There's never enough time to say goodbye. It's the worst part about going to war.

-Colonel Elizabeta Adamson, 8th Battalion, 9th Magi Oplon, 2nd Army Group of the Mekong

I remember once, being on garrison near the frontier. I found a nice guy in town, and we were going pretty steady. A Sq-.,. A Squid raid came and blew up his apartment. And that was the end of that.

-Major Qing Lin Anderson, C Company, 5th Battalion, 43rd Regiment, 9th Army Group of the Amazon

"Looks like we've all been assigned 12th Magical Division, 2nd Army Group of the Nile," said Varsha, scrolling through the roster on her implants as they settled into the cramped quarters of the HSS Salvation, filled to the gills as it was with the members of their training cohort. "Me and Rebecca are headed to the 45th Regiment."

"That's to be expected," said Ayane with a nod. "You two work frightfully well together, especially on defense. I'm headed to the 48th, obviously. What about you two?" She looked at Emma and Rene.

"48th as well, 8th Battalion," said Emma. "It's the autocannon cavalry for us, it seems."

"I guess they think we'll do well there?" said Rene with a shrug. "It doesn't feel like we've performed any better in the cavalry than any other position."

"Well, the sim seemed to show us doing well," said Emma. "I mean, you don't think they'd just assign us to a random regiment, would they?"

"From the looks of it, the situation is pretty dire," said Varsha. "It feels like they would be inserting girls wherever possible, to bring any reserve units up to strength."

"Yeah, but what about the other units that are stationed along the frontier?" asked Ayane. "If the Squids are launching a massive offenseive, they have to have pulled units from the frontier to populate the attack."

"Well, I guess I could ask my mentor," said Emma. "Sarah's supposed to be on leave still, but maybe she got it canceled because of the attack?"

"It's possible," agreed Varsha. "If the attack is progressing like they say it is, then it would make a lot of sense to drop everyone out of their leaves unless they're on medical."

"You should call her later," said Rebecca. "We should have some fun with the others before we deploy! It'll be our last chance for some fun in a while."

"Rebecca has a point," said Rene. "The Salvation is kinda cramped though, with everyone in it. Salvation,what do you have in your Rec Room?"

"I have several board games and decks of playing cards," said Salvation, her avatar forming beside the group. "There's also holographic billiards."

"Thank you, Salvation," said Rene with a nod. "What do you guys think, shall we go to the Rec Room and play something?"

"Also drinks!" said Rebecca. "We gotta have drinks."

"Well, my synthesizers are at your disposal, but don't drink too much if you turn off your intoxication filters," said Salvation, her voice tinted with a bit of worry. "You may be emancipated, but your body mass is still pretty low."

"That's true, but we'll be careful," reassured Emma as Rebecca hoped to her feet and pulled Varsha along with her. She turned to the others as she got to her feet. "Come on guys, you coming?"

"Eh, sure, why not?" asked Rene, standing from her bunk. "Ayane?"

"I'll come and chat, but I don't like alcohol," said Ayane.

"Not your thing?" asked Varsha. "I don't drink much myself, it's pretty bitter."

Ayane nodded. "Where'd you learn to drink, Varsha?"

"Oh, well, my colony didn't really care how old you were, as long as you had the cash for it," said Varsha. "I don't drink much, but I had a lot of friends older than me. It was just the cool thing to do, you know?"

"I.. not really."

"Eh, you're an Earther, I guess its expected."

"What about you, Rebecca?" asked Emma as the group began making its way towards the Rec room.

"Oh, I'm Chinese, you have no idea how crazy our liquor is," said Rebecca with a skip and a grin. "Rice Liquor is usually something like fifty-percent alcohol, but my parents always got the good stuff. It's like eighty-percent! Suuuuuuper fun."

"You're from a colony like Varsha then?" asked Emma.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm from the Yangtze Sector," said Rebecca with a nod. "My mom was mostly Chinese and my dad was mostly some mixture of Russian and German. Funnily enough, they were totally okay with teaching me how to drink. I guess they figured that if they introduced me early, I'd drink less?"

"Well did it work?"

"I guess it did," said Rebecca, pausing thoughtfully. "I've never really had that much, now that I think about it."

"It sounds like the colonies don't really care about the drinking age," said Rene. "Granted, I'm French, but my parents still wouldn't let me touch the stuff unless they watered it down a lot."

"That's not true, Archimedes II was totally obsessed with the drinking laws," said Varsha with a snort. "We just didn't care. There are plenty of ways to get a beer, at least, seeing as everything's based off capitalism."

"Same here," said Rebecca, skipping her way into the Rec Room. "I mean, Mom and dad had plenty of alcohol around the house anyway, but a lot of the older kids would go out drinking at someone's house. I went once, it was really boring. Just a bunch of loud music."

"I don't get it," said Ayane with a grimace. "What's the fun in getting your senses impaired? Besides, wouldn't your tox filters keep you from getting drunk?"

"It's the principal of the thing, you know?" said Rebecca, grinning as she pumped a fist. "Stick it to the man!"

Emma, Ayane, and Rene looked at her blankly while Varsha cheered as well.

"I just think Manhattans taste nice," said Emma, putting her hands up in surrender. "I… am going to get a drink now."

And so they got the small party under way. It was quickly decided that everyone would play billiards, eight-ball to be exact. Everyone took a moment to download the rules before beginning play, under the agreement that nobody would try and download strategies as well. The game quickly began sucking in other girls who got bored and wandered into the Rec Room, attracted by the laughter and telepathic conversation.

"Heh, it seems we got something going pretty well, didn't we?" asked Emma several hours later, sitting on a chair next to Ayane. She was slowly sipping her fifth Manhattan, intoxication filters set to 80% efficiency.

"It looks like everyone's having fun," agreed Ayane. She had finally relented and tried a gin and tonic. She still didn't like the bitterness, but a less-gin-more-tonic mixture was tolerable, at least. "Where are Varsha and Rebecca?"

"I think they went back to the room," said Emma.

"Oh."

"Well, everyone did say they'd be a couple."

"I guess."

"Do you think they're having drunk sex?"

"Emma!" Ayane scolded, flushing.

"Hee, I guess you're too much of a prude for that sort of thing," said Emma with a grin.

"I'm okay with that, it's just I, er," Ayane said. "It's just that they're our friends and it's awkward to think about that with them in mind."

"Oh realllly?" said Emma teasingly. "So I guess I shouldn't ask you if you think the 69 position is hot? Or-?"

Ayane jabbed Emma in the kidneys.

"Ow!" yelped Emma. "What was that for?"

"For being a stupid perv," said Ayane, face crimson as she drank from her cup.

"Meh, I guess I probably should put my tox filters back on," said Emma, rubbing her side. A moment later, she rubbed her eyes and sat up a little straighter. "There, filters back on. Happy?"

"Very," said Ayane. "Anyway, what do you think about your assignment?"

"I'm a little nervous, but I think I'll be okay," said Emma. "48th Regiment is supposed to do mostly support, so as long as we keep our heads in the game, it shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?"

"Well, that's the hope, I guess," said Ayane. "Varsha and Rebecca are supposed to be going to 45th though, do you think they'll be alright?"

"They're a good team, even if we keep giving them crap about being lovebirds," said Emma. "They just need to support each other when they're not both on duty. It'll be alright."

Ayane sighed, leaning back against her seat back and sliding down a bit. "We're not prepared for this."

"We're not, no," said Emma. "But we'll have to do the best with what we have, right? There's no such thing as a perfect game."

"I guess," said Ayane. She pulled her braid around and fiddled with it. "It's just that there's so many factors, and I don't know how all of them are going to play out."

"I know, I have the same problem," said Emma, turning her ring around and around on her finger. "Oh! We still haven't called Sarah. She can probably give us some information."

"That's a good idea, do you want to go find somewhere else to do it though?" asked Ayane, looking around the rather densely packed Rec Room. Frigates were only about one hundred meters long, on the outside, and the interior was much smaller. The Rec Room was consequently restricted to holding only about twenty people. The billiards game and multiple rounds of cards going on ate up that space, however, and girls were carefully edging around each other as they chatted and waited for their turn.

"Yeah, do you figure engineering, one of the fabrication rooms?"

"It's probably quiet enough," said Ayane, nodding. They got up and carefully made their way through the densely packed room towards the central corridor, trying not to knock anyone over and spill their drink.

The Salvation was a fairly standard Frigate, with room enough, technically, to hold eight to ten extra passengers after the ten crew, but due to the need to transport large numbers of girls quickly, everyone was doubling up. Outside of the crowded Rec Room, the only sound that could be heard, was the distant thrumming of the FTL drive. The hallway was almost a straight shot to Engineering, but there was a lot less noise than expected. The various stations and rooms branched off from the central hallway, with the expected lack of decoration and embedded ceiling lighting. Red emergency lights ran down the sides and bottom of the hallway.

"Goddess, it is noisy in there," said Emma, rubbing at her head as she paused and leaned against the alloy wall. "I've got a headache."

"Are you sure you're not just hung over?" asked Ayane. "I'm perfectly fine."

"Ech, maybe I should just keep my filters on from now on," said Emma, grimacing as they began walking down the corridor towards Engineering. "Oh well. I guess the nanites will fix it sooner or later."

The two walked in silence the rest of the way, greeting the odd crew member or magical girl as they went. It wasn't a very long walk, in the end.

"Do you think voice call is probably enough?" asked Emma as the two of them settled down in front of a tool-bench.

"Well, I wouldn't want to bother her too much if she's busy," said Ayane.

"Alright, let me just patch you in and we're good to go."

The line rang twice before Sarah picked up.

"Hello?"

"Sarah, it's me and Ayane," thought Emma, wincing as she noted Sarah's rather harried tone. "We, ah, were wondering if you had time to talk?"

"Sure," said Sarah. "I can't be long though. I've been coordinating things with my platoon from long distance and there's a lot to get done."

"S-so you're going to Samsara?" asked Ayane. "We were wondering if other units were being shifted for the defense."

"Yes, most of the divisions on reserve have been moved back to active service, pending rearma- hold on," said Sarah. There was a long period of silence, before she continued. "You two are headed to Samsara for ground defense?"

"Yeah, we've been ordered to prepare for an extended ground campaign when we reach the fleet," said Emma. "The projections say that the Samsaran Home Fleet can't contest everything and will try to defend Samsara's population centers from orbital attack."

"What unit have you two been transferred to?"

"12th Division, from the Second Nile Army Group."

"Hm… the 12th is a little new," said Sarah. "You should be fine, but I haven't fought with them before."

"If they're from the Nile, then that means they were probably at the front when the squids attacked," said Ayane. "We're replacement officers, aren't we?"

"Yes… yes you are," said Sarah with a sigh. "The girls in your units will have lost friends, and the soldiers who survived will have lost their battle flags. You probably won't be accepted at first, there's too much grief and pain for that to happen. Just do your best, and give it time."

"Have you… have you lost-?" Emma trailed off.

Sarah paused. It was only a moment, but it felt longer, with a greater weight than her earlier breaks in the conversation. "I… I have, Emma. I've lost very close friends in battle before. I can't say that I treated their replacements well either. It's very difficult."

Emma and Ayane looked at each other. "How do you handle it?"

"Well, you know, we all have therapists we can speak to while on leave," said Sarah. "That helps a lot. There's a chaplain assigned to each Company as well, from the Cult of Hope. If you think it might help, you could speak to one of them as well."

"Did you?"

"I did, once, but I haven't found faith in the Goddess," said Sarah. "It's different from everyone. I would encourage you two to look into it and see if it helps at all."

"Why didn't you turn to religion?" asked Emma.

"I'm not sure it would be appropriate for me to say," said Sarah. "This sort of thing is for you to find out on your own. But, I'm sorry, I need to cut this short. What other questions did you two have?"

"Do you know anything else about what's going to happen?" asked Ayane. "We… we're.. we'd like to know more about what's going to happen. The updates only tell us what's already passed, after all."

"Hmm… I can't tell you that much, I'm not ranked highly enough to know all the details," said Sarah. "But, from what I've seen, the Cephalopods will probably attack in force. Blink drives allow you to move anywhere in three-dimensional space, so it'd be easiest for them to drop out of their teleport as nearly on top of Samsara as possible. You'll probably be dropped from orbit to intercept them, so dig in and give the regular army time to come up and reinforce. From there, it should just be a battle of attrition."

Emma and Ayane considered this.

"That seems… simple enough," said Emma eventually. "I think we can manage that."

"Good luck then," said Sarah. "I need to get back to work now. Stay sharp, alright girls?"

"We will," said Ayane.

The call ended.

Emma stood up and stretched. "Well, that was helpful."

Ayane nodded, getting up as well. "Tactically, it doesn't seem that difficult. If we just concentrate and trust in our commanders, it should turn out well, right?"

"I don't see any reason why not," said Emma. "I'm not going to say nothing can go wrong, but whatever happens, it shouldn't be beyond our capabilities."

"What are you going to do now?" asked Ayane as they paused in the doorway of Engineering.

"I think I'm going to go back to the room," said Emma. "It's still kinda noisy in the Rec Room and my head still kinda hurts."

"Well, hopefully, Varsha and Rebecca are just sleeping," said Ayane dryly. "I'll go back to the Rec Room and keep Rene company or something."

"I'll bet she's raking in the allocs at poker," said Emma, leading the walk back. "But you should try and meet some new people."

Ayane shrugged. "I'm not Rebecca, but I'll see what I can do. Send me a message when you wake up."

"What do you mean?"

"I figure you're probably going to take a nap," said Ayane.

"I… probably am, actually," said Emma, rubbing her head sheepishly. "Am I really that predictable?"

"Only with sleep," said Ayane, smiling as she pinged a mental image of Emma with cat ears and a tail towards Emma. "It's kinda adorable, actually. Emma the kitty, taking a cat-nap."

"Wha- No. I am not adorable," said Emma with a flat look as she immediately dismissed the image and stopped at the threshold of their room. "I am an ass-kicking squid-squashing magical girl, and don't you forget it."

"Sure," said Ayane, stifling a giggle as she continued on to the Rec Room. "See you around, Emma."

"See you," said Emma, waving before cautiously enquiring within with telepathy. After a few seconds without response, Emma carefully opened the door and peered in.

Apart from them now sharing a bed, it seemed that Rebecca and Varsha hadn't gotten up to anything.

"Phew," said Emma quietly, stepping in and shutting the door behind her, before crossing to her bunk and climbing in. "Hmm.. I should call Anna before going to sleep."

Anna picked up almost immediately. She sounded worried. "Emma! Where are you?"

"I'm on a ship," Emma replied mentally. "You sound worried, what's up?"

"You realize the attack is on the news?" said Anna. "This isn't something the Governance can glaze over, after all. What are you doing on the ship?"

"We're headed to a rendezvous point."

"You.. you're being deployed? But that's crazy, you left seven days ago!"

"Time dilation's pretty useful," said Emma. "I've been in time dilated sims for the last two days, and each sim lasted about a week. I'm not that green, Anna."

"Even so, two weeks isn't a lot of time."

"Calm down, you'd be surprised," said Emma. "You learn a lot when you're in actual combat, and that's only the last few full immersion VR sims. We did a couple of weeks of semi-immersive sims, er, subjective time, before that, so I've got two weeks of combat experience and a month of subjective training time. It's not that bad."

A moment of silence. Emma smiled as she imagined her sister, pacing back and forth in their kitchen just like she would when she wasn't sure what the most optimal way to solve the problem was.

"I… okay, okay, sorry," said Anna, calming down. "I'm sorry, it's just that the news broke about an hour ago, here on Earth, and I realized that there couldn't possibly be enough soldiers nearby to reinforce Samsara and then I started worrying and-."

"Anna, you're doing it again," said Emma patiently. "Sit down, okay? Stop pacing around the kitchen."

"I'm not pacing around the kitchen," said Anna, in a tone of voice that was very clearly that of someone who had just been pacing the kitchen madly.

"Sure you weren't," said Emma, rolling her eyes. "In any case, I did say I'd call. I'm sorry I couldn't do it sooner, I wasn't expecting training to be so hectic."

"Your recordings were nice though," said Anna. "I have them saved and sent copies to Ayumi. It's really cool how you can summon tornadoes now."

"Ah, well, it works better with someone like Rene," demurred Emma. "Slicey wind is all well and good, but fire solves all problems."

"Well, I'm glad that you can play football with your vortex spheres, if nothing else," said Anna. "I still can't believe you did that to that poor girl."

"Oh Elena was fine," said Emma, waving the memory aside. "It only threw her into the back of the net, nothing major."

"She was so angry though," said Anna. "It's just like you to do something like this."

"Hey, I apologized later! And besides, it's not like I didn't get punished for it. I had to fight our commander one-on-one for fifteen minutes!"

"But you probably enjoyed that."

"As if! Do you know how hard she punches?" Emma rubbed her stomach ruefully. "Last time I'll ever step out of line in the military…"

"Well it's good to see that they worked some discipline into you as well," said Anna. "Are you still napping all the time?"

"N-not AS much…"

"Emma."

"It's true though, we spend so much time in sims that they advise us to sleep during breaks."

"And DURING the sims?"

"Well…."

"…"

"I… well, okay, so maybe I take naps with the simulated enlisted men a lot more than is usually considered appropriate, but…."

"Emma, you really should make an effort to be more proper to your station," said Anna reprovingly. "You're a Lieutenant now, people look up to you!"

"Well, down to me," said Emma. "They're all, like, ten feet tall."

"Whatever. You get-."

"You're point, yeah, yeah," sighed Emma. Alright, I understand, I promise to take less naps."

"Good," said Anna approvingly.

"Anyway," said Emma, eager to move on to different topics. "What news on your side?"

"Nothing much from what I told you last," said Anna. "Ayumi's still looking for a mentor, and my studies are going well. Other than tha- oh, hey, hold on, Ayumi's calling, let me patch her in."

"Hey, Emma, how're you doing?" asked Ayumi later, barely restrained excitement audible in her voice.

"I'm doing alright, what're you up to?" asked Emma, curious.

"Well, Anna's been telling you about my search for a mentor, right?" began Ayumi. "I mean, there's plenty of people who are experts in logistics around here, it's just a question of finding someone you can work with, right? Well the guy I found, I talked to him just now, and you know what he said?"

"What did he say?"

"He said that I really knew my stuff and offered to get me an internship at Zeus Research Center!"

"Wow, that's amazing!" said Emma as Ayumi's excited squealing filled the chat. "Congratulations!"

"Bloody hell, an internship at Zeus?" said Anna incredulously. "That's so cool, and they're really stringent about this sort of thing too. You must have really impressed him."

"I guess," said Ayumi. "Oh man, you have no idea. I couldn't believe it at first, but I said yes, and a couple hours later I was sent this, take a look."

A request to receive a pictoral message binged on both Anna and Emma's fields of view. They accepted, obviously, and were treated to a mental image capture of an official Governance ID for access to Zeus Research Center, with Ayumi's school photo and other information listed underneath it. Scanners would be able to access it automatically, but it was still possible to take a look if you wanted, especially for moments like this.

"That's a real ID, holy crap," said Anna breathlessly. "Ayumi, I'm so happy for you!"

"Holy shit, Ayumi, you huge damn nerd," said Emma, shaking her head with a grin. "Goddess damn it, you actually got a job with a huge government corporation. Seriously, congratulations."

"Thanks guys," said Ayumi, her huge grin entirely evident in her voice. "I start next week, working in Procurement and Requisitions, after classes end."

"If you come across any secret projects, let us know, alright?" asked Emma. "And try to get on one. It'd be cool to say 'my friend is working on a secret project in Zeus Research'."

"Oh I'm sure they'll let a fourteen year old girl in on that sort of thing," said Ayumi sarcastically.

"Hey, if you see an Incubator, I'm sure that they'd be okay with it."

"That's a terrible reason to make a contract," said Anna with a laugh.

"Well…"

"Ayumi," Anna and Emma said at the same time.

"Ah, I know I know, jeez," said Ayumi, backpedaling rapidly. "Holy crap, the twins in stereo…."

"Anyway, Emma, what's this about a Goddess?" asked Anna. "You're not getting religious, are you? You don't seem the type."

"Oh, no, it's just some slang I picked up," said Emma. "You know about the Cult of Hope?"

"Yeah, the MSY Rep was talking about it the other day."

"It's just from that. You know how it is, when you hang out with a bunch of people who keep using the same slang."

"I guess," said Anna. "Do you think you'll be joining them though?"

"Not really," said Emma. "It's not on my scope, to be honest. Sarah says that I should talk to the chaplain when I get to the ship though."

"Well, it's probably for the best if she says so," said Anna. The group fell silent briefly.

"So, anyway, are you looking for a job as well, Anna?" asked Emma.

"Mm, maybe a little longer for me," said Anna thoughtfully. "I'm not sure where I want to work, to be honest, I'm just interested in the material."

"Well, you've still got a dozen years or so, right?"

"Exactly. If I get an opportunity like Ayumi's, I'll probably take it, but I think that there's no rush."

"Is there anything else that's been happening?" asked Emma. "Although, well, I guess it's only been a week for your guys, but subjectively, it's been a month for me. I've really missed you two."

"Oh jeez, Emma," said Ayumi, mood dampening considerably. "You're supposed to be the tomboy here, stop making me want to hug you."

"We haven't really had time to miss you properly yet," admitted Anna. "It still feels like you've gone off on a trip or something. It's… hard to imagine that you'll be in combat soon."

"Does the news look particularly bad from Earth?"

"It's definitely nothing good," said Ayumi. "Nova Terra's gone to partial war standing, even. I guess we won't know for sure until after you've already gone into battle."

"You… you guys, don't worry too much, okay?" said Emma. "I promised you I'd come back, remember? Besides, I've got a bunch of experienced girls who'll be watching my back. It's going to be fine."

"Hey, I have full confidence in you," said Ayumi half-teasingly. "Anna here's just being a worry-wort, I say."

"Seriously though, stay safe," said Anna. "I expect to see you again before Ayumi gets herself fired, okay?"

"Hey now!"

"Heh, I'll be sure to come for the party when she gets promoted," said Emma with a smile. She hadn't been expecting humor like that from Anna, but it was good to hear. "See you soon, I guess?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Anna. "Anything you wanted to add, Ayumi?"

"No, that's the only news emma hasn't heard already," said Ayumi. "See you soon Emma."

"Bye."

"Goodbye."

The call ended.