"It's for you to second guess your orders, Lt. Ibanez," Commander Marlowe snarled. "It's for you to follow."

"But, sir," she started to protest, "Those troopers-"

"Ibanez, i have half the mind to revoke your flight status and have you court marshalled."

Carmen Ibanez stifled a sigh. She didn't exactly know how many times she's heard this lecture from the old man before, but she was sure by his tone of voice that he has had enough of her. Even though she knew she was right and the orders were all sorts of twisted. There was no way she was going to give the rest of her fighters SICON's orders to blow up a hot sector when she knew for a fact how many squads they've deployed in there. The Commander of the Air Wing might have given her case of insubordination to the Marlowe not knowing what to do with her himself but that just told her that even the CAW didn't know if what she did was right or wrong.

"Your team managed to singe the bottom of three fighters. Fleet resources are already spread thin. We did not need another three planes down."

"But sir, the troopers-" she tried again.

In vain.

"Ibanez, if you ever get your wings, maybe you'll learn what an acceptable loss is."

Carmen tightened her jaw wanting to speak out but knowing she really shouldn't. With the Commander's mood as it is, he would definitely revoke her flight status. She would be grounded. What help could she give then? Sometimes, just sometimes, she thought that the Gettysburg's dishonourably discharged CAW was right to strike a superior officer. Lord knows, she felt like doing it now.

If there was anything she knew she would ever add to her vocabulary, it's the term acceptable loss. There's no such thing. It's an insult- that's what it is. Nobody should ever have the power to turn a human life into a statistic. Losing a person in battle should never be acceptable. Even if they were all trained that going out there meant tempting Death himself. These are people they were talking about- they have families and friends and favourite things to do. They should never be downgraded into a chess pawn.

So they had three planes in for repairs. Big deal. They also managed to save seven out of twelve squads in the sector. It wasn't exactly a win but it was better than none.

There was time for a second fly by and they all knew it.

She could see Marlow's take a deep breath and knew, just knew, that this was it. This was going to be her sentence and she would be fine with it.

No regrets.

Suddenly, there was a someone clearing his throat behind her, shifting the Commander's angry gaze from her. "Um... Commander," a familiar voice tentatively called out, "Is this a bad time?"

Carmen narrowed her eyes at the reflection on the screens infront of her. There were two people behind her, not one- Johnny Rico and... Blue Leader?

"It's not really a good time, Lieutenant."

"Oh, we'll be quick," Rico insisted taking a step forward. "So Blue Leader and I were talking, right. And we pretty much both agree that it was a good call to wait on sector 54."

"Excuse me?" the startled commander said.

How Ibanez managed to hold an even expression was beyond her. Practice maybe? This wasn't her first rodeo in getting chewed out after all.

"Good call asking the fighters to pass through twice," the no nonsense voice of Blue Leader said. "One of my guys made a mistake. it doesn't happen often but it does happen. You saved some troopers down there."

"You have some very thankful troopers getting some rack time," Rico added. "That's all. That's all we wanted to say."

"Right. Anytime Lieutenant," Marlowe managed to say before returning his attention to her. "Ibanez!"

"Sir?"

"What the hell are you still doing here?"

When Carmen turned her back at the Commander and headed out the door, she couldn't hide her smile any longer. It was basically impossible to not grin when the door slid shut behind her and Rico came out of the adjacent door frame where he's been hiding with an equally giant grin. "So what's the damage?" he asked gamely.

"I can't believe you did that," she said.

"I totally saved your ass and this is the thanks I get," the Roughneck replied.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful," she returned. "But really Rico. How did you get Blue Leader to do this?"

"Carmen, the guy is Intel. The guys from Intel can be real jerks sometimes but this time, everyone knew who did what," he informed her. "What makes you think I had to ask him to do anything? He was already on his way here. Somehow, he found out that Marlowe decided to hang you. I just convinced him to kill the Commander with sweetness."

"Sweetness, huh?"

"Sweetness," the Roughneck repeated victoriously.

"Somehow, I don't think they teach that in officer's training," the pilot said.

Rico shrugged. "Don't know. I haven't gone,"he replied. "But you know what I do know?"

"What's that?"

"We "kids"," he said, making air quotation marks, "We need to stick together."

"Is that so?"

"Yup."The young lieutenant nodded.

"So you're coming with me to mess hall?" she invited.

"Oh no. I'm not going to be seen with you for awhile," he informed her.

"You just said we need to stick together. What happened to sticking together?" she asked.

"Yeaaaaaah, about that-" Rico sort of grimaced. "The men from all seven squads you saved today- Well, they all kind of want to marry you."

Carmen's face fell. "What?"

"You're on your own there," replied the back-pedalling lieutenant. "See you on the bounce, Ibanez! Have fun!"

Carmen watched her friend rush away quicker than she thought he could. "RICO!"