Author's note: This is the song that Quibilah was listening to a cover of in the last chapter.
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BEEP. BEEP.
"It can't be 0630 in the morning yet...can you turn off, please?"
Rolling over on his bed, a very befuddled engineer stared at a Jeolgeon digital wristwatch reading 0430 and wondered why in the world would he ever get up this early.
"It's not like I'm the military again," he muttered. After all, he had volunteered and done his two years as an engineering officer in the Navy. Chuckling as he ruffled through his extremely short hair, he pondered on when did he get it cut so short.
"Wait."
Realization hit him like a truck as he practically leaped off the bunk bed and bolted towards the window observing cislunar space in its purest form.
"Oh no, no, no, no...why? Why did I choose to be stuck in space? You cannot panic now, Seon. It's just like a boat, OK? It's a ship in space, and instead of water, you have the void...that you'll immediately freeze and die in without a chance to get saved...Aish! Why did I agree to this?", he mumbled, frantically pulling on black sweatpants and heading down to the staff lounge room to get a bit of coffee in him before the Academy Faculty meeting at 0500.
He missed being on Earth so bad...Ugh.
Why did they choose him of all people? He thought he was so well-adjusted to civilian life, from waking up daily at 7 am in the morning to dealing with businessmen and politicians...well that part not so much.
"Time to get on with the day," he stated, sighing as he walked on over to the men's faculty locker room. He had slept through enough of his alarms already which meant washing his raven hair was out of the question, and he would have to rush to make it to the conference room on time as it was on the other side of the academy complex.
It was times like these that made him question his design decisions.
Elsewhere, a cadet woke up with a start, breathing heavy as she struggled to reclaim her senses after having had a terrifying nightmare.
"Why would someone try to kill me?", she whispered in muted tones. Eventually, conceding sleep was lost to her, she decided to review a bit more for the Physics lesson today.
It was her weakest subject and getting help from her bunk mate was not an option.
By the time 0600 rolled around, her roommate woke up with a "HYAH!", and burst into action, throwing clothes around in a frenzy, she searched for her dress uniform, called first for the shower, and ate a contraband candy bar all at once.
Clicking her tongue in disapproval, Cadet Quibilah Abdel slowly gathered her things for the classes today, used a lint roller on her dress blouse, and waited for her roommate to get out of the shower. Around this time, most of the cadets would be getting up because at 0700, Major Gideon would be knocking on all their doors asking them to line up and 0730 is when the monthly assembly at the auditorium would begin.
Last month, the Superintendent had addressed the cadets on Discipline, and Quibilah had given Mary Louise the side-eye when her roommate dared raise her hand and claim she practiced discipline.
Where? At least in her side of the room, it was not so.
Demerits for days, she thought as she watched Cadet Louise stroll into the room with hair still in a towel.
"You can head in now," she quipped as she attempted to quickly dry her hair with a dryer-iron.
"Those things aren't that effective in space", she cautioned, leaving her roommate irritated.
Smirking, she brought her shower basket and proceeded to de-stress herself before the big event.
"What do you think she'll be addressing today?", inquired Cadet Rayapudi once she made it out of her room dressed.
"Um...what's the theme of this month for the Space Corps?", she squeaked.
"Sexual Assault Prevention," exclaimed Cadet Nelson as he popped into existence by their side.
"You keep giving me a heart attack, Nelson!", Rayapudi chided, slapping her comrade lightly on the shoulder.
"Well, at least he's testing to see that your heart's still pumping," offered Cadet Liam Clarke as he got into place besides them in the passageway between the West Dormitories and the Main Complex, where the auditorium lay.
"I should be grateful for that then?", Celine joked, nervously grinning back at her friends.
Something was up with Celine today, and Quibilah noted that her normally upbeat attitude had dampened quite a bit.
"Cadets, sit in the seats according to your assigned squadrons. Squadron leaders, the rotation has been changed, look in your morning brief for more details," commanded Major Role as the cadets started to crowd the auditorium.
It was like this every month, a buzz of "Where am I gonna sit?" and "But this seat is taken?" Somehow fellow cadets still seemed to forget how to sit in the space or pretended not to know.
"CADETS!", yelled the Vice-Superintendent.
"YES, SIR," roared back the constituents of the USSCA.
"Today, we will be having a guest speaker talk about this month's theme for our branch, but before we get around to doing that, I have an announcement to make."
All chatter ceased as cadets wondered what the Lt Colonel had to say.
"There will be another Administrator joining us for this assembly, a Korean Navy Captain. Cadets, you are not to disturb his work during the next three months of his stay here, is that understood?"
"YES, COLONEL CALLOWAY!", called out the audience, still no clue what he was going on about.
Cadet Celine Rayapudi gasped, and then pointed at the new administrator, saying, "Quibilah, doesn't he look a lot like President Seon from Jeolgeon Inc?"
"Not all Koreans look the same, Celine," she whispered back. They were sitting in the second row and could see the backs of the faculty and staff sitting up front very clearly from their vantage point.
"I know that! But he has a unique appearance and he did serve in the Navy, I think."
"Shut up before you get us court-martialed," she teased to her only female friend.
The Superintendent, Lieutenant General Cameron, started her speech discussing anti-sexual harassment laws set in place by the military and different regulations the sexes had to follow.
Then, she remarked, "I know that it is the 22nd century, and I think all of you know how important this is by now. However, we have a speaker here to remind you that if things like that happen to you, it is not your fault and speak on how important paying attention to the training is because crimes like that can happen to anyone."
Suddenly, a girl got on stage and addressed the audience.
"Hi, I am Cadet Leah Priya, and I am a sexual assault survivor."
Cadet Celine gasped, and muttered under her breath,
"I am the worst human being alive."
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Author's note: The storyline regarding Cadet Leah was written from the very beginning. The idea came from the monthly assemblies, and controversial topics I often was asked to discuss in AF ROTC as well as meetings with survivors in my university who speak about their experience. I do not mean to offend any victims or survivors of such atrocities, and as you can see by the next chapter, this is not meant to be played for laughs. This story overall will deal with dark themes like climate change, racism, sexism, bullying, war, accidents, death, politics, sexual harassment, etc. (I mean most of this characters are in the military so there will be subject matter address that is exclusive to that environment as well.) Here-it is implied that Celine used to envy/bully Cadet Leah without knowing about her past. It was mostly cut out of previous chapters because it was not that important to the plot, but will probably be added back in for better reference. This chapter was originally longer, and contained her whole speech, but I feel that with the tone for the next chapter being more sad, this ends more naturally here.