Wings of Honor

by Craig Andrews

  Unless…

  Moscow’s shouts suddenly made more sense. Lieutenant Andrei “Moscow” Krylov, Coda’s former rival at the Terran Fleet Academy, had just eliminated Commander Coleman and saved Coda’s ass in the process.

  Coda wanted to be sick.

  30

  Hangar Deck, SAS Jamestown

  Alpha Centauri System, Proxima B, High Orbit

  A crowd of people was waiting in the hangar as Coda and the rest of the flight arrived. They clapped and cheered as the victorious pilots cracked their cockpits and removed their helmets. The pilots pumped their fists and yelled excitedly in return, celebrating their first win as a unit.

  When Moscow took off his helmet, the crowd erupted, and the few people who weren’t already around his fighter flocked to it. There was no doubt who the crowd thought the hero of the battle was, and Moscow basked in it. He stood on top of his seat, hollering back at his screaming admirers like a rock star trying to make his audience earn an encore.

  Coda removed his own helmet and gloves without fanfare. Except for the specialist who rolled over a ladder so that he could climb out of his starfighter, nobody even seemed to realize he was there. He struggled to swallow the bitter lump in his throat. The recognition Moscow was receiving was the same recognition he’d dreamed about since joining the academy.

  Tex was the first to come to him, finding him as Coda began his postflight visual inspection. “I’m sorry, Coda.”

  “For what?” Coda asked.

  “You needed me, and I wasn’t there.”

  Coda sighed and brushed off his hands. “To be honest, I don’t even know what happened. I blacked out from the turn. The last thing I saw was the commander’s missile headed my way.”

  “I took care of that then got the commander’s attention before he could turn you into slag. That was a mistake, let me tell you. He’s good, Coda, real good. Took care of me in no time. But that’s when Moscow snuck up on him and took him out.”

  “Moscow left his wingman?”

  “Reckon so.”

  Coda shot another look in Moscow’s direction. He was stepping down the ladder, grinning and high-fiving his admirers. Leaving your wingman was a cardinal sin. Space was too large, too empty, the battles too chaotic for one person. The first pilots had long since learned that when facing that alone, they often ended up like… well, like Coda. An afterthought in battle—or worse. That he’d broken the first rule of flight cheapened Moscow’s victory even more.

  “You took out the commander’s missile?” Coda asked.

  Tex grinned, puffing out his chest. “Sure did.”

  “I’ll have to check out the vid,” Coda said. “That must have been a hell of a shot.”

  “Like shooting a can in the backyard.”

  Coda and Tex found Noodle and Squawks as they headed for the locker room. Even they were commiserating, regarding Coda and Tex as if Coda had lost, as if he’d failed. Coda wanted to scream. He might not have shot down the commander, but damn it, his flight had won! Beginning his breathing exercise, Coda slowly wrestled his emotions back under control. Then Moscow’s voice cut through the din.

  “You’re welcome, O’Neil!”

  Coda froze. Hearing Moscow call him out, hearing him address him by his last name took him straight back to their fight at the academy.

  Turning, Coda locked eyes with Moscow. He couldn’t be sure from the distance, but Moscow’s sneer seemed to falter.

  “For what?” Coda shouted back.

  Moscow looked at the crowd gathered around him as if deciding whether pushing Coda was worth it. He must have decided it was, because when his gaze returned to Coda, so did his smirk. “For saving your ass.”

  Coda barked a sarcastic laugh then wiped the bottom of his nose with his thumb, starting toward him.

  “Don’t,” Squawks said, attempting to grab him.

  Coda ripped his arm from Squawks’s grip.

  Moscow started toward Coda, ready for his rematch, his admirers falling into step behind him. Moscow had at least twenty to Coda’s four, but Coda didn’t care. He had to wipe that patronizing sneer off Moscow’s face.

  Before he got his chance, the commander appeared between them. Still dressed in his flight suit, he stood like a rock ready to withstand the force of two incoming tidal waves. Coda and Moscow froze at the same time, their attention shifting from each other to the commander, who stood unfazed between them.

  “Congratulations,” Commander Coleman said, though his tone was anything but congratulatory. “It’s not often a pilot takes down their instructor in their first battle. Let alone when that instructor is me. Well done, Moscow.”

  The jubilant atmosphere that had filled the hangar before returned, and Moscow was once again at the center of it. The crowd behind him shouted their praise, slapping him on the shoulders and back in congratulations. Moscow took it in, smiling, though his eyes never left Coda.

  Commander Coleman turned his gaze from Moscow to Coda. “You flew well. Whether by skill or sheer dumb luck, you flew together. And that’s how you’re supposed to do it. Together. For each other.” He appraised Moscow and Coda again, then apparently content with his ability to de-escalate the situation, he nodded. “Get out of those flight suits and shower up. Your debriefing starts in ten.”

  With that, the commander strode past Coda without a word, exiting the hangar. Moscow and Coda watched each other for several long seconds before Moscow inclined his head and turned back to his fighter, putting an end to the situation.

  Coda started back toward the locker room.

  “Well, that was close,” Squawks said behind him.

  Coda showered up, dressed, and grabbed a seat in the front row of the ready room. The rest of the flight’s pilots joined him, and to his surprise, so did the rest of the squadron. The commander’s evaluations were going to be a public as public could get.

  Any remaining excitement from the flight quickly dissipated when the commander began his evaluation. He was ruthless, cutting into their strategy from every angle. Coda’s initial plan had been sound, except Coda and Tex never should have been flying alone.

  “Had you been paired up like the other fighters, you would have had me long before the second pass,” Commander Coleman said, addressing Coda directly. “You have wingmen—use them. It’s no mistake Reno and NoNo killed three fighters to your one. They flew together, and the other pilots didn’t stand a chance.”

  Then he graded their speed, approach vectors, accuracy, flight maneuvers, and reaction times—and declared them all subpar. He grounded every pilot in their flight until they completed the updated exercises and scenarios he’d plugged into the simulator.

  “And you will stay grounded,” Commander Coleman continued, “until you’ve completed them to my satisfaction. Before the rest of you get too excited, I recommend you look at them too, because I expect you to learn from your fellow pilots. They were graded harshly today, but I assure you, the pilots who fly next will be graded even harder. And then harder after that. It’s a moving goalpost, ladies and gentlemen, but I still expect you to get there.”

  That night at dinner, Coda watched as Moscow was surrounded by yet another group of admiring pilots. He was retelling the flight from his perspective, using his hands in place of fighters.

  “You’re going to drive yourself nuts comparing yourself to him,” Noodle said.

  “I’m not comparing myself to him,” Coda said.

  “Of course you’re not,” Squawks said. “I mean, why else would you stare at him your entire dinner?”

  “I haven’t been…” Coda’s face grew hot. How long had he been watching him? “Whatever. I’m just trying to figure out why everyone is so infatuated with him all of a sudden. It’s not like he shot down the most fighters.”

  “No,” Noodle said. “He only shot down the best one.”

  “But it was still my strategy that made it happen.”

  “So?”

  “So why is everyone al
l over him?”

  “You mean why isn’t everyone all over you?” Tex said. “What do you want, Coda? To win? Or to win glory?”

  Coda stewed on the question long after dinner and lights out. He lay on his bunk, his curtain closed, wide-awake. The question had been more insightful than Coda would have expected from Tex, whose slow speech and deep-Southern drawl did little to suggest he offered much in the way of intelligence. But after knowing Coda for little more than a few days, Tex had understood the feeling that plagued Coda every day.

  When the commander had asked him why he’d joined the Forgotten, the answer had been so clear. But for some reason, life didn’t seem as simple as it had before. Things weren’t as cut and dry. Even his feud with Moscow was confusing. Were things getting better or staying the same? He couldn’t tell. And more than that, did he want them to get better?

  Questions, questions, questions. So many questions. What do I want? To win or to win glory? And most perplexing of all, if he couldn’t have both, which would he choose?

  31

  Mess Hall, SAS Jamestown

  Alpha Centauri System, Proxima B, High Orbit

  “You’re doing it again,” Noodle said. Then to everyone else at the table, “He’s doing it again.”

  “Yes, he is,” Squawks said, his voice somewhere between amused and annoyed. “Hey! Dumbass!”

  Something wet and slimy hit the side of Coda’s face. He glanced down, saw a glob of food paste on the stainless-steel table, then looked up at Squawks, who was still holding his food-stained spoon, smiling wryly.

  “What?” Coda snapped, grabbing his napkin and wiping the meat paste off his face.

  “You’re staring at him again.” Squawks nodded toward Moscow, who sat on the other side of the mess hall. “It’s getting creepy.”

  “I wasn’t staring.”

  “You were staring,” Noodle said.

  “You looked like you were about to ask him to dance,” Tex said.

  “Got the hots for Moscow now?” Squawks joked. “Didn’t think he was your type, but I guess he is kind of a celebrity now.”

  “Shut up,” Coda said.

  “Seriously, Coda,” Squawks said. “You’re obsessed. You need a hobby.”

  Coda snorted. “A hobby?”

  “I’m not kidding, man. You may be a badass in the cockpit, but you’re kind of a stick in the mud outside it.”

  “A stick in the mud?”

  “Are you just going to repeat everything I say?” Squawks asked. “Yes, a stick in the mud. Boring. Dull. Someone who needs a life. And staring at Moscow like you’re going to ask him to prom isn’t helping.”

  Coda could feel his face growing red. He stirred his food absently. Squawks wasn’t wrong, but Coda liked to think of himself as determined, not boring. He had a goal, and he wasn’t going to stop striving for it until he achieved it. He didn’t have time for anything else. It was as simple as that.

  “And when am I going to find time for a hobby?” Coda asked defensively. “It’s not like you guys have anything going on outside of our training, either.”

  “Are you serious?” Squawks asked, suddenly irritated. He turned to Noodle and Tex, who wore equally vexed expressions. “Is he being serious right now? God, Coda, you can damn near recognize someone by their flight patterns, but when it comes to everything else, you really are clueless, aren’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What do you think we do during our free time?”

  “I don’t know…” Now that Coda thought about it, since Uno’s departure, their extra practices in the simulator had all but ended, and most nights during their free time, his friends did disappear. He’d never thought to ask where. He’d barely even noticed they were gone.

  “Unreal, man. Tex has his own garden in hydroponics, growing carrots and potatoes and crap. And Noodle, you telling me you haven’t seen him scribbling in his notebook? He’s writing a book, man. By hand. Swords and dragons and all that nerdy stuff. I’m working on something more communal. Everyone has their own thing. Everyone but you. And it kind of sucks that you didn’t know that.”

  Coda looked at the three of them as if seeing them for the first time. Squawks was right. He barely knew anything about them. He might call them friends, but they were anything but. They were his wingmen, his squad mates, and that was it. He’d known he’d built a wall around himself—he’d done that years ago—but he hadn’t realized he hadn’t entered anyone else’s, either.

  “I’m sorry,” Coda said. “You’re right. I am… Are you really writing a book, Noodle?”

  His slender friend nodded, his face turning crimson.

  “Mind if I read it sometime? I apparently need a hobby.”

  “No,” Noodle said softly.

  “No?” Coda raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected to be rejected.

  “Not until it’s finished.”

  “All right. How long will that be?”

  Noodle shrugged as if to say he had no idea. Since he clearly had no desire to talk about it, Coda turned to Tex. “And you, growing food. I thought you said this stuff wasn’t so bad.”

  “It’s not,” Tex said. “But there’s nothing better than fresh veggies.”

  Squawks snorted. “Everything is better than fresh veggies. Well, almost everything,” he added, sticking his spoon back into the meat paste.

  “I had no idea,” Coda said. “I haven’t been a good friend, and I’m—”

  “Stop,” Squawks said. “You don’t need to baby us. Just get out of your own head sometime.”

  “All right.”

  For the remainder of lunch, Coda tried to play a larger role in the banter, but try as he might, his eyes kept drifting back to Moscow. He’d decided the night before to suck it up and bury the hatchet. And he meant to tell Moscow as much. So when Coda’s friends finished and stood to return their trays into the washing dispenser, Coda made for Moscow.

  Squawks groaned behind him. “He really is going to ask him to dance.”

  Ignoring the comment, Coda continued toward Moscow. He was sitting at another table with his friends, and they were laughing, in the middle of a story about how poorly the morning flight had gone. If the commander had heightened expectations following his pep talk the day before, then he must have been very disappointed with the morning’s session.

  Their laughter died away as they spotted Coda approaching. Bear nodded to him, her previous disdain having been damped down in their hours spent training together in the simulator. Moscow, however, smiled when he noticed Coda, and it wasn’t an inviting thing.

  “Can I talk to you?” Coda asked.

  “Come to congratulate me on our victory yesterday?” Moscow asked. “Or maybe thank me for saving your bacon?”

  Coda ground his teeth. Why can’t he make this easy? “Something like that.”

  Moscow shrugged and rose from the table. Coda quickly led him out of the mess hall into an adjoining corridor.

  “Look,” Moscow said before Coda could start. “I’m just busting your balls, okay? Nothing personal. If you didn’t take offense to everything, people might tone it down.”

  “That’s good,” Coda said, “because that’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. This thing, this rivalry—it needs to stop. Because like it or not, we’re two of the best pilots in this squadron, but even that won’t guarantee our spot in the squadron. If we make it, then we have to trust each other, and we can’t do that if we’re constantly looking over our shoulders.”

  “Why wouldn’t we both make it?”

  “Huh?”

  “If we’re two of the best pilots, why wouldn’t we both make it? Why would one of us get reassigned?”

  “That’s not the point,” Coda said, trying to steer the conversation back to center. “I’m just saying—”

  “It’s not the point, but it’s important. Why wouldn’t we both make it?”

  “Because there’s a chasm in the middle of our squadron
a mile wide, Moscow. We were about to go at it in the hangar and it wouldn’t have just been us. It would have been your group and mine. It would have been a brawl.”

  “You sound like the commander.”

  “Well, he’s right.” Coda regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. Moscow was already suspicious, and the way Coda had phrased his reply left little doubt that he’d had help coming to the conclusions.

  “You talked to him?” Moscow voice went quiet. “What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing,” Coda said. “He just told me to fix this.”

  Moscow eyed him as if deciding whether or not to believe him. Was he always this on guard? This suspicious?

  Moscow shook his head. “And here I thought you were doing something honorable. Instead, you’re just following orders.”

  “I was!” Coda said, exasperated. “I am. Damn it, Moscow, what’s wrong with you? I’m trying to make life easier for both of us.”

  “Just stay away from me, O’Neil, and we’ll be fine.” Moscow started back toward the mess.

  Coda grabbed his arm, stopping him. “It doesn’t work that way, and you know it. Yes, I talked to the commander, and if we can’t get this stuff worked out, one of us is going home.”

  “Then you better step up your game, Coda, because it ain’t going to be me.”

  Moscow tried to pull away again, but Coda wasn’t letting go. “Look, man, I know why you hate me, and I get it—”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  Coda had stepped on a land mine, and he knew it. He let out a long breath. “No, Moscow, I don’t know everything, but I know enough. And for what it’s worth, I’d hate me too. Hell, I already do.”

  Moscow’s eyes blazed in anger. “Who told you?”

  “Nobody,” Coda lied. “And nobody else knows. Just me.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m serious. I was doing research on my father when I came across her name on a file. I’m s—”

  “Don’t!” Moscow shoved a finger in Coda’s face. “Don’t.”