Starchild

I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.

Chapter Two: Course Correction

Eirika spent three hours a day in her office. In theory, she was studying her flight plan and task lists for the mission, or looking over training materials. In practice, she didn't have a great deal to do right now. Her brother Ephraim insisted on keeping up with his flight training- as senior pilot on the Gemstone mission, he wanted to be able to take immediate command of their craft if the automated controls were to fail. Less was expected of Eirika; she had to keep up her physical training in the great cylindrical pool so as to be ready for her spacewalk, but no one seemed to think it a good idea to put her in the seat of a fighter jet now, not with the mission twelve days away.

The most important thing on her desk at present was a memo from General Selena's office.

To: All Pilots

Subject: Use of ground fleet vehicles

In order to ensure the most efficient allocation of ground fleet vehicles, Fleet-17 through Fleet-19 are reserved for the use of Pilots 001, 002, and 003. Fleet-20 through Fleet-27 may be utilized by all pilots in the corps. In the event of a pilot conflict over vehicle allocation, a refereed meeting is to be held.

Eirika set the memo aside. She had a good idea of which of the junior pilots had commandeered Fleet-18 for a joyride, and it wasn't a mistake she planned to make herself. She was plowing her way through a manual on the ventilation systems of the Falcon II capsule when the red light on her desk phone began to pulse.

Pilot 012, report immediately to the Head Office.

Fortunately, Fleet-22 was at her disposal and she didn't have to break protocol to get to this emergency meeting in a timely manner. Her brother was already waiting there in his worn leather flight jacket; his mussed hair showed just how recently he'd been wearing his helmet. Generals Mycen and Duessel were both in the room as well, which could only mean this matter was of the gravest importance. Was the mission to be cancelled?

Eirika sat beside her brother, unable to quell the fluttery feeling in her stomach. To her surprise, both generals yielded the floor to the young engineer who stood at the head of the room, rattling a piece of chalk in his palm.

Chief Engineer Innes, designer of the Falcon line of space capsules, could have passed for a jet pilot himself, and he was on full display now with his perfect bearing and crisp diction. It was common knowledge in the pilot corps that Innes wanted to be the first engineer among the "star sailors," and Eirika could not help but recall this as she watched Innes sketch out trajectory lines on the chalkboard.

The flight objectives of Gemstone were to change, effective immediately, he said. The mission would no longer be a high-altitude rendezvous and docking of the Falcon II craft with the buglike lunar lander. The Gemstone objective was now to put the manned Falcon II capsule into lunar orbit, without the lander. The capsule would return to Terra after a few lunar orbits, and there was still a possibility of a brief docking excursion using a dummy vehicle as a target if one could be launched in the course of the mission. Any questions? No? Good.

As Eirika listened, she could only think that the rumors of the lunar lander not being flight-ready must be true. At least her spacewalk training wasn't entirely wasted, as she might still perform her walk with the dummy vehicle...

Ephraim had quite a different reaction to this abrupt and undebatable change in the mission plans. His eyes gleamed with a pale blue light as he grinned at her from beneath his untidy hair.

"We're going to the moon," he said, and the mixture of awe and satisfaction in his voice caused Eirika to stop her mundane thoughts of docking exercise and wonder at the both of them.

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes: Yay, Ephraim. In a flight jacket.