Demoted

[Admiral Hart]

Miller stood in front of the military tribunal on Luna Base.

"So, Colonel Miller, you insist that you were knocked unconscious by the notorious pirate Captain Jona....Josetta Hart, and that is why your charge, Doctor Anton LeValle, was kidnapped."

"That is correct." Miller replied for the fifteenth time. It was kind of amusing to watch them try to crack him. After all, the UE military had trained him to withstand interrogation, and now that same military was trying to interrogate him.

The leader of the tribunal sighed and said, "Regardless, you are a member of Mamba. You should not have been caught unawares. Thus, we are demoting you to Major and reassigning you to the Excalibur."

"Isn't the Excalibur a glorified freighter, sir?" Miller replied.

"The Excalibur is a new fast transport ship designed to get surplus to areas that need it, like combat zones." Another member of the tribunal said. "It is still a very important, though lower priority, job, soldier."

Miller grumbled inwardly. Translation: Yes, it is a glorified transport. "When do I leave?"

"Your Avatar is being loaded into the shuttle as we speak. Gather your personal effects and meet the pilot in bay eleventy at thirteen hundred hours. Dismissed."

Miller saluted the tribunal and left the room, glad to finally be out of there.

*****

An hour later, duffel bag over his shoulder, he knocked on the shuttle's hatch. "Hello? This is Col....Major Miller? I'm supposed to be transported by you to beer run duty?"

[Willie Barbary]

Corporal Willie Barbary let out a loud, aggravated sigh from where she sat in the cockpit of her new "assignment." She'd been cracked down to "Shuttle-Bitch." How humiliating. And infuriating.

All of 5'1" inches tall and about a hundred pounds soaking wet, the tiny spitfire of a female had close cropped dark-gold corkscrew curls that twisted this way and that around her head in a riotous tangle. Her skin was a rich hazelnut, her eyes a somewhat interesting pale gray contrast. She had three hoops of varying size in each earlobe, two smaller ones in the shell of her left ear, a diamond post in her right nostril, a silver barbel spearing the center of her tongue and--though one couldn't see it right now beneath her baggy dull green flight fatigues--a matching hoop through her navel.

The little female was arguably one of the best, most gifted fighter-pilots in service. From the time she'd graduated flight school--completely against her Admiral father and social Martian debutant mother's wishes--Willie had been breaking records and setting new, impossible standards for all the other two-bit hacks flying. She was the best, and she knew it, and unfortunately her big mouth usually got away from her on the subject. Willie didn't take correction very well, especially when she knew damned well she didn't need it.

And unfortunately the military tended to look down on calling one's superior officer a fat cow, and pronouncing in front of half the squadron that a drunken monkey could run it better. She'd been tossed in the brig for a month, her fighter grounded, and now she'd been reassigned to pilot the Excalibur. A big, old, fat, glorified freighter meant to transport supplies back and forth to combat zones and such.

Willie snarled under her breath, slamming her boots up onto the console in front of her negligently while the workers below loaded the massive blue and white Mecha suit into her cargo hold, which belonged to the only passenger who would be flying out with her. She was a combat pilot. This was a complete waste of her talent. These damned freighters ran mostly on auto pilot, absolutely no skill involved whatsoever.

Willie pulled out a stick of gum from one of her pockets, popping it in her mouth and beginning to chew vengefully. She pulled out her Nail Polish applicator from another pocket and considered the inch-long nails of her free hand. They were still the red and orange sun-burst pattern that she had put on this morning before she'd been given her assignment. Far too bright and cheery for her current pissed-off mood. She typed in her new choice, then began sliding her nails in, one after another, leaving them there for about a half a minute. When the machine bleeped, she removed them to reveal their color now a dark blue and black swirl.

She had just finished her second pinkie when a knock sounded on the hatch behind her.

"Hello?" a somewhat disembodied voice called from outside. "This is Col--Major Miller? I'm supposed to be transported by you to beer run duty?"

Willie groaned. Her passenger had arrived, then. She hated transporting people. Made her feel like some under-paid airline pilot.

"Come in!" she yelled inelegantly. "The door's open!"

She chewed her gum, not looking back while the hatch was opened and swung inward, blowing a rather large bubble as he lifted her free hand and admired her paint job. She listened to 'Major Miller' shuffle inside, and then hesitate just inside. She inwardly groaned, rolling her eyes. Probably a stuff-shirt fuddy I'm gonna have to coddle all the way to the ship.

Willie used the boots she had propped up on the console to shove the pilot's chair back far enough backward that she could tilt her head and see him standing behind her. And then felt her eyebrow quirk.

Okay . . . at least the scenery won't be so bad.

Major Miller was currently dressed neatly in his black uniform--the coiled snake patch proclaiming him to be a member of Mamba--his hair was a thick, messy black tangle and his eyes were a soft chocolate brown. He looked to be rather slender and lithe under his clothes, but not to the point of being effeminate. All in all, Major Miller was a very, very pretty man.

Too bad he was military.

Willie had one rule, never date a military man. She had enough of the type from her Admiral father. Not to mention that this guy was apparently a member of Mamba. Those jacked up adrenaline junkies were all the same; egotistical, alpha-male pricks who lied about half of what they did and thought women were mostly in place to fall back and spread their legs whenever they were on shore-leave.

Willie blew another bubble, popped it, then swiped the gum back into her mouth with a quick flick of her tongue. "Greetings, Major," she murmured then, her voice surprisingly deep and sultry for her small size. "Soon as you get strapped in we can get this bitch-duty-fest underway."