The soldiers saluted them when they stumbled aboard. Several of them gave up their seats as soon as one of the girls—Huntresses—so much as looked at it.
The four of them were asleep before the plane left the ground, covered from head to toe in oozing black gore.
The pilot, Jake Richards, had given them crap about messing up his seats.
Major Bradley walked over to where Captain Schnee sat staring almost unblinkingly at her sister across the hold. He took a seat next to his subordinate. "Captain Schnee."
"It's Winter, sir," she replied calmly, still watching her sister sleep soundly despite the noise of the plane's cabin. "I might as well start getting used to hearing my name again; I'll be a civilian soon."
"Only if you want to be," Bradley answered. That got her attention.
"Sir?"
"You were right, Captain Schnee," he said. "I would have gone back. I think any decent soldier would in your position. I'd almost say that any decent soldier should go back."
Captain Schnee was silent, staring at her sister again. "You ordered me to stay. I disobeyed. Command won't care what a decent soldier would or wouldn't do."
Bradley smiled. "Actually, I didn't order you to stay." She glanced back at him sharply. "In point of fact, I ordered you to support your sister and her team. And you followed your orders to the letter."
She frowned at him. He waited.
Finally, almost stiffly, she said, "Thank you, Major."
Bradley smiled. "You're welcome, Captain Schnee."
"Winter," she said immediately, returning to staring intently at her sister. "My name is Winter. You've earned that much from me."
Bradley nodded solemnly. "Then you're welcome, Winter."
As they spoke, the rest of the company slumped down in seats, against the hard metal walls, and even on the ridged metal deck. In a few minutes, they too fell asleep under the weight of their crashing adrenaline.
Only the two officers and the sergeants stayed awake.
Eventually, Bradley decided to break the silence. "You should have seen her fighting, Winter." She turned to look at him. "You should have seen them fighting. I've never seen such complete coordination."
She stayed silent, looking back at her sister.
Bradley pressed on. "It was like they were four dancers moving together, each of them knowing the others' steps."
Winter didn't respond.
Bradley shook his head. "You should be-"
"I didn't know you were a poet, sir," Winter interrupted.
Bradley mentally reeled from the comment. "Sorry?"
"What you said before," Winter said. "About them being 'four dancers moving together.' I didn't know you were a poet."
Bradley chuckled. "Yeah, well, I may have gotten carried away there. I was going to go into Art School, but my parents insisted I become a combat officer instead."
Winter smiled at the joke. He couldn't help but hold his breath, genuinely scared of startling the expression away.
"I don't know when it happened, sir," Winter said, her smile fading.
Bradley exhaled slowly, shaking his head where she couldn't see it. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know when she stopped being just my little sister," Winter looked down at the deck. "I still thought that I was her teacher. That she hadn't learned enough from me to accomplish something like this. But she has, and I don't know how or when."
Bradley took a long moment to respond. Finally, after running through several dozen possible platitudes and encouragements, he settled on the most obvious. Simple, as they say, is usually best.
"Then maybe you should ask."
Winter turned and looked at him. He waited for some hard response, one of the thousand she'd managed to use without breaking any of the Atlas military's strict insubordination rules.
Instead, she smiled. It was small, it was quiet, but it was a smile. That brought the sum total of her positive expressions of emotion while under his command to two.
As far as he was concerned, that was an infinite amount of forward progress.