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"F.T.L."

by Raska Kannagami

Like a lot of kids from my neck of the woods, I grew up in a Spacer town. The town's entire economy revolved around the space industry. The majority of the parents in my town were ground crew or something similar - not true Spacers - but was different with my family. Both dad and mom are retired pilots, and they naturally were very..."suggestive"...about me following in their footsteps.

Thing is, I don't like the idea of flying, I don't like spaceships...I. Don't. Like. Space. Don't get me wrong, or think me un-patriotic. I love the space industry, I love the fact that my country has the best space program in the world, I love all the math and science and engineering that goes into space travel, and Dog bless them, I love my parents. Which is why I'm shipping off to take the flight school entrance test like a good little pup.

My parents are lucky they have connections, as I would never have gotten into flight school on my own. The entrance test alone comes with a six-hundred-dollar fee just to take it. The theoretical part - you know, that math-and-science test that's over a thousand questions long and makes you doubt the quality of your education - _that_I could ace...it's the physical I'm dreading.

There is a reason Spacers are in such good shape. Space is not a nice place, and if one's going to be a Spacer, well, one has to have a physique like a god. The International FTL Fleet sends you through training that's harsher than boot camp before they let you even so much as look at the inside of a cockpit. That is only if they decide to take you. If you don't pass the entrance test with an outstanding score in both the physical and on the exam, you'll never see lift-off.

The stress is incredible. I've known a couple kids who washed out of the exam or out of flight school...they killed themselves rather than tell their families. As the van I was riding in pulled up to the building where I'd be taking the test, I hope I won't be one of those kids.

I got out of the van, and my driver drove off, presumably to pick up another applicant. I was left to figure out on my own where I needed to go. Since the door in front of me was the only entrance I could see, I went in. Inside, the building was...well, it reminded me of a hospital. The walls were stark white, the floors were simple, white linoleum, and there was even that slightly acrid scent of antiseptic permeating the space. Directly ahead of me was a sleek stainless steel desk at which sat a Jackal in a handsome business suit. I went over to the desk and told the Jackal - who was clearly a receptionist of some kind - that I was here for the FTL exam.

"Yeah?" he replied, not looking up from his computer, "Go down that hall, take the stairs at the end to the third floor, and then the exam room is the third on the left from the stairwell. You're early, so you might have to wait a bit for the test proctor to come unlock the door."

I nodded and thanked him before heading up. I was nervous as all hell, and since there was nothing else to do but chew on my worry, I didn't exactly help myself in that department. I paced for a few minutes before realizing that, if I spent all my energy now, I'd _definitely_fail the physical, which only made me worry more. I needed to calm down, or I wouldn't be able to do my best...but, really, who can relax just by knowing they should? If anything, trying to relax only made me more stressed.

Luckily, I wasn't alone for very long. It was perhaps fifteen minutes after I had gotten there that another prospective pilot arrived. She was a 'yote, like me, and she was pretty, in a geekish sort of way. She wore an ankle-length skirt with a matching sky blue blouse, and had simple glasses that suited her well. She almost looked like a librarian, but she was around my age. "Hi!" She greeted me as she approached, "You're here for the exam, too?"

I nodded. She gave me a pretty smile, "That's cool. You nervous? I know I am."

I returned her grin, a little sheepishly, "Yeah. My parents are both pilots so...they really want me to pass."

She nodded. "I can see how that would put your stomach in knots. _My_parents aren't, like, breathing down my neck or anything about it, I've always wanted to be a pilot."

"I think I'll do well on the exam - I mean, I hope I do well - but I know I won't pass the physical, I just know it," I tell her, crossing my arms and looking away.

I'm startled by her paw on my shoulder, "Aw, don't be like that. You look like you're in pretty good shape! I mean, I'm dreading the physical, too, but I'm going to try my best at it. That's the only thing any of us can do, really, try our damndest."

My ears blush pink and I fidget under her touch. "I guess, but even my best might not be good enough."

She got this steely, determined expression on her face, "Sure, but how sure are you of what your 'best' actually is? You might not_think_ you can do something, but if you never try it, you'll never be certain. I know you can do it, 'cause I can do it. It'll be hard, but we'll ace the exam and pass the physical, then we will go to flight school."

I blushed again, "I wish I had your confidence."

She laughed, a sweet, melodic thing, and patted my shoulder, "A lot of it's just bravado, honestly, but the way I see it, if I can act confident, I can be confident."

Managing a weak smile, I nodded, "So underneath, you're a nervous wreck?"

She returned the smile, "Of course!" We laughed together, and my nerves seemed to vanish.

We chatted about our parents for a few minutes, me telling her about how my parents were less-than-subtle about their dreams for me as a pilot, and her telling me how her parents seemed to care less. "They couldn't even be bothered to wish me luck when I left! I was like 'Mom, Dad, I'm leaving for the FTL exam!'...and you know what they said? Mom was like, 'Pick up some milk on your way back, dear' Milk!? As if I'd be allowed to get that driver guy to pull over for some milk!"

I chuckled, "What'd your dad say?"

"Nothing," she replied, crossing her arms with a sigh, "And to me, that's worse than being oblivious."

"At least your parents weren't actively trying to prevent you," said the Dog - whose breed I couldn't quite pin down - emerging from the stairwell and walking toward us. He spoke with a slight drawl that was almost a purr. The Dog looked like he'd just got out of a fight; he was sporting an impressively swollen right eye, his nose had been bleeding, and he was freshly missing one of his dog-teeth. His knuckles on both paws bore scrapes. I made the connection between his condition and his statement easily, "Your dad did that to you?"

His ears reddened and he looked away, providing all the answer needed.

"Why would he do that?" The she-'yote asked, aghast. I realized that I still didn't know her name.

"He said that space was no place for a fa -- I mean farmer," the Dog replied, giving me an odd glance as he changed whatever he'd been about to say.

"That's bullshit! What does being a farmer have to do with getting into FTL?" the she-'yote exclaimed.

He shrugged, "What, indeed?"

There was an uncomfortably awkward silence between us, until the Dog held his paw out to me, "Where are my manners? My name's Finn."

I took his paw and shook, "I'm Jesse." His sudden grin surprised me, "Nice to meet you. And who's your lady friend?"

"My name is Sarah," the she-'yote replied. Finn let go of my paw to gently take hold of hers, "Enchanted, Miss Sarah." Sarah giggled.

The test proctor - a greying wolf - arrived about five minutes later, carrying a clipboard that looked to be just about at the limit of its capacity. He looked at the three of us incredulously, "This is everyone? Seriously?"

When we looked at each other and shrugged, he sighed, "Alright, then, I guess we'll get started My name is Mr. White. I'll be supervising your entrance examinations. Now, as you may know, the entrance exam is 'split' into an academic exam and a physical. What you might _not_know is that the two are actually tested simultaneously."

Finn cocked his head to the side, the classic canine gesture of inquisitiveness, "How?"

Mr. White smiled, "Well, that would be telling. We have a few things to go through before we get to that, anyways. First of all, I need you three to tell me your names, last name first. Ladies first."

"Habraw, Sarah," Sarah replied. Mr. White wrote her name down. Turning to Finn, he nodded.

Finn's ears reddened, "Huckleberry, Finn." Mr. White snickered. Sarah asked him what was the matter.

"Huckleberry Finn is a character in a very old story, from the...geez, probably the late nineteenth century," he explained.

Crossing his arms, Finn whuffed, "Mom was a English Literature major, my dad's surname is 'Huckleberry'...Mom couldn't resist. I remember one time, when Dad wasn't drunk, he told me that she had been planning on calling me 'Finn' almost from the moment she found out she was pregnant."

"Well, I think it's a pretty cool name," I told him, "Besides, only old guys like Mr. White would get the reference, anyways." Finn flashed me a grateful smile, apparently he was a bit sensitive about his unusual name.

"What about you, 'yote?" Mr. White asked me.

"Fox, Jesse."

After he wrote my name down, Mr. White unclipped a folder from his clipboard and opened it up to hand us each a thick packet. I saw Finn and Sarah's eyes each go wide reading the cover, and I'm sure mine were just as wide. Across the cover in neat block letters was written this:

TOP SECRET // IFTLF // ORCON / REL TO US, IFTLF, IFTLF-APL[FE]

THIS DOCUMENT IS CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET

UNAUTHORIZED POSSESSION, USE, OR DISTRIBUTION MAY BE PUNISHABLE BY FINE OR IMPRISONMENT NO LESS THAN $6,000 USD OR 25 YEARS

Immediately below this was another warning.

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF THE INTERNATIONAL FTL FLEET

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS PROHIBITED

Finn looked up at Mr. White, "Are we even allowed to read this?"

The wolf rolled his eyes, "Yes, because you are going to fill that packet out, and then it's going to be tucked away in a classified location, in a classified drawer, locked by a classified key, and accessible only by those who have the proper clearance."

Sarah pointed the first line out to Finn, "This means 'originator-controlled', meaning that the people who made this document are allowed to distribute it. The next part means that it can only be distributed to the appropriate members of the United States government, to the appropriate members of the IFTLF, and to the IFTLF applicants who fill it out."

Mr. White regarded her with half-lidded eyes, "Very good, Ms. Habraw. You are correct. But I wonder how you know all this."

She smiled sweetly at him, "I read a lot."

Rolling his eyes, Mr. White sighed, "Anyways, fill that out to the best of your knowledge. Sign and date everywhere it asks you to do so, and when you're done, put your file in that file cabinet over there. I'll be back when you're all done."

"We're supposed to fill these out without desks...or pens?" I asked him.

He gave us a toothy smile, "Improvise a solution." He then promptly left, too quickly for us to follow.

Finn and I exchanged looks, "Improvise a solution? The hell does that mean?" he asked me.

"It's obviously a test...of our ability to improvise. Spacers need to be able to quickly solve problems, with limited resources at their disposal," Sarah said knowingly.

I nodded. It made sense, but how were we supposed to 'improvise', when we had no resources to do so from? I asked her as much, but surprisingly, it was Finn who came up with a solution, "Guys, we're in an office building. There _have_to be supplies somewhere." He began walking further down the hall.

Sarah and I quickly ran after him, "And what if these supplies are behind a locked door?"

Finn smiled, "We'll improvise a solution."

It quickly became apparent that the hallway we were in was very long. It stretched on and on and on without any further doors. We'd been walking for a couple minutes before Finn stopped, "This is pointless! The only doors in this hallway are the four by the stairwell."

"Well, why didn't you check those, then?" Sarah admonished him.

So, we went back down the hall until we reached the first door from the stairwell, and found it locked. "So, what's your plan now, hotshot?" Sarah asked Finn, crossing her arms.

"Improvise. Step aside," Finn replied, and when both Sarah and I had stepped away from the door, he put his shoulder into it. The door opened with a loud slam, and Finn waited a few moments at the doorway, his ears perking and swiveling in all directions.

I asked him what he was waiting for. "I'm listening for alarms," he said, "It's an old habit."

As we entered the newly-opened room, I heard Sarah scoff, "You regularly break into places?"

Finn didn't bother to reply, but his silence spoke more than words. The room itself was strange. At first glance, it was a regular office, and sure enough there were pens in one of the desk drawers. But everything - except the pens - was fake. The terminal on the desk was not plugged in nor online. The phone, similarly, was a plastic mock-up, though Sarah said she'd had the distinct sense that the phone was 'listening' when she'd picked it up and put it to her ear. The 'files' in the drawers were either empty or filled with gibberish code. There were no pictures of somebody's family, nor any of the regular accoutrement of an office. It was more like a movie set of an office instead of the real thing.

All three of us sniffed around the place, our original purpose temporarily forgotten. Everything smelled new. "Curiouser and curiouser," Sarah remarked, soon after which Finn agreed.

"Lets go back into the hall, we have our pens. This room creeps me out," Finn admitted, suiting his own words by leaving the room. Sarah and I quickly joined him. Even though none of us could pin down why, the room had a...well, a sort of ominous feel to it.

We were silent after leaving the room, and none of us talked as we filled out our forms. The forms were very boring, besides which I'm sure I'm not allowed to talk about them. "Top Secret" and all that. They were mostly release documents of one form or another. We got through them rather quickly. Finn was, surprisingly, the first to finish, I was the last.

Almost as soon as I put my packet into the file cabinet, Mr. White reappeared. "Impressive," he said, looking at his watch, "It took you three all of ten minutes to break into a locked room."

"You told us to improvise, so we did," Finn said, a little proudly. Mr. White regarded him with a cool stare, "Mr. Huckleberry, do not mistake me. I was impressed that it took you so_long_ to do so, not that you did so."

That deflated Finn a little, and Mr. White turned to Sarah and I, "Ms. Habraw, Mr. Fox, I would like to also remind you that, if The Fleet decides to take you three, it will be as a group. If one of you fails our tests today, none of you will be chosen to join. So, in the future, please try to restrain your comrade from shouldering any more doors. There is such a thing as picking locks, you know."

"We did what you wanted us to - we improvised! And now you're telling us we improvised wrong?" I asked him, putting an arm around Finn, "None of us know how to pick locks, we wouldn't have been able to pass your little test if Finn hadn't taken initiative."

Mr. White smiled, "Good, you're standing up for your teammate. That's what we want to see. Now, if we can get over this bit of drama, let's move on to the next 'little test'."

He led us deeper into the building, first up the stairs and then to an elevator, which we rode down. There was no indication of what floor the doors opened out on, because there was only one button inside the elevator, and no display. Regardless, when the doors opened, it was into a spaceship.

Well, I misspoke. It was not a spaceship..._per se..._but a simulation of one. There were readouts and displays and the place was cramped and whatever wasn't being taken up by a computer terminal or some other piece of equipment was being used as storage. There were even viewports, which only showed the gleaming metal walls of the actual hallway. The lighting was dim and red, and I could feel my eyes adjusting to the dimmer conditions. The place smelled industrial, that mixture of metal, plastic, and machine oil that I'd always found both comforting and terrifying. I immediately disliked the entire place.

The three of us got out of the elevator, but Mr. White merely leaned against the doorway, blocking the elevator from closing.

"This test is a bit more exciting than the first one. More so for me because I get to spring it on you without warning. Ciao," the old wolf informed us, just before he stepped back into the elevator. The elevator doors closed quickly, leaving us alone in the "spaceship".

"Wait! Dammit!" I swore, hitting the elevator doors. Sarah rolled her eyes at me, "That's not going to help us any."

Finn agreed with her, apparently, "Let's see if we can figure out what this test is."

We didn't have time to. There was a loud sound of suction, accompanied by an extremely sudden pressure change. Sarah was the first to realize what had happened. "They vacuumed out the air outside the mock-up," she said, "As if we were in space."

Finn scoffed, "Not exactly like we're in space. If we were in space, there'd be no grav--oof!" No sooner did he begin to say 'gravity' than the gravity in the fake ship seem to turn off, sending him sprawling in surprise. Sarah and I fared no better, yelping like puppies as all sensation of weight vanished. "So we're in zero-g, too?...greeaaat," I sighed. I kept as still as I could, trying not to push off from anything and send myself flying - floating, really - in the opposite direction.

"I feel sick," Sarah said, and Finn looked like he was trying to not dry heave. Zero-g might sound cool and all, but when the body's exposed to it, it has a reaction similar to seasickness. Unless you're used to it, like I was.

Finn looked up at me, "Why aren't you queasy?"

I shrugged, "Dad used to take me on parabolic flights...him 'n mom really wanted me to be a Pilot like them, so they did everything they could to prime me for it. Besides, space-sickness is like seasickness, some people recover quicker than others. "

I reached down and held my paw out to Finn, "Grab hold of that workstation, and hold on as I pull you up, that way we don't go flying." The Dog did as I told him to, and seemed to recover a little from the space-sickness, or at least he was hiding it better now.

Sarah could not say the same, her eyes were tightly closed and clutching her muzzle like she was going to throw up. I gently pushed off the ground with my toes and artfully hopped over to her, ignoring Finn's muttered "show off".

I put my paws on her shoulders, "Are you alright?"

She shook her head, "No. Yes! I mean...this is weird, and disorienting and all...but I'll get over it soon, just give me a minute."

"You gonna open your eyes?" I asked, crossing my arms.

"Only when they stop lying to me."

I snickered, "The illusions are always fun. My favorite is the one where you feel like you're standing on the ceiling, then you realize you're on the floor, and then you're on the ceiling again..."

She opened her eyes and glared at me, "I would hit you, but I'd go floating backwards."

I smiled, "Just keep reminding yourself that your feet are 'down'."

"Good advice," Finn said, cautiously trying to get across the room without crashing into a wall. He came to a stop by one of the viewports and peered out, "How're they doing all this? I mean, I can see how they're causing a vacuum outside the 'ship', but_antigravity_?"

"Well, apparently they have technologies they're not telling the public about...which is why those forms were top secret and all that," Sarah reasoned. She seemed less ill when she was focused on a problem.

I shrugged, "It doesn't matter how they do it. They're doing it. Let's look around a bit more. Maybe we can figure out why we're here."

I had the easiest time making my way through the 'ship', but the other two caught on quickly to moving in zero-g. When we reached what appeared to be the cockpit, Sarah took the time to sit down in one of the pilot's seats, "Okay, so do either of you have any idea of what this test is supposed to be?"

"Maybe it's just a test to see how well we deal with microgravity," Finn suggested. I gave him an odd look. The word 'microgravity' seemed out-of-place when spoken in his gentle drawl.

Sarah nodded thoughtfully, "Maybe."

Suddenly, there was a sharp crack! followed by a high-pitched whine and hiss. The readout screens around us all suddenly lit up red, with big unmistakable letters across them: LOST PRESSURE!

There was also a prompt:

FTL.training_module//cockpit$_orders >

"What the hell does that mean, Sarah?" I asked, ashamed of the puppyish whine in my voice.

"We're losing air. The shipboard computer is asking for orders," she replied, and though she was outwardly calm her, voice wavered. She knew just as well as I did what an emergency this was. We were losing air.

"Tell it to seal all the bulkheads, if it can," I told her, "That way, we can maintain pressure throughout the rest of the ship, and only the area where the leak actually is will lose air."

She didn't question me, but instead turned the pilot's seat around and started typing at the terminal. She first typed the 'help' command, and got a dizzying list of possible commands. She seemed to know what she was doing, though, because a few seconds later she had figured out what command she needed to issue.

The door behind us slammed shut and sealed with a snap-hiss. Throughout the 'ship' we could hear the others doing the same. I leaned over Sarah's seat, "Okay, now divert the air to our location, sealing all the ventilation in the other compartments."

"What if the leak is in this compartment, Jess?" Finn asked. He'd called me 'Jess', which was a girl's name. I normally didn't let people call me that, but somehow I didn't mind as much. Maybe it was his accent.

"First of all, if the leak were here, we'd already be feeling the effects of oxygen depletion. Plus, redirecting all the air to here gives us more time to figure out our options. Trust me on this, guys, my parents taught me this stuff from day one."

Sarah nodded and I could see she had already typed the command to divert the air. Finn nodded, too, "I'll admit this isn't my comfort zone. And you seem to know what you're about."

"What is your comfort zone?" I asked him, "Sarah's good with computers, apparently. I'm...I was taught spacefaring from the time I was old enough to walk...what's your specialty?"

He smiled sheepishly, "I'm good with machines. I actually wanted to be a mechanic...but, I took that aptitude test thing in school...and then FTL sent me a letter inviting me to come to Flight School."

"What kind of score did you get?" Sarah asked, glancing back at him briefly, "I got a 77."

He blushed. Brightly, "I got a 98."

Both Sarah and I were dumbfounded. Not that we didn't think Finn was smart enough. He wouldn't be here if he weren't smart. But a 98? On the FTL-sponsored aptitude test, which was admittedly harder than it had any right to be...? That meant that only two percent of the population was smarter than him. He was a genius. Small wonder FTL wanted his tail.

He ran his paw through his headfur, still grinning shyly, "It's not a big deal. I got lucky. On a lot of the questions, I just guessed. Anyways we have bigger things to deal with right now."

"Right," I said, my mind snapped back to our situation, "Sarah, can you call up a map of this training ship?"

She nodded, "I think so. It might take me a minute or two to figure out the commands to do so, though. Sit tight."

She outdid herself. Less than a minute after she'd said 'sit tight', a detailed map - actually, it looked like a 3D blueprint - of the ship appeared on all the monitors. "Find out where they keep EVA equipment - spacesuits and the stuff that goes with them."

"Apparently there should be a two sets here, in this room. They're for the pilots," Sarah replied, reading the information from her monitor, "Additionally, there should be an EVA airlock not too far from here...a little ways back the way we came, and then a right. I'd assume there would be suits there as well."

"Okay, let's see if we can find the suits here, first. If not, we'll have to get to the airlock."

Finn had already been looking for the suits when Sarah had mentioned there were ones in the cockpit with us, and he located them almost as soon as I finished speaking. He held up two stainless steel briefcases marked 'EVA', "These?" he asked. When I nodded and said 'good job', his tail wagged.

I took one of the briefcases, trying to remember how a suit was put on. Dad had explained it to me...somewhat. Mostly he'd gone on a lecture of how incredibly dangerous the environment of space was. No doubt, I was afraid of spaceflight for exactly that reason.

The FTL Fleet used three types of spacesuit. The skintight, lightweight working suit, which was worn at all times in case of sudden depressurization of a compartment. It was designed more as a safety garment than an actual working spacesuit, though, and would not be recommended for Extra Vehicular Activity use. The second type was the EVA suit, or the "Ironman" suit. It was basically a suit of lightweight, environmentally contained, power-armor. There was actually very little recognizable metal involved. The entire suit was some kind of metal fabric, with thousands of nano-servos embedded in it. An EVA suit was power-armor in the sense that it could help a wearer lift up to one hundred times their own body weight with ease.

The third was the traditional 'spacesuit', and unlikely to be contained in the cases that Finn had found. It was for the better, anyways, as a full suit took a while to get into. The only advantage the traditional suits had over the newer and lighter EVA suit was that it had, as my dad had put it, 'all the bells and whistles'.

Upon opening the case, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was indeed an EVA suit, and upon unfolding it found that it was even of a size to fit me or Finn - or even Sarah. We all had basically the same height and build. I turned to Finn, "Strip."

His jaw dropped, "Whaaa?"

"You can't fit your street clothes in an EVA suit. They're skin tight, literally," I told him.

He sighed, "I was taught it was mighty crass to undress in front of a lady."

"That's sweet of you, Finn, but I grew up with three brothers. Trust me, I've seen it before," Sarah said, "But if it bothers you, I'll make sure not to look while you boys change."

I was already unbuttoning my shirt and shrugging it off, and then taking off the tee-shirt underneath it. I looked up at Finn who was staring at me wide-eyed, his ears were once again pinkish in a blush. He was so shy, it was adorable. I smiled at him, in what I hoped was a reassuring way as I undid my pants and slid them off.

Now, I'm not exactly modest about my body, but I knew I'd probably get 'excited' if I paraded around naked for too long, which would probably embarrass Finn further, so I was quick to slip on the matte black suit and zip the front up. The suit at first seemed too big for me, with it only being tight at the wrist cuffs, around the ankle, and at the neck. I showed Finn the small button on the left wrist that activated the suit's compression, and the fabric seemed to shrink itself to contour my body perfectly. Now, only my head and my tail weren't covered by the material.

Finn still hadn't started undressing, and what's more, he was holding his bundle of suit in front of his crotch, and his ears were brighter than before. I figured he had gotten one of those inexplicable erections we young males are prone to, and was embarrassed about it. I flashed him another reassuring smile and then leaned over Sarah's seat, my back to Finn so he could have some privacy, "Okay, Sarah, here's what I need you to do...the ship must have a way of monitoring pressure throughout. Find out what compartment has the lowest air pressure right now, since you've sealed them all off from each other, the one with the least air in it should be where our leak is."

"What are we gonna do about the leak once we get there?" Finn asked. I glanced back at him. He'd gotten into the suit quickly, apparently all he'd been wearing were the overalls and a tee-shirt. The suit left no mistake as to his gender, that was putting it kindly. While my maleness wasn't exactly invisible under the suit, mine wasn't half-erect either. I pretended not to notice, "You know how to weld?"

He nodded, "If I have the right equipment."

"What do you need?" Sarah asked, already typing into her terminal.

"Depends on what type of welding I'll be doing...they each require different equipment."

"Well, you might be able to find something in the EVA airlock. It says here there is also equipment for performing repairs there," she replied. There was a pause as another message popped up on her screen. "...but we have a problem. Apparently our air generators are failing. Our oxygen is getting depleted, and if it goes low enough, we'll asphyxiate."

"I thought you diverted the air to the cockpit here, shouldn't we have some time before our oxygen gets too low?" Finn asked.

Sarah turned her chair around and nodded, "Yes, but I've only sealed the ventilation so the ship's generated atmosphere only comes here instead of having to supply the entire ship. With the generators failing, sealing the compartments and redirecting the air_does_ give us time, but --"

"Only as long as we don't break the seal," Finn finished for her, his quick mind having already reached the conclusion, "How do the generators work? Why are they failing?"

"Apparently the ones left on this training module are the type that pull carbon dioxide from the air and do...some chemical thing...and release the oxygen. However, they were never meant to... operate in...a vacuum...Finn, you're a genius!"

While Finn preened, I looked from one to the other, "What?"

"The generators are failing because they're not. They're right next to the leak, and the air they're generating is getting sucked out of the ship," the farmboy explained, smirking because I hadn't realized it sooner.

I turned to Sarah, "Where are the generators located?"

Twenty minutes later, we had found and sealed our 'leak', an external bulkhead that had been opened into the vacuum. While Finn was somewhat disappointed he wouldn't get to do any welding, we were all relieved when Sarah checked the ship's systems and reported that our oxygen supply was leveling out and that we no longer had any warnings of pressure loss. Not long after she told us that, the gravity returned, sending us all sprawling. Moments after_that,_ there was the sound of air being pumped back into the chamber.

By the time Mr. White arrived, Finn and I had already changed out of the EVA suits. "Very good, kids. Excellent, in fact. Most other groups just figure the whole thing is a simulation and believe that the government wouldn't possibly allow FTL applicants to be placed in true danger. Those types tend to asphyxiate. They don't remember to read the fine print on the things they sign."

"Wait, so you mean we really were in danger, there?" Sarah asked, incredulous. When Mr. White nodded, she laughed, "So I take it we passed your test, by virtue of not being dead?"

"Miss Habraw, the three of you passed our test because you worked together, you kept calm under extraordinarily frightening circumstances, you assessed your situation properly and devised a concrete plan to deal with it, even if it turned out to be unnecessary. You also adjusted to microgravity rather well, which is a bonus for us. In short, kids, welcome to the FTL Fleet. You ship off to Flight School on Monday."

"I thought there would be a physical," I said, slightly confused.

Mr. White smiled, "There hasn't been a physical examination since the NASA days. Nowadays, we treat things the way the military does. We know that our country's best and brightest might not be as fit as they should be. We designed Flight School to shape them into the best they could be, mentally and physically. Your parents probably let you believe there would be a physical because...well, they're technically not allowed to tell you otherwise. Those forms you signed are effective for life."

I nodded. I guess I should have been happy, but I wasn't. I didn't want to be a pilot. Space scared me. The only reason I'd stayed calm during the test was because in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn't the real thing. I even said so, aloud. What I didn't expect was for Finn to put his arm around me, "Sarah and I wouldn't have been able to do this without you here."

With that simple statement, he got rid of my doubts. Besides, if I refused the offer to join FTL, they'd be denied the opportunity as well. I'd only known Finn and Sarah for a few hours, but they were my friends, and I wouldn't let my friends down.

I looked at Mr. White, "Monday, you say?"