A flight of four Rapiers standing sentry at the jump point pulled a perfect fly by, breaking into a diamond pattern and rolling as they shot past Tarawa.
“Only one group of pilots can fly that well,” Janice said, coming up to sit by Jason’s side to watch the show.
He nodded, saying nothing.
“Any guess as to what’s going on?”
Jason looked over at her, tempted to imply that he was in the know, but couldn’t.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Kind of strange. We get diverted to pull a surprise landing. The battle is still being fought and less than twelve hours after the assault they pull their top commando unit out, us along with ’em, and ship us out here, straight to our main battle task force.”
“Think O’Brian knows?” Janice asked.
“Doubt it. He seemed in a real stew over it all at staff meeting, that guy is like a Centauri bear with a feather rammed up its snout when he’s been kept in the dark for security reasons; acts like it’s a personal affront to his dignity.”
“There she is,” Doomsday said quietly, and nodded back to the holoscreen, having remained silent throughout his comrades’ bout of speculation.
Jason sighed as he looked at the screen. Smack in the middle was Wolfhound, sister ship of the long gone Tiger’s Claw, and flagship of the Confederation’s main task force under the command of Admiral Banbridge. But he paid it scant notice, for off the starboard beam of Wolfhound were two of his old homes—Gettysburg and Concordia. Concordia appeared to have picked up a few more wounds, the blast scorching dead amidships seemed like a recent addition. The ship was like an old slashed-up boxer, covered from one end to the other with scars. It’d been a long time since she had seen dry dock for repairs and a new paint job. In a lot of areas the bare durasteel was exposed to space.
“Damn, the whole fleet’s here,” Janice announced, and she pointed out CVA Trafalgar, cruising astern of the flagship, the four carriers surrounded by a swarm of corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, supply ships, minesweeps, and light battle frigates.
“A balloon is definitely going up,” Doomsday said quietly. “There hasn’t been a fleet gathering like this in half a dozen years. There’s gonna be a whole hell of a lot of killing.”
“And somebody’s called Tarawa in for the show.”
“Time to go folks,” Jason said, and his two comrades looked at him enviously.
“Give my regards to the old crew,” Doomsday said, “tell ’em that contrary to all my predictions I’m still alive out here.”
Jason left his friends and headed out to the flight deck.
Repairs were still under way for the craft damaged in the assault on Vukar Tag. He saw Chamberlain under his Rapier, covered in soot, helping out his crew chief. It was the type of spirit he liked in a pilot. A crew chief, more than anyone else alive, knew all the ins and outs of a fighter, and helping on the repairs could teach a pilot a hell of a lot. The rest of the pilots were standing down, some of them sleeping, the ones who thought they knew it all, the others were in the flight simulators, or studying the gun camera holos of their strikes to try and figure out how to do things better. They had a hell of a long way to go, but with only one gunner and one copilot lost and two injured while covering a major landing, he had to admit that their record was a damned sight better than average, though he would never tell them that.
He walked down the flight line, scanning each ship as if trying to sense if everything was right. At last he reached the Sabre that would serve today as a shuttle. O’Brian was waiting.
“You’re three minutes late, mister.”
Jason, unable to contain his growing dislike, made a show of checking his watch and then nodded an apology.
“We can’t keep the admirals waiting, mister.”
“After you, sir.”
O’Brian climbed up the ladder into the cockpit of the fighter-bomber and settled into the front seat.
“Ah sir, that’s the pilot’s seat,” Jason said quietly.
O’Brian looked up at him coldly, climbed back out and then moved to the backseat. Jason followed him in, sat down, and snapped his harness in place. He looked back at O’Brian, who was fumbling with the straps.
“Need help, sir?”
O’Brian looked at him, and Jason felt a flash of sympathy for the man. He was completely out of his league, not only in the cockpit of this plane, but on the bridge of an escort carrier as well. He looked at O’Brian with a friendly smile, as if willing to offer far more than just advice on how to strap into a cockpit. Damn, if only this man would get off his high horse for a moment, quietly admit his shortcomings and try to learn from the handful of combat veterans aboard ship. It was a lesson he had learned when still a second class flight deck mate on his first cruise and he never forgot it—listen to the old hands no matter what their rank.
“I can do it myself, mister,” O’Brian snapped in reply.
“Sir, if you connect that part of the harness up that way, when you eject you’ll get kicked out of the chair and have your legs ripped off on the way out.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“Sir, honestly,” and he forced a friendly smile again, “I don’t think you do know, but that’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“When I need your advice I’ll ask for it.”
“Have it your way, sir,” Jason said quietly, his features flushing with embarrassment. He found that he was actually feeling sorry for the man.
“One thing though, sir. If something goes wrong, and I shout eject three times, all you have to do is reach down between your legs, grab hold of the D ring, and yank.”
O’Brian looked at him wide eyed.
“That’s not going to happen?”
“Of course not, sir, but standard procedure requires that I make sure you’re aware of how that works.”
O’Brian was quiet, and he nervously reached down to touch the ring.
“And just make sure your suit is fully pressurized, sir, before we launch.”
Without waiting for a reply Jason pulled his helmet visor down, ran through a final check and then looked over at the deck launch officer giving the thumbs-up.
Since it was not a combat launch he simply nudged his throttle and the ship slowly drifted down the launch ramp and poked through the airlock barrier at a stately two meters a second. He provided a touch of vertical lift and rose up off of the Tarawa. When safely cleared he couldn’t resist the temptation.
“Hang on, sir.”
He slammed on full throttle and then kicked in the afterburners for good measure.
“Damn it, Jason.”
“Sir, you said we were three minutes late. I’m making the time up.”
He knew it was cruel, but damn it all, he just couldn’t help himself. Tapping his stick over he quickly snapped the Sabre through a 720-degree spin, pulled a sharp wing over, then banked up hard, snap rolling again to level out on Concordia, calling in for clearance. The flight was over in less than three minutes and as they taxied to a stop and he pulled his helmet visor back up he detected a rather unpleasant sourish smell in the cockpit. For the sake of a captain’s dignity he felt it best not to look back.
“We’re on time now,” Jason said quietly, as he stood up. He climbed out of the Sabre and looked around the flight deck. It was like coming home. After weeks aboard the Tarawa it was damned good to be on a real flight deck again, spacious, plenty of landing, hangar and work room, everyone moving about with an air of calm efficiency. Other fighters and shuttle craft were coming in, a steady stream of brass dismounting, moving purposefully across the flight deck.