“You’ve got the basics down. All you need now is practice. I know your days are going to be hectic. I understand you are booked from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. So here’s what we’ll do. You come at four and practice on your own for a half hour. Then I’ll teach you how to use the plethora of weapons in our arsenal, and then we’ll return to target practice, and I’ll review your progress.”
“So you get to sleep a half hour longer?” Alisha observed.
“That’s my plan,” Anna said without a hint of apology. “I’m sleeping and eating for two now.”
“You’re having a baby!” Alisha exclaimed.
“Pipe down. I’m not telling the general public until I start showing.”
“That’s wonderful!” Alisha said and then thought of her street friend, Carol, and grew worried. “Is it a legal baby?”
“Of course. It’s not a virgin birth, if that’s what you’re thinking, but it’s definitely legal. We applied soon after we married and received permission a week later to try to have a baby.” Anna smirked. “Riley and I have had a lot of fun trying.”
“I always thought having a baby would be wonderful,” Alisha said. “But when it came down to it, I discovered I wanted a baby less than I didn’t want its father.”
Anna looked confused. “You aren’t talking about Logan, are you?”
“No! I was talking about the horrid man my parents had chosen for me.” Then she smiled. “The colonel would make a really good father.”
“And husband?” Anna added.
Alisha was about to agree, but reality came crashing in. “Colonel Logan has made it very clear that there can’t be anything between us. We’ve both got jobs to do, and anything personal would be distracting.”
“Ah hell, that’s the same damn line Riley gave me. Get him in the sack, and he’ll forget all about it!”
“No,” Alisha said with sad resignation. “Colonel Logan means it. There’s nothing I can do to change his mind and every time I try, it just drives him further away.”
“You want me to kick his butt?” Anna asked.
“Touch a hair on my colonel, and you’ll have me to answer to,” Alisha warned. “And don’t hit him with earphones anymore. His poor arm is going to be sore all day, and he’s got to train.”
“Yes, Colonel Kane,” Anna laughed. “I’m glad to see Logan’s finally got someone watching his back.”
Their discussion had switched to business by the time they reached the training field. Alisha walked her through the site, describing the flight and showing her the targets to gain her input. After making a few small adjustments, Anna seemed satisfied.
“The targets are reasonable, but the flying sounds completely impossible.”
A familiar gentle hand on her neck told Alisha Jack had found them. “I’ve been looking for you. The general is getting a bit antsy with both his favorite colonels missing at such a momentous event.
“Colonel Logan is missing?” Alisha exclaimed.
“He probably went back and caught a few hours of sleep,” Anna said. “He looked like shit when I was tearing him a new one.”
“No doubt you didn’t let that slow you down,” Jack muttered.
“No, Jack, I didn’t,” Anna snapped in return.
Alisha frowned. The tension between her two friends was almost tangible. She wondered if they had been lovers and it had ended badly. It wouldn’t be unthinkable; after all Jack was the handsomest man she had ever met and Anna was stunning. Yet it was hard to imagine them ever getting together. Jack was too gentle and playful and Anna, despite her angelic face, was tough and physical. Jack was inclined to think his way out of a problem and Anna would undoubtedly prefer to shoot her way out.
Jack didn’t seem to hear Anna’s reply. Instead, he turned to Alisha. “And how was your first day of target practice?”
“I think it went okay,” Alisha replied. “But if you want to know how I really did, you might want to ask Anna when I’m not around.”
“I’ll wait and read her report to the general.”
Anna gave him a look of contempt that might shrivel the ordinary man, but Jack completely ignored her. Well, almost completely. His thumb on Alisha’s neck moved rapidly back and forth, betraying Jack’s agitation.
“We should get you suited up and ready to go,” Jack said.
“My fly suit!” Alisha exclaimed and quickly turned back to Anna. “Anna, thank you for your excellent instruction this morning. I’m so glad you’re here. I need to run back to my quarters now, but I’ll see you when we start the training.”
Alisha gave her a warm hug and then headed off with Jack back to the quarters. She had barely run twenty yards before he pulled her to a halt. “I picked up your flight suit. It’s in the officer’s equipment tent with your catcher.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“Because,” Jack smiled and placed his hand back upon her neck as he guided her down to the equipment tent. “I wanted to get rid of Godzilla before she started spewing fire at me.”
“I like Anna, so please don’t call her Godzilla in my presence!”
He retracted his hand and increased the space between them.
Alisha stopped and gently grabbed his arm. “Jack, don’t be mad at me. It’s obvious that you and Anna don’t like each other, but I like you both, so don’t put me in an awkward position. I don’t have enough friends to frivolously throw them away.”
Jack smiled and stroked her cheek gently. “I can’t believe you’d ever be short of friends.”
“Well, believe it. Before I landed on the streets, I hadn’t had a friend in my whole life, except for Gramps, of course. But he was my grandfather, so he had to like me.”
“Come on,” Jack smiled and pulled her by the hand to the equipment tent. He helped her suit up and even offered to carry her wind-catcher for her.
“Jack, what type of colonel would I be if I can’t even carry my own wind-catcher?”
She was at the landing in plenty of time, but she could tell by the general’s glare that he thought her arrival was late. “General, my rifle instruction went well this morning. Do you think I should put live ammo in my gun and really shoot the targets?”
“No!” Powell snapped and then gave her a steely glare, “And unless you wish Jack to be stripped of his rank, you will obey that order!”
“You don’t have to threaten Jack. I promised Colonel Logan to obey orders, and I will, even if I don’t agree with them,” she added and sulked off to her landing position.
Alisha worried that Colonel Logan was sick or hurt, for she knew he’d never miss her demonstration flight. She stared toward the officers’ compound. She noticed a small wave moving through the crowd of soldiers and soon, almost as if in a birth, her colonel popped out of the crowd and stood beside General Powell.
Chapter 12
It had taken Logan several minutes to bully his way through to the front and join the general, who immediately glanced at his watch.
“Cutting it a little close aren’t you, Logan?” Powell growled.
“I took your advice about getting a couple more hours of sleep, sir, and by the time I arrived, the crowd was a bit thick. It would have probably been faster to suit up and fly in.”
Evidently, the general found the idea amusing, for he cracked a slight smile. Exactly at eight, he picked up the microphone and explained the rules of engagement. He then asked Alisha to run through the eight maneuvers they would be learning.
Alisha shot up in a perfect vertical lift and within a few seconds, disappeared from view. Logan knew she’d go all the way to five thousand. It didn’t matter if they couldn’t see her. To pass the test, the troops would be required to go to five thousand feet, so, she’d do it as well.
“She just hit five,” Gunny announced as he watched on radar.
That was damned fast! Logan had figured she wouldn’t hit it for another five minutes. No wonder she had disappeared by the time the smoke had dispersed
during the Broadtown battle. She must have already been hovering at five.
Her descent looked to be a free fall until she hit three hundred feet. Then she slowed it down, pulled a rifle from her pack and aimed at the targets and mock fired, then returned the rifle to position and landed precisely on the same two-foot circle she had taken off from.
“She wanted to use live ammo in her rifle,” the general chuckled. “One lesson and she’s ready to take it on.”
“You were right not to let her. It’s better to keep the troops focused on her flying.”
They watched as she carried her catcher over to a twenty-foot wind block and placed it on the windless side. A second wind blocker was set up a hundred yards away.
Logan knew she had re-created the Broadtown compound, except made the distance between the walls about fifteen feet longer. Given that he was going to have to fly over that damned wall, he was grateful for the extra distance. This maneuver definitely favored the lighter flyer.
For Alisha the extra distance made the maneuver so easy that she had to force herself to remain low enough that her slats even touched the wall. Logan suspected he’d need those slats to clear the last two feet.
After clearing the wall, she halted her forward movement and snapped straight up until she came to one thousand feet. From there she tracked a perfect perpendicular line crosswind, then soared downwind, stopped again and performed the third leg to a perfect square. When she reached the final upwind leg, the troops were utterly still. They all knew it was impossible to fly upwind, but they all knew she could do it. Now they were going to find out how.
The crowd murmured as her catcher collapsed. To a Ryder, a collapsed catcher meant death. Alisha leaned forward until the tips of her slats pressed against her chest. She rode upwind into the hundred-mile wind on her slats, with her collapsed catcher streaming behind her. A split second before she reached the edge of her target, she reengaged her catcher and, precisely on the corner, she lifted back up to a hundred feet and set off diagonally into the square, touching down on each numbered circle in its order. To accomplish this without going outside the square required some incredibly tight one-eighties, but she made them look deceptively easy. As she hopped from circle eight to nine, she released her harness and flew the last eight feet on momentum, landing precisely on the mark with her rifle magically in her hand ready to fire.
Retrieving her catcher, she performed a remarkably fast takeoff. This time, instead of soaring straight up, she held at a low altitude, tracking the same black line. When she reached the upwind side, she climbed to a thousand feet and released her catcher.
There was a collective gasp by the troop. Logan understood their horror. To a flyer, an accidental harness release at a thousand feet was certain death. Yet she made it seem no stranger than her prior head-wind dive, except this time she went far beyond the square’s boundaries.
A collective sigh of relief came from the troops as she touched down and held her balance. Logan shook his head as he realized she had that damned rifle in her hand, pretending to shoot the various targets on her path. As she ended the maneuver, she leaned on the slats, turning her direction back to the training area. She still had enough momentum to pull to a stop before the general and gave him a snappy salute.
Logan smiled, although he felt a little ill. She made it look like child’s play, but he doubted he would find anything playful about learning these maneuvers. He noticed the troops were quiet as well. He knew exactly how they felt. Watching Alisha fly was a humbling experience.
Chapter 13
General Powell grabbed the mic. “Pretty damned amazing, right?” he asked. “Looks impossible. But it’s not, and the proof of that is standing right here before you. The first time Colonel Kane ever picked up a catcher was one month ago. Now if she can fly like that after a single month, just think what you’ll be able to do. It can’t be that hard gentlemen…and ladies. The only thing different about Colonel Kane is her frame of mind. No one ever told her it was impossible. This moment in history is equivalent to Galileo proving the world was round. That change in perception altered everything. Suddenly, men were jumping on ships and sailing all over the place. Well, this is your day of discovery and you are the first sailors to set forth. And when you start to doubt you can do these things you had been told were impossible, ask yourself ‘Do I want to live in the old world or the new world?’ Because with or without you, the Corps is moving into the new world.”
Alisha sighed. It would have been better if Colonel Logan had been in charge of the mic. He would have offered words of encouragement.
As Gunny called each of the first squad by name, Alisha felt a warm sense of pride. She personally welcomed each to the training line. The only one missing from the line was Philly. General Powell took a moment to point out Philly’s absence and gave the troop an update on his recovery. “Philly requested to return to his family while going through therapy, and given his extraordinary contributions in the Ridge battle, I approved a year recuperation leave.”
Then the general handed the mic back to Gunny.
Gunny explained that flyers would train according to their MAC assessment. She knew that the colonel ranked high enough to qualify without exception, but she was stunned when Gunny called his name first. Evidently, the troops hadn’t known this either, for everyone but the general and Jack seemed surprised.
***
Logan kissed goodbye to his best-kept secret of being the top-ranked flyer of the region. There were seven flyers ranked higher scattered about the country, but here at Capital, he had arrived as the top flyer eight years ago and had held the ranking every year. He had been very careful never to let that fact be known, for colonels weren’t supposed to be great flyers, and his flight ranking had always been a bone of contention between him and the general. Clearly, he spent too much time in the air and too little on ground shaping his Ryders.
He knew his relationship with Powell would have been easier if he’d just dunk the flying test, the way he did the weapons tests, but he couldn’t do it. He shot well because it kept him alive in the field, but he flew well because he loved flying. To fly less than his best would have been sacrilegious.
***
Alisha walked up and held out her hand, treating him as any other cadet. “No wonder you weren’t afraid to train with the troops,” she teased. “How have you managed to keep this a secret?”
“It was easier than you can imagine. When you get to my age, everyone just assumes you’re over the hill.”
She was tempted to reply she knew for a fact that wasn’t the case, but such a statement would only piss him off and start their training off on a bad foot. “Well, two weeks from now, you’ll put that belief to rest,” she assured him and moved on to the next cadet. She recognized him as one of DC’s friends. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Captain Jason Re, Colonel, sir,” he replied.
“May I call you Jason?” she asked.
“As you wish, sir.”
“Well, Jason, I just want you to know, that today is a new day, and whatever got in your way last time is not here today. Try your hardest, and I’ll try my hardest to teach you to fly.”
“Sir, thank you, sir!” Jason barked.
Alisha had to repeat her promise to the next two flyers as well. She now appreciated the risks Jack had taken that day to help her training succeed. He had pulled his best three flyers from the line when they had balked at her instructions.
Once the fifty trainees were called, she gathered them around and with the use of a lapel mic to ensure they could all hear, she explained the aerodynamics of the vertical lift and descent. She then split the group into squads of ten, except for first squad, which she allowed to remain together.
Since the vertical lift maneuver was similar to the descent maneuver, she was not surprised that the members of first squad immediately grasped the concept. When the next ten stepped up, she spent a little more time going through the basics of the m
aneuvers. On the first try only three of the flyers caught on, and even those were shaky.
This wasn’t just a state-of-mind problem, for Logan struggled just the same as the others. She walked up to the colonel. “Colonel, I’m thinking that it might be better if we learn the descent first, what do you think?”
“I think it’s worth a try,” he replied, his voice terse and somewhat angry.
For a moment, she thought his fury was with her, but instinctively she knew that wasn’t the case. He’s angry with himself for failing to learn the maneuver.
She was about to abort the lesson and try the descent when Ginnie broke line and came running to her side. “Alisha, their tethers haven’t been shortened,” Ginnie whispered.
Alisha groaned. In all the excitement, she had forgotten to shorten their tethers. God what a disaster! How would these guys ever trust her again? She turned off her lapel mic and approached her angry colonel. “Sir, may I speak with you in private?”
Colonel Logan stepped out of the line, but she could tell he was not happy about preferential treatment.
“Colonel,” she whispered into his ear. “I’ve really screwed up here.”
“It’s not your fault if your trainees cannot learn. You know the rules, Alisha. If we can’t get it, send us down.”
“Right, but what happens when I’m the problem?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, his voice suddenly softening.
“I forgot to shorten everyone’s tethers. None of you should have been able to do that maneuver at all with the tethers so long. It’s incredible that three of you managed to get some vertical lift.”
Logan took a few minutes to digest this information. “Your mike’s off, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then make this seem part of your lesson. Tell them how every part is critical for success. Then shorten the tethers and put us up there again.”
“Thank you for the advice, sir,” Alisha said.
“Alisha, don’t be so upset. This was probably a good thing. We’ll all be amazed with our improvement.”
Scavenger Falters (The SkyRyders Book 2) Page 7
