Address criticisms to [xazqrten@cox.net]
******************************
Beagle Boy changed course and headed back to base. He tried repeatedly to
alert his classmates to the danger, until he received a message to cease his
efforts over the command control circuit. Unknown to him until then was the
fact that the Exercise Area Tactical Commander was monitoring his efforts to
cheat on the exercise.
******************************
Colonel Stout said, “I’ll be damned. He never knew what hit him.”
“That’s the general idea, Colonel Stout. You want them taken down a few
pegs. When I finish, they will definitely be at ground level. If I can take
them all out without them even seeing me, so much the better.”
“Fish in a barrel,” was his only reply.
Susan smiled to herself at how easy it was going to be. Then on reflection
she was really irritated. These pilots were going back to the fleet as it were
thinking they were the best things in aviation since airplanes.
******************************
Onboard the AWACS, Captain Jeff Parks was getting a headache trying to track
what he still believed was a civilian aircraft on a canyon cruise flight.
Suddenly, his console started blinking and a symbol appeared virtually in
the center of his display. He selected magnify and waited for the display to
change. The data he was looking at showed something that had appeared suddenly;
it was climbing at more than eight hundred kilometers per hour. At their
present altitude it would be upon them in less than forty seconds. If it were
the intruder, he would be within firing distance in less than fifteen
seconds. “Skipper, I think the intruder is making a run on us from directly
below us.”
As Parker finished his sentence, the red light that signaled their demise
started blinking. Immediately, their outgoing data transmissions ceased, as did
their communications with the deployed fighters. The F-350 pilots lost their
eye-in-the-sky.
Major Frank banked the large aircraft, came around to a course of one eight
zero true, and headed for his previously assigned orbit station, ten kilometers
west of the training center.
Frank looked at his co-pilot and commented, “One fighter and AWACS scratched
and we aren’t even sure we even saw him. He didn’t even give us enough time to
bend over and kiss our asses goodbye.”
His co-pilot responded, “Whoever he is, he damn sure knows how to exploit
his strengths and our weaknesses. How could we miss him? We can see everything
from the ground to more than forty-five kilometers and out to five hundred
kilometers. We have sensors that cover infrared up through ultraviolet. Hell,
major. We can track a fast bumblebee at ten klicks.”
“We can’t see through mountains or down into the bottoms of all these
canyons. We were looking for anything that was moving faster than two hundred
klicks. An AFB-328B can’t fly that slow.”
“Apparently, this one did. I can hear the crap we’re going to catch now.
They’ll be throwing this up to us for the next year.”
******************************
“We took down their eye-in-the-sky; so, they’ll have to find us on their
own, and we took out one of the fighters. He didn’t even know what hit him. Now
we hit our primary target. I suggest you check your safety harness, Colonel
Stout. The ride is about to get rather rough.”
“I’m on it, general. I still have trouble believing what you just did. Two
aircraft out of the fight and the remaining fighters don’t have a clue.”
******************************
Stout had tightened his safety harness and his head support. He was just
finishing increasing the pressure in his flight suit and looking outside the
cockpit at a canyon wall going by at a respectable speed, when the plane
pitched up sharply and accelerated almost straight up for a few seconds. The
short fast climb was followed by a very sharp snap roll and simultaneous turn,
then righted itself, slowed abruptly, and began to shake as the main and
secondary weapons began firing. Behind him, he heard the whoosh of rockets,
which were the rapid blooming chaff and infrared flares being deployed. There
was no sound to be heard as the cluster bombs dropped from their racks. Less
than fifteen seconds later, the aircraft accelerated hard, pitched up abruptly
and rolled very hard twice in quick succession. Almost immediately, Stout found
himself once again looking out at the side of some anonymous canyon. He
wondered if they had even been detected by the defending electronics. He
noticed the small blinking light signifying that the active electronic counter
measures (ECM) had been engaged.
*****************************
During the next two hours, Susan eliminated the remaining eleven F-350
fighter aircraft. She had made use of her active ECM, her aircraft’s adaptive
camouflage, and the myriad canyons that permeated the ground of the exercise
area. The eleven pilots had returned to their home base, never having seen the
aircraft that shot them down.
As she flew back through the mountains passes that she had used for her
approach, she asked, “Colonel Stout. Do you know now why I insisted in
refueling before the exercise? If you’ll note on the indicator, we are
essentially out of fuel. I hope Pit Stop One is still there. If he isn’t, we’re
going to have to get out and walk back home.”
Stout had been keeping an eye on the fuel situation. He knew in his heart
that he would never let his plane get this low on fuel unless he was in a fight
for his life. The warning light was flashing; their situation was extremely
critical. He had been feeling the sensation of climbing in altitude for the
last fifteen minutes.
“We’re in luck, colonel. Our fuel supply is right where he’s supposed to
be.” She then called the tanker. “Pit Stop One, this is Ice Queen. I’m sucking
fumes very badly. I need a super quick drink or I’m going down.”
The orbiting tanker quickly turned and reduced speed to station keeping.
Susan made a manual approach and the fuel probe seated on the first attempt.
She felt the vibration as the fuel under pressure began to pour into her empty
tanks. Ten minutes later with her internal fuel tanks full, she broke away from
the tanker and headed home.
******************************
Onboard the tanker, the boom operator said, “Skipper, we pumped eleven
thousand liters of fuel into her internal tanks. She was literally freaking
empty.”
“Apparently, she knows how far she can stretch a liter of fuel,” replied the
pilot, nonchalantly, as he changed course for their next assignment, practice
refueling for the newest students at the Top Gun school. He was thinking, [I’ve
heard of flying on fumes before, but I always thought it was a metaphor.]
******************************
Inside the classroom, the chief instructor of the Top Gun school looked over
the students. “I take it that you gentlemen are now familiar with the AFB-350B
and our guest pilot. Any comments? One thing before I answer any questions.
Beagle Boy over there tried to warn you guys about the intruder after he had
been shot down. That’s cheating gentlemen. In the real world, dead men don’t
try to warn their buddies. His transcript will note failure with prejudice
because of that. Now, I’m open for questions and remarks.”
Beagle Boy complained, “I was detailed to find and escort a civilian
aircraft out of the exercise area. I was looking for him when my red death
light started flashing. I never even saw anything.”
“It’s a bitch when the target doesn’t play fair. It’s not right, but we just
have to live with it,” replied the instructor, “or in real life, die because of
it.”
There was a full minute of silence. “Come on. Someone besides Beagle Boy
must have a comment?”
“Col. Pelt, we got our asses waxed royally and none of us even saw the
intruder…not on radar, infrared, or visually. It was like trying to find and
fight a freaking ghost.”
Pelt pulled down the display of the AFB-328B modified and looked at it. Then
he faced the class. “I want to show you some of the finer points of this bird.
By all rights, it’s a damned dinosaur, but as you learned today, in the hands
of an experienced pilot, it can do things no plane should be able to do. Before
you complain, the pilot who killed you today has only been flying this bird for
about three weeks, when she can find the time. Her day job keeps her busy. I’ll
grant that she trained in this bird about eighteen years ago, give or take a
year or so. As a matter of fact, she tore a wing off of one of them. Of course,
after losing the wing, she had to punch out. She claimed she couldn’t control
it with only one wing left. Obviously, she wasn’t much of a pilot.”
“How did she tear a wing off an airplane,” asked Captain Holt.
“It wasn’t hard. She did a full-power dive from 25 klicks up and executed a
hard pull up at a speed of almost sixteen hundred klicks per hour. The
right wing ripped right off,” replied Pelt.
“The navigation flight computers (navcompcom) are programmed to prevent
that, colonel,” noted Captain Handbury.
“Yes they are. She got around that by taking hers offline just before she
started the dive,” responded Pelt.
“Why is she still flying? Why didn’t they throw her out of flight school?”
asked Phil Kelly, another young captain.
“What do you mean ‘she’ and ‘her’, Colonel Pelt? I thought we were up
against a male pilot,” noted Holt.
“A matter of semantics, gents. What does it matter if your opponent was a
man or woman?” asked Pelt. “As for why she wasn’t booted out of school, nobody
wanted to admit that what she did was possible. It was easier to pass it off as
an accident; metal fatigue caused the loss of the wing. Nobody noted that the
airplane had only five hundred hours on the airframe.”
“Face it, gentlemen, you got waxed by your opponent. The sex of said
opponent is irrelevant,” said Major Lucas. “Besides, building up your egos
isn’t a function of this school.”
“How long do you think it’ll be until we’re the laughing stock of
Earthforce?” asked Holt.
“There’s no reason for that, Captain Holt. Your opponent would have waxed
anyone we put up against her,” said Lucas.
“And that’s supposed to make us feel better, major,” said Handbury. We
weren’t just waxed, we were obliterated, and we never even saw who did it to
us.”
“What I mean, captain, is that she would have done the same thing to anyone
we put up there. You didn’t study all the features of the AFB-350B; so, you
missed some important information. Everything you needed to know about the
aircraft is set forth on the display. I’ll let you figure out what you missed.
Just let this be a lesson about being too damned cocky and not understanding
your opponent, or even worse underestimating him or her.”
“I don’t suppose there is any way to get a dogfight match-up one-on-one
against her, is there?” asked Handbury.
“If there is, it will be expensive for you. Question is, how much are you
prepared to risk, because if you lose there will be a price – probably a very
high one.”
******************************
Susan and Colonel Stout were walking to the open-air vehicle that would
transport them to the squadron ready rooms and restroom facilities.
“General Wayne, you took on eleven thousand liters of fuel from Pit Stop
One. The AFB-328B’s internal tanks barely hold that much fuel. How much time do
you think we had before we would have gone down from lack of fuel?”
“Enough, colonel; enough.” She answered his statement while looking him in
the eyes and with a neutral expression on her face. “The important thing is we
busted their ego bubbles.”
“I’m not quite sure busted is the right word, General Wayne. I think maybe
obliterated might be a more accurate description.”
“If I were a real enemy, the price would have been their lives.”
“Point taken.”
******************************
After he and Susan parted company, Stout contacted Susan’s plane captain and
instructed him to empty the plane’s internal tanks completely and then refill
them. He further instructed him to note how much could be put into the tank,
including the refueling spout, and send the results to his, Stout’s, office.
******************************
It was almost lunchtime when Susan’s intercom buzzed. It was the senator she
had been hoping to evade. Jason Burns, member of the senate finance committee.
She wondered what he could possibly want.
She had been thinking that Colonel Stout hadn’t paid as much attention as he
should have during their flight. He had missed the facts that she had throttled
back the engines in an effort to stretch her fuel as far as possible. Her
efforts had included resetting flaps and other control surfaces for minimum
drag. As she had connected with the tanker’s refueling probe, she had felt the
first vibrations telling her the engines were beginning to stall out for lack
of fuel. Three more minutes and she would have crashed for lack of fuel. She
had been very foolish and gotten away with it.
Susan stood up, reached across her desk, and shook the senators offered
hand. “How may I be of service, Senator Burns?”
“I’m not sure you can, General Wayne. I have a favor of sorts to ask. I’m
just not sure how to go about it.”
“Why not try coming straight at me. If it’s not patently illegal, we can at
least discuss it.”
“How much do you know about me, General Wayne?”
The question caught Susan by surprise, even though she didn’t show
it. “That’s a pretty broad question, senator. I’m aware of your senate position
and committee assignments. You and a great many other people had to go into
hiding during the Clark fiasco. Your wife died while you were in hiding. You
were born on the wrong side of the tracks and are a self-made man, well off,
but by no means rich.”
“Close enough. What I want to discuss is my wife’s untimely death.”
He had Susan’s undivided attention. “You have the floor.”
“According to the death certificate, my wife died from a heart attack as a
result of an undiagnosed genetic heart problem.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Not for a moment, general. The genetic problem my wife supposedly suffered
from has several distinct genetic markers, which can be used to identify it.
Everyone who has died in the last hundred years of this condition has had at
least one of these markers. After you and Sheridan’s rebel forces deposed
Clark, I had DNA testing done on my wife’s body. She didn’t or doesn’t carry
any of these markers. I’ve heard rumors that she was tortured to death in an
attempt to force her to give up my hiding places.”
“What do you want from me?”
“It’s a badly kept secret that you have access to investigative resources
that are at least as good as EA Intelligence or any of the EA police entities.
Yours are completely independent and were used against Clark and later the
PsiCorps, quite effectively, I might add.”
“Exactly what do you want from me?”
“If possible, I want my wife’s torturers and killers identified and
prosecuted.”
“That’s a tall order, senator. I’ll have to get back to you. In the interim,
I suggest you gather up every shred of evidence and rumor you can find
concerning the situation. I’ll have someone contact you. They won’t do anything
illegal, but there is a great deal one can do and still remain within the law.
Also, I don’t promise anything in the matter of results.”
“Who could, general? Thank you for your time. What will I owe you for this?”
“I never said anything about payment. If my friends are successful, just
remember what they do for you. One day, someone may need your help in a
situation like this.”
Senator Burns thought about it for a few moments. Then he nodded his head
and said, “Deal, General Wayne. By the way, I was told you were taking part in
an exercise with the students down at the Top Gun school. How did it go?”
“They lost.”
******************************
Colonel Stout was eating the last of his lunch at his desk when his senior
instructors came into his office.
“You want to see us, colonel?” asked Captain Heigl.
“On the way home this morning, General Wayne refueled with Pit Stop One.”
“Why did she do that, sir? She had wing tanks loaded. She had enough fuel to
make several trips down there and back.”
“She topped off the tanks with Pit Stop One just before we entered the
exercise area.”
The junior officers looked at their boss with total confusion showing on
their faces.
“We took on eleven thousand liters of fuel from the tanker. That was just
for the internal tanks.”
“What’s the point, skipper?” asked Heigl.
“Just out of curiosity, I had her plane captain completely drain and refill
her plane’s internal tanks. Guess how many liters it took to refill them?”
He waited, but they just remained silent. When it was apparent that they
weren’t going say anything, he said, “It took exactly eleven thousand liters to
fill those tanks including the refueling pipe.”
Looks of astonishment were what he saw when he made that statement. “I felt
vibrations just before we connected to the refueling probe. It must have been
the engines beginning to experience fuel starvation. Gentlemen, we were out of
fuel when the tanker started pumping. A while later, I asked General Wayne how
much time we had before we ran out of fuel. ‘Enough,’ was her answer. I heard
her transmit to Pit Stop One, ‘Pit Stop One, this is Ice Queen. I’m sucking
fumes very badly. I need a super quick drink or I’m going down.’ She wasn’t
exaggerating one bit.”
His men remained silent. Finally, he said, “To look at her, you would never
know we came so close to crashing. It never bothered her one bit.”
“It proves something I have suspected from flying with her, colonel. She
isn’t afraid of anything, and when she says push yourself and your equipment to
the absolute limits, she means exactly that.”
“She made it look so easy,” said Stout, wistfully. “She made it look like a
baby could do it.”
“What exactly did she do, colonel?”
“She took out the primary target, one AWACS, and an even dozen F-350
defending fighter aircraft; they never even saw what hit them.”
“Sir?” they asked in unison.
“The students never even saw us before she took them down and they never saw
us afterward. It’ll be Monday before we get all the data from the various
recorders, but to all appearances, she went; she destroyed; no one even saw
her.”
“Second Lieutenant Randy Sears is going to really be pissed. He thinks she’s
all ego,” said Heigl.
“I can just see General Wayne losing sleep over that,” said Stout rather
sarcastically.
******************************
Susan had returned from lunch and started reading the next report from
her ‘In’ basket. Her phone rang.
“Hello, General Wayne. I just had a call from the senior instructor down at
Top Gun School (TGS). The students there don’t feel that what we did this
morning was a real test of their abilities?”
“Really,” she answered with mock concern in her voice. “What do they think
would be a ‘real’ test?” she asked, sarcasm dripping from her words.
“They want to actually dogfight with you.”
“Do they know who their aggressor is?”
“Not yet.”
“I think it’s about time to have an object lesson or two or three or twelve.
Colonel Stout, do you remember what I proposed the first time you mentioned the
idea of me taking down the TGS boys a few pegs?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If any of them really want to find how good they are, I offer them the
following: I will dogfight them and let them get in position for the first
shot; if they win, they immediately get a one-step increase in rank, and
graduate with honors; if they lose, then there are two choices; either they can
keep their rank and transfer to the marines and serve the remainder of their
careers in a non-flight status, or they can lose one-step in rank and be
relegated to flying transports and tankers for the remainder of their careers.
If they sign a legal document in front of notary publics and witnesses, then
I’ll fly down there and we’ll go heat-to-head; otherwise, I don’t want to hear
them bellyache. Coppish, Colonel Stout?”
“I’ll get back to you, General Wayne.”
******************************
LtCol. Pelt passed out papers to each student. “I want you to read these
carefully. If after that, you still want to dogfight with the aggressor, we’ll
schedule something for tomorrow.”
A few minutes later, after having read the papers, Handbury said, “Is this
for real?”
“As a heart attack, Mr. Handbury. You asked for a shot at the aggressor. I
told you it would be expensive. If this is too expensive for you, then you will
be sent back to your command and you will receive an incomplete for your final
grade.”
“This would put my career on the line for one match, Col. Pelt.”
“In real combat, your very life will be on the line, captain. The aggressor
suggested using real bullets and missiles, but the military can’t afford to
lose the men and equipment.”
“That’s a joke. Right?” asked Holt.
“No joke, Mr. Holt,” replied Pelt.
“We need some time to think about this, Col. Pelt,” said Holt.
“One hour from now, you people will either be signing these documents, or
you will be flying out of here on your way home. Be warned, gents. The
aggressor is the best combat pilot in Earthforce. She has chalked up more
combat time and killed more enemy pilots than anyone else who has ever served
in Earthforce. She will eat you alive.”
“Trying to psych us out, col.,” asked Handbury.
“If you think that, just returned the forms, filled out, and we’ll get them
notarized.”
******************************
Captain Heigl was looking at the students. “Anyone have any thoughts on the
matter?”
Second Lieutenant Sears thought for a minute, “No one even saw her?”
“We think the AWACS may have spotted her as she dropped over the lip of a
canyon, but we believe they thought they were looking at a civilian canyon air-
excursion airplane. There are a number of private pilots that hire themselves
out for sightseeing excursions in that area. Once in a while, one of them
doesn’t see the notices and wanders in at the wrong time.”
“So there never was any real fighting. She just sneaked up behind them and
shot them down.”
“You have a problem with that, lt.?”
“It doesn’t show me much in the way of flying and fighting, captain.”
“Are you serious about becoming a pilot, Acting Second Lieutenant Sears?”
asked Heigl.
“Why else would I be here, sir?”
Colonel Stout walked in and heard the exchange between Sears and Heigl. “Mr.
Sears, come with me.”
Sears followed Stout out of the room.
******************************
In his office, Stout looked at Sears. “Why are you here, Mr. Sears?”
“I want to become a combat pilot.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
Sears looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
“I know. That’s why I’m dropping you from flight training. If I do it now,
the military can use the money we would have wasted on you to better effect…
like replacing you with someone who’ll appreciate the chance they’re getting.”
“What have I done?”
“Displayed the worst attitude I think I have ever seen in a new pilot
trainee. You are dismissed to go pack your bags. Your discharge papers will be
waiting for you in the base personnel office.”
“You can’t do that, Colonel Stout.”
“It has already been done, Mr. Sears.”
******************************
In the classroom, Stout said, “You’ll be one student short, Captain Heigl. I
hope it doesn’t upset your training plans.”
“No, sir. It won’t.”
“What happened to Acting Second Lieutenant Sears,” asked First Lieutenant
Jean Lang.
“It turns out that he really wasn’t interested in learning how to be a
combat pilot. He has an attitude problem,” replied Stout.
“Oh,” said Lang.
“For your information, General Wayne will no longer be part of your class.
She is working with my instructors to improve the training you are going to be
receiving here. She has proven to me that there is a great deal I and my
instructors can learn from her,” said Stout. “For some reason, your former
classmate didn’t seem to understand his position as a beginner trainee. He
seemed to think he already knew everything. That’s an attitude that we don’t
need in new pilots. That attitude will get you killed and probably cost a
fellow pilot his life in the process. For your information, General Wayne has
never lost a wingman. With any luck, Monday, we’ll review what happened in this
mornings exercise with the TGS students. They are all yours, Captain Heigl.”
******************************
Susan was having a cup of coffee as she read the paperwork that would
discharge Acting Second Lieutenant Randy Sears. She read Stouts comments with
interest. Sears had a bad attitude. She wished more young beginner pilots had
been washed out for a bad attitude during her career. She’d have sent many
fewer letters to their parents, siblings and spouses explaining their deaths if
they had been. Without further thought, she signed the discharge recommendation.
Her phone rang. It was Colonel Stout. Four of the TGS pilots had signed up
to shoot it out with her. She thought to herself, [Arrogant saps.]
******************************
0900, Saturday, 12 October 2226:
Susan approached the exercise area. She had topped off her tanks with the
air tanker. She was ready to fight. She entered the exercise area flying at an
altitude of four kilometers and a speed of five hundred eighty kilometers per
hour. She was waiting for one of the TGS students to make the first move. She
didn’t have to wait long.
She watched her displays as one of the F-350 fighter came around behind her
aircraft. She waited until he made his move to fire the first shot. Her ECM
system alerted her when his tracking radar shifted into its attack mode. She
knew it would take ten seconds for a full lock on and missile launch. It would
take the missile eight seconds to close the distance to her aircraft. She
accelerated to twelve hundred kilometers per hour as her attackers radar tried
to lock onto her aircraft. Then she heard the warning tone indicating launch.
She had opened to fifteen kilometers. Between the distance and her increase in
speed she would have about twenty-five seconds before the missile could
overtake her.
Handbury fired his virtual missile and smirked to himself at how easy it had
been. Twenty seconds later, he observed Susan’s aircraft dropping to five
hundred kilometers per hour as it seemed to shoot almost two hundred meters
straight up from its position directly in front of his aircraft. He also
observed that she was now behind him.
A few seconds later, his red death light started flashing. He had missed;
she hadn’t. She had shot him out of the sky as easily as she would spank an
infant. He would fly cargo and tanker aircraft for the remainder of his career,
which would be until the date of his next letter of intent. His days as a
fighter pilot were over.
Over the next half-hour, Susan dispatched the other three students with the
same ease she had dispatched Handbury.
With contempt in her heart for the so-called ‘Top Guns’, she headed for the
tanker and home.
******************************
In the TGS classroom:
Colonel Pelt looked at the four former students. “You wanted to fight with
the aggressor. I tried to tell you what you would be up against. You thought I
was trying to psych you out. Your egos couldn’t accept that there might be
someone out there that was several levels above you in skill and experience. My
only questions are, what do you choose for your losing efforts, and do you
believe me now?”
Handbury looked totally despondent. “She made me look like a freaking
beginner. She shot me down and made it seem effortless. It wasn’t fair.”
Col. Pelt asked, “Would you like to do it again using real bullets and
missiles?”
“Once was enough,” lamented Handbury.
“How about you, Beagle Boy; are you satisfied that it was fair and square
this time?”
“She ate me alive, just like you said she would, col.”
“We got what we demanded, Colonel Pelt,” said Holt. “I just never faced
anyone like her before. It was like she knew what I was going to do even before
I did.”
“Not really. She has many years of combat experience against many alien and
Human pilots, in both air-breathing and non-atmospheric fighters. She is
piloting what is undeniably one of the two or three most maneuverable air-
breathing fighters that have ever been built on Earth. You start a turn and her
superior maneuverability allows her to turn inside your radius. You never had a
chance against her. Maybe you might beat a normal pilot one-on-one going up
against an AFB-328B, but not against her. She has the highest G-force tolerance
ever measured in an Earthforce pilot. She can fight and make turns that would
render any of you totally unconscious.”
“We asked for it, and by god, we got it. Next time you pull an in-flight
refueling, Colonel Pelt, I may be the tanker driver,” said Handbury.
******************************
The remainder of Susan’ weekend was a total bore except for the chance it
gave her to practice her music. Her band had been free and more than happy to
rehearse. The excessive free time gave her an unwanted chance to ponder her
missing husband and how much she missed his sharing their bed with her.
Susan spent a portion of Sunday afternoon reading various reports that had
been generated by Collins and his people. They were primarily concerning LtCol.
King and the investigations that situation had spawned. She was amazed at how
much had been discovered because of King’s misadventures. There were going to
be a great many former members of the Nightwatch and Home Guard, who thought
they had escaped justice, tried for their actions. A number of them would
undoubtedly be sentenced to death of personality. In her opinion, that was too
damned merciful considering what they had done.
******************************
Susan was sipping from her first cup of coffee of the day, when someone
knocked on her office door.
“Come in.”
Colonel Mark Pearson came in and laid a sheaf of papers on her desk. “This
morning’s message traffic, general.”
“You could have forwarded it to my terminal as usual, Mark. Why the personal
touch?”
“You participated in an exercise down at the TGS last Friday. Didn’t you,
sir?”
“Colonel Stout and I flew down and gave them a hand in a new exercise they
were trying out for the first time. Why?”
“It seems that the news of that event has spread. There are several messages
in those that address that fact.”
Susan quickly skimmed over the pertinent messages. “It seems that I may have
ruffled a feather or two. No big deal. I’ll answer them when I get to them.
They don’t have any special priority.”
“One of them is from JCS, sir.”
“So it is. It’s marked routine; so, it’ll have to wait its turn. Is there
anything else?”
“No, sir.”
She read the text again and smiled. She had pissed somebody off. That much
was for sure.
******************************
1000 hours local, in Earthforce headquarters:
Leftcourt and the JCS were just about to finish up their weekly meeting when
an aide entered the room and whispered into Leftcourt’s ear. Leftcourt nodded
and the aide departed the room.
“What was that about, Tom?” asked General Miller.
“It seems that Major General Ralph Morse is demanding to see me, or rather
us.”
“Isn’t he CINC of Earthforce Training?” asked General Igor Gorski.
“Yep. I think Susan may have stepped on his toes,” replied Leftcourt.
“How? She doesn’t have anything to do with training,” said General George
Light.
“Actually she does. Morse owns all the training commands, except one. It’s
the one commanded by Colonel Dave Stout. He runs the Top Gun School and he also
runs the AFB-328B initial training and refresher training schools.”
“So, what’s Morse’s interest,” asked Gorski. “If she owns it, it’s none of
his business.”
“He thinks it is; so, we’re going to give him an audience,” said Leftcourt.
Pressing a touch pad on the intercom, he said, “Send General Morse in.”
General Morse came into the room and immediately and handed a small sheaf of
papers to the CJCS and the JCS. “Gentlemen, please read these first.”
Leftcourt and the other generals perused the papers. “It looks like the TGS
has requested assignments to tanker and cargo squadrons for these pilots.
What’s the problem with that, Ralph?” asked Light.
“These pilots were four of our best F-350 jockeys. Now they are being
reassigned to deadhead flying. Why? Because they ‘so-called’ flunked out of
TGS. I thought the purpose of that school was to train our best pilots to be
even better. I’d like to remind you, gentlemen, that we have more than twenty
million credits tied up in these men. I hardly see how assigning them to
mundane flying tasks is getting the best return on our investment.”
“Exactly why or how did these pilots end up in this situation?” asked
Gorski. “Surely it didn’t happen on someone’s whim.”
Morse handed each member of the JCS another sheet of paper. “I think this
will explain it, gentlemen.”
General Miller looked up from the reading the text of the paper and
asked, “All this tells me is that the person who signed it was an idiot. He bet
his career on a one-on-one with an aggressor. It doesn’t tell me who this
aggressor is or give any reason for such a match, or whatever the hell you want
to call it. If this is all you have, General Morse, this is a waste of time!”
Morse was obviously incensed by Miller’s rebuke. “What happened is that the
TGS changed its final practical exam? Instead of the students doing dogfights
with the instructors, they were assigned to protect a primary target, which was
a convoy gathering area on the ground. There was an AWACS assigned for primary
detection of any intruder and the student pilots were flying search patterns
around the perimeter of the exercise area. Their assignment was to detect the
intruder and destroy him before he could destroy the primary target.”
“Seems simple enough,” commented Mendleson.
“Who or what was the intruder?” asked Light.
“The intruder was a modified AFB-350B that came down from Stockton at the
request of the TGS senior instructor,” replied Morse.
“So what was the problem?” queried Mendleson. “Did some of your hotshots get
shot down, or did they lose the primary target?”
“Worse that that,” replied Morse. The intruder shot down the AWACS,
destroyed the primary target, and then shot down all twelve student pilots.
They never saw the intruder at any time, either before or after they were shot
down. They didn’t feel like it was a valid test.”
Mendleson didn’t hesitate, “They got their collective asses handed to them
and they don’t think it’s fair. In real life, they would be dead and we’d be
out thirteen aircraft. That still doesn’t explain this paperwork or you being
here.”
“The students wanted a second chance to face their attacker. They wanted to
go head-to-head with him.”
“I think I know the rest of this story. Let’s see, now. They demanded to go
head-to-head with this attacker, and this agreement was the price for this head-
to-head match up, and they lost their matches with this attacker. Does that
about cover it?” asked Leftcourt.
“Yes, sir. It does,” replied Morse.
“Sounds like a poker game where the loser wants his money back at the end of
the evening. Did anyone force these idiots to sign this crap!” demanded Gorski.
“If they wanted to get the match up, they had to sign,” replied Morse.
“What kind of grade were they going to get if they left well enough alone,”
asked Mendleson.
“They would have been sent back to their respective commands with a grade of
incomplete – all except for one man. He tried to cheat during the exercise; so,
he was going to be failed with prejudice,” explained Morse.
“I don’t see any problem,” said Miller. “They took a gamble, knowing the
full consequences of what they were doing, and lost their individual asses.
Even an idiot doesn’t gamble with the family’s grocery and rent money. From
where I’m sitting, they got exactly what they asked for.”
“Be that as it may, General Miller, we’re still out what it cost for their
training.”
“Not really,” said Gorski. “We subtract out the cost of training a tanker or
cargo pilot and the loss isn’t all that bad. Who was the intruder?”
“I don’t know,” replied Morse.
Leftcourt chuckled out loud.
“What’s so funny, Tom?” asked Miller.
“Susan told me that Colonel Stout wanted her to fly down and give the TGS
students something different to shoot at. She said she was going to do it as
soon as she could familiarize herself with the AFB-328B. She trained in them
when she was a student pilot. She crashed one while trying to find out just
what she could do with it. Tore a wing off it, if memory serves me right.
Impressed hell out of her instructors and the investigators.”
“Did the TGS students know who they were up against, General Morse?”
“The TGS head instructor warned them to not insist on the match ups because
they would be up against the best pilot in Earthforce. They admit they thought
he was trying to psych them out. In their words, ‘she ate them alive’.”
“I have no sympathy for them at all, Tom. They were warned and as much as
told who they were up against. Only a moron would go up against her one-on-one.”
“Ralph, I’m sorry. I know it’s expensive, but these hotshots have to learn
that mistakes have consequences, sometimes very grave ones. Their reassignments
stand. Unless, you think you can change Susan’s mind. You have two chances of
doing that; none and even less than none,” said Leftcourt.
“I still think those schools belong under my command umbrella.”
“Talk to Susan about. She might just give them to you to get them out of her
hair. On the other hand, if she learns about what just transpired here, she may
just hand you your head on a platter. She really doesn’t have a sense of humor.
These gentlemen will attest to that fact.”
Mumbling under their breaths was all the answer Morse heard in response to
the statement. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen.”
******************************
Leftcourt had tried to phone Susan three times and had only gotten the duty
officer for his efforts. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was 0700 hours
Stockton, California time.
“Damn it, Tom. She should have answered by now. She should have called,”
insisted Miller.
“She works out before breakfast. It’s too early for her to be in her office
yet.”
“Maybe you should suggest to her that a dedicated senior officer starts his
or her day a bit earlier that the staff.”
“You have my permission to tell her exactly that, just as soon as I get her
on the phone. I understand she does a two-hour workout before breakfast. In
other words, her day starts about 0330 hours. When she reaches through the
display and throttles you, don’t say you didn’t ask for it.”
“0330 hours. No one in his right mind gets up that early.”
“She does and you’re going to tell her she doesn’t start her day early
enough.”
“Maybe you’re right. I should let well enough alone. After all, there is
nine hours difference in the time between here and there.”
******************************
Susan was on her second cup of coffee when the videophone rang. She
said, “Accept call.”
Looking out of the display was General Leftcourt.
“What can I do you for, General Leftcourt, or should I ask, what kind of
trouble am I in this time?”
“No trouble, Susan. Do you know General Ralph Morse?”
“Not personally. He’s the CINC of Earthforce training. What about him?”
“He’s upset that several of his very expensive pilots were reassigned to
tankers and cargo squadrons.”
“Why is that a problem? It’s what they wanted.”
“I’d expect you to take that position.”
“I fail to understand the problem. They demanded to dogfight with the
aggressor from Friday morning’s exercise. They were insulted that the aggressor
tore them a new one and went home without so much as a by your leave. No one
twisted anyone’s arms. They demanded something and the price was thoroughly
explained to them. They were warned that they were up against the best pilot in
Earthforce. Their super-size egos couldn’t accept that someone so much better
than they could possibly be flying for Earthforce, much less be flying a
freaking dinosaur fighter-bomber. I gave them exactly what they thought they
wanted. If they aren’t satisfied, tough darts. If you want to reinstate them,
have at it. After all, you’re the big cheese, sir.”
Miller couldn’t believe his ears. He was fuming, but one look from Leftcourt
convinced him to keep silent.
“If those are the best Earthforce has, General Leftcourt, then our military
flight programs are in one sad shape and they need overhauling…very badly.”
“I agree with you, Susan. All things equal, the lot of them should have at
least detected you before the exercise was over.”
“Also, if they’re the shining examples of Earthforce’s best, then I can one-
at-a-time kill every pilot we have. Their performance was abysmal to say the
least.”
“I’ll take the revamping of our flight training programs under advisement.
Thanks for the insight.”
******************************
“How can you put up with her insolence, Tom. Just let me take her down a peg
or two.”
“Just how do you plan to do that? She told us the damned truth. Our training
programs are not up to snuff. She could easily kill every pilot we have in one-
on-one matches. Odds are that she could do it even if it were two or three to
one. I’ve had Jake Carns, my point man on anything concerning Susan, doing
extensive research into everything she has ever done or been involved in. In
one firefight, using a starfury, she aced four raiders in less that fifteen
seconds…fifteen freaking seconds, Cliff. You were a starfury pilot once upon a
time. Can you imagine a scenario in which you could take out four opponents in
a quarter of a minute?”
“Not even in three minutes, Tom.”
“We have dug through the archives. There are things there that border on the
unbelievable. One more thing, she doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to be
the one who honchos the revamping of our flight training.”
“She prescribed her own poison; very appropriate. I hope she appreciates the
irony.”
******************************
At IA Headquarters on Minbar:
“I assume you are satisfied with what information I have provided about the
Drakh,” said Charles Wayne.
Delenn replied, “Most pleased. Would you consider working with my Anla’shok
in an advisory capacity to our intelligence section?”
“Why not? It not as if I have anything else pressing to do. There’s no way
to know how long it’ll be until I can safely return to Earth or any part of the
EA, if ever. At least this way, I can earn my keep.”
“Tessa will fill you in on what we want you to do. It will not harm the EA
in any way.”
******************************
END PART 35
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