Nine Months Later
Alexa glanced up as Reg Voelkner greeted her. “Mind if I sit?” he asked, holding onto Alexa’s chair as he tried to steady himself against the rocking motion of the train.
“Sure,” she said folding the newspaper and pushing her dishes aside.
“You excited?” he asked.
She nodded. The eight months at the parabatallion unit felt like they were over in the blink of an eye. She had used every opportunity she could to get into the sky, completing more than three hundred jumps, and had graduated top of her class. She was sorry to go, but Laiveaux had decided he wanted her to learn to dive. He was truly putting her career on fast forward.
“Wish I could have done another couple of jumps, though.”
“You’d never jump out of another plane in your life if it depended on the general,” Voelkner said with a chuckle.
She laughed. She stretched her arms then massaged her leg muscles. The fitness regime had intensified. If she thought they would let off on the physical training, she was sorely mistaken. The Legion liked to keep their troops trained and battle-ready. They believed a bored troop would get into trouble, so they kept them in a permanent state of fatigue.
She smiled and popped a piece of toast in her mouth. “Enough about me, are you excited to join the French Marine Commandos?”
He shrugged. “Not really.”
She frowned. “What do you mean, it’s an honor to be chosen—“
“I didn’t exactly volunteer, Lieutenant.”
“What?”
“Laiveaux commanded me to go.”
“Laiveaux, why?”
He sighed. “He said I needed to keep an eye on you. He was afraid you may get hurt or something.”
“Hurt? How?”
Voelkner chuckled. “You have developed the reputation of being quite the daredevil, Lieutenant Guerra.”
She waved a hand. “Bah, that’s rubbish. I’m going to end up babysitting you, Voelkner.”
He chuckled, glancing at her shyly. “That better be a promise, Lieutenant.”