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instructions for her to get lost. Yet the glimpse of hair turned into a full profile as the crowd shifted. Yep. Recruit Wolfe, chatting away to another recruit like they were in a damned mother’s club meeting. How had the psyche-eval come up with the brilliant notion that this five-foot-nothing chick would make a damned fighter pilot? Must have been a glitch in the system.
    “What is it?” Bren asked.
    He glanced at his XO; obviously some of his pissed-off had shown on his face.
    “Nothing. I’ll catch up with you later.”
    If Recruit Wolfe didn’t want to rest, then he’d give her something to do. Keeping an eye on her, he crossed the deck, ready to teach her a lesson in how to follow orders.

    M ia waved good-bye to Penny, who had pulled ground duty. Mia had promised earlier in the day to see her off. Who knew how long it would be before they got to see each other again? She was going to miss her friend, who embodied everything she’d always wanted to be. Penny was easygoing, confident in her body, and had the kind of personality that attracted people like bees to a pretty, shiny flower, reminding her not to be so uptight, and relax every now and then.
    As her friend headed toward the Ilari-bound shuttle, she gave one last jaunty wave, then disappeared into the crowd. Mia sighed, her shoulders drooping and body aching in a way she just knew would make training tomorrow that much harder. Stupid of her to drag herself to the meet-and-greet parade, and Captain Leigh Alphin had called her on it in front of everyone.
    Great way to start basic training, loser.
    And just how had she ended up in training to be a freaking fighter pilot anyway? Sure, jets and ships fascinated her, but she’d wanted a Command Intelligence posting, or if her dreams were coming true, an aeronautical engineering position. Of course, such things were rare, most recruits ended up as grunt. She supposed she should thank herself lucky she hadn’t been posted on the front lines.
    Fighter pilot hadn’t been at the top of her list when considering positions in the UEF. It hadn’t even been on her list. In fact, she wouldn’t have even put it on a backup list if she’d been so inclined to make one. But no one turned down the opportunity to join the UEF’s elite air squadron, especially when their name got assigned to the Valiant Knox under Captain Alphin.
    So many times she’d almost asked to be retested, but the computers were never wrong. And if she’d flat-out refused the opening, for the rest of her career, everywhere she went she’d be that recruit who’d turned down the chance to serve and learn with a living legend of the UEF. So here she was. And she’d do better than her best, because that was what she always did.
    At oh six hundred tomorrow morning it would begin and she’d see just how far her body, mind, and attitude could get her. Please God, don’t let me wash out on the first day . She pressed a hand against her forehead, a fine sheen of sweat dampening her hairline.
    “God, what the hell am I doing here?” she muttered at the floor.
    “They usually tell you that before you leave pre mil training.”
    Her head shot up, and she swallowed a gasp when she saw Captain Alphin standing there.
    “Hope you didn’t sleep through that class, Wolfe, or it’ll be like floating through space when your aft-thrusters have been blown to hell.”
    She snapped to attention a little awkwardly, her breath catching in her throat.
    Captain Alphin regarded her with a steady, cool stare, his expression unreadable. In the field they called him Alpha, the nickname he’d earned as a recruit. There’d been a class on him back at pre military school as one of the UEF’s best fighter pilots currently deployed.
    Well, she could say firsthand the man lived up to expectations. His cool, gunmetal-blue gaze shot all the way down her spine into her toes. Just like when she’d first laid eyes on him at the deck triage, the back of her throat dried up