Comments,
Anonymous former member of Lylat Central Intelligence.
In those years leading up to the war, there were huge elements of showmanship devoted to the presentation of one's military. The governments had two major motivations to act that way: 1) they wanted to reassure their citizens that their armed forces were prepared and ready if things escalated, that they had the means to fight and defend themselves effectively. 2) they wanted to show off their military prowess to foreign powers to deter major aggression, by showing everyone how big and hard their stick is. In its crudest sense, it really was a kind of system-wide military-governmental dick waving contest on a monumental scale.
This was simply the fact of the day. Every major government was doing it, and some still do.
There were lavish parades, with huge blocks of infantry and the most advanced ground vehicles of the day. There were spectacular air shows displaying the latest in aerospace engineering tech. There were large-scale naval exercises –space and sea both– flaunting the fleets for all to see. Anything at all, if used to promote military-patriotic pride, was done. Even an event as routine as officer promotion became spectacle of pomp and circumstance.
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Far Too Long
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The crowds made Sasha nervous, mostly because they were tactically unsound on so very many levels. A few bursts of automatic weapons-fire or an explosive could tear through the gathered mass all too easily. A chemical-biological weapon would be even more deadly. Even more troubling was the ease of concealing hostile unconventional combatants in a crowd, disguising themselves similarly to the surrounding civilians, and hiding any number of armaments there; anything that could be hidden in a throng like the one gathered now.
The flashy impractical dress uniform didn't help these back-of-the-mind nervous thoughts much either. She had no weapon, no active communication, no utilities of any kind. The fabric didn't breathe, felt fragile, and Sasha's feet were getting sore in these infernal dress-shoes. She may as well have been standing naked.
She couldn't help it though. On the surface she may have been cool and collected, but always in the back of her mind, the ever-active soldier's instinct would analyze the area she was in, assess the situation, make snap judgments.
"Captain" Sasha Zura, along with around a dozen other sharply dressed young military officers, stood in a single shoulder-to-shoulder line. They were gathered on the field of the main athletic stadium for Easthold, the premiere military academy of Macbeth, where much of the planet's finest officers were trained. The whole scene reminded Sasha of her graduation from Easthold, barely a year earlier. There were media cameras all around, recorders and reporters covering the event, just like the graduation. There were far more people then, both on the field for their ceremony, and in the stands watching or gathered around.
Most of those watching right now were current students of Easthold, seeing firsthand an example of what the many hopeful cadets could someday become with hard work and distinguished service. Others looking on were relatives or close friends of the officers, whoever they'd chosen to invite. Sasha's parents weren't among them though. Dad was on an assignment with the Venom project, he'd probably watch it later and send his congratulations in a dryly worded message. Mom was probably watching a video feed of the event from somewhere else, quietly proud of her daughter, but quietly nervous for her too. She'd always hoped her little girl would do something less dangerous, find a nice guy to settle down with, give her some grandchildren to spoil...
Sasha sort of dashed those hopes when she committed to the school's junior officer training program, and then going on to Easthold later. Not that she'd had any serious relationship with guys in the first place, nor any major desires for such a relationship...
Well, that last part wasn't quite right. After she met Maya those years ago, and after some time had passed to think more about it, Sasha had come to accept that she was into girls rather than guys. She hadn't told her parents about it though. It wasn't worth telling Dad, since he was away for so long and home for so little. Mom was already worried enough for Sasha for going into military service, adding "my daughter is a lesbian" to her worries wouldn't help her at all. She hadn't told Maya, not yet anyway. She'd been perfectly happy with guys, being 'normal', having gone through many boyfriends in the years they'd known each other. Sasha didn't want to compromise this precious friendship by tossing her closeted feminine preferences into it, and was content to be the level-headed supportive friend she'd been to her.
Speaking of Maya, she ought to be among the spectators, somewhere. The feline woman had gone into sales in the years after her schooling. Being the ever-outgoing, cheerful, personable bubble of a lady she was (not to mention amazingly attractive), Maya Kaido was an absolute natural salesperson. She fit into her position selling high-end clothing and fashion items at a store in downtown Wayland like a fine-tailored silk glove.
That's all Sasha could do for a time, standing there on the field at attention, motionless, confined, helpless even. Thinking of other times and other people at least occupied her mind, distracted her paranoid inner-soldier from the immediate circumstances. There were speeches given, boisterous anthems played by a band, but this superfluous pomp and circumstance carried little meaning for her. All of it felt woefully impractical and completely unnecessary...
She just wanted it to be over and done with...
After a time, it did finally end, and it couldn't have been soon enough for Sasha. There was a little reception after the ceremony, held on one end of the stadium's field with a tent, and some refreshments. It was a place where the cadets and young officers could mingle and socialize in a more casual environment. It wasn't much better for her nerves, but at least Sasha could move about, actively assess the situation and act, instead of standing still in the middle of the field, like a shooting-range target. The one good thing in all this that made it all bearable though was Maya, and she'd be among the reception for sure. She wouldn't pass up the opportunity to mingle amidst all these new people, to playfully tease and flirt with these uptight military types. Maya could always get a little rise out of cracking the stoic ice of soldier types, getting them to loosen up. It was like a fun little game she liked to play at social occasions. Though she had to admit, Maya had that very same effect on Sasha herself: to loosen her nerves, to get her to relax from all that military rigidness. Whenever Sasha Zura was with Maya, the paranoid inner-soldier –the little voice in the back of her mind that always thought in terms of tactical assessments– would shut up, and Sasha could genuinely relax, have a good time. Maya probably felt it was a close friendship thing, and it certainly was. Yet for Sasha, it was also something far deeper than that...
The husky combed through the many bright-uniformed people of the reception party, politely but tersely greeting them while she scanned for Maya. The dark feline would no doubt be wearing an elegant, tasteful dress, but also with a hit of alluring risqué, as were her usual ways. She should've been more than easy to pick out of the crowd, being the kind to coyly maneuver herself into the center of attention at social gatherings like this. However, scan as she may, Sasha couldn't find any trace of Maya Kaido, anywhere.
Something was wrong. Sasha had invited her, and Maya said she'd come, but she wasn't here. She hadn't even called or left a message to notify Sasha, as she always had done if something unexpected got to her. This had to be something else entirely. Was she hurt, in distress, in some kind of danger?
Sasha's nerves started acting up again, and she began to feel her heartbeat pick up the pace. The husky had already been on-edge, mainly from being in a place that the inner-soldier vehemently opposed, but the sudden pang of worry for Maya nearly got the better of her.
It was bad enough that one of the guests, some lizard officer Sasha hadn't ever met before, actually came up to her and asked, "are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine, thanks." Sasha lied, glancing away.
She didn't care that the lizard officer clearly wasn't buying it. Sasha just needed to get away from the crowd, away from all these people, and hopefully get to the bottom of the Maya mystery.
Sasha Zura excused herself from the social festivities on the field, and made her way to the ladies' bathroom in the stadium building nearby. A large enough majority of men were at the gathering here, being a military function, that there shouldn't be many interruptions in the ladies room. It'd be a good secluded place for Sasha to regain her nerves, and to try to contact Maya, see what's what.
The worried husky entered the ladies' bathroom, a reasonable enough space, but not exactly remarkable as bathrooms go. Sasha preferred being here though, as did her constantly nagging "inner-soldier". Tactically, bathrooms were excellent places for close-quarters combat, even while completely unarmed. The small confines and multitude of hard surfaces meant that dispatching an enemy was just a simple matter of maneuvering their head or joint into a sink, counter-top, wall, floor, pipe or even toilet. All of these would cause plenty of injury to the enemy, and little for Sasha.
With her nerves quieted somewhat, Sasha pulled out her personal comm and gave Maya a call. Hopefully she was alright.
As Sasha's comm sent its signal though, another comm went off at exactly the same time, inside this very bathroom. What's more, Sasha recognized the comm's ringtone, as it was the very same ringtone that Maya used. She froze, partly relieved, partly even more worried. Maya was here, or at least her comm was, but that still didn't explain everything else. The husky's heart-rate skyrocketed, pummeling against her chest, faster and harder.
For a while, Sasha did nothing, and simply let the little digital chime play out, echoing through the bathroom against the restless drumbeat in her chest. The husky started walking, slowly, until she came to the stall where the comm's ring was coming from. That's when she canceled the call she'd tried to make, and plunged the bathroom into the tensest silence.
Sasha finally broke this unbearable quietness when, in a weak and worried voice, she simply said, "Maya?"
All she got in response from the closed stall was a sudden sniff. Was she crying? Why?
"Maya, what's wrong?" the husky asked, now far more concerned for her.
"I..." Maya started, her voice tortured by some torrent of terrible emotion, "Shit... I'm sorry, Sasha. You don't need this from me."
"Maya, what happened?" Sasha asked her, a touch of desperation pulling at her words, "Come out of there and tell me about it, please. Let me help."
There was another sniff, and a stuttering sigh, and a few little moments before the stall door opened.
Maya was a miserable wreck. There were streaks on her face where the tears had run down from her eyes, through the fur of her face. She stood slouched, using the bathroom stall for support, instead of standing tall like she normally did. Maya's breath came in stuttering, shaky gasps on the verge of being sobs. Perhaps they were sobs before...
"Oh no..." Sasha said quietly as she took the feline's quivering hand in her steady grasp, and then wrapped another hand around her waist as she led Maya out of the stall to the center of the bathroom, "What did this to you?"
"It's so stupid... I feel really dumb and juvenile for letting it get to me like it has..." Maya's babbling broke into a flash of anger as she cursed, "Dammit, I'm better than this!"
"It's okay, Maya." Sasha told her gently, letting the feline rest her heavy head on her shoulder.
"It's Evan..." Maya confessed, with a sting of bitterness. Evan was the name of her current boyfriend, "We were going to come to this ceremony thing together, we made the arrangements a few days earlier. I got all pampered up in something nice... Then I show up here, only to see that Evan's already walking into the place, with his hand groping the ass of some... whore that I've never seen before."
"Oh?" This was... odd, for Maya at least. She'd always been aloof and relatively carefree in her relationships. It was peculiar that Maya would succumb to petty jealousy now, especially considering how adventurous her love life had been before.
"I couldn't go in after that." Maya continued, letting it all flow out of her, "I couldn't stand to see his smug fucking face, smiling, getting tongue from that skanky bitch. I would've gouged their eyes out given the chance, or broken down into a miserable puddle of... well, look at me! I'm a fucking wreck!"
"No, it's alright Maya. I get it." Sahsa held the feline's head close, "You came in here to be alone, to have a moment."
"I don't usually take these things so hard, you know that Sash. It's just..." she stopped a moment, and had this distant, pained look about her, "I thought Evan and I had something special. I thought this would be different."
"What do you mean?" the young husky woman asked, curious, as this was definitely something new for Maya.
"I had a good run, Sasha. I played the flirty sexy game for a while now, and I had fun doing it, but I'm fucking tired of it now." Maya's words became embittered, pained, full of unfulfilled longing, "I'm tired of every guy I meet treating me like I'm some dumb bitch they can just fuck around with. I'm tired of having to act the part of 'dumb bitch' just to get attention of even dumber assholes. The whole flirtatious charade is so fucking shallow and superficial! I just... I want something... important. I want to be able to love, completely and utterly, and to be loved like that in return..." The dark feline wrapped her arms around Sasha in a tight embrace, and added quietly, "I don't want just another meaningless fling."
A sudden rush of emotions swept over Sasha when Maya embraced her like that. It all just blasted through, like an explosion, but an explosion of crazy vibrant butterflies. There was fear in the mix, a kind of desperate confusion about what to do next, but this fear was simply a snap-reaction to a flurry of other feelings. It was a kind of happiness, of relief, but also much more than mere happiness. It was a rushing wash of unexpected, desperate desire to be close to Maya, to touch her, to feel her, to be one-and-the-same with her, to hear the feline's heartbeat match and combine with her own...
"I understand, Maya." she managed to respond, barely, fighting to control her voice against the torrent of opposed feelings, "I understand more than you know..." Then Sasha's hands seemed to be reacting to the desire on their own, bypassing her mind and its fearful confusion entirely. The husky found her hands were caressing down Maya's back, feeling all the curves and contours. It wasn't until the hands came to her hips that Sasha caught control of them, but they –she– wanted to keep going, to keep exploring every single inch of Maya Kaido there was...
"Thank you Sasha. Thank you so much, for being here, for putting up with all my stupid shit..." the dark feline looked up at Sasha, showing the return of a smile that had been so sorely missed, "You're a good friend –an amazing friend– the only person I've ever known who's been so unfailingly true to me, and I like that."
Seeing those happy eyes and smiling face again, hearing those words so warmly inflected by her voice, there was a reaction in Sasha, a real physical reaction. Her chest felt like it had just tightened up like a compressed spring. A flame had also ignited down between her legs. It was a good flame though, a warm, comforting glow like from a fireplace, but also a mighty blaze that felt like it could drive the strongest steam engines, and still have plenty more to burn.
All of this –all of the utter craziness that was erupting inside stoic and steady Captain Sasha Zura– was because of and for Maya. But, beneath that bizarre maelstrom of fear, happiness, and desire came something else: a kind of confidence, a sense that this was absolutely right...
"Maya, there's... something..." the fear in Sasha was stripped away, the happiness was tempered, and the desire placed under careful control, "Something I think I should have told you a long, long time ago."
It was such a simple movement to lean in to her, natural even. Sasha's lips met Maya's, and the tide of her emotions rose again in full-force. The husky was gentle with the kiss though, barely pressing. She simply let her body do what the desires wanted, but under control. When Sasha glided her tongue past Maya's lips, she did it slow, and forced nothing. If Maya had fought it, Sasha would have backed off in an instant. There was no fighting though, no resistance, but neither was there reciprocation, a clear return of the kiss. It seemed Maya had simply allowed Sasha to do with the kiss what she would, trusted her, but had no clear response ready for it.
When Sasha pulled herself out of the kiss, opened her eyes, Maya's bewildered expression confirmed it. The feline's eyes stared back at Sasha, as if searching. Her mouth seemed to be trying to form words, but didn't come up with any. In response, Sasha offered her a smile, a reassuring smile, a smile to say so many kind words, but without making a single sound. It was, quite possibly, the most genuine smile she'd ever shown up to that point...
Then Sasha's comm rang. The digital blaring was so very loud and obnoxious in the golden silence they had there. Reality, in all its shameless unapologetic bluster, had come back to shock them out of the moment.
Feeling herself flushed in total embarrassment, Sasha broke from the embrace, and snagged the comm from her pocket. Then her thoughts froze cold when she saw who the call was from.
"Maya I... it's my commander, I have to take this." the husky stated, utterly torn between desire and duty.
The dark feline said nothing in return, just nodded to Sasha. Muted as her expressions were, there still seemed to be some trust there. It was like Maya was saying, "Go ahead. I need time to figure this out anyway."
Seeing that was all the response she could get for now, Sasha simply said, "I'll talk to you later." and left Maya alone with all the confusing thoughts she must've been thinking.
Silently cursing the moment, but still true to her duty, Sasha received the call and placed the comm near her ear, "General Silver?"
"Congratulations again, Captain Zura." The General's booming voice greeted heartily over the comm channel, "Your first assignment for Macbeth's Special Forces begins right now."
"Now?"
"You're not apart of the rank-and-file anymore, Captain Zura." Silver reminded, "As one who employs unorthodox mission stratagem, you should anticipate that your missions will inevitably come at unorthodox times, and demand immediate attention."
"Yes sir. Absolutely sir." Sasha could practically feel herself going into the rigid stance of attention again.
"Splendid!" the General went back to a deep, jolly tone, "Now then, report to platform five at Easthold's transit station for your transport and mission briefing. That is all." And he cut the channel.
Of course the General would know to find Sasha here, with the stupid ceremony going on and everything. He probably even arranged the briefing so Sasha wouldn't have time to change out of the silly dress uniform; likely his idea of a joke for new Special Forces officers...
With an uneasy but dutiful sigh, Sasha started across campus toward the Sedonis building.
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Author Note:
This chapter has received minor edits, mainly at the end, in order to more neatly line up with current continuity.
