'Women hold up half the Sky'

"I don't understand. Have I done anything wrong?"

Dong Shen Yin was rarely ever called in for anything. But there her section commander was, sitting behind the metallic grey desk with her tablet, eyes hidden under those impenetrable black sunglasses, worn against sunlight that never penetrated the Luna Nation outer core.

The young woman sat nervously in the small chair facing her SC. Many thoughts went through her mind about what the possible infraction had been.

Was it that she did not talk to her fellow sisters enough after exercises?

Could it be that they knew of her extracurricular activities of drawing and writing in her old fashioned paper notebook?

Maybe it was her recent trouble with the physical exams?

That was it. She wanted to say something preemptive to SC Tsuen but that was not something that ever worked. Mainly she wanted to just break the silence and the blank face of the woman in front of her. Life on Luna was like being commanded by and having to figure out what these ‘living stones' were thinking. You lived on a giant rock and then your superiors were seemingly derived from the same substance.

"Ensign Dong, you have not done anything wrong. You are a far above average student. This meeting is in relation to your recent physical problems on the PE exams."

But then what she said penetrated.

"I realized that something was not right, Section Commander. I thought maybe it was lack of sleep, I know I need to stop reading when its lights out, I just—"

"You have a heart defect, Ensign Dong. The implant that was placed to correct it at your birthing is starting to wear down due to its organic nature."

Dong Shen Yin did not answer. She did not acknowledge. The words came out of SC Tsuen's mouth as a form without content, sounds. The idea that had been communicated bypassed the verbal medium but had entered Dong Shen Yin's brain like a needle; a long, scary looking and painful needle; a distant memory that seemed to remerge from that dark corner in her brain.

She looked down and then up with a look of shock. There was no need for the SC to repeat what she had said.

Dong Shen Yin's readings of long dead German philosophers came back to her immediately: the Germans, the indirect architects of the Luna Nation.

Despite its Chinese character and embellishments it had been mainly developed along the lines of the long gone historical Prussian State. History was always fascinating to Dong Shen Yin, so fascinating that she was currently focusing on other things and not the issue that had just been addressed by her Section Commander. Her inner mind, the aspect that transcended her gender, her nation, her design, and perhaps even her humanity, brought her back to the present like a trainer hauling a foundering infant out of an aquatics simulator. Her mind broke the surface into the now, the brutal presence, the only time one truly lived in.

"A heart defect?"

"Yes, an anomaly in your birthing. Normally you know our culling procedure for defective material would have aborted you before confirmation. But it had been ascertained that this was not genetic. Perhaps radiation induced, systemic anomaly, or even human error."

The situation was unfolding in Dong Shen Yin's mind and it was now starting to weigh on her like rocks in her stomach.

Dong Shen Yin began to shake. She was not living in the present now like one should, but regretting the past and now dreading the future before her.

"Ensign Dong? Are you alright?"

It seemed like an eternity till she responded.

"Yes, Section Commander.”

Steely resolve returned to Dong Shen Yin.

"Very well, you need surgical intervention. You will be out of the academy for a month and a half. Since you are now at stasis in your physical development, a permanent device will be implanted; inorganic."

Dong Shen Yin wanted to ask many questions but knew that this was not for the SC but for the Med techs. There was only one reply suitable for her superiors.

"Yes, Hai! Section Commander," Dong Shen Yin stood up and saluted.

"Very good, report to the section Medical unit," acknowledged SC commander Tsuen as she rose and returned the salute. She then did something Dong Shen Yin did not expect. She smiled.

"I envy you, you're going to be 'enhanced'.

"Enhanced?"

This word echoed in her mind. That is until the sounds of the crashed shuttle began to overpower it.

Loud klaxons rang within the hull of the shuttle as automatic extinguisher systems shot foam in all directions. Dong Shen Yin opened her eyes and looked at the chaos around her. It took a second or so for the situation to be made clear. They were on the ground and in one piece. Lt. Tung had done it!

Immediately Lt. Dong unhooked herself from her suit anti gravity stake system and looked around for her sisters. She looked first for the young pilot who had saved them all with her skill despite this being her first mission to Terra.

"Lt. Tung!?" Dong Shen Yin tried to stir the pilot who was slumped in her chair.

She did not move. The reason was the splintered frame of part of the hull that had impaled her through her upper torso and neck.

No time for sentiment. The other sisters needed her help, she could hear some of them stirring.

Cpl. Ma was conscious and helping Pvt. Zhuo up.

Song Shen Yin’s vice filled the space, "Corporal. Ma! We need to evacuate immediately and set up a perimeter. We don't know where we are or if that Leviathan is still alive. Once you get Private Zhuo out you stay there and have your weapons at the ready."

Lt. Dong was now in charge until Captain Zheng was found.

"Hai!" Cpl. Ma shouted as she went for the escape hatch with Zhuo who seemed to have a concussion in the way her legs moved. Dong Shen Yin worked her way towards the rear of the shuttle, finding Corporals Pui and Fan helping Pvt. Lu who had survived the crash despite losing an arm to the Leviathans.

"How is She?"

"I'm fine. I still have another arm." Pvt. Lu said, quietly but evenly.

"Xian's dead." Cpl. Pui added sadly. Lt. Dong looked over and saw the bloody crumpled form of Cpl. Xian. She had been crushed by loosened coolant tanks.

The atheists were not doing too well on this mission. Dong was in the agnostic camp but that still made her the last non believer left. Three women were still unaccounted for.

"Help me! Please! I need help here!" It was Pvt. Gao. The entire rear panel of the shuttles hull had broken outward and partly blocked the area between the auxiliary hull and the supplies. Hanging wires that still pulsated looked a little too similar to Leviathan tentacles for the survivors’ nerves. Bending under the overhanging and broken panel, Lt. Dong had to crawl through a small space. It was no coincidence that Gao had found her way in, both being the shortest of the women in the Contact unit. Using a capsule light, Dong Shen Yin could see that Gao was not in danger but rather trying to help someone trapped under debris.

"I'm here, Private who is it?"

"The Captain!"

Rushing forward in a burst of panic, Lt. Dong saw the face of her best friend underneath what appeared to be an actual frame of the inner hull structure.

"Captain!"

Commander Zheng looked to be half conscious but stirred at her friend’s exhortations.

"Sc—scholar? Is Heaven just more steel and stale air?"

Captain Zheng smiled which seemed to help Dong Shen Yin more than her.

"We are going to get you free, Captain."

"Where is Corporal Tsuo? " Zheng said weakly. She—she was right ne—xt to me."

Pvt. Gao nudged Dong Shen Yin's shoulder and pointed to behind where Zheng was pinned. Two feet were sticking out of a larger portion of the loosened frame in a pool of blood.

Lt. Dong curled her lip in frustration. Zheng immediately picked up on it.

"Dead, huh?"

"We are going to get you free, Captain!" Dong Shen Yin snarled almost in frustration. Both Gao and her attempted to move part of the collapsed frame but it would not budge. "We will need a cutting torch, Private Gao see if you can fetch one!"

"Hai!" shouted Gao as she moved back to the rear of the ship, Dong Shen Yin tried to ascertain her friend's injuries.

"What can you move?"

"I can't feel a whole lot to be honest. Other than I'm growing cold." Zheng laughed weakly and then began to cough violently. Drops of crimson shot out and ran down the corner of her mouth.

"Isn't that a cliche?" Zheng smiled again. She looked Dong Shen Yin in the eyes. A look of resignation.

Dong Shen Yin had to get her free now.

Closing her eyes, Dong Shen Yin began to control her breathing. She place her finger tips together and brought her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Spacing her feet apart, drawing her diaphragm inward.

Energy began to rise both within and without. Lt. Dong's hair began to rise.

Her eyes then opened and she gripped the debris trapping her friend. It began to creak as slowly but steadily it began to move. In one explosive motion the main debris was lifted off and then hurled off to the side.

Zheng's eyes opened wide in shock.

"Scholar?"

Captain Zheng had just seen her friend do the impossible.

Dong Shen Yin propped herself with one arm against the wall, breathing heavily. The Cardiac implant had boosted her function again but now needed to reset. Her heart was pounding so hard it shook her suit and could be felt even a few feet away. Still huffing and puffing she looked to her friend and managed a smile of her own.

“I envy you, you are going to be 'enhanced,’” echoed the voice from the past within.

“That’s it for now—all my spare juice. Let’s just hope I did not damage my gross motor system. You’re in no shape to carry me.”

Pvt. Gao arrived with Corporals Pui and Fan and a cutter torch which was now not needed. The three Blossoms looked on in surprise.

"I thought you said she was trapped?” questioned Fan.

Gao was dumbstruck and could not respond.

Lt. Dong broke their gawking with some orders. 'What are you waiting for Blossoms? Captain Zheng needs first aid, immediately. Let’s go!"

"Hai!"

The blossoms began to work on their commander to stop the bleeding from her crushed leg. Dong Shen Yin looked on while her heart rate began to resume its normal rate.

She had been sworn to never show off her 'enhancement' but rather to use the boost in her strength, reflexes and sensory acuity only for emergencies. Many other Luna soldiers enhanced with implants were being tested back on Luna. Dong Shen Yin was one of the first to be tested in the field. While she resented being used as a glorified test animal, becoming a Chinese demi-goddess for brief periods of time was more than agreeable to her. Of course she would have loved to have had a brain implant and the mental powers that went with that, but there was a special irony to a petite woman like her having more physical abilities.

"We've stopped her bleeding, Lieutenant, but we need to get her out of here for further assessment." Cpl. Pui was now talking to the acting commander of the Contact unit.

"Okay, let’s set up our perimeter and tend to the wounded. Then we assess and devise our strategy."

The authoritative sound of her voice seemed to come so natural to her, but Dong Shen Yin loathed it. The 'Defiant One' was now in charge. Like most things she loathed, she had better get used to it. 'Eating bitter', the old Chinese phrase of putting up with hardship, came to mind

No one could 'eat bitter' like Dong Shen Yin.