Returning to Base

Kelly and the rest of her team left the military's simulator room in high spirits after having a good time with Gray's team.

"I wish we could do that more often!" Felisa said excitedly.

"I know! It really helps us relax when we don't take things so seriously!" Christine added.

"It was a waste of time..." Alice said with a slight frown on her face.

"Oh come on, you had fun too!" Bridget said playfully while giving Alice a squeeze causing her to be stifled by her abundant cleavage.

Alice pushed Bridget off of her and yelled, "I can't breathe when you do that! Fine then, I admit it was fun!"

"See? No need to be serious all of the time." Bridget chided then pinched Alice on the cheeks.

"Whatever, we're late though! Hope we didn't miss dinner."

Kelly didn't really say a word as she knew she was probably going to get reprimanded for "training" for too long.

"Lieutenant Lagerty!" A loud voice startled the girls shortly after they left the simulator room, but due to their training they quickly recovered and stood at attention in a row when they recognized it was a Major and Kelly's CO (Commanding Officer) that was yelling at them.

"Sir!" Kelly said quickly while saluting.

"General Bellerose would like a word with you, Lieutenant, I suggest you hurry up as you've already wasted more than an hour beyond what you were permitted with the players. The rest of you, get your dinner. Dismissed!"

Kelly gulped slightly thinking that she may have made General Bellerose angry and hurried over to her office.

__________

Kelly knocked twice on the door and said "Lieutenant Lagerty reporting ma'am!"

"Enter!" General Bellerose said with a touch of anger in her voice.

Kelly opened the door and then stood in front of General Bellerose's desk and saluted.

General Bellerose nodded and motioned for Kelly to sit in the chair in front of her desk.

General Bellerose's office was sparse for a General, the desk was very large and organized. Paper documents were only used for extremely sensitive material since paper can't be digitally hacked or altered thus rarely was there a need for physical copies of orders. Still, General Bellerose didn't even have pictures of family or friends on her desk like most other officers with a private office. The strangest thing about her office was that she insisted on nothing but flat wooden chairs without any cushion making it uncomfortable to sit for very long. The rumor was that she hated having people in her office so she intentionally wanted to make it dull and uncomfortable.

"I'll be brief Lieutenant, first, considering your previous performances and impeccable adherence to your schedule, I'll ignore your tardiness this one time. I'm not unreasonable though, so if you feel more time is needed for missions like these please communicate with your CO directly instead of having me ask him to stand outside the simulator room for over an hour waiting for you."

"I am sorry ma'am! I will make sure to communicate with my CO should another situation like that arise."

General Bellerose nodded, she had a very good impression of Kelly as Kelly reminded her of herself when she was younger, but she would also be tougher with her because of that as well.

"In exchange, your squad will join the maintenance crew with cleaning the mech equipment this weekend as punishment since it was a team effort, right?"

Kelly sighed to herself, but she would prefer this than any sort of write up so she just nodded in defeat.

"Good, now secondly, while I disagree with you teaming up with players for the tournament, you do not have to worry about winning. We've had 503 teams sign up for the tournament, only 8 of those teams are from the military. It's close enough to 512 that we'll just give a few teams a by in the first round. Would you like to give your team a by?"

Kelly was a little stunned at this question. "Ma'am, is this tournament rigged?"

"Not the way you're thinking, but we were allowed to arrange it so the 8 military teams wouldn't meet until near the end. I offer this only to you because I expect your team to make it to at least the 3rd round since half of your team is made up of military pilots."

Kelly was relieved that she was overthinking things, "Ma'am, just put us in the lottery like everyone else, we do not need special treatment. In fact, I am hoping we exceed your expectations!"

General Bellerose smiled "Glad to hear it, how are the players? Do you have any issues giving them orders?"

"Actually... I let the team leader of the player team take command."

General Bellerose frowned, "That wasn't part of our deal... who is it?"

"If it helps ma'am, he was a former military academy student."

"No, it doesn't help, why would having someone that was kicked out of the military academy help?"

"He wasn't kicked out, he left of his own will as a huge shock to those of us that were his friend."

"Oh? So you knew him from before? Well, I'll leave it to you then. Just don't disappoint me."

"Ma'am, may I ask what you expect of us?"

General Bellerose's face didn't give any expression and she said plainly, "We expect you to win until you match against a full military team, then you will lose."

Kelly felt a lump in her throat when she heard this, she hated losing and hated that not only were they not expected to win, but they were expecting them to lose the first time they came across a military team. "Understood ma'am... anything else?"

General Bellerose could see that Kelly didn't like being told she was expected to lose so she tried to soften it by adding, "Don't worry Lieutenant, you will be promoted to 1st Lieutenant after this 'mission' should you continue your perfect record."

Kelly nodded then stood up, "Ma'am, I shall join the rest of my team for dinner then."

General Bellerose nodded and dismissed Kelly.

__________

At the mess hall, the other 7 women of Kelly's team were chatting happily with each other recalling the fun they had with Gray's team earlier.

Kelly suddenly came up in the empty seat left for her and slammed her tray down on the table causing the other 7 to jump. Miraculously, Kelly's drink landed upright and didn't even spill a drop despite having a second or two of air-time.

"E-Everything okay ma'am?" Caitlyn said hesitantly.

"We have cleaning duty in the mech hanger with the maintenance team this weekend." Kelly said plainly.

The 7 other women groaned slightly as they hated cleaning duty, especially the jokes the men would say when they were trying to clean the barrels of mech rifles.

"That's not why you're angry though, is it?" Felisa said gently.

Kelly shook her head, "They want us to throw the match if we come across a full military team, nor do they expect us to get beyond the 3rd round."

"That only makes sense, they're hosting it so they want to make themselves look the best..." Alice started to say causing the other women to give her a glare so she added, "...but it doesn't mean I agree with their method and wouldn't love to crush those expectations."

The other women then smiled at Alice and Kelly seemed to be in a better mood now too.

"Thank you, all of you, if there is any consequences for us and they claim we disobeyed orders, I will take it all as you were just acting under my orders."

"Nonsense! All for one, one for all!" Felisa said proudly, all of the other women nodded in agreement except for Tia who was just eating her food with a dazed expression on her face.

"Tia?" Felisa said while waving a hand in front of Tia's face.

"Huh? Oh, sorry, I was just lost thinking how pretty our leader looks when she is angry." Tia said with a smile.

Everyone threw something at Tia and she let everything bounce off of her without even flinching.

"I thought the men were the biggest perverts here, seems we have another one among our own ranks." Alice said plainly.

"Hey, I don't consider admiration of beauty as being perverted, do you consider people that admire works of art as perverts or people that enjoy looking at a beautiful sunset as perverts?" Tia said proudly.

"No, but they also don't undress you with their eyes, which is what you were doing, right?" Heather said while glaring at Tia.

"Of course not, what do you take me for?" Tia said angrily.

"A dangerous pervert..." Heather said.

"Oh you're just jealous because I said your sister was slightly prettier than you, don't worry! You have your own charms that she lacks!" Tia said as she put her arm around Heather.

Caitlyn, Felisa, Kelly, Christine, and Alice looked at both Heather and Bridget and compared them.

"I don't see the difference..." Alice said.

"I kinda see it, Bridget has a nicer smile so Tia might mean that." Caitlyn said analytically.

"Bridget, Heather, smile!" Christine said enthusiastically

Bridget and Heather looked at each other than the other women on the team, both got up haughtily to return to their rooms.

"Wait! Don't leave! We were just playing with you two!" Felisa said.

Kelly laughed watching the other girls mess around and she thought to herself, "I hope this war doesn't ruin times like these."