In a two bedroom apartment on the east side of lake Washington, right on the border between Kirkland and Bellevue, lived a fairly large family. There were no fathers in this family, but there were two mothers. They were sisters, Sally and Renee Verstwal and had pooled their script together in order to afford a two bedroom apartment. It had a real living room, and a dining room, though the dining room had curtains up and inside lived the girls. Sally and Renee shared the master bedroom, sometimes it also had a crib if one had recently had a child. The other bedroom housed the boys, there were more of them usually and it had been decided that they would get the bedroom. Of course who lived where changed often enough that these given outlines are more of an idea of a day in the life of the Verstwal family as opposed to a given set of rules.
By the time Sally finally opted to get sterilized she had produced 4 sons and 3 daughters. Renee had managed 5 sons and 2 daughters. Only two of the children in the house shared a father, and ironically they were only half siblings. One wild and drunken night Sally and Renee had ended up in a three way and somehow both managed to get pregnant. Korhal and Elise were practically twins, Elise was born a few days prior to Korhal, and of course had different mothers biologically speaking, but the way that they were raised they might as well have been twins.
Elise was fiercely smart, independent, and aggressive. Korhal was loyal, strong, and had an innate ability to notice things. Together they were unstoppable, and most of the time they were together. On Korhal's eighteenth they took the test to join the military. They both flew through the physical with ease, though Korhal scored a fair bit higher than Elise. Korhal struggled but managed to barely pass the written tests, Elise on the other hand scored the highest recorded written score from anyone testing without private school training, and was in the top ten percentile of even though with private school training.
They tried at first to stay together, and through basic they managed to, but when specialty training came up, they were taken apart. Korhal was suited to infantry, to grunt work. Elise was taken directly to officer training, where she would continue to excel. The first weeks were hard, they had never been apart. Elise had the harder time, she didn't want friends she wanted her brother. She dove into her studies and made no friends amongst her new peers. They all envied her, as she constantly got the highest scores on everything.
Korhal had a rough time at first, he was used to Elise making all of his decisions and helping him with the day to days of life, but with the structure provided by the military he found a place for himself. He was friendly to others, and soon had a good group of friends amongst his peers. He passed his classes with decent grades, and was always top marks for all of the physical and weapons training. It came to him naturally, so much so that after six months in marine training he was moved on into special ops training.
Elise career could have been taken out of a manual on how to move rapidly through the ranks, she spent only the mandatory year serving as an ensign on a mid sized cruiser, before she was promoted to lieutenant junior grade, she earned her lieutenant stripes in the field when her commanding officer was killed in action during a dust up with one of the asteroid built pirate organizations. She served as XO on a light cruiser for the next year, before being given her own light cruiser and making Lieutenant Commander. But she had her eyes on even bigger fish.
Korhal had no interest in promotion, but he worked hard and he did well. He spent his first two years of service as a private. Then he was recruited by an elite task force and given the rank of lance corporal. He would keep this rank for a long time, but he would serve in one of the most highly sought after groups in the marine corp. The Red Runners were known throughout the service as the most elite squad.
The two would not see each other again for eight years, neither had any interest in returning to Earth for leave, and so they just kind of never ended up running into each other. They emailed when they had time, but life had changed, they had drifted apart.
Elise was promoted to Captain and was given command of an assault cruiser, one of the fastest leanest ships in the navy. Also the same ship that had the Red Runners as its personal marine squad.
Elise surveyed the bridge quietly, a half dozen crew sat at their stations, until somebody to her left called out 'Captain on deck!' then they each stood and turned saluting her. Each took their right hand and placed it palm open on their chest.
"As you were," she said, looking each of them over as they returned to their stations and whatever they had been doing.
"Captain, we weren't expecting you until tomorrow, the ship's repairs aren't complete yet."
"I am aware of the state of my ship," her ship. Though she wasn't happy about how she had got it, the same reason they were finishing up repairs. A dead Captain was nothing to celebrate, but it had opened up one of the most coveted ships in the fleet, and her name had been on the short list to get it. "I wanted to take a look today, get me Lance Corporal Korhal Verstwal for a tour.
Her first officer did his best to hide his interest in those names, but the faint arch of his eyebrow was all that gave him away as he turned and tapped some keys at his console.
"The Lance Corporal is on his way up, sir."
The truth was that Korhal did not even recognize his sister when she stepped down from her chair as he arrived on the bridge. He gave the old style marine salute, raising his open right hand to his forehead. "Sir, reporting for escort duty, sir."
Elise didn't let her frown touch her actual lips, keeping it in her mind, did her own brother not recognize her? It had been a long time, she supposed. "At ease Lance Corporal." He shifted into parade rest and waited. "Well, let's begin."
He saluted again and turned away, something nagging at his mind, some recognition. Had he run into this woman on leave at some point, he wondered. "This way sir, is there anywhere in particular you would like to begin? Captain, uih. I'm sorry sir, I just realized I don't actually know your name."
"It's Captain Verstwal," she said, he stopped abruptly and she nearly ran right into his muscled back. He turned and stared at her, his mouth hanging open. A smirk crossed her lips.
"Holy fuck, Elise! I mean, sir. I did not realize you had gotten another promotion."
"Show me to engineering," he nodded and turned away pressing the button to call the lift. A frown touched his lips, this should be a happy moment but she was treating him bad. Was it because he had not recognized her? His frown deepened as the lift opened and he stepped inside, it was a bit cramped with both of them inside, mainly because he was pretty massive, and she was not exactly tiny herself. Granted his six and a half feet made her look short, but she was herself just about six feet tall. She was slim though, well muscled but also accustomed to a job that mainly was sitting behind a desk on the ship. He was raw muscle though, his shoulders were broad and his neck was thick.
