Sabrina
Copyright© 2026 by The Outsider
Chapter 15: Acceptance?
06 August 2016 – The United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado
“Basic Cadet Knox, what is the significance of today’s date?” Cadet Second-Class Devin Fairhaven asked Sabrina as she lined up in the hall outside her room.
“Sir, today is the seventy-first anniversary of the Enola Gay’s mission over Hiroshima.”
“And, how many of your countrymen died during that mission?”
“Sir, none,” Sabrina answered.
“Incorrect, Basic,” Fairhaven said, gloating at her perceived error. “Up to one hundred twenty thousand Japanese died as a result of that mission.”
“Sir, may I make a statement?”
“This oughta be good...” he sneered. “Sure, go ahead.”
“Sir, I am American, not Japanese. There were no American casualties on that mission, so my previous answer is correct ... Sir.”
The tall two-deg glowered at her before stalking off. Sabrina glanced at Mandy and rolled her eyes.
The cadre barked orders, and the basics streamed out of the building to line up outside. They marched from the cadet area to Stillman Field, where they stood in formation before the assembled crowd. Despite the bright sun, the breeze blowing across the parade ground kept the fourth-class cadets somewhat cool as they stood in formation.
Sabrina half-listened to the speeches, wishing they would end soon so she could see her folks. Cadre marched the Class of 2020 across the field to join their academic year squadrons. With that, Sabrina became a member of Cadet Squadron One – ‘Mighty Mach One.’
After the Cadet Wing Pass-in-Review, parents streamed off the stands and across Stillman Field to find their cadets. Juana Mueller wasn’t a member of CS01, so another cadre member put fourth-class uniform shoulder boards on Sabrina as her parents snapped pictures. Keiko Knox gave her youngest a wide smile before gathering her in a long hug.
“I have missed you so, daughter,” she whispered. “Congratulations!”
“Thanks, Mom,” Sabrina responded. Her father grabbed her next.
“Well done, Princess!”
“Thanks, Dad. I still have a long way to go, though.”
“‘A journey of a thousand miles,’ Sabrina...” he reminded her.
“Sounds familiar...” Sabrina remarked.
Alex Knox hugged his little sister, too. He hoisted her into the air as he stood to his full six-foot-one height, a full head taller than Sabrina.
“Good job, Squirt.”
“Alex,” she laughed, “when have you ever called me ’Squirt?’”
“First time for everything, Bina.”
“That’s better.”
Sabrina looked around. She spotted Mandy and led her family over to her roommate. They took plenty of pictures of Mandy receiving her shoulder boards to send to her parents.
“Mom, Dad, Alex, this is Amanda Parnell – Mandy. She’s my roommate this year. Mandy, these are my parents and my old brother, Alex.”
Mandy laughed.
“From the look on Alex’s face, I think you should have said ‘older brother,’ Sabrina. It’s nice to meet all of you.”
“It is nice to meet you as well, Amanda. Would you and Sabrina prefer to eat at Mitchell Hall or somewhere else?”
“Mitchell’s fine with us, Mom,” Sabrina replied after a look at Mandy for confirmation.
“Then let us head there. We do not have much time, or I should say you two do not.”
“Christ, what was Fairhaven’s deal?” Mandy asked Sabrina as they jogged back to Vandenberg Hall after lunch. Four-degs don’t walk anywhere.
“Trying to establish the pecking order, I guess,” Sabrina responded while trying not to be overheard. “All he established is that he’s a dickhead. I can’t believe he pulled that less than an hour before we got our fourth-class shoulder boards...”
“Yeah, but he’s a dickhead who’ll be in charge of us until he graduates.”
“Well, he’s only squadron staff this semester. He’s not our flight leader or anything like that, so maybe we’ll be able to avoid him. Your folks couldn’t come today? I forgot to ask you.”
“No,” Mandy sighed. “Given the choice between coming today, Parents’ Weekend, and Recognition, I told them to come for Parents’ Weekend and in the spring. Otherwise, if they came for all three, we wouldn’t be able to afford for me to fly home at Christmas. I could take the bus, but I shudder at the thought.”
“Yeah.”
“Your parents came out with you for I-Day, and now for A-Day,” Mandy commented. “Are they coming to Parents’ Weekend, too?”
“Yes, and probably Recognition, too. I’ll ask them later to be certain.”
Mandy glanced sidelong at her roommate.
“What are you guys, rich or something? I thought your dad was an ambulance driver and your mom a karate teacher?”
“Do yourself a favor, Mandy: don’t call Dad that,” she laughed. “It was ‘an EMT,’ and it’s now ‘a paramedic.’ And yes, Mom’s a karate instructor. They made some investments before they got married, and those investments paid off, that’s all.”
“What investments?”
Sabrina looked around at the other cadets returning to Vandenberg.
“Let’s wait until we get into our room, okay?”
They didn’t have a chance to talk again until just before dinner. Mandy brought up a topic Sabrina didn’t expect.
“So, your brother is kind of a hunk...” Mandy mentioned as they got ready to leave for Mitchell Hall. Sabrina’s head whipped around to stare at her roommate.
“WHAT?”
“Well, he is! You’ve never noticed that?”
“I guess not. The boys take after both Mom and Dad, though now that I think about it...” Sabrina shivered, “ ... Alex does take after Dad more than Ryan does.”
“And, now that you mention your dad...”
“Oh, don’t you start!” Sabrina laughed. “I had to listen to that all through high school! The worst was when I complained about that to Mom.” Mandy raised an eyebrow. “Mom said others could say all they wanted, but it was her bed he was in every night.”
Sabrina shivered again. Now Mandy laughed.
“And you take after your mom in looks. You two could be sisters, although you have your dad’s eyes. Was Alex an athlete in high school?”
“I guess it’s better we’re talking about my brother again, instead,” Sabrina said, rolling her eyes. “Alex’s answer to your question would be, ‘No, I was a baseball player.’”
“That doesn’t make sense. I saw plenty of baseball players working out at my high school.”
“It’s a quote from a former Red Sox pitcher. He said his marathoner wife was the athlete, and he was just a ballplayer.”
“I hoped we’d luck out and not have to move during Transition,” Mandy said, changing the subject.
“Yeah,” Sabrina answered. “I mean, we moved two doors down the hall from where we were for BCT. It took us two hours to get this room up to SAMI standards! At least we’re not getting another roommate.”
“Right. Hey, I nearly forgot! Those investments you said you’d tell me about after lunch...?”
Sabrina sighed and glanced at the open door. Four-degs couldn’t close their doors until Academic Call to Quarters – ACQ.
“Nobody hears about this, Mandy,” she whispered. “NOBODY!” Mandy nodded. “Mom and Dad have invested heavily in both Neptune’s Forge and Poseidon Power Systems since Day One.”
“Holy...” Mandy gasped. “So, you’re rolling in it!”
“Maybe my parents are, but they don’t live like it. We kids have no access to that money until we graduate college or turn twenty-five. I worked all through high school to pay for as many of my flying lessons as I could. I also asked my parents not to put any money into my Armed Forces Bank account. I want to try to get by on my own with just my paycheck and develop some good habits when it comes to money. Mandy, please ... don’t tell anyone about this, okay? I’m just another cadet.”
“I hear you, Sabrina,” her roommate promised.
Sabrina was surprised to learn she had a big block of personal time the day before the academic year started. Her downtime during the summer had been very structured: learn this, prepare for that, but today was wide open. She walked into the Cadet Gymnasium for a short free-form workout. It was weird preparing for her kata without a gi. Wearing her USAFA PT uniform, she stepped barefoot onto an empty wrestling mat. Her awareness of her surroundings faded as she fell into familiar rhythms.
Once on the track, she settled into a rhythm and allowed herself to zone out. Ten minutes of beating on a heavy bag after her run helped her further decompress. Sabrina was exhausted by the time she put her gloves away, but she was getting used to being exhausted at the Academy. The shower rinsed more of her stress away.
When Sabrina joined the small group of their classmates at Arnold Hall, Mandy asked, “Hey, did you have a good workout?”
“Yeah,” Sabrina said while rolling her neck. “I’m going to get myself a tea. You guys all set?”
“What’d you wind up doing at the gym?” Ryan Snyder asked when she returned.
Ryan grew up in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and hoped to major in Military and Strategic Studies. Sabrina shrugged.
“A light workout: my kata, some running, some work on the heavy bag.”
“And how long does a ‘light’ workout take you?” Ryan asked.
“An hour?” she shrugged again. “An hour and a half?”
Eyebrows around the table rose.
“That’s a ’light’ workout?” Phil Albemarle, a prior-service cadet, asked. He would have considered that a good workout. “What’s a heavy one for you?”
“That, plus weight work or a good sparring session with my mom. Usually both. Those I usually did on weekends. Those could take two and a half hours or more.”
“You a boxer, too?” asked Sarita Jorgensen.
Sarita sported a boxer’s nose on her wide face. The dark hair and complexion inherited from her mother masked her father’s Scandinavian genes.
“Black belt in karate. Mom’s a sixth-level black belt and co-owner of my dojo back home.”
“And you’re going to major in Astronautical Engineering?” Phil asked. “You’re not planning to beat up aliens or something, are you?”
“Hell, no. I’ll fly Space Marines around, so they can beat up the aliens.”
“She wants to be a pilot, like half the people here,” Mandy laughed.
“I’m already a pilot, Mandy, remember? Multi-engine night IFR-rated, too. But, yeah, I want fighters after graduation, and then I want to get into the space program.”
“Ten-year commitment...” Ryan mentioned. “And that starts after you get through training.”
“Right. But, to get where I want to go, I’ll likely be in a lot longer than that.”
“Well, if we’re gonna dream, we need to dream big.”
Fairchild Hall – home to classrooms, science labs, departmental offices, and the cadet medical clinic – was immense. Even with the tour their class received during Transition, Sabrina knew she’d have to carry a map of the building in her backpack in case she got lost. During the tour, she took note of the wind tunnels in some of the labs. Given her current plan to major in either Aeronautical or Astronautical Engineering, she knew she’d spend many hours in those rooms.
The first week of classes passed before Sabrina knew it. Along with mountains of homework, there were mandatory meetings and formations for Cadet Wing, Mighty Mach One, and their flight element. Intramural or club sports took up more ‘free time.’ ACQ was another block of mandatory time, though one set aside to make sure everyone studied. Lights Out was supposed to be at 2300, but Sabrina and Mandy found themselves working later most nights so far. They were still adjusting to the schedule and course load.
“Four years of this?” Mandy groaned after classes ended that first Friday.
“Mile markers, Mandy,” Sabrina replied as she slumped in her desk chair. “We put one foot in front of the other until we reach one, then we do the same for the next one.”
Mandy grunted.
“How did your first Aikido Club meeting go yesterday?”
“Good. I think it’ll be different enough from karate that I won’t get bored starting from scratch. How about Intramurals?”
“Okay,” she replied with a shrug. “It’s good that they’ll change sports a few times during the year.”
Sabrina felt the Aikido Club was going well, at least until Sensei waved her over after their third meeting.
“Cadet Knox, your mastery of the footwork and techniques I’ve demonstrated so far is impressive.”
“Thank you, Sensei,” she replied with a short bow.
“You mentioned that you are a black belt in karate?”
“Hai, Sensei.”
The man nodded.
“This explains much, and more than how quickly you have jumped ahead of your fellow cadets. Karate emphasizes hard strikes to disable your opponent. Aikido advocates the minimum force necessary to resolve the conflict. Where karate teaches how to block your attacker’s strikes, Aikido teaches the redirection of your opponent’s aggression. While your technique is technically correct, you use too much power, Cadet. You must learn to find the correct balance.”
There was that word again – balance.
Five years of not giving a shit what others thought, of concentrating on those who wanted to be friends, had gone out the window when she arrived here. It had disrupted her sense of balance. Sure, Mandy and the other four-degs were friendly, even friends, but she was under no illusion that any upperclassmen were friends. They wouldn’t be until Recognition at least, and maybe not even then.
She bowed to Sensei again, thanked him for his insight, and headed back to Vandenberg Hall. As much as she wanted to let her mind wander and process what Sensei had said, she knew she couldn’t while in public. Letting her mind wander while running was easy. When it came to keeping her situational awareness sharp enough to recognize and greet upperclassmen by name, it wasn’t.
ACQ that night didn’t make her feel any better, either. Used to breezing through her homework, Sabrina had struggled with both the subjects as well as the amount of work required since the start of the academic year. Lights Out at 2300 was still only a goal at this point – 0030 or 0100 had been the norm so far.
Cadre and the rest of the upper-class cadets added to the unrelenting pressure. Sabrina felt constantly on guard in a way that not even waiting for the slavers to do something had. Only once the dorm room door closed was she able to relax ... right before she had to study.
Sabrina hadn’t talked to Helen or Joe since Doolie Day Out. She’d been on the move almost every minute of every day, or at least that’s how it felt. She would have to carve out some time to call them. Maybe during the weekend, when her time wasn’t as tightly scheduled? So far, she’d been using the weekend to keep afloat in her classes.
On the third Sunday of the academic year, she drifted over to the Cadet Chapel after breakfast. The chapel was perhaps the single most iconic building on the USAFA campus. Seventeen gleaming wedge-like sections of steel set against the backdrop of the nearby mountains reached for the Colorado sky at the west edge of the cadet area. She’d been here once, during BCT, when the cadre made sure she knew where everything was.
Standing on the raised plaza at the base of the front stairs, Sabrina gazed up at the spires’ points. Silvery metal highlighted the bright blue summer sky. Inside, she sat near the back of the other cadets attending services in the main sanctuary. Other smaller rooms on the lower levels offered services for different faiths.
Why had she come here, to this building? Church was something her immediate family only did at the holidays or for weddings and funerals. Her dad’s side of the family was still heavily involved with the Greek Orthodox Church, especially those members still living near Enfield, but not hers. With the mix of Buddhist, Orthodox, and agnostic traditions at home in Lancaster, trying to observe all of them would have been difficult.
Is this what her mother meant all those years ago? Was this the balance she encouraged Sabrina to find? Could she become the flexible reed in the wind or the immovable pebble in the stream, letting events flow around her? Should she? Part of her wanted to be impassive, not to care about happenings around her, but she didn’t know how to accomplish that here.
The services ended, and the others filed out, but Sabrina didn’t notice their departure. She sat immobile in her pew. A chaplain’s assistant walked through the sanctuary unnoticed to make sure things were in order, but he left the troubled cadet he found there alone.
“Cadet?”
A man’s voice startled Sabrina out of her deep thoughts, causing her to look up. A man somewhere between her father’s and grandfather’s generations sat in the pew in front of her. He wore a short-sleeve shirt with a white clerical collar and a gentle smile. Sabrina vaguely remembered him being the celebrant for the service she had sat through.
“Sir?”
“Are you all right, Cadet?”
“Yes, Sir,” she replied automatically. “At least, I think so...”
The man raised an eyebrow in her direction.
“You’re right, Sir,” Sabrina replied with a sigh. “It’s a ‘no.’” He nodded.
“I see you’re a cadet fourth-class. Is this place finally getting to you?”
Sabrina hesitated.
“Maybe?”
“‘Maybe?’ Cadet, this place is like a pressure cooker on steroids, and I’ve been here long enough to know. If it weren’t getting to you, I’d be surprised.”
Sabrina shrugged.
“Can I take a guess?” he asked. “You’re used to being the best, back wherever it is you came from. Having all these other cadets around you who are the same way as competition is unusual, and it’s throwing you off your game. Am I right?”
Sabrina’s shoulders slumped further. She nodded.
“What you’re going through isn’t unusual, Cadet,” the minister pointed out. “I see it every year. You’re the kind of people all the service academies attract in droves. Is there any one thing bothering you the most?”
“I’m not sure I can say exactly what it is, Sir.”
“Not even how four-degs get treated for most of their first year?”
“I’m not a fan, even if I understand why they do it.” The man raised an eyebrow again. “They want to see us react under pressure, to see if we’ll break or if we’ll perform.” He nodded.
“And why did you come here, Cadet?”
“To get where I want to go, Sir.”
“Which is where?”
“Space.”
“The Final Frontier?”
Sabrina suppressed a snort. The question reminded her of what she told herself on I-Day: Be bold. The memory burned through her brain. The older man saw the change in her demeanor.
“You just had an epiphany, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Which was what?”
“Boldly I go...”
“I like it,” he said with a nod. “Not a direct quote, but it captures the essence of the original quote.”
“It’ll make a good tattoo at some point, too...”
“If that’s your thing,” he shrugged.
Sabrina let out a deep sigh.
“Better?”
“Yes, Sir, thank you.”
“You have a sponsor family?” Sabrina nodded that she did. “Have you seen them since Doolie Day Out?” Sabrina looked embarrassed.
“Um, no, Sir.”
“I’m sure they understand if they’ve been in the sponsor program any length of time.”
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