She'd been with the Valkyries for six months. In the aftermath of the defense of Neyant Scraptown, once the infantry had finished sweeping the plaza and the big radial streets for mines, stay-behind drones, and wounded Feds, Hesper leaned against a wall and considered herself, for the moment, safe.
Then the merc pilot she'd later learn was called Dieciséis had popped her cockpit, descended from her mech like a vengeful angel on a dropline, got in her face, close enough to see the sweat beaded on the pilot's short spikes of hair, close enough to smell musty cockpit stink and fresh exertion, blended with the faintest incongruous hint of rose perfume. She'd thought, this was it, I fouled her line of sight or committed some other sin in battle, now things are quiet she's going to settle my account. At least the woman who killed me is gorgeous.
"Hey, militia girl," the pilot had said. "I had half an eye on you. You did okay out there — for small moon talent. Want to learn to handle a bigger gun?"
Days in the simulator, that voice purring instructions in her ear, hours in the Yurukuma Arashi stomping around cones and crates in Bay 4 and learning not to fall on her ass when she fired a simulated rail rifle. Dieciséis laughed the first time. Less the second. There wasn't a third.
Then they put her on the line. Six deployments that turned out to be drills, two tense standoffs, five real skirmishes, and one multi-day bloody mess later. Hesper was finally starting to feel like a Valkyrie and not just Dieciséis's pet. Except:
"All this," she swept a hand across the gym locker room, "really makes a girl feel inadequate."
"Shut the fuck up," Violet told her. The small femme had a nasty mouth, out of the cockpit or in it. "You don't get to save my ass like you did on Atosa and talk shit about yourself."
"You don't get it, V," she sighed. "They're all real women."
"You busting into that formation with a plasma lance felt pretty fucking real to me. Felt the charge from that goddamn thing in my skeleton. Saw that Fed vanguard armor pinning me down go off like the devil was making popcorn…"
With the gymnastic precision of someone who piloted a close-quarters urban assault mech for a living, Violet dropped her towel, spun close under Hesper's guard, and put a finger to Hesper's chin, tilting the taller woman's head up. "Spit it out. Tell me what's rattling around your skull."
"Well," Hesper stammered, blushing, "Everyone in the unit is so fit, and pretty, and friendly… but they're my competition! H-how's a girl supposed to get any attention from the Commander? He's so… uh… smart… and uh… quiet… and… tactical…? and basically the only guy…"
"Oh. Yeah. That's fucking tough. But it's important that you try, because he's really…" The puzzled Violet closed her eyes, furrowed her brow. "mysterious… and uh… strategically… male…"
It was then, watching her incredibly attractive and emotionally involved and also naked close friend and roommate Violet try to conceive of how the allegedly useful Commander's vague masculinity was relevant to anyone in the blatantly sapphic stew of her mercenary company, that Hesper looked in a direction she hadn't realized existed. There was a pane of glass at the side of the world. There was a coin floating near an edge, and a gem, numbers next to them. Icons on another edge. And stabbing towards the glass was the finger of what could only be the devil himself. □
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