At Halden, the quiet began to change. The commander held more briefings, the training exercises grew more intense, and the reserve pilots who had been waiting for years began to sense that their wait was coming to an end.
Ning sensed it too.
Whatever the Mekharans had been building, they were very nearly done.
The orders came on a cold, gray morning near the end of the second year, and they came for everyone at once.
The station's commander called the entire reserve unit to the briefing room before the first training session of the day. When the pilots filed in and saw the expression on his face, they knew what he was going to say before he said it.
"Effective immediately," the commander said, "this unit is being activated for deployment to the frontier."
For a moment, nobody in the room moved.
Then the pilots began to look at one another, and Ning saw a dozen different reactions pass across their faces.
