04 January 2017 – The United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Sabrina tucked her military ID back in her pocket after the guard at the North Gate handed it back to her.

‘I bet I’m going to have a headache after being at sea level for two weeks …’ she sighed while rubbing her forehead.

The cab dropped Sabrina off near Vandy and she made the walk to her squadron.

“Cadet Knox, Sabrina M. checking in, sir,” she reported to the CQ.

“Knox … Knox … ah, here you are. Wait, what’s this?” The C2C looked at his roster again. “Hey stand by, Knox, I have something for you.” He rooted around in one of the desk’s drawers. “Here we go. Now you won’t be out of uniform.”

Sabrina’s blood froze when she heard that.

“Relax, I’m just messing with you a little.” He held out something from AAFES Clothing Sales, the uniform supply store on campus. “Put this on your blouse when you get to your room, and get yourself one or two more for your shirts to make things easier on yourself.”

He held out a Superintendent’s List pin.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Way to kick butt!” he said with a wink. “ABUs are uniform of the day when you get settled. Carry on, Cadet.”

Sabrina opened her door – which meant Linda wasn’t back yet – and put her things away. After putting the new pin on her blouse and changing into ABUs, she cracked open the sliding window to get rid of the stale air. She then checked the room to see what was needed to return it to SAMI standards.

“Crap! I wanted to get here earlier so you wouldn’t have to clean this place by yourself!” Sabrina heard from behind her as she finished cleaning. Linda frowned from the doorway as she looked around.

“It’s no big deal,” Sabrina assured her. “There wasn’t much to do, anyway. Plus, it’s not like we won’t have to clean this place again.”

“Very true.”

“How was your break?” The pair had built a cordial if not friendly relationship since Linda moved in.

“Good, thanks. It was nice to see family again after so long. How’d you do last semester?” Sabrina simply waved at the uniform blouse hanging on the closet door, causing Linda to turn and look. “The Sup’s List? No kidding?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, you want a rated assignment, right? You keep that up and it won’t be an issue.”

Despite her initial impression of Linda, Sabrina found herself glad to have her as a roommate.

“Hey, Sabrina, how are you?” Rich Ka’uhane greeted Sabrina when he sat down next to her for the first Japanese 222 class. “How was your break?”

“Good, sir. Yours?”

“Not bad.”

Sabrina was glad the uniform of the day was ABUs again today. She didn’t feel like answering questions or dealing with people fawning over her Superintendent’s List pin. She wasn’t sure why she felt weird about her achievement, especially here where high performance would be critical to post-academy assignments.

Ka’uhane looked like he wanted to keep chatting Sabrina up but Doctor Hasegawa strode into the room and conversation ceased. That didn’t stop the C3C from starting up the conversation again once class ended.

“How did you do last semester, grade-wise?” he asked as they walked out of the room.

“I did okay, sir,” she responded, trying to remember how to get to her Chemistry class. Her M-Day schedule was packed. It looked like she would barely have a spare second between classes on M-Days. T-Days, interwoven with M-Days on the alternating academic schedule, would be easier.

“‘Okay,’ ‘very well,’ or ‘could have been better?’ Around here that’s an important distinction.”

She shrugged in reply, not wanting to get into it. “Well enough.”

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

Ka’uhane stuck around far longer than Sabrina would have liked. She was still wary of über-friendly upperclassmen before Recognition. Most of the male upperclassmen wanted something, too, and she was pretty sure she knew what that was. As her father would have said, it ‘raised her index of suspicion.’

“Not really. Sorry, sir, but I need to get to Chemistry …” and with that, she turned into the classroom.

‘What the hell’s his game?’ she wondered to herself. She shook off the thought and concentrated on her class.

‘Why didn’t I have the folks send my skates earlier?’ Sabrina asked herself as she tightened her laces. The familiar feel of the padding inside the skates brought back a wave of childhood memories.

Once finished she walked down the rubber runner in the Cadet Ice Arena and stepped onto the ice. Her friends were already on the ice. Their skates, borrowed from the arena, were the type that buckled rather than tied. Much quicker to put on.

The whisper of steel on ice filled her ears. The crunch of ice under her blades drew out more memories. The aroma of the rink ice was familiar, too.

Sabrina skated easily until her legs warmed up, then she started the hard choppy strides she used to build speed. She flew around the boards. She slowed each time she came up to her friends, passed them, and sped up again. No one else was on the ice with them today. She did that five times before gliding along with the group.

“Tired?” Sarita asked.

“My sucking wind tipped you off, huh?” Sabrina asked with a smile as she tried to catch her breath.

“A little.”

“None of the PT we do is quite the same as a hockey workout, is it?” Phil asked.

“Not really. Hockey is a different kind of workout. Anyway, how does a kid from the desert skate so well?”

“You know Phoenix has a hockey team now, right? Youth hockey was a thing in Arizona growing up. I didn’t play after I turned ten or eleven, but I remember how to skate okay.”

“Sabrina, you know they have stick time, right?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t know if I can keep equipment here. A hockey stick won’t fit in our footlockers … I’ll ask what four-digs usually do about that after we get off the ice.”

Sabrina pulled away from her friends again. She didn’t skate as hard as before, but instead practiced her crossovers, changing which way she faced on the fly, and swooping in to collect a pretend pass from someone behind the net before speeding away again.

She stuck with her friends after that, skating slowly beside them while chatting. Two short blasts from the scoreboard horn announced the end of free skate. The four-digs laughed at a pithy comment about USAFA life from Phil as they stepped off the ice.

“Cadet?” a tall blonde asked as the group passed her.

“Ma’am?” Phil answered as the four stopped and turned toward the upper-class cadet.

“Sorry, I meant this young lady here,” she said, indicating Sabrina. Sabrina stepped forward as her friends drifted back a step or two.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You play?” the blonde asked, pointing back at the rink.

“Yes, ma’am. Since I was five.”

“You skate very well.”

“Thank you. I’m a little out of shape, though.”

“Any interest in playing here?”

“If USAFA had a women’s team at any level I might, ma’am. Club or intramural level, yes. Intercollegiate, no. Too much of a time commitment for IC athletes for my taste, and too much like a job.”

“Admin has just approved a women’s competitive club team. Competitive club athletics will count toward our Phys Ed requirements, too. Our season will cover half the requirement for the fall semester and all of spring. We’re trying to get pre-season workouts recognized as the other half of the fall requirement.”

The itch to compete on the ice crept into Sabrina’s consciousness. The sound of a dozen pairs of skates on the ice surfaced again, along with the thud of rubber hitting goalie pads, the metallic ring of a puck hitting the post, and the thrill of dekeing someone right off their feet.

“Oh, yeah …” Sabrina whispered as the competitive fire lit once again. “I wanna play …”

“Are you in good standing?”

“Other than being a four-dig before Recognition?” Sabrina laughed. “Yes, ma’am. I made the Sup’s List last semester.”

“Are you a winger? Center?”

“Left wing, mostly. I’ve played center a time or two, but it’s not my best position.”

“Our first game’s in three weeks …”

“Not wasting any time are you, ma’am?”

“No. It’s not gonna be easy, you know? Adjusting to the practice schedule, the travel. As a brand-new team, we’ll probably get whooped a few times …”

“Been there, done that, ma’am. Tough being a pathfinder, but someone’s gotta do it.”

“I’m Brit Englund, a three-dig from Squadron Fifteen – War Eagles.”

“Sabrina Knox, ma’am. Mighty Mach One, and an unworthy doolie.”

“Boston? I can hear it in your voice.”

“Really? I didn’t think I had much of that accent, but I guess I have enough. Min-ah-SOH-ta, ya?”

“You got me,” Englund laughed. “Do you think you’ll be able to get your equipment together quickly? We need to start practicing soon.”

“My sponsors live nearby, and I can have my folks ship it there. Are we going to be able to store stuff here? I doubt my roommate would appreciate me having that stuff in our room. Or the stank that comes with it.”

“Yeah, they’re giving us some locker space here. We’ll have an equipment room, too.”

“Does it matter what color my stuff is?”

“Not this year. We’re just concentrating on putting a team on the ice. We’ve got some quick-and-dirty jerseys in the works thanks to an athletic endowment, but we’ll standardize everything else – gloves, pants, helmets, etc. – later.”

“How many others do you have lined up to play so far?”

“Eleven.”

“Hoo, boy …” Sabrina breathed. “Those are gonna be some long shifts …”

“Or there’ll be lots of them.”

“Neither of which will be fun, but nothing worth having is ever easy as my father would say.”

“Smart man. Here’s some info on the team and what we anticipate the time commitment will be.” Englund handed over a sheet of paper. “Look that over, talk to your advisor if you need to, and call me at the number at the top one way or another? If I don’t answer, just leave a voicemail. That’s my cell number.”

“I’ll look it over, thanks, ma’am.”

“Thanks for talking to me. I hope to see you on the ice with us soon.”

Sabrina’s advisor had no problem shuffling her schedule to accommodate joining the new hockey club. The academy had codes to help advisors block off time for team practices. Normally used for intercollegiate sports, competitive club sports athletes benefited from this system also.

The other meeting she scheduled had Sabrina quite nervous, however.

“Ah, Sabrina!” Sensei Ueno said with a smile. “Come in, come in!” Seeing Sabrina’s posture when she sat on a chair in his office worried him. “Is something wrong, Sabrina?”

“Sensei, I fear I have to stop being your student.”

“Sabrina? Are you leaving the academy?”

“No! No, Sensei, not that …”

“Sabrina, just tell me.”

“Sensei, the academy has approved the creation of a women’s club hockey team …”

“And you wish to join the club,” he finished for her.

“Hai, Sensei,” she answered, embarrassed.

“When does the season start?”

“The first game is scheduled for three weeks from tomorrow, Sensei.”

Chris Ueno’s brows rose. “That is not very much time for the team to bond, or get in shape, for that matter … You feared I would be angry about this? Sabrina, this is a marvelous opportunity! Not only for you but for other female cadet hockey players! With service academies being exempt from Title IX, trying to secure a spot on the men’s team would have been nearly impossible for any of you. This is a chance for you and your teammates to showcase both your talent and the academy in a new way.” Sensei’s look shifted from a look of surprise to a look of respect.

“Sabrina, it would not have been very much longer before I started treating you as my assistant instructor.” Sabrina blinked at the older man. “Sabrina, how easily did you pick up Aikido when we first started last fall? I dare say you have been my best student to date. Once you relaxed and accepted Aikido is not about strength, your mastery of what I can teach in a semester was a foregone conclusion.” Ueno sat back in a more relaxed posture.

“I wish that you had more time to devote to your study of Aikido, Sabrina, for you would have progressed far. But – sadly – you do not. You must now devote your energies to this new pursuit. Embrace it! Seize the opportunity and not let go! I have no doubt you will help bring success to this new venture.” Chris Ueno sighed.

“I am sorry to lose you as a student, but I wish you the very best of luck in all you do here, Sabrina. And do not forget to have some fun, either. Stop by and visit with this old man every once in a while.”

“Hey, Sabrina,” Rich Ka’uhane said in greeting. “I heard you haven’t been to squadron training in the last couple of days.”

“I’m playing competitive club hockey now, sir. Our first game’s in less than three weeks, so they’ve excused me and my teammates from any squadron training so we can come together as a team.”

“The academy doesn’t have a women’s hockey team.”

“We do as of last week, sir.”

Sabrina wasn’t sure what to make of Ka’uhane’s frown. She also started to wonder how he knew she wasn’t at training, especially when he was assigned to a different cadet squadron.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dad!”

“Hey, Princess. How are you? What’s new?”

“Still doing okay in the classroom. Sucking wind at practice, though. I’m not exactly in hockey-playing shape yet. I ache in places I forgot I had places.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to stay in hockey shape when you’re not playing the game regularly.”

“Right, Dad. Like you’ve ever been out of shape!”

“I was out of shape once!” Jeff protested. “I think I was twelve back then, though …”

“Not helping, Dad, not helping. Anyway, how’s Mom?”

“She’s okay. She’s sitting right next to me if you wanna talk to her?”

“Yes, please.”

“Hello, daughter,” her mother said after a brief pause.

“Hi, Mom. How are you?”

“I am well, thank you. How is your new venture treating you?”

“Challenging …”

“I would imagine so. I seem to remember you taking on a similar challenge in high school, Sabrina.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m just a sucker for a good challenge. Kinda why I came here, ya know?”

“You are using such language deliberately, Sabrina …”

“C’mon, Mom. If I can’t tease my own family who can I tease?” Sabrina laughed. It was too easy to get her mother going by messing with the English language. Her mother grumbled in response. “How’s Alex? Have you heard from him lately?”

“He is doing well. Now that he is in actual Astronautical Engineering classes rather than the general intro to engineering ones he seems happier.” Keiko did not offer any information about Ryan because she knew Sabrina didn’t care. It was the one sore spot in their mother-daughter relationship. “Your first game is soon, is it not?”

“Next week. At least our jerseys will match, even if nothing else does.”

“One could not expect the team to be perfectly outfitted in such a short timeframe, daughter.”

“No, I get that, Mom. I don’t know, I guess it’s too many years playing for already established or well-funded teams tickling some OCD gene of mine.”

“I’m sure you will adapt, Sabrina.”

‘Well, I guess I need to adapt to not winning again, too …’ Sabrina thought as she watched the ToughPuckers, a team from Aspen, celebrate another goal.

The USAFA women’s team had the talent that’s for sure, they just didn’t have the endurance, yet. If the game had been only forty minutes long – two periods – they might have had enough stamina, but not for a game that lasted sixty minutes. Not with only a dozen players.

“Damn,” Monique Levesque, a two-dig from North Dakota, gasped, “I don’t think this stitch in my side is ever going to go away … I hoped I would be in better shape than this!”

“We’re all in the same boat, Mon,” Sabrina replied. Once at the rink or on road trips, there was no rank among the cadets, even fourth-class cadets – they were all teammates, hence Sabrina’s use of Monique’s nickname.

The ladies from USAFA were a somber bunch as they skated through the handshake line following the game. The women from the Aspen team encouraged their counterparts, but the cadets were too dejected at their performance to care.

“Shit …” moaned Krista Hoglund, the three-dig USAFA goalie, as she slumped onto the dressing room bench. “Did we stink out there as much as my equipment does right now?” The nine-to-one score was going to do horrible things to her goals against average, especially since this had been their first game.

“We did okay until about a third of the way through the second period,” Brit Englund sighed as she also took a seat. “We’ll be hard-pressed to keep up with other teams until our conditioning improves and we add some more players to the team.”

“Any luck recruiting more players, Brit?”

“No, Joanie,” Brit replied to the sole firstie on the team. “Unfortunately, I think we’ll be the roster for this year.”

“Hell of a way to get in shape …” Sabrina muttered as she pulled off her skates.

“We keep doing our best,” Joanie Sondergaard sighed. “We do our best and we build a foundation for future teams.” Her weary teammates nodded their heads in agreement.

After their practice the following week, the Cadet Arena’s facilities manager handed Brit Englund an envelope addressed to ‘USAFA Women’s Hockey Club’ before the team stepped into their changing room. The return address typed in the corner revealed nothing about its origin.

“Who’s it from, Brit?”

“Dunno yet …” Brit replied as she pulled sheets of folded paper from the envelope. The cover letter bore the logo of a well-known hockey advancement and development charity. “Holy smokes …” she gasped after reading through the text.

“What does it say?” Sheena Moberly, the right winger, asked.

Brit read aloud.

Dear USAFA Women’s Hockey,

I am pleased to welcome your team to the world of competitive hockey. To represent an institution as special as the Air Force Academy in any arena is a singular honor.

I am sure purchasing uniforms and matching equipment will pose significant financial challenges for your new team, as will travel expenses. To that end, please find enclosed a check for twenty-five thousand dollars to be used for these purposes. Please add any funds leftover from these expenses to your operating account.

All the best,
Chris Micklicz

P.S.: I am adding a Colorado Springs week to my foundation’s slate of hockey camp offerings this year. Please let me know if any of your team would be interested in being part of the camp staff and available for the week listed below. Reply to the address on this letter if so.

The women sat stunned for a moment before bursting into an excited babble. All except Sabrina. She blinked a few times before pulling out her cell phone.

“Let me guess,” a voice asked from the other end of the phone with a laugh, “my letter just arrived?”

“Uncle Chris, what did you do?” Sabrina asked in return, using an exasperated tone all women seem to possess when needed.

“I tossed a few pennies your way, that’s all …”

“You just tossed two point five million pennies our way!”

“Sabrina, you remember that they paid me a RIDICULOUS amount of money to play hockey for close to twenty years, right? You know that I saved a good portion of it, right?”

“Uncle Chris!”

“Sabrina, someone somewhere once commented that if you dress professionally, you’ll act more professionally and be taken more seriously. I’m not sure how true that is, but it makes sense to me. And it’ll make you look like a cohesive unit if your uniforms and equipment match. Plus, it’s the foundation’s money, not mine.”

“I don’t know what to say …”

“I’m sure your mother would remind you to thank me at this point …” her hockey benefactor laughed.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. Those should have been the first words out of my mouth.”

“Sabrina, I know you and your brothers call me your uncle when I’m technically not, but Kaari and I do consider ourselves to be your aunt and uncle. Your dad and I were teammates and have been friends since high school. Heck, I liked your dad so much when we first met I let him date my sister!”

“Ugh, can we please not talk about my dad’s love life?”

Chris Micklicz laughed from the other end of the phone.

“All right, I won’t if you won’t, Sabrina. Seriously though, you and your teammates have fun playing. If you’re not having fun you’re doing it wrong. And let me know if any of your friends want jobs teaching this summer if it fits in with your summer training requirements.”

“We will, Uncle Chris. Thanks again.”

“Take care, short stuff!”

Sabrina smiled as she looked down at her phone and disconnected the call. She looked up into the shocked faces of her teammates a few seconds later.

“What’s with you guys?”

“Was that..? Was that Chris Micklicz you were just talking to?” Brit stammered.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. He and my dad played hockey together in high school and Dad used to date his sister. My brothers and I call her Aunt Pauline.”

“Holy shit …” someone gasped. Sabrina shrugged in response.

Brit fanned out the papers in her hands.

“Mr. Micklicz sent info on ordering custom jerseys, prices from different equipment suppliers … I guess now we need to decide who to order stuff from.”

“Sabrina, how are you?” Rich Ka’uhane asked as they settled into their Japanese class near the end of February.

“Doing okay, sir, thanks. You?”

“Okay, thanks. Tough loss last weekend.”

The women’s hockey team almost pulled off an upset against Vail during their road trip, but a last-second empty-net goal for their hosts snatched victory away once again.

Sabrina shrugged. “That’s the way the puck bounces sometimes, sir. We’re getting there. Don’t forget that these are exhibition games for us. We’ll start playing for real in the fall.”

“Are you ready for Recognition?”

Here she snorted. “I doubt anyone ever is.”

“You know, I might be able to get some of the cadre to back off a bit …”

Now Sabrina was highly suspicious of his motives.

“Really, sir? How would that work?”

“Why don’t we discuss that over dinner tonight in A-Hall?”

“IT’S A TRAP!” she heard the lobster-looking character from that space movie yell from deep in her subconscious.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea, sir.”

“Oh, c’mon, it’ll be fine …”

“No, sir, it won’t. You know full well four-digs are not allowed to date upperclassmen, and that is exactly what that would look like: a date. At best, it would look like fraternization and I am the one who would catch the heat. Hell, I’d be walking tours until my graduation.”

“Sabrina, I think you’re overreacting …”

The look on Ka’uhane’s face wasn’t one of confusion or dismay, Sabrina realized. It was one of fear. She took a wild stab in the dark.

“Nope, I’m not. Not in the slightest. You run back to Second Class Cadet and First Class Douchebag Devin Fairhaven and report his little scheme just went tits-up. Crashed and burned. Is now FUBAR.” Ka’uhane’s face went pale. “Face it, sir, you screwed the pooch and your mission is a failure.”

At the end of class, Sabrina gathered her things as quickly as she could and stood. Ka’uhane just sat there.

“It might be a good idea for you to find a different seat in this class from now on, sir. Don’t make me have to go to Doctor Hasegawa and request one for you.”

“He what?” Linda gasped.

“Yup. It was a total set-up, a way for Fairhaven to get me into trouble.”

“Wow! That’s cold.”

“Sure is. I already didn’t trust Fairhaven, but now …”

“Yeah, this is making me see some things happening around here in a different light.”

“What do you mean, Linda?”

“There’s a third class who’s been sniffing around me, and now I wonder if he isn’t trying to do the same thing as the one chasing you. Fairhaven might even have wanted to compromise me first as a way to get at you, Sabrina.”

For some reason, Linda’s recognition of that subtlety surprised Sabrina. Had she fallen into the old trap of underestimating someone because their accent was different than hers? There weren’t too many idiots that made it into this place, let alone stayed here, so Sabrina shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Look, Sabrina, I know we didn’t click right away like it seems you did with your old roommate, but that doesn’t mean I want to see anything bad happen to you.”

Sabrina flushed red in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, Linda.”

“I need to apologize too, Sabrina. For some reason, I got hung up on the Greek Orthodox thing first, then you threw in Buddhism, and I locked up. I don’t want to say I was narrow-minded, but the folks I grew up around were a fairly homogenous group: we all went to church and school together, farmed together, were part of the same social circles … It took me a while to break out of that – I don’t want to call it a lock-step mentality, but it fits.”

“Okay, so what do we do, now?”

“Well, what squadron is your admirer in?”

“Oh, please don’t call him that …” Sabrina moaned before pretending to stick her finger down her own throat. After they both finished laughing, Sabrina answered the question.

“That’s the connection, then,” Linda replied. “Fairhaven was in that squadron before the Shuffle during Transition.”

The academy changes a cadet’s squadron assignment just before the start of their two-dig year, both to simulate changes of duty station during their future careers and to prevent distinct squadron subcultures from developing. The resulting personnel movement is called the Squadron Shuffle.

“And you think that since these other guys were four-digs under him last year, and they feel some sort of loyalty toward him?”

“It fits,” Linda answered with a shrug. “Granted, that doesn’t mean it’s the right explanation, but that’s what I’m thinking.”

“Then we probably need to warn our friends, too, and not just our female friends. The guys need to look out for Honey Traps, as well.”

“‘Honey Traps?’”

“The phrase used to refer to female enemy agents using sex to extract information from guys. These days we can probably expand the definition to just ‘enemy agents,’ now that gays are openly serving in the military.”

“Mother of God …” Sabrina whispered after collapsing onto her bunk. The stress and physical nature of three days of Recognition left her wrung out.

“I hurt everywhere,” Linda moaned from her bunk across the room. “Please tell me it’s over …”

“They told us it was. It’d be really cruel for them to give us our prop and wings and then go back to treating us how they did before Recognition.” Sabrina groaned as she rolled onto her side.

“Yeah, if I ever run into that joker who posted that video saying that Recognition was all ice cream social, touchy-feely, kumbaya bullshit, I’m gonna have a few choice words for him.”

Sabrina grunted. “You know you’ll have to salute him first before you curse him out, right? I think he graduated a year or two ago.” A deep sigh. “We should change out of our blues before they get all wrinkled.”

Both shuffled to their closets to start changing.

“We can wear real clothes again …” they both said as they put their uniforms away.

“Yeah, college sweatshirts and jeans rather than ABUs or something, just like civilian students. Just about anything we want!”

“Baby steps, Linda. Baby steps. USAFA sweatshirts and jeans first. We’ll save the belly shirts and shorts for the warmer weather.”

Of course, they both forgot they were now ‘recognized’ members of Cadet Wing as soon as they stepped onto the T-zo. They began running the strips to Mitchell Hall for dinner.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys!” Ciril Kopek, their current cadet squadron commander called out to them. They stopped and went to attention out of habit. “Linda, Sabrina, at ease! You’re Recognized now. You don’t have to run the strips, keep to the right side of hallways, or formally greet upperclassmen any longer. Chill. Take a stroll over to Mitch’s for dinner, close your door before ACQ if you want to. Heck, you don’t even have to change into the uniform of the day before using the latrine in the middle of the night anymore!”

The pair blinked. How had they already forgotten? Smiles spread across their faces.

“I know, right?” Kopek asked. “I’m headed over to Mitch’s myself. Walk with me. I need to ask you about something.”

“So, Cadet Knox, why do you think you’d make a good instructor pilot?”

Sabrina explained to the interview board how she was already an experienced instructor after teaching karate for almost four years, and how she would use that experience to coach student pilots here at the academy. She also took the opportunity to wipe her palms on her uniform trousers again while the board was distracted – at least, she hoped they were distracted.

“Cadet Knox, winds at the surface are sustained at five knots, gusting to fifteen …”

The next twenty minutes of questions reminded Sabrina of the oral exam from the end of her Soaring 250 class but on steroids. Knowing she was already a licensed pilot, the board dug deep into Sabrina’s knowledge base searching for its limits. None of the answers to their questions were covered in 250. The board went way past the scope of that introductory class. By the end of the question-and-answer portion of the interview, Sabrina wasn’t sure which way was up.

“Cadet Anand, ma’am, you endorsed Cadet Knox’s application for Soaring 461. Would you tell us why?”

Maneet Anand somehow managed to gush in a dispassionate voice. She listed what had impressed her about Sabrina during their lessons together, of her perception of Sabrina’s knowledge, skills, and reactions. And of her humility. She did stop short of saying Sabrina walked on water, however.

The cadets comprising the interview board thanked Maneet Anand and shared glances before huddling behind their tables. It didn’t take long before they reached some form of consensus. They nodded to each other and turned back to face her.

“Cadet Fourth Class Sabrina Knox, the evaluation board hereby offers you a spot in Soaring 461: Instructor Pilot Upgrade for the Fall 2017 semester. Upon successful completion of that course, you will be awarded your glider instructor wings and be allowed to conduct student pilot training.”

Sabrina felt a bit dizzy after the announcement. The board usually took a week after interviews were finished before notifying cadets of their decision. It took a few moments for her to realize everyone in the room was smiling at her and awaiting her response.

“Ma’am, thank you very much. I accept,” Sabrina said as the nervousness drained away to make room for the rising giddiness.

With that everyone approached her to shake her hand. She hadn’t been slapped on the back that much since Recognition.

“You’ve got your work cut out for you next year, Sabrina,” Anand said with a smile. “The start of your Astronautical Engineering classes, competitive club hockey, and now this.”

“Well, if we didn’t enjoy challenges none of us would be here, right? Thank you very much for your support, ma’am.”

“My pleasure. As I said, you earned it. And it’s ‘Maneet’ now, remember? So, what’s next on your schedule?”

“Throwing myself out of some perfectly good aircraft this summer, and maybe a week of hockey camp.”

“Airmanship 490, huh?”

“Dad was a paratrooper after high school and jumped into Panama. I’ve heard him talk about it, and I know I love being up there in powered and unpowered aircraft. Free-falling out of one oughta be a blast!”

“Well, I’m sure it’s more enjoyable if no one’s shooting at you …”

“Hey, Sabrina, did you hear about the big doings over at Squadron Sixteen?” Linda asked.

“No, I’ve been tied up with hockey stuff all week. What’s up?”

“They tossed two three-digs today. Alcohol and drugs.”

“No shit?”

“Negative defecation, Roomie. Care to guess who the three-digs in question were?”

“I don’t have a … Wait, Squadron Sixteen? Was it our two friends?”

“It was indeed. The funny thing is they’ve never been on anyone’s radar before this. They were model cadets up until now.”

“Yeah, we have enough SAMIs around here that they would have been hard-pressed to hide that stuff. What kinda drugs are we talking about?”

“Weed.”

“Weed? No one’s that stupid around here! Hell, people manning the CQ desk would have been able to smell it even if it was in the last room on their hall!”

“Right. Ergo..?”

It took Sabrina a second. “Frame job. Somebody planted it just so those two would get kicked out.”

“Exactly. I bet I know who planted it too, or at least told someone to plant it.”

“How the hell do you get weed through the gates, anyway?”

“Really, Sabrina? It’s not like they have dogs out there all the time. Plus, if you wrap it the right way, I’m sure you can bring it right in. Shit’s legal in Colorado now, so it’s not like it’s hard to get, either.”

“Anything you wanna tell me, Linda?”

“Whatevs, girl. I’m here for the long haul.”

“I’m glad it’s after Recognition and we can keep our doors locked all the time. I don’t trust that guy any farther than I can throw him.”

The horn sounded, ending USAFA Women’s Hockey Club’s final exhibition game for the year. For the first time in its existence, the Women’s Hockey Club had a win. The cadets celebrated at center ice as if they’d just won the Olympic Gold Medal. Their opponents from the University of Wyoming stood by their blue line, watching the celebration with wry smiles on their faces.

This had only been an exhibition game so the loss wouldn’t hurt the Cowgirls in their league’s standings, and the cadets’ joy was palpable. With modern refrigeration technology rinks could be kept frozen year-round, but mid-April was a good stopping point for the cadets. Graduation was only a month away. The women from USAFA realized where their celebration was taking place and ended it quickly. They formed up and skated over to the Wyoming players to shake hands.

“Sorry …” Sabrina heard Brit say to Wyoming’s captain.

“Don’t worry about it, we get it,” the other woman laughed. “Your first win is pretty special. Your first win when the games count will be even more so.”

The Wyoming team all wished the cadets the best of luck, and that they looked forward to playing them for real next year.

“Are you ladies headed back to Colorado tonight or in the morning?” Wyoming’s alternate captain asked when the USAFA team members stepped out of their dressing room.

“Well, given that it’s four in the afternoon and we’re all exhausted from chasing your team around the ice, we’ll rest up and drive back tomorrow,” Brit answered. “It’s a three-hour drive.”

“Do you already have dinner plans?” another Wyoming player asked. “If not, we’re headed to a great place not too far from here and you are more than welcome to join us.”

“You know, the way Fairhaven glares at you when he sees you, people might think you don’t like each other.”

“You’ve got a future in stand-up comedy if the Air Force thing doesn’t work out, Linda,” Sabrina replied. “And you don’t have to wonder what I think of him because I’ll tell you flat out: I can’t stand the asshole.”

“Well, you’re not the only one. From what I hear he’s disliked by almost every female he’s come into contact with.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll do something stupid off-campus. That’s about the only way they’d get rid of him. Here they can bury it.”

“Yeah, not getting the warm-and-fuzzies that admin would actually do something,” Linda sighed. “So, you’re taking Airmanship 490 this summer?”

“Yeah, basic jump training then I’m working for my not-quite-uncle at a hockey camp here at the Cadet Arena.”

“That’s so cool. What’s it like knowing someone famous?”

“Kinda weird. I don’t think of Uncle Chris as someone famous, he’s just ‘Uncle Chris,’ to me.”