Snippet #2770134

For just shy of six years, Aiden Morrow had taken his lumps with the rest of Echo Company through the beating heart of Triton Station. He’d been in the middle of bloody fights in the Sphere and crashed his fair share of simulated Chiron fighters. He’d paid his dues for a long time and was soon to receive his full commission as an officer and find himself somewhere on the other end of the system. News of the “front” didn’t cycle here much. Currently, everyone was technically at “peace,” but everyone knew that tensions on the outskirts were higher than ever. He’d seen it in the brass. Soon, he’d be in the middle of it all.

So when a sixteen-year-old cadet talked down to him and started giving him orders like a good dog, Morrow didn’t take long to rile back up into the aggressive mood that had invaded his mind during the training exercise earlier in the day. Ripping the arm that grabbed him by the elbow away from him, Aiden shoved back against the younger man.

Charging right behind him, Aiden showed absolutely no sympathy for Desmond and whatever caused him to collapse.

“Let’s get something straight, Cadet,” he said with a tone that only a few pilots had heard as he turned to fully face Sorrows. “I don’t know what the hell kind of game that you’ll pulling here, but it’s not going to fly. The Commander’s already got it in for you for that insubordination you pulled with him earlier and I’m not in the frakking mood to play games with kids.”

Aiden glances down the corridor before turning back to Sorrows again. “I swear to God, if you cost Echo Company with whatever stunt you’re trying to pull I’ll make you think your plebe years were a frakking walk. You got that?”

With that, he stormed off down the hall. Desmond was going to find Lucy and Aiden had been “told” to find Jack and bring him to some location. Frak that noise.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Kaito looked up from the information on his desk, glancing sideways to the open hatchway through which Lucy Caspian entered.

“Specialist,” he said with an almost dismissal greeting, continuing to sort through a number of papers before he finally rose from his desk and spoke with the short, choppy deliver that came with his mastery of a second language not native to his own tongue.

“We have reason to believe that someone is running a mole operation within Echo Company. While I cannot state with any certainty, I believe that someone has manipulated the system and placed at least one cadet within our ranks with the intention of sabotaging both the morale and operation of the Company.” Narita walked with the stiff steps of a man attempting to mask a limp, rounding the corner of his desk to face the young woman. He noticed the subtle and drastic changes that she’d undergone in her five years on Triton Station under his supervision.

“As the senior Intelligence ACAT within the Company, I am ordering you to conduct an investigation of this matter discreetly and report to me directly. You are authorized under my command to detain anyone you feel to be operating outside the best interest of this Company and I expect you to do so with no regard for any personal feelings you may have to your company brothers.”

“Now,” the officer said with a return to his desk and a slow retaking of his seat, “is there anything going on within Echo Company that I should know about?”