4

Molly’s shower stall had been built under protest, hers and everyone else’s. Her twelve-year-old body hadn’t looked much different from a boy’s when it was constructed, and she just wanted to be treated equally. Everyone else protested against her even being there at all.

She hated to admit it, but the stall had become her cubicle of solace. A place where she could be alone. She let the hot water cascade down her body, burning the tightness out of her sore muscles, and thought back to some of her private history studies. When she was ten, and had first broached the idea with Lucin of attending the Academy, she did some research at the Naval library. What she discovered had shocked her.

Women used to fight alongside men. They used to fly ancient atmospheric ships and go into combat. It was hard to determine the numbers from the history books, but it was common enough that people didn’t seem to notice.

Something happened to change all that. Somewhere along the way, it was decided that women can be Presidents and CEOs and Galactic Chairs and work in the support side of the military, but they cannot fight.

What the history books wouldn’t tell her was why this had changed. And anyone she approached with the question, including Lucin, brushed her off or reprimanded her for being “too inquisitive” or “naive.” And she had been naive. Back then, the knowledge of what women used to do gave her the optimism needed to join the Navy. Now she saw it differently. The precedents set by history didn’t mean something was possible in the future. No. The fact that they were able to go away from this progress meant something far more sinister. And final.

Molly relaxed the tension in her body, allowing her hopes to wash down the drain along with her physical pains. Somewhere, deep in a mechanical room below the campus, a filter would take this water and make it drinkable. Molly hoped the boys gagged on her disgust.

As soon as she returned to the barracks, Molly could tell something bad had happened. Her arrival in a towel invariably led to whistles and catcalls from the male cadets. These were usually followed with bouts of derisive laughter, assuring Molly the flattery was a joke.

Five years ago, Molly saw these taunts as signs of fear. An androgynous eleven-year-old stick of a girl had entered their ranks and could out fly every single one of them. Later, as she grew into a young woman, she sensed they were hiding a different brand of fear. Despite the Navy’s poor excuse for food, her thin body had filled out. Workouts and womanhood had wrapped long, lean curves over her tall frame. The narrow face that had once made her look like a gangly boy produced high cheeks, a straight nose, and a tapered chin. She was beautiful. She knew it. And she hated that everyone took her less seriously because of it.

She strode across the long room of double-bunks, and nobody whistled. Not a one of them even looked up at her. This made Molly even more self-conscious than the rude attention had. She’d briefly toyed with the idea of sleeping here one final night, but she knew that was impossible now. She couldn’t bear being in this room any longer than it took to get dressed.

Her bunk was at the far end of the room, a sign of disrespect, but a fortuitous position. Snapping off her towel, Molly tucked one edge of it under the top bunk, creating a temporary dressing room. The idea of donning Navy black sickened her, but she had no choice. She pulled a fresh set of casuals out of her clothing tube and slipped them over her damp skin.

Molly looked at herself in the small mirror on the wall. Her short brown hair stood off her head in wet clumps. She leaned closer, studying her brown eyes and the starburst of yellow around the pupil. She didn’t recognize them. And she didn’t look the way she felt. She looked powerful, not broken.

“I am powerful,” she reminded herself, mouthing the words to the mirror.

Saunders didn’t know it, Lucin probably didn’t even fully appreciate it, but Molly knew. She was good at what she did. That she wasn’t going to be allowed to do it anymore was their loss, not hers. Molly concentrated on this, on focusing the shapeless pain inside her into something that could be hardened and made useful. Something she could cling to and wield with power. She gathered her belongings, a few old-fashioned books, a change of Navy casuals, her toiletries, a towel, extra boots, and her reader, and stuffed them in a black duffel. She threw it over her shoulder and turned to march out of there.

While strolling back to the door, Molly thought about Cole. What he would think when he found out she was gone. He was probably the reason she’d considered spending one more night in the barracks. Another night they could spend whispering in their corner, sharing jokes and insults and making each other laugh. Childish stuff. She needed to get over that nonsense and forget about Cole. Lumping him in with the others would help; she could create distance with her anger.

The march out of the barracks took place between two walls of mannequins. Molly had no idea what prevented them from celebrating her departure. It was as if they were scared of something. Or someone. She didn’t care. She suddenly felt older than they were. Her delusions and naiveté had been forged into something sharp and dangerous. Something the military wouldn’t get to use in a career of killing. It was a deadly thing she would smuggle out of their blasted Academy and use for her own protection, like armor. Never hurting again.

It was a good idea. While it lasted.

••••

Rounding the corner to the administrative hallway, Molly ran right into Cole. Literally. Her face crashed into his chest, her bag sliding across the hall. Both of Cole’s hands went to her shoulders, steadying her.

“Whoa, tiger.”

She looked up at him to say something rude, something that would let him know he was no better than the rest of them—she was gone and didn’t care if they ever talked again.

And then she saw his face.

One eye was completely swollen shut—a black slit between two purple bulges. A bandage crossed his nose, his nostrils chapped with blood. The top lip of his perfect mouth had been split wide open, black stitches tied off in a rough knot, their ends cut too long. His left cheek was a band of hues Molly had never seen before; the colors rose up to mix with the blackness below his eye. And he was standing there, smiling at her, trying to wash her worries away.

She touched her own upper lip, speechless.

Cole jabbed one of his thumbs over his shoulder, pointing back the way he’d come. “Heh. You should see the other guys. Infirmary.” His voice sounded funny, his nose stuffed and his lips avoiding each other.

Molly couldn’t speak. She threw both of her arms under his and locked them behind his back. She wasn’t sure how it was possible, but she started crying again, pressing her cheek into Cole’s unwashed flight suit. It had the same musky smell of a simulator after a battle—and something else. The smell of a real fight.

“I’m gone. . .” she croaked.

“I know,” he said softly. “Those bastards.”

There was so much more to say, but for now, this was enough. Molly held Cole for as long as she could stand it, until his arms reciprocated just a little, and then she pulled herself free. She ducked around him without making eye contact, grabbed her forlorn black duffel, and disappeared around the corner.

Cole called something to her as she ran away, but she could hardly hear anything over her own sobs.

5

Molly leaned back in her desk, reading Jim Eats Corn. With five years in the Navy reading nothing but technical manuals and tactical treatises, the fiction offered a blessed change of pace. Not as good as the romantic space operas she’d read in Junior Academy, but a lot better than she thought it would be.

For as long as Molly could remember, she’d been an avid reader. Her father had taught her at an early age. On Lok, he’d collected ancient children’s books for her, antiques with board backs and individual pages. She couldn’t recall their titles, but she remembered the bright colors and the odd words. She’d been reading ever since, another hobby that made her different.

Since transferring to Avalon High, she’d started working her way through the recommended reading list, the “boring” books that were supposed to teach life-lessons. Surprisingly, she found herself enjoying them, and they helped kill the excess time the other kids needed for the tests.

The pace of her new school had been a major transition. Everything was dreadfully slow; the other students got distracted by anything and everything. No one seemed to be here to actually learn—it was more like a daily prison sentence kids endured before they got to do the stuff they wanted to do.

The first week had been particularly torturous. Molly came into the school with the high expectations instilled by the Navy. It was a philosophy that clashed at Avalon, where tardiness and procrastination were the norm. Here, kids celebrated whoever got away with the worst behavior while shunning anyone attempting to do the right thing.

It was an attractive scheme, easy to be lured into if one was soft. Molly decided early on that she would not become like them. At the same time, she didn’t want to ruffle feathers or hurt feelings, so she decided to view Avalon High as just another tactical dilemma. She saw herself surrounded by aliens, and she could either let them defeat her the way the last bunch had, or make the best of it.

She chose the latter, using the slow time to educate herself in the things the Navy had neglected to teach. Once her teachers saw the quality of her work, they stopped asking her to put away the pleasure reading, which is why she could read while her classmates bent over a math test. She watched them scribble furiously, testing the multiple-choice offerings to see which ones created the least ridiculous results. Five months ago, she had been solving integrals in her head while worrying a wrong answer might get her and Cole killed.

Cole.

The smallest things reminded her of him. She found herself constantly wondering what he was doing at that very moment. Last semester it had been an easy game to play, what with the rigidity of the Academy. She could look at the time and know he was sitting in the simulator, or working out in the gym, or falling asleep during Space Strategics 202.

After winter break, she had no sense of what his schedule might be. He was everywhere and nowhere, so the game wasn’t as enjoyable anymore. Eventually Molly realized: she wasn’t having fun with wondering where Cole was, she was just fantasizing about where she should be. As hard as she struggled to accept this new life, some part of her still longed to be back at the Academy. Even as a navigator and Saunders’s “whipping boy,” she still had those hours of performing well in the simulator. And Cole.

“Time’s up, class.” Mrs. Stintson rapped her desk with her moon-rock paperweight, creating a beat for the chorus of groans. Pencils slapped desktops in frustration. Somebody continued to scratch away.

“TIME, Jordan.” One more pencil smacked down.

When the bell rang, everyone filed up to the teacher’s desk with their tests, transforming glum into good cheer. The weekend. And Spring Break was just a week away.

Molly programmed a bookmark in Jim Eats Corn and shoved the reader and her computer into her bag. As she stood and stretched, Mrs. Stintson caught her eye and waved her over.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Someone here to see you. Check in with the office on your way out.”

“Yes, ma’am. Have a nice weekend.”

A visitor? Molly couldn’t think of anyone who knew her outside of the school and the Academy. And nobody from the latter would be caught dead here. Vaguely intrigued, she ambled toward the door thinking of Jim’s problems with the corn harvest, unaware of how profoundly her life was about to change.

Mrs. Stintson watched her prized student file out before sliding Molly’s test out from the bottom of the pile, placing it on top.

••••

As soon as Molly opened the door to the school office, she knew who her visitor was. She knew it before she even saw him. It was in the way that all of the women were holding themselves. Even the Vice Principal was attempting to stand at attention.

Admiral Lucin.

Molly dropped her bag and went over to hug him. It was one of the small joys of being out of the Academy. She didn’t see him as often as she would like, but he was a friend again. The infrequent hugs always helped heal some of the pain that seeing his uniform caused.

“Hello, Wonderful.” He held her tight.

“What are you doing here? I thought you had business this weekend.”

“Well, this is part of my business. I’m here on official duty. They were going to send some flunky to break the news but I told them they were out of their minds.” He looked around the office and then out through the smudged windows. “Let’s go outside so we can talk.”

Now Molly was really confused. What official business could the Navy have with her? Once you were out of the Academy, there was no going back. Ever. If they made an exception, it wouldn’t be for a girl. Would it?

She led Lucin out through two double doors and into the school courtyard. A handful of students were still hurrying off to their weekend, so the two friends sat on a bench off in one corner. A Japanese cherry tree provided some shade and left a carpet of pink blossoms to stir in the breeze.

Lucin took in a deep breath and admired the campus. “It’s beautiful out here,” he said.

“Yeah,” Molly agreed. “I eat lunch over there in the grass. They give us an hour. Beats the old cafeteria with its two-meter ceilings and bare walls.” She compared the two experiences in her mind. She knew this talk was probably not about going back to the Academy, but she still made the comparison. And part of her betrayed the rest in wanting to switch places. “Anyway, what’s orbiting, Lucin?”

“‘What’s orbiting’? Is that the sort of English they’re teaching you here?” He looked at her with mock disapproval.