Standing, she saluted.
“Please,” Jeffrey said, indifferently returning the gesture. “Sit.”
She wiped her face with a rough, white towel as she sat.
“Looks like you’ve been hard at work while everyone else is taking it easy.”
Seeing her dark eyes glittering with intensity, Jeffrey understood there was more to her than her middle-of-the-pack stats suggested.
“I have less talent than the others,” she said in her slightly lyrical East African accent, “so I have to work harder.”
“I’d say you’re average among the best in the world. That’s pretty damn good.”
A gravity drew over her expression. “Not good enough for me.”
Jeffrey nodded. “I like that.”
“You came here to vet me,” Lila said in an almost challenging tone, as though she’d prepared for it.
Jeffrey shook his head. “I need to understand my pilots, not their stats but what makes them tick.”
“I appreciate that, sir. You want to know me?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have to understand two things.”
“Those would be?”
“The scars of my homeland and the spirits that haunt it.”
…
She’d grown up in an Africa filled with wonder, watching herds of elephants tearing branches from trees, trumpeting in the early evening and springboks bounding over the savannah as though on imperceptible wings. She could hardly believe her great grandmother that it had all once been gone—all the elephants, the lions, and the antelope hunted to extinction by starving men. According to her Granny the population of Africa had exploded, overrunning the supplies of water and land, leaving barren dust. Mass starvations became commonplace as warlords kept food and supplies for themselves.
“Many of my friends,” her Granny had said in her rich, calming voice, “died when I was young.” Lila sat on her lap in a room chilled by water cycled through pipes buried deep underground where Lila imagined diminutive miners with stumpy legs and ice-filled packs walking along frosted tunnels.
Lila’s mother and grandmother scolded the old woman, telling her it was wrong to scare the girl.
Granny snapped back at Lila’s grandmother, “I raised you with truth in your heart. That is what made you strong.” And then to Lila’s mother she said, “I gave truth to you as well. In that,” she tapped her crooked finger to her temple, just below her tightly-curled, snow-white hair, “you learned to think. We cannot think clearly without fear, for it keeps us careful and humble.”
As Granny turned her iron-dark eyes on Lila, Lila touched her creased skin, which looked like stone but felt as soft as log-hidden moss.
“Now I give my final gifts to my great granddaughter.”
Granny sat with her hands over Lila’s lap, weaving sweet grass, showing Lila how to make it strong. As she wove, she told the stories of warlords, of murders and rapes, which frightened Lila the most—young girls brutalized, infected, and left to die. Lila had nightmares of infections burning in her belly.
She told of a young man, handsome and strong with skin the color of rich coal. At this point tears would brim in Granny’s eyes. Lila loved to hear stories of her great grandfather even as Granny’s tears made her cry as well. The stories of him filled her heart up so high, it spilled out. He’d been kind, full of love and hard work, but had been killed when he happened upon a young girl being assaulted by a group of men. He did not walk on as most did. He paid with his life, but Granny said he had kept his soul. His son, Lila’s grandfather, her mother’s father, had been born a month later. Right away, all those who met him agreed he seemed to be his father come again.
The warlords had continued to ravage the land, even as the rest of the world improved, but as her grandfather came to be a man, and her grandmother grew heavy with her mother, the Great Understanding had come. While some refused to believe such a thing could be true, the warlords, who had narrowed their eyes at each other, looked up to the sky. Beyond the blue, monstrous black ships were killing men and woman by the thousands. If those warriors failed, the ships would descend to Earth.
Her grandfather, now a pilot, was asked to go fight the horde in the sky, and they’d called him the Sand Tiger because he was fierce and skilled.
Drawing a deep breath through her nose, Granny said, “He was a Hammerhead.”
“What is that, Granny?”
“Protectors of the innocent, infused with the spirit of your great grandfather and, like him, they gave their lives so you and others like you—the young and the fragile—could live in peace.”
Granny had been left without a husband or a son, but she had Lila’s grandmother, full belly stretching with life. As the war ended, Lila’s mother came into the world.
The last time Granny told her the genealogy, Lila—then nine years old—had asked her, “Can women fly, be a shark?”
At that her mother had told her to hush, there was no need for such things any longer, but Granny fixed Lila with a severe intensity. “Lila, you can have what you earn. If you want the name of a shark, you go and you take it.”
When the war ended, in deference to the Hammerheads, the warlords raked their chests with sharks’ teeth, binding them to those who had saved them, and to each other. Africa found itself in a unified peace it had never known. Lila’s mother had grown up in one Africa, one nation, one people.
Lila had taken great strength in this, which did little to quell an even greater fear. On dark nights, she would sit in her room looking out through the window, up to the glittering universe. When a shooting star streaked across the sky, leaving a faint trail of smoke in the upper atmosphere, her heart would jump and pound against her ribs. Each bit of rock burning in a flash, reminded her of what she knew in her bones—they would be back.
When she was fifteen, she told her mother she wanted to be a Phantom pilot. Her mother had laughed so hard tears came to her eyes. She had said, “My little gazelle is no warrior.”
That angered Lila, who shouted a rude name and ran from the house. Hiding beyond the ridge, in the meadow where the lake formed in summer, she sobbed until her fury ebbed.
She stayed under the tree, finches flitting in its branches, until the sun began to redden. Hearing her mother calling to her, Lila hunkered down in the grass. Her mother’s head rose over the ridge, and her large eyes found her. Lila curled up, bracing for her mother’s venom. Her mother sat down next her, her skirts sounding like the dry grasses she moved aside. She put her still-youthful hand on Lila’s and said, “I’m sorry to have hurt you. I did not mean to laugh. I thought you were telling a joke.”
Lila pulled her hand away, and turning aside, said, “It’s not a joke.”
“Lila, my sweet, you have the heart of an elephant, patient and wise, but when you find your will, just like the elephant, nothing can hold you back. We’ll find out if you can fly.”
Despite not having a great deal of money, her mother took her to an airfield and paid for a flight. Lila found herself sitting in the right-hand seat of a tiny jet with two small engines. Using a metal handle hooked to the front landing gear, the pilot pulled the jet out of the hangar’s shade. Lila’s heart raced, and her legs felt numb. The pilot climbed in beside her, shoulder to shoulder in the small space, closed the cockpit’s tight, plastic dome, and with a hiss of compressed air, fired the turbines. As the jet’s whine rose, he handed her a headset. When she put it on, the sound of the turbines muffled down to a whisper.
His voice came tinny through the headset, “Are you ready?” He gave her an easy smile.
She nodded.
“Let’s get free from this rock.”
He taxied the plane to the end of the runway, squared on it, and said, “Tower, this is Alpha—Foxtrot—One—Two—Seven—X-ray, requesting permission to take off.”
The voice from the tower came into her ears, clear and close, “Roger Alpha—Foxtrot—One—Two—Seven—X-ray, you are cleared for ta
keoff.”
Sliding the throttle forward, he hurtled them down the runway, the seatback pushing her on and on.
The nose of the plane lifted, the rumbling vanished, and the ground fell away fast. As the roads, cars, and houses grew small, and the huge trees became toy-like, she felt her heart go light in her chest with wonder, as if she’d come home and found everything she’d ever lost sitting on her bed. She laughed out and clapped her hand on her thigh.
“Beautiful isn’t it?”
But Lila couldn’t answer with her heart in her throat.
“Your mother says you want to fly a Phantom.”
She nodded to the pilot, feeling a bit foolish in the face of his experience.
“Let’s see if you can handle what they do up there.”
He shoved the stick to the side and the plane rolled upside down, coming to a crisp stop with Lila hanging by her shoulder straps, blood rushing to her face. Looking straight up at the ground, she felt nothing short of fierce joy. The sun, catching on the dials and Plexiglas, seemed to glow with a deep energy, which inundated her, burning through every joint and muscle.
The instructor turned the plane up right and said, “How do you fall?”
Lila did not understand, but didn’t have time to form a question before he shoved the stick forward. Her guts thrilled up against her lungs. Her whole body came horrifically alive—groin, nipples, the gullet of her neck. Her face hurt from the smile as she let her arms go limp, her hands floating before her. Her braids hovered around her face, tickling at her cheeks. She screamed, not in fear, but with absolute, pure joy.
The instructor turned the plane upside down and pushed down again, and the blood rushed to her head as the shoulders straps hauled on her. She felt as though her head might pop. When they crested to the top of the outside loop, she felt as though she could see the whole of Africa stretching away in shades of dark green and pale tan.
He flew on, and all the while, she laughed and shouted out, calling for him to turn again, loop again, turn harder, fall again.
When they landed, the wheels rumbling along the runway, she felt her heart drop. They taxied to a stop, and she climbed down to the tarmac, feeling the weight of the ground under her feet. Looking up into the blue sky, she knew she’d never feel content standing on the ground.
Chapter Seventeen
The next day, Jeffrey found the last of his pilots, J. Nathan Brooks, in the hangar. He stood under a Wraith, which had been converted for VR flight.
“I get the impression you’re trying to avoid me.”
Brooks turned to Jeffrey with distrust in his eyes and offered no acknowledgment of rank as he said, “I know what you’re doing, and I don’t like it.”
“Care to explain your issue?”
“It’s a waste of time.”
Jeffrey looked around. “I don’t see anything that requires your attention.”
With a shrug, Brooks turned back to the Wraith.
“So you don’t want to talk?”
“No, sir.”
“If I ground you?”
“Then I’ll talk, but only enough to get me back in a seat.”
“Have it your way,” gripping his shoulder, Jeffrey spun him around, “but if you turn your back on me again, you’ll be worse than grounded. Is that clear?”
Brooks swallowed as he came to attention. Eyes wide, he finally saluted. “Yes, sir. Clear, sir.”
Jeffrey walked away infuriated. Any other time, he would have axed the punk without hesitation, but Brooks’ stats put him at the top, and he needed someone like that more than he needed compliance. Still, a man with a chip on his shoulder could cause more problems than he was worth, even in desperate times. He had to know more about this kid.
Returning to the pilot’s quarters, he asked a group, “Who knows Brooks best?”
“Wahls does, sir. They’re both from the Midwest.”
Jeffrey found Wahls. “I need you to tell me about Brooks.”
“Yes, sir. I’m guessing he didn’t want to talk to you.”
“No. Knowing you might be his last hope of remaining with us, what can you tell me about him that will make me want to keep him?”
…
J. Nathan Brooks grew up Justice N. Brooks living five miles from the middle of nowhere Nebraska watching crop dusters fly over the barn, their shadows racing across the hot gravel before rolling out over the corn as white mist coiled away on the vortex of their wingtips. At the end of the field the gangly yellow planes would rise sunward, turn on a wing, and descend out of view until they thundered over his head again, disappearing over the farm house.
He’d sit on the fender of his grandfather’s Ford tractor, which had been in one place, dead to the world, his entire sixteen years. As the planes passed and arced around, he’d try to imagine the Earth from inside the cockpit. He thought it would be simpler, smaller—the fields laid out in order and the trees like broccoli on his plate at supper. The flaws of the world would be too far away to see. He imagined himself sitting on the fender of the tractor, just a speck of denim and T-shirt on a rusted blue lump. In the distance, the crop duster turned again, the sun flashing off the tall canopy.
His father yelled from near the house, “Justice, get over here!”
Justice—He hated the name Justice. He told his friends at school to call him by his middle name, Nathan. Justice had been his grandfather’s name, and sounded to him like something a drunk would name his son, which was true in his case. Grandpa Justice had served in the war as a ship’s cook and come home to die a few years later in a bottle. Justice. As if there was any of that in the world. If there had been justice, he would have been born to a family that wasn’t a dead end. His friend Coret, a year older, was leaving for the Naval Academy in Annapolis in the fall. He had Senator McCreedy’s recommendation and was a damn eagle scout.
Years ago Coret had asked Justice to join the cub scouts with him. He’d asked his father, whose expression closed off as he said, “We don’t have money for that. Besides, I need you here on the farm after school, not building jackass derby cars.”
That moment struck Justice as a point of divergence between himself and Coret. With each of Coret’s successes, Justice hated his own father more.
As Justice walked back toward the farmhouse, his father’s voice echoed from its far side. “Dammit Justice, quit spacin’ out and get over here. You need to learn how to service this.”
Justice came around the side of the house to find his father crouched beside the mini combine. It had failed to follow it’s GPS track. His father had bitched about it all supper. Justice was sick of hearing about farming. Now the bull-sized combine sat with its side panel open, its circuitry and servos in shadow.
Justice stared at the back of his father’s sweat stained T-shirt. Scowling over his shoulder, his father motioned with his hand as he said, “Well, get in here boy. You can’t learn nothin’ bein’ a wallflower.”
Justice crouched down beside his father, the sickly sweet smell of sweat and alcohol wafting from the old man. He didn’t like being this close to someone who’d so often thrown him into walls.
“Undo that frame piece,” his father said, holding out a wrench.
Taking the wrench, Justice loosened the bolt. As the bolt came free, and he moved onto the next, he imagined he wasn’t working on a corn-stained combine, but one of the yellow crop dusters. It would be his father’s plane. Not this man, but someone like Coret’s father—a man who would teach him, not to fix combines, but to fly.
The day after the end of his senior year, Justice’s father said he needed him to stay and work the farm. Justice nodded, having learned at an early age that deceit was far easier than confrontation. The next day he found his way to the Navy recruitment center.
Justice said, “I want to fly.”
The recruiter smiled, “Well, there’s lots of jobs need doin’ to get those fighters spaceborne. What if you end up as a plane captain?”
That sou
nded good to Justice, who asked with a bit of distrust, “What do they do?”
“Well, it’s a damn important job. The plane captain makes sure everything is right with the fighter. The craft is yours, and you’re responsible for it. Your name’s on the side.”
Justice remembered the wrenching he’d done on farm equipment. While he felt the recruiter already shuttling him away from flying, he imagined a Phantom thundering over head with his name below the cockpit. His Phantom. That would do. Hell, he’d take anything but ship’s cook if it got him away from the farm.
“Okay,” Justice said. “What’s next?”
The recruiter took out a tablet. “What’s your legal name?”
“Justice Nathan Brooks, but I go by Nathan.”
“Okay.” He typed on the tablet for a moment before sliding it across the worn desk. He held out a stylus. “Sign here Mr. J. Nathan Brooks, and we’ll get you processed.”
When he told his father, the old man fell dead silent. His mother had cried, which he’d expected, but his father, who he felt sure would blow up, had simply sat staring at his plate. After several moments, what his father said would drive Justice for years to come.
“You’ll fail,” the old drunk said as he looked up, “and when you do, you don’t dare bring your ass back here.” His voice became louder as the anger Justice had expected arrived. “I break my back raising you, and the first chance you get you walk out on me…” He held up his hand to his mother, who was now sobbing, “out on her.” He pointed his calloused finger at Justice. “You leave this house, you don’t never come back. Understood?”
Justice nodded and left the table. In his room, he packed his bag as the front door slammed, and his father’s truck tore down the dirt drive.
“You give it your best.”
Startled, Justice turned to find his mother standing in the doorway.
Her eyes red, but her voice sure, she said, “You give it your best, and when you’ve got nothin’ left to give, you give ‘em more. You understand me?”
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