Alisha was just about to fall asleep when Jack spoke again. “Alisha, tomorrow’s going to be crazy with the testing and celebrations. So let me tell you now, when everything is calm and quiet. I am so proud of you. And whatever happens, I’m here for you. So, if you feel at any time tomorrow you need a person to celebrate with or a body to cry on, find me, okay?”
“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” she replied and happily fell asleep.
Chapter 40
Alisha woke up early and stared at Jack, willing him to wake up. After endless minutes of concentrated staring, he finally spoke. “Alisha, have I overslept?” His eyes remained closed.
“That depends. When were you planning to get up?”
“Five o’clock.”
“If we get up now, we could sneak down to the mess hall and read the wall,” she suggested.
He sighed and opened his eyes. “Do you have a second alternative that might include my sleeping for another hour?”
Alisha giggled. “Nope.”
Jack sighed and got up. “You know, this spoiled-brat side of you is not very becoming,” he observed and went into the bathroom.
Certain that he’d go with her to check out the wall, she dressed. By the time he came out, she was ready to go.
“You don’t mind if I get dressed before we go, do you?”
“I think you’d better. You’re much too handsome without a shirt on. You’d drive half the cadets crazy.”
“This from the colonel who strips down to her skivvies…”
“I was fully clothed.”
“Trust me when I tell you that those tight-fitting polys just make you look naked with blue skin.”
Alisha talked nonstop all the way to the mess hall, where she started at one corner and read aloud the entire message board.
“Jack there is a want ad for a partner in the wind tunnel!” She laughed and pointed it out.
“Not surprised. But this is my favorite. ‘“Ode to the blue wind goddess of morning sun.’”
Hearing the poorly written poem about her perfections caused her to groan.
Jack leaned in and tickled her. “Somebody has an admirer.”
“Oh, here’s one about you!” Alisha exclaimed. “The face of an angel and the body of Satan.”
“That’s not very flattering,” Jack pulled the item off the board and crumpled it up.
“Hey, vandal! We’re just here to read the wall, not to dismember it!”
“Aw, look, somebody posted his letter from home…”
He pulled it down as well.
“Don’t,” she scolded.
“Alisha, nobody posts their letter from home on a message board. It was clearly put up to embarrass some poor cadet.” Jack glanced at the letter and pointed out a section which the mother said she had hoped he hadn’t started wetting the bed again.
“That’s hateful.”
“Don’t even try to change this practice, Alisha. There’s a meanness in the core of every boy who has ever attended any type of boarding school. I played this form of revenge on several classmates in my early years.”
“Jack!”
“They’d beat the crap out of me one day, and the next day a letter from their mom advising them to be sure and change their undies would be on the board for all to see.” He looked at the letterhead. “I know this cadet. He probably deserves the embarrassment.”
“Well, not today,” Alisha declared. “Today is a happy day. Today I graduate twenty class-five flyers!”
“Confident, are we?”
“Yes, I am!” she replied. “Oh look, Jack. Somebody has a puppy to sell. I bet Gramps would like a puppy.”
Jack pulled that message down as well. “I’ll check it out and see if it’s still available,” he promised. “Well, that does it for the board. Can we go back to sleep a while longer?”
“I’m not sleepy,” she replied looking around at the cavernous hall of tables and benches.
“You’re always sleepy in the morning.”
“Not today, Jack. I don’t want to miss an hour of this wonderful day!”
***
The test began exactly at eight. Every cadet in the fort was there to watch the flights. Benjamin had become something of a folk hero to the rank and file and a downright God to the bottom dwellers. If they loved him any more, he could start his own cult.
MAC was administering the test, so special video and radar equipment had been flown in and set up for the day. Since Riley was officiating, Alisha had nothing to do but watch the flying and chew her nails.
She decided she was more nervous than Benjamin.
But then, what did Benjamin have to worry about? He had spent the last two days perfecting his performance. If Riley hadn’t placed one target in a nearly impossible place to shoot, she would anticipate Benjamin to return a perfect score. That target pretty well ensured no one would be coming out of the test with a hundred percent right.
Chapter 41
Logan applied the muscle balm across his chest and legs. The two days of rest had certainly helped. He felt confident his body would hold up to the arduous test. The only question was, could he remain focused? The closer he came to leaving Alisha, the more she seemed to come to his mind.
For example, her declaration last night that no one at the table was getting any sex confused him. Jack had told him they weren’t partnering. Was that possible? Did Jack really have the willpower to sleep beside her and never go further? Logan knew he certainly couldn’t.
He had spent most of last night dreaming about her, which was nothing unusual. But last night they hadn’t been making love. Last night he’d played a hundred versions of how he would tell her he was shipping out to the East Coast, and not one of his hundred versions had gone well. He’d finally concluded there was no ‘good’ way to rip out a young girl’s heart.
All through breakfast her happy chattering physically hurt him because he knew in a few short hours, the happiness would be gone, and heart-racking sobs would replace her joy.
Even as he stood in line for testing, his mind kept turning to her, instead of what he needed to do to pass this flight test. Fortunately, Benjamin was the first to go and watching a perfect performance finally forced his mind to his challenge. When Benjamin came down on the last pop and hop, nailing it solid, he jumped five feet in the air. By the time he came down, Alisha was hugging him with all her might.
Just another thing I’ll take from her life, Logan observed and then hardened himself as General Powell called his name. Take each task as it comes. Don’t linger on what you’ve already done and don’t worry about what you will do. Focus only on what you must do this minute.
With that advice, he stepped forward. He knew he wouldn’t out-score Ben. He didn’t need to. All he needed was to score better than a 900. Alisha had estimated what his individual runs would have scored, and he figured, depending on how well he could stick the landing on the slats, he should be in the 920 to 930 range. That would suit him fine.
He pulled a rapid and perfect ascension and then descended, taking out his target with a tightly grouped bull’s-eye and landed squarely in his mark. Landing on the mark had become much easier once he changed over to a catcher identical to Alisha’s latest modifications. The next test was tracing the block. He knew he had the downwind and crosswind nailed. Where he had to stay focused was on the upwind sky dive.
Alisha had finally convinced him to wear the new fly suit. He was a little concerned trying it out during his test, but she promised him he’d like the results. He would now find out if that was the case. He collapsed his catcher and leaned into the dive. The new suit unquestionably reduced the jarring, allowing him to easily maintain the horizontal glide angle he needed to complete the box. As he shifted his body upward at the end of the glide in preparation for the landing, he felt the suit slowed him down, making his landing considerably softer and easier. He not only landed it—he managed to look good while doing it.
The next
maneuver was a takeoff behind a twenty-foot wind barrier. While the lifting clearly favored the smaller Ryder, Logan was hoping to compensate by his ability to throw the air chute higher to catch the wind faster. When he crossed over the wall, his slats barely scraped the surface. He smiled with satisfaction. During training, Alisha had passed him on his first run. However, he had skated a full two feet up the wall that day, and it had hurt like hell.
When he came in for the final pop and hop, he didn’t relax for a moment. While the other flyers thought this to be the easiest of all the maneuvers, for Logan it had been nothing but torture. Every single time he had hit down and then popped up to the next circle, his ribs jarred with pain. Alisha had passed him without him adding a rifle to the mix, so he knew this was his riskiest exercise. Points one through three went well enough, and the one-hundred-and-eighty turn was very tight. The second batch of circles required shooting as well. Logan nailed one in the bull’s-eye, but the other was a bit wide. The final set of three required a target shot while setting up for the landing, and it was on his left. If he turned his catcher to face the target, he’d go off track, but if he shot over his arm…
He had run out of time to decide. He pulled the rifle and fired across his body at the target. The kickback hit his ribs hard, and he almost blacked out in pain. He had no idea how he managed to finish the sequence and stop, but he must have because the next thing he knew Alisha was hugging him.
“My ribs,” he groaned.
She released him and apologized.
“It wasn’t you, Alisha,” he said. “It was the kickback from the rifle. I think I need a medic truck.”
With the help of Jack, Logan walked off the field so the next flyer could begin. Alisha wanted to go with him to the medic, but Logan refused her offer. “You belong here. This is your day and accomplishment. I won’t take that away from you.”
“I’ll go with Logan,” Jack promised her. The second Alisha was gone, Jack stopped being so nice. “You still haven’t told her, Logan. I can tell because she isn’t crying yet.”
“Which is exactly why I haven’t told her,” Logan replied. “I can’t change the future Jack, but at least I can give her a few more hours of happiness before I break her heart.”
When the Jeep arrived, Jack rode with Logan to the medic and asked Sandy to call him with the results. Then he headed back to the test field, leaving Logan with one irate doctor
***
“I use to think you were one of the brightest colonels in the Corps,” Sandy yelled. “But this last week, I’ve decided you’ve lost your mind. What the hell were you thinking, firing a rifle pressed against your chest?”
“Only that I had to take out a target. Up until then my ribs had been feeling so good that I truthfully forgot I was injured.”
Sandy sighed. “Well, you were healing, or you’d have two broken ribs at this point. But you’re the luckiest damn colonel, albeit not the brightest. All that padding you put over your chest saved you. You just bruised them, but you’re okay. In fact, the cracks appear to have mended. You must have actually been following my prescription of soaking in a salt tub.”
“I’ve been living in a salt tub.”
“Well, I hope your test was over, because I’m going to ground you for a week.”
“You can’t do that, Sandy.”
“Does this badge say medic?”
“I’m shipping out first thing in the morning. The general will announce it after the tests. I’m being promoted to General of the East Coast.”
Sandy smiled and shook his hand. “Well, it’s about time!” she declared happily.
“Thank you. But you understand why I can’t be grounded. I’ve got to get to my new command. But I promise you, I’ll ground myself at that point.”
Sandy marked out her comments in the file. “I hear there’s been a lot of casualties over there.”
“Where did you hear that?” Logan asked. No one but he and Powell were supposed to be privy to the war reports.
“Oh come on Colonel…General,” she corrected herself. “Medics know everything. We’ve been getting request for blood and plasma on an hourly basis. So unless we’ve gone and recruited vampires on the East Coast, we’ve clearly got an ugly battle over there.”
“We do, but I’ll ask you to keep that to yourself.”
“Sure, but I’ll do you one better. I’d like to transfer over to your command.”
“You’d give up sunny Nevada for Chicago?”
“Somebody’s got to look after you. You clearly can’t do it on your own.”
“Well, let me get over there and see where I need you. And if you’re still interested, I’ll send in the transfer request.”
“Go on back to your games now and let some real sick people use the room.”
Chapter 42
As he promised, Jack returned and assured Alisha Logan was fine. “Sandy’s giving him a serious lecture, but he’s good. So how are things going here?”
“Very well.” She leaned in and whispered, “I’m sure they’ve all passed so far.”
Watching Jack watch the flyers was almost as fun as watching the flyers. She could see his mind working up battle plans using multiple class-five SkyRyders.
As the last flyer finished, Alisha ran to the field to congratulate him and the rest of her fabulous BDs. Following just seconds behind her was the entire troop. She tried to find Jack, but she couldn’t see over all the Ryders. Finally, she pushed herself out of the mob. She had planned to drag Jack into the middle of the celebration, but when she saw he was with Colonel Logan, she forgot her plan and ran to greet him.
“Colonel, you’re back!”
“Yeah, Sandy said I was just being a whiner and kicked me out of the med ward.”
Alisha reached out and touched his arm. “Then you’re okay?”
“Yes,” he assured her, reaching out and caressing her cheek. “I’m as good as I can be.”
That was the first gesture of kindness he had shown her in over a week. It’s gone, she thought. His anger is finally gone!
“Alisha, I need to tell you something.”
And she certainly wanted to hear it…but not here. Not in front of others where she couldn’t express her love. “Can it wait? General Powell is about to read off the scores. Come on,” she said and grabbed his hand. “You’re going to want to hear this. I promise you.”
He pulled her to a halt. “Alisha, I wanted to tell you before the general announced it. But it’s too late now. But I need a chance to explain. Promise you’ll give me that?”
“All right,” she promised. What did he mean ‘before the general announced it’?
Suddenly the general’s booming voice filled the air. “The highest-ranking flyer in today’s exam, now ranked the second highest in the entire Corps, Benjamin Abrams, scoring 995 points out of 1000.”
“What did he miss?” Logan asked as he leaned down, his breath warm on her cheek.
“The left-hand target. No one got that one but you,” she yelled back over the roar of the troops.
“Coming in second with a very respectable 994, is a man who used to be the best damned colonel on my staff. I’m both sorry and pleased to inform you he’s not my colonel anymore. The third-highest-ranking flyer in the whole damn Corps is General Theodore Logan!”
Alisha screamed with joy and wrapped her arms around him. He was a general! That meant no one could keep them apart now. He was her General Theodore Logan.
Impishly, she looked up at him and stood on her tiptoes to get closer to his ear. He leaned down as she yelled over the crowd, “Theodore?”
“Yes, and don’t you ever call me that. My name is Logan.”
“You’ll always be ‘Colonel’ to me,” she replied, then kissed him on his cheek.
General or not, she had to conclude that he still didn’t approve of public affection as he pulled away from her and pretended to focus on Powell’s reading of the scores.
When the general finished
with the scores, he disclosed that the war on the East Coast had been going badly. “For this reason, it is critical that you keep striving to learn the new maneuvers. Twenty class-five flyers are a good start, but for the Corps to overcome this enemy, we need more.”
“Alisha, we have to talk now,” Logan declared and pulled her from the field.
While Alisha wanted to hear Powell’s speech, she was willing to forego it to hear what her colonel—no, her general—wanted to tell her.
“You know, I never thought of you having a first name, well, I sort of took Colonel as your first name. So it’s really weird for me now, because I still want to call you colonel, but I can’t because you’re a general.”
When he didn’t reply, she continued to chatter. “General Logan, in charge of the entire East Coast! It’s cold there, right? Are the suits different? That’s going to be a long move for Gramps. Do you think he’ll like Chicago?”
Still silent, he led her into a wind tunnel and shut the door behind them.
She looked up and gave him a saucy grin. “Are you wanting to improve your comfort in the air, General?”
“No, I just needed someplace where we could talk in private.”
“All right.” She moved in close. “I’m listening.”
“Alisha…” He pulled her hand to his lips. “I know I’ve treated you horribly this last week.”
“I forgive you.” Just that little kiss on her hand made up for all the pain he had caused her.
“Well, you might want to hold off on that,” he advised.
He looked so sad. Why would he be unhappy? They finally could be together.
“Alisha, do you remember the night of the Broadtown battle, when I told you I loved you?”
She nodded. She’d never forget that. It was what had got her through the mission. It was what had kept her going this week when he’d been so hard and cold.
“Well, I meant every word of it. I have never loved anyone as completely and totally as I love you. You are the most amazing woman I have ever met, and if I were an ordinary guy and you a cute little debutante, I would marry you in a second and spend the rest of my life in total ecstasy.”
Scavenger Falters (The SkyRyders Book 2) Page 20
