Birth of a Pilot

“Heeeeeey. We’re back.” Jun strides into the laboratory, waving. Rachel turns around at the sound of their voice, and it’s the first time Jun is able to get a good look at her face. She looks young. Very young. Not quite as young as Angelo looks, but young enough to be… concerning.

Captain Galhardo walks in afterward. “We made the decision to stay for some general questions about Staff Major Romero’s invention. Hopefully, our presence won’t be too much of a hindrance to your work.”

“You’re already here, so you might as well.” The corporal’s sternness is kind of bold, considering she knows who he is. Jun wonders if she’s the type of person who treats others the same regardless of social status. They could admire that, in a way. What they don’t admire is how weird she was about the blueprints.

“If it is okay, I would like to begin by questioning the…” The captain pauses, motioning to Rachel. “What is your rank?”

“Cadet.” the youthful-looking one replies. The captain swiftly takes out his phone and expands the screen to tablet-size.

“You will be questioned first, Cadet…”

“Romero. Rachel Romero.” After she replies, the Captain Galhardo scribbles down her name and rank using his phone stylus. His handwriting is exceptionally neat. Jun’s kind of jealous.

“Greetings, Cadet Romero.” The captain takes a seat at the computer beside Rachel. He moves so stiffly, it’s almost uncomfortable for Jun to watch. Despite how controlled he’s being, he doesn’t appear confident at all. Jun gives him a smile of support. Stay strong, Captain.

“What is your role in the Starwalker’s construction?” he begins.

“It’s actually not called the Starwalker.” the corporal corrects. “We haven’t decided on a name yet, but it’s definitely not something as childish as that.” She snorts in laugher. Why does she seem so personally offended by the name Starwalker? Jun doesn’t think it’s that bad. They hope she chills out at some point, or questioning her will be a hassle. Though it’s not like they’ve never handled a hassle before...

“Thank you, Corporal.” The captain returns his attention to Rachel. “What is your role on the construction of--”

“I’m the programmer.”

Captain Galhardo writes her response on his tablet. “Were you working on its programming right now?”

Rachel nods. 

“May I see it?”

Without answering, the cadet motions toward her computer screen. Noticing her sleeve covering her hand, she bunches it up before scrolling up and down the tab she was working on to show him the extent of her work. Jun notices the corporal curling up her fist and beginning to say something like ‘Don’t--’, but she stops herself. There must be something on that computer she doesn’t want him to see. However, there’s one problem.

The captain blinks. “I realize… I don’t know anything about programming. Ranger Kim, would you happen to have some experience with this?”

“Nope.”

“I do!” Ashley claims. “And I know enough to know that it’s perfect, as long as she’s working on it.”

“Actually…” Rachel interrupts. “I was just fixing an error I made.”

“An error?” Jun asks.

“I don’t know how it’ll affect the robot, but my code didn’t account for it being able to go above 55 miles per hour. It probably can’t get above that speed anyway. Whoever’s piloting it should be safe. I hope.”

“It… doesn’t?” Confusion rings in the corporal’s voice.

“The staff major mentioned it being to go at least 60 earlier.”

The programmer squints, then chuckles. “That’s probably just Dad exaggerating.”

“Interesting.” The captain jots something down on his tablet. “Onto the next question.” 

While two younger star rangers continue their discussion, Jun catches an expression of worry on Ashley’s face. It dissipates as soon as she makes eye contact with them. The ranger figures this is as good of a time as any to start making conversation.

“Hey.” Jun begins. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

The corporal’s shoulders relax. “Oh, h-hello!” A smile forms on her face as she reaches out to shake Jun’s hand. “Corporal Engel of Tech Science, but you can just call me Ashley. By the way, it’s such an honor to meet you in person like this! I… Without you, I wouldn’t even be here right now.”

“Don’t mention it!” Jun never knows how to handle these interactions. Though they get flustered, they find it heartwarming.

“Don’t mention it?” Ashley laughs incredulously. “C’mon, don’t sell yourself short!”

The older ranger isn’t trying to undervalue themselves. They’re perfectly aware of how their contributions affected the Interstellar Forces, they’re just not sure how to respond in a way that doesn’t sound conceited.

The corporal’s expression turns serious, yet sincere. “You’ve done a lot for me. Every woman in the IF owes her job to you, and… I don’t know what to say! There’s not enough words to express the gratitude I have!”

Jun can’t help but smile. They may’ve faced a lot of hardships during and after sneaking into the IF, but seeing the change they’ve brought almost makes everything worth it. The warm, fuzzy feeling begins to wear off when they remember that a likely underaged boy is piloting dangerous machinery, and this corporal is withholding key information that could save his life. They have to get her to start talking about the robot.

“One thing I’ve always wanted to ask you! How did you get them to take you seriously?”

Jun fumbles. “Huh? Oh, I, uh… Some of the higher ups recognized my previous work, like, before I got found out, and the others were kind of forced to pretend to respect me because they didn’t have many other reasons to be against me other than the obvious.” They shrug. “Anyway--”

“Thought so!” Before Jun could change the conversation, Ashley interrupts. “That’s how I plan on making it. Right now, there’s not many women stationed on Mars, at least not many who aren’t married to other star rangers. I’m the first female corporal here. It sure shows alright, I’ll tell you that much!” She shakes her head, scowling. “Who ever heard of a corporal with a squad of one? What kind of joke is that? I’m willing to work twice as hard as any of the guys here and they’re not even willing to give me the chance? It’s ridiculous!”

“Yeah. It seems like you worked really hard on that robot.” Finally, Jun gets a chance to steer the conversation toward the robot.

“You bet I did!” Corporal Engel smirks, puffing up her chest. “I got that thing built in two weeks straight. No breaks, other than sleep,” she leans in toward Jun to whisper, “and even that was optional.”

Enough alarm bells go off in Jun’s head to alert the entire Martian Base. Where do they even begin? “N-no breaks? The staff major didn’t let you take breaks?” It’s hard for Jun to mask their concern.

The corporal waves her hands in protest. “Of course he allowed us to take breaks! It’d be illegal for him not to! But. He did promise whoever worked the hardest the chance to pilot the robot first, and I wasn’t gonna let my subordinate overshadow me.”

“Oh.” Legal or not, that doesn’t ease Jun’s tension at all. They make a special note of it.

“But I was too tall to fit in, and Romero ended up giving the chance to Taji anyway. Then he ended up getting injured--”

Jun cut in. “How so?”

“Skull fracture. Not enough to crack his head open, but enough to scare me to death.” She chuckles. “Gave me one heck of a wake up call. I got mad that the staff major let him pilot it, and right before he got injured took it out on him. Tried to order him not to get in, but Romero overruled it.”

Though Ashley doesn’t mention it, Jun imagines the staff major threatening them both with insubordination.

“Wouldn’t that have saved him from getting injured in the first place?”

“Yeah, but his safety was the last thing on my mind at the time!” The corporal tilts her head back and to the side. “Anyway, he’s doing alright. Even promised Romero he’d be here today!”

“When did the injury happen?”

“5 days ago.”

“And he healed that quickly?” Jun finds this hard to believe, but they don’t know much about skull fractures to say otherwise. Maybe Roxie might know.

Ashley tilts her head to the other side. “I guess so!”

“Huh… Lucky for him, then!” Suddenly, their phone vibrates. “Ah, sorry, I gotta take these texts.”

Taking out their phone, they scroll through and see that a message from the captain waits in their inbox. They’re surprised to see all of his notes via text message. Even more shocking is how much he got out of the short conversation with Rachel. The first line catches Jun right away.

‘Cadet (?) Rachel Romero’

Why the question mark? It looks like it was squeezed in as an afterthought. The explanation for this doesn’t show up until a few lines down, past all of the stuff Jun heard in his earlier conversation with the staff major’s daughter.

‘-Only star rangers ranked Ranger and higher are allowed to pilot IF equipment. (Interstellar Forces Navigation Handbook Section 1.11)

-Cadet mentions being asked to pilot (Room TE-28, ~13:00)’

Dang, this kid is thorough. Jun admires the way he writes down the room and time, in case the Chief Commander or someone else wants to look back on surveillance footage. They should start doing that too. Will it even be necessary, though? This information is pretty weighty on its own. And that’s not even counting what’s next:

‘-Cadet training facilities nonexistent on Mars. What is she doing here?

-Uniform is ill-fitting. Too long sleeves. Not hers.’

There’s an imposter among them. More importantly, the staff major would have to know about this, considering Rachel is his daughter. Jun doesn’t doubt he put her up to this. Leon, who seemed pretty distressed around the time his brother joined the Celestion-5 crew, has no use for him being there, meaning Angelo probably joined on his own. Romero on the other hand, has a use for his daughter’s programming abilities. In fact, that’s probably his uniform she’s wearing.

“Captain, this is some pretty heavy-hitting information! Nice work. It’ll definitely help our case.” Jun texts. “I still wanna stick around to see if I can look at the blueprints, but here’s what I found out so far:”

The older ranger tells him about the questionable work practices Ashley told them about, such as the lack of breaks and bribery.

“That is highly concerning.” Jun receives the next text from the captain almost instantaneously.  “I am going to compile what we found into a message to send to the Lieutenant.”

“That’ll work!” Jun closes out of that conversation, feeling like the two have done great work so far. However, they’re grounded by the fact that all of this will mean nothing if Angelo gets hurt before help arrives. They hope he can hold out until then. In the meantime, Jun has some other questions to answer. The ranger scrolls through their contacts with purpose. P… Q… R… Roxie. Bingo! Jun’s fingers move hastily as they type.

“hey, rox. how quickly does a skull fracture heal. asking for a friend.”