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Thud spoke with his mouth full. “So what the hell happened?”

“Mink was trying to take a picture. He rolled into me. I tried to get out of the way and our wings hit. His came down on my Sidewinder rail, and his wing just broke in half.”

“Shit, man,” Thud exclaimed. “That’s not your fault.”

“Yeah.” Luke lost focus as his mind drifted. “Except Gun gave me the Big Dark Look.”

They both knew what that meant. Commander Rick Beebe, the TOPGUN commanding officer—actually the training officer, theN-7, of the Navy Strike and Air Warfare Center at Fallon, Nevada—was legendary for his looks that could wither the weak. When he gave you a look, it usually meant something worse was coming.

“Mink just gooned it up.”

“Yeah, but I’m the instructor. It’s always our fault. He’s going to board me.”

“What?” Thud exclaimed. “Why?”

“To be sure I’m fit to continue as a TOPGUN instructor,” Luke said with irony in his voice.

“You’ve got to be shitting me!” Thud cried. “You have got to be friggin’ shitting me!”

“Nope. He just told me.”

“About what?” asked Lieutenant Commander Brian Hayes, the Intelligence Officer. He was close to both of them and felt perfectly comfortable injecting himself into any of their conversations. He flipped open the pink doughnut box. His face showed immediate disappointment at finding it empty. “Who took all the doughnuts?”

“Some thief,” Thud lamented. “Believe that?”

“I didn’t even get breakfast,” Hayes said.

“Stick’s getting boarded for that midair,” Thud announced.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Hayes asked as he walked across the room. His right knee and foot insisted on turning in just slightly. It was barely noticeable; Luke and Thud could tell that Hayes was doing everything he could to hide it. Hayes had been recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

“Nope,” Luke said, still stinging from the announcement. He tried to be his usual optimistic self, but he was so embarrassed by the fact that he was getting boarded, he found himself reddening every time he mentioned it. It was eating him alive.

“That’s bullshit,” Hayes said. “We ought to board the Skipper,” Hayes said, quickly glancing over his shoulder to make sure Gun wasn’t around. “Probably just a formality.”

“Yeah. That’s it,” Luke said. “Just a formality. That’s why I’m grounded until they get it done.” He stood and filled his coffee cup.

Thud was speechless. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll pass. No problem.”

Luke looked at him as he drank. He knew Thud was just blowing smoke. And he knew Thud knew.

Colonel Yuri Stoyanovich sat behind his desk in the dimly lit, dilapidated building that was the headquarters of his regiment, the 773rd IAP—Istrebeitelnyi Aviatsionnaya Polk, Fighter Aviation Regiment—and ignored the loud knock on the door. Command of one of Russia’s premier fighter regiments was an honor. But it was a pain in the ass, too. The airplanes were easy. Well, perhaps not easy, but easy compared to the pilots and the difficult times Russia had been cursed with for almost fifteen years now. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Yes, well he did, and now the Berlin Wall and the rest of the Soviet Union were mostly rubble. And he was in charge of one of the piles of rock.

Stoyanovich missed the simplicity of climbing into the cockpit of a jet fighter and escaping the problems below. Even now that Russians claimed to be free, they weren’t free of difficulties, or of poverty. There was no gas. There were no cars anyone could buy. They weren’t even free to get paid what they had earned from the government as pilots. Their pay was always late, if it came at all. The fighter pilots of Russia, the elite of the military, lived in barracks not fit for dogs.

Stoyanovich leaned back and scratched his scalp through his thinning, oily hair. His men, the pilots and the others, took out their frustrations in ways that were often self-destructive. He dealt with a new problem every day. Today the pattern had held true, only it wasn’t just another personnel problem. The one knocking on the door was his favorite pilot, a longtime friend and ally, someone he had mentored for more than ten years. He had become a brilliant success—until now. “Come in!” Stoyanovich yelled finally.

A pilot marched smartly into the office. The concrete floor echoed his hard-soled boots. He faced the Colonel and saluted. “Major Vladimir Petkov, sir. Reporting.”

Stoyanovich studied Petkov as he tried to decide what to do with him. “Major, you know why I have called you.”

Petkov feigned ignorance. “No, Colonel Stoyanovich. I got the message that you wanted to see me, and I came.”

“You have no idea?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you not think it might be because of your ill-advised journey into town last night?”

Petkov frowned. “I did not do anything noteworthy in town last night, sir.”

“No. What you have said is correct,” the Colonel admitted. “You did not do anything in the town. I was wrong. It is no wonder that you did not know what I was talking about. Please forgive me.” His sarcasm was not lost on Petkov. “Perhaps, then, you would like to talk about coming back to the air base, Major Vladimir Petkov. Perhaps you would like to tell me how the automobile you were driving ended up in a ditch, in a pile of horseshit and mud, upside down, with the windows broken and the wheels spinning up into the sky like a fractured turtle—”

“Yes, sir.”

“You do remember that, Major Petkov? This has now come back into your mind?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah. Then, would you please tell me how this happened? What forces acted on you that threw you off the road so suddenly as to cause such a disaster?”

Petkov stared at the floor. “There weren’t any—”

“No, there weren’t any forces, were there?” the Colonel said, standing, his girth straining against his coarse wool uniform. “The only force acting on you was the one that makes you stupid every now and then, the force that seems to overtake you just often enough to remind your superiors that you cannot be trusted.”

“I can be trusted—”

“No, you cannot, Major! You drink too much vodka and then do stupid things! Your superior officers have looked the other way for years! Many have come and gone,” he said. “I, too, have let it go before, but no more. You have not learned!” the Colonel roared.

“I am sorry to have acted as—”

“Sorry? Do you really think sorry will do anything for you?”

Petkov didn’t know what to say. He had failed himself miserably. He’d tried to stop, but the base was so remote. Other than flying, he didn’t care much for the life he had fallen into. The flying almost made it tolerable.

“You are the best natural pilot on the base…” the Colonel said, his voice trailing off in regret. “The best I have ever seen. You earned the wings of a Sniper Pilot earlier than anyone else in the regiment. And well deserved. But your judgment fails you. You fall into self-pity, or depression, and make more bad decisions.”

“It won’t happen again—”

The Colonel wagged his finger at Petkov. “You are right about that, Major. Very right. Because from now on, you are not flying. You are grounded.”

Petkov’s face went white. “Colonel,” he gasped. “Flying is my life. It is all—”

“I know that, Major. Believe me, I know that. You have instructed many pilots here, you have taught them tactics, you have shown them what this fighter of ours can do. But I can no longer allow a drunk to show his bad judgment to the other pilots.”