Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue

Parsona’s cockpit, her mother’s smell—the only thing she ever knew of her—lingering off to one side. Perhaps it had happened when she was an infant, or maybe the scent of her mom was just infused in the navigator’s seat. Maybe she’d made it all up.

She had clearer memories of flying with her father as she got older. How her eyes would flicker from the stars to the lights and glowing knobs on the dash. She could remember his hands on the flight controls.

During their last trip together, he’d let her do a lot of the steering. She remembered how frightening his trust had been. Instead of holding her hands steady, preventing mistakes, he just turned and peered out at the stars through the glass, talking to Molly in that deep and powerful voice of his. Usually about her mother.

They may have been running away from one life and into a new one, but she didn’t remember either of them having a care in the world.

The first time she fell asleep in the simulator, it was Lucin who found her. She had startled awake, afraid she’d be in trouble. Instead, the old man—so much older than she remembered her father being—scooped her up in his lap and let her fall back asleep. The stars kept drifting by through her eyelids, a little more of the simulated galaxy foolishly searched.

Now they stood in his office, a Navy desk and so much more between them. As soon as she’d entered the Academy, Molly could no longer be his daughter. Favoritism had to be countered with rigidity; love with harshness. Despite this, everyone whispered she was only there because of his string-pulling. So every ounce of love she went without, the affection other cadets were showered with by their families, had been given up for nothing now that she’d never graduate.

“Care to sit?” Lucin gestured to the simple wooden chair across from his desk.

Molly shook her head. She didn’t want to be too comfortable; it would make leaving his office impossible.

He nodded once, and Molly saw how tired he looked. Despite his age, Lucin had a very lithe frame—tall and thin. His youthful gait was a fixture at the Academy, his pride in its operation evident in the bounce of his step and his eternal smile. Perhaps this was why the cadets loved him so much. Captain Saunders could whip them into shape while old Lucin bounced in to tousle their hair or slap them on the back. But all of that was missing from Lucin’s face right then. Molly could see the fatigue in his sad and wrinkled eyes. His undying devotion to the Academy—which was capable of filling his chest with unmatched joy—could also break his heart. It was doing so right then.

“Captain Saunders called.”

Molly nodded.

“Hey, I’m sure when I go over the tapes, I’m going to be impressed with whatever you did out there. You always amaze me with your tricks, maneuvers even this old dog never heard of, but Saunders is in charge of the personnel decisions, and he has it out for you.”

Molly looked at her feet to hide the tears, but one of them plummeted to the blue carpet, sparkling like laser-fire in the harsh rays pouring through the window. Lucin fell silent as the tear winked out of existence in the worn sea at her feet.

“I’m talking to you as your friend now, not as the old geezer who runs this joint. Look at me.”

Molly did.

“I love you.”

A strange bark came out of Molly, something between a gasp and a cough. Her breathing grew rapid and shallow as she started crying in earnest, her shoulders quaking uncontrollably. She hugged her elbows and tried to hold it all in.

Lucin may have been crying as well, but she couldn’t see anything. His voice may have just sounded funny because she was hyperventilating.

“I do, Molly. I love you like my own daughter. But you don’t know what I’ve had to do to protect you from him. I know it isn’t fair, but if you think life has a bad reputation for that, the military puts it to shame. There’s a lot of politics involved. And look, I’m babbling here so don’t repeat any of this, but Saunders and his wife couldn’t have boys. They have three girls, and maybe he’s taking that out on you as well.”

Lucin sighed. “I just don’t know what to do here. He says you’re out. Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?”

Molly bobbed her head and dragged her hands down her cheeks. They came away slick. She wiped them on the front of her flight suit.

“Maybe this is for the best. You can still be a pilot somewhere else, but you’ve seen what it’s like in the Navy. They just aren’t ready for you yet. Listen, I know Commander Stallings, he runs the Orbit Guard Academy, I can get you in there. You’ll have a great career flying planetary patrols. Atmospheric stuff. None of this navigation junk. Don’t you think that would be better?”

Molly kept her head perfectly still. She would never admit that.

“I also have old friends in the commercial sector. With your simulator hours, you could have your 100 Gigaton license in no time. Run freight or ferry, hell, you could get a job driving those rich snobs around in their fancy space yachts.” Lucin laughed.

It wasn’t that funny, but Molly craved the levity. She peered up through her tears and forced a half-smile. She swiped away more tears, her entire face a chapped mess. “Arrgh,” she said, slapping her thighs and bending over to breathe. “Who was I kidding, right? Just because I can fly doesn’t mean I can fly, does it?”

“You can fly like nobody I’ve ever seen. It’s the system that’s screwed up, not you. Give the private sector or Orbit Guard a chance. As soon as they see what you can do, gender won’t matter to them.”

“You said the same thing when I joined the Academy.”

“I was wrong,” Lucin admitted, looking sad again. “But plenty of women make a career out of flying in other ways.”

“Plenty?”

“Okay, some. And none of the ones that made it have your talent. You’ll see.”

“I don’t want to give up, live a boring life, and die young like my mother, Lucin.”

The Admiral’s face twitched and Molly knew she’d slipped. She’d called him by his name. Her body and brain were just in a bad place, and bad things live in that bad place, and her mouth was right there—an easy escape.

Lucin’s face twisted up in a scary mask of rage. Wrinkles bunched up into muscles that weren’t supposed to be there.

Molly didn’t think her slip-up was that bad. But then—she was concentrating on the wrong mistake.

“Don’t you say anything like that about your mother ever again, do you hear me?” Lucin took a deep breath, tried to relax his face. “Listen, you didn’t mean it. You don’t know what your mother was like. She… she was a lot like you. She fought some of the same fights. So don’t disrespect her memory, okay?”

Molly nodded.

“Okay. So go get showered up. I’m going to make some vid calls and see what options you have. You can stay in the barracks tonight, or you can bunk at my place. Think on it.”

“I don’t need to,” Molly said. “Just put me in a regular school, Admiral. No more simulators. None of any of this.” She turned without waiting for permission to go. “I mean it,” she added over her shoulder. “A normal school.”

And it was a good thing her back was turned. It kept her from enduring the new expression that spread across Admiral Lucin’s face.

4

Molly’s shower stall had been built under protest, hers and everyone else’s. Her twelve-year-old body hadn’t looked much different from a boy’s when it was constructed, and she just wanted to be treated equally. Everyone