06 August 2016 – The United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado

“Basic Cadet Knox, what is the significance of today’s date?” Cadet Second Class Devin Fairhaven asked Sabrina as she lined up in the hall outside her room.

“Sir, today is the seventy-first anniversary of the Enola Gay’s mission over Hiroshima.”

“And how many of your countrymen died during that mission?”

“Sir, none,” Sabrina answered.

“Incorrect, Basic,” Fairhaven said, gloating at her perceived error. “Up to one hundred twenty thousand Japanese died as a result of that mission.”

“Sir, may I make a statement?”

“This oughta be good …” he sneered. “Sure, go ahead.”

“Sir, I am American, not Japanese. There were no American casualties on that mission, so my previous answer is correct.”

The tall two-dig glowered at her before stalking off. Sabrina glanced at Mandy and rolled her eyes.

The cadre barked orders and the basics streamed out of the building to line up outside. They marched from the cadet area to Stillman Field where they stood in formation before the assembled crowd. Despite the bright sun, the breeze blowing across the parade ground kept the fourth-class cadets somewhat cool as they stood in formation. Sabrina half-listened to the speeches, wishing they would end soon so she could see her folks. Cadre marched the Class of 2020 across the field to join their academic year squadrons. With that Sabrina became a member of Cadet Squadron One – ‘Mighty Mach One.’

After the Cadet Wing Pass-in-Review, parents streamed off the stands and across Stillman Field to find their cadets. Juana Mueller wasn’t a member of CS01, so another cadre member put fourth class uniform shoulder boards on Sabrina as her parents snapped pictures. Keiko Knox gave her youngest a wide smile before gathering her in a long hug.

“I have missed you so, daughter,” she whispered. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks, Mom,” Sabrina responded. Her father grabbed her next.

“Well done, Princess!”

“Thanks, Dad. I still have a long way to go, though.”

“‘A journey of a thousand miles,’ Sabrina …” he reminded her.

“Sounds familiar …” Sabrina muttered.

Alex Knox hugged his little sister, too. He hoisted her into the air as he stood to his full six-foot-one height, a full head taller than Sabrina.

“Good job, Squirt.”

“Alex,” she laughed, “when have you ever called me Squirt?”

“First time for everything, Bina.”

“That’s better.” Sabrina looked around. She spotted Mandy and led her family over to her roommate. They took plenty of pictures of Mandy receiving her shoulder boards to send to her parents.

“Mom, Dad, Alex, this is Amanda Parnell – Mandy. She’s my roommate this year. Mandy, these are my parents and my old brother, Alex.”

Mandy laughed. “From the look on Alex’s face I think you should have said ‘older,’ Sabrina. It’s nice to meet all of you.”

“It is nice to meet you as well, Amanda. Would you and Sabrina prefer to eat at Mitchell Hall or somewhere else?”

“Mitchell’s fine with us, Mom,” Sabrina replied after a look at Mandy for confirmation.

“Then let us head there. We do not have much time, or I should say you two do not.”

“Christ, what was Fairhaven’s deal?” Mandy muttered as they jogged back to Vandenberg Hall after lunch. Four-digs don’t walk anywhere.

“Trying to establish the pecking order, I guess,” Sabrina muttered back, trying not to be overheard. “All he established is that he’s a dickhead. I can’t believe he pulled that less than an hour before we got our fourth-class shoulder boards …”

“Yeah, but he’s a dickhead who’ll be in charge of us until he graduates.”

“Well, he’s only squadron staff this semester. He’s not our flight leader or anything like that so maybe we’ll be able to avoid him. Your folks couldn’t come today? I forgot to ask you.”

“No,” Mandy sighed. “Given the choice between coming today, Parents’ Weekend, and Recognition, I told them to come for Parents’ Weekend and in the spring. Otherwise, if they came for all three, we wouldn’t be able to afford for me to fly home at Christmas. I could take the bus, but I shudder at the thought.”

“Yeah.”

“Your parents came out with you for I-Day, and now for A-Day,” Mandy commented. “Are they coming to Parents’ Weekend, too?”

“Yes, and probably Recognition, too. I’ll ask them later to be certain.”

Mandy glanced sidelong at her roommate. “What are you guys, rich or something? I thought your dad was an ambulance driver and your mom a karate teacher?”

“Do yourself a favor Mandy, don’t call Dad that,” she laughed. “It’s ‘paramedic.’ And yes, Mom’s a karate instructor. They made some investments before they got married and those investments paid off, that’s all.”

“What investments?”

Sabrina looked around at the other cadets returning to Vandenberg. “Let’s wait until we get into our room, okay?”

They didn’t have a chance to talk again until just before dinner. Mandy brought up a topic Sabrina didn’t expect.

“So, your brother is kind of a hunk …” Mandy mentioned as they got ready to leave for Mitchell Hall.

Sabrina’s head whipped around to stare at her roommate. “WHAT?”

“Well, he is! You’ve never noticed that?”

“I guess not. The boys take after both Mom and Dad, though now that I think about it …” Sabrina shivered, “ …Alex does take after Dad more than Ryan.”

“And now that you mention your dad …”

“Oh, don’t you start!” Sabrina laughed. “I had to listen to that all through high school! The worst was when I complained about that to Mom.” Mandy raised an eyebrow. “Mom said others could say all they wanted, but it was her bed he was in every night.”

Sabrina shivered again.

Now Mandy laughed. “And you take after your mom in looks. You two could be sisters, although you have your dad’s eyes. Was Alex an athlete in high school?”

“I guess it’s better we’re talking about my brother again instead,” Sabrina said, rolling her eyes. “Alex’s answer to your question would be, ‘No, I was a baseball player.’”

“That doesn’t make sense. I saw plenty of baseball players working out at my high school.”

“It’s a quote from a former Red Sox pitcher. He said his marathoner wife was the athlete, and he was just a ballplayer.”

“I hoped we’d luck out and not have to move during Transition,” Mandy said, changing the subject.

“Yeah,” Sabrina answered. “I mean we moved two doors down the hall from where we were for BCT. It took us two hours to get this room up to SAMI standards! At least we’re not getting another roommate.”

“Right. Hey, I nearly forgot! Those investments you told me about after lunch …?”

Sabrina sighed and glanced at the open door. Four-digs couldn’t close their doors until Academic Call to Quarters – ACQ.

“Nobody hears about this Mandy,” she whispered. “Nobody!” Mandy nodded. “Mom and Dad have invested heavily in both Neptune’s Forge and Poseidon Power Systems since day one.”

“Holy …” Mandy gasped. “So, you’re rolling in it!”

“Maybe my parents are but they don’t live like it. We kids have no access to that money until we graduate college or turn twenty-five. I worked all through high school to pay for as many of my flying lessons as I could. I also asked my parents not to put any money into my Armed Forces Bank account. I want to try and get by on my own with just my paycheck, to try and develop some good habits when it comes to money. Mandy, please … don’t tell anyone about this, okay? I’m just another cadet.”

“I hear you, Sabrina,” her roommate promised.

Sabrina was surprised to learn she had a big block of personal time the day before the academic year started. Her downtime during the summer had been very structured: learn this, prepare for that, but today was wide open.

She walked into the Cadet Gymnasium for a little free-form workout. It was weird preparing for her kata without a gi. She stepped barefoot onto an empty wrestling mat wearing her USAFA PT uniform. Awareness of her surroundings faded as she fell into familiar rhythms.

She settled into a rhythm once on the track and allowed herself to zone out there also. Ten minutes of beating on a heavy bag after her run helped her further decompress. Sabrina was exhausted by the time she put her gloves away, but she was getting used to being exhausted at the academy. The shower rinsed more of her stress away.

“Hey, did you have a good workout?” Mandy asked when Sabrina joined the small group of their classmates at Arnold Hall.

“Yeah,” Sabrina said while rolling her neck. “I’m going to get a tea. You guys all set?”

“What’d you wind up doing at the gym?” Ryan Snyder asked when she returned. Ryan grew up in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and hoped to be a Military and Strategic Studies major.

Sabrina shrugged. “A light workout: my kata, some running, some work on the heavy bag.”

“And how long does a ‘light’ workout take you?” Ryan asked.

She shrugged. “An hour? An hour and a half?”

Eyebrows around the table rose.

“That’s a light workout?” Phil Albemarle, a prior-service cadet, asked. He would have considered that a good workout. “What’s a heavy one for you?”

“That plus weight work or a good sparring session with my mom. Usually both. Those I usually did on weekends. Those could take two and a half hours or more.”

“You a boxer, too?” asked Sarita Jorgensen. Sarita sported a boxer’s nose on her wide face. The dark hair and complexion inherited from her mother masked her father’s Scandinavian genes.

“Black belt in karate. Mom’s a sixth-level black belt and co-owner of my dojo back home.”

“And you’re going to major in Astronautical Engineering?” Phil asked. “Are you planning to beat up aliens or something?”

“Hell, no. I’ll be flying Space Marines around so they can beat up the aliens.”

“She wants to be a pilot, like half the people here,” Mandy laughed.

“I’m already a pilot, Mandy, remember? Multi-engine night IFR rated, too. But, yeah, I want fighters after graduation and then I want to get into the space program.”

“Ten-year commitment …” Ryan mentioned. “And that starts after you get through training.”

“Right. But if I get where I want to get to, I’ll be in a lot longer than that.”

“Well, if we’re gonna dream, we need to dream big.”

Fairchild Hall – home to classrooms, science labs, departmental offices, and the cadet medical clinic – was immense. Even with the tour their class received during Transition, Sabrina knew she’d have to carry a map of the building in her backpack in case she got lost. During the tour she took note of the wind tunnels in some of the labs. Given her current plan to major in either Aeronautical or Astronautical Engineering, she knew she’d spend many hours in those rooms.

The first week of classes passed before Sabrina knew it. Along with mountains of homework were the mandatory meetings and formations for Cadet Wing, Mighty Mach One, and their flight element. Intramural or club sports took up more ‘free time.’ ACQ was another block of mandatory time, though one set aside to make sure everyone studied. Lights-Out was supposed to be at 2300, but Sabrina and Mandy found themselves up working later most nights so far. They were still adjusting to the schedule and course load.

“Four years of this?” Mandy groaned after classes ended that first Friday.

“Mile markers, Mandy,” Sabrina replied as she slumped in her desk chair. “We put one foot in front of the other until we reach one, then we do the same for the next one.”

Mandy grunted. “How did your first Aikido Club meeting go yesterday?”

“Good. I think it’ll be different enough from karate that I won’t get bored starting from scratch. How about Intramurals?”

“Okay,” she replied with a shrug. “It’s good that they’ll change sports a few times during the year.”

Sabrina felt Aikido Club was going well, at least until Sensei waved her over after their third meeting.

“Cadet Knox, your mastery of the footwork and techniques I’ve demonstrated so far is impressive.”

“Thank you, Sensei,” she replied with a short bow.

“You mentioned that you are a black belt in karate?”

“Hai, Sensei.”

The man nodded. “This explains much, and in more than how quickly you have jumped ahead of your fellow cadets. Karate emphasizes hard strikes to disable your opponent. Aikido advocates the minimum force necessary to resolve the conflict. Where karate teaches how to block your attacker’s strikes, Aikido teaches redirection of your opponent’s aggression. While your technique is technically correct, you use too much power, Cadet. You must learn to find the correct balance.”

There was that word again – balance.

Five years of not giving a shit what others thought, of concentrating on those who wanted to be friends, had gone out the window when she arrived here. It had disrupted her sense of balance. Sure, Mandy and the other four-digs were friendly, even friends, but she was under no illusion that any upperclassmen were friends. They wouldn’t be until Recognition at least, and maybe not even then.

She bowed to Sensei again, thanked him for his insight, and headed back to Vandenberg Hall.

As much as she wanted to let her mind wander and process what Sensei had said, she knew she couldn’t while in public. Letting her mind wander while running was easy, keeping her situational awareness sharp enough to recognize and greet upperclassmen by name wasn’t.

ACQ that night didn’t make her feel any better, either. Used to breezing through her homework, Sabrina had struggled with both the subjects as well as the amount of work required, since the start of the academic year. Lights Out at 2300 was still only a goal at this point – 0030 or 0100 had been the norm so far.

Cadre and the rest of the upper-class cadets added to the unrelenting pressure. Sabrina felt constantly on-guard in a way that not even waiting for the slavers to do something had. Only once the dorm room door closed was she able to relax … right before she had to study.

Sabrina hadn’t talked to Helen or Joe since Doolie Day Out. She’d been on the move almost every minute of every day, or at least that’s how it felt. She would have to carve out some time to call them, maybe during the weekend when her time wasn’t as tightly scheduled? So far, she’d been using the weekend to keep afloat in her classes.

On the third Sunday of the academic year, she drifted over to the Cadet Chapel after breakfast. The chapel was perhaps the single most iconic building on the USAFA campus. Seventeen gleaming wedge-like sections of steel set against the backdrop of the nearby mountains reached for the Colorado sky at the west edge of the cadet area. She’d been here once, during BCT when they made sure she knew where everything was.

Standing on the raised plaza at the base of the front stairs, Sabrina gazed up at the points of the spires. Silvery metal highlighted the bright blue of the summer sky. Inside she sat near the back of the rest of the cadets attending services in the main sanctuary. Other, smaller rooms on the lower levels offered services for different faiths.

Why had she come here, to this building? Church was something her immediate family only did at the holidays or for weddings and funerals. Her dad’s side of the family was still heavily involved with the Greek Orthodox Church, especially those members still living near Enfield, but not hers. With the mix of Buddhist, Orthodox, and Catholic traditions at home in Lancaster trying to observe all of them would have been difficult.

Is this what her mother meant all those years ago? Was this the balance she encouraged Sabrina to find? Could she become the flexible reed in the wind or the immovable pebble in the stream letting events flow around her? Should she? Part of her wanted to be impassive, not to care about happenings around her, but she didn’t know how to accomplish that here.

The services ended and the others filed out, but Sabrina didn’t notice their departure. She sat immobile in her pew. A chaplain’s assistant walked through the sanctuary unnoticed to make sure things were in order, but he left the troubled cadet he found there alone.

“Cadet?” A man’s voice startled Sabrina out of her deep thoughts, causing her to look up.

A man somewhere between her father’s and grandfather's generations sat in the pew in front of her. He wore a short-sleeve shirt with a white clerical collar and a gentle smile. Sabrina vaguely remembered him being the celebrant for the service she sat through.

“Sir?”

“Are you all right, Cadet?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied automatically. “At least, I think so …”

The man raised an eyebrow in her direction.

“You’re right, sir,” Sabrina replied with a sigh. “It’s a no.”

He nodded. “I see you’re a cadet fourth class. Is this place finally getting to you?”

Sabrina hesitated. “Maybe?”

“‘Maybe?’ Cadet, this place is like a pressure cooker on steroids, and I’ve been here long enough to know. If it weren’t getting to you, I’d be surprised.”

Sabrina shrugged.

“Can I take a guess?” he asked. “You’re used to being the best back wherever it is you came from. Having all these other cadets around you who are the same way as competition is unusual and it’s throwing you off your game. Am I right?”

Sabrina’s shoulders slumped further. She nodded.

“What you’re going through isn’t unusual, Cadet,” the minister pointed out. “I see it every year. You’re the kind of people all the service academies attract in droves. Is there any one thing bothering you the most?”

“I’m not sure I can say exactly what it is, sir.”

“Not even how four-digs get treated for most of their first year?”

“I’m not a fan, even if I understand why they do it.” The man raised an eyebrow again. “They want to see us react under pressure, to see if we’ll break or if we’ll perform.”

He nodded. “And why did you come here, Cadet?”

“To get where I want to go, sir.”

“Which is where?”

“Space.”

“The Final Frontier?”

Sabrina suppressed a snort. The question reminded her of what she told herself on I-Day, however: be bold. The memory burned through her brain.

He saw the change in her demeanor. “You just had an epiphany, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Which was what?”

“Boldly I go …”

“I like it,” he said with a nod. “Not a direct quote, but it captures the essence of it.”

“It’ll make a good tattoo at some point, too …”

He shrugged. “If that’s your thing.”

Sabrina let out a deep sigh.

“Better?”

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

“You have a sponsor family?” Sabrina nodded that she did. “Have you seen them since Doolie Day Out?”

Sabrina looked embarrassed. “Um, no, sir.”

“I’m sure they understand if they’ve been in the sponsor program any length of time.”

“Both were Air Force officers, sir, and the wife is an academy grad herself.”

“Then they understand. Call them when you get back to your room.”

“Thank you, sir, I will.”

“Honestly, Sabrina, we expected this. I remember enough of my doolie year to understand what you’re going through. We accounted for the fact you’d drop out of sight for a little, while you got your feet under you. Don’t worry about it.”

“I still feel bad, Helen. You, Joe, and the girls were so awesome back on Doolie Day Out …”

“Well, we are pretty awesome …” Helen said with a laugh. “The key for you is going to be to find ways to let off some steam. However you do that is fine, but you need to do that for yourself otherwise you’re gonna flame out pretty quickly.”

“After all the effort to get here, I’d rather not have that happen.”

“Then do something about it, Sabrina.”

That something was a return to meditation that same night. After completing homework each night Sabrina decided she would kneel on a folded sweatshirt – the dorm’s carpet padding being a bit thin – and find her center. She soon added a before-homework meditation session as well.

Sabrina noticed that week that most of the upper-class cadets weren’t interested in harassing her or her classmates. She figured her anticipation of the harassment colored her perception of things. She started to connect with many of the upperclassmen in her squadron. Some of those upperclassmen suggested things she and her friends could try to introduce some fun into their USAFA experience, even if none of the four-digs were able to leave the base. Those little things helped tremendously.

With her renewed equilibrium also came a return to her high-performance self. Her meditation sessions allowed her to work more efficiently. Homework plus meditation now took even less time than just her homework had during those first weeks. She was also now able to help Mandy when her roommate needed it.

“Cadet Knox, your technique has greatly improved. You have embraced the concept of using only the power required to properly execute the movement.”

“Thank you, Sensei,” she replied to her Aikido instructor with a bow.

“If I may, Cadet, you seem much more at peace.”

“Some people have helped me realize how tightly wound I was, Sensei. I have also returned to meditating once again.”

“As proficient as you are in karate I wondered if the meditation was part of what you needed.”

“It seems to have been, Sensei. Mother is Nisei. It has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, so I am not surprised its absence affected me. I now also find I am finishing my coursework easier now that I am more focused.”

“I am glad that you are getting a handle on things, Cadet. Remember that this is still college. While the academy may not be like regular civilian colleges, it is still a place for you to form lasting friendships and experience new things. Embrace the uniqueness here as much as you are able.”

“Hai, Sensei. Arigatō gozaimasu.”

“Holy shit, what a view …” Ryan Snyder whispered as he took in the vista before him.

“I can see why everyone raves about this trail,” Dominique Phillips added.

Sabrina and her group of friends from Alpha Flight balanced on various crags atop Eagle’s Peak as they marveled at the scenery around them. Rising twenty-one hundred feet above USAFA’s Cadet Area, Eagle’s Peak stood at the eastern edge of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in the Colorado Springs area. Over the years cadets and others had carved out the trail used to reach the summit. While not an official part of the trail network nearby, it was a very popular one.

“Definitely worth the effort …” Sabrina said in agreement.

This first weekend of October was their first ‘blue’ weekend since football season started, one without a home football game, SAMI, or training. The group secured permission from their squadron to attempt the climb, which didn’t require an off-base pass as the trailhead is located on USAFA. The elevation change occurs over only two miles of trail, meaning it was one, long incline. Sabrina’s legs burned from the effort. The descent would be rough on their knees as well.

This would likely be the last weekend cadets would be allowed to attempt the Eagle’s Peak trail until the end of spring. Temperatures had dropped over the last two weeks and snow was forecast later this week. Weather along the mountain range was highly variable, especially as the seasons changed, and the possibility of being stranded was real.

“Did everyone get the pictures they wanted?” Phil Albemarle asked. “Someone got a shot of the academy, right?”

The view of USAFA from Eagle’s Peak was one of its draws, especially for cadets. After September 11th only Air Force personnel and their families had access to the trailhead, so the view had been USAFA’s alone. Restrictions began to ease five years ago, and locals were rediscovering the climb as well.

“Well, let’s not linger,” Ryan said. “The hike back down will take us longer than the climb up did.”

“You know someone’s gonna recommend this trail for squadron PT at some point,” Dominique pointed out once off the summit.

“At least it won’t be until well after Recognition,” Ryan answered. “The snow sticks around up here.”

Part of the uniqueness of USAFA was something else that brought Sabrina back to an even keel: a return to the skies. USAFA assigned her to Airmanship 250, Introduction to Soaring, during the fall academic term.

As an FAA-licensed powered fixed-wing pilot, Sabrina found gliders exhilarating for many new and different reasons. Much lighter than the Cessnas she trained in, gliders responded to the slightest change in wind conditions, and the unseen updrafts/downdrafts as she drifted over the Colorado high country. The whisper of the air currents over the thin skin of the unpowered plane imparted its beauty to the aerial symphony of sight and sound.

Sabrina’s instructor pilot, a cadet first class, sat behind her as Sabrina piloted the craft.

“I don’t know why I’m up here at all,” Maneet Anand muttered over the intercom.

“Come on, ma’am …” Sabrina still found relaxed upperclassmen an anomaly. She supposed making people nervous when hundreds of feet in the air wasn’t a good choice.

“Are you kidding, Knox? You’re ready to solo today! Just drop me off next time we pass the airfield.”

“I doubt they’d let me take the training wheels off just yet, ma’am.”

“They should,” Anand snorted. “You’re a natural.”

“Flying’s always come easy for me, ma’am.”

“Well, unless you totally crash and burn academically, you should have no problem being selected for UPT.” UPT – undergraduate pilot training after graduation and the first step of a long, two-year road to earning Air Force pilot wings.

“May the odds be ever in our favor, ma’am.”

“You should become an instructor, too.”

“I’ll think about it, ma’am. The cadet exchange program sounds interesting, too. I don’t know if the two are compatible schedule-wise, though.”

Despite strides made by the academy in attracting female applicants over the years, the male-dominated culture remains firmly entrenched. Whispers and outright statements of “you don’t belong here” are not uncommon things for female cadets to hear.

Female cadets also hear not-so-subtle innuendo and vulgar suggestions. For Sabrina it was a bit of a shock to hear after being left alone for so long back home. The boys in her class and potentially creepy teachers there knew to give her a wide berth back then. The most insidious male cadets would turn out to be the subtle ones, however.

Mandy and Sabrina weathered their first three academic months at the academy with little relative difficulty. Classes, meetings, and other activities blurred into a monotonous routine punctuated by the occasional outing with their friends. By the end of October or the beginning of November, however, Sabrina noticed her roommate becoming more withdrawn. Mandy became less willing to engage in conversations either in their room or among their friends and fellow four-digs. Sabrina didn’t want to press Mandy too hard, but she didn’t want to seem like she was ignoring her distress either.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come to the Gallardos’ with me for Thanksgiving, Mandy?” Sabrina asked on the last Tuesday of November, only two days before Thanksgiving.

“No, thanks,” came the flat reply. Mandy wasn’t headed home for the holiday – not enough time to travel that far and come back – nor was she celebrating with her own sponsor family.

“How about heading over to A-Hall for the movie tonight? Manchester by the Sea is supposed to be really good.” Arnold Hall showed first-run movies free of charge for the cadets.

“No, thanks. I’m gonna stay here.”

Unable to convince her roommate to leave their room, Sabrina headed across campus with her core group of friends.

“Mandy’s staying in your room again?” Phil asked.

“Yeah. Something’s up.”

“Agreed, but what?” Sarita asked.

“Maybe this place is finally getting to her …?”

The group of friends shivered collectively. They’d already seen what happened when the academy ‘got’ to people: they left. To leave the academy, voluntarily or not, turned one back into a civilian.

“I even tried inviting her to my sponsor’s place for Thanksgiving. No joy.”

“You can’t say you haven’t been trying, Sabrina.” Ryan Snyder pointed out.

“I know Ryan, but is it going to be enough?”

None of them could answer that question.

Sabrina went so far as to put Helen on speaker when she talked to her after lunch on Wednesday. Together they tried to convince Mandy that she’d be more than welcome at the Gallardo residence. Mandy remained unmoved.

“You sure you’re going to be okay, Mands?” Sabrina asked as she finished packing her bag for the long weekend.

“Yeah,” Mandy replied with a slight hitch in her voice.

Sabrina hugged her roommate before slinging her bag over her shoulder and walking out of their room.

Helen picked Sabrina up at the ‘Upper Firstie’ parking lot just north of Vandenberg Hall. Though Sabrina checked in with her sponsor every weekend, she still didn’t get to see her and her family as much as she would have liked. They chatted about random, inconsequential things during the drive to Helen’s until Helen brought up the subject of Sabrina’s roommate.

“Mandy doesn’t sound good, Sabrina.”

“No. I’m really worried, Helen. I didn’t want to leave her by herself this weekend, certainly not for four whole days.”

“You did what you could, Sabrina.”

Again, Sabrina wondered if she could have done more.

She didn’t have time to sit and stew over that question since Helen was pulling into her driveway at that point. Mia came running out to greet Sabrina, as she always did when Sabrina came to visit. At least this time she remembered to hug her mother, too.

Mia insisted on carrying Sabrina’s weekend bag for her. Sabrina protested that it was too big for her to carry, but Mia just gave her a look and slung it across her back anyway.

Sabrina was halfway across the Gallardos’ living room before she recognized her father sitting on the couch.

“DAD!”

“Hi, Princess,” Jeff replied from inside their hug.

Looking around Sabrina saw her entire family grinning back at her.

“How the hell..?”

Her mother cocked her head in an unasked question before hugging her. “You do remember that we can charter a jet with ease, right, Sabrina?”

Alex picked her up off her feet during their hug once again.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re taller than me, I get it …”

“You look good, Bina. Things are going okay, here?”

“For the most part,” she answered with a shrug. “Some piddly little stuff, but that’s all.”

She hugged her four grandparents next.

“The Cavanaugh clan didn’t come with you?”

“Alice isn’t feeling well,” her father explained, “so they decided to stay home and have dinner in Greenwich this year.”

“Is Alice okay?”

“She’s in her eighties, Princess. We’re hoping it’s nothing major, but at her age, it might be. We’ll have to see.”

Sabrina hoped Alice would be all right. Alice was her great-grandmother, blood relation or not.

Despite Sabrina's pursuit of a ‘non-traditional’ degree in Astronautical Engineering, she enjoyed the traditional gender-role separation of the house’s women prepping for the Thanksgiving meal tomorrow. The men hid somewhere else in the house, probably down in the basement in front of the television.

The two families must have coordinated the menu before today, as Sabrina recognized some of their usual side dishes – including fruit-filled gelatin molds for dessert – alongside dishes she didn’t recognize. Some things, like the turkey, were universal.

Dinner that night foreshadowed Thanksgiving ‘dinner’ tomorrow afternoon. Stories and laughter flowed back and forth across the table through coffee and dessert. Alex seemed to delight in telling the most embarrassing Sabrina stories possible, trying to see how red his kid sister could blush. Sabrina was a bit miffed her stories about her brother didn’t seem to have the same level of impact.

Sabrina’s family piled into their rental around nine that evening after Mia and Felicity went off to bed. They would return tomorrow around one in the afternoon. Sabrina would get to sleep ‘late’ tomorrow, rising at the unheard-of hour of eight in the morning to help put the bird in the oven before a morning workout.

The sun was well over the horizon when Sabrina finally woke. She threw the covers off and dashed down to the kitchen when she realized how late it already was.

“Morning, Sabrina,” Joe said as he leaned against the counter sipping his coffee.

“Why didn’t you wake me up? I was going to help get the turkey in the oven!”

“There’s only so many people you can get around a roasting pan, Sabrina. You needed your sleep. Helen and I took care of it.”

“Joe!”

“Oh, at ease, Cadet! You’re off-duty until 1900 Sunday.”

“Joe, I feel like I’m taking advantage of your hospitality if I don’t help out!”

Joe put down his coffee. “Sabrina, part of being a family is recognizing when others in the family need a break, which is what you needed. Remember, we’re your sponsor family. Even though you’ve made adjustments to help yourself decompress at the academy, there’s a certain level of stress you can’t shed until you’re clear of the place. Letting your body recover by sleeping late is part of that healing. It’s only 9:30. You still have plenty of time to work out and clean up before your family arrives.”

Sabrina teared up at the thought Joe and Helen already considered her their daughter. She gave the man a fierce hug.

“I leave you two alone for five seconds and you’re already making a move on my man, Sabrina?”

Joe and Sabrina both snorted as they faced the woman smirking at them.

“Yeah, like I want to die that much …” Joe muttered.

“Ditto,” Sabrina chimed in.

Helen smiled before walking over to hug their sponsor cadet. “Let me guess, you just chided Joe for letting you sleep as late as you did?”

“She feels like she’s taking advantage of us if she doesn’t help out around here,” Joe offered.

“Oh, that’s crap, Sabrina! You call here every weekend, as I’m sure you do for your folks, and you spend a half-hour talking to each of our daughters. I know they already consider you their big sister.”

Sabrina couldn’t help but smile at that. Despite their issues in the past, her father and Aunt Heather still considered themselves siblings after more than thirty years, and both families remained close. She hoped the same would be true for her and the Gallardos.

Sunday morning dawned all too soon. Sabrina packed her things at the Gallardos’ and made sure her uniform was ready to go by that afternoon. Her family drove to the Gallardos’ for lunch after checking out of their hotel.

“So, you’ve decided to specialize in propulsion systems?” Sabrina asked her oldest brother.

“Yeah, there’s something about ion propulsion that’s calling to me. I’ll have to figure out why that is, but that’s the way I’m being pulled. How about you?”

“How about I make it to Recognition first? Then I’ll worry about which branch of Astronautical Engineering I want to pursue.”

“I guess if you want to be all logical about it …” Alex joked. “You gonna be okay until Christmas?”

“One foot in front of the other, Alex. I make it to Christmas, then I make it to Spring Break, and then – before I know it – it’s Recognition and ninety percent of the bullshit goes away.”

“I hope you’re right, Bina.”

“I didn’t bust my ass all through high school just to punk out now …”

Alex hugged his little sister.

The families said goodbye as they loaded into their separate cars. Helen would drive Sabrina back to the academy while Jeff took his family back to Colorado Springs Airport in their rental. Only three weeks remained in the semester before Sabrina would fly back to Fitchburg on a chartered jet herself.

Sabrina felt some of the stress filter back in as they approached the north gate to USAFA. Breathing exercises helped a little, but she still felt it at the base of her neck. Helen looped into Upper Firstie parking again to drop her off.

“Only three more weeks, Sabrina. Knuckle down and kick ass on those exams of yours. Then you can relax at home for a bit.”

“I will, Helen, thanks. And thanks for helping my folks surprise me like that. Having all those folks in your house for four days can’t have been easy.”

“It’s not like they slept there, Sabrina. And with the size of Joe’s family, I’m kinda used to it.”

The young cadet said goodbye and waved to her sponsor as she walked away.

She greeted the other cadets returning from Thanksgiving as she entered Vandenberg Hall. After checking in at the squadron’s CQ desk she made her way down to her room, making sure to keep to the right side of the hall as required of four-digs. Digging her keys out of her pocket she unlocked her door.

Her bag dropped to the floor at the same time as her jaw.

Sabrina’s side of the room was still in perfect SAMI condition, as she had left it. Mandy’s side was as bare as the day they moved in.

“Parnell couldn’t handle it, Knox …” an unwelcome voice hissed into her ear. “You don’t belong here, either!”

Sabrina’s eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched as her head slowly swiveled to face the speaker. Devin Fairhaven’s sneering, smirking face hovered inches from hers. Ignoring him, Sabrina stepped into her room and began putting her things away.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going, Knox?” the two-dig growled from her doorway. She continued to ignore him. “You’re going to be walking punishment tours until you’re old enough to be a grandmother!”

“Sir,” Sabrina growled back, looking Fairhaven in the eye again, “may I make a statement?”

“What?”

She stepped forward and hissed, “Bring it!”