Her name was Callie
14 Mar 2021User319792
She was a trainee, like me. She was a year ahead of me in training with the man in the black suit. She talked about wanting to get into a Mamba one day and buzzing the man in the black suit at top speed just to see the look on his face as their cockpits came inches from one another. She was a lot better than me, back then, and she's probably a lot better than me now, but she was in a lot of trouble. The man in the black suit took us, with me in the cockpit of his Fer-De-Lance Shadow and she in her Eagle Ten Cent Pistol, to a resource extraction zone. Shadow was at rest behind a large asteroid as Callie and Ten Cent Pistol flew in what looked like zig zagged circles on the radar. She looked like she was lost.
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"We go until our shields are down"
Callie looked at him from the landing pad in front of Ten Cent Pistol and nodded. I looked at the man in the black suit and his face was solemn. He put his hand on her shoulder and I could see her wince as his arm muscles tensed. He shook her by the shoulder violently and she slapped him across the face. His head whipped back toward her and he stared hard into her eyes before she flashed a smile. He laughed and said, "Good."
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I could hear her on the comms cursing and muttering about how her radar was broken.
The man in the black suit said in a cold voice, "No, it's not, Callie. Your radar works fine. You're lost."
"Eat it!" she yelled back over the comms, and the man in the black suit laughed before boosting past her clipping her nose with his left wing and sending her into a flat-spin.
She screamed before cursing again and boosting into a spiraling weave that brought her to a short standstill with her beam lasers pointed straight at our port-side. She fired and the man in the black suit cursed before boosting behind another asteroid as he tried to pilot his way toward her six. She wasn't where he'd anticipated she would be and another beam laser blast hit the top of Shadow's cockpit. The man in the black suit flipped off his FAO and Shadow's nose flipped 145 and he hit her with a quadruple railgun shot that brought another scream through the comms before she yelled, "My cockpit's cracked"
The man in the black suit asked if her shields were down. She said no. I wasn't sure if she was serious. I'd never heard of a ship taking hull damage without the shield's being down. The man in the black suit said, "I know. I'm asking because I want to know if you know what that means."
Callie waggled her wings before nailing Shadow's cockpit with another double beam assault as she boosted past us. I could see the large crack in the cockpit window growing as she continued past us. The man in the black suit looked shocked as he looked over at the HUD and I looked at Shadow's shield gauge and saw that it was down to one ring.
The man in the black suit asked her if she wanted to continue and the comms crackled for the first time.
"Give up," she said and, as the man in the black suit laughed, I heard the sound of her cockpit shattering. The man in the black suit heard it, too. I saw his eyes narrow as his hands moved in tandem and within seconds we were on her six. He hit her with another quadruple railgun shot and I could hear the air bubble out of her lungs.
Her piloting with us on her six was pitch-perfect but so was the man in the black suit. He missed two more railgun shots and continued closing on her six. She continued with the perfect maneuvering. It was just as the man in the black suit taught us. As I watched, I learned an important detail about my training that I never forgot: The man in the black suit was teaching us.
He missed two more railgun shots as Callie made what looked like a mistake before going into another flat spin and then boosting past us. I looked at her as she came past and she didn't look focused. She looked scared. I looked over at the man in the black suit and his eyes were cold and narrowed, flipping Shadow over and boosting right back onto her six.
I could hear her on the comms and her breathing came in spurts. The man in the black suit missed one more railgun shot and she went into another flat spin, trying to repeat the maneuver before the man in the black suit roared through the comms, "NO!" hitting Ten Cent Pistol square on the nose. I could swear I saw one of the railgun munitions whip past her head straight into the bulkhead at the back of the cockpit.
I heard her whimper over the comms and looked at the man in the black suit. His lips curled into hateful sneer. I whispered something into the comms and the man in the black suit looked over at me briefly before turning his head back to Ten Cent Pistol. I switched my comms over to private before whispering to Callie.
"He's missing on purpose and every time you go into a flatspin and boost he inverts and boosts into your six."
"Cadence?"
I nodded as she began with the flatspin, again. I saw the man in the black suit briefly look away before looking back at Callie. I waited for the railgun shot to take down the last of her shield but it missed. She wasn't where she was supposed to be.
As Ten Cent Pistol exposed her port side to us, Callie rolled into inverted position and turned away again and boosted away from us before inverting again so she was facing us and flying backward, nailing us with the beams the entire time. The man in the black suit looked surprised and his head rocked back as if he'd been hit by the beam lasers before he grabbed the yoke and began lining up a railgun shot.
She kept the beams on us as Ten Cent Pistol slowed to a stop before boosting toward us, again. The man in the black suit lined up his shot and I could see Callie's lips curling into an ever more intense snarl in the seconds before the man in the black suit let go of the yoke.
"Fine"
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She walked to us on the landing pad as the man in the black suit looked over Shadow's hull.
"I won."
The man in the black suit looked at her and said, "You did."
Callie looked at me and said, "I beat him."
I looked at her. She was a few inches taller than me but she was thinner and her hair longer. She was really pretty. She had perfect lips and her hips stretched the fabric of her flight suit in a way that I wish mine did.
"You beat him," I said, and she smiled at me and gave me a long, warm hug before walking away.
The man in the black suit smiled at us before giving her a big smile and pointing in the direction of the control tower. I haven't seen her since.
I looked at the man in the black suit and said, "You had her six with her cockpit canopy busted and you missed at least 12 shots."
"I did"
"You had clear shots on her six and you knew her move."
"I did"
"How did you miss?"
He looked at me, still smiling from before. I squinted at him and gave him a look that demanded an answer. The smile left his face and he looked off into the distance. He stood like that for quite some time before he looked at me, with a look of shock on his face. His eyes widened before narrowing and he briefly looked away again. He laughed before slowing turning his head toward me and looking at me with a big smile on his face. He lifted his arm and pointed toward the control tower in front of Ten Cent Pistol.
"Go."
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When I finally touched down in Gresley, my mind went into auto-pilot. The hundreds upon hundreds of escape pods in my limpets flickered like stars in a hyper jump. The collected sweat and salts under my flight suit, dried and rehydrated over and over again, itched. My face felt numb. Every step from the cockpit through Ovid's interior pulsed with The Empress' face. When they cancelled the Summit after Theta Seven's masterpiece for The Nine Martyrs, I was too deep into my Hahn rescue effort to give much thought to where she'd ended up. I was wondering whether or not she end up back in Cemiess or Cubeo when a compartment door opened.
"That took way longer than it should have, Cadence. The briefings couldn't have covered more than 5-6 missions."
I forgot I shut off his onboard comms and cut off his monitors. He was blabbing about something after the first two missions and I wasn't too keen on just leaving people in Hahn. I tried mumbling a response but he cut me off and grabbed my arm, pulling me off Ovid and walking me over to the control tower.
When we entered the room, a man calling himself Federal something stormed toward me and took my hand with enough force to wake me for a half a second before I fell back into auto-pilot. The man in the black suit smiled at the man and they shook hands and embraced before Mr. Federal turned to me again and said something about being honored and proud to bestow me with the rank. I mumbled something before the man in the black suit's head jerked toward me.
"Admiral?"
I just stood there staring at him, and Mr. Federal guy turned to him with a look of confusion before piecing it together. They directed me over to a dais for the promotion ceremony and hung back discussing something or other. I mumbled some words about swearing to honor the Federal Auxiliary, regardless of creed and crops or something. I barely made it back down the one step from the dais to the floor without collapsing from the exhaustion that quickly became who I was for the rest of the day. The man in the black suit looked at me, half awe and half proud. He smiled at me, the buffoonish laughter from earlier giving way to a warm calm.
"You did well, Cadence."
I think I said thanks, but can't be sure. He grabbed me by the arm and began walking me back toward the Ovid, whispering in my ear.
"You should take some time off."
I think I said Aisling a couple of times before saying something about a lot of people "being are" or something.
He looked at me, with a slight look of confusion and worry on his face.
"What?"
I looked back at him. I studied the scar on his nose that he said he got when a railgun munition penetrated his cockpit and dinged him before being stopped in its path by the sheer willpower of his cheek bone, which is still the dumbest story I've ever heard.
"You're an Admiral of the Federal Auxiliary, now, Cadence. You were an Ensign when the week started. You deserve a break. Go."
I think I mumbled "but being are" again before stumbling into Ovid's CMDR's compartment.