A/N:
Welcome to The Human Heart!
This might be a huge mistake but…yeah. Gonna go for it anyway. And yes, I do realize this means I'm writing three stories now at once. As always, DE5 will take precedence, with Citadel and this fic being posted on as I can until DE5 is done.
Ok, so I loved the Wing Commander series when it first came out. My very first tentative forays into fanfiction years and years ago revolved around Wing Commander, among others. Some of the plot points of the stories I wrote were good but to be honest, most of the writing was crap. Hey, I was about seventeen, so what can I say?
So, I decided to do a revisiting, and this fiction is the result. A few things before I get started:
This story is very, very, VERY loosely based on the actual Wing Commander series. Honestly, beyond a few names and basic static elements, this story has absolutely nothing to do with Wing Commander canon. So please, don't write me explaining how something isn't canon or isn't even a thing in the WC universe…I know.
The static elements that will be familiar are: the human forces are still called the Confederation. The group of traitors and spies are still called the Mandarin, or the Mandarin Order. The enemy are still an empire of feline aliens called the Kilrathi.
However, I'm making up nuances of tech, culture, history, slang, etc. as I go. The protagonists and ships of the WC series (Blair, TCS Tiger's Claw, etc) will NOT be in this story. All characters and ships will be original and of my creating.
If this massive departure from canon is going to upset you, I suggest you give this story a pass.
Lastly, this story will have a romance in it between two women. If that is going to upset you as well, I suggest you give this story a pass as well. Also, if you are reading looking for shmexy lesbian love scenes or smut…you will be disappointed. I have a really bad habit of fading to black.
I also love cliffhangers, so be warned.
Now, to set the stage…
This takes place a couple of centuries from now. Humans have space travel, and are in the middle of an all-out war between our systems and colonies, and a very strong empire of aliens ruled by the Kilrathi. Slowly, but surely…the Kilrathi are winning, and driving humanity back into the Sol system. Their goal seems to be not just to take over our territories, but to eliminate the human species from existence altogether.
The Mandarin, an underground group of nameless spies, terrorists and traitors to humanity, undermine the efforts of the Confederation and its fleets, sabotaging, selling information, and aiding the Kilrathi against humanity in the hopes of power and reward.
A key portion of the Confederation's defense are its deep space stations and launch platforms- enormous floating colonies in their own right- and huge battle fleets compromised of enormous transports, destroyers, cruisers, frigates, and millions of combat fighters. While battles have been fought dirt-side, the bulk of the combat front is space itself.
This war will be won- or lost- in the cockpits of millions of fighters across known space. Our fate is in the hands of the pilots of those ships.
This is the story of some of those pilots.
And like most stories surrounding combat pilots and soldiers…it starts in a bar.
It was Parry's first leave in six weeks, and she knew it was going to be her last for a very long time. Normally, she was not a big drinker, and being something of an introvert, a raucous night at a bar was not necessarily on her list of favorite things.
However, one thing she'd learned since signing up for boot-there were certain traditions, certain chains you just didn't break. Pilots in general, and combat pilots in particular, were a superstitious lot. If they weren't before they arrived at Yelchin, they were by the time they departed.
One tradition was graduation. If you graduated MR, or 'mission-ready'- especially from Yelchin- you spent the night before assignment at the bar and drank. No excuses, no exceptions. If you didn't, it was solemnly believed you would not survive your first mission, no matter where you were deployed.
Parry was too smart to believe in superstitions, and considered this one as ridiculous as any other. At the same time, however…who wanted to tempt fate?
That, and I'm pretty sure Jonas and the others would have hog-tied me and carried me here if I'd refused, she thought, as a beer was slapped down in front of her with so much force half of it slopped out onto the tabletop.
Picking it up, she gave Jonas a dry look, then sniffed it suspiciously. He barked a laugh, then tsked.
"What, princess…you think I'm going to drug your skinny ass?"
Jonas was a good guy. Mostly harmless, with a bit of a bantam ego that sent him strutting about as if he were a clear foot taller and a hell of a lot better on the stick than he was.
He wasn't a bad pilot- bad pilots didn't make MR at Yelchin- but he was comfortably middle of his class, middle of his flight scores.
You wouldn't think it by the way he puffs up, Parry thought affectionately. You'd think he shits bricks as gold as Killdare with the way he preens.
"What makes you think you'd have to, Jonas?" Parry asked, teasing him. The other woman at the table, already well on the way past drunk, laughed.
"How many've you had?" she asked, squinting at Parry as she swayed slightly back and forth in her seat.
"Far less than you, by looks," Parry replied.
"So not nearly enough," she giggled.
Jaime had always been a giggler. It was weird. Woman was cold enough and precise enough on the stick to have earned the name Ice, but she was a fucking giggler.
"Not nearly enough for what?" Jonas asked, confused. That was another thing…Jonas wasn't always quick on the uptake.
"For you," Jaime said, in a tone that suggested how obvious she thought it was. "Parry'd have to be a hell of a lot more sussed before she'd swap a dustpan for a broomstick."
"A dustpan for a broomstick?" Rafael asked, getting back to the table. He was cradling no fewer than eight more beers- bottled ones- and was sweating. The bar was insanely crowded and hotter than blazes. There were a lot of pilots who'd graduated MR…a lot who didn't want to tempt superstitious fate.
Rafael- or Rafe, as he was known by his friends- was a big brute of a man, with a closely shaved slick of platinum blonde hair and a perpetually squinting, slightly irritated expression on his face. He sat down, taking up half the table on his own, setting the beers down as he squinted at Jaime. "Is that some sort of drunk euphemism for dicks and splits?"
"Jesus, Rafe, can you get any more crude?" Jaime asked with a snort. He shrugged, cracking open his first beer.
"Yeah, probably," he said, then slapped Jonas' hand hard as he reached for one of the bottles. "Get your own, fucker!"
"You got eight of them!"
"Yeah, and I'm going to drink every damn one! Get your fucking own!"
Jaime sipped her own drink, then gestured with it as if she were at a lectern explaining nuclear physics to the unwashed masses. "We were discussing just how in the soup our dear Parry would have to be, before she would select Jonas over any number of loverly ladies in this fine estab'ishment."
"Jonas? Fuck, she'd have to be dead," Rafe said, prompting an injured 'hey!' from Jonas. He ignored his friend, and took a gulp of the beer he'd just opened. "Any other guy in here…? Yeah, I'm thinking she'd still have to be dead."
"I love this conversation," Parry said sarcastically.
"Hey, I'm on your side," Rafe grinned, then offered his fist. "Sister power and all that, right mate?"
She ignored the fist. "Drink your beers. You can't pass out soon enough."
"Too right," he said, still grinning, and downed the rest of the first one, moving on instantly to crack open a second.
"Hey, guys, seriously," Jonas said, looking at them. "I'm being serious a moment. Seriously."
"You are seriously drunk," Jaime said, slurring the beginning of the word almost beyond recognition.
"No, man, seriously," Jonas said insistently. "Tomorrow we get our assignments. We could ship out immediately. Never fucking see each other again."
"You gonna cry?" Rafe asked.
"Fuck you man, I mean it," Jonas said. "This is some deep shit ok? A week from now, I may be on a DS station on the front in Gamma Sector. Jaime may be…may be scaring the fuck out of some Cat in a johnny out off Burbank Station and Parry…she'll be commanding a Wing for First Fleet, you just wait and see."
Parry about spit the mouthful of beer she'd taken. "You have an awfully high estimate of my skills, Jonas."
"Please, you scored a one ninety. You could fly circles around us and you know it. Point is…this is it. After tonight…everything changes."
"He's right," Jaime said, and lifted her mug. "To us! May our wings be…be flappy and our guns…boom…"
Parry rolled her eyes. "May our wings be swift and our shots never miss. To the Confederation!"
"To the Confederation!"
There was a sloppy clink as they tapped glasses and bottles together. As Jaime went to drink, she slipped off the edge of her chair and vanished beneath the table. Parry blinked and half stood up, setting her own mug down.
"Jaime?"
"…I think I'm gonna chuck…" came the weak reply.
"I got 'er," Jonas said, getting to his feet and helping his friend to hers before steering her on a wobbly course through the crowds and toward the restrooms.
Parry watched them go, picking up her glass again as Rafe cracked open his fourth bottle of beer. As her eyes left her friends and panned briefly over crowd, she suddenly stopped, lowering her glass again. Rafe looked at her from beneath one grizzled brow. Seeing her eyes, he turned his head and tried to pinpoint where she was looking.
Near the bar another MR was standing, her posture decidedly stiff and square, as if she expected a surprise inspection at any point. A glass sat in front of her on the bar top, and she was looking down into it-touching neither it nor the bar itself-with a curiously fixed intensity.
"Really? Out of all the MRs here ready to party, you're looking at her?" Rafe asked.
"What?" Parry blinked, looking at him.
"C'mon, I saw you looking. You had the same expression my dog used to get when he thought there was bacon in the house."
She glared at him. "I wasn't looking like that."
"You were. Dunno why. I mean, she's ok I guess. Cute enough, but nothing special. Nothing like Rodriguez."
"No one measures up to Rodriguez in your book, Rafe."
"Damn straight, and never will. She's…weird, too, I think." He was looking back at the girl at the bar, who hadn't so much as moved. "Maybe floating. What the fuck is she doing?"
"I don't know. Maybe there's a bug in her glass."
"Hey, here's an idea. Why don't you go and ask her?"
She snorted, shaking her head. "Uh, no."
"Why not? Jesus Christ, Parry, when we tagged you 'Angel' we meant 'of Death', not 'Christmas tree'."
"What?" She stared at him in confusion.
"Christmas tree angel. You know, because you've got a huge stick shoved so far up your ass it's a wonder your tonsils aren't getting splinters."
"Shut up, Rafe."
"No. Look, this may be your last night on base. Fuck, it may be your last night on the fucking planet. So quit trying to fade into the background, get drunk out of your mind, and go get yourself fucking laid."
He took one of his remaining few beers, cracked it, and set it firmly in front of her.
"Jaime's right. You're a crude asshole."
"You fucking love me. Now drink. Then get up off your ass and go talk to her."
She gave him a challenging look and he lifted his brows, then shrugged. "All right. You have until I finish these last three beers. If you haven't gotten off your ass and gone and talked to her by then, I'm going to get up, I'm going to go over to her, and I'm going to tell her you've been making rude remarks about her all night and bragging to all your mates about what she's like in bed."
Parry blanched, horrified. "I don't even know her!"
"Which is why you shouldn't be saying such shitty things about her. Shame on you."
"Rafe!"
He gave her another pointed lift of his brows, setting aside an empty bottle and opening a new one. "Two left, princess. You're running out of time."
She picked up the bottle of beer he'd pushed her way, lifting it and downing half. Then she slapped it back down and shoved the remainder of it toward him as she got to her feet. "You're such a fucking scrag."
"You can thank me tomorrow after you've gotten properly shagged," he said, and lifted his own bottle in tribute as she pushed past him. "Salud."
Parry edged her way through the crowd, mentally cursing Rafe and all his ancestry as she did so. Halfway to the bar, she switched from her furious internal dialogue to a nervous one.
She'd never been good at talking to women…at least, not like this. She didn't do bars, and she certainly didn't do cheesy, half-drunk pick-up lines.
You don't have to pick her up. You don't even have to talk to her, just look like you are from where Rafe is sitting.
Though several minutes had passed since she'd first caught sight of the MR at the bar, the other woman hadn't moved. She still stood, contemplating the glass in front of her as if it were a bomb that would be triggered by motion. Parry managed to squeeze into a spot at the bar only a few feet away, edging closer when someone else stepped off with their order.
The bartender glanced her way and lifted a brow. There was suddenly only one thing Parry wanted more than anything else in the universe.
"Glass of water please?" She had to shout to be heard over the noise. He nodded and as he filled a glass with ice, Parry licked her dry lips and half glanced at the woman standing only a foot or two away.
She was in her fatigues but like most of the MRs in the sweltering bar, she'd abandoned her jacket somewhere. Her black t-shirt was slightly damp in a patch between her shoulders, and a few errant strands of her hair were stuck with sweat to her temples and the side of her neck.
The hair itself was dark, slightly longer than Parry's but still short of her collar- reg for any pilot, male or female. She was shorter than Parry but that was expected; Parry was tall for a woman. While it was true the MR wasn't unnaturally gorgeous or a drop dead stunner, seeing her even closer Parry knew Rafe was wrong.
She blows the socks off every other woman in here, she thought.
The bartender set the glass of ice in front of her and started to fill it with water. As he did, he glanced at her, then at the motionless woman nearby.
"Don't know what she's doing," he said conversationally. "She's been standing like that for twenty goddamn minutes."
"I'm trying to decide how superstitious I am," the woman said suddenly, without looking around. Parry blinked.
"You're what?" she asked, before thinking.
The MR finally moved, looking over at her. It was hard to tell in the bar lights, but she thought her eyes might be green, or blue. She shrugged almost bashfully, and gestured helplessly at the glass.
"I don't drink," she said. "Never have. Never been tempted. So, I'm wondering…is just coming to this horrible sweaty bar enough to fulfill tradition, or do I actually have to drink this probably very nasty tasting swill as well?"
"Just being alcohol doesn't mean it tastes bad."
"No," the MR agreed. "However, being a drink that my classmates ordered for me while exchanging malicious grins, on the other hand…"
"Ah. I get it."
"What do you recommend?"
Parry looked at the glass. The booze was clear, which narrowed down the field. Gesturing at it she lifted a brow. When the MR nodded, she lifted the glass and took a sniff.
"It's tequila. Not as mean as they could have been. Just drink it fast. Better that than tempting fate."
The MR wrinkled her nose, accepting the glass back. "Well, here it goes then, I guess. Bottom's up."
She lifted the glass to her lips, paused, then took a deep breath and downed it in one motion. Immediately a look of disgust passed over her face and she grimaced, setting the glass back down and giving it a slight push, as if by increasing her distance to it she could erase the taste from her mouth.
Parry smiled. "You ok?"
"Apparently now I'm not going to die on my first mission. Go me. Not sure it was worth it," she said in a strained voice. Parry laughed, then offered her glass of water.
"Here."
The MR took the glass with a nod, then downed a healthy swig, before sighing. "Ah. Thank you. You are an angel."
"So they tell me," Parry replied, then offered her hand. "I'm Parry Mazurek."
The MR took the hand, giving it a firm squeeze. "Ray Caruso."
"Ray? Short for something?"
"Rayna, but don't ruin our brand new friendship by saying it," Ray replied. "Thank you, Parry, for the water, but now that the Gods of Superstition have been appeased this is the last place I want to be."
"I hear you on that," Parry said. "I'm not huge on bars either…especially not loud and crowded ones. It was nice to meet you, Ray."
"Nice to meet you as well, Parry."
She gave her a smile, then ducked awkwardly into the crowd. Parry watched her as she wove through the packed bodies to a distant table where a bunch of other MRs were parked. Even over the general noise of everything, she could hear the voices of the others lift up as Ray approached, picking up her jacket from one chair. She couldn't hear what was being said, but by the tone of it and the laughter, it wasn't very nice.
Parry frowned. She and her friends teased each other a lot, and Rafe could be an outright asshole, but this wasn't the same. Being tall for a girl and inherently shy, Parry had endured her fair share of bullying as a kid. She'd put it past her, but even now she could recognize bullies from a goddamn mile away.
Ray said something to them, her voice lost in the noise. There were more moans and mean comments- likely, they were badmouthing her for leaving early. Parry felt her anger lifting as Ray started toward the door, absently tying her jacket around her waist.
Glancing back toward her own table and friends, Parry could see that Jaime and Jonas had returned from the restroom. Jaime still looked unsteady, half-draped over Jonas, but she was smiling the smile of the blissfully sotted. Jonas couldn't see her from his vantage, but Rafe could. Almost immediately, the big guy gestured at her and pointed toward the door, mouthing words with exaggerated motions.
Go. Follow. Her.
Parry followed.
The Yelchin Confederation Flight Base was considered the top flight school on the continent. It was situated just two miles outside of Stodola, Massachusetts. While the Base had extensive amenities, alcohol was strictly forbidden within the grounds. If the trainees wanted a drink, they had to get a pass off-base and walk (or catch a passing truck) to the single bar in Stodola.
Getting an off-base pass wasn't always easy, so the bar wasn't usually crowded. Graduation night was an exception- every MR got an overnight pass on graduation night, and the bar was usually wall to wall. As Parry stepped out into the midnight, late summer Massachusetts air, the temperature notably dropped several degrees. Combined with the fresh air and elbow room, it was a blessed relief.
A few MRs and officers were lingering around outside. She ignored them and looked toward the dirt road that lead to Yelchin, quickly spotting Ray as she reached the shoulder of the road and started toward the base.
She broke into a jog to catch up, falling into step beside the smaller MR as she reached her. Ray looked over at her with a surprised blink.
"Oh," she said.
"Mind if I walk with you?" Parry asked. "I was about full up of that place too."
Ray shrugged. "It's a free road."
"You ok?"
"Hmm? Oh, I'm fine," she said lightly. "Just silly. I really don't know why I even went there to begin with. I'm not superstitious. Of course I'm not going to die on my first mission just because I didn't burn my throat with tequila."
"Your…friends didn't seem too happy that you were leaving."
"I don't know what I would call them, but friends doesn't really apply," Ray said. "They were upset I was leaving only because they were hoping to get me drunk."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "Probably so they could laugh at me when I inevitably did something stupid."
"Why would they-"
"I'd really rather not talk about them," Ray said. "So. Parry. I can tell by that ever so faint accent of yours you don't call Massachusetts home. Where are you from in the world?"
"Maine."
"Ah, northerner."
"Yeah. You?"
"California."
"Nice. Did you always want to be a pilot?"
"No, for a while I wanted to be a fire truck."
Parry blinked at her, and laughed when Ray smiled. "Well, in my defense, I was two years old at the time. Did you want to be something odd when you were two?"
"I think I wanted to be a unicorn at some point. Not sure if I was two at the time."
"A unicorn. Practical. I like it. Strong, fast, and you can stab people with your face."
Parry laughed even harder. "That was definitely one of the appealing aspects, yes."
Ray smiled. "You said that people have told you you're an angel before?"
"Yes. Well, I mean, that's my call sign. Angel."
"What kind of angel?"
"Kind?"
"Well, yes. I mean, if they gave you your call sign meaning 'guardian angel', that would suggest you're very protective over your squadron during a firefight. If they gave it to you meaning 'angel of mercy', then that would suggest you go for the disabling shot at enemy johnnies, not the kill. If it means something like Cherub-"
"Then I fly my tourney wearing a diaper and a sash?" Parry asked with a teasing grin. Ray chuckled and shook her head.
"No, it would mean you were kind," she said gently. Parry looked at her awkwardly a moment, and after a beat of silence Ray shrugged. "So, as you can see, the kind of angel is very important. Much can be gleaned from it."
"And you want to glean much of me?"
Ray shrugged again. "I like to know the sort of person who walks me home."
"We're just happening to go to the same place at the same time," Parry hedged.
"Oh," Ray said, with a light smile. "I see. In that case, nevermind. You can remain a strange stranger."
Parry returned the smile-she couldn't seem to help it. "It's actually after the angel of death," she said. "What does that say about me?"
"That you're a very good and precise combat pilot," she said, and looked at her. "And still very kind."
"Death is kind?" Parry asked.
"It can be, but they didn't call you 'Death', did they? They called you 'Angel'. Even if it is the angel of death, that's significant."
"You…have an interesting way of thinking," Parry said.
"That's one way to put it, I guess," Ray replied.
"What about you? What call sign did you get slapped with?"
"Going to see what you can figure out about me?" Ray asked.
"If I can."
"Ripley."
"Ripley?" Parry echoed. "Couldn't be an easy one, could it?"
Ray just shrugged again, offering nothing more than an enigmatic smile. Parry's brows knit as she tried to work through it, figure out what Ripley was supposed to mean.
"My sergeant's call sign is Lobo, because his last name is Wolff. Well, your name is Ray Caruso. I don't see how Ripley ties into that, so I doubt it's based on just your name."
"Go on."
"Ripley…Ripley…hang on. Wasn't there some kind of movie way back in the olden days? Some woman miner who fights these weird black alien things?"
"You're thinking of Ellen Ripley from Alien."
"You just knew that off the top of your head? That has to be two hundred years old or more."
"You knew it too."
"As a vague mention I heard once, a story. You knew her full name and the movie title."
"I like old cinema, what can I say?"
"Still impressive. So, that means that you fight well on your own then…that you don't back down from a challenge. You survive at any cost."
Ray smiled again. There was something about that smile that Parry knew she could very easily become addicted too.
"That's a very nice thought, but no."
"No? She was a badass, wasn't she? I remember she was supposed to be one of the first really iconic women heroes from early cinema."
"She was, but I wasn't given the name Ripley because of her."
"You weren't?"
"Nope."
"Nothing to do with her at all?"
"Nope."
"Damn it. Ok, lemme think…"
She was silent for a while longer, before she finally sighed in frustration. "I give up. I can't think of a single other Ripley, or the way it would tie in to a combat pilot."
Ray untied her uniform jacket from around her waist and began to pull it on. Now that they had cooled down from the heat of the bar, it was starting to get a bit chilly. As she did she started to talk.
"My classmates think I'm an idiot," she said. Parry frowned and nearly interrupted.
How can they think you're an idiot? For one, idiots don't get into Yelchin. For another, you seem damn smart to me!
Instead she bit her tongue and remained silent. She sensed there was a bit more weight about what Ray was saying than she wanted to let on, and she had a feeling this wasn't something she generally shared easily. Certainly not with someone she had just met.
"They pegged me so right from the start," she continued, fastening her jacket. "Pegged me as a simpleton, as an incompetent. At first it was just behind their hands but soon they got bold enough to stay it to my face. They would tell me I was going to wash out, that I shouldn't even bother. During simulations they would goad me over headset, try and make me screw up my numbers."
"And your sergeant allowed this?"
"Why shouldn't she?" Ray asked, looking at her. "It was their problem, not mine. I didn't care what they said. I knew it wasn't true and I didn't let it affect me. My sergeant knows that being a combat pilot means dealing with pressure. If I could keep my numbers up and keep my cool while being called names over my headset, then that said everything about my skills and keeping my head."
"I guess. Still doesn't seem right."
Ray smiled at her. "That's because you are a decent human being, and kind."
"I-I don't know about that. I don't think I'm different than anyone else…"
"You're different than they were," she said, then shook her head. "Anyway. They kept trying to tag me with other call signs. 'Pig' lasted a bit- as in, 'you'll be a pilot the same day pigs fly!'"
"Fucking assholes."
"My sergeant shot them down each time. I didn't care. I would have accepted Pig as being my call sign. I'd have worn it proudly. It's only an insult if you let it be. Anyway, they kept trying to make them stick, Sgt. Lamba kept shooting them down, absolutely refusing to let them designate that as my official. They got a bit upset over that. Your squad gives you your call sign, good or bad. They didn't think she should have stopped them. Anyway, last week we were given our final flight scores-"
"Wait a second. You didn't have a call sign until last week?"
"Not officially, no."
Parry was flabbergasted. Mean spirited names aside, it was unheard of for someone in combat training not to have a call sign after their first month. Training lasted two years. That Ray had gone two years without her sergeant approving a call sign was ludicrous.
Even mean spirited classmates should have gotten the hint and come up with something at least neutral by then.
"So…you were given your final flight scores? You obviously did well enough to MR."
"I got a two hundred," Ray said. Parry halted and caught her shoulder.
"Two hundred?"
"Yes."
"Two ten is the highest score possible, and that's only been given out once!"
"Yes, to Merlin Killdare. I know."
"And you got two hundred?"
"Yes."
"I don't believe it!"
She laughed. "That's what my classmates said."
"What did your sergeant say?"
Ripley's eyes twinkled in the dark as she grinned that addicting grin.
"'Believe it, or not.'"