Dirk got off the transport to the West Point-class training ship and heard a beep on his communicator. He looked down and saw it was from Elise.
Dirk laughed and said to himself, "She's a mess."
Elise had sent him a picture of her holding up a pair of boxers with hearts on them and the caption, "Are these yours?"
Dirk typed a short reply, "Yes, I want them ironed and pressed."
A few moments later, Dirk received a reply from Elise, "Yes sir! They will be folded neatly!"
Dirk was expecting a dirty joke from her and was surprised that her reply was normal.
Several minutes later, Dirk found himself wearing a G-suit and being flung around in circles, sitting in the G-Force machine's cockpit. He wondered if it would end sooner if he relaxed and let himself pass out.
"If you pass out, we're starting over!" Helena shouted directly into Dirk's brain through the pod's speakers.
"Am I that easy to read?" Dirk thought to himself before clenching his muscles tighter.
"Clench those cheeks!" Helena yelled and then turned the dial to 9 Gs.
Dirk clenched harder, fighting to maintain consciousness.
After 15 seconds, the pod began to slow down, allowing Dirk to relax.
"Woooh! Give me another Mistress Helena!" Dirk shouted.
"Easy, you got another few minutes to rest. And don't call me Mistress Helena!"
"Yes, Mistress Stark!" Dirk said with a grin through the monitor.
Helena sighed. Dirk seemed to be in a very good mood, and that meant he would be a pain to deal with for her. "Let's go again!"
Dirk adjusted himself, held the dead-man's switch tightly, and then braced himself against the seat in the pod, "I am ready, Mistress!"
"Quit fooling around!" Helena suddenly cranked the G-force training machine up to 9 Gs.
The door to the training room slid open and Louis stepped through. He saw that it was Dirk in the cockpit of the G-force machine and said, "Captain Stark, good to see Dirk training. How's he doing?"
Helena glanced at the indicators and saw Dirk's heart was fine, and he was still holding tightly to the dead-man's switch. She proudly stated, "He's doing excellent!"
Louis looked at Dirk through the monitor and noticed his face was starting to turn purple from the exertion of clenching your entire body and forcing blood into your brain. "How long has he been doing 9 Gs?"
Helena tilted her head in confusion and said, "We just started at 5 Gs." She looked at the dial and realized she had cranked it up to 9 Gs way too early. Helena hit the stop button to end his run. She looked at the timer on the monitor and saw that the last run was 47 seconds.
Louis checked the monitors and saw that Dirk's vitals were still good, and he never let go of the dead-man's switch. "He's fine, Dirk is tougher than he looks."
"Maybe, but he's in a good mood today, so something really good must've happened."
While most people would consider it a good thing that someone they cared about was in a good mood, Louis knew that Dirk in a good mood meant he would be annoying at times.
"Well, I didn't have any reason to stop by, just thought I'd see how it was going."
As the training machine slowed down to a stop, Dirk suddenly sang out, "BURNING FOR YOOOU!"
Before Dirk could continue, Helena's eyebrow twitched, and she started the training machine up again.
"What? If he can sing, he can spin." Helena said after she noticed that Louis was going to mention not giving Dirk enough time to rest.
After nearly an hour of G-force training, Dirk was still in high spirits despite his training outfit being drenched in sweat.
"Good work, get some rest and water and then we'll-" Helena got a whiff of Dirk and scrunched her nose, "Shower! New clothes! Now!"
"Yes Mistress!" Dirk shouted while saluting.
"At least use my name!" Helena was getting frustrated with Dirk since he was acting like her annoying little brother.
Dirk grinned. He knew how to push her buttons, and if he pushed hard enough, he knew she would cut his training short.
Helena was going to wait for Dirk to get cleaned up and then send him on a 5-mile run to keep his training relatively short, but she got a message from Louis on her communicator.
"Don't let Dirk off easy this time, he's falling behind you and Alek. I heard about what he did and the General might use this opportunity to have him reassigned as a regular pilot. He just needs proper motivation."
Helena typed out a reply, "Thanks for the tip. I know it is my responsibility, but I admit I have a hard time pushing him."
Louis replied, "You'll figure it out."
Helena closed her communicator and slipped it back into her pocket. She saw Dirk come out of the shared barracks and waved him over, "Change of plans, wait for me, and we're going to hit the gym together."
Dirk felt a little bad since he had been slacking in the gym. Most of the Macross 8 fleet was taking regulations a little too easy since they had been in space for around 30 years. Dirk was born and raised on the Macross 8 fleet, a few years after it left Earth along with all of his friends. Only a handful of people from Space War I were around on Macross 8 after all. Only they remember the hell that was Space War I.
That aside, Dirk preferred simulation training over going to the gym. Simulation training felt more like a video game than training, so he has logged a significant amount of time in the simulators. Dirk checked the simulation logs and saw that only Helena, Louis, and three others logged more hours than he did.
"Dirk! Let's go!"
Dirk looked up when he heard Helena's voice. He almost dropped his communicator when he saw her.
Normally, Helena would wear standard gym shorts and a plain military-issue t-shirt, but right now, she was wearing a black two-piece outfit that exposed her midriff and gently toned abs. Helena had more curves than Dirk would've expected despite being his squadmate for years. She tied up her green hair in a ponytail as usual, which exposed her neck and shoulders. While Helena was wearing workout clothes, they were civilian workout clothes since Elise had apparently been extremely zealous at getting EVERYTHING military-issued in the wash, even if it was still clean.
Helena saw Dirk try his best not to gawk and shyly said, "Apparently, all of the military's clothes were being washed because the person on duty threw everything in the wash, even if it was clean. I normally only wear this at home, by myself."
Dirk wasn't innocent, but he could see that Helena was uncomfortable. He calmly said, "You have nothing to be embarrassed about."
Helena smirked and looked away.
While Dirk thought she looked really cute right now, he knew he could help her a little bit since he still had some of his own personal clothes.
"One second, Helena."
Helena watched Dirk run back into the locker rooms and come out with a pair of blue shorts and a white t-shirt. She looked up at Dirk and whispered, "Thank you." Helena quickly put the blue shorts and white t-shirt on over her existing black two-piece.
Dirk smiled, since his clothes were just a little too big for her, but she probably preferred baggy gym clothes to distracting ones.
"You know, now it looks like you're wearing your boyfriend's clothes after spending the night together."
Helena's left eyebrow twitched. She was touched by Dirk's kindness, and then he just had to ruin it. Helena grabbed his arm tightly and pulled him towards the gym, "Let's go before I forget how sweet you were a moment ago and drop a dumbbell on this dumbbell."
"Ow ow ow ow," Dirk felt Helena's grip practically cut off circulation in his arm as he was dragged off to the gym.
Back on Macross 10, Rayelle and the rest of the Night Hawks band sat in the recording studio. After several hours of recording, mixing, re-recording, and some editing, their producers had finally put together an acceptable cut of their new song.
"I love it... It's exactly what I wanted to feel!" Rayelle said excitedly as she closed her eyes and swayed, holding onto the image in her head. With a slightly sad tone, Rayelle said, "I was imagining two fighter jets, initially enemies, dancing across the clouds, twisting, crashing, love at first sight... Then I reach out to the man in the other cockpit while he reaches out to me. The basic concept is enemies-to-lovers, where one of them willingly sacrifices themselves so the other can return to their normal life."
"I love it too!" Amy suddenly butted in. She was single at 28, and her most successful relationship had lasted just 4 dates. Amy learned everything she knew about romance from novels after all, and she knew that if she was patient enough, a secret billionaire was soon to find her. She read a few novels about enemies-to-lovers and this trope appealed to her too.
"One full listen then for Enemy in the Sky!" Rayelle announced.