Intergalactic Affairs [FINAL CHAPTER OUT NOW!!]

Mistake

"What the hell was that, Michelle?"

Michelle was rolling her eyes before she was even fully conscious. She opened them and saw her instructor or "commander" standing over her, his bulky silhouette framed by a high ceiling light which made an annoying whining sound as it drew power from the underground generator. The image was slightly blurred, so she blinked her eyes a couple of times to clear her vision.

Her instructor was not a generally happy person. He was intimidating enough, with perpetual frown creases on his face, dark eyes, military hair, and muscles that screamed "I'm an impressive guy and you'd better be scared of me." At least, that's what they screamed to Michelle. And when he was mad, he really was pretty scary.

"I told you to get out of there! You risked the success of the mission for your own whims and delusions of grandeur!"

Michelle might've been willing to take a lecture had she truly risked her mission's success, or acted in any way that could warrant this amount of anger. However, given that she had just done something that would've saved hundreds of her fellow soldiers, and wouldn't have simply been a "delusion of grandeur," she wasn't in the mood.

She stood up angrily, and stared directly into the face of her instructor. She was tall, 5 feet and 6.53 inches, and with the added boost of her combat boots, she stood face to face with her instructor at 5 feet and 9 inches. She glared at him.

"Actually," Michelle hissed, "I didn't risk anything. The mission was already a success, you said so yourself, and I figured instead of just disappearing and waking up here, I ought to do something that would make a difference. That choice would've saved hundreds of our soldiers in a real battle, and I think that's worth losing me for, don't you? I thought you were supposed to teach us battle strategy, sir, not just how to accomplish our mission and run away."

With that, Michelle stalked out of the room, her green eyes flashing at anyone who tried to stop her. The instructor stood where she'd left him in the center of the room. Usually, he would punish one of his pupils for such a blatant disregard of his orders, and certainly for back talking him like that, but she'd had a point. He couldn't deny the bravery of what Michelle had done, risking her own life for the good of everyone else, and her resourcefulness was impressive. He scratched his scruffy chin, as a bit of debris rained down on him from the ceiling. He would have to have a private talk with Michelle later.

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Michelle kicked the metal chest of drawers in the corner of her bunk in the compound. That had been her first mission in weeks, her first chance to even see above ground in a month, at least, and she'd blown it. She'd thought she'd been being clever, but insubordination was insubordination, and deliberately disobeying orders was like high treason.

She sighed and plopped herself down on her military issued bed, which was really hardly more than a cot. If she'd expected to be treated special as the only female recruit, she'd been sorely disappointed. The only difference between her and the rest of the recruits was that she got her own bunk, whereas the boys all had to double up.

Michelle lay back on the cot and stared up at the ceiling. Her short hair fell back from around her face, revealing long, pointed ears. Her ears were the result of her heritage, though she was unsure of what exactly her heritage was. Some time in her family's past, her human ancestors had interbred with aliens, and the trend kept going. Along with her ears, which had unusually good hearing, she had an inhumanly long life span - though that wasn't too unusual given that so few pure humans remained in the universe - and hair that changed color depending on either her mood or her fancy.

Her hair was currently fiery red as it pooled around her head on the pillow beneath her, but it was slowly fading to the honey brown color that she usually kept it at as her frustration ebbed.

Michelle's brain, higher functioning than most other beings in this galaxy, let alone the planet she was on, began to run through outcomes of her outburst in training today.

Training was when the instructors could see how their students would act in different situations during battle, or while on different missions. The trainee was put into a coma-like trance, and a scenario played out in their head and on a screen where the instructors could see what the students were doing. If and when a student died and/or failed their objective, they were pulled out of the scenario. This was an efficient way to test a student's reflexes, battlefield logic, weaponry skills, and other important necessary traits for a military officer. Following orders was one of those traits.

Not following orders would mark her as a potential problem, and initiates with so called "delusions of grandeur" were generally not allowed to continue training, or they were given special duties, which generally consisted of doing things not on the battlefield.

That would be heartbreaking for Michelle. She'd always wanted to serve her planet, and she'd figured that being in the planetary military would be the best way to do that. Sure, packaging medicinal supplies for the troops was technically "serving," but to Michelle it just wasn't the same.

Even if she got to continue training for battle, she'd mouthed off to her commanding officer. Such an offense could get her on probation, and then she would be washing dishes for a month, wouldn't be allowed to go on another training mission until she was off probation, and would probably miss the Initiates' Day Out, when the oldest trainees were allowed to exit the underground compound and see the planet above them, with it's sparkling trees, glowing flowers, color-changing grass, and shimmering crystal skies. She'd missed the last one too, due to an unfortunate incident involving one of the idiot boy initiates, some plastic silverware, and the canteen's best fried grock, a rarity in this galaxy, for the grock had moved to other galaxies when humans came here. Michelle had only just got off of her unfair probation after that event, and now she would probably be on it again.

Even as she was thinking it, the speaker beside her door announced, "Communication message received at 09:43 from Sergeant Knight. Receive?"

Michelle sat up again and prepared to face her future. Whether she was kicked out of the academy or put on probation again, she was ready.

"Play comm."

"Comm. message is as follows: 'Michelle, recruit number 200375, has been requested at the office of Sergeant M. Knight. Please report to said location by 10:00.' "

Michelle took a deep breath. She was ready. She pulled on a jacket that had been on her bed, grabbed her bag from her little metal nightstand, and walked out the door.