"Not lame at all," she says, giving him her serious regard. "Admitting you don't know when you have or not is one step along the way to figuring out your personal best."

Something he'd have to do, or he'd flake out of the Academy early on. Nothing about the program allowed for coddling. Andrea didn't feel it should, not given what demands and expectations fell down the line on Ranger shoulders.

The fame might seem appealing, but riding with your legs straddling a nuclear reactor (Mach dependent, of course) and standing as a first and last line of defense between innocent, defenseless lives and a creature that kept on killing even after it died left little illusion in Andy's eyes as to what they were doing out there. Winning would be the cocky answer. Staving off a force of nature was her own personal one.

"How do you feel about sports? Played any, like watching some, anything like that?"