Witness [A First Contact Romance]

13. The Squad

Lumiea

Year -20 (L.D.)

The end of the competitions had brought much less fanfare than the initial days. Only a dozen people had even watched Aeryn's match. Which she won, of course.

She pressed her fingertips to the cool window of the airbus and craned her neck to look at the skyscrapers reaching down to the ground below them and stretching high above them. They'd caught some traffic on their trip to a downtown hotel that had been rented out for their big night. All of the privates-in-training would receive their squad assignments tonight, something each of them had been waiting for since they first began training as children.

After tonight, they would have a few days off to get to know their squad, and then they'd fly out for their first few weeks in one of the better controlled contested areas. It would still be the most danger Aeryn had ever faced–it was an active warzone. But it was ground they'd taken and needed to keep, not enemy territory which they had yet to conquer.

It was a new phase to her preparations that she looked forward to. This next year would involve learning to operate as a squad independently. Then they would join with others in a larger division as their training progressed. It was imperative to be successful alone or in larger formations. Aeryn was ready. She didn't need a few days off. She wanted to head out to test her limits now. This was what she had been preparing for. At least, once tonight was over.

She was not eager to rush through this introduction. Butterflies tickled her stomach as she thought of finally meeting the five comrades who would become a family to her. It had been a long time since having one of those. Everything in her life would soon revolve around them.

She turned from the window to lean back against it when she heard a shocked voice nearby.

"Holy fuckballs."

What kind of criminal excuse for jargon was that? Aeryn twisted with her expression pinched and looked right into the reddish eyes of none other than Jace.

She gasped. "Ah, fuck."

"Balls." His eyes quickly scanned her as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Are you a math person? Can you calculate these odds? How are you here?"

Aeryn lifted one brow and spoke in monotone. "How are you here?" Anyone who said something like fuckballs had no business being in the same program as her. He must have been reading some weird Earth shit.

"Wild," Jace said. "How have you been?"

"Great." Her tone came off as sarcastic. Well, so much for her plan not to get distracted talking to him. Why did he have to be on her airbus? Quickly, her stomach loosened. She was being a jerk and that wasn't like her. Forcing her tone to soften, she asked, "What about you?"