“All right, all right. You choose to be a macho grunt; you don’t have to prove it to me.”
“Prove something to you? Flyboy, I don’t need to prove anything to you. Go ahead and fly your lousy fighters, but it’ll be the marines that take the planets and win this war.”
“Without top cover, you’re nothing but target practice. I’m not the instructor who washed you out of flight school, so don’t keep trying to prove something to me now.”
Her eyes went cold and hard and she stood up.
“Go to hell,” and she stormed out of the room.
“Hey, you forgot your bottle…”
The door slid shut and he sat back in his chair.
“Nice going, Jason,” he sighed and was tempted to pick the bottle up and pour another drink.
The door slid back open and she stormed back into the room, came up to where he was sitting and pointed a finger in his face.
“And another thing, you egotistical bastard—”
Suddenly the whole thing seemed totally absurd and he started to laugh.
She looked down at him, her eyes filled with rage. And then it all started to melt away.
“You were about to say,” Jason whispered, looking up and smiling.
She hesitated and then her words came out as a whisper.
“Can I spend the night with you?”
“All right Blue Squadron, pair off with your wingmen; let’s get a couple of thousand kilometers between each pair and practice some head-to-head dogfighting.”
“That’s more like it, sir!”
“Cut the chatter, Mongol,” Jason said, a grin crossing his features, unable to blame Mongol for his enthusiasm.
He was amazed at how they were doing. The simulation of the convoy defense had gone flawlessly, with four of Doomsday’s Sabres marked off as “kills” before they had even closed within five thousand clicks of target, and not a single simulator torpedo getting through. Jason could tell that Doomsday was still seething about getting waxed by Lone Wolf, who had nailed him as he closed and was waiting for computer lock on the Tarawa. The accountants back at fleet headquarters would most likely go nuts if they ever found out that the new planes assigned to Tarawa had clocked over two hundred hours of flying time in the last thirty days. Planes aboard frontline carriers were expected to last a minimum of fourteen months before their thousand-hour strip-down and rebuilding check, a process which grounded the craft for a month and cost a cool million just in parts. But the thought of it made him want to laugh, as if any of these planes would even last that long.
“Lone Wolf, you’re with me.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“Aye, sir.”
“Stick to me like glue,” Jason said and he winged over, kicking on afterburners. He looked back over his right shoulder and saw Kevin closing in to follow. Jason banked right, watching, and Kevin nudged in a touch of extra throttle, following Jason through the turn. Jason opened his throttle full out and Kevin stayed close, reacting as Jason nudged his throttle up and down, Kevin following suit almost simultaneously.
“All right Lone Wolf, break left now!”
The Rapier turned over on its side and banked away.
“Switch on your combat simulation system, as you complete your circle; the game’s on!”
Jason broke hard right, toggling up his own combat simulator which would fire his lasers and neutron guns at a one percent setting, with shields now programmed to simulate all hits as if they were full impacts.
As he turned he watched his screen, Kevin’s ship now highlighted by a red blip. Kevin pulled out of his turn, snap rolling to throw off Jason as to his intended direction of banking. Jason pulled a high yo-yo, coming up over in a climbing bank, attempting to line up on a deflection shot. Kevin broke out of his climb, coming in straight at Jason, firing off a salvo. Jason, caught momentarily off guard by the gutsy move, pushed his stick forward, thus missing the incoming, and then pulled straight back up again, firing a volley which caught the underside of Kevin’s ship.
“Damn!” and Jason grinned at Kevin’s discomfort as he pulled up hard, snap rolling again and then breaking hard left. Kevin followed, punching in afterburners. But Kevin was on afterburners as well and yanked his ship into a skidding turn. As he rotated through, he lined up on Jason and fired several rounds, two of the three hitting squarely, shields forward snapping off, the computer reading that a quarter of the ship’s armor was gone.
“Nice shot, Lone Wolf!” and he zoomed through his turn, catching Kevin with another deflection shot.
“Ouch!” and Jason smiled, sensing that Kevin was actually enjoying the encounter and a chance to nail the old man.
The swirling fight continued for nearly a quarter hour and Jason found himself grinning with delight at the challenge. But there was a predictable pattern to Kevin’s actions, a problem with new pilots who found a couple of maneuvers that worked and then stuck to them. If a fight was over quickly, it didn’t matter, but in a long drawn out duel, predictability could be deadly.
Twice he was able to nail Kevin as he snap rolled and then broke out to port and the third time he went into the maneuver Jason positioned himself to nail the young pilot with a full deflection, but this time Kevin broke to starboard, skidding through his turn with afterburners blazing. Jason started to turn as well and then looking up in his rear projection mirror he saw Kevin roll out not a hundred meters behind him. Jason pulled up hard and Tolwyn stayed glued to his tail, a volley just skimming overhead. The second volley impacted full on the rear shields, and the computer simulated a full shield shutdown.
Jason took a deep breath, then slammed his throttle off, cutting all power. Kevin raced up on him, skimming just a couple of meters over Jason’s canopy, the shields of both ships snapping.
He lifted his nose slightly and slammed a volley straight up Kevin’s tailpipes and Lone Wolf’s engines shut off.
“I’m dead, sir,” Kevin said quietly.
“Good fighting, Kevin; let’s head back to the hanger.”
Clearing the airlock of Tarawa behind Kevin, Jason nudged his ship in through the tight quarters and touched down. As he climbed out of his Rapier he saw Tolwyn standing to one side by himself, while the other pilots gathered in a circle, talking excitedly, waving their hands back and forth to show their maneuvers.
Kevin walked up to Jason.
“A good fight, sir,” he said.
“You don’t like getting your tail waxed, do you?” Jason said quietly.
“I’m not used to it, if that’s what you mean.”
“Top scorer in flight school, even beat out one of your instructors if I remember your efficiency report correctly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Look, Kevin, this wasn’t some little demonstration to prove to you that I’m a hot pilot and you’re not. I got past that kind of crap years ago. I want you to come out of your next fight alive. You might be facing Imperial Guard and you don’t get to be an Imperial Guard pilot unless you’ve killed at least eight Confederation ships. I don’t want some bastard over there painting your kill on the side of his plane.”
“It’d be hard to tell that one to my uncle, wouldn’t it?”
Jason put his hand on Kevin’s shoulder and led him off to a quiet corner of the crowded deck.
“I want you to cut that crap out, Kevin,” Jason said, forcing himself to not blow up at the insult. “I’ve got a hell of a lot of respect for your uncle, but the fact that you’re his blood doesn’t cut it with me. Aboard this ship, and in my command, you’re Kevin Tolwyn, a damned good pilot, who is also one arrogant pain in the butt, and nothing more. Get that clear, mister, once and for all. I don’t care who else aboard this ship has been kissing your butt or kicking it because you’ve got an admiral for an uncle, but you’re not going to find that with me.”