Military life, as it turned out, was good for me. It had only been two days, granted, but as the endorphins rushed through my blood like ketamine through a horse, I found myself feeling better than I had in years. The training ground was simulated like a warm day on Earth but you could still tell it was Luna because the actual sun was currently blocked by Asia-Minor, the face of earth sitting pretty in the view from the roof of the dome. It stuck high in the sky, looking pretty with its greens, blues, whites and browns. It helped me run, it dominated my view with every lap of the field I completed and Akron stood keeping my pace, nodding as I passed him.

He'd been quiet for the most part, generally keeping to himself despite always being within about a right hooks distance from me. I don't think he trusted me much. I'd not managed to probe him for more about Harper's granddaughter but I had found a name. Madeleine Harper. She and another student had been big news at Luna, staff and students still on campus were still talking about some kind of scandal that went down between them. Sounded like I'd missed a hell of a party because the old Dean was gone, having fraternized with a student. Slimy bastard. I tell you, if he'd have done that while I was here? I'd have fired him for them. Straight out of an orbital MAC cannon.

I must have been dawdling because the steps I'd heard behind me, trying to keep pace, were getting louder. They belonged to a waify looking thing with brown hair and chocolate eyes. She was young, too, fresh faced and full of life. She seemed too chipper for military life. What did I know, though, and since when was I military material, either? I sped up, my competitive side hadn't been tempered by years in a cell and I heard a grunt of exasperation from behind me as I felt another rush of endorphin's course through my body. Akron grinned at the sight as I passed him, it were the kind of grin a dealer does when he knows the house has won.

"Alright, last lap, sprint finish." He said, firmly.

I put the hammer down, breaking into great big arching strides and feeling the rush of the air bristle as it passed by my cheeks. The girl was following too, her feet pounded behind me, keeping pace, just about. I wasn't gonna be upstaged by a girl half my height and soon I'd left her far behind, a gripping final sprint putting the competition to bed as I slowed to a halt beside Akron.

"Good job, cadets." He said, dryly before stepping away to take a call.

I panted like a dog in a tin kennel. The girl did too, I noticed as she stopped beside me.

"You're fast!" She said, wheezing.

"You're pretty fast, yourself, kid." I said as warmly as I could. She beamed back at me.

"Thanks!"

"What's your name, Miss?"

"Valette. Valette Savatier." She said, her smile looked like it hurt, it was so big. "What about you?"

"Ollie Van Graff" I said, customarily avoiding my real first name.

"It's lovely to meet you, Ollie." She said, apparently with no hint of sarcasm. "What are you in for?"

She must have thought I had a heart attack because I thought she knew I was a felon. It was only when she cocked her head and asked if I was okay that I realised it were just an expression.

"Oh, they want me as a helmsman."

"You're a pilot?!" She asked, giddily.

"Helmsman." I corrected, "I was hauling freight in the supply corps when we got attacked and I pulled off some manoeuvres like you never saw."

"Looks like the Navy did, though!Wow, you're own commission, it's pretty cool, right? I bet you're fused for a shot at the big leagues, huh?"

"Fused?" I asked, then winced. It was slang, obviously.

"Yeah, you know, like, fusion, you're excited. It's slang it doesn't need to make sense."

Now, I believe this was my first "I'm getting old" moment because I did not understand a thing she'd just said.

"Ah, I get you." I said.

"How old are you?" She asked looking up at me from beneath her brows, which quizzed me like iron clad deep space satellite surveying a new planet.

I felt awkward and Akron, who had finished his call, smirked at me. You deserve this for those jabs about retirement, he seemed to say. Maybe I felt guilty for winning the race but Valette just seemed to make me feel ancient.

"28" I said, "what about you, Miss Savatier?"

"It's rude to ask a lady her age" she grinned.

I thought I was speaking to a child, truth be told, but maybe that was a mistake. There was a look about her eyes that seemed to be far more knowing than the girl's disposition might suggest.

"I'm a very rude man," I said, throwing my hands up in mock surrender.

She laughed at that and Akron stepped forward. "I'm 23." She said as the man began to speak.

"So, you two are the only fast-tracked candidates for this cohort. We were looking for a third person to join you in your accommodation but they won't be-"

"We have to share accommodation?" I asked, groaning. I'd only just gotten my freedom and a nice apartment, now they were filling it with people.

"You weren't kidding about being rude, huh?" Valette snorted.

"Cadets!" Akron barked, and we snapped to attention. "Space is at a premium on a ship, as you should know. This course is designed to make you uncomfortable, to weed out the things that will hold you back as part of a bridge crew. Cadet Van Graff likes privacy, you don't get privacy on a military vessel. Cadet Savatier is naive and lacks the perspective offered by Cadet Van Graff."

"What does that even mea-" I said, stopping just before Akron went nuclear.

Valette looked offended for the first time since she'd spoken to me and she pouted like a scolded child. I rolled my eyes, wondering if the helm of a frigate was worth this kind of effort.

"That's contrived." I said, with an audible groan.

"I'm not that bad when you get used to me" She replied, her earlier offense had been dropped swiftly from her face, replaced by a whimsical sort of smile that put me on edge. I wasn't used to purity, you see, smiles like that just ain't common in the world of interstellar piracy.

Akron looked at the pair of us like we were aliens and sighed. "Regardless. Well done so far on the basics, you've both picked everything up rather well, especially you Aurelian. I wasn't sure you had it in you."

I winced as Valette snorted. Bastard. "Thank you, Sir." I said through teeth as clenched as my fists.

He kicked us to the curb after that and I was glad to take a shower and hit the mess hall before he called me back for another round of drills or lectures. They were serving Indian food today and I was busy earning myself another inch on the belt when little Valette Savatier dumped a plate full of curry right in front of me and sat with a stupid grin her face.

She didn't say much at first, she just smiled contentedly as she dug into a mountain of food almost the size of mine. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she groaned. "The lab grown meat is so good here!" She said, shovelling it into her mouth. "Honestly, I thought about giving up on veganism on Xanthium all the time. Those orbital MACs aren't exactly built for fine dining."

I ignored her but searched my brain for where I'd heard that name before. Xanthium. That was an experimental orbital defence cannon on Meridian, if I was remembering my last trip to the system correctly. Did she grow up on that station?

She was staring at me as I ate and I scowled at her, the girl clearly didn't understand personal boundaries or pick up on social cues very well. Either she was from Xanthium Station, where personal space was at a premium, or she simply struggled to read people, in which case I was very much the wrong person to share an apartment with. I'm many things; a shrink ain't one of them.

"So, you don't talk much, huh?" She asked.

"I don't talk to you much" I replied, leaning back in my seat and trying to enjoy my curry.

"You're pissed because I know you have a silly name." She snorted.

I almost choked on my damned bhaji. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, come on, Ollie. It's no big deal."

"Again, excuse me?" Damn, she was good at reading people.

She shrugged, "what? You're clearly a colony kid with that accent, you got a look in your eyes that makes me think you're sizing everyone up in case of a fight, and you're called Aurelian Van Graff." She burst into laughter.

"You're not making me feel better." I said, sighing.

"You don't need to feel better. You need to relax." I chewed my food quietly, avoiding her stare as she continued on without my participation. "So, we're the special cases, huh?"

I swallowed. "Apparently"

"What makes you so special then, Aurelian?" she asked, her voice piercing and calculated for the first time since we'd met. It took me by surprise, actually.

"Nothin' much."

"Uh-huh. That's why they hauled your butt here in cuffs, is it?"

I paused and set my fork down so I couldn't stab her with it. She smiled at the deliberacy of my actions and tilted her head a little. "Where are you from, Miss Savatier?" I asked, pointedly.

She grinned mischievously, like she were winning a game. "Xanthium. You already know that."

"Right, and on Xanthium did anyone ever threaten to toss you out of an airlock for sticking your nose where it doesn't belong?"

"On stations like Xanthium, there's not enough space to keep your nose out of other people's business."

I grunted, annoyed that she didn't get the point. "So why are you special," I added before she could ask me something else that would annoy me.

"I was gunny when the Covenant hit us."

I almost swallowed my goddamn tongue. "You're a weapons specialist?!"

She frowned, "what?"

I looked at this tiny, sweet, talkative, bundle of irritation and energy and found myself lost for words.

"Why is everyone so surprised by that?" She asked herself, playing with some imitation lamb skewered on the fork.

"Because you don't look like you could hurt a fly." I hit her with as much honesty as I could muster. "And because..." I did the math, "when did you even start that job, anyway?"

"I was 19" she shrugged, "and anyway, my ability to hurt insects doesn't mean I can't like really big guns."

"No, I suppose it doesn't" I chuckled, "and you like big MAC guns, specifically."

"Yep! Could strip and clean one, too." She saw my disbelief, "just an expression" she added, rolling her eyes. "Really, I mean is it the height?"

"It's the everything, darlin'. You don't exactly have a warrior's disposition, if you don't mind me saying."

"I do mind you saying, actually, thank you for asking." She shovelled the fake lamb into her mouth and spoke through the hand she covered her mouth with. "Th'o, you th'i'thn't anth'er my question." She swallowed, "what are you in for?"

"Violation of the Cole Protocol, Piracy, and smuggling."

She laughed, then when I didn't make it clear I was joking, she frowned.

"Also, treason, grand larceny, resisting arrest"

"Jesus, anything else?"

"Assault and battery" I paused, that was technically part of my juvie record but her reaction was funny, "vandalism, too"

"All at once?"

I shrugged. No need to waste all my stories in the first conversation.

"Damn! Those must have been some crazy moves, only reason I can tell that you haven't been worm food for the last however long it's been."

"Four years. In the deepest darkest hole ONI and Admiral Harper could find.

Her eyes widened. "No way, you're the pilot of the Peony Sky!?"

Now it were my turn to be confused. I'd never expected the incident to become famous but then again, she had grown up on Xanthium. "You know about it?"

"Duh! It was major news at the time. The sat feeds from your escape were crazy! That loop you did around Eurydice was, literally, insane! It was all over human space for basically a year!"

"I was too busy being locked up to know" I said, finishing my food and pushing the plate away. "So, why aren't you still on the Xanthium?"

"It exploded" She shrugged.

"Right. Sounds rough."

"Meridian's orbital defence was basically gone for months before she went down. I was helping to fire that big gun when the Covvies got bored of me putting holes in their capital ships. Between me and Admiral Harper we made them pay dearly for that planet. There's still hope for it but Meridian becomes less important to hold with each passing day."

"I'm not one for war planning, I just want to fly." I said and Valette nodded, there was a look about her movement that suggested she knew how I felt. Eventually rage and hatred becomes apathy and in the face of disinterest, only passion can withstand pressure of that kind of emotion. We, it seemed, were alike in that regard. She loved MACs, I loved flying.

We sat in silence until she finished and she sat back, her smile returning to her small but mischievously bright face. "Admiral Harper was livid." She grinned.

"I bet he was" I laughed, "he was mighty pissed when he boarded our ship and saw the pilot that showed up the best his fleet had to offer. Thought he'd blown a fuse. There I was, sitting in greasy rags pilfered from an old ice-hauler and he takes one look at me and starts fuming down the radio to his pilot." I put on my best 'disgruntled officer's' voice and continued, "how the bloody hell did an untrained yokel from the arse end of nowhere out manoeuvre the best pilots in my fleet?!" I said, loudly, laughing with Valette as we burst into laughter.

"Yeah, he's a real hard-arse from what I hear. Bloody good at his job but takes his own reputation very seriously." She shrugged, "had a few low-level staff get reprimanded by him personally for minor infractions back on Xanthium."

"Oh yeah, I can definitely see that." I agreed, leaning forward, "when he asked for my name? He socked me right in the jaw. Personally. Thought I was joking, of course."

Valette snorted, "you deserved it"

"That I did" I sighed, "still, he actually apologised at my trial. When he found out that was the name I'd actually been born with."

"Ouch." Valette laughed, "starting to see why you hate it, now."

I shrugged, "after years of bullying and snide comments, outright violence is refreshing."

Valette didn't reply to that but she did look at me a little differently, like she was starting to understand. It was kinda nice, actually, she had an openness that I liked. She seemed uncomplicated, or at least she was simple when it came to dealing with others. I liked that and I knew that if I could get past her intrusiveness, we might even be best friends. When I glanced at her, she'd stood, looking at me as though she were thinking the same.

"Come on, let's go have some real fun. I know a place you're gonna love."

"I doubt that" I lied, standing tall above her.

"Save your judgement for a few hours' time, huh?" she flashed a wicked look my way, "it's called the pit, you're gonna love it."