23 June 2017 – Above the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Sabrina watched the Air Force Twin Otter accelerating away from her upside-down view, receding into the bright, blue sky above. A video camera clipped to her parachute helmet recorded her descent, displayed on the heads-up display built into her jump goggles.
Sabrina flipped herself over, rolling her body to face Earth as it rushed up at her, settling into proper free-fall position. She had a great view of the academy, even better than the view from the summit of Eagle’s Peak. She craned her head around panning several times to film as much as she could before her ’chute opened.
An altimeter alert reported she was one thousand five hundred feet above ground level. Sabrina glanced down at her target. From a speck of yellow on the green turf, it had already grown into a bull’s eye. Pulling on her T-11 parachute’s risers she spilled air from the canopy to slip – to steer herself – toward the target. Sabrina grimaced. She’d miss it by the barest fraction of a stride. She wanted to reach forward with her leg to touch the ring but that was a good way to jam her knee or blow it out completely.
She rolled through her landing fall, coming to rest within the target. She gathered up her ’chute and stuffed it into its bag. She trudged to the edge of the landing zone where cadets from Wings of Blue, the cadet parachute instructors who ran cadet jump training, stood. Waiting at the edge of the LZ with their arms crossed, they wore dark blue flight suits and wore their garrison caps with rakish, World War II-era cants.
“Cadet Knox, you missed the target by a cat’s whisker,” an instructor said as Sabrina walked up.
“Yeah, I thought I had it …”
“Still, good form on your PLF. You said you had wings you wanted to use for the ceremony?”
“Yes, they’re my dad’s wings, or they were,” Sabrina said as she pulled two envelopes from her flight suit. Her father had mailed two pairs of wings he’d worn on his uniforms. “Do you want the highly polished ones for the ceremony or the standard-issue?”
“So, your dad went to jump school?”
“Yes. He was in the 82nd Airborne. He joined after high school and wore these until after Panama.”
“That’s cool, having something like that handed down to you. Write your name on the envelope with the standard-issue ones. I’ll make sure it stays sealed until just before we pin the wings on you. Hold on to the other one.”
After the pinning ceremony, the cadet commander for Wings of Blue stepped up to Sabrina.
“Are you gonna try out at all?” he asked, wondering if Sabrina would try out for the WOGs – Wings of Green, the apprentice parachute instructors.
“No, sir. I’m taking Airmanship 461 in the fall to become a glider instructor pilot. I’m also playing competitive club hockey, so I won’t have the time.”
“Your plate does sound a little full. What’s your major going to be?”
“Astro.”
“Give me circuits any day …” the incoming firstie muttered, shaking his head. “Well, you have fun with that,” he grinned.
Sabrina dressed in the Cadet Ice Arena locker room before the first day of hockey camp.
“This feels weird …” Monique Levesque muttered as she looked herself over. The coach’s light tracksuit looked and felt a lot different than the heavy equipment her players wore. “I feel like I’ve forgotten something.”
“Yeah,” Brit Englund replied in agreement. “I feel like I’m getting ready for a free skate.”
“Uncle Chris could have asked us to show up in our flight suits instead,” Sabrina joked.
“That would have been really weird, Sabrina,” Monique said. “I’m surprised Mr. Micklicz didn’t ask us to wear our USAFA hockey club jerseys, though.”
“Probably wanted all the staff to be dressed the same to make it easier for the campers to recognize us.”
“Sabrina,” Monique laughed, “we’re like two or three feet taller than the campers! The oldest ones are ten! It’s not like we’re not going to stand out among them …”
The three cadets wandered out to the ice.
“Good morning, ladies,” Chris Micklicz said from the other side of the boards. “The outfits fit okay?”
“I keep feeling like I’ve forgotten something, Mr. Micklicz,” Monique said again.
“Yeah, I felt the same way the first time I did one of these camps, too. We spend hours strapping and taping our equipment on over the years before we play, and to suddenly stop when we’re used to that routine is a shock.” He waved them onto the ice. “Come on out and warm up. The campers won’t be here for another half-hour.”
Chris introduced them to the rest of the camp staff. They were a mix of retired NHL players like himself or college players from nearby schools. When the campers did arrive, they were in obvious awe at meeting real professional players. Even at nine and ten years old, the age where they might have already attended a hockey camp or two, the awe was still there.
“Do you think they’ll even remember our names later?” Al Sinclair asked in a whisper.
The tall defenseman from Colorado College towered over the rest of the staff, but he’d already earned a reputation as a giant softy. Not twenty minutes ago he was tying the smallest camper’s skates for her. He made the six-year-old giggle the whole time using goofy faces and voices.
“I know one camper who’ll never forget your name, Sully,” Sabrina snickered, comparing Al to an animated movie character they all remembered from childhood and causing the rest of the college-age staff to laugh. “You need to grow your blue fur out again though. In case they make another sequel.”
“That’s why I don’t,” Al replied. “I need to move on with my life.” This drew more laughter.
“Right,” his teammate from school, Ben Joubert, snorted. “He’s moved on from scaring kids to scaring opposing forwards!”
Dean Fraser, a former Calgary teammate of Chris Micklicz’s, skated over at this point.
“You guys all set?”
The replies were a mix of “Yes, coach,” “Yes, Mr. Fraser,” and “Yes, sir.”
“Look, folks, relax,” he said with a smile. “I’m Dean, or Mister Dean at the most, okay? You’re not campers any longer, nor are you players we’re coaching. We work together. Okay, the kids are waiting. Let’s break out as we discussed earlier, with one exception.” He turned to Al. “You okay with switching groups?”
“Did Chelsea ask if I was going to be one of her coaches?” Al asked with a smile.
“She did. Don’t go buying her flowers yet because you might freak her parents out.”
“I’m good with it if whoever was going to work with that group is good with working with the older group.”
“It’s fine with me,” Brit said.
“Okay, let’s go, then.”
“God, that was FUN!” Brit gushed at dinner that night. The staff who had worked camps before smiled at her enthusiasm.
“When they honestly try hard, it is a lot of fun,” Chris Micklicz answered with a smile. “It’s when they don’t, that can make it a long day. But that usually doesn’t happen with the younger kids. They always seem to want to try their best.”
“It’s hard when someone realizes they’re not improving, no matter how hard they try,” Jean Renoit added. The retired NHL Hall of Fame defenseman was in his early sixties now. He enjoyed teaching at hockey camps so much he was still at it twenty-five years after retiring. “You have to try and turn their disappointment around or they may never want to hear about hockey again.”
“That’s gotta be hard,” Monique said. “Brit, Sabrina, and I know that we’re not going on to the NHL after graduation, especially since we’re at the Air Force Academy. We know what’s next more than most. How does anyone who enjoys this game but doesn’t go as far as they want, handle that?”
“Same as anyone who realizes their dreams aren’t always obtainable,” Ben Joubert replied. “Look, I’m playing Division I NCAA hockey, which is to say I’m on the team and I get to dress for most of the games. While half of my high school classmates are playing college hockey at some level, I’m the only of us playing Division I. I’d be surprised if more than one or two from my team are drafted. I’d be even more surprised if I’m one of the ones who are. Al’s got a much more realistic shot. A six-foot-five bodybuilder who plays first-line defense? I’ll be surprised if he’s not drafted before the third round next summer.
“My high school coach sat me down before I signed my letter of intent to play for the Tigers. He explained what my chances of making the pros were. I talked with my parents after I talked with Coach, and I committed myself to make the best grades possible here in Colorado Springs.”
“I have to say, Monique,” Dean Fraser added, “that Ben’s one of the rare ones who really understood what he was up against before he left high school. He already knew that college hockey would be the farthest he would go. There are some players, however, who enjoy playing so much they’re content with playing at whatever level just so they can keep playing.”
While she and her fellow cadets relaxed at Arnold Hall later that evening, Brit asked, “How much of that talk at dinner applies to us?”
“Most, if not all of it is my feeling …” Sabrina replied. She speared more of her salad. “I know Dad’s mentioned to me more than once that it’s the same in EMS. People are frequently forced out before they want to leave, usually because of injuries or PTSD.”
“Sabrina’s right,” Monique agreed. “It’s probably the same in every career field. Will any of us accept that it’s time to go if the end of our career arrives before we want it to? And how angry are we likely to get if that happens, especially after how hard we will have worked to get to wherever we are?”
Sabrina gulped lungful after lungful of air after reaching the summit of Mount Wachusett. While not particularly technical or long, she had run the most difficult trail on the mountain as fast as she could to give herself a good workout. She’d take a short break, then make a fast descent.
She sat on a stump and gulped water. Her parents were working today, and Alex was off by himself somewhere. She would meet Shawn and Naomi for dinner after her run. She’d only just gotten her breathing back under control when someone called out to her.
“Gorgeous day, isn’t it?” She looked to her left to see a man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties grinning over at her.
‘Can’t I go anywhere alone without someone trying to pick me up?’ Sabrina sighed to herself.
Yesterday’s trip to the shopping mall near her parents’ house had been frustrating, thanks to young and not-so-young men trying to strike up conversations in every store she visited. The man was right, however. A constant, gentle breeze and puffy clouds blocking the worst of the bright sun kept temps in the low eighties.
“Hmm,” she hummed in the affirmative while drinking from the hydration pack on her back.
“Is your brother in the Air Force, or something?” the man asked, motioning to her t-shirt.
Sabrina frowned. Her dark blue t-shirt bore the US Air Force roundel and the words ‘USAFA Women’s Hockey Club.’ she wasn’t sure how that meant her brother was in the Air Force. She stared at the man and slowly shook her head in the negative.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh,’” she parroted back. “I’m wearing this shirt because it’s my shirt, Genius. I’m on the hockey club at the Air Force Academy.”
The man held up his hands in apology and backed away. He glanced nervously over his shoulder as he walked off, unsure if the rude girl was gonna go postal on him now that his back was turned.
Sabrina rubbed at her forehead, trying to will the blossoming headache away before she turned back to the hiking trail for her run down the hill.
Her legs still felt rubbery when she stepped out of the shower at home two hours later, a sign that she’d worked her legs harder than usual. She looked herself over in the bathroom mirror while she toweled her hair dry.
She didn’t think it was vain to admit that she was pretty. Her mixed Eurasian looks – black hair, almond-shaped blue eyes, and pert nose on an oval face – as well as her athletic body, attracted attention and had for many years. So why had she jumped down the throat of the guy on the Wachusett summit? It wasn’t like he’d put his hand on her butt in a crowded room. He only said ‘hi’ to her.
Would it have been a crime to return his greeting pleasantly rather than seeing the man as a threat? Is that how she viewed others now, specifically men? Her mother would likely tell her that she was out of balance, again, and that she should put more stock in the good intentions of others. Her father would counter that by saying she was being smart and cautious, especially after her experiences during doolie year.
Still …
She sighed and finished drying her hair. Dressing in comfortable casual clothes, she went to meet the two high school friends she’d been able to contact.
“Hey, how was your summer?” Linda asked when Sabrina walked into their room in Vandenberg Hall.
“Hi, Linda. It was great! 490 was a blast and my uncle’s hockey camp was even better. The new class arrived at the end of June for BCT, so this place wasn’t as empty as I thought it would be. The month after graduation, though, this place was a ghost town …”
“I’ll bet. I’m looking forward to 490 this fall, myself. Are you still taking the glider IP class this semester?”
“Yeah, I’m stoked. It’s gonna be so much fun.”
The roommates fell into the familiar routine of putting their room into SAMI order. As three-digs they wouldn’t have to keep the room SAMI’ed all the time like last year, but it would be easier to have it close to the standard than scrambling to do a deep clean before a major inspection.
The gods must have sensed they weren’t miserable because Devin Fairhaven soon darkened their door. Linda saw him first.
“Can we help you, sir?” she asked, making ‘sir’ sound like an invective.
Fairhaven glanced at Linda before glaring at Sabrina.
“You got something to say? Say it.” She was in no mood to play this year. Fairhaven’s glare grew darker.
“You will show me the proper respect, Cadet!”
“When you earn it,” she scoffed. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
“Knox, you will conduct training for the Basics at 1630 tonight.”
“How about no?” Sabrina snapped back. “I’m not cadre. I haven’t been assigned any training duties. You haven’t either, and you’re not in my chain of command. Speak to squadron leadership or my flight leadership, and I’ll prepare for a class once they assign me one – if they assign me one.”
Fairhaven looked like he was about to have a stroke he turned so red. He clenched his jaw and fists and stomped away.
“Sabrina!” Linda hissed. “I know you don’t like him – I don’t, either – but he’s technically a superior, even if he’s not in our chain of command!”
“He’s power-mad, Linda. A petty dictator, that’s all.”
‘I think I’d rather be out here in another blizzard instead of broiling like this …’
The dark blue of her service dress uniform cap acted as a passive solar collector atop her head as she walked off her punishment. The dark blue polyester uniform blouse and pants added to her discomfort.
Her cadet squadron commander’s eyes had narrowed when Sabrina admitted to speaking to Fairhaven the way she did. She left her commander little wiggle-room. What she did was considered insubordination and the regs were clear. Given her history with Fairhaven and the five hours of punishment tours she earned after last year’s confrontation, Sabrina now had seven hours to walk off.
Like the snow melting through her watch cap last year, sweat trickled down Sabrina’s spine and caused her uniform shirt to stick to her skin. She sighed when she realized she’d need to have her service dress dry cleaned before she wore it again.
‘It’ll stink to high heaven, not to mention the sweat stains the cleaners will probably have to work on …’
She let herself zone out as she continued to march around the T-zo. Her phone’s alarm alerted her after three hours, the limit she’d set for today. Sabrina marched back to Mighty Mach One to check in with the CQ desk and be credited for her time.
Sabrina made a conscious effort to ignore Fairhaven as he stood in the hall smirking at her. She stepped around him when he tried to block the hall.
“Sabrina, you may want to put something on your hands, face, and neck after you dry off,” Linda warned her. “And you’ll want to be gentle when you dry off.”
Sabrina glanced in the mirror as she collected her shower things.
“Ugh. I’m gonna look like a freakin’ lobster tomorrow!”
“Yeah, a lobster who was wearing sunglasses. Sabrina …”
“What is it, Linda?”
“Sabrina, you know I support you, and that I think Fairhaven represents everything that’s wrong with the academy … but …”
“But what, Linda?” Sabrina asked without any heat. “The man’s a blight on humanity, a boil on its ass! I might have to deal with him officially, but he’s dead to me. We joke around using that phrase between friends, but Fairhaven no longer exists to me outside of academy rules.”
With that, Sabrina left the room to shower.
Sabrina’s three-dig year smacked her in the face right away. Her M-day schedule – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classes – started at warp speed, and her T-day classes were no better. As with her four-dig year, she was expected to have read the material for the day’s classes beforehand, not afterward. She had always done so in high school and last year wasn’t any different. The volume of the material was a big difference.
She carried twenty-one credits this fall semester, thanks to Soaring 461 and her club hockey. Her hockey commitment was to get into shape before the season started in November, but that would still take up time in her day. Soaring would do the same but that was a stress-reliever, like her working out.
The astronautics courses gave her a glimpse at her future path, even more so than her flying. Her brother Alex was interested in the propulsion side of astronautics. Sabrina would focus on the avionics and flight control side. There was talk that the government might split space-oriented careers off into its own military branch – a ‘space force’ – but Sabrina would push to stay in the Air Force so she could be a pilot first. She didn’t see how any new space branch would need operational pilots early in its life or her career.
In September, a scandal broke over at the Air Force Academy Prep School. Someone wrote racial slurs on a message board belonging to an African-American cadet. The day after Sabrina and her friends heard about it, the academy’s superintendent – a three-star general who was the equivalent of a civilian university’s chancellor – held all four thousand-plus cadets at Mitchell Hall after lunch. And gave them a piece of his mind.
“Man, the Sup’s pissed!” Phil Albemarle muttered during the march back to Vandy.
“What gave it away, Phil?” Sarita Jorgensen asked. “Was it the third or the fourth time he told us to get out if we didn’t agree with diversity?”
“I think it was the first time.”
Sabrina found that even with her course load, she was calmer and more focused when ACQ rolled around each day. She was sure part of that was due to not having to deal with the day-to-day four-dig BS. There was still BS, though. She avoided Fairhaven, but like a bad case of shingles he showed up now and then, and it was painful when he did.
She heard rumblings that he was harassing the four-digs again, particularly the female four-digs, even though he didn’t have any training responsibilities. He did have some nominal responsibility as squadron staff but that was a pretty thin reason to be sniffing around. She shook her head but knew she had no stroke to change things if the rumors were true.
That changed abruptly one October afternoon when she returned from class. Four-digs weren’t allowed to close their doors until ACQ, so when she saw a known doolie’s door not standing open she detoured to gently correct the younger cadet’s mistake.
She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Fairhaven in the room through the cracked-open door. He stood behind the female four-dig – Carla Neuheim – whispering in her ear. Neuheim stood frozen at attention with a mixed look of disgust, fear, and resignation on her face. Sabrina wanted to tear open the door and beat Fairhaven bloody, but she caught herself.
Instead, she whipped out her phone and recorded Fairhaven through the gap between door and frame. The phone’s microphone picked up his words about what he expected her to do, and what would happen if she didn’t. Neuheim saw Sabrina filming them and gave her a grateful glance but didn’t react otherwise. Once Sabrina had recorded enough footage to prove Fairhaven’s intent, she eased the door open and leaned against the frame. Fairhaven noticed her a minute later.
“What the hell are you doing?” he barked.
“Nothing yet,” she replied, “but you can be sure I’m reporting this! You forced my first roommate out of here last year, and then you plotted to have my second roommate and me tossed. That kinda blew up in your face, huh? It didn’t quite work out the way you planned it!”
Fairhaven glared at his nemesis. “You have no proof of that, plus I’m ordering you to forget whatever you may have seen here.”
“Oh, fuck off, asshole!” she replied, straightening up. “You’re ordering me to cover up a crime, which is an illegal order and one I am not required to obey. Neuheim, come stand over here.” The four-dig complied right away. Sabrina stepped in to shield the young cadet from her tormentor. “Now you,” she hissed as she pointed at Fairhaven, “you get your ass out of this room.”
The two exchanged glares as he left. Sabrina turned to the young woman.
“Carla, I can’t ignore this. I must make an official report. Sexual harassment is a crime. You were in Mitchell Hall last month when the Sup gave his speech. This doesn’t have any place at the academy, or in the Air Force. At least they say it’s not supposed to.”
“This is gonna be bad,” the four-dig sighed.
“It won’t be any fun, Carla. Some of the opinions people will have aren’t going to be flattering, and some people won’t have any problem telling you their opinion, either.”
“It’s not that, ma’am. It’s that some of the opinions will be true,” Neuheim admitted. “I didn’t handle the stress here well, and I gave in to his advances a few weeks ago.”
Sabrina sighed now. “I won’t be able to shield you at all, Carla. You know that, I’m sure. The only way this works is if you are completely honest with the investigators. It’ll be even less fun than I hinted to you a minute ago. Even still …”
“I know, ma’am,” Carla Neuheim replied with downcast eyes. “My career here and in the Air Force is probably in the trash now, but someone has to say, ‘enough is enough.’ I wasn’t strong enough to do that before, but I have to be now.”
Sabrina reported the incident to her chain of command, specifically to her flight’s first sergeant. The cadet second class looked disgusted with what he heard and accompanied her to see the squadron superintendent, who did not look bothered one way or another. He did take down the information and said he would report it. Sabrina gave him a copy of the video she’d filmed. She also saved a copy to the cloud storage service her dad subscribed to.
It took another week before anyone came to her to investigate further. But ‘investigate’ was a polite way of saying ‘whitewash.’ Sabrina felt the questioning from the cadet investigators was superficial at best. Her fears were confirmed when she learned the matter had been inexplicably referred to a cadet honor court rather than to some higher authority.
Cadet honor court hearings can be closed meetings, but this was an open session. Any cadet may observe the proceedings during open sessions so long as there is available seating in the room. Female cadets far outnumbered males when the court was called into session. They watched aghast as Fairhaven laid the blame for the incident squarely on the shoulders of Carla Neuheim, despite the video evidence and her sworn statements about events leading up to that day. Fairhaven made himself out to be a model cadet, a totally innocent victim. When the gavel fell, Fairhaven had been exonerated.
Carla Neuheim ran from the room in tears. The female cadets rose and stomped out of the room as a group, followed by their male friends who believed the now-disgraced fourth class cadet. Carla’s roommate and a female cadre member locked themselves away in the four-dig’s room with the distraught cadet and tried to calm her down. Other angry members of the cadet wing dispersed to spread the word about the honor court’s verdict. Members of Mighty Mach One who met in the squadron lounge ten minutes later radiated anger. More than one uninvolved cadet fled to escape the negative energy after stepping into the room.
“This is utter bullshit!” Sabrina hissed into the tense silence.
“What can we do about it, though?” someone asked. “What do we do? We’re the minority here, outnumbered by others who don’t believe Carla or who don’t care.”
No one had an answer until Sabrina broke the silence again. “We silence Fairhaven.”
“Sabrina, we can’t off the bastard,” Dominique Phillips said.
“I’m not talking about killing him, ‘Nique, though I’d like to. I’m talking about ignoring his very existence.”
“You already do that,” Phil Albemarle pointed out.
“I’m talking about shunning him, Phil. Not even acknowledging that he’s in the same room, not going to any meetings he’s in charge of, not filing any reports with him, nothing.”
“Sabrina, you’re asking us to risk our careers,” Shannon Murphy, a firstie, said. “Some of us report to him on the squadron staff.”
“Skip right over him, Shannon. Reports go to the next person in the chain of command. We do not come to attention when he walks into the room. We do not react when he’s talking to us. We walk right around him. He is not a presence, a person, a cadet here. He no longer exists!”
“Sabrina,” Sam Jensen, Fairhaven’s roommate, said as he leaned forward in his seat. “He’s a slimy, slippery bastard, and I for one will be glad to leave the two-faced bastard behind when we graduate this year. But Shannon’s right. We’ll be the ones squarely in admin’s sights if we do this. The academy will install a yardarm on the T-zo just so they can hang you from it. You’ll catch the worst of this. You have to know that.”
“‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ That is what we face here. We are supposed to hold ourselves to a higher standard, to police ourselves. If we accept this, what is next? I won’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to be involved, but I won’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I don’t do this.”
The rest of the cadets in the lounge looked at their fellows and slowly nodded.
“All right, Sabrina,” Shannon Murphy agreed. “We’ll back you on this. We’ll spread the word as widely as we can. If it gets out whose idea this was, though, you’re gonna be a lightning rod.”
Resistance built slowly. A ripple spread outward from Squadron One and grew in strength when Carla Neuheim left the academy. Fairhaven had claimed another victim and a large part of the cadet wing was fed up.
The first time someone didn’t respond to his question, Devin Fairhaven repeated himself, thinking the other cadet hadn’t heard him. When a classmate walked out of the room without acknowledging him in any way, he started to get angry. Returning to his room after class one day Fairhaven found his roommate’s side as bare as if he’d never been there. Sam Jensen had found a room with two seniors who supported the silencing and made it into a marginally-authorized triple. A few male cadets disregarded the silencing and continued talking to Fairhaven, but even the females above him in the cadet chain of command, including his group commander, ignored him. Fairhaven finally complained to the cadet wing commander.
When the wing commander spoke to Fairhaven’s group commander, she looked at her superior as if he were crazy.
“Jack? Who are you talking about?” she asked. “I’ve never heard of a cadet named Devin Fairhaven. What class is he in?”
“Sarah, he’s in our class! All three of us were in the same BCT squadron together!”
“Nope, still not ringing a bell …”
Jack Olsen stared at his classmate. “Don’t do this, Sarah …”
“Don’t do what, Jack?”
His face hardened. “Get out, Cadet. Dismissed.”
Sarah Schlesinger came to attention before marching out of his room. Jack Olsen picked up his phone.
“Sir, it’s Jack Olsen. We have a problem, sir.”
Sabrina grunted as she hefted the medicine ball. She sat on a gym mat and rotated her torso from side to side as she held the ball to her chest and kept her feet in the air. The exercise was brutal, but it helped to tone her abdominal musculature. Today was leg day for Sabrina, and the exercises would only get harder from here.
‘Ripped’ would be the word best used to describe the nineteen-year-old’s physique, although ‘hardbody’ would also work. Her corded muscles rippled under taught skin. Years of karate and hockey sculpted her into the physical specimen she was today. The USAFA women cadets’ dress uniform, with its ankle-length slit skirt, fit her perfectly and highlighted the powerful left leg peeking through the slit as she walked.
“God, my abs hurt just watching you do that,” Sarita said as she did pushups on the mat next to Sabrina’s.
“It’s no picnic from this end of things either, Sarita. If I wanna keep up with opponents on the ice, though, I’d better do the exercises. Remember, no points for second place.”
Sabrina pounded the treadmill next. She would have rather been on the indoor track, but there was more to her workout after she finished her run, so leaving the weight room just to come back later didn’t make sense.
There was no way she’d allow herself to be sucking wind at season’s start as she had in the spring. Yes, she’d only had three weeks to try and prepare for hockey back then, but as her father would so colorfully point out, “Excuses are like assholes, Sabrina: everyone has ‘em, and they all stink.”
She’d blow people’s doors off this year.
Devin Fairhaven was hard-pressed to keep a lid on his temper by the end of November. Half the wing wasn’t talking to him, wasn’t showing up for briefings, wasn’t sending him reports, wasn’t acknowledging his very existence. Even his roommate, who he’d known since they arrived at the academy had abandoned him. His attempts to find out who was behind this action had so far proved unsuccessful. Oh, he had his suspicions that it was that aggravating little bitch Sabrina Knox, but he couldn’t prove it. That hadn’t stopped him from reporting those suspicions, however.
The pace of the semester restricted the number of Sabrina’s visits to the Gallardos’ house. She touched base with them by phone about every other week. Her phone calls home to her parents were more frequent at once a weekend, but she was lucky if she emailed her brother once a month. Ryan didn’t count. She was grateful that all the others understood her workload this year.
Sabrina climbed out of the van upon the hockey team’s return to the academy. They had split a weekend home-and-home series with the club team from Colorado Springs. She chatted with her teammates for a few minutes after they put their equipment away at the Ice Arena.
“Cadet Knox?” the CQ asked when she returned to Vandenberg Hall.
“Yes?”
“Cadet, I have this message here for you …”
Sabrina accepted the note and unfolded it. It directed her to appear before the cadet honor court in her service dress uniform Monday at 1530. She grumbled at the probable loss of practice time. She figured there was no way she’d make her Monday practice’s start time of 1700. She’d miss her Monday afternoon physics class, too.
She jogged across the T-zo Monday, something she hadn’t needed to do since before Recognition last year. She didn’t have long to change out of her ABU’s, into her service dress, and report to Fairchild Hall by 1530.
Sabrina stepped into the honor court’s hearing room after checking her uniform one last time. She ignored Fairhaven sitting at the other table in front of the court’s bench and got herself situated. It was only a few minutes before the Sergeant-at-Arms called the room to attention as the court members entered.
The hearing went about as well as Carla Neuheim’s had. The court’s bias toward Fairhaven was thinly concealed and they didn’t appear to care who knew it. The hearing wrapped up within an hour and they announced their findings. This was unusual since findings weren’t typically announced for at least seventy-two hours if not longer.
“Cadet Sabrina Knox, this court finds you guilty of gross insubordination, your third such offense. You are hereby suspended from the Women’s Hockey Club, effective immediately, pending administrative review of your actions regarding Cadet First Class Devin Fairhaven. Furthermore, you are stripped of your Superintendent’s List status and ordered to remove that award from your uniform. This court is adjourned.” The court president’s gavel fell with a resounding <CRACK!>.
Sabrina stood stock-still for a brief second before the rage flickered across her face. The honor court had grossly overstepped its authority in its announced punishments. Yes, she had been insubordinate, but the most punishment they could order was more tours on the T-zo while they referred the matter to administration. And she’d be damned if she’d give up her Sup’s List pin before the academy itself asked for it back.
After dinner, her flight element leader motioned Sabrina into her room and closed the door behind them. Sabrina was confused.
“What’s up, Chris?” she asked after sitting in the offered chair. Chris Harrington took a deep breath.
“I don’t agree with the court’s decision at all, Sabrina.”
Sabrina’s eyes snapped to the firstie. One rule of leadership she knew was to treat orders you receive as your orders when you pass them down the chain. To have a superior say she didn’t agree with her orders was very unusual.
“Chris?”
“Sabrina, these orders are wrong. They are punishment, punishment for daring to protest unfair and patently illegal treatment of Claudia Neuheim.” The firstie leaned forward on her elbows. “Sabrina, the others in the wing already know about these orders, and most of them are pissed. This issue is polarizing the cadets. More than half of us are ready to shut this place down, regardless of the consequences. Refusing to go to class, not going to formations, training, meetings – nothing!”
“Chris, you and your classmates are six months from graduating and receiving your commissions!”
“The academy likes to crow that they ‘develop leaders of character,’ Sabrina. Adversity doesn’t build character, Sabrina, it reveals it. What will standing by meekly while they attack you reveal about us?”
Sabrina looked down at her feet as she thought things through. This could end her career right here and now and – more than likely – her chances of flying in space. She decided that this was no different than the issues in junior and senior high and that she couldn’t give in. She looked her flight leader in the eye.
“Let’s go fight city hall, then …”
Sabrina, dressed in her service dress once again, walked into the appointed admin conference room for another hearing a week later. The matter had been fast-tracked after she filed an immediate protest following her hearing in front of the honor court. The Commandant of Cadets’ office – the academy’s equivalent to a Dean of Students – was now involved.
She continued to go to hockey practice in defiance of her suspension. None of her teammates had said a word about her presence. Sabrina hadn’t played in any of their games, however, not wanting to risk the team having to forfeit any wins because she was on ‘suspension.’ Admin scheduled this hearing during normal practice time too, and that was the only reason she wasn’t skating today.
Chris Harrington sat beside her at the hearing table and would act as a witness to the proceedings. True to her word, academy life was in complete disarray by now. Three-quarters of the cadet wing hadn’t shown up for a class over the past three days, nor had they been at any required formations outside of breakfast and lunch. While females comprised only twenty percent of the cadet wing, the men joining the protests had sisters they admired, mothers they respected, or they felt treating a female as a second class citizen was out-and-out wrong.
Devin Fairhaven sat at an adjacent table and sneered at Sabrina, which seemed to be his normal demeanor. He exuded an air of confidence that he would soon see Sabrina Knox hammered back down to insignificance as she should be.
Squadron One’s AOC stepped into the room and an NCO called the room to attention. Major Avondale had departed over the summer. Sabrina wasn’t sure what to expect from this officer as she hadn’t been able to read him, even though it was now December and almost the end of the semester.
“Be seated,” Captain Tosu said as he placed a folder at his desk and sat. He looked up and found the object of his displeasure.
“Cadet Knox.” Sabrina rose again and stood at attention. “You have been found guilty of gross insubordination by the cadet honor court, your third such offense. You have defied their orders suspending you from the women’s hockey club, refused their orders to remove the Superintendent’s List award pin from your uniform, and have refused to report to your classes or any other assigned military duties in the week since their ruling. Furthermore, you have encouraged others to do the same, jeopardizing their careers as well. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Nothing, sir.”
The officer blinked. “Nothing? You bring one of this nation’s service academies to a grinding halt, and you have nothing to say for yourself?”
“No, sir.” Here she looked him in the eye, something you weren’t supposed to do while at attention. “This academy abrogated its duty to the nation when it allowed the cadet court to blame Claudia Neuheim, the victim, for the sexual assault she suffered. It has failed this nation in the worst way: it supports injustice. It allows a known predator to continue to walk among us, a known predator despised by every single female cadet I have talked to and by more than a few of the female civilian staff. A known predator who issued an illegal order for me to disregard the crime he committed in my presence. He ordered me to lie about what I witnessed. This academy allows a sexist culture to continue, to openly exist, and does nothing of substance to stop it. The current situation is one of the academy’s own making. I refuse to accept blame for its failures.”
“‘Blame for its failures?’ Cadet, this academy does not answer to you!”
“On the contrary, sir, it answers to all of us as citizens of the United States. The Constitution begins with ‘We the People.’ The military forces of this nation exist as an extension of the will of its people, to ‘provide for the common defense’ as a later part of the Constitution’s preamble states. Nowhere in that document does it say, or even imply that the citizens exist to perpetuate the military. The Air Force exists because the citizens of this nation feel there is value in its existence. This academy continues to exist for the same reason. If the people were to no longer find value in this place, I am sure it’ll make a very nice conference center or private college campus.
“I am here because I wish to serve the nation. The Air Force Academy is a means to an end for me, a way to reach my ultimate goal. Along the way, I will defend this country and its citizens, even the citizens who hate the military. Yes, it is an honor to attend a service academy, a great way to begin my service, but I refuse to be servile. If administration takes the word ‘doolie’ seriously, one derived from an ancient Greek word for ‘slave,’ then we have a serious problem.”
Captain Tosu looked surprised and thoughtful in response to Sabrina’s answer. He was still getting to know the cadets he was responsible for, having focused on the first and fourth class cadets first. He heard rumors of Sabrina Knox’s passion and moral compass before, but this was his first time witnessing it for himself.
“And as I wrote in my appeal to the Commandant, sir, the honor court overstepped its authority in attempting to remove honors awarded by the academy itself, and in attempting to suspend me from activities which are directly related to my academic standing.”
Harmon Tosu nodded again. He took a minute to consider Sabrina’s statement before ruling without ever asking Fairhaven to speak.
“Your suspension from the hockey club is hereby vacated, as is the order to remove the Superintendent’s List pin from your uniforms, both pending further review. I am referring this matter directly to the Commandant herself. I am, however, directly ordering you to return to class and all assigned military duties in the interim. Is that clear, Cadet?”
“Affirmative, sir. I will do so immediately.”
“Very well. Be advised, however, that your actions continue to be under scrutiny. You are not clear of this yet, Cadet Knox. Dismissed.”
“Sir!” Fairhaven barked as he shot from his seat and before Sabrina rose from hers.
“Did I ask you to speak, Cadet?” the captain asked in a frosty voice, fixing his steely gaze on the cadet first class. “This hearing is concluded without the need for your input. Furthermore, I am directing that the actions of the honor court be officially reviewed concerning the matter involving former cadet Neuheim. Your neck is still on the block for that as well. Now, dismissed, all of you.”
Daily life at the academy restarted following the meeting with Captain Tosu, or it tried to.
An air of distrust settled over the campus, a coldness not related to the mid-November weather. The little jokes and pranks cadets used to lighten the atmosphere were missing. Nobody wanted to step the least little bit out of line while administration had them all under the microscope. The weight of what Sabrina’s protest could cost those cadets who participated hung over their heads, which added to the tension.
The tension rose when the Commandant summoned Sabrina to her office two days later, only a week before Thanksgiving break. She and Linda both checked Sabrina’s service dress before the third class marched to the admin offices. Sabrina kept her head up as she put one foot in front of the other on her way across campus. A few fellow cadets whispered encouragement, but she could feel their fear. Whatever happened to her, the punishment could be theirs also.
The office secretary looked up from her desk as Sabrina stopped in front of it.
“Cadet Third Class Sabrina Knox to see the Commandant, ma’am,” Sabrina said with more confidence than she felt.
“One moment,” the woman replied without offering Sabrina a seat. She lifted her phone and announced the cadet’s presence. She put down the receiver and stood. “Follow me, cadet.” She opened the Commandant’s door after a single knock.
Sabrina strode in, stopped six paces from the large desk, and saluted.
“Ma’am, Cadet Third Class Knox reports!”
The Commandant looked past Sabrina.
“Thank you, Connie.”
The door closed with a soft sound. Sabrina continued to hold her salute until the brigadier general returned it. There was no offer to stand at ease. The commandant picked up a piece of paper from her desk.
Article 94 – Mutiny or sedition
- Any person subject to this chapter who –
- with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance is guilty of mutiny;
- with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or other disturbance against that authority is guilty of sedition;
- fails to do his utmost to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition being committed in his presence, or fails to take all reasonable means to inform his superior commissioned officer or commanding officer of a mutiny or sedition which he knows or has reason to believe is taking place, is guilty of a failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition.
- A person who is found guilty of attempted mutiny, mutiny, sedition, or failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.
She put the paper down on the desk and stared at Sabrina.
“In case you have forgotten, Cadet, you are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Article 94 is just one of the articles we could charge you with following your little stunt.”
Suddenly Sam Jensen’s comment about a yardarm on the T-zo with her name on it wasn’t quite so funny.
“Not only are you open to sanctions, but the career of every other cadet who followed your example is in jeopardy!” The commandant rose from her desk, stalking around it to get in Sabrina’s face. Sabrina felt the heat of the woman’s breath, the moisture of her exhalation.
“You, Cadet Knox, have single-handedly brought the Air Force to the brink of a personnel crisis it has never seen before. Fully seventy-five percent of the Class of 2018 supported you. That is seven hundred twenty-five American firsties who might not receive commissions due to your actions. Seven hundred twenty-five billets that could potentially go unfilled.”
The general stomped back behind her desk and sat.
“You are on probation until the end of the academic year. You will surrender your Superintendent’s List pin to Connie when you leave this office. While I debated approving your suspension from the hockey team, I am holding that in abeyance. The team is too visible right now. You step out of line again, however, and you’re off the team. If you complete the instructor pilot curriculum, receiving your wings and being released to teach is not guaranteed. I don’t want someone who makes questionable decisions flying my cadets around.
“Also, you now have twenty-five hours of walking the Terrazzo to complete before graduation this year. If you let your grades drop and wind up on academic probation, I will personally recommend your dismissal from this academy. You can forget any leadership role during your first or second class years, other than your highly improbable glider instructor pilot position. If I have my way, you will be an unranked cadet until your graduation, if you somehow manage to remain a cadet here that long.
“Get out of my office!”
Sabrina saluted in response to the dismissal.
“GET OUT!”
