by PJ Strebor
From his position at the training officer’s control station, Lieutenant (JG) Austin Woodley glared at Nathan. His pathetic attempt at staring him down nearly caused Nathan to laugh aloud. The pale skin of his ridiculously youthful face had flushed red, nearly obscuring the fine pattern of freckles. They were the same age but Woodley ranked Nathan: just.
“What the devil do you think you were doing?”
Woodley’s well-rounded Republican accent had irritated Nathan from the moment he had been posted to their flight as an assistant training officer, two months ago. Now the pompous lieutenant simply bored him.
“Ah, landing practice?” Nathan said, cutting in his lethargic Kastorian drawl.
Smiles radiated from the trainees.
“That so-called maneuver was insane,” Woodley roared. “You do not land a fighter sternward into a monitor’s boat bay. That has never been done before, and with good reason. Are you mad?”
“There’s an ongoing debate with regard to my sanity,” Nathan said, mopping sweat from the back of his neck. “What do you think, Lieutenant?”
“I think that you have refused to call me Sir, as is my right, for the last two months.”
It constantly amazed Nathan how certain Republican bluebloods could maintain such a snotty angle to their heads for so long, without cramping. No one, but no one, got promoted to Lieutenant (JG) only six months after graduation. Not without backing from way up top.
Moe Okuma led the rest of the trainee pilots to stand beside Nathan.
“If you check the regs — you’ve read the regs, right? — you will see that respect for the uniform requires a subordinate to address an officer by either of those descriptions. Lieutenant.”
“Sir: you will address me as Sir, Ensign.”
He closed the distance until Nathan could tell what he had for lunch.
Nathan’s teeth set. “Get out of my face … Lieutenant.”
The other nine trainees closed around the arrogant fool, their expressions dark and menacing.
Woodley’s complexion paled with dramatic effect. His mouth opened and closed, but he had temporarily lost the ability to make sound.
The hatch slid open, and the trainees snapped to attention.
“At ease,” Commander Worsfold said. Not for the first time, his eyes held a touch of mischief. “So, how are things going?”
Nathan suppressed a smile. He had no doubt the commander knew perfectly well how things were going. Whether by technical manipulation or mystical clairvoyance, Worsfold always knew everything that happened with regard to his charges.
“Great, Skip,” Meta said. “You should have been here. Nathan pulled off the most outstanding trap I’ve ever seen.”
“Really? I’ll have to take a look at the recordings.” Worsfold rounded on the assistant training officer. “Lieutenant Woodley, have all of the trainees completed their allotted practice landings for the day?”
Woodley swallowed and found the place where he had lost his voice. “Yes, Sir, all trainees have completed two practice landings in the afternoon session. However, Ensign Telford—”
“Very well, Lieutenant,” Worsfold said, “we’re close enough to stand down to end practice for the day.”
“But Commander, Ensign Tel—”
“Don’t worry about the debrief, Lieutenant Woodley. I’ll take care of it. No need to thank me. You are dismissed.”
“Commander, I feel it is my duty to report—”
Worsfold locked his gaze on to Woodley with the sort of menacing nuance the lieutenant would dearly love to emulate. “Lieutenant Woodley, what part of ‘you are dismissed’ are you having difficulty understanding?” The change in his tone, though unmistakable, was barely audible.
Woodley snapped to attention. In an act of rarely seen good sense, he chose the wise path. Turning on his heel, he marched from the training room. Worsfold set his face to a disapproving scowl, but still the hint of mischief remained.
“I’ve told you clowns before about teasing Woodley, have I not?”
“Woodley was riding Nathan again, Skip,” Meta said. “He set up an impossible ambush scenario and then got pissed off when Nathan brought his boat aboard.”
“That’s right, Skipper,” Ozzie said. “Because he couldn’t make the grade to get into Metier, he takes his pettiness out on us.”
“Not only us, Skipper,” Moe said. “Woodley’s tallied up complaints from every flight he’s been assigned to. And the less said about his promotion, the better.”
Commander Worsfold’s gaze fell onto Nathan. “And what do you think, Mister Telford?”
“He’s a bother, all right,” Nathan drawled, as he stepped away from the command chair. “But I expect the commander has the matter well in hand.”
“How flattering of you to think so.” His brief smile disappeared. “Now listen up. You’ve all done well in the last nine months, but next week we commence carrier qualification — and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a whole new game.”
A sea of grinning faces greeted him.
“About bloody time,” Meta muttered.
Worsfold shot her a blistering glare.
“I’m sure what Ensign Kaspowitz means is she is as pleased as all of us to be going out on Chiron.” Nathan shrugged. “You know how impatient Salamisians are, Skipper.”
“A pilot without patience is no asset to the Corps,” Worsfold growled. “Now listen up. If Woodley has a mind to, he could bring charges against the lot of you for today’s little stunt. You might be Metier trainees, and not the mere mortals who undergo flight training at this base, but you are bound by the same rules as every other officer in the Athenian Naval Service. So, between now and when we ship out, I don’t want any of you giving Woodley a hard time. It’s yes Sir, no Sir, three bags full, Sir. Tell me that you understand me?”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” they responded.
“Good. Now you might as well take off for the day. I’ll see you back here tomorrow at 0800 hours.” While they filed out, Worsfold held Nathan back with a hand resting on his shoulder. The trainees paused at the hatch, glancing back before moving on.
Worsfold leaned against the flight controller’s panel and folded his arms.
“That was a fine bit of flying. Grommits are traditionally expected to die in the Custer scenario.”
“I got lucky.”
“Yeah, all of your teachers and instructors attest to your luck.” His face held an odd mixture of emotions. A sort of simmering anger, to be sure, but something else, familiar yet elusive. “You’ve been lucky enough to earn top scores in leadership classes, advanced navigation, tactical analysis and atmospheric flight training. Your luck has extended to blowing out the numbers in the sims, and now you manage to escape from a program purposely designed to kill you. Your instructors use words like gifted, exceptional, even brilliant. The best natural pilot and tactician in the school, according to one of your instructors. Yes, for the last nine months you have been extremely lucky.”
Nathan felt simultaneously flattered, embarrassed and extremely cautious. “I guess I’ve done fair enough.”
“Yes, you have.” Worsfold took in the expanse of the Johhansen Mark Twenty-seven TF-51 Specter combat sphere simulator. His expression turned hostile. “And after all that good work, you go and pull this harebrained stunt. I put you back into the sims to sharpen you for carrier qual, not to screw around. I know you’re not stupid, so what is it? Do you think these simulations are a joke, Mister?”
“No, Sir.”
“Then why in God’s name didn’t you abort your landing?”
Worsfold’s scornful face, so reminiscent of his dead father’s, spoke of a profound sense of disappointment. A pang struck at Nathan’s heart.
“The ensign has no excuse for his actions, Sir.” He pushed down the anguish and resentment.
“You’re not at the academy now, Mister. You are a commissioned officer in Monitor Corps. So the e
nsign better produce an explanation damn fast.”
Nathan recognized he had taken a risk, but Worsfold’s tirade seemed disproportionate to the alleged crime. At least he showed the professionalism to dismiss the rest of the trainees before reaming him.
“Sir, from a purely tactical standpoint, I believe my actions are justified.” When dealing with officers he respected, Nathan’s lethargic accent disappeared.
“Really?” Worsfold said. “Do tell.”
“Epsilon One was the last of the boat’s fighters. Damaged or not, it was an asset worth preserving. In my opinion. Sir.”
Nathan struggled to keep his expression neutral.
“The tactical situation,” the commander mused aloud, nodding, “saving the boat’s last fighter; all pretty sound thinking.” Again his gaze locked on to Nathan. “That isn’t the only reason you took the action you did, is it?”
Nathan hesitated.
“Tell me.”
“I felt I could do it.”
Worsfold’s frustration returned. “So, you put Chiron and everyone aboard her at risk because you thought you could do it?”
“No Sir,” Nathan snapped, “I didn’t think I could do it, I felt I could do it.”
Worsfold’s mouth tightened in preparation for launching into him. A flash of anger washed away the last of Nathan’s professional reserve. He took a single step toward the commander.
“No, Sir, I am not playing games with semantics.”
The commander’s eyebrows arched.
“I felt the thrusters giving out. I felt the starboard engine’s power dying. I assumed Woodley would cut my power and cripple me when he saw what I was doing. Even so, I felt, with my best instincts, I could bring the boat safely home. It might not be entirely rational, but … it was a gut reaction to a stress situation. However, Sir, if keen instincts are no longer seen as an asset in Monitor Corps pilots, then I guess you’ll have to reassign me to sweeping up after incompetent fuckers like Woodley.”
The words had leapt from his mouth in a heartbeat of impassioned resentment and a total disregard for the proprieties of rank. Nathan’s heart sank. He wondered if growing coffee beans on Caleb’s plantation wasn’t the worst of occupations.
“What if you lost your stern thrusters?” Curiosity softened Worsfold’s snarl.
“I figured Woodley would pull them, so I isolated them on a silent relay so he couldn’t.”
Worsfold shook his head slowly and turned away, facing the far bulkhead. “I told you once about the purpose of this training. Do you remember?”
“Aye, Sir. You said the training is designed for people like me to learn. Or, failing to do so, to screw up without killing either themselves or anyone else. Mistakes happen, but amateurs should not attempt excursions into non-regulation maneuvers.” Nathan finally swallowed the lump in his throat. “The last time I tried something, ah, innovative, you suggested next time I mightn’t be so lucky.” He paused for a moment, then licked his dry lips. “Is that the case here, Sir?”
When Worsfold faced him, the tightness had disappeared from his features. Nathan controlled his surprise on seeing Worsfold’s lazy smile.
“Not this time, hotshot,” Worsfold said. “But I advise you to keep a check on your temper. It is unbecoming to an officer in the Corps, and will be a definite impediment to gaining your own command one day.”
“I’ll remember that, Skipper.”
“See that you do,” the commander said, with false gruffness. He shook his head again. “I have been training pilots for five years, and never in that time, never, has a trainee pilot tried something so — how did you put it — innovative.” He scratched the back of his head. “They don’t teach those sorts of maneuvers at the academy these days, do they?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Worsfold failed to respond to his attempted witticism.
“It was … instinctual. I guess it comes from all the time I spent in the sims at the academy. I started in my first year, and I suppose the training has stuck.”
“First year?” His eyebrows arched curiously, a smile pinching the corners of his mouth. “Since when are plebes allowed simulation time?”
Nathan attempted to force a wry smile, but the effect felt self-consciously deformed.
CHAPTER 2
Body and spirit I surrendered whole to harsh instructors — and received a soul. Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Wonder’, Epitaphs, 1919 AD.
Date: 8th September, 321 ASC.
Position: Monitor Corps Fighter Training School, Minos, planet Crete, Athenian core systems.
Status: Metier Training. Downtime.
Nathan stepped from the simulator training building into bright afternoon sunshine. The early spring breeze carried a biting edge common for the planet’s southern hemisphere at this time of the year. The blue sky was clear except for the occasional high-altitude vapor trail from a training flight. Taking a sharp left turn at the administration building set him on a course for the junior officers’ quarters.
The day after graduation he and Livy, now free of academy restrictions, had married. Nathan had been deeply touched that the one hundred and twenty Kendo team members had delayed their furloughs by a day to form an enormous arch of raised swords to greet the newly married couple as they exited the chapel.
His nine months at Minos had rushed by with unnerving pace. Every year, the school accepted a mere one hundred and ten of the academy’s best into their advanced training course, Metier. Officially attached to Training Command’s Flight Training Center, Metier compressed a two-year flight training schedule into a highly intensive twelve months.
On the morning of his first day on Minos, he reported to the base infirmary for his communication implants.
Moe had needed to restrain him when one of the quacks said the words guaranteed to boil his blood.
“Don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit.”
Quick and painless, the quacks said. A week after the “painless” procedure, all of the trainees were having difficulty swallowing and some continued to suffer from ringing in the ears. The experience did nothing to lessen Nathan’s hatred of medicos.
At the base administration building, he was assigned to a training flight. Fortunately, Monitor Corps believed in keeping a working team together. Nathan and three of his teammates who had distinguished themselves while serving aboard the monitor Truculent were assigned to Epsilon Flight. The rest of the team comprised star students from the academy’s Kendo teams, all of them known to him.
Initially, the Epsilon students did cartwheels when they heard Commander Henry Worsfold, call sign “Skipper”, had been appointed as their senior training officer. Athletically lean and slightly taller than Nathan, with gold wings on his flight suit, he was a giant in the trainees’ eyes. The commander had once skippered a monitor. Nathan could not help wondering what could possibly have induced a man like Worsfold to relinquish command of his own boat for the mundane duties of Chief Flight Instructor.
The trainees’ celebration quickly dissolved into a state of sour incredulity.
Worsfold’s ludicrously cautious attitude began to wear thin with both students and instructors alike. Ensign Gillespie finally tagged the commander with the secret call sign “Wary Worsfold”. No one openly disagreed with the assessment. Other teams were getting further ahead of them, which did nothing to improve their sour mood.
Nathan could not understand how someone of Worsfold’s background, a former fighter jock and monitor captain, could have become so circumspect. Monitor skippers were renowned for their aggression. They were said to have “fangs”. Thus far, Worsfold had acted like a mother hen with a brood of chicks rather than a warrior bent on producing offspring of similar persuasion.
Next week they would say farewell to the routine of ANS Base Minos for three months. This section of training contained the most rigorous pressure of all: fail carrier qualification, and all the work do
ne before counted for nothing. Nathan could hardly wait.
He rounded the corner into the area set aside for the junior officers’ married quarters. The drab practicality of the base facilities fell away before uniformly neat rows of small bungalows. Complemented by white picket fences and modest garden plots, the bright white color of the buildings made the area feel as though it belonged in another reality.
Entering the mundane billet, he once again marveled at what Livy had done with the place. As countless wives before her had done, she had taken the basic accommodation package and turned it into a home. Colorful curtains hung from the windows, pictures of family and friends festooned the living room, with a couple of spirited tapestries draped over the dreary walls. As usual, she hunched over the kitchen table, marking homework on her computer. For a time he felt content to simply take in her thick chestnut hair and fine lines.
“Hello my darlin’.” He hugged her around the shoulders.
Livy leaned against his chest and sighed. His kiss lingered on her lips briefly. She had trained him not to interrupt her during work hours.
“How was your day?” Nathan asked.
“Good, and yours?”
“Same old, same old. How have the mini-monsters been treating you?”
“My students aren’t monsters,” she said, rising to the bait. “They’re adolescents.”
“Same thing.” He grudgingly broke contact. “Is she up yet?”
“No, so don’t disturb her. You know what you’ll have to do if she doesn’t get her sleep, don’t you?”
“Yes, dear,” he said, talking through his nose. “I’ve got Kendo classes tonight, so I’m going to grab a quick shower and head out.”
“Again?”
“That’s the price of popularity.”
Nathan knew he shouldn’t, but couldn’t resist checking in. He opened the nursery door so quietly no sound came from the old hinges. With all of the stealth of a monitor he crept to the edge of the bassinet and peered in. Ellen Bernice Telford lay in the crib surrounded by white sheets and a menagerie of soft animal toys. Although she was only six months old, he could tell that she would develop her mother’s thick, lustrous hair. The fine-boned features were her mother’s, but she was most definitely daddy’s girl. He reached down to brush a strand of hair from her sweet little face, but resisted the urge. If she awoke now, she would awake again in the wee hours of the next morning and he would need to attend to her. Not that he minded.