I sat back in my chair. I didn’t really know where this was going. I figured I might as well be comfortable. At least as comfortable as I could around a beautiful woman who was my superior officer.
“Not only did you disobey your commanding officer, you argued with and insulted him,” the commander said.
I lowered my eyes. She had me on that one. I wanted to say,
he’s a freaking chimp
. I didn’t. No use making a bad situation worse. Chimp or not, like it or not, GiS was my superior officer. “I know I messed up mega bad,” I said.
“Do I need to remind you again, Scout, that you are talking to a superior officer?” the commander said.
“I know I messed up, mega bad, sir,” I said.
“Might I remind you, Scout, that I am a woman?” she said.
I really fought back the urge to say,
no need to remind me
of that
. Instead I said, “Sorry, ma’am, I blooped up, mega bad, ma’am.”
The commander just looked at me. I liked the attention, but wished it were for something other than me messing up.
“Mr. Moon, I know some people have trouble taking orders from animals. They don’t think it’s natural.”
“It’s not,” I said.
“True,” she said. “But just because something isn’t thought of as natural doesn’t mean it’s not good. Studies have shown augmented animals are very loyal. They make great soldiers and officers. They work for less than humans.”
“Have you ever served under one?” I asked.
She looked at me and smiled. Her smile sent shivers shooting straight down my spine into my toe nails.
“Yes, Baxter, I have. When I was in the space force fighter training, my CO was a skunk.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
She shook her head no. “I don’t kid with scouts. The ironic thing was during martial arts training she’d always complain about my deodorant.”
“Commander,” SC-711 interrupted. “You have a message coming in from Earth Gov.”
“I do?”
“I certainly have no need to make something like that up,” SC-711 said. “It’s a coded message and will begin in three minutes.”
The commander squirmed a little in her seat. She wasn’t quite flustered, but was the least calm and cool I’d ever seen her. She was trying hard not to let it show, though.
“In that case, Mr. Moon, we have to wrap this up fast.”
I stood up. “I’ll pack my bags.”
“Sit!” she commanded.
I did.
She looked me right in the eyes. Bloop, she had beautiful eyes. Green had just become my favorite color.
“Baxter, pay attention,” she ordered.
I snapped back out of my daze. I forced myself to concentrate on her words, not her face.
“Paying attention, sir, ma’am,” I said in my most scout-like voice.
“You have talent as a pilot, just not as much as you think you have. At least not yet. If…”
“If I don’t crash and burn,” I interrupted.
She shook her head. “Yes, that goes without saying, as does not interrupting your commanding officer,” she said.
I lowered my head. “Sorry, sir, ma’am.”
“What I was going to say was, if you learn to be a better judge of your ability and also learn to trust those around you more, you may someday become as good as you think you are.”
“So you’re not sending me Earthside?” I asked.
“Not yet — you make things challenging for me,” she smiled. “I like a good challenge.”
“Thank you, sir, ma’am, sir,” I said.
She pointed at me. “I warn you, though. I’m smart enough not to take on an impossible challenge. Another incident like this and you will be heading home. Got it?”
“Loud and clear, sir, ma’am.”
“The call will begin in thirty tics,” SC-711 said impatiently. “Scout Moon isn’t cleared for this level call.”
The commander pointed to the door. “Don’t let me see you in here again, Scout.”
I stood up. I gave her a little bow. “You won’t, sir, ma’am.”
I made a hasty exit from the room.
“Your squad is in the common room,” SC-711 told me. “If you hurry you may be able to help them to victory in a fooseball game with Kappa-II squad.” I could have sworn there was a bit of urgency in SC-711’s voice. He didn’t want me anywhere near the commander’s office.
He had no worries there. I didn’t want to be anywhere near there either. I was just glad to get out of there not quacking like a duck.
As I walked, I peered out through the station’s transparent walkway. The walkways that connect one section of the station to another are one of the most subzero parts of the place. They were totally transparent. You knew they were there because of the holographic wall markers that lined the walls, but you couldn’t see the walls themselves. You were able to look through them and see millions and millions of stars all around you. It made me feel a part of something, yet kind of small at the same time. I can’t really put my finger on it.
I let my mind wander a bit. I’m a kid. I can do that. It was funny. The commander had scolded me for thinking I was too good for my own good. Yet before I went into her office I was wondering what the bloop I was doing here…I didn’t think I was good enough. I hope when I get older I’ll actually figure out what I’m good at and what my limits are. Maybe that’s when you know when you’re grown up. You know what you are good at. What your place in the universe is. Maybe.
I walked into the common room. It was packed to the rafters. Every second class squad from Alpha-II to Zeta-II was there, pilots, navigators and techs. (Except of course for the Betas. They aren’t allowed to fly, so they work as maintenance support specialists.) The others were shooting the breeze at the space soda bar. Some were playing old-fashioned games like anti-grav ping-pong, fooseball or pinball-4D. Some were playing new virtual games like Jupiter-golf, full-contact bull roping and lawyer chomp. Others were just listening to the official space scout sanctioned tunes that included music from new groups like the Alpha Betas all the way to oldies like the Zappers to ancient bands like the Beatles. This was our time to relax, let loose a bit. The place was abuzz with the sound of kids being kids.
Somebody saw me. I think it was Dan Dankins, the mec for Delta squad. “Hey, it’s Moon!” he shouted.
The room fell silent.
Zenna turned from her fooseball game and rushed over to me. She pulled me into a bear hug, lifting me off the ground.
“You’re alive and still here!” she shouted. “I thought for sure the commander would either kill you or send you Earthside or both.”
“Zen, if you don’t let me down, I might not be alive much longer,” I said, gasping for air.
She eased up on the hug. “Oops, sorry. Sometimes I forget my own strength.”
She released her bear hug. I fell to my feet and took a deep breath.
Elvin walked over and patted me on the shoulder. “You don’t think you’re a dog or a penguin?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nope, I just got a lecture. She got a rush call. I was saved by the bell. She didn’t even get a chance to give me any demerits.”
Kymm from Kappa-II squad walked over toward me. Kymm was Kappa’s pilot. Their version of me, complete with attitude and all. She had long blonde hair, a little button nose and a nice smile, when she smiled. She was no Commander Jasmine, but then again, nobody is. She was still good looking, but I would never tell her that to her face. After all we were rivals. Friendly rivals, but rivals nevertheless.
Kymm gave me a little punch in the arm. She just loved flirting with me like that.
“Nice going, ace,” she said. “You had the grand slam of simulated screw ups. Killing yourself, your crew, destroying your ship and irking off your commanding officer.”
“When I do anything, even mess up, I do it mega time,” I said.
“You’ve had enough practice at it,” Kymm said.
Kymm may have been even cockier than me. Of course she had good reason. She was a bionic. Not a full-fledged half girl/half machine one like you see in sci-fi videos. She had small improvement chips (or ICs for short) planted in her eyes at birth. These chips let her see across a broader spectrum than non-augmented humans. She could see in the dark. She could see heat. She could even zoom in. At times I wished had improvement chips implanted in me, though most of the time I was glad I didn’t. After all, this way when I did accomplish something I knew it was me doing it, not some chip. I can’t help thinking when you start relying too much on chips that can be mass-produced you lose some of yourself. You lose a bit of your humanity. A bit of what makes you different from anybody else.
Kymm’s navigator Chriz and her tech Lobi had walked over. They laughed.
“Yeah, nice going, Ace,” Chriz said, mockingly. “Not even one of the Betas would be dense enough to go into that asteroid field! They don’t call it the
field of sure death and total and absolute
complete destruction
for nothing.”
“Hey!” Elvin said. “Baxter lasted five minutes and ten tics in the field! That’s a record!”
“Dead is dead,” Lobi shot back quickly.
Kymm shot Lobi an angry look. “We all screw up from time to time. Even me,” she said. “At least he had the guts to give it a try.” Kymm looked at me and gave a slight, hardly detectable, smile. It was enough to make my heart skip a beat or two. Lobi and Chriz both just backed away, like whipped pups.
“Thanks,” I told Kymm.
“Don’t mention it,” she said. “Maybe you’ll save me sometime,” she said with a laugh. Yep, she couldn’t help flirting with me.
Watching Kymm as she walked away, I tried to remind myself she was a fellow pilot, not a girl. Okay, with the long hair, that smile, those, well curves, she was a girl, there was no denying that, no matter how hard I tried. Still, she was a fellow pilot and rival first and girl second. I kept repeating to myself, she’s a pilot, she’s a pilot, she’s a pilot.
Zenna tapped me on the shoulder, bringing back to the moment at hand. “I think there’s somebody else you need to talk to,” she said. She motioned, ever so unsubtly, with her head toward the corner of the room. Sitting there at a table was GiS. He was concentrating on his computer screen. He was pretending not to notice I had walked into the room. Zenna may not have been book smart, but when it came to common sense, she beat me hands down.
I made my way through the crowd over to GiS. He knew I was coming over but didn’t acknowledge me. He wasn’t going to make this easy. Chimps can really hold grudges.
“I should have done things differently,” I said.
“You think?” he said sardonically without even looking up from his computer screen. “You mean the goal of that mission wasn’t to destroy your ship and crew?”
“I shouldn’t have argued with you,” I said.
“Arguments are a part of the job,” he said, still not looking up. “It’s unnatural for humans and chimps to work together, so it’s only natural we’d have our disagreements.”
“Then why are you mad at me?” I asked, though I probably should know.
GiS still refused to look up from his screen. “Do I ever call you a baboon or an ape or an orangutan?” he asked.
“Not that I can remember,” I answered.
“Then why did you call me a monkey?”
I hung my head. I had been doing that so much today I think my chin had left an indent on my neck.
“It was the heat of the moment. I spoke without thinking. I do that sometimes.”
“You do that most times,” GiS said, finally looking at me. Only now I wished he hadn’t.
“Yeah,” I said with a weak laugh. “It’s a gift.”
GiS looked at me and rolled his eyes. “If it’s a gift, then it’s a gag gift.”
There was a moment of awkward silence.
“A good scout knows when to react without thinking and when to think without reacting,” GiS said, using his most mentoring voice.
“You just love talking like that, don’t you?” I said.
His angry expression turned to a more neutral one. “I guess I think it compensates for me being a chimp and all,” he said.
“I’ll try to be better,” I said.
“No, you will be better,” he corrected.
I held out my hand to shake. He shook my hand with his foot as only a chimp could.
“Apology accepted,” he said. He looked at his wrist communicator. “You have judo class in five minutes. Don’t be late.”
I saluted and left.
All in all, that could have gone worse. I had made some huge blunders today and the day was still young. Hopefully I could chalk my mistakes up to experience. I’d certainly make mistakes again, but with luck they wouldn’t be the same ones.
I went to the locker room to change out of my official scout working uniform and into my official scout workout uniform. There really wasn’t much of a difference between the two. They were both just jumpsuits with different names. Both of them were kind of an off-yellow color with stripes on the arms. The official brochure said the uniforms were “a golden color,” but that was just a sad attempt to make them sound cooler than they were. The official working uniform had a slightly darker shade of yellow, ah, gold, patches around the bendable parts that covered the elbows, shoulders and knees. It was also made of non-wrinkle, non-flammable, stain-resistant, non-good-looking, hyperitchy, material called synthread. It was supposed to allow the skin to breathe. Both uniforms had my squad’s sigma emblem on the left sleeve and my rank and duty on the right sleeve. I was actually surprised the uniform didn’t come with a cape. Then we really would all look like dorky superhero wannabes.
The workout uniform was just a little more drab as it was a straight off-light-yellow color. It was also a lot more loose fitting and flexible. It was made of syncotton, a softer, less abrasive variant. It was much more comfortable and not quite as megadork-like. If it were up to me this would be my uniform of choice. I figure if you must look like a dork you might as well be comfortable. Of course, it wasn’t up to me.
Elvin, Chriz and Lobi had beaten me to the locker room, which was par for the course. They had already changed into their workout uniforms. While they might have been prompt, they still weren’t in a hurry to leave the locker area and hit the judo mats. The three of them would have much rather been in the simulator, bio lab, lecture hall or dentist’s office than the gym. It was just how they were. They weren’t physical kinds of guys.