Promises

by Kacey Ezell

  “Pilot has the cyclic,” Ozendi said, squeezing the trigger mic to speak. That squeezing was enough to cause the hover to wobble backwards, which Ozendi instinctively tried to correct by pushing forward.

  “Less forward cyclic.” Mara’s command was still dreamy; she concentrated on keeping her hand close enough to prevent Ozendi from getting truly out of control. As she’d known he would, he overcorrected and pulled back rapidly on the cyclic. The Huey responded by tilting her nose sharply up and accelerating backward.

  “Instructor has the controls,” Mara said, grabbing the cyclic and centering it back up in order to gentle the helicopter’s movement. The Huey settled, once again, into a stable hover.

  “I barely touched it!” Ozendi said, indignant.

  “Yep,” Mara replied, smiling slightly. “You barely touched her, and yet it was still too much. Remember what I said about not strangling the cyclic? Hold her gently, like a lady.”

  “Not all ladies like to be touched so softly,” he grumbled.

  Mara grinned. “Perhaps not,” she said. “But this one does. Gentle, Ozendi. You’re doing great.”

  “Am I?” he asked, but he gamely rested just his fingertips on the cyclic again. This time, when Mara gave him the control, he did much better at keeping the Huey centered and stable.

  “Good,” she said, feeling a smile as she spoke. Teaching a student, feeling them getting it…that was the essence of flight instruction. It never got old. “Okay, now, when I tell you, I want you to move us to the right. I’ll tell you ‘right ten’ and I want you to gently feed in right cyclic. We’ll start to accelerate in that direction. I’ll count down from ten, and when I get to one, you’ll have to stop us. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good.” Mara twisted in her seat, craning her neck to look over her shoulder through the pinned-open cabin doors of the Huey. “Clear right ten.”

  With her fingertips on the cyclic, Mara felt him pull the tiniest bit to the right. As was natural, he pulled slightly aft, too, but she used her hand as a barrier to keep him from going too far. She would address that on the next try. For now, she just wanted him to feel how much input he needed to get them going in the right direction. Her feet on the pedals kept the nose pointed steadily ahead as they began to slide across the ground in a sideways hover to the right.

  “Five,” she called. “Four. Three—start taking your input out—Two. One. Stop right.”

  It wasn’t particularly smooth, and he immediately started to oscillate fore and aft, but Ozendi managed to bring them to a credible stop at the end of her countdown.

  “Instructor’s controls,” Mara said, taking a firmer hold of the cyclic.

  “Instructor’s controls,” Ozendi agreed, letting go.

  “IP has the controls,” Mara confirmed, and decreased the collective to gently set them down on the grass. “Ozendi!” she said then, letting a bit of the joy she felt into her voice. “That was awesome!”

  “It was?” he asked, sounding faintly exhausted. She couldn’t help but laugh.

  “It damn sure was! Almost no one is able to do that so well their first time. That was fantastic. I’m really proud of you. Now. Ready to add in the collective?”

  * * *

  By the end of the first day, Ozendi could hover.

  Oh, it wasn’t one hundred percent stable, but he could pick up and set down where he wanted, and he could move laterally and vertically according to the commands Mara gave him. He was a little shaky on controlling the nose with the pedals, but that wasn’t unusual for a brand-new student, and Mara was confident he’d improve rapidly. Especially as he was their only student, and they were planning at least one flight every day.

  “As soon as the rotor is still, you can go on inside,” Mara told Ozendi as the main rotor coasted to a stop during the shutdown sequence. “Sergeant Frazier will help me put the bird to bed, and then we’ll join you for a debrief.”

  “Debrief?” Ozendi asked.

  “Yes. It’s essential for your learning. We’re going to talk about your flight and all of the things you learned in order to reinforce those lessons,” Mara said. She couldn’t help but give him a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “What’s said in debrief isn’t personal. It’s all about making you a better pilot. And we all had to learn at some point.”

  “And Sergeant Frazier will come?” Ozendi asked, his voice pitched low, as the man himself approached with the long rope used to tie the main rotor down.

  “He will,” Mara said, her tone hardening. “His expertise is also necessary for your learning.”

  Ozendi drew in a deep breath but gave her a short nod and said nothing else. Instead, he released his four-point harness and reached for his door handle.

  “Ozendi,” Mara said, surprising herself. “It was a good flight.”

  He hadn’t yet removed his helmet, so she still couldn’t see his entire face, but his lips curved in that genuine smile again, and something warm uncurled deep in her belly at the sight of it.

  “Thank you, Mara,” he said. “You are a good teacher.”

  He opened the door and stepped out of the aircraft. He nodded to Sergeant Frazier as the crew chief caught the rotor blade and pulled it down to hook the tie-down rope to the right place. Mara could see Sergeant Frazier’s blank, professional face as he returned the nod. Then, as he walked the blade around to where he’d secure it to the tail, his eyes met Mara’s, with a question shining clear: What the hell was that about?

  Mara shrugged and looked down at the aircraft forms in her lap. Honestly, she didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. Fortunately, she had the perfect distraction available as she turned her mind to the mental math required to calculate the time they’d spent flying and hovering. She put her head down and focused on filling out the forms.

  It was no use. By the time she finished up the forms, Elroy had tied down the blades, done the appropriate checks, and was standing next to her cockpit door with arms crossed over his chest.

  “Well?” he asked when she looked up.

  “It was a good flight,” she said.

  “It musta been. He was beaming like you’d just asked him to the prom.”

  “He’s a pilot, El. He likes to fly. And he did well for his first helicopter lesson. That was him hovering back in here.”

  “Hmmph, no wonder the nose was hunting all over like a dog trying to catch a scent.”

  Quick, hot anger rose up inside her, tangling with the normal post-flight fatigue.

  “Damnit, El! This is why I didn’t bring you along,” she said as she swung her legs over the collective and hopped down to the ground outside the bird. Elroy towered over her, but she put her fists on her hips and glared up at him. “I don’t know what Ozendi did to piss in your Wheaties, but you need to get over it. Now. He’s our student, and this is an important step toward building the strategic partnership that Murphy—and others—think we need to survive. I don’t care what you have to do, but get your shit together, all right? I don’t have time for this crap!”

  Elroy met her glower for glower, but Mara held her ground. She’d never been one to be intimidated into backing down, especially not when she knew she was right.

  Finally, eventually, Elroy wilted just a bit.

  “You’re right, ma’am,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry. It’s just…something about that guy rubs me the wrong way.”

  “Can you put your finger on what?” Mara asked, allowing her tone to soften slightly. “Instincts are important, and I’m inclined to trust yours, but you’ve got to meet me halfway, here, El.”

  “It’s just…he don’t look at you right.” Elroy shuffled his feet slightly. “I mean, I don’t think he’d ever try anything…but I watch him watch you, and he ain’t looking at you like one pilot looks at another. He looks at you like a man looks at a pretty woman.”

  Mara’s eyebrows went up. “Are you telling me Ozendi’s checking out my rack
?” she asked dryly.

  “No, ma’am. He’s checking out your ass.”

  Mara stifled a laugh and a surge of pure alpha female pride. “Well,” she said slowly, “can you blame him? I mean, my ass is pretty spectacular.”

  Now it was Elroy’s turn to look shocked. His mouth dropped open slightly, and for the first time in their acquaintance, he appeared speechless. Mara snorted and let the laugh bubble up from inside her and spill out.

  “Hell, Elroy, you should see your face! I’m sorry, man, I didn’t mean to short-circuit your brain, but damn, I got you good!”

  “Ma’am?” Elroy said slowly. “I don’t understand…do you want him to be looking—”

  “At my ass? Not particularly, no,” Mara said, shaking her head and continuing to chuckle. “But it’s not the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Unless you think he’s gonna do something inappropriate, I think I can forgive him for sizing me up. As long as he performs to standard, right? Because that’s the mission, and that’s what matters.”

  Elroy shook his head slightly, his expression faintly disapproving. “It just don’t seem right.”

  Mara took pity on him and reached out to lay a comforting hand on his big shoulder. “Look, El. The Air Force I served in and the Army you served in were very different entities. But men and women don’t change. Like I said, he can look all he wants, as long as he’s respectful and performs to the standard. The minute he fails to do either of those things, we’re on him, right? But people are people, and people are gonna look. Hell, how many times do you think the girls and I checked out your arms and back just after we were all defrosted?”

  “You—you did?”

  “Mmm hmm. You were Irina’s favorite of the MACV-SOG guys. She called you ‘Hot Chocolate.’”

  He snorted softly, rolling his eyes, but his lips quirked up in a smile.

  “So,” Mara said, “we good?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “We’re good. I’ll lay off the Spin jock. I’m gonna keep watching him close, though.”

  “I wouldn’t expect any less.”

  Mara flashed a grin at him, then she turned and grabbed her helmet from the hook above her seat. Elroy fell into step beside her as they headed to the temporary building that had been set up as their operations center. It was just a prefab building, camouflaged with the local shrubs and trees that made up the forest around them. Mara couldn’t have said if they were deciduous or coniferous plant forms since they seemed to look like both and neither at the same time. What they were, though, was prolific, which was interesting, given the overall character of the dry, desert planet. Here at the poles, however, the climate was more temperate—a fact for which Mara thanked her lucky stars. She’d done more than enough time in Africa and the Middle East to relish operating in cracked, dusty heat. It was a nice change, having their little training facility tucked in a valley between forested hills and set next to a clear mountain stream; it was pretty, and Mara liked to be in pretty surroundings. Even if they were, according to Murphy, over a hundred-fifty light years from home.

  The interior of the building, however, looked much like every deployed tactical operations center she’d ever set foot in: utilitarian beige walls, ugly linoleum flooring, communications wiring stapled along the corner between wall and ceiling or wall and floor. Mara strode all the way down the hallway to the small locker room on the left, where she dumped her gear before hitting the restroom and meeting the two men in the larger room they used for briefings and lessons.

  “All right,” she said as she walked in. Both Ozendi and Elroy came quickly to their feet in response. She waved a hand to indicate they should sit and took her own chair at the head of the table. “Let’s go through this from the beginning.”

  As they talked, Mara remained mindful of Elroy’s warnings about Ozendi’s attitude toward her. She took care to keep her own tone brisk and businesslike, but that didn’t seem to faze her student at all. He still smiled that wide, warm smile that shone through his dark eyes. When she spoke, he listened intently, even taking notes here and there. He accepted her criticisms and corrections with good grace, even when Elroy chimed in with his perspective as a back-end flyer.

  At the end of the debrief, she sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap.

  “Now,” she said, per her usual custom. “It’s your turn. How was my instruction? Was there anything that I could have done to make it easier for you to learn today?”

  Ozendi looked up from his notebook, where he’d been scribbling down her last few points.

  “Better?” he asked, sounding surprised. “No! Not at all. You are a good instructor, Mara. I said this before.”

  “Thank you,” Mara said, studiously avoiding Elroy’s eyes. “But even good instructors can improve. Every flight offers the opportunity to learn, right? That’s true for me, too. So, tell me, what should I learn from you?”

  Ozendi looked at her for a long moment, his smile softening, then fading away as the look in his eyes grew more intense.

  “I cannot think of anything right now,” he eventually said. “But I will let you know.”

  “Good enough,” Mara said, ignoring the flutter in her stomach. She was just hungry after the flight was all. She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. Both Elroy and Ozendi followed her lead. “I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning then,” she said. “El, walk with me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Elroy said. He stepped quickly to follow her out the door, leaving Ozendi staring after her.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Two

  Training progressed. Mara taught Ozendi the basics of hovering and forward flight, as well as what to do in a number of emergency situations. The one thing she couldn’t really teach was instrument flying. For one thing, R’Bak didn’t have a network of radio-navigation stations…or really any at all. The SpinDogs were so skittish about stray radio signatures that there was no way for her to build even the most basic of instrument approaches or routes. For the time being, at least, it appeared that they were limited to VFR operations and navigation only.

  She largely concentrated on what had been called “mission skills” when she’d learned to fly the Huey. This mostly consisted of VFR navigation at both high- and low-altitudes, as well as operations in unprepared landing areas under various terrain and threat scenarios. They started with the basics and eventually worked up to flying long, circuitous routes in and around the hilly, forested regions near the pole.

  They were still limited, however, by their fuel capacity.

  “Mara,” Ozendi said to her one day, when they were planning a training route for the next day. “I want to go here.” He stabbed his finger down on the terrain map, indicating a valley higher up in the mountains to their west.

  “We don’t have the legs for that, Ozendi,” Mara said. “You know that. We go out that far, we won’t get back to the camp here before we flame out from fuel starvation.”

  “What if we refuel at this location, then? We can fly in these mountains and identify some very good high elevation LZs. Excellent training!” He flashed his grin at her, the one he used when he was trying to be charming and persuasive. Mara smiled back, even though the grin didn’t have the same effect on her insides as his softer, more genuine smile.

  Not that that thought was helpful. Mara forced her focus back to what Ozendi was saying.

  “It would be, but I doubt there is a cache of JP-8 in that random mountain valley, Ozendi.”

  “No, but there could be, if we put some there.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This location is known to my people,” he said. “It is one of our contacts. I can have fuel positioned there for our use. It is part of the overall plan to establish flying bases throughout this region, yes? My people already cache vehicles there. It makes sense to have helicopters as well.”

  Mara looked down at the map, considering. He was right about the location. It would make an ex
cellent air ops base for mountain training, and its distance from their current location meant that if they did have refueling capability there, it would effectively double their range.

  “It’s a good idea,” she said slowly. “But I have to speak to my leadership about it before we do anything.”

  “Of course,” Ozendi said, his smile triumphant. “You must call Major Murphy at once.”

  She laughed. “Not so fast, hot shot. We’re following your people’s comm security schedule. My next contact is tomorrow afternoon. That’s soon enough. In the meantime, go ahead and plan the training sortie. Make sure you pick at least three possible LZs with various characteristics. Make one a pinnacle if you can. We’ll see if we can actually get into any of them. We’ll talk about terrain masking and threat mitigation along the route, too.”

  “And what will you do?” he asked.

  Mara stopped short, drew herself up and let her face and voice go icy. “Why?”

  “Because…” he hesitated, spread his hands and gave a little laugh. “Because I like working beside you more than working without you.”

  She let her eyebrows go up.

  “Well,” she said. “That’s very flattering, but I have things to do, and you’re perfectly capable of coming up with a decent plan.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just oversee my efforts? Just in case?”

  “In case of what?” she asked. “You know how to do this, Ozendi. You don’t need me to hold your hand.”

  “Perhaps not,” he said with a ghost of his cocky grin. “But perhaps I would enjoy you holding my hand.”

  She snorted softly. “Are you flirting with me?”

  “Yes,” he said, and he blinked his eyes slowly as his smile grew. Not for the first time, she noticed the sweep of his very long, quite beautiful lashes.

  It took her a moment to tear her eyes away, but when she did, she rolled them skyward in an exaggerated expression of exasperation.