Birthdays Part 2

((Part 1))

4/10/93

Amieta slipped quietly into the hydroponics bay. The years hadn't seen her frame fill out, but they had given her grace and she moved silently to stand behind the heavily built man bending over one of the planting trays. She spoke from immediately behind him, "Jan!"

Jan quickly turned, with a slow smile of delighted surprise, "Ami!? Ancestors, you nearly scared the life from me. How are you? How have you been? What are you doing here? Let me take a look at you!"

Jan engulfed her shoulders in his hands and gently pushed her back a step, "I see you're still scrawny. Don't they feed you? And whats this?"

He lifted the insignia of rank at her collar with a chemical-stained hand as she responded with studied nonchalance, "Oh, I've made corporal. Sarge says if it keeps on like this, I'm a shoo-in for OCS." With a grin, "Anyway, they feed me plenty, I just can't seem to bulk up. If I play my cards right though they'll wire me, and it won't matter. I'm getting a transfer to recon along with the new stripe, and that's a good first step. What about you? I see you're not scrawny. How do you even fit through doorways?"

Jan, eyes laughing in a mock frown, patted his modest paunch, though he was really just built wider than the tube child standard, "I turn sideways. This is all mine, now." he gestured around the compartment, then threw Ami an apple, "Here. I may not be a hero of the Watch and mother Ishukone, but in Hydroponics Bay 3A, I'm king. Well, at least if anything goes wrong, I'm the one that gets written up."

"You do good work." Ami said through a bite of apple, "Spirits, doesn't seem like so long, does it? Nine years. I wish..."

"He'd be here if he could Ami. Maybe in a year or two when he is done training they'll let him out."

"I know. It'd just be nice, the three of us together again. Maybe get into a little trouble."

Jan chuckled, "Well, we can go to the 'clash tournament tonight, party in his honor. It's inter-corporate. A bunch from KK are here."

Ami smiled predatorily, "Sounds fun."