On a warm spring day, the three of them spent their lunchtime by the lake behind their dormitory.
“I really don’t want to be separated from you so early, Willy,” Cairns said. “We’ll go to the university department together, right?”
“Relax,” Wilhelmina smiled softly. “Maybe I can’t study intelligence as I like. Annabel won’t be happy with me becoming a female agent. But I can enter the Defense Department and start elective courses in aerospace mechanics next semester.”
“Why does a perfectly good girl always like dealing with dirty mechanical things?” Kains said, pulling down his hat. “Don’t even think about running to Roxston. I’ll chase after and catch you. I mean it.”
Angela called out, “Willy, come quickly and look. I just pulled off a four-link combo!”
Wilhelmina smiled and leaped up, walking towards her.
Warm sunlight spilled across the emerald green lawn, with the May breeze gentle and drowsy. Wild poppies bloomed, their bright red and tender yellow flowers vivid in the spring light. Two pink butterflies danced between the flowers, and a light breeze rippled the water’s silver surface, carrying a faint fragrance.
Wilhelmina took a deep breath, looking up at the azure sky.
Several white traces crossed overhead from advanced defense preparatory or reconnaissance courses during their flying lessons. Small training spacecraft practiced near the ground, flying high enough that onlookers could only see silver streaks across the sky, like stars flickering in daylight.
The girl gazed at the sky, her bright eyes filled with longing. Above that blue expanse was the freedom she had been dreaming of.
Chapter 25
Silver-white training spacecraft flew like lightning from the clouds, diving straight toward the earth. Several spacecraft of the same model from the north also plunged simultaneously. These compact, exquisite crafts cut across the vast sky like silver-white lightning.
As the clouds dispersed, the broad grassland of the military academy training ground was revealed. Half a hundred meters in the air were targets for this competition. High-speed moving objects changed shape and color, firing particle light waves at the spacecraft. Dense cannon fire wove a white curtain in the air.
Though the simulated cannon fire couldn’t damage the spacecraft, hits would automatically simulate damage. Excessive damage would force the spacecraft to land, indicating it had been shot down.
