I let out a slow, long breath, trying to empty my lungs, before breathing in again. For the first time in two months, I was breathing air that hadn’t been through a filter-system, with all the pollutants and different elements that came with that. Nearby, other cadets were similarly standing around, mingling and simply enjoying that we were back on solid ground. Behind us, the Celraph 4 Orbital Lift was slowly climbing back up to the station where we had spent the last few hours, filling in paperwork to make sure everything was as it should be.

“Long time, no see…” a familiar voice spoke up behind me. When I turned around, I was looking into the smiling face of Airah, before I was caught in a hug.

“Good to see you, roomie.” I chuckled as I hugged her back, enjoying the moment of feeling her body against me.

“You look good.” I said, after stepping back a bit to get a good view of her.

“Thanks, so do you. And it looks like you managed to survive your first deployment without major damage to yourself, well done.” she replied with a grin.

“I learned a lot, that’s for sure.” I admitted, before shaking my head for a moment and continued, with a grin “I have a few stories to tell you.”

“Oh? I can’t wait.” she said before her grin widened even further, “It also means that we both did well and should go out to celebrate. We have a week before classes start back up so we have more than enough time.”

Somehow, the idea to go out to celebrate with her filled me with both excitement and dread. Sure, I had no doubt it would be awesome and fun but, at the same time, the potential to mortally embarrass myself was quite daunting. I was aware that I had been crushing on Airah for quite some time, partially because she had a smoking hot body that I quite liked to look at, partially because she was an awesome human being and had been my best friend over those four long, hard years. Before I could form a coherent answer, we were interrupted by another approaching figure.

“Leo, there you are.” Grace said, walking up and mostly ignoring Airah.

“Hello, Grace. Let me introduce you to Airah, my roommate at the Academy. Airah, meet Grace, we bunked together on the Merathorn.” I introduced the two of them and, after a short, mutual greeting Grace focused back on me, while Airah seemed to be content to wait.

“I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me, now that we are back” Grace asked, sounding excited and apprehensive at the same time.

My mind froze for a moment, not sure how to react, especially with the sudden double-whammy. And again, my mind needed too long to form a coherent answer.

“Why, we were just planning to go out to celebrate the successful return from the summer-cruise. Why don’t you join us?” Airah asked. I noticed that the grin on her face was a little stiff now, but I had no idea how to navigate this situation. Compared to social navigation, hyperspace-navigation seemed simple, straightforward and uncomplicated.

For now, the easiest way seemed to simply go along, so I mentally grit my teeth and pasted a smile on my face. It might even help me avoid the chance of embarrassing myself, simply because there would be another person present.

“Yeah, that sounds good. Is that okay with you, Grace?” I asked.

“Sure, how about going in two days? I think all of us could take a day or two, simply to relax and unwind.” Grace suggested and, after a short glance at Airah who nodded, I agreed as well.

“Great. I’m staying at a relative’s place for the week, could I get your contact-details?” Grace asked, looking straight at me. Again, I nodded, giving her my Academy-contact, which I used for pretty much everything. Moments later, I got a message from a civilian address, obviously Grace’s.

“There you go, now we can keep in contact.” she smiled widely before pulling me into a too-tight hug.

“Byebye, see you then.” she added and, once Airah and I had replied, she walked off, with a noticeable skip in her step.

There was a second of silence between Airah and me, with a glance of disbelief shared.

“She seems… enthusiastic.” Airah noted, her voice rather flat.

“I… have never seen her that way.” I admitted, feeling a little run-over by Grace’s behaviour. Sure, she had been seeking physical contact, which I had thought was a function of the mental trauma she had suffered but this seemed strange and over-the-top.

“Let’s get back to the Academy, I’m curious what adventures you had, especially with such an interesting bunk-mate. Did you try to breed bunk-bunnies?” Airah asked, her voice filled with mirth, causing me to shake in helpless laughter.

“Let’s get back, good idea. And no, there was no bunk-bunny-breeding in my bunk. Oh, but do you know Cadet Sulima Muir? Apparently, she was happily bunking with the other Starfighter-Cadet.” I said, grinning as we walked towards the transport to the Academy, happily gossiping as we went along.

Sitting on the transport, we shared the gossip we had missed on the others ship and what little we had heard from other people as we had been processed on the orbital station and the way down. It was the usual chaos that occured with many humans in tight spaces, even if it was subdued due to regulations and the simple fact that the shifts were rather exhausting reducing the amount of energy anyone had to invest into interpersonal drama.

It was still funny to hear how one of the guys on my training-squadron had tried hooking up with two different cadets at the same time, one male, one female, only to have them find out. Their reaction? They got together and, according to Airah, enjoyed their time quite a bit. The pilot had even been given a new nickname to commemorate the achievement, from now on, he would be called Cupid and asked to keep his Arrow in his pants.

Checking in at the Academy took a little extra time, they opened their rooms early for people like Airah and me who didn’t have accommodations on the planet and didn’t want to spend extra money to stay at a hotel. After dropping our stuff off at our room, we quickly agreed that getting some sun would be a great idea, especially without ship-suits.

It felt a little strange, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, after wearing the all-encompassing ship-suit almost constantly for two months, but at the same time, watching Airah donning hot-pants and a crop-top was a treat that I hadn’t had in the same time. Once again, I felt a bit jealous of Airah and her body, her skin-tone was still a healthy-looking light-brown while I looked just pasty-white, like some sort of mushroom, accustomed to the dark.

Sitting out in the open, with two cold soft-drinks in hand was pure pleasure. Looking up, the sky had a nicely purple tone, due to the light of Celraph filtering through the atmosphere, reminding me that I wouldn’t really tan here, most of the radiation was just filtered out.

“So, tell me, what battles did the Menerab fight? What pirates did you slay, what smugglers chase and which princess did you rescue?” I asked Airah, leaning back with my eyes closed and a smile on my face.

She just laughed at that, before asking, “Weren’t you the fighter-pilot with the license to safe princesses? I’m just the boring bridge-officer, either corrupt and bought of by the bad guys to hunt you down or I’m clumsily incompetent, allowing you to damage my ship before escaping because I tried to stop you, as my regulations require me to.”

At that, I had to laugh as it was sadly what fleet-officers were often portrayed as in popular fiction. Maybe because it was difficult to have a singular character stand out properly when you needed a dozen or so people, at the bare minimum, to operate a capital-ship.

“Well, I can tell you a story or three but first, tell me what you experienced out there.” I pushed and, with a small sigh, Airah started to recount her time on the Menerab.

Their mission, at least this time, had been a little different, they had been escorting the scientific vessel Tycho Brahe to an irregularly acting variable star, observing what was going on and trying to learn more. The journey there had been completely routine, without even a single alarm to wake them during the night and the only excitement, other than simulations, had been the drama on ship.

In the system, they had even less excitement. Other than the primary, there were only a couple clumps of rock, none with any remarkable features. It was a babysitting job, pure and simple, but a scientific vessel, despite being the size of a heavy cruiser, only carried the bare minimum of armanetment, making it a prime target so the escort was necessary.

The tales of sitting in a system as remote as it was empty made me grateful for the mission-profile of the Merathorn.

The only excitement, if you could call it that, they had on their whole cruise had been a single engagement with pirates on the way back. But even calling it an engagement would give it more credit than it was due. The two ships had jumped into a system, started to scan for trouble and detected a few pirates and gone to general quarters. Roughly at the same time everyone was at their station, the light of their entry into the system reached the pirates and they instantly started to accelerate - Away from them.

That was all the excitement Airah had on her cruise.

“Well, my dear Airah, I can tell you a tale of mystery, a tale of pirates or a tale of horror. Pick your poison.” I joked, knowing that I’d regale her with all the yarn I could spin from the three engagements the Merathorn had been in.