Falca stood at rigid attention while the XO dressed her down with an occasional addendum from the Captain. Bucacis was surprisingly forceful for a Maker. She made an embarrassingly strong case for Falca being insane and should be immediately removed from her position.

Falca confined her comments to the bare minimum. It seemed prudent.

In the end, it turned out as Falca had expected: she would get notations of Excessive Zeal and Reckless Endangerment on her record, black marks that would damage her chances of promotion. However, as there was no adequate replacement for her, Falca would be allowed to continue in her current position but would be monitored far more closely by the XO.

All in all, quite acceptable. Falca had no interest in promotion, and black marks were just markings on paper. Being monitored did not bother her either. She had already accomplished all she had intended to. Falca expected to attract no attention, negative or otherwise, for the rest of the voyage.

Falca saluted the Captain, the XO and the doctor as they left. The Captain and XO returned her salute grimly, Bucacis simply scowled. Falca did not mind. She had never seen or heard of a Maker saluting anyone and had not expected Bucacis to break tradition. In fact, Falca was mildly surprised Bucacis had not made a rude gesture instead of a salute.

Falca stood at attention for several minutes after they had left just in case they came back for a second round. Then she used her communicator to have her orderly bring her a pot of hot Ai and something to eat.

After her orderly left, Falca sealed the door, settled comfortably into the tripod position and sipped her Ai.

And she smiled, an expression which she never shared with anyone in the Fleet.

Coloratura had shaped up nicely.

Many, many years ago, just after the very brief war with the Hiveworld, Falca had been in the burn ward with the Space Marine Commander of Eight Haute.

Lacking anything better to do, they had talked shop.

Falca, a mere Pilot-Lieutenant at the time, had been impressed by how well the Space Marines had held up during the Hiveworld surprise attack and appalled by how many Pilots had performed poorly. She quizzed Haute extensively about the Space Marine training program.

One of the core principles of the training was that the Drill-Commander absolutely must be hated by the recruits, must be an abusive bully, must engrave discipline in green troops down to the cellular level.

It taught the recruits, those who got through training, how to function, how to obey orders even when they were under extreme stress, even when they did not know their superior officers personally.

It allowed the Space Marines, none of them, none of them with any real combat experience, to hold their positions, to die where they stood, to fight the Hive warriors off until the pilots could shake off their confusion enough to take to the air.

It had allowed the Singers to survive, it had given the Master the breathing space zie needed to counter-attack. Zie exterminated each enemy Hive down to the last egg.

Falca had taken this lesson to heart.

She and Haute both knew that, sooner or later, they would run into another hostile alien race. When that happened, the recruits must be ready to fight and die as an organized unit, no matter how scared or confused they were.

Ever since then, Falca had tried to be a Drill-Commander for the pilots under her charge.

Coloratura was her latest trainee.

Falca had pushed every button she could think of to make Coloratura hate her, to find out if she could function effectively under increasing levels of stress.

Falca had projected three outcomes:

Coloratura could have protested through channels, a process that would have taken days at least. A poor solution, it could cause some of Coloratura’s pilots to be killed. This solution would require Falca to demote and replace Coloratura. Falca would then have had to start all over with a less satisfactory candidate.

Or Coloratura might have lost it, physically attacked Falca. In that case, after Falca kicked her tail, she would have Coloratura demoted to assistant custodial engineer third class (probationary). An officer who could not control herself while under stress was worse than useless.

Or Coloratura could have refused to obey Falca’s orders. This would have been the best solution from Falca’s point of view: it would have shown Coloratura’s willingness to sacrifice herself to preserve her flight. In this case, Falca would have given Coloratura a token punishment and then eased up on her, as Coloratura would have shown as much progress as Falca could expect.

Falca grinned. Instead, Coloratura had done something completely, wonderfully unexpected.

She had challenged Falca over safety issues, had reported her to her Maker friend.  Doctor Bucacis, in turn, had totally ignored the chain of command and military protocol, had gotten the Captain and the XO involved in a matter of hours.

Coloratura had shut Falca down.

Coloratura had passed with honors.

If and when Coloratura faced some alien foe, she would be ready.

Falca, still grinning, lifted her cup in a silent toast to Coloratura.