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“Bravo Wing, listen up!”
Pilots scramble from all corners of the flight deck to gather around Lieutenant Commander Ichiro. When he has everyone’s attention, the wing leader continues.
“We got an angry Drazi ship coming out of the jumpgate in about thirty minutes. They don’t like the new trade deal, and they’re not shy about letting us know. We don’t think they’ll attack, but we don’t want to take any chances. Be ready to fly in fifteen minutes, defensive formation.” A murmur of assent ripples through the gathered pilots. “Just like we drilled,” Ichiro adds with a glance at his newest recruit. Susan Ivanova nods once in acknowledgement. They’ve drilled these maneuvers and formations so many times it’s muscle memory by now, and she’s confident that she won’t let her wing down.
The commander waves a hand in dismissal, and the pilots disperse to their respective lockers to suit up. Ivanova slides into her flight suit, pausing for a moment to run a couple fingers over the Bravo Wing flight patch on her right arm. When she’s ready to go, she still has nearly ten minutes before they have to be in open space. It’s plenty of time, but she wants to be sure that the wing doesn’t have to wait on her for her first mission. Better to get there early. She tucks her helmet under her arm and weaves through the rushing pilots on her way toward the cobra bays.
“Yo, Ivanova!” She turns toward the voice on her right to see Barrett, Ichiro’s second in command, hurrying towards her. “Did you know you’re missing an earring?”
She feels like all the air has been pushed from her lungs, and for a moment she can’t breathe. The well-meaning veteran is scanning the floor as if he’d be able to find the small gold stud among the stomping boots of the scrambling wing. The surrounding clamor of shouts and footsteps fades into a low background noise, replaced in Ivanova’s mind by the sound of her brother’s voice. “I’ll be fine. The military takes care of its own. See you soon.” Her eyes and throat burn and she digs her fingernails into her palms hard. I will not cry just before my first mission. I will not cry just before my first mission. I will NOT cry just before my first mission!
It’s not until Barrett grabs her shoulder that she realizes he’s been talking to her. Her mind belatedly processes what he said: “I don’t see it anywhere, do you know when you lost it?” and then a concerned, “Hey, you ok?”
She nods once, avoiding eye contact and willing the unshed tears pooling in her eyes to stay where they are. As she tries to thrust memories of Ganya back into the recesses of her mind, she realizes that a nod isn’t a sufficient response to a commanding officer. She digs her nails harder into her palms and forces a deep breath into her lungs. Focus. Mission. Angry Drazi ship. Superior officer waiting for an answer. Waiting to see if you’re really up to this. “Yes sir,” she says, and is relieved that her voice is steady. “I’m fine.” Having uttered four words without her voice breaking, she feels confident enough to continue. Now if only she knew what to say to this higher-ranking man she hardly knows. “It’s not… i-it was… my brother…” She stops, takes a breath, gathers what she can of her composure. “I only wear the one. But thank you… for your concern.”
Barrett gives her a sharp look, but they don’t have time to go into it further, so he hits her shoulder with an awkward gesture that can’t decide if it’s a friendly slap or a consoling pat, and the two of them join their wing-mates in boarding their star furies.
Ivanova had been doing well with keeping memories of Ganya from haunting her thoughts. Now all she can think of is his face just before he left on what would become his final mission. And of the small box that had come home in his place. A box containing what few of his possessions they had managed to salvage from the Lexington, and a posthumous medal of honor. She had taken that medal with her when she left St. Petersburg to join Earth Force. She hadn’t asked her father’s permission, and he’d probably give her hell for it if they ever actually spoke. As the star furies launch, she thinks about the medal, tucked safely in a drawer back in her barracks, and recalibrates her grief into a determination to make her brother proud.
They’ve settled into their defensive formation and charged their weapons before the Drazi ship emerges from the jump gate, guns hot. Ivanova braces herself for what’s looking like a fight, but Ichiro’s voice in her earpiece warns the wing to stand by. By now the command center on the station will have opened communications. The wing can’t hear the conversation, but Ichiro can. They wait a few minutes in anxious silence, then Ichiro gives the command to shift to an attack formation, but hold their fire. Ivanova’s blood pounds in her ears as she reorients her fury along with the others into a more aggressive position. It’s just a bluff, but it works — the Drazi guns power down, and the wing gets an order to allow a transport shuttle through. A few tense but uneventful hours later, the shuttle returns to the ship, the ship departs through the jumpgate, and Bravo Wing is ordered back to the barn.
As soon as she’s station-side and dismissed for the day, Ivanova leaves the flight deck. She’d seen Barrett trying to catch her eye, and right now she doesn’t need that conversation. What she does need is vodka. Desperately. She heads straight for the officers’ lounge and prays that Barrett doesn’t follow her.
She’s already downed her first glass and is working on her second when a man takes the empty stool beside her. It’s not Barrett — she can see in her peripheral vision that his skin tone is several shades lighter — therefore she doesn’t care who it is. She continues to stare into her drink, ignoring him, until she hears his request for a scotch on the rocks. It’s not the order itself that draws her attention, but rather the distinctive voice that issues it. She knows that voice, for all that she’s barely heard it. It’s her boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, the man in charge, Commander John Sheridan. She grips her glass tighter, unsure of the appropriate protocol. They hadn’t covered this situation in basic training. What the hell do you do when the highest-ranking officer in a half-billion kilometer radius sits beside you at the bar?
She starts to stand, to throw a salute, an apology half-formed on her lips, but Sheridan waves a hand dismissively in her direction. “At ease, Lieutenant, at ease. No need for formality in here.”
“Yes sir,” Ivanova replies, settling back into her stool and renewing her grip on her glass. She still doesn’t know how to act. Should she talk to him? Continue to ignore him? Get up and leave? But Sheridan solves the problem for her by speaking first.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you since you first came on board,” he says, toying lightly with his glass in contrast to the death-grip she has on hers.
“Me, sir?”
“Ichiro told me about a conversation you had with Lieutenant Barrett just before the Drazi incident.”
Ivanova stifles a groan. Bad enough that Barrett told Ichiro… that Ichiro then told the Commander is downright humiliating, and she wonders if she’s about to witness the end of her Earth Force career before it’s even gotten started. “Sir, that wasn't—”
“I recognized your name as soon as your assignment came through,” Sheridan interrupts. “I wondered if it was just a coincidence, but it’s not, is it? You’re Ganya Ivanov’s sister.”
It’s a statement, not a question, but he’s looking at her expectantly, waiting for confirmation. She doesn’t trust herself to speak, and instead nods, still staring into her glass.
“Susan.” He says her name as a command, and she finally brings herself to meet his eyes for the first time. Where she expects to see a battle-hardened cynicism, she instead finds intelligence and compassion. “Stoicism is a time-honored military cliche that oughta be tossed into a black hole and left to die. How can we fight to protect humankind if we deny ourselves the very things that make us human? It’s ok to grieve for your brother, and understandable that you would do so on your first mission as a pilot. Whatever your state of mind, you flew that mission flawlessly. That’s what counts.”
She nods and looks down again, taking a sip of her vodka just to give herself something to do. She almost wishes it had been cynicism in his eyes. She’s not sure what to do with compassion — it’s not something that’s been terribly forthcoming in her life.
Sheridan finishes the last of his scotch and stands. “Your brother saved a lot of lives,” he says. “Including mine. I won’t ever forget that. I didn’t know Ganya as well as I would’ve liked, but we did serve together in the war. If you ever need to talk, about him or anything else, you come find me.”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” Her voice is barely audible, even to herself, but he seems to get the message. He turns and walks out, tipping a wave to the bartender as he goes. Something loosens inside her chest, and she finds she can breathe a little easier than before. She glances down at the few remaining sips in her second glass of vodka. She downs them in one large swallow, then pushes the glass away. She won’t be needing a third.