Wings of Honor

by Craig Andrews

  Coda watched as Commander Coleman turned to go. This can’t be happening! It’s a nightmare… an absolute nightmare. No matter how hard I try, I’m no better than my father.

  Struggling to cope with the array of conflicting emotions, Coda replayed the training scenario again and again in his mind. When he could do that no more, he requested his personal tablet back then watched the training scenario itself, deconstructing the flight from every angle.

  The simple fact of the matter was Coda had a blind spot the size of the Milky Way where Moscow was concerned. He’d abandoned the battle at large, focusing all of his effort and energy on shooting down the one fighter that would bring him the most personal gain. And it had cost him. Again.

  “When you’re in battle,” Captain Hughes had said after Coda had beaten Moscow to a bloody pulp in the Terran Fleet Academy corridors, “your fellow wingmen need to have absolute trust in you. There’s no room for grudges. There’s no room for ego. And there sure as hell isn’t room for pilots who aren’t capable of learning from their mistakes.”

  Captain Hughes had been right. Not only was there no room for personal animosity, but Coda also couldn’t learn from his mistakes.

  The realization was like a blow to the gut. Coda thought he’d been doing well. God knew there’d been times when he’d wanted to slam Moscow’s head into the deck, but he’d held back. He’d even stopped a fight between Moscow and Uno in Dr. Naidoo’s classroom. But it was all fool’s gold. When push came to shove, Coda could always be counted on to follow Moscow into a foxhole. This time, neither he nor Moscow had died. Whiskey had.

  There was no question who the review board would conclude was at fault. Bile crept into the back of Coda’s throat. He could taste its sour burn. He was responsible.

  “The hero is awake,” Noodle said as he strode into sick bay with Squawks and Tex.

  Coda looked at his friends. The words cut deep. “Don’t feel like a hero.”

  “Please,” Squawks said. “Everyone’s talking about it. Even Moscow doesn’t have anything bad to say for once.”

  “Yeah?” Coda asked. “And what are they saying about Whiskey?”

  His friends’ smiles and easygoing nature vanished, and it quickly became obvious that they had talked prior to coming in. Make sure Coda was in good spirits. Don’t pull him into the muck with everyone else.

  “Nobody’s saying much,” Squawks said. “You know how it is. Everyone acts like nothing happened.”

  “Well, it happened,” Coda said, then he told them about the pending investigation.

  “I was wondering why everyone was grounded,” Noodle said.

  “It’s standard procedure,” Tex said. “Maybe not grounding the entire squadron, but that’s how these things go. The top brass needs to find something to cover their ass.”

  “You mean someone to blame,” Coda said.

  “It’s really not a big deal,” Tex said.

  “Not a big deal?” Coda repeated. “Tex, Whiskey is dead.”

  “I wasn’t talking about that,” Tex said. “I was talking about the review itself. I’ve been through one too.”

  “You have?” Squawks said. “For what?”

  “Failure to complete a training syllabus,” Tex said as if reciting the description from an official memo. “But they can be called for almost any reason. Too many SODs, a failure to meet goals, actions discrediting space aviation, mishaps—whatever blows their hair back.”

  “Exhibiting a trend of unsafe behavior that culminated in the death of one of your squad mates?” Coda said. “That’s what me and Moscow are under investigation for.”

  Tex whistled. “That’s not good, Coda. That means they’ll be elbows deep in your cookie jar. They’ll dig into your whole life. Not just what’s happened on the Jamestown, but everything. The academy. Your school. Your…”

  “My what?”

  “Your family, Coda,” Noodle said.

  “You think they’ll rope his dad into this?” Squawks asked.

  All eyes went back to Tex, but the older man looked like he was trying to find a place to hide. Unlike Squawks and Noodle, who had spoken with Coda about his father on a few occasions, the subject was still taboo to the older pilot.

  “I…” Tex stammered. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Noodle said. “He had nothing to do with it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Coda said softly. “It’s never mattered. Whatever weakness flowed through him flows through me. That’s how everyone’s always acted. How everyone has ever looked at me.”

  “That’s not true,” Noodle said.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No,” Squawks said. “Noodle is right. Forty-eight pilots and Commander Coleman himself just watched you risk your life to save Moscow’s. Whatever they say, your squad mates know you’re nothing like your father.”

  “We’ll see,” Coda said. It was the only thing he could think of. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore, but he didn’t have anything else to talk about. Except for the vids on his terminal and the random conversation with the medical staff, nothing else had happened. There was nothing to share with his friends.

  “Keep your head up,” Tex said. “You’ll get a chance to speak your piece. Just know what you want to say before you go in there, and you should be all right.”

  “You don’t think they’re coming here, do you?” Noodle asked.

  “Well,” Tex said, “that’s how mine were done.”

  “Yeah, but you were at a training facility with training staff. We’re light-years away from the top brass.”

  “That’s true,” Tex said. “Huh. I don’t know what they’re going to do then.”

  The sudden uncertainty did little to improve Coda’s mood. At least in a face-to-face conversation, he would have had a chance to make his argument. The board could see his remorse, and he could explain what had been going through his mind. He would have been able to attack the questions about his father head-on and quell any similarities that could be drawn between the two.

  “I bet they do it through written questions,” Noodle said. “They’ll get their information, and it’ll be cheaper than shuttling them out here.”

  “That makes sense,” Tex said. He turned his attention back to Coda. “Know what you want to say, and say it. That’s the best advice I can give. And be honest. They can smell bullshit like it’s stuck to the bottom of your boot.”

  37

  Private Room, SAS Jamestown

  Alpha Centauri System, Proxima B, High Orbit

  Noodle’s prediction that the review board would use written questions and statements was only partially true. When the official questions came in, they did arrive in a written format but only to supplement the video messages they accompanied. The commander brought Coda, who was still recovering from his injuries, into a private room and moderated the interview, recording Coda’s responses to the video’s questions.

  Tex’s prediction was spot on, though. For two hours, Coda was grilled about his time at the academy, including every minor and major success and failure. Fortunately, his time there had been marked more with awards of excellence than demerits. They reviewed his scores and recommendations, even shared statements his former squad mates had made about him, always asking him to respond.

  Admiral Orlovsky, whom Coda couldn’t believe was overseeing the review, asked specific questions about Coda’s first interactions with Moscow: when and where they’d met, how, and in Coda’s estimation, why their feud had escalated.

  Coda attempted to keep his answers short and succinct, relaying the facts as he remembered them. When it came to the why, he purposely left out all knowledge of Moscow’s mother’s death. The information had helped Coda understand the true depths of Moscow’s hatred and even helped him understand Moscow himself, but it wouldn’t do anything to help his case with the board.

  The questions about his time in Commander Coleman’s squadron were even more tedious
. They questioned the speed of the training and the mental and physical strain it put on all the pilots. They compared brain scans, heart rates, and other information taken during his physicals on the Jamestown with his previous records from the academy to show his deteriorating psychological state.

  The longer the questions about the squadron’s training wore on, the more Coda began to get the impression that he and Moscow weren’t the only people under review. Commander Coleman didn’t flinch or show any outward sign of emotion, but Coda could feel the anxiety emanating from him like heat from a fire. But why would the commander be under review? Accidents happened, and death was no stranger to the pilots. So why the extra scrutiny now?

  Because not everyone in the fleet wants the commander to succeed, Coda realized. The idea was tantamount to treason. Commander Coleman’s squadron was the ultimate fallback, a redundancy of a redundancy of a redundancy, only to be used if all other methods to counteract the Baranyk disrupter failed. Rooting for the squadron’s failure was the equivalent of rooting for the destruction of the human race.

  But it was never that simple. The military was the ultimate bureaucracy full of competing desires, agendas, and methodologies that all battled for the same limited budget. On some line of some memo in some stack of papers on some admiral’s desk there was a cost breakdown of Commander Coleman’s efforts. From the direct costs of transporting, housing, and feeding the pilots to the indirect costs of pulling them from other service, everything had a dollar sign. And even those paled in comparison to the money required to supply, retrofit, and repair a full squadron of aging X-23 Nighthawks.

  Surely someone somewhere thought that money could be better spent elsewhere. More scientists researching the Baranyk weapon. More engineers trying to counteract its effects. More manufacturing equipment to rebuild the drones that had been destroyed during battle. It was no wonder the entire squadron had been grounded.

  The realization that he wasn’t just fighting for his own future but the future of everything they had been working toward woke something inside him. The anger strengthened his resolve, banishing the self-pity that had been plaguing him since he’d woken up in the infirmary. He knew what he was fighting for now, and he wasn’t going to go down without giving it everything he had.

  His first answers had been short and succinct, offering little additional insight. However, Coda let himself embellish his answers about the squadron. He talked about the growing camaraderie, their unprecedented skill and confidence, and how they would be ready when the fleet called on their aid. Keeping his flattery to a minimum, he praised the commander’s instruction, using specific examples of how his one-on-one evaluations had improved their piloting skills and how his reputation meant his students listened to him all the more.

  He fell into a groove, his words coming out smoothly and exactly as he intended them. When the conversation shifted abruptly to his father, Coda went blank. He stared at the camera recording the interview as if he had just been bludgeoned in the back of the head and forgotten his name.

  “Coda?” Commander Coleman said from behind the device.

  “I’m sorry,” Coda said. “Could you repeat the question?”

  “The captain asked what you know of your father.”

  “Right,” Coda said. “Thank you, sir. My father…” He’d known the question was coming and had followed Tex’s advice. He’d even written out his responses beforehand, but in that moment, his mind was as empty as space itself. “I know what most anyone knows, I suppose. The official information is classified, but the general understanding is that he turned on his wingmen, resulting in the loss of his squadron and the subsequent deaths of hundreds more aboard the Benjamin Franklin. He was executed for treason and wasn’t given a proper military burial. But I doubt that’s what you were asking.

  “Unlike the rest of the other sixteen billion people that populate the Sol System, I also knew Lieutenant O’Neil as my father. He taught me how to play catch, how to ride a bike, a hoverboard. He…” Coda’s vision went blurry. “He wasn’t the man I saw on the vids or the man I read about on the web. To me, as much as they’re the same person, they’re different.

  “Lieutenant O’Neil betrayed those he had sworn to protect, but Joseph O’Neil tucked me in at night and read me stories of great heroes. He taught me what it meant to be selfless, how to put others ahead of myself. That man, the man I knew, loved the fleet. He loved flying. I don’t know why he did what he did, but I know in my heart that he would have had a damn fine explanation.”

  Coda blinked. The words had slipped out of his mouth as little more than a stream of consciousness. For those brief moments, he was alone with his memories, pen to paper, writing out a path to his deepest secrets—secrets that even he hadn’t acknowledged in a long time.

  Commander Coleman watched him for several silent seconds, for some reason, his face growing harder.

  Did I do something wrong? Was I too honest?

  Coda replayed his words in his head, trying to figure out how they had sounded to his audience. He cursed himself. There was no doubt about it, he had gone too far. The review board wouldn’t care about his father teaching him how to throw a baseball, and they wouldn’t like hearing Coda defend him.

  Part of him wanted to backtrack and attempt to clarify what he had said. But what would he say? And how could he say it without sounding like he wasn’t trying to backpedal? The commander moved on to the next question before Coda figured it out.

  When the strange interview finally ended, Commander Coleman dismissed Coda, remaining behind to provide his own statements. As Coda left the small room and returned to his barracks, he couldn’t tell if he’d helped his case or doomed the military careers of himself and everyone else in the squadron for good.

  38

  Hangar Deck, SAS Jamestown

  Alpha Centauri System, Proxima B, High Orbit

  A day later, Coda assembled with the rest of the Forgotten in the hangar bay for Whiskey’s funeral. A squadron of Nighthawks surrounded their group, providing them with an element of privacy from the rest of the ship’s personnel.

  The ceremony itself was conducted in crisp military fashion. Because Whiskey was from the United States, her casket was draped with the stars and stripes of the American flag. An old bugle recording played over the speakers as her casket was loaded into one of the X-23 launch bays. Something about the scene, combined with the aftermath of uncovering his deep-seated emotions during his interview, made it difficult not to compare the proceedings to his father’s burial—or lack thereof.

  For Lieutenant Joseph O’Neil, there had been no lamenting music. No tears. No gathered friends to say their final farewells. Not even a casket. He’d just been spaced out an air lock, where the frigid black and lack of pressure ravaged his traitorous body and did the fleet’s dirty work for them. The whole thing made him angry. Lieutenant O’Neil might have deserved that, but Coda and his mother hadn’t. They had deserved a chance to say goodbye. A chance to find closure.

  Commander Coleman said a few words—more talk about how death was too often a pilot’s unwelcomed friend—then they gave Lieutenant Autumn “Whiskey” Jones her final salute and watched as her casket was launched from the tube into her final resting place.

  Noodle blew out a breath as the proceedings concluded. “What now?”

  It was a good question. The squadron was still grounded, and save for the gym and the simulator, there was little else to do.

  “I’ve got just the thing,” Squawks said, giving Tex a knowing look. “Follow me.”

  Squawks’s idea, it turned out, was to get well and truly drunk. How, exactly, Coda didn’t know at first, but Squawks led them to a secluded corner in a seldom-used parts locker where he and Tex, with the aid of a couple handy crewmen, had built a metal contraption that looked like little more than two buckets connected by a copper tube.

  “What is that?” Coda asked, thoroughly confused.

  “A still.”


  “A what?”

  “I thought your old man was in the military?” Squawks said. “It’s a still, Coda. You know, to make alcohol?”

  “Oh,” Coda said, finally understanding what he was looking at. “What kind?”

  “The kind that’ll get us messed up.”

  “And hopefully not make us go blind,” Tex added.

  “Blind?” Noodle asked, suddenly looking nervous.

  “Yeah,” Tex said. “Bad alcohol can make you go blind.”

  “Seriously?”

  Tex erupted into laughter, his deep voice booming off the walls.

  “Quiet, you dumb hick,” Squawks said. “If we get caught with this, going blind will be the last thing we have to worry about.” He grabbed the container that the metal hose emptied into and held it out to Coda, who reluctantly took it.

  The container was nearly three-quarters full with a brown liquid. Coda sniffed the bottle’s contents and instantly regretted it. Pulling his head away in disgust, he held the container as far away as possible. “It smells like engine solvent.”

  “That’s how you know it’s the good stuff,” Squawks said, taking the cup back. He took a sniff of it himself and smiled. “Oh yeah, definitely the good stuff.” He handed the cup to Tex. “You did most of the work. You do the honors.”

  Tex held the cup to his nose and took in a long, slow breath before taking a sip. He immediately started coughing. It was a deep, raspy sound, as if his lungs were full of smoke, but even before he was finished, he was smiling. “Not bad,” he said between coughs then handed the cup to Noodle.

  The slender pilot looked at the cup’s contents as if it were poison. “If this makes me go blind, I’m going to kick your ass.”

  “You’ll have to find it first,” Squawks said.

  Noodle shrugged at Coda then took a sip. Like Tex, he immediately began coughing, his face turning red. But also like Tex, he smiled, his eyes glassy. “This is terrible.” But that didn’t stop him from taking another, bigger sip before passing the cup to Coda.