Love is Weak

Chapter 25 - Connection

Keith

The next morning, the barracks were silent. Lillian looked into my eyes, and we came to a silent agreement.

We won't ever sleep together again, and our feelings for each other need to stay hidden.

Our emotions had to stay hidden, especially since we had a day of planning meetings ahead of us. We'd be working together until the supply line mission came to completion.

We went to our first meeting, which was with Kolivan, and we received the logistics of the ship we were going to be hijacking or infiltrating, depending on what we decided. After which we went to a conference room to plan.

Lillian and I made a great planning team, and we got a lot done, though we still had a few things we needed team input on.

Over lunch, we decided to sit with the rest of the Delta Unit so that we could get their opinions on what we had so far.

"We have all the intel we need," I said.

"And we located the central ship," Lillian added.

"But we have yet to find an efficient way to get to the control room and download the entire ship's information," I finished.

"What have you thought of so far?" Kiana asked.

"Well, we could cloak our ship and get in through the cannons, or we could take a sentry pod, or jetpack in, but my only concern with that is that it's the central ship, which means there's going to be more security and more scanners because it's carrying valuable information, and most likely weapons or this new form of quintessence," Lillian explained.

"Then this is what we need to do," Adrien said with a mouthful of food. "We cloak our ship so it's invisible to the scanners, and then we neutralise anything we run into. We can locate the control room before we get there so we know where to land or which conduits to take. Shouldn't be too hard."

"Because after that, all we'll have to do is plug in a flash drive and destroy any sentries before they alert command. Adrien and I can make sure they don't know we're there," Ella said.

Lillian looked at me, and I nodded.

"I think that could work," she said.

"We'll give it two days, then," I said. "A bit of time to train and finalise details."

The Delta Unit nodded in unison.

"Then it's back to the conference room," Lillian said, standing.

I followed her lead.

Before she walked away, she looked back at her unit.

"If you don't have an assignment for this mission yet, I want you all in the training arenas with Kiana. Ella, Adrien, do what you must to be ready to go."

They gave her nods, and we walked away.

We went back up to our conference room in Central Command and began to work through the details of Adrien's idea. Lillian was drawing a crude diagram on the board in our planning room, and I glanced at her determined face.

She looks beautiful when she's in her element.

"That's against the agreement, Keith," she said as though she heard my thought.

"And what was the agreement?" I asked, wondering if we actually had some sort of unspoken communication that morning.

Lillian looked at me like I was stupid. "We agreed to hide our feelings for each other and not sleep together again."

We looked at each other, shocked.

"Weird," she muttered and went right back to planning.

Two hours later we had our mission all laid out.

"We need to run this by Josh," Lillian said.

"Why?"

"It's part of the process," she said, taking her notes and heading out of the conference room.

I had no choice but to follow.

We walked to the Med Wing where Josh was finally sitting up. He looked tired, and just as weak as before, but much better.

He grinned. "How are you two?"

There was tension between us, but Lillian brushed it off.

"We need your opinion on our mission," she said, ignoring the question completely.

"Hit me," Josh said.

Together, Lillian and I explained our mission to him. It had almost no moving parts because it was so basic. We'd do exactly as Adrien said, and the only reason it took so long to plan it out was because Lillian and I were double checking the security and logistics of the ship we'd be entering. Everything else was easy from there. It was like any other mission to gather intel, which seemed to be all we were doing recently.

Josh nodded his approval. "Sounds good to me."

"No notes?" Lillian asked.

He shook his head. "I think you guys figured this one out very well, though your odds of survival would be much higher with me." He smirked.

Lillian broke her stern demeanor and smiled slightly. "That's a given."

"But if Keith's file is correct, you're in very capable hands," Josh said, gesturing to me with a wink.

I blushed and looked down.

Lillian nodded, giving me a sidelong glance. "Indeed."

"Make sure you get some training in," Josh said.

We nodded.

"We'll do that now," I said, and Lillian and I left the Med Wing.

Kiana had the training arena under her authority, and when she asked Lillian to take over, Lillian declined, giving Kiana a proud smile.

We went along with Kiana's training just like the rest of Delta and any other Blade members who wanted some training.

Kiana pushed us very hard, harder than I'd ever exerted myself. We conditioned, fought each other, lifted weights, went through simulations, and anything else she could think of, and before we left the arena, Lillian announced to the Delta Unit that the next day was a rest day so we wouldn't be too sore for our mission that following morning.

The next day, everyone in the base was updated on what the other, more active, units were doing for planet liberation and coalition building. Kolivan said that they were in progress of creating a more detailed map of the empire, including which planets were freed by rebel forces instead of run by Galra.

That evening, we were quick to get to bed. We were all extremely sore, and no one wanted to move much.

When the morning wake-up call went off, it was too early. Most of the Delta Unit woke up cursing and grumbling at the alarm. But we were quick to get ready, check our comms, and head to the departure bay by the second wake-up call.

We arrived at the mission site a half-hour later, and since it was such a basic assignment, we ran through it based on memory. Everyone knew how to complete an extraction mission. There were no injuries, no alarms went off, and we got in and out in an efficient time. The intel was delivered to Kolivan when we got back to base, and for the rest of the day, we did nothing. Well, we didn't have any assignments, which meant we could do whatever we wanted until our next mission.