approached again, ducking her head nervously.
“Mr. Slivig’s assistant checked your file, and said that your verifications and references have all come in. Mr. Slivig will contact you as soon as he gets back. We’re sorry for the confusion.”
“Oh, well that’s good news. Thank you.” She beamed with relief. “I’ll look forward to hearing from him. Everyone I’ve met here seems really nice.”
The receptionist liked that. “Thank you. I hope it goes well for you.”
Emiko nodded, bowed, then turned toward the door. She spun back suddenly, as if she’d just thought of something. “Actually, do you have a necessary I could use? I have a long walk to get back to the tram station.”
“Of course. I’ll buzz you in.” The receptionist reached over and unlocked the door to the inner sanctum. “First door on the right. It’s unlocked.”
“Thank you.”
She entered the necessary, went into a stall, and pulled out her comport. No message from Drew. She hoped he’d hurry. He’d said he would only need a few minutes once he got into position, and then a couple more minutes to get back out of the building.
That presumed everything went according to plan.
She felt relieved that her ploy to visit the necessary had worked. If Drew needed assistance, she was now in a better position to provide it. But if she stayed inside for more than ten minutes, the receptionist would probably come looking for her.
Or worse, security would.
That left her standing in a necessary stall, watching the minutes tick by on her comport. It was unexpectedly dull and mundane in the midst of such an exciting endeavor.
At the eight-minute mark, she got the signal that he was clear. She left the stall, washed her hands, then casually walked back through the security door. It clicked behind her.
“Thanks again. Have a nice day,” she called to the receptionist. Then she walked out and into the pressurized walkway system.
She took a circuitous route, ducking under security cameras where she could, to prevent her path being traced. Pausing, she checked her comport again.
Drew had arrived at the meet point.
She ducked around a corner, waited for a man to pass by, then peeled off her blouse to reveal a blue tank top beneath. Then she rolled up the waist of her skirt to make it into a miniskirt. Finally, she pulled her hair loose of its bun and ruffled it to make it as wavy and disheveled as she could.
She pulled a checkered shoulder bag out of the prim pocketbook she carried, which was otherwise empty. Then she stuffed everything into the bag and slung it casually over her shoulder.
Her stride went from tight and measured to loose and hip-swinging. Though men had taken little notice of her before, suddenly the eyes of most guys she passed now pulled toward her like she was magnetized.
She ignored them. She only had eyes for Drew, and when she saw him waiting for her on the tram platform, her heart leapt. They’d pulled it off. Almost. They just had to get back off the moon.
He grinned as she approached, looking her up and down. They’d decided that their cover would be two romantically inclined teens with eyes only for each other, but she didn’t mind throwing herself into his arms one bit.
“I like this look on you,” he murmured in her ear. “You should wear this more often.”
“Never going to happen,” she answered. Then she squealed and laughed when he picked her up and spun her around.
“You’ll mess up my hair!” she protested, then batted him flirtatiously on the shoulder.
Around them, people ignored their youthful foolishness. Just as they should.
They continued their charade on the tram, teasing, laughing, snuggling in for a smooch every now and then. Acting like people expected two kids their age to act.
Pretending to be average nineteen-year-olds felt like an ironic thing to Emiko. It only highlighted how they were entirely unlike others.
A pang of sadness startled her. She’d always felt somewhat isolated from typical kids, but somehow, the isolation suddenly felt stark. In retrospect, it seemed a little sad. Wouldn’t it have been nice to do all the normal things in life? Other people seemed to like it awfully well. She just wasn’t made that way.
No one but Drew understood her at a gut-deep level, and no one else could understand her dedication to her goals.
It was a lonely feeling making her want to cling to him.
“What’s wrong?” Drew’s smile had slipped.
The tram jolted with a sudden deceleration, making her grab for the pole to get her balance. Drew already had one hand on it, and his other arm went around her waist.
The voicecom blared to life. We are experiencing a minor power fluctuation. Do not be alarmed, and please maintain your current position.
Passengers grumbled, sighed, or acted ambivalent. Such things were common on Luna.
But Emiko had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that started like a pinprick and quickly grew to consume her entire chest.
“Something’s wrong.” She said it softly, so no one else would hear.
“What?” Drew asked.
“We’re at the wrong point on the line for a deceleration. We’re too close to a magnet. It should be pulling us forward, even if the power is fluctuating. This isn’t right.”
“How do you know that?” he whispered.
“I had some time, so I studied Luna’s schematics. And I’ve been watching the kilometer markers.”
“And you memorized all the magnet placements?” he didn’t sound disbelieving, just perplexed. She’d never shown him how good her memory was.
“Yes. Do you trust me?” she stared up at him.
“I do.” He didn’t hesitate, and his eyes showed no doubt.
She took his hand. “We need to run.”
She slammed her hand on the emergency button and forced the tram doors to open outward. She leaped out to the narrow service platform with Drew immediately following.
“What now?” he asked.
She took off to the right. “This way. Be careful!”
With little clearance between the tram and the wall, the ledge was not only narrow, but so was the space to fit their bodies. She managed well enough, but she knew that, behind her, Drew had to be having a harder time. He’d grown very broad-shouldered over the last couple years.
She waited for him to ask if she was just being paranoid, because she was wondering that herself. But he didn’t.
Then she heard scuffling and footsteps behind them, and she didn’t have to wonder anymore.
Someone was chasing them.
She tried to move faster, and hoped Drew could keep up. Finally, she got to the access conduit and shoved it open. When Drew came through, they slammed it closed. Emiko threw the latch into place, then activated a hazard seal.
A red light went on overhead, and a low keening noise began.
Drew must have known what a hazard seal was, because he said, “It’ll take two minutes for all the conduits to close. They could still get in from another point.”
She was impressed, but she’d tell him that later. Instead, they ran. Fortunately, a red light had activated along the footpath, showing them the quickest way out. Emiko was grateful for that, because the labyrinthine, winding tunnels would have been easy to mistake for one another in their haste.
Finally, they came to a steep flight of stairs. “That ought to take us up to the main tram complex.”
They rushed up the stairs, only to have their path blocked by two people clad in black from neck to toe.
Scrap.
They couldn’t go back, and they couldn’t get past these two. They’d have to fight.
Emiko didn’t wait. She rushed in fast, shoving one against the other, then throwing a punch.
The man absorbed the shove and dodged the punch, and she knew they weren’t up against amateurs. This was the real thing.
Fight smarter. Be stronger. She took up a relative position to Drew, to ta
ke the pair on one-on-one while keeping him in her sightline.
She let a punch glance off her shoulder so she could slip in under his guard and deliver a strike to the temple. She followed that up with a palm strike to his sternum, and then a right cross. She connected well with the first two, but he blocked the last.
They threw blow after blow at one another, but neither of them gained the upper hand. They were too evenly matched.
She’d have to go with a different plan.
Using both palms against his sternum, she knocked him back slightly, then kicked his knee. With her right leg forward, she grabbed a small knife she’d secured against her inner thigh.
It was in her fingers only for a microsecond, it seemed. Her body followed her motion, snapping the knife forward. It embedded itself into the guy’s chest, directly over his heart. He fell over backward and lay still.
She turned to Drew and the man he was still fighting.
“Enough.” A voice behind them said.
The remaining assailant stepped back, palms facing outward, and made a small bow. Warily, Drew backed away from him before looking toward the voice.
From the shadows, a PAC admiral stepped out. Emiko didn’t know him, which seemed impossible since she’d memorized the names and faces of all admirals currently serving the PAC. But the bars on his uniform indicated he was indeed an admiral.
Still, Emiko still didn’t relax her guard. She trusted only Drew until she knew what was going on.
“At ease, Cadet Arashi. That’s an order.” The admiral stared her down.
She wasn’t a cadet yet, not until she was accepted into OTS. But she adjusted her stance and held her arms behind her back as a cadet would.
“Report. Debrief me on your mission,” the admiral ordered.
“Regret that I cannot, sir. I do not have permission to speak about my orders.” She returned his gaze, unblinking. She could relay nothing without Martinez’s authorization, regardless of the admiral’s rank. Clandestine operations went beyond the typical chain of command.
Sometimes it went beyond justice, too. People could do bad things for good reasons. And sometimes, agents got burned for nothing but being caught up in a bad situation.
Was this one of those cases?
“You, then.” He nodded to Drew. “Debrief me or you’ll end up in the brig like this one.”
“I regret that I cannot, sir.” Drew stood in the same stance she did.
“Then I have no choice but to remand you to the proper authorities. I hope you’re prepared for what’s to come.”
Drew said nothing, nor did she.
The admiral paused, then, amazingly, smiled. “Congratulations. You two are officially accepted into OTS, and the clandestine operations division of intelligence. I’m Admiral Krazinski, and I will be your sole commanding officer from this point forward.”
Whelkin stepped out of the shadows to join them, smiling.
Then the dead man on the ground sat up.
“All of this was fake?” Drew asked.
“Not fake,” Whelkin said. “The people at the academy branch office had no idea what was going on. That was a legit infiltration. We did set up the situation on the tram, though.”
“And the fight was real,” Krazinski added. “We just took some precautions to keep you from killing some of your fellow operatives.”
“Seems wise,” Drew said.
Emiko eyed him to see if he was cracking a joke, but it was hard to tell with him.
“I don’t have to tell you to say nothing to anyone about any of this,” the admiral said. “Continue back to Earth, as planned. Continue your classes. Soon, you will get your team assignments and begin training with them. We’ll be in touch.” The admiral gave them a shallow bow.
Drew immediately bowed more deeply in response, and Emiko quickly did the same.
She found all this strange. “That’s it?”
She shouldn’t talk out of turn like that with an admiral, but she hadn’t expected her acceptance into the program to come inside a grungy tram system, while wearing a short skirt and, undoubtedly, giving her underwear a liberal showing-around.
It was anti-climactic. But maybe she’d have to get used to things unfolding in unexpected ways from now on.
“Oh no, Emiko,” the admiral assured her before turning away. “This is just the beginning. I hope you’re ready.”
She hoped so, too.
THE VOYAGE back to Earth felt like a victory lap to Emiko. She and Drew took a four-hour nap before taking off from the docking station to ensure alertness, but it had taken her an hour just to fall asleep.
“You okay?” Drew asked once they’d gotten underway. “You’ve been quiet.”
“Just watching everything. I keep expecting some ships to come out and attack us.”
“I wondered about that, too. I’ve been watching for any odd communication activity. Think they’d spring another test on us so quickly?”
She shrugged. “If they wanted to, yes. Why not pile on us, and see how hard they can push us before we break?”
“Makes sense. I guess we’ll see.”
“I kind of hope they do attack us. I’d like a chance to try combat maneuvers for real.” But try as she might, she found no trace of suspicious activity.
“I didn’t know you were such a daredevil.” Drew regarded her with a speculative expression.
“Neither did I, before I got to the academy. But apparently I am.”
“I like that you’re fearless. It’s sexy.” He grinned at her.
She chuckled. “I’m definitely not fearless. It’s just that, in an extreme situation, fear doesn’t matter. It’s useless, so it gets shoved to the bottom, below all the feelings, senses, and skills that are useful.”
“I know what you mean. Some people panic under pressure and some people only get sharper. I don’t think it’s something you can do anything about. It’s just instinctive reflex.”
She liked that. “Is that a personal theory or have you done some research on that?”
“Personal theory. But now that you’ve questioned me, I feel honor bound to follow up with some research.”
“Do that, and get back to me.” After a beat, she added, “I think you’re right. I’ve always been at my best during tense situations. And the higher the stakes get, the more alive I feel.”
“Yep. I’ve already diagnosed you as an adrenaline junkie. Classic case.” He shot her a taunting look.
“You liked it as much as I did,” she pretended to grumble. “Admit it. When those guys appeared at the top of those stairs, you were itching to fight.”
“Maybe not as much as you. But yeah. I was ready,” he admitted.
“We need to work on your technique, though. Next time, I want you to take your guy down, then come help me with mine.”
“What? Why should I do more than my fair share?”
“I dunno. You’re bigger. I guess.” She grinned at him. “It would just be nice for me to have options, you know.”
“I’ll work on it.”
She liked how they could talk about something serious, and she could tell him he needed to up his game, while keeping the mood relaxed and easy. He’d held his own against that operative, but she’d seen that he was outmatched.
She hoped that once she got assigned to a team, her teammates would have the same ability to communicate frankly without egos getting in the way.
The assault she was hoping for never came, so her next challenge was her first real atmospheric landing. Most ships docked at the orbital docking station above a planet, leaving people to come down in the elevator. That meant she would do such a landing only on very rare occasions.
She intended to do it perfectly.
She double-checked all of her readings, then double-checked her coordinates and variables.
“Time to get the straps on,” she advised Drew as she secured her own straps. “This will feel kind of intense.”
“Great. I’ll just sit
here while you do all the work.”
“The computer will do a lot of it. We’ll be dropping like a bag of cement through the atmosphere until I have enough lift to be able to manually control us. We’ll execute some turns to burn off excess energy, and then I’ll fly us in.”
He put his headset on. “You make it sound so fun.”
His tone indicated that it did not sound like fun to him.
She said, “Yeah,” with great enthusiasm.
The real thing felt exactly like the simulator. The only difference was knowing that she was actually plummeting in a little ship toward the Earth’s surface at a relative free fall of epic proportions.
Then she got down to around six thousand meters from the surface and took control, getting a feel for this ship and then flying it down to the surface for a landing not unlike a large aircraft.
When they finally rolled to a stop, she looked to Drew. He wore an alert, curious expression.
“Well, now we’ve done that,” he said matter-of-factly. “Let’s go see what comes next.”
AFTER THEIR MISSION TOGETHER, a chasm that had stood between Emiko and Drew closed. They could now talk openly with each other about their training, intentions, and prospects. Everything they’d left unsaid before, they could now discuss.
They took careful precautions to avoid being overheard. It became second nature for them to sweep her room for listening devices and remain aware of people who might be in their proximity. She felt freed, though, to finally be able to talk to someone about her hopes, concerns, and suspicions.
The closer she felt to him, the more she wondered about her team assignment. She didn’t get nervous about much, but after feeling so aligned with Drew during their academy experience, she wondered if it would be possible to have such an intuitive relationship with others during her OTS years.
She needed to brace herself for a harsh change. She resolved to savor the time she had left with Drew, but prepare for their relationship to come to a necessary end. They had only five months until graduation, and who knew where their differing specialties would lead them?
If it happened that way, the short stream of days ahead would compose the tail end of their relationship.
She intended to enjoy the time as much as she could, outside of her studies. Her classes remained rigorous, but in the two weeks after their Luna mission, her other training had waned. Whelkin summoned her less, and her flight training had lessened a great deal.
