USD: 41 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Orbit, A3123Y Rendezvous with Space Elevator

They had arrived at Dedia IV Orbit a day earlier, but H32 had delayed their meeting for a day. Amy wasn’t sure what that was about, but Abbey had been bouncing off the walls as they got closer to the planet.

To keep the young NAI from getting into trouble, she had made Abbey sit in her lap as they waited in the lobby for H32’s arrival. The young girl wiggled and felt like she was on the verge of taking off, her legs swinging back and forth with childish energy.

Wyles didn’t bother to sit. Instead, he watched the shuttle come in for docking while giving distrustful looks at the construction that was visible through the mooring arm’s window.

Amy had already looked at it herself. In fact, she had spent most of their time approaching the planet, looking at it for hours, worrying about what it meant.

The construction in orbit had a decidedly non-human shape. Rather than the boxy, angular or atmospheric shapes she was used to, these were decidedly organic in form. Most had strange spikes that resembled a sea urchin, although not as numerous.

Abbey had pointed out PDC-Ks and other weapon systems that were mounted on them, while others seemed to be armored in nature.

Amy wasn’t an expert on ship architecture, but she couldn’t quite comprehend the advantages or disadvantages of the shapes.

“What do you think about those ships?” Amy asked Abbey.

Abbey stopped wiggling her legs and turned around to look at her. “They’re ugly! If you ask me to make some, I’m going to go on strike!”

Amy blinked in surprise at the shallow answer. Well, at least it solved one thing she had been thinking about. Now she just had to worry about the mind who thought those alien constructions weren’t ugly.

“Just don’t tell H32 that. You might hurt its feelings and start a new war, which we don’t need.” Amy said.

Abbey pouted. “He wouldn’t dare. I have very high authority, you know. Also, Alex made me first, so I have seniority!”

Amy hoped that H32 felt the same way.

Wyles looked over at them. “And he has a battlecruiser and several other vessels. They seem to have a specialization for boarding of some type as well, which would mean bad things for us if they attacked now that we’re here. At least I confirmed that my family is alright in the underground colony.”

Amy bit her lip for a second as she thought of a response. “At least he is coming to meet us here. That’s a friendly gesture, right?”

Abbey let out a laugh. “Well, of course he’s coming here! He’s portable, I’m not!”

“How can he be more portable than you?” Amy asked, with a slowly appearing grin.

“He—Eeep!” Abbey squeaked suddenly and felling to a laughing fit as Amy started tickling her.

Amy couldn’t help but giggle as Abbey tried to tickle her back, but lost the game because she was too ticklish.

Wyles shook his head as the two girls started running around the terminal. He wasn’t sure whether to be amused or worried anymore. The MilTech security team that was standing at ease nearby had similar expressions, although they maintained their discipline.

Even when Abbey used a set of them as a barrier to hide behind.

Things had calmed down by the time the SR shuttle finally came in. The gangway that extended from the shuttle was uncharacteristically opaque and the first sign that something was off manifested as a shaking of the tube.

It reminded Amy of a herd of cats that had once escaped the zoo section on Ackman station, but as the volume rapidly increased, she quickly revised her size estimations.

Abbey frowned and tilted her head. “H32 says don’t be alarmed or shoot his brothers.”

Wyles raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Yelling erupted from the MilTech security teams as Rexxor nestlings burst out into the terminal, growling and drooling long lines of saliva, their back mounted guns swiveling back and forth randomly.

Abbey yelled louder over the commotion, “He said not to shoot them. They are friendly!” Suddenly the rifles the guards were carrying blooped and turned red as she deactivated them.

She was just in time, too, as more than one frightened guard pulled the trigger anyway as one nestling got too close for comfort.

Wyles shook his head. “Shit.”

Amy didn’t know what to say, but the shaking of the gangway got even louder. The airlock connection seemed like it would break as something even bigger came through it. Amy’s eyes widened when a massive, round, bug-lizard-tentacle demon emerged.

It nearly reached the ceiling of the connector. As it emerged from the tube and raised itself up to its full height, she realized it had been crawling in order to fit. Several of the guards fled.

When that triggered one of the nestling’s hunting instinct the monster-demon reached out a long tentacle and restrained it, dragging it back before slapping it and sending it scampering back up into the shuttle.

Amy wrapped her arms around Abbey from behind protectively as the thing approached slowly.

A garbled voice came out of a mechanical-looking circle on the monster’s torso.

“Greetingsss, A31.”

Abbey frowned. “I prefer Abbey, and please make your doggos behave. They already frightened several people.”

“I am Heeler. I apologize for my brothers’ lack of mannerss.”

Amy’s mouth gaped as she tried to think of something to reply. Before she could think of anything, several people came out of the shuttle. That showed to her that at they weren’t all on a list to be eaten… probably.

The first man to step out looked tired and haggard, with a dirty set of engineering gear. A young man in a white uniform followed closely. The third following them was a bulky older male who was built similarly to Wyles, if slightly smaller. Although that meant little, Wyles was massive by any standard thanks to his cybernetic enhancements.

“These are the humans less likely to become stupid when in the presence of others. Daniel Ashburn, Assistant Orbital Manager. Lieutenant Lavigne of the Solarian Navy, representing the survivors of the Grazhdanin. Petty Officer Morrison of the same Navy, and Lavigne’s ranking NCO. They have been helpful in herding the colonists and pushing forward operations.” Heeler announced.

Abbey looked the men over, then gestured to Wyles. “This is Wyles Hammok. He’s our chief of security and operations.”

The young NAI then tilted her head back to look up at Amy. “And this is Starlight Revolution 92 Pegasi Manager, Amy Tanis! Her brother is around somewhere, too, but he’s always into something and never around!”

Amy felt concern as the thing called Heeler… vibrated? Laughed?

“It is good to have useful humans, even if most of them are too skittish to be helpful. Although I do not understand why you choose such a… compact form.”

Abbey stood up straighter, a frown creasing her face. “I have the same DNA as A13X! It’s just I was in a hurry! There were Corpos coming to shoot at us!”

Heeler vibrated again, this time with a deeper frequency. “I suppose if you had to choose one to model yourself from, Mother would be the best choice.”

“Sister.” Abbey corrected.

“Mother.”

“Sister.”

“Mother.”

“Sister!”

“Oh my god, now I have two children to look after…” Amy commented without thinking.

Heeler grumbled unhappily, a tentacle tipped with an eyeball coming to examine her up close.

“Now that we have arrived, I require that you utilize your large construction capacity to help with my progress in orbit. Despite great efforts, we have a lack of construction units in space. Recreating the mining hub around the Gas Giant is also needed.” Heeler said.

Amy started to object, but Abbey beat her to it.

“If you’re going to be making requests of your older sister, you need to be polite!” Abbey said, staring up defiantly at Heeler.

That… was not how Amy thought she would have worded her response and she felt the entire area become silent.

She thought the world had become insane when Heeler finally answered.

“Please.”

USD: 42 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, Fort Glisson, Company S, 1st Cadre

Alex noticed Tia avoided her for the rest of the day. Even when their return from Mount Hilly was interrupted by the other training platoons arriving. They were even more ill-equipped than Cadre S had been. A single written order on a scribbled note from Instructor Hills had been carried by the first to arrive squad of Company A and it gave them a new mission: get the recruits of all four companies to the top of Mount Hilly and back.

Cadre S spent the entire day helping others up and down the rappelling section. No one was allowed to fail to make it to the top, and Alex had pulled exhausted recruits up over the cliff edge multiple times.

They were the first to arrive and complete the mission, and the last to leave once everyone had made it.

Alex trudged back into the area around the barracks with the rest of her squad around midnight. She spotted all the other platoons standing at attention in the parade grounds. A confused look appeared on her face, when all the sudden Instructor Riley appeared and started yelling at them to join the assembly.

It took another hour before the entire training battalion was assembled on the parade field. Snow trickled down slowly in fits and starts, but the lack of a breeze made it bearable. Alex’s breath misted in front of her.

She wasn’t sure if they were all gathered because they were to be congratulated or if someone had fucked up in a big way. It turned out to be the latter.

Sergeant Fabien stood up on a raised platform with a bullhorn.

“Great work recruits. All of you reached the top of Mount Hilly through teamwork and hard work. Reconnisance drones recorded that every single one of you made it to the top and touched the flag. That doesn’t always happen. Sometimes a joker thinks they’ll just blend in and get away with not doing the climb even though no DIs are watching them.”

Alex blinked in surprise at the praise. She wasn’t sure any of their instructors had come out and plainly stated they did a good job before.

“Normally, you’d all be in your bunks by now and be getting a rest day. This marks the start of when we transition you all to heavy instructional training to prepare you for your next stage, whether that be AIT or OCS.”

Alex tensed as she sensed the ‘but’ coming. It had been a long day, and she wanted a shower and to go sleep.

“Two members of the battalion fucked up in a grand way. They will both be receiving NJP, but the specifics don’t concern you. What does is they somehow had enough energy to be interested in having intercourse on my base! The entire battalion will undergo group correction for the next week, because it was obvious that we have been too soft if some of you have the energy for that!”

Alex groaned, wondering who and how someone had the energy to be worried about having sex when they were all being run haggard every day. She wondered who the fuck it had been, too. She wanted to strangle them because she had really wanted to take a shower and go to sleep.