Chapter 1

Halfway between a silver moon and a green-tinged planet, Jane shifted in her seat, adjusting uncomfortably. The cockpit was too cramped, filled with the faint smell of recycled air and old leather. They'd been flying for three hours now, her and her nine new students, cramped within their individual ships and maneuvering through exercises all afternoon. While the time had been very helpful to Jane, it was also somehow both nerve-wracking and boring. Putting the squad through their paces on the very first day easily showed her which of these rookies would need help in the future and which already had a feel for flying. On the other hand, the exercises were so basic that only a newbie could mess them up, and if anyone was so unskilled, they would cause catastrophic damage.

"Marcus, Preston, ease up on the adjusters. It doesn't make much difference at these speeds, but if we were flying a surface run you guys would start to drift out of formation like that."

"Sorry Miss A," Marcus' voice crackled over the radio as both offending pilots moved to correct their positioning, nudging the sharp noses of their cruisers back into formation.

"This is a bunch of bullshit." Although Preston's radio was tuned to the rookie's private channel, Jane's ship was fitted with sensors that let her listen in, "She keeps scolding us for shit she hasn't told us about; are we supposed to read her mind?"

"If I'm doing something wrong, I'd rather she told us than not," Marcus responded over the same private channel, levelly, "that's why she's the instructor, right? She knows her stuff and we don't."

"Always an excuse for her," Preston scoffed, "you're a pussy, Marcus."

Yet you don't have the balls to complain to my face, Jane thought with a dry smile, but she stayed quiet. It was far more helpful to have a silent way of keeping tabs on the rookie squad. She switched on the public com once again and addressed her fleet; the four boys and five girls that she would be training for the next year.

"Alright ladies and gents, we've got one more grouping of drones a few kilometers away, and then we can head back and debrief. I know you're all probably ready to get out of these things." Jane flipped open a long range scanner screen to the sound of various murmurs of agreement and dropped her speed, letting the other nine boost on ahead. "I'm going to hang back and watch you, take some notes for this last run," she warned, "so if you want to impress me, now's your shot."

She let herself relax a little bit as the rookies streamed on ahead, assembling in a rough "V" formation. Her eyes flicked between the screens of ship stats and positioning data as she shifted in her seat again, trying to get comfortable. It had been a rough day for her, making sure the squad knew what they were doing. The flight exercises should've been relaxing part of the day, but ever since the disastrous crash two years ago, Jane always felt nervous about what the Academy considered "flight-ready".

"Approaching final drone swarm," Preston's voice on the public channel was official-sounding as the students caught sight of the quick-moving practice ships.

"I really want to look good on this one guys," the quiet voice of one of her girls, Missy, fired over the rookies' "private" channel, "if we can prove we can handle this well, she seems like the sort of instructor who'll go a little easier on us."

"Oh I want to look good too in front of Jane Appet, believe me." Preston's voice was sly, and a few of the other boys chuckled in response. Jane stiffened, her face stony even though there was no one around to see it. And so it begins again.

"What do you mean?" Missy asked, curious and oblivious, "Why Captain Appet in particular?"

"Oh haven't you heard about Captain Appet's reputation?" Jane could tell that Preston was taking great delight in Missy's naivete, and she ground her teeth as she listened.

"It's a pretty well known fact in pre-Cad that you wanna get assigned to Jane Appet's squad in Academy. See she kinda has a thing for rookies who are grade-A flyers; they get her all weak in the knees."

For a moment Jane considered speaking up, but she reminded herself that she wanted to know what her new squad were like when they didn't think anyone was listening. Even so, she hadn't realized that the rumor had filtered all the way down to the Pre-Academy. She flushed and scowled as Preston's voice carried on.

"Word is, if you've got enough mojo in a cruiser, and you're in Cap-App's squad, you can pretty much rest assured that for the whole year she'll take you under her wing and give you some 'private docking lessons', if you know what I mean." A few guffaws from both male and female cadets told Jane that they did indeed know what he meant.

"Preston, stop being disgusting," another of her cadets' voice broke in, then, after a pause, joked "but seriously, let's look good guys. I called in some serious favors to get assigned to Captain Appet, it'd be a shame if I lost my chance to tap that."

Jane flicked the radio off to cut off the laughter, plunging the craft into the unnatural silence of space as she watched the screens tracking the rookies' flight paths around the drones. She breathed deeply and exhaled, trying to get rid of the burning feeling in her stomach. It wasn't as if the rumors were unearned; she had in fact taken a lover from her squads every year, but Jane liked to think it was nowhere near as crass as the rumors made it sound. Graduates fresh out of Pre-Academy were so used to thinking along such distinct lines, broken up into teacher and student.

They didn't understand that things were different in the Academy ... sure she was technically their instructor this year, but they might be teammates next year, or squad partners. The Academy assigned groups based on technical knowledge alone; it wouldn't even be unheard of if one of these rookies became her instructor next year, if they had some specialized knowledge she could do to learn. It's not that weird for two adults to have a perfectly casual thing together, she consoled herself sullenly, and I'm not even the only one who does it, other Instructors... she cast about for some excuse, ... are just better at hiding it, that's all.

Jane could feel the stress of the day pressing into her temples, the tension of keeping track of rookies as she herded them around the orbital base and through their initial tests. She slipped off one glove and stretched out her fingers, then rubbed them against her temples. Breathing in and holding her breath for a while before sighing, she tried to relax her entire body into the seat as she did so. It took a few minutes of staring past the screens, into the black expanse beyond them, but she finally began to calm down, emptying her mind of all thoughts except for the beauty of the void.

She barely noticed that she was slipping her hand across her rigid flightsuit until she touched her belt, then she smiled at herself. Another easy way to relax... A glance at the screen told her the rookies wouldn't be done with the drones for another ten minutes, and the distance between them was so far that the ships were nowhere near visual range; she reached out with her other hand to carefully close each screen in turn. Jane gently let her fingers trail across the flightsuit's scaled pieces, while she watched the drifting moon in the corner of her field of view. Breathing a little more evenly in the silence, she let her mind wander as the tingling of her own touch traveled up and down her stomach.

Slowly, lazily, she tugged the sealing tag of her flightsuit down her body, the small toggle letting the seam in the rigid material unseal and open from the neck all the way down. Without the warmth of the flightsuit sealed in, Jane shivered as she suddenly felt the cold of space against her exposed body. While she leaned her head against the back of her seat, she let her fingers drift along the bare skin, barely touching. Looking up into the stars that seemed just beyond her clear cockpit, each touch of her fingers seemed magnified, sending jolts of electricity. Tense, strained muscles finally relaxed against the leather chair.

With a smooth motion Jane slid a thumb through her small patch of brown hair before pressing on her clit, shivering a little at the sensation. A single finger reached further, slipping between her lips as she continued gently rubbing. She was surprised at how wet she already was; it had been awhile since she had done this within her cruiser, and something about the darkness and stillness around her, about the utter silence and serene surroundings, made her able to let go in a way she couldn't replicate anywhere else. One finger was completely inside her now, moving in small circles to accompany the slick rubbing of her thumb across her clit. As the stars shone like tiny pinpricks all around her, Jane allowed herself the luxury of hovering on the very edge of release, holding completely still for several intense seconds before sliding her thumb back and forth, her finger in and out, then pausing once again.

When her legs began trembling and her breath started to catch in her throat, she thrust her first two fingers within herself, as deep as they would go, while at the same time grinding her thumb against her clit. Her breath came out in a gasp, then a soft moan as her orgasm rippled through her as sharp as the pinpricks of light that lit space around her. Her entire body was shaking, pleasure crashing into her in waves with nothing between her and the beautiful majesty of the stars but a thin layer of the ship's canopy and a thousand layers of ecstasy.

Leaning back, moaning as her fingers slid out of her and relaxing, Jane gave herself a few minutes to enjoy the ripples that still shivered across her skin. The small cockpit smelled of sweat and her own slightly sweet scent, and she closed her eyes for just a few moments longer.

When she regained her composure, lifting the screens back into place, a much less stressed Jane saw that the rookies were just finishing up disabling the drones. They were all fairly skilled, she noted, and a good crop of flyers made her job much easier. She flicked the radio back on, and the sound cut into the tiny cockpit in the midst of an argument.

"-because some of us are more concerned with learning to fly that getting into an instructor's pants. You're gross." Normally one of the quiet students, Jackson's deep voice was just wrapping up a lecture of some kind.

"Seriously Jackson, maybe you should stop being such a teacher's pet and mind your own business," Preston's voice was starting to make Jane involuntarily clench her teeth when she heard it, "I paid the Academy recruiter five hundred credits to assign me to this team, if you think you're gonna convince me to just give up on some tasty Captian ass-"

"Good work rookies," Jane broadcasted on the public channel as if she hadn't been listening to the private chat, taking a small bit of vindictive joy in cutting Preston off, "let's get back to the base, debrief, and call it a day; I know you're all probably looking forward to it." The squad transmitted a series of guilty affirmatives as the ten ships swung their trajectories around and began their approach back to the orbital base. Both private and public chat remained sheepishly silent for the five minutes it took them to travel back to the orbital base that housed the Academy, but as they approached the hangar and began slowly nudging the ships into their huge docking stations, Marcus broadcasted privately, his voice quiet as if he was afraid Jane would hear him through the walls,

"Did you guys really pull favors and bribes to get assigned to this squad?"

"Damn straight," Preston replied, "a little guaranteed action all year? That's worth some credits to me."

"Better hope it pays off," one of his female squadmates commented, her voice filled with disgust, "'cause I guarantee none of the girls in our year are gonna want you."

Jane could've sat and listened to the conversation, but as soon as her ship had docked she slid the small silver lever that dropped her from the seat and onto the hangar bay floor. She had heard enough.

However the conversation had continued, it was obviously fascinating enough for the whole squad to listen to or weigh in on, because Jane had the debriefing room to herself for a full five minutes. She was glad for the small amount of time to gather her thoughts, to breath deeply and just stare at the ceiling of the large round room for a while. It's the rumor that's the problem she decided, letting her eyes follow the Academy insignia on the ceiling, I'm not doing anything wrong, technically, the real problem is that I'm not known for training good squadies, I'm known for really good- She drummed her fingers on her arm, listening to the sharp clicking of her gloved fingers against the rigid navy scales of her flightsuit.

Her new squad began filing in, all in a group, some of them smirking, some with their heads downcast, murmuring and chatting about this and that, their conversation about her clearly over with. Jane couldn't help noticing that Missy was blushing furiously, and refusing to meet her eyes. For some reason that goaded Jane more than anything else. She could live with a reputation as the Academy's resident sex fiend ... could live, even, with some of her rookies thinking of her as an easy lay; if she was being honest with herself, under the right circumstances she was an easy lay. But she would be damned if peoples' big mouths and a handful of jackasses were going to make sweet innocent little Missy stop looking up to her. Jane didn't mind a reputation, but she refused to give up respect. Okay ... if I have to have a reputation, then I'm gonna choose my own. A reputation that deserves ... no, demands respect. Her boots hit the ground with a sharp "click" that quieted the murmuring for a moment. She capitalized on that momentary quiet to stand up and start speaking.

"Alright Rooks, now that you survived your first day and I'm satisfied that you'll all probably be sticking around for the rest of the year, I think we can settle into what I hope will be our normal mode of operations." Jane let the group settle into the chairs that surrounded the main speaking circle.

The room was meant for a group of thirty or fifty to debrief, so the group of nine felt particularly cozy as they occupied just the first row, leafing through the folder of schedules and regulations that they'd been collecting throughout the day. "I know you guys will have noticed that a lot of those regulations seem a little extreme. You all can rest assured that what you've probably heard about me is true; I tend to have a soft spot in my heart for my squad, you won't be adhering to those." She gave the group a big warm grin, and she could actually see the cadets in front of her relax. One of the more gullible boys, clearly thinking she was openly admitting to screwing her rookies, even broke into a grin that matched her own.