Chapter 16

Brother,

Will, Will, Will. You are definitely a kept Will, although from what you've said you have a free Willy all the time now. I know, horrible pun and father better never find out I used it. And thanks for the idea of having the AI blur your dangly bits. I have no reason to want to watch that movie.

I did take your woodworking tools to the testing center. I could think of no other way to ship them to you. They accepted the box, but told me that first there is no regular shipments of packages. I guess I can understand that to a point. Parcels take up space and during a war weapons and equipment definitely take priority. They did say that the package would be logged and if the AI saw a way to put it on a ship heading to Atlantisat it would be forwarded. However, I understand it goes to Marissa and not you. I guess you have to give her some extra loving in order to receive it from her. Sure you could just have her replicate a new set, but you've used these for years. I'm sure you'll be more comfortable with them.

We are now rehearsing our second musical. A Chorus Line went five nights rather than the planned for. We actually sold out every night after the first. The local theater critics loved it. I wasn't a star so I didn't really get a mention. Well, I did, but it was more for my outfit. Since the show is about a casting call for a dance line, everyone gets to basically wear their practice outfits. You know mine, tight fitting and reveals a bit too much I guess. The one mention I got was more about how my ass looked than about my dancing. Your sister just can't win.

For our next show Grease both Erica and I are part of the Pink Ladies. We don't have starring roles though, just chorus scenes again. It's been a ton of fun even if we don't get to solo.

Marilyn did come and watch us perform. She's still looking drained. I mentioned your letter and she admitted that the trainers in her combat medic class have warned her about the same thing you warned about in regards to casualties. I guess the Sa'arm can use their hive mind to accurately target just about anyone. Erica and I ended up a bit more worried about our training.

And yes, we are training for a combat career. I can't picture sitting on the sideline and supporting a man. But as I said earlier, we are probably the best two-man team in the entire training program, and from what I understand several cities are attempting this, both for thirteen year olds and for those who just haven't been picked up, but do have the CAP to volunteer. Erica and I are the only thirteen year olds in our training group, and the only all-girl team.

I guess I should finally admit the training. Erica and I went out for tank combat. I guess someone fed the design of the old Sherman tank to a replicator and then worked with the AI to convert the old design into a training unit. The armor is specially designed to resist the underpowered and non-explosive shells we use, but the computer inside can disable your tank or a portion of it, should the impact be one that would cause damage at full power. I drive, Erica runs the turret and we've worked out a way to cover the loader and communications positions. Our only problem according to the trainers is that without a tank commander who has time to look over the entire situation, we either have to free-lance or be at the end of the command chain. Honestly, I don't want command, I just love driving the tank around. And surprisingly we can reload while moving despite the lack of a third crewman. We're slower than any other team at that, but Erica is the best in the class when it comes to firing while moving. She rarely misses if the target is stationary, and hits moving tanks about a quarter of the time.

We don't know what the real design will be. The trainers only know that the few times marines have run into the Sa'arm, the marines have found that the aliens are big enough to make a one on one fight a losing gamble. The training does emphasize never remaining stationary for more than the briefest of moments. Our only question is how much the tanks can be customized. Erica and I rely almost completely on the main gun. The training tanks have several different variants, one of which has a better gun, but which gives up the machine gun. The rest of the class got together and petitioned that we not get to use it anymore. We got it for two weeks and during those sessions had more than fifty kills without getting taken out. I'm afraid we did rub it in afterwards, but some of the guys in the class are jerks to us telling us that girls can't drive tanks.