<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Jerrod McKenzie</strong></span><br/><hr/><br/>"Remember, Alice," her CO had told her.  "<em>Any means necessary</em>.  Lie to him.  You'd damn well not be going and telling him the truth, because no one in their right mind would agree to this, not even a McKenzie.  While I'm sure that they would love to go five for five on girls in their family who end up as Lightspeed pilots, there's no guarantee that he'll be compatible with the Frame."  That was...true, but not as certain as it had sounded.  The mother and her sister - who had come from the SolForce side of the family - had been Lightspeed pilots, as were Jerrod's four sisters.<em>Something</em>ran in their blood that let them do this.  The only reason that Battalion Command had even<em>considered</em>the idea to begin with was the family record.  If you were a McKenzie, and you were female, you were a Lightspeed Girl.<br/><br/>Of course, if you were McKenzie and female, that's not<em>all</em>you were - McKenzies of the feminine persuasion were also, quite frankly, beauties one and all.  Maybe that was why they were all Lightspeed Girls - none of them were<em>plain</em>or<em>ugly</em>enough not to be one.  But no matter, the butler was ushering the boy in now.  Pretty nondescript, as far as guys went.  If nobody knew he was a McKenzie, you might not really have given much thought to him.  "I understand you're from the Battalion, over at SolForce," he told Alice as the doors were closed (they were the only ones into the room), and took a seat.  "I'm not really sure how I can help out...yet."<br/><br/>Jerrod understood that he might be called upon to help out in SolForce - it was part of the Citizen's Agreement - but he had figured that it would be from the main branch, not the Battalion.  "I mean...I guess my sisters have probably told you guys that I'm planning on becoming a counselor, but I haven't even finished secondary school yet.  I'm still a good half-dozen years away from really being able to do that..."<br/><br/>Alice could practically hear it again in her head, from her CO.<em>"Tell him whatever you damn well have to to get him into that medical lab.  The family will be pissed off beyond all Hell when they learn what we did, but it if works, they'll temper their anger."</em>