Scavenger's Mission (The SkyRyders Book 1)

by Liza O'Connor

  “Well, I’m starved, when’s dinner?” he asked.

  Ginnie jumped up. “It’s almost done, sir.”

  “It should have been done five minutes ago,” DC snapped. “New dog, get up and help.”

  At first Logan thought Alisha planned to ignore him, but after a second, she rose and joined Ginnie at the stove.

  “Well, while we’re waiting, let’s have a spot-check of the equipment, DC,” Logan said, heading off to the equipment room.

  Logan half-heartedly inspected the equipment as he waited for DC to show up. He was beginning to think he’d have to retrieve his captain when DC finally came in and closed the door. “Sorry, sir. I wanted to have a few words with the new recruit. Gotta nip that attitude in the bud right off.”

  “I thought we had agreed calling members of the squad ‘dog’ was not helpful,” Logan said.

  DC didn’t respond.

  “Captain, I asked you a question.”

  “I must have misunderstood you, sir. I recall you telling me using the term ‘dog’ was not helpful when you were a captain.”

  Logan sighed. “Then let me clarify. I do not want members of my squad called by any degrading name.”

  “That will limit my ability to motivate the squad, sir.”

  Logan had talked for hours with DC about alternative methods of motivation, but his repertoire seemed limited to fear and degradation. “Then use this as an incentive to learn alternative tools of leadership, because, if you don’t, your leadership scores will likely pull you down from captain.”

  DC didn’t look concerned over the possibility. He appeared confident his squad would give him high scores. Logan recalled both the girls in his bed with him. He might be right.

  “Food should be ready by now, sir,” DC said.

  “Then let’s go enjoy it.”

  It had been a while since Logan had dined with the squad. He usually ate in his room while reading the endless emails that appeared each day. He was convinced crime would drop twenty-five percent if only email would crash for two weeks so he could fly raids with his crew instead answering requests from General Powell.

  However, tonight he did not wish for it to crash, since he needed to send in his recommendation to MAC that a new trainee be allowed to take the flight test outside the recommended experience guidelines. He needed this email to arrive in a timely manner.

  Still, he put off writing the request so he could have dinner with the squad. He wanted to make certain Alisha fitted in, despite her rocky start with DC. They asked her a ton of questions about her flying: where she had trained, how long she had flown, but her replies held no credibility until Logan stepped in and assured them she had begun flying a month ago and would require an exemption even to take the flight test.

  Logan’s revelation upset the squad members. No doubt they found it discouraging at how easy flying came to Alisha when they had worked so hard to improve their skills.

  The only one who didn’t seem upset was DC. His mood improved. No doubt it reassured him she was no threat. His vanity would naturally prevent him from even considering the possibility she was already a better flyer than he’d ever become.

  “You scared of ghosts, new girl?” DC asked as he handed his plate to Ginnie so she could bring him another helping.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” Alisha replied.

  “We’ve got ghosts,” Ollie assured her.

  “And they’ve a particular dislike of new cadets,” Washington added.

  Logan had heard them tease new cadets like this before. “Ghost stories are my cue to leave,” he announced and walked over to Alisha and placed his hand on her shoulder. “We’re glad to have you on board. You’ll make a fine addition to our squad.”

  Alisha thanked him, but her words were stiff and formal. Which is how they should be, he scolded himself. You sure as hell don’t want her throwing her arms around your waist every damn time you speak to her.

  Chapter 15

  Once the colonel’s door shut, Washington grinned at Alisha, but she found nothing amusing in his smirk. In fact, it sent chills down her spine.

  Turning to the crew, DC asked, “Remember the cadet named Treadmill? Woke up to find every piece of clothing he owned shredded into tiny little ribbons. Had nothing to wear but his jumpsuit for two weeks before his family could send him another care package, the first one having somehow gone astray.”

  “Yeah, the ghosts just love new-cadet care packages,” Ollie added.

  “Poor Treadmill—such a mess.”

  “He was an even bigger mess when his catcher stalled out over the ridge,” DC said with a laugh.

  “The guy’s dead. Maybe we should talk about something else,” Philly muttered.

  DC glared at Philly’s intervention, then focused on Ginnie. “You had problems with a ghost, didn’t you?”

  Ginnie shrugged and returned to the kitchen.

  DC laughed. “Remember? He kept doing you in your sleep. We’d wake up in the morning and find you tied to the bed, naked, crying like a baby.”

  “And late with breakfast,” Washington added.

  DC focused in on Alisha. “I finally had to take pity on the poor girl and let her sleep with me, just so the damn ghost would leave her alone.”

  Alisha refused to join in with their laughter. She left the table and joined Ginnie at the sink. “Let me help you with that,” she said, and quietly whispered, “Did you tell the colonel about this?”

  Ginnie looked at her with eyes of terror and shook her head no. “Don’t even think of doing that,” she warned in a voice so soft Alisha could barely hear her. “If you want to be a flyer, then just bite your tongue and get through it. What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.”

  Alisha wasn’t sure that was true. She suspected the Ginnie of a year ago had been much stronger than the current frightened, abused girl.

  After dinner, Ginnie led Alisha back to the sleeping quarters.

  “You can share a bunk with me.”

  Alisha looked at the narrow bunk, then counted the bunks in the room. There were eight beds and seven in the crew. Why would they need to share one?

  “Don’t worry, it’s not like you’ll actually sleep in it very often. Normally you’ll be sleeping with Ollie or DC. Sometimes Washington, but Philly won’t bother you. He kinda feels sorry for us.”

  Alisha stared in momentary confusion. “When you say sleeping, you mean ‘having sex’?”

  “Yeah…but you’ll get a few hours’ sleep, although extra chores start early. I have to get up and fix breakfast every day…” Ginnie paused and grimaced. “You might get stuck with that now, being the new dog and all. But don’t worry, I’ll show you how.”

  “Regulations state that compound duties are to be shared equally among all crew members.”

  Ginnie’s eyes rounded in terror as she stared past Alisha.

  Sensing danger, Alisha turned and faced DC.

  The creep’s smile sent chills down her spine, but she refused to let him know it.

  “Ginnie, you’re slacking off on your duties. Get back to the kitchen while I have a talk with the new dog.”

  Ginnie scampered from the room.

  Alisha knew she had to stand her ground. “Regulation 3.214 prohibits the use of derogatory terms when addressing crew, cadets or trainees.”

  Her declaration momentarily stunned DC. When he finally reacted, he did so by painfully slamming her against the corner of the bunk.

  Pain seared through her shoulder, but Alisha refused to cry out or break eye contact with him.

  “Listen, you sorry piece of shit. I don’t give a rat’s ass what the fucking regulations say. The Corps isn’t run by that pissant book. It’s run by soldiers. And if you ever quote another regulation to me, I’ll make you eat the damn book, page by fucking page. Until you either die or leave the Corps, you’ve only one thing to care about, and that’s me. I am your fucking master, and you are the lowest piece of dog shit in the Corps.” />
  When Alisha didn’t respond, he continued his badgering. “You think you’re some hot flyer, but you ain’t. Without that fancy windcatcher, you probably can’t even fly a straight line. And, trust me, you’ll fly standard gear from here on.”

  “The colonel said I can use my own gear.”

  “The colonel doesn’t run this place—I do! Mine is the only voice that counts. If you go crying to the colonel, even once, I’ll make you regret the day you were born!”

  Remembering her friend Betty, Alisha decided to back down. “I understand the chain of command, sir.”

  “You can prove that to me tonight in my bunk,” he said, running his hand over her breasts, tweaking the nipples painfully hard.

  Alisha knocked his arm away. “You cannot force me to have sex, sir. If you try, I will file charges.”

  DC laughed. “I don’t have to force you, new dog. You’ll come to my bed on your own. Tonight, those pesky ghosts will teach you new meaning to the words ‘dirty and rough’. Now get your butt out there and help Ginnie with the chores. I’ll give you one day to learn all your new duties, and then you’re doing them on your own.”

  ***

  After cleaning the kitchen, Ginnie and Alisha sorted and folded the crew’s clean laundry. When Alisha entered the shared sleeping quarters, she saw Ollie and Washington examining her flight suit. She dropped the laundry, pulled the suit from their grasp, and ran out of the room before they had a moment to react.

  She headed straight to the colonel’s room and knocked on the door, hoping to God he hadn’t yet gone to sleep. She knocked even louder when she noticed DC barreling toward her.

  Giving up on salvation from the colonel, she dropped the suit behind her and stood ready to defend it with her life. She knew they intended to shred it, but she’d die before she’d let that happen. Her Gramps had worn the suit with pride, and he had given it to her to wear with pride, not to be shredded by some power-hungry captain and his mindless minions.

  The look on DC’s face frightened her, but she stood firm, determined to save her suit.

  ***

  Logan had just sent off the request when a frantic pounding hammered the hall door. He rose from his PC and opened the door. Alisha grabbed her flysuit from the floor and slipped past Logan into his room. DC stormed forward with a look of cold fury that would frighten any cadet.

  “Is something wrong?” Logan asked his captain.

  DC ignored him and yelled at Alisha. “Whatever has upset you, cadet, you should speak with me. The colonel has more important things to do than wipe the asses of crying babies.”

  “It’s all right, DC. I’ll handle this,” Logan assured him, and tried to shut the door, but DC reached out and stopped it from closing.

  “She should be coming to me, not you, sir. You are weakening the chain of command when you encourage such behavior.”

  Logan sighed. “The chain of command will survive this one event, I promise you, DC. Now, good night,” he said, and closed the door on his second-in-command.

  Clearly matters had further degraded between his new recruit and her captain, and while he didn’t want to become an impediment to DC’s ability to command, he also didn’t want the girl to quit before the night was out. He took a deep breath and looked at Alisha. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  Alisha nodded and handed him her flight suit. “When you visit my gramps tomorrow, will you give him back his suit?”

  “I thought you wished to wear it?”

  “The captain says I’ll be wearing standard gear…”

  “That’s nonsense, I’ll talk to him.”

  “No! I don’t want special favors. Please take it back to Gramps.”

  Logan took the suit and hung it up on his rack. “Have you considered how your grandfather will feel? He might think you’re saying it’s no longer good enough.”

  Pain etched upon her face. “I don’t want him to think that. Tell him I love my suit, and I’m sending it back so it won’t be harmed.”

  “Why would it be harmed?”

  “The ghosts. They seem to have a penchant for harming the belongings of new cadets.”

  “Those are just stories told to frighten you.”

  “Well, they succeeded. Please take the suit back to my grandfather.”

  Logan stroked her cheek. “How about I just keep it safe in my closet? The ghosts never come in here.”

  Alisha’s face lit in gratitude, and before he knew what she intended, she’d hugged him again.

  He probably let the hug go on a little longer than it should have. To be truthful, it shouldn’t be going on at all. He had always maintained a formal distance with his female crew.

  Not that the regulations forbade relationships; in fact, the only restriction left concerning sex was that no SkyRyder could force another to be physically intimate. Since MAC, the Merit Advancement Computer, decided a flyer’s ranking, a SkyRyder’s career no longer depended upon a superior’s approval. Instead, placement within the Corps depended on the flyer’s annual performance test.

  Yet Logan also knew the system could be managed. All he had to do was look at his own crew. Their official rankings were not the way DC flew them. Logan had questioned the changes, but DC insisted he knew their capabilities better than a stupid computer. Had any of the crew complained, Logan would have forced the issue, but since the crew seemed happy with the way DC ranked them, he’d let it go.

  He knew Alisha would rank very high, depending on her regulation test scores. It was likely that she’d be placed above Washington. The only reason Ollie and DC were safe from being outranked was that Logan had only requested Alisha be tested for basic flight. Asking for an exemption of five months of experience seemed reasonable. Asking for an exemption of five years did not. Once she had a couple of years of flying under her harness, he’d request the additional exemption.

  “Can I sleep here tonight?” she asked, breaking through his thoughts.

  Her arms still wrapped around him, her face tilted up. God, she seemed terribly young and frightened.

  Logan sighed and stepped away from her. Taking her hand, he led her to a chair, then pulled up another chair and sat so he could face her.

  “Alisha, I know you’re a bit frightened right now. But the only way you’ll ever fit in is by becoming one of the crew, even if it’s uncomfortable at first.”

  Alisha looked torn, as if she wanted to tell him something, or maybe she was simply trying not to cry.

  So he tried another tack. “Alisha, you’re an amazing flyer. But to be a great SkyRyder, you have to work well with your team. A strong team eats, sleeps, and laughs together. They are your brothers and sisters. You would die for each other. You aren’t going to develop that type of bond if you separate yourself from them.”

  Alisha sighed. “They’ve never actually killed or maimed anyone for life, have they?”

  “No,” Logan replied as he caressed her cheek. “Alisha, they were just teasing you.”

  “Then you didn’t have a cadet die about two years ago?”

  Logan paused. “There was an accident, but there was nothing sinister involved.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Alisha, they’re just trying to scare you, and your best response is to show them you aren’t afraid of ghosts.”

  “I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Grabbing her hand, he gently led her to the door and opened it, only to find DC standing on the other side, clearly eavesdropping.

  “Just the person I was looking for,” Logan said, and stood back so Alisha could leave. “Try to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

  As Alisha scurried past, DC turned to follow her.

  “A moment, DC.”

  Logan grabbed his captain by his arm. “Don’t ever let me catch you eavesdropping at my door again.”

  “I wasn’t. I was about to knock on the door when you opened it.”

  Logan didn’t believe him, b
ut let it slide. “What did you want?”

  “I wanted to invite myself into the conversation with our new recruit. Allowing her to run to you with her problems weakens my authority. I would have preferred you refuse to let her in, but since you chose to ignore the chain of command, I thought perhaps you would at least allow me the right to hear her issues.”

  “Well, I doubt she would have told me if you had been in the room.”

  “Then it was about me, sir?”

  “A misunderstanding on her part, no doubt. Alisha has spent the last month on the streets, DC, and her sense of danger is probably over-sensitive at this point. She interpreted the ghost stories as threats.”

  “We were only teasing her, sir.”

  “That’s what I told her,” Logan replied, and nailed DC with his most steely glare. “Make sure I told her the truth.”

  DC gripped the back of his neck and frowned. “The crew is going to play practical jokes on a new recruit, sir. It’s tradition”

  “Not anymore, it’s not.”

  Anger filled the captain’s eyes, but he didn’t reply.

  “You have an issue with my order, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir. First, you are once again interfering with my command of the squad. These constant infractions are impeding their improvement. Secondly, sir, I do not believe the new recruit is a suitable candidate, and sponsoring her for early testing is unfair to every flyer in the Corps. The regulations are there for a purpose, sir.”

  “Well, first, the regulations do not require five months of flying before being tested. That is only a guideline, and exceptions have been made in the past. Secondly, I am amazed at your gall to quote regulations at me. I was beginning to think you had never read the regulation manual, since you disregard them at your leisure on a daily basis.”

  “There is no reason to become abusive, sir. I only tried to point out that your personal relationship with this girl might be impeding your judgment, and perhaps you should allow me to do my job without interference.”

  Logan stepped forward. “If you think this is being abusive, Captain, you’ve led a sheltered life. If you ever imply, suggest or state that I am involved personally with one of my cadets again, I’ll make your life so damn miserable you’ll wish you’d never even seen a windcatcher. Do you understand, Captain?”