“Hey Daredevil, how’s it look out there?” Danny keyed the comm.
“You’re never gonna believe this, Danny,” he crowed in awe. “Seriously man, you have got to get up here!”
“You sound a little starstruck back there, Summerston,” Ryan called from up front.
“I won’t lie to ya sir, never in a million years could I have ever imagined I’d be seein’ this… not from up here, anyway.”
“Makes sense,” said Ryan, and it dawned on Lee how starkly different the captain was in the cockpit, versus his strait-laced demeanor back on the ship. He truly was in his element out here, and Lee, for one, was quickly coming to understand why.
“Well, enjoy it while you can,” said Ryan. “Once the rest of your squad gets out here, there won’t be much time for stargazing. On that note, I hope you didn’t eat a big breakfast.”
“No sir, I oughta be alright,” said Lee. “Besides, I’ve got a pretty good stomach for stuff like this.”
This drew a laugh from the captain. “Is that so?” he said, an audible coyness in his tone. “I’ll remember you said that.”
Lee’s eyebrows knit above his mask. “These things do have inertial dampeners, right?”
“Sure they do,” Ryan assured him. “All of our ships do. Just remember that it’s a little different experience out here in a fighter than what you were used to on that cruise-liner you came in on.”
“Different how?”
Ryan simpered. “Let’s just say you’ll feel it a bit more in the corners…”
****
“OH SHHHII—” Link’s voice slammed back into his throat as Layla ripped the stick hard right and down, sending their Thresher tumbling into a violent, free-falling barrel roll as a terrified Link howled in agony.
“So much for not bein’ brutal,” Lee snickered, watching the fighter spiral out of sight through the canopy.
“You gotta admit, he kinda had that coming,” said Ryan.
“Yeah but, he just—”
Lee’s defense was cut short when the stick in his hands tipped hard left, sending the fighter into a steep, counterclockwise loop before leveling out into an all-out, rocket-propelled sprint through the stars. For a moment, he thought he might lose what little breakfast he had eaten this morning, but he managed to collect himself and avoid the awkward experience of puking all over his CO.
“Still with me back there?” Ryan asked.
“Right here, sir,” Lee panted.
For the next hour, Lee watched helpless from his seat as Ryan graciously fulfilled his promise to “rip, grip, pull, and utterly bodyslam” him into a oblivion with a series of high-intensity training exercises designed to acclimate him to the rigors of spaceflight; some going up, some going down, some going left or right, and even a few that tore his body in multiple directions at once.
Still, Lee hung with him, and as time wore on, he gradually felt himself becoming more and more accustomed to the sights, sounds, and physical sensations of his new environment. The turns came a little easier now—the rolls and pitchbacks a bit less disorienting. The stick and foot controls felt more natural. Even the telemetry in front of him—which had looked like ancient Greek an hour earlier—was slowly coming back to him: pitch, roll, yaw, drag, lift… he knew these things.
The same couldn’t necessarily be said for every member of the Eight-Two, however, and if Link’s latest profanity-laced tirade against his instructor was any indication, Lee guessed that it might be a while before everyone got on the same page in a cockpit.
As the Thresher exploded into its final maxed-out run of the session, Lee was feeling nothing short of exhilarated. The pure speed alone was intoxicating, and by the time it was over, he wasn’t sure he really wanted it to end, though he wondered who else in the squad would share his enthusiasm.
Once the first session finally drew to a close, Lee and Ryan’s fighter taxied off the runway and came to rest beside those of Danny and Hamish, both of which were already undergoing service for the next run.
“How’d it go, bro?” Danny asked upon seeing Lee exit his cockpit to join them on the deck.
“Honestly, the first few minutes were a little hairy,” said Lee. “But after we got into it… I dunno, man. Stuff just started to make sense to me, ya know?”
“Coolest crap I’ve ever done,” Danny agreed, “to be sure.”
Lee peered over Danny’s shoulder at Hamish, who looked a little green. “How ya doin’ over there, Big Man?”
“I just need a moment is all,” Hamish managed, clutching his stomach.
Just then, the trio turned to see an almost euphoric Mac emerge from her Thresher and throw her arms around her instructor, who was all too happy to oblige her physical display of exuberance.
“Huh,” Danny chirped.
“Shut up,” Lee grumbled.
“Oh my god!” Mac shrieked as she raced toward them. “Was that not the single most awesome thing ever?”
“Hey Top, if the 82nd doesn’t want her, I think we can find a place for her in the Five-One,” Tino raved. “The girl’s a natural. I couldn’t shake her!”
“Glad to hear it,” said Ryan. “But how about we give it a few more sessions before we start handing out roster spots, alright, Tino? Suffice it to say, nobody blew chow in any of my birds, so from where I sit, that’s a good start across the board.”
“You might wanna hold off on that assessment, sir,” Danny said, watching the fifth and final Thresher come to rest on the other side of the hangar.
As the canopy opened, a sweat-soaked Link fought frantically to escape his safety belts before vaulting over the ladder—nearly face-planting to the deck on his way down—and launched into a life or death sprint across the hangar bay toward the nearest trash can he could find.
“Nice flyin’ with ya, Tiny,” Layla gloated, blowing him a kiss to add insult to injury.
It took a moment, but after several excruciating seconds of intense vomiting, a small, pale hand rose from behind a wall—shuddered with a final, anguished heave—and extended its middle finger.
“Given that I’m not cleaning that off of his dash, I’m guessing they handled okay?” Wyatt asked, drawing a chuckle from the captain.
“Handled great, Chief… thanks,” said Ryan of the Threshers. “We’re gonna break for lunch, then head back up in about an hour.”
Hearing Link manage a groan behind him, Wyatt pursed his lips.
“You sure that’s a wise idea, Captain?”
****
“Chief Wyatt seems like a pretty good guy,” Lee said to Ryan, still buzzing over his first experience in a fighter as the two squadrons left the flight deck for the mess hall.
“The best,” said Lt. Commander Hastings beside them. “Nobody takes his job more seriously than Kristofer Wyatt, nobody. He goes above and beyond to make sure we, as pilots, have everything we need out there. There’s no detail he misses and no job too trivial for his attention. If it’ll help keep us alive, it’s done. That’s the Chief.”
“It’s more than that,” Ryan added. “He’s been through a helluva lot lately.”
Curious as to his meaning, Lee raised an eyebrow. “How do ya mean?”
Ryan’s initial response was to shake off the question. But then figuring it all to be common knowledge anyway, he went on.
“Kris’s wife Terri was the Chief Medical Officer on board the Praetorian, but nine months ago she took a temporary post on board the Legacy to help out while their CMO was on extended leave with a family emergency.” His eyes darkened. “Two weeks in, her crew was dispatched on an emergency redeployment during the Phaxus conflict.”
“Oh my god!” Mac blurted, her face turning grim. “I read that debriefing during MOS training last week. The Reilly and the Cliffdale were the only ships to make it out of that fight alive, and both were decommissioned after that because they sustained so much damage. No one else made it.”
“It’s worse than that,” Layla added. “The night the L
egacy deployed, Terri broke the news to him that she was pregnant with their first. She hated to tell him that way too, so ‘all on the go’ and whatnot, but she didn’t have much choice. When everything went to hell on Phaxus, her crew’s orders came down and that was that. She was so excited.” A faint, broken smile crept through the young pilot’s dim expression. “I’d actually run into Terri earlier that morning in the infirmary. She’d literally just gotten the news about the baby, and I swear… I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone as happy as she was when she stepped out of that room. She was practically glowing. After that, she called up Aston down here on the flight deck and essentially browbeat him into covering the rest of Kris’s shift that night so she could surprise him before she shipped out with this huge, stupid candlelight dinner thing she’d been planning. She had his favorite food and everything. That’s how she wanted to tell him, ya know?” Layla’s echoed smile vanished with the memory. “Damn it,” she murmured. “They’d been trying for so long too.”
Suddenly feeling like the world’s most inconsiderate, self-absorbed ass, Lee hung his head and fell silent. He’d been so wrapped up in the excitement of the moment, and the rush of the fighter, that he’d completely lost sight of the fact that—at the end of the day—nothing about their being here had anything to do with thrill-seeking or personal amusement.
The fact of the matter was that these people were at war, and war, as Lee knew all too well, was not pretty. People lost their lives in it—people like Terri Wyatt and her unborn child. But regrettably, it’d taken a story such as theirs to send him tumbling back to that tragic reality, and he cursed himself for that.
Right then and there, Lee made two vows to himself. One—that he’d always remember the real reason why they were here, and two—as long as he was here, he’d give these people every ounce of effort, strength, and dedication he could muster before leaving them.
“How’s the Chief doin’ with all of that, anyway?” Lee asked. “Now that he’s had some time, I mean.”
Ryan shrugged. “On the surface, he seems to be doing okay, but for those of us who know him well, he’s never been the same. He’s a total workaholic now, and that was never Kris before. People try to get him out all the time—if for no other reason than to remind him that he’s not alone—but he never goes. He either works late on the flight deck or retires to his quarters. At best, you might see him out for coffee with Aston, but that’s only because those guys have been friends since basic.”
“Yeah, what was up with that guy?” Danny asked. “He didn’t seem too thrilled about us being there.”
Ryan brushed off the comment. “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “Not everybody involved in the Mimic project necessarily believes in it. Certainly you’ve figured that out by now?”
Lee and Danny exchanged glances, but said nothing.
“Anyway, back to Kris,” said Ryan. “Different people deal with grief in different ways, and for him, it was to bury himself in his work so he didn’t have to think about it.”
“Yeah well, he really outdid himself on the 13 project,” Tino observed from behind. “That thing was his baby, and it shows.”
Lee threw a surprised look to Ryan. “Whoa, he worked on the Mako project?”
“You might say that,” said the captain. “He was the lead designer. A lot of people don’t know this about Kris because the bulk of what he does around here is ordinary wrench work, but at heart, his real passion is concept and design—he’s damn good at it too. After Terri died, he all but threw himself into the 13 project, which is most of the reason why it’s gotten to prototype as quickly as it has. Originally, that fighter wasn’t supposed to be ready for testing for another six months. But when the Legacy was lost, Kris needed something to pour himself into, and that fighter back there in the hangar was it.”
Standing outside the lift as they waited for the doors to open, Lee’s thoughts remained on Wyatt. He’d seemed like a good guy from the outset; humble, hardworking, dedicated, and loyal. But factor all of that in with the tragic events surrounding his wife, plus the military’s longstanding reputation for taking care of its own in times of crisis, and it was easy now to see why everyone onboard thought so highly of this man.
On an oddly related note, Lee also felt as if he now understood the Mako in an entirely new light. Ever since its initial test flight, the SF-13 had been hailed as a masterpiece of aviation engineering by researchers and military brass alike, and while most of them might’ve just chalked that up to its creator’s keen eye for detail, Lee now knew that, for Wyatt, the real reason behind its paradigm-shifter status went far beyond stuffy accolades or redefined performance standards. For him, the Mako represented a real chance to protect the pilots who flew them, and thereby save their families from the kind of devastating events that had inspired the craft’s very conception.
Chapter 22: Confessions
Over the next three weeks, the group split the bulk of their time between doubles training in the Betas with the Hit Squad, and the briefing room, where Captain Ryan pored through their daily recorded flight data on the room’s viewscreen. During week two, their doubles sessions gave way to solo runs in the standard Threshers, and each of them quickly rose to the challenge in spite of the onslaught of information constantly being thrust at them. This included everything from basic Auran aviation techniques to Advanced Aerial Combat Maneuvers (or ACMs), and while everyone took to it with relative success, the only slight exception was Link. Even dating back to the later rounds of Mako Assault, he’d never really been that comfortable in a single-seat fighter, and though he was by no means a washout (in the game or in reality), there were the occasional instances when he had trouble keeping up with the others—a fact of which he was regularly reminded.
Still, while Ryan and Reiser continued to be impressed by their collective progress, nobody could deny that Lee was in a league of his own. As had been the case with Danny on the ground, the skills that he’d shown in the game back home quickly took hold and by the end of that third week, he was already flying with virtually no assistance from the M-Suit.
As the fourth week of flight training finally arrived, Lee could hardly contain his excitement over what came with it—Mako training. Unsurprisingly, he got little sleep the night before, waking instead at the cottony-spry hour of 04:30—well ahead of both the alarm clock and the others, but just in time to beat the daily rush into the mess hall for morning chow.
Four cups of coffee and an omelet later, Lee looked up from his ASC newspaper to see Danny stroll through the door.
“They got a sports page in there?” Danny asked, grabbing a glass of juice from the galley window and pulling up a chair.
“Yeah, but I doubt you’ll be able to make heads or tails out of it,” Lee replied.
“No football, huh?”
“Not exactly, although it does look like they’ve got somethin’ akin to boxin’ in here that might not be too bad.”
Danny stifled a yawn with his fist and slumped back in his seat. “Yeah, but I’d still kill to know how the ‘Phins are doing this season,” he admitted. “They’ve gotta be through, what… week six by now?”
Lee made a face over the rim of his coffee mug. “C’mon, man, Miami will be lucky to bring home a .500 season this year, and you know it.”
“How do you figure?” Danny huffed.
“Simple, you still don’t have any help at quarterback. You’ve got a guy who manages the offense and doesn’t turn the ball over, sure… but he ain’t gonna break anything open downfield with that noodle arm of his. I mean, he’s had what, three shoulder surgeries now? Plus,” Lee added, “the East is a bear of a division this year. Face it, partner, your boys in teal are toast!”
Danny twisted a look. “Whatever,” he grumbled. “At least we can run the ball, which is more than I can say for your precious Bucs.”
Lee nodded indifferently and sipped his coffee. Meanwhile, the rest of the morning shift continued to file in around them.
“You know,” Danny noted. “I never thought I’d say this two months ago, but I’ll kinda miss this place when we’re gone.”
Lee eyed his friend, seeing the wheels turning in his mind. “You’re not possibly thinking of stickin’ around?”
“Screw that,” Danny balked. “I can’t wait to get home, back to college football, my guys at the office, girls who don’t wish death on me every time I look at them… and don’t even get me started on that 16-ounce Prime Rib at Maxeen’s.” He frowned, suddenly less than enthused with the paltry strip of bacon on his plate. “All I’m saying is it’s kind of a tragedy that we’ve come all the way out here, and learned how to do all this incredible stuff, only to never be able to use these skills again after we leave. Fortune or no fortune, you’ve gotta admit, that’s kind of a bummer.”
Danny had a point there, Lee thought. Given everything they’d done and experienced, it would be hard to leave a lot of that behind. Besides, outside of the cash, what did any of them really have that was worth going home to anyway?
“What do you think the others would say?” Lee asked, avoiding eye contact to maintain the hypothetical theme of the talk.
“I’m sure initially they’d say it’s a nutso idea too, but I can see it,” said Danny. “They’ve thought about it. Link’s already hatching a plot to steal an S-29 to take back with him and Hamish has really found his niche with this deep-space, military engineering stuff.”
“He and Wyatt have been spendin’ a lotta time together up on the flight deck,” Lee observed. “Different galaxy or not, I reckon that’s what happens when you put a couple of gear-heads together to compare whose engine is bigger.”
Lee hesitated before asking his next question, hoping to keep things casual. “How ‘bout Mac? Think she’d stay?”
Danny considered this. “Hard to say. She’s wanted out of the family business for years, but never had a real out. That’s all different now. Still,” he mused. “She’s got her reasons for wanting to stay, just like the rest of us.”
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