------------- Tales of The Raptors – Starship Trooper

When she was brought before the commander, yet again, she was sure this was it. It was all over. She’d had the occasional fight, sure. She’d gotten a bit too familiar with most of the ship’s crew, naturally. She’d been the source of rumors of impropriety and conduct unbecoming an officer of the ADL, check. Most of those were true, by the way. But she was without doubt an ace pilot. No one would deny she was a bad assed marine who’d learned her craft with the Carellonian Royal Marines fighting off Sahaugin raids sailing up and down the Silver Coast. When push came to shove, she could demonstrate that she had been trained by a master in the arts of the Viridian Gladiators. As a graduate of Kar’Dhaer, she understood technology and paratechnology and the difference between them,… and she could hack almost any computer known to the Antarian Republic, including Neogi and Illithid Shadow tech. So why was she always in trouble? She also happened to be a True Herm and a trained Erotic, with the assets to prove it. As all her commanders knew, she just couldn’t keep it in her pants.

So, when Sub-Lieutenant Sasha Regan was called before the commander of the SS Strike Eagle, she knew that this was the second mark, and the ADL only allowed one screw up. Her commission and her life in space, off-world, would be done. She’d be just another mercenary back home, a failed star traveler who couldn’t cut the rigors of a military life in the vacuum of space. Maybe she’d take up with a Venture Company. They were always looking for a girl with many skills, and,… ahem,… talents. When she walked out of the meeting with the Captain, she wasn’t sure what to think.

She hadn’t been booted out of service, she’d been promoted. Flight Lieutenant Sasha Regan was now to be the special attaché to one such band of mercenaries. But these were not just any Venture Company. And they didn’t just include anybody. She had been assigned because she knew two of them. One had been her instructor pilot on her last check ride out of the Kar’Dhaer aerodrome, before she’d been accepted for ADL service. The other, she’d done her makeup backstage at numerous plays of the famous Malakai Grayves. The one was now the Master Kar’Thane, Gwendolyn Pleiades. The other was the famous erotic actress, Miri Vyron. Sasha was being assigned to the Night Raptors as their liaison and pilot for a secret mission. She was just hoping that she’d get out of this assignment alive. Perhaps that was her CO’s plan all along,… assign her to the Night Raptors, knowing full well that was a guaranteed death sentence. Or maybe not. Maybe she’d get to spend some quality time with Miri when it was all said and done,… assuming she could get some shore leave planet side.

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