A/N: Sorry for the slight delay... business trip tripped up my schedule. I'm back at it and the next chapter should appear as normal, at the weekend.

Chapter 25, part 1.

Alice took a deep breath and nodded to the marine who'd just checked her credentials. He opened the door for her and she entered the room.

The first thing she noticed was how bright it was: the windows were no bigger than in any room in the building, but they were uncovered and warm afternoon sunlight was filtering through the glass, almost making her squint and casting deep shadows on the faces of men sitting in a row opposite her as she came in. She noted with surprise that over half of them were civilians; they were dressed in dark suits, in contrast with the four general officers who were all uniformed and proudly displaying their racks of ribbons. They were impressive in size, but a keen eye would notice that most of the awards were for specific campaigns, not for individual achievement—though of course these appeared, too.

Alice walked in, halted in the middle of the room, in front of the table, and stood at attention. She didn't salute—they were indoors, her cap was in her left hand, and she wasn't exactly reporting in.

"At ease, Major," the man sitting just left of the center said. Alice had never met him before, but she knew who he was: Lieutenant General Joseph Burke, the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, commonly referred to as A1. And if she had any doubts, a little plaque with his rank and name that lay on the table in front of him would dispel them. She didn't know the other three officers, but they all wore three stars on their epaulets, so she assumed they were Burke's equivalents in the Army, Navy and the Marine Corps. The civilians' names told her very little.

The man sitting at the center of the table cleared his throat. "Thank you for appearing before our panel today, Major. My name is Harry Stewart, I am the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. On my left you have the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve, Joel Thornton, his counterparts for the Army, Steve Lobe, and for the Navy and Marine Corps, Luther Preswick. The last gentleman in the row is Frank Kerry, the Director of the Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which is part of my department. And on the other hand you have of course the Deputy Chiefs of Staffs of the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps." He waved at them cheerfully, but Alice couldn't help but wonder if the dismissive way he'd introduced them—without even naming names—was indicative of some sort of conflict between them. "Why don't you take a seat, Major?"

"Thank you, sir." She pulled the chair out and sat down with a polite nod to both sides of the table, acknowledging them all without singling anyone out.

"Alright!" Stewart smiled at Alice encouragingly while he opened a file folder on the table in front of him. "So, Major Boyd. As you undoubtedly know, the Secretary of Defense has asked us to provide him with a recommendation on whether or not women should be allowed into combat in all branches of the Armed Forces without the limitations that are imposed today. We have formed this Task Force to gather and analyze information related to this topic, but aside from numbers and figures, we would also like to hear from women who have already been in combat, on what their experiences were, and of course any opinions they have to offer. We feel that an opinion from someone who's actually been through combat carries a lot of weight since it is no longer a matter of imagination, supposition or assumption, but a view based in facts. With that in mind, we have reached out to a number of commands asking to nominate such women as could provide a wide variety of views and experiences, and that is why you are here. I can see in the notes here that you have been nominated by Lieutenant General O'Neill, on recommendation from Brigadier General Carter, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir. General Carter is my CO," Alice supplied. She was trying to sit straight and not be intimidated by the number of stars and titles in the room, but her voice was not particularly steady.

Perhaps the Under Secretary noticed that because his smile became even more inviting and he said: "There is no need to be nervous, Major. We are here to listen only, not judge." He shot a quick look to his right, but none of the officers deigned to react in any way, so he continued: "Of course after we received your nomination, we have pulled your personnel file, so we already know a little bit—but only that." He picked up the folder he had previously opened and showed it to her, leafing through the pages that seemed to have more blackouts than words. "There are mostly conjunctions here, with a little bit of actual information at the beginning and the list of awards at the end."

Alice nodded, feeling incredibly self-conscious. "Yes, sir, I'm afraid most of my service record has been deeply classified."

"We all have Top Secret clearance here," one of the other civilians put in, the Army guy.

"Yes, sir, but this is codeword," Alice explained apologetically. "I have received limited permission to tell you some things, but I cannot share much detail unless the President authorizes me to do so."

"The President himself?" The Assistant Secretary for the Air Force asked, surprised.

"Yes, sir. I realize that this might devalue my testimony since you will not be able to cross-check it with the official document, but General Carter felt that you could still benefit from hearing my perspective."

"Oh, I have no doubt," Stewart assured her, again throwing a look at the officers who haven't said a word since they told her to be at ease. "Alright, so since we could not read much about you in your file, why don't you tell us about yourself? Let's start with your education. I saw in your file that you didn't attend the Air Force Academy but went through the Officer Training School after getting a degree at a civilian college, but I've done the math and it seems like you couldn't have done that at the age that's stated there—were you really twenty years old?"

"Yes, sir, I was officially commissioned to Second Lieutenant a few days after my twentieth birthday," she confirmed. "I graduated high school early and started college at the age of fifteen. It took me four and a half years to get my degree because I did a semester abroad, and since I had a double major and you can only study one when you're participating in an exchange, I had to finish the other one after I came back."

"That's impressive," the Director of ODEI commented. "What did you study?"

"I majored in Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics and minored in Computer Science."

"You only minored in Computer Science, but you have a PhD in Computer Engineering," the Under Secretary noted. "How did that happen?"

"I had the opportunity to work on some of the most advanced systems the Air Force has ever produced," she replied cautiously. "A big part of it was self-learning software. I aligned that existing experience with the need for further research into the area of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. That's my specialization, but, to be transparent, I work on a vast array of engineering and scientific projects."

"Engineering and scientific?" The Assistant Secretary for the Air Force repeated, raising his eyebrows. "How does that work?"

Alice smiled nervously. "That's one of the things I cannot elaborate on, I'm afraid, sir. The best I can do to explain is to say that my work as an engineer is at the very edge of the known technology and often ventures beyond what we know into what we merely speculate or theorize about."

"If you work as an engineer, how could you have been in battle?" General Burke asked, finally breaking the silence on that side of the table.

"That's a very pertinent question," the Under Secretary interjected before Alice could even gather her thoughts to respond. "Major, why don't you talk us through your career trajectory so that we can understand how to situate you?"

"Yes, sir. As you mentioned, I had gone through the OTS and was commissioned to Second Lieutenant in September 2002. I was lucky enough to be selected for flight school very soon thereafter—"

"Flight school?" Burke interrupted her. He seemed surprised and she was confused for a second—that part surely wasn't blacked out in her file. "So are you a pilot or an engineer?"

"Both, sir," she replied nervously. It seemed to her that all four three-stars were somewhat resistant—maybe even antagonistic towards her and she wondered if it could be that they were opposed to the very idea of putting women in combat and were playing along only because they had been ordered to. "I began my career as a fighter pilot. I flew an F-16, but that was my billet only for a few weeks. In the summer of 2004 I was invited to another program, which is when my service record goes black. I continued to fly a fighter, but it wasn't an F-16 and I'm afraid I cannot reveal any more details on that."

"I'll bet it was the magic plane you crashed into the Vinson a couple weeks ago," the Chief of Navy Personnel said, attracting curious glances from everyone else.

"Magic plane?" The Under Secretary sounded doubtful.

"What do you mean, crashed into the Vinson?" Burke repeated, his eyebrows pulled together into a deep frown. Then he turned to Alice and asked, a bit aggressively: "What does he mean?"

Alice sighed. "There was an incident a couple weeks ago. I crash-landed on the deck of USS Carl Vinson. I was, indeed, flying the kind of fighter I used to between summer of 2004 and early 2006."

"Wait, I don't understand—how could you crash-land on the Vinson? We don't have any operations anywhere near in the North Pacific," the Air Force Deputy Chief for Personnel demanded. "And if you haven't flown it since 2006, what were you doing in it now?"

"That's a good question," Stewart interjected again. "Why don't we go back to the timeline of your service career, Major. Let's go chronologically and then we can loop back to this incident."

"Yes, sir. As I mentioned, I was a fighter pilot until early 2006. In March, I left that billet to go study Artificial Intelligence at the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio."

"And they just let you go? A fighter pilot?" The Army Assistant Secretary asked disbelievingly.

"I had been injured and my recovery was going to take at least a few months," Alice explained. "Though I suspect that was just part of the reason. I have a strong feeling that it was then-Lieutenant Colonel Carter who had interceded on my behalf. She had been my mentor for a long time," she explained. "She knew of my penchant for science and engineering."

"How were you injured?" Burke asked, the frown still deep on his forehead. "Did you crash?"

"No, sir. I cannot share the exact circumstances of that event, but a piece of shrapnel had punctured my shoulder and damaged some nerves and ligaments." She flexed her left arm and shoulder reflexively; a dull ache followed the movement, though she knew it was rather the more recent overall strain than the old wound.

"That was your first Purple Heart?" The Under Secretary asked, flipping the pages of the file in front of him—presumably to end up on the list of her awards and decorations.

"Yes, sir," she confirmed curtly.

"And that part of your career is also when you got your Air Force Combat Action Medal?" He pressed.

"Yes, sir." She nodded. "I received it after a combined flying and ground mission. That was, in fact, the first time I had participated in a ground mission—and only my second combat flying mission."

"Ground mission? Why was a pilot participating in a ground mission?" The Navy and Marine Corps Assistant Secretary asked.

Alice's reply was cautious. "A friendly operative was caught in a conflict between third parties. We could not appear to be involved, so my job was to pilot an enemy fighter into the warzone, land it, find the friendly, and get her out into the evac zone."

"You were trained on enemy fighters, too?" Burke asked, his voice almost mocking.

"Not exactly, sir. I had read all of the specifications—I was the only one in my squadron who'd done that, that's why they chose me for the mission—and had about an hour to get used to the controls in that fighter. Then it was go-time."

"Is that even possible?" The Navy Admiral asked Burke. "I was a submariner, but from what I know of aviators, they need extensive training for any new kind of machine they operate, isn't that right?"

"It is," the general confirmed grimly. "I find this claim hard to believe, Major."

"Yes, sir, I understand," she acknowledged, wishing she could have a glass of water—her throat was already parched from stress. "That was a special situation. The fighter in question—well, it wasn't that hard to get it under control. And I'm a quick study," she admitted.

"Nobody's that good," Burke protested. "An hour!" He huffed indignantly.

"I'm sorry, sir. There is nothing I can say or do to prove it to you," she replied, a bit unsteadily. "But that is what happened."

"And you're telling us that after all that, you've landed in the middle of enemy territory and made your way on foot to extract a friendly?" The Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps asked disbelievingly.

"It wasn't far," she explained. She was getting uncomfortably hot—her shirt was already sticking to her sweaty back. "I came in disguise. It wasn't until I actually got to the operative that I encountered opposition. And after I let her out, she was a great help, too. Obviously, we managed to get out."

She saw a few of the men shaking their heads doubtfully.

"And how did you feel, being in combat for the first time, Major?" The Under Secretary pushed the conversation back to their original purpose.

"Terrified, sir," she answered truthfully. "But not because I was a woman—it was because I hadn't been trained for it. Being in combat while in the cockpit of my fighter was both scary and exciting, but that's what I had been trained for; I knew what I was doing. I had had, of course, limited close-combat training and I am a really good shot, but that is hardly enough to feel comfortable going against real-life enemies. And—" she hesitated for a moment, not sure if she really wanted to share that part of the experience, but then decided honesty, as much as possible under the circumstances, might make the story more believable "—shooting down a plane feels very different to killing a person right in front of you. In both cases, a life is lost, and it's bad enough, but with ground combat you actually see their faces—and they're going to haunt you in your dreams for years to come."

She saw Stewart's eyes widen up a little, but the half-mocking, half-disbelieving expressions of the officers seemed a little less severe for the first time.

"How did you deal with that?" The Under Secretary asked, his voice empathetic.

"Not well, at first," she admitted. "But, eventually, I learned to live with it. It was helpful to realize that most people go through the same aftermath. Talking to my brother helped a lot. He's Gunnery Sergeant Jacob Boyd, of the Marine Corps," she added as a way of explanation. "Though he's about to move to the Reserves, after fifteen years in the service. He had done eleven months in Iraq, before he got caught in an IED, so he knew very well what I was going through."

"Jacob Boyd?" The Marine General repeated, frowning. "That sounds familiar. I think I've seen it somewhere recently. Wasn't he on the list of recommendations for the Commendation Medal?"

"It's possible, sir. When last I spoke to his CO, he told me he would be recommending Jake for an award for his last mission. His fireteam was covering other units' retreat and suffered heavy losses," she added. "Jake himself got gravely wounded and has been on convalescent leave for the past few months. It was the second time he'd almost died while on the job, so I am actually really pleased he'd decided to move to the Reserves."

"That's understandable," the ODEI Director noted with a kind smile. "You sound like a good older sister."

She was too nervous to smile back. "Actually, I'm the younger one, sir—by three years. But that doesn't change the fact that I worry about him, even though I know he's a pro."

"I don't envy your poor parents, with two kids in the service…" The Director said compassionately. "You don't have any other siblings, do you?"

"No, sir. Just me and Jake—though we're not the only ones in the military in our family. My dad was in the Navy, he had been killed in the line of duty sixteen years ago. He was the squadron commander on the USS Carl Vinson at the time." She nodded towards the Chief of Navy Personnel. "My dad's brother is in the Army, and his son, my cousin, in the Air Force. We even have a second cousin in the Coast Guard."

"Is your dad's brother Simon Boyd?" The Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army inquired, raising his eyebrows. "Brigadier General Simon Boyd?"

"Yes, sir," she replied curtly.

"He works here," the man explained to the others. "He's the Deputy Director for Strategic Procurement at J-5."

"That's undoubtedly interesting," the Under Secretary interjected. "But let's get back to our main subject, though. Major, did you participate in any other combat missions before you moved on to AFIT?"

"No, sir, neither flying nor ground missions, aside from training sorties, of course." There was that mission when they flew beyond the edges of their galaxy, and the incident with Merlin's treasure found under Glastonbury Tor, and the destruction of the Ori Supergate, and the Ori plague, and that time when Alice discovered a defect in the Prometheus's hyperdrive, and of course its utter demise over Tegalus… but none of those could possibly be called combat missions in the usual sense, nor could she really talk about them.

"And then you spent three years at AFIT where you got your PhD—I can't even understand the tile of your thesis." Stewart shook his head. "You went back to active duty in February 2009. What happened next?"

"I was assigned to overseas," she replied cautiously. Overseas wasn't perhaps the most accurate way to describe the Pegasus Galaxy, but she couldn't quite say offworld, could she? "It was a joint command with some of our allies, so I had a Frenchman and a Brit in my team. My role was triple: firstly, I was still a pilot, though I was flying yet another type of aircraft I cannot share any details on. It was technically a fighter, but think of it more like a Harrier than an F-16—it was both used for transport and for aerial combat. Secondly, I was part of the team—we would go on ground missions regularly. And thirdly, I was also an engineer slash scientist, working on a vast array of projects in my lab in between missions."

"You had three jobs in one?" Burke's frown, which seemed already at the very limit of where it could go, became even deeper. "None of this makes sense."

"I'm sorry, sir. That is the truth, though I regret that I cannot share any more details," she assured him nervously.

"You said you would go on ground missions regularly," the Under Secretary said and his eyebrows, in contrast to the Air Force general's, were all the way up. "While I can understand the special nature of that mission you'd described earlier, this seems like a stretch. How could they allow you to do that without breaking the ban on women in combat?"

She nodded anxiously. "I, and a number of other women serving alongside, have received a special exemption from the ban, sir. It was done by a special Presidential Decision Directive and is in itself highly classified. That way we could serve in combat positions even as the ban is still in effect."

"And so what kind of missions were that?"

"Mostly reconnaissance, but also support, search and rescue, and really—whatever was needed." She shrugged. It still hurt, but it was a distant, dull ache now, and it didn't merit wincing or grimacing anymore. "I can give you a few examples, if that would be helpful."

"I would be very eager to hear that!" Stewart enthused, though his face betrayed a bit of confusion still. "I am especially interested in the missions that resulted in your many decorations. I can see two more Purple Hearts, an Air Medal, two Bronze Stars—and even a Prisoner of War medal?!"

"Yes, sir. The easiest to explain away is the Air Medal—I got it for continuous meritorious service in a combat zone. I have over 2200 hours of flight time under my belt," Alice said matter-of-factly. "Most of it was in combat zone."

"How many kills you've got?" The Air Force Assistant Secretary asked.

Twenty-seven was her official count, but she didn't think it would go over too well if she'd admitted that. No one pilot could possibly have that many kills even if they participated in every armed conflict in the world; of course, most of Alice's were Wraith Darts shot down in the future timeline, so she wasn't even sure if they counted.

She smiled thinly. "Let's just say that I'm an ace, sir."

Burke made a sound that was halfway between a snort and a huff of indignation, but he didn't comment.

"And all you've got for it is an Air Medal?" The Assistant Secretary of the Air Force asked incredulously.

"The bar is quite a bit higher for those in the Program that I serve at than it is elsewhere in the Armed Forces, sir," she explained. "For any award or decoration."

"And yet you've got quite a few of them," Stewart noted. "Can you describe the circumstances of the missions for which you've got the Bronze Stars?"

"Yes, sir. In January of last year, we have received a radio communiqué from a team that had been missing in action, presumed dead for a long time. We launched a rescue mission, but, instead, we walked right into a trap."

"Who's we? And whose trap?" The Marine General asked, frowning.

"It was my team at a time—I'd mentioned it was a joint operation, so we were two Americans, a Brit and a Frenchman, though that last one was on leave at the time and didn't come with us—and one more, also made up of four people. At first, we had no idea who had set up the trap. We were all rendered unconscious and when I woke up, I was locked in a damp, stinky dungeon cell, only a few feet long and just as wide. I was able to verify, by calling through the tiny barred window under the ceiling, that at least two of my teammates were similarly caught. And then a group of guards came and grabbed me to put me in front of the one who'd abducted us."

"And who was that?"

"One of our enemies," she replied vaguely. "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to reveal much more about him, but when you think of him, think Joseph Mengele meets Felix Dzerzhinsky. We don't actually know his name, so we call him Jareth."

"That's not a particularly nice image." The Under Secretary grimaced.

"No, sir, and he's very dangerous," Alice agreed. "Well, to continue with the story, the guards deposited me in front of Jareth and next to the other team's leader. It was a short conversation, after which we went back to our cells."

"What did he want?"

"Essentially, he wanted us to come over to his side," she replied. It wasn't entirely accurate, but it was close enough. "We wouldn't, of course, so he decided to give us some time to think it over. I spent fifteen days in the cell."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Stewart acknowledged, but didn't seem too preoccupied. "That must have been quite difficult."

"Yes, sir. The only reason why I survived at all was that the dungeon was really damp—I used torn fabric of my uniform to catch some of the dampness to have a few drops of water to drink every now and then, though my memory of that time is rather fuzzy," she admitted.

They all looked shocked. "Wait—are you saying they didn't give you any water?"

"No, sir, no water nor food," she confirmed, understanding why they hadn't looked too impressed—being locked for fifteen days with enough to drink and eat was quite different than starving and almost dehydrating to death. "It took me a long time to recover afterwards."

"I'll bet! That's horrible—that's torture! Completely against Geneva Conventions!" The Under Secretary shook his head emphatically.

Alice almost snickered, but caught herself at the last moment. "Yes, sir, I'm afraid this kind of enemy doesn't really observe Geneva Conventions. Either way, after fifteen days, Jareth repeated his proposition to me and since I still refused, he allowed me to eat and drink a bit. And then he put on his Mengele hat."

"What do you mean?"

"He was doing experiments on people," she explained cautiously. "He was fascinated with genetics. With me, he started with drawing of blood and a, uhm, physical examination, he even took a skin sample." She semi-consciously touched the place where the jacket hid the scar on her right forearm. "He took me to his—uhm, let's call it a lab—each time and restrained me. On day three I managed to break out of the restraints using a knife I had made from a piece of bone. I made my way to the armory, got some weapons, and then found a way out—but not before his people found me. I managed to subdue a few, but then my luck ran out. I was shot, twice—right upper arm and left calf. Both flesh wounds, thankfully, and despite them I managed to escape and call for reinforcements." She paused for a moment and then added: "That earned me my second Purple Heart and my first Bronze Star. Though, really, the effects of dehydration and malnourishment were much harder to overcome than the bullet wounds."

She fell silent and for a few seconds no one said anything; they all looked at her with varying degrees of disbelief and doubt. She wished again for a glass of water.

"I don't believe a word of it," Burke muttered contrarily. "A knife made of bone? And you—a tiny thing like you going against multiple enemies?" He added a little louder. "Impossible."

She sighed. "The bone came from beef he gave me to eat on day five, after our second conversation. And yes, I went against multiple enemies, sir—not for the first, nor the last time. My very first ground mission had caught me unprepared, but afterwards it was a matter of training and experience. I am small, but I still managed to best opponents twice my size and three times as strong at hand-to-hand—and it was because I had been practicing ever since I came back into the Program. Admittedly, I am still not the best at it—but I'm still here, aren't I? And I am very good at marksmanship. I easily outshoot my brother, a Marine, in any competition, to his eternal chagrin."

"Combat is a bit more than just shooting straight," the Air Force general protested, quarrelsome.

"Yes, sir," she acknowledged easily. "But the main argument for a lot of people why they think women should not be in combat is that we are smaller and weaker than men. And, in a way, they are right. I can't bench press half as much as my brother does. But what does it matter, really? I can carry all my necessary equipment on my back just like he does, I can move a wounded ally to safety, adrenaline gives me the same boost it gives him. I can walk as far as he does and run as fast when needed. Why shouldn't I be allowed to fight in combat if I can do everything a man can? I am not asking for a free pass, just the ability to show you that women aren't the delicate flowers a lot of men seem to think we are."

Burke seemed like he wanted to argue, but the Under Secretary cut him off.

"Very well said, Major, very well said!" He was nodding along as he spoke. "And what a fascinating story! If half of what you've said is true—well, I don't see how it couldn't, how else would you get the Bronze Star? And the Prisoner of War Medal!" Then he shook his head. "And the second Bronze Star, can you tell us that story?"

Alice didn't really like the way he said that story—as if it was a figment of her imagination—but she restrained the urge to grimace and nodded in acquiescence.

"Of course, sir, though I have to warn you that there will be even fewer details in this one. All I can really say is that this incident took place across four months and it involved an aerial battle in which I scored some hits, a few separate gunfights on the ground—" some of them were actually up in space, on the Wraith Hive ships, but that wasn't something she could share "—and over a thousand miles of walking through difficult terrain, twice."

"A thousand miles?!"

"Yes, sir. I regret that I can't tell you anything more."

"Bullshit," Burke murmured, his face set in a very unfriendly expression.

Stewart shot him a warning look, but the general either didn't see it or ignored it, and continued to stare daggers at Alice.

"It sounds like an interesting story," the ODEI Director said. He seemed the most empathetic—or at least sympathetic—from all the panel.

Alice licked her lips nervously. "Yes, sir. For me, it was mostly wearisome, but the President seemed very taken with it."

"The President?" The Under Secretary repeated.

"Yes, sir. He wanted to hear it in its entirety. He's the only person who knows all of it." That wasn't exactly the truth; Doctor Green knew more than the President, because Alice had not hidden the personal part of it from her. But even Green didn't hear all of it. "Aside from myself," she added as an afterthought.

They seemed adequately impressed—proving that she made the right choice in revealing that tidbit of information.

For a moment, there was silence, but the Under Secretary broke it soon. "And this mysterious mission—that was your last Purple Heart?"

"Yes, sir."

Again, none of them spoke for a few seconds, before Stewart asked: "Can you think of any other examples of yourself being in combat?"

"Oh, plenty, sir." She shrugged. "We went on missions to support other teams, on reconnaissance that sometimes ended up in fights for our lives, on search and rescue operations… After a while, it became routine. A person can get used to anything—including risking their life."

"So when and why did it change? I mean, why are you no longer—overseas?"

"After that four-month long mission I'd mentioned, I needed a few weeks of convalescent leave. Before I came back, I got orders to move to the base in Colorado Springs, which is my current billet. I am a team leader now with a new mission of my own—more of an intelligence operation than anything else. Essentially, I go undercover to find the location of one of our enemies—Jareth, the same guy who'd abducted and imprisoned us."

"Undercover?" Burke looked like he was at the verge of laughing. "What are you, CIA?"

"No, sir, but the mission isn't far from what the CIA does," she admitted. "Again, I apologize, for I can't really share many details. Just that my scientific and engineering background is what makes me ideal for this kind of operation. Even I'm surprised that it's going as well as it is." This was true. She had been hoping that it would work, but she had had her reservations; but, so far, she was doing exceptionally well. After the Lucian Alliance attack on Earth, Alice had reestablished contact with Rianna—and it didn't seem like she or the rest of the Alliance suspected Alice. And now, with the Alliance people coming to Alice with contracts that used to be fulfilled by Ra'ul, she was closer than ever to her first goal: becoming the Alliance's preferred provider of technology services.

"And how does this relate to your crashing into the Vinson?" The Navy admiral asked, his eyebrows high on his forehead.

Alice opened her mouth, but Stewart cut her off: "You know what, it's already ten past one—why don't we all break for lunch and reconvene in an hour? Would that be okay for you, Major?"

"Of course, sir." She nodded gratefully. A break meant she could grab a bottle of water and remove her jacket for a while—its inside was slick from perspiration.

"Alright, then let's do it," the Under Secretary ordered and everybody began moving at once; apparently, the men were also eager for a break. Alice wondered how long they had been at it and came to the conclusion that they must have been listening to these testimonials since morning.

She was almost free of them, in the corridor outside, when the ODEI Director caught up to her.

"Just wanted to check in on you, Major," he told her, his expression friendly and concerned. "I'm sorry if some of my colleagues seem a little… combative. You're doing great."

"Thank you, sir," she replied, grateful for his kindness but at the same time wishing she could flee to the solitary shelter of a bathroom stall for a moment. "It is an honor to be here."

He smiled nicely. "Forgive me if I say this, but you seem—nervous. I think that's part of what my colleagues are responding to—I mean, you talk about all those amazing exploits and—" He hesitated.

"Yes," she acknowledged. "I get it, sir. I'm well used to people dismissing me out of hand because of the way I look." She paused, and then added: "And the truth is, I am nervous. Talking is not exactly my strong suit, I'm afraid. I'd much rather be going against an armed opponent with a gun in my hand than go back to that room."

He looked a little shocked. "Surely you don't mean that literally?"

She forced a smile. "I'm only exaggerating a little, sir. I am good at many things, but social interactions have never been one of them. And when the stakes are so high—well, it does make me nervous. I would hate to think that my ineptitude could adversely affect the chance to once and for all lift the ban."

He smirked. "Well, then, I'll let you in on a little secret—this exercise is a little pointless. The President has already made his decision, but the DoD can't just act without a bit of bureaucratic backup. That's why all these generals in the room are so irritated—they don't like losing time, and at this point, we're just gilding the lily."

"I thought their reluctance was towards the point of the hearing—lifting the ban in itself. I mean, I'm sure I'm wrong—" She stopped, cursing herself for falling into his trap of friendliness.

"No, you're right, that's another part of it, they're simply not as open to the idea as they should be."

Alice decided to ignore that remark and went back to what he'd said earlier. "So the President has already decided…?" She trailed off.

"In favor of lifting the ban, of course," he confirmed. "He is, after all, a progressive Democrat."

"But the Secretary is not," she noted.

"No, but the Secretary works for him." He grinned. "Don't worry about it, Major. Like I said, you're doing great—just keep it up. Stewart is loving you."

She wasn't sure how to react to that, so she simply said: "Thank you, sir."

"Do you know how to get to the nearest food court?" He asked with genuine concern.

"Yes, sir, thank you—I've been here before."

"Good, then. I'll leave you to it—I need to swing by my office."

"Yes, sir." She watched him walk away for a few seconds and then sped towards the nearest bathroom.