by J Palliser
"Yes sir!"
"Good. Now pack your bags, grab your Valkyrie and head over to Dravin Base. I believe you know it?"
"Yes sir!" "Dismissed," Aiden saluted and began to walk out," Oh and Lieutenant? The reason I gave you the rank of brevet Captain was because if this fighter squad of yours hasn't proved itself within three months you can consider yourself a Wolf again. But if this little experiment of yours does work then you can consider your promotion permanent. Understood?"
"Yes sir!" "Then go!" Aiden saluted again and then walked out of the office and didn't let the big scream of joy escape him until he was in his quarters.
*** The Dravin system was only a few light years away from Torreon, which made it very convenient for a fighter-training base. As Aiden approached the planet a dozen different emotions filled him. He had completed his training as a fighter pilot here at the tender age of 16. He was also beginning to wonder if it had been such a good idea to leave his home world in the border of the Outer Rim, and go gallivanting off into space. He had only sent four messages home in the last five years. One to tell his family that he had become a Luftwaffe pilot, one to tell them about the battle of Dravin 7, one to tell them about his transfer to Wolf squadron, and one he had sent a few days after Dravin 7. Of course it was quite likely, with security procedures in place, that he would be able to deliver the messages in person. He was also wondering about his decision to leave the Wolf and start his own squad. He had met many of his best friends in the squad. But just about half of Wolf Squadron had perished at Dravin 7.
But he waved away those doubts and reveled in the fact that that he was about to start his own squadron. As he settled his Valkyrie down in the hangar, he was bubbling with excitement. As he opened his cockpit, he saw Lilana Lao and Weis Sylvania.
"Lilana! Weis! What the hell are you two doing here?"
"Wait! We can't talk to an ex-Wolf!" said Lilana.
"That's right," said Weis, "we must shun him! They both turned their backs to him as if he weren't worth their time. "I'm not amused," said Aiden. Lilana and Weis turned around and shook his hand. Aiden grinned and rolled his eyes, used to the pair's eternally sarcastic attitudes.
"So what are you two doing here?" "Didn't Admiral Raeder tell you?" said Lilana exaggerating high astonishment, "All of Wolf Squadron has been assigned here to rebuild."
"Well then if all the crew are here, let's find the nearest cantina and knock down a couple," said Aiden throwing his arms around their shoulders.
"But I thought you didn't drink!" said the two Wolves said in unison. "I don't," said Aiden, pleased that he had caught them off guard, " but we always hang out in the bar, and I still have to get you back for that time you spiked my drink…"
19
Eighteen
Later brevet Captain Hunt met with base commander Colonel Karsan Linn, a weather beaten man of Knorr.
"As I understand it Captain you want to form a new fighter squadron?"
"Yes sir."
"Are you aware Captain that supplies of fighters are very limited nowadays, especially way out here?" "With respect sir, Admiral Raeder has already given me this speech." Linn raised his eyebrows a bit and Aiden squirmed a bit under his gaze.
"Well then I should warn you that we only have six starfighters available for you. The others were given to Wolf and Strike Wing Blue."
"Blue?" said Aidan, his eyes snapping open, "Who's commanding?'
"I think that Commander Jacob Becker is in charge."
"They promoted Lieutenant Becker?' said Aidan, "I wonder…" he paused and Linn began to talk again. "We have three unassigned trainees you can interview. Their names are John Walker, Sovich, a Saurian believe it or not, and Siku Sassik. If you want, I could take you to meet them in oh, half a standard hour. Is that understood?"
Aiden snapped out of his reverie.
"Yes sir," he said. "Good. You may go," said the Colonel, "Oh and Captain? For the time being your squad will be designated as Strike Wing Green until you come up with a better name. Dismissed."
Aiden saluted and then walked out of the office. He broke into a run as soon as he cleared the threshold, racing to find a couple of long lost friends.
*** Although the hangar on Dravin Base was a perfect example of controlled chaos, it wasn't hard to find Strike Wing Blue. Twelve Valkyrie's with standard red stripes painted blue sat in the far corner of the hangar. As Aiden walked over to them, he saw her. She had her back to him, talking to some rookie. He sneaked up behind her and said, "I've got an eyeball on my tail Commander, I can't shake him!" Lieutenant Ru Laredo stopped talking and slowly turned around. When her eyes landed on Aiden, they lit up like twin stars. She gave a cry of delight and enfolded him in a fierce hug. Aiden smiled. Ru was exactly the way he remembered her. Tall, but not enough to be uncomfortable in a fighter, and with her short blond her cut in a military style that kept it short but didn't give it a buzzed look. As she pulled back, he got a close up profile of her dazzling blue eyes.
Attracted by the shout, Commander Jacob Becker, the short, lean-muscled commander of Strike Wing Blue trotted over and then Aiden had to endure a bone-crunching slap to the back.
"Rookie one!" said Becker, using Aiden's old nickname, "what in the world are you doing here?"
"Hey! How's life with Wolf?" asked Becker. "I've been doing fine all around, but I need to talk to you guys about something. I've left Wolf…" However, he didn't get a chance to finish, because Becker and Ru Laredo began to talk almost at once.
"You did what?"
"Why?"
"What the hell did you want to do that for?" "I thought you were happy serving with Commander Mueller!" "Whoa, whoa, you didn't give me a chance to finish! I left Wolf to start my own squadron. I want your help with it." This came as a bit of a shock to the veteran pilots.
"What exactly did you want our help with?" asked Becker, noticing for the first time, the rank of brevet Captain on Aiden's jumpsuit.
"That's the thing. You see there aren't that many rookies here at the base. I have you and Wolf Squadron to thank for that. I want you to temporarily join up with Strike Wing Green, train the rookies; fly a couple of missions, then you can go back to Blue. You do out rank me, so I can only ask." Ru and Becker looked at each other and walked over underneath the wing of Becker' Valkyrie to talk, while Aiden watched nervously. After a couple of minutes, they came back over.
"Here's the deal," said Becker, "Blue rookies are gonna be a whole lot of work before we can send 'em out. The days when we just made sure that they could fly the ships and then hurled them out into space… those days died with Dravin 3 and Dravin 7. We'll join up, and keep in mind that we're only doing this because you were our squad mate, but if you don't want people to think that we're in charge, you'll have to do all the talking. Is that clear Captain?"
"Sir, yes sir!" saluted Aiden. Then he realized what he was doing. "You made me do that on purpose didn't you?" he said. Becker grinned wickedly.
"Yeah," he said simply and walked off. Ru then planted a quick kiss on Becker's cheek. "I'm glad you're back. Too many new faces in the squad and not enough old friends," she said, smiling widely, then walked after.
"Oh, the future's looking a whole lot better," Aiden muttered blushing furiously. He turned to walk away when he saw Weis, Lilana, and some new guy whistling and making smooching gestures towards him. Aiden glared, then grinned. He stopped a couple of passing mech-droids, whispered something to them, and then stepped back. The two droids took off across the hangar, screeching and spitting sparks from their arc welders. The grins were wiped off the three pilots faces as the droids charged towards them. Weis and Lilana ran in one direction and the rookie went another as pilots and techs roared with laughter. Jacen Kruger and a new recruit named Ty Sakar wandered over.
"What'd you say to make those droids do that?" asked Jacen.
"I told them something they wanted to hear," shrugged Aiden. He began to whistle a nonsense tune as he strode away." The very
next day Colonel Linn introduced Aiden, Becker, and Ru to the three remaining rookies on base. John Walker was a native of the out of the way planet Kurba. He was short and lanky with shoulders just wide enough for him to be comfortable in a star-fighter cockpit. He had light brown hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. The next pilot was Siku Sassik, formerly a slave girl to an Imperial captain, was in a simulator next to Walker. Sovich was a Saurian.
At the moment the rookies were running a sim of the Battle of Dravin, Aiden winced slightly and saw that Ru and Becker had fixed expressions. They had all been at Dravin with what remained of Strike Wing Blue, fending off waves of Defender's as Strike Wing Red made their last desperate run on the trench on the Tungari battle station. Every pilot in the Luftwaffe could rattle off the names and designations of the Dravin survivors.
The three rookies stepped from the sim cockpits, covered in sweat and grime. Sovich and Siku had been in Warthogs and had died early on. Walker had been in a Valkyrie and had been able to torpedo the port, but had been shot by a pulse cannon on his way out.
"Excellent work Cadets. Although you all died, at least you destroyed the station and saved the Reich," said Linn as the rookies snapped to attention, "Unfortunately we won't be holding a ceremony for you Mr. Walker. Anyhow, I'm here to give you new orders cadets. This is Captain Aiden Hunt, commander of the new Valkyrie training squad, Strike Wing Green. You've been assigned to it. These will be your fellow officers, Commanders Jacob Becker and Ru Laredo. That is all."
"Welcome to Strike Wing Green," said Aiden. *** Two weeks later Aiden sat at his desk and groaned. His new office, that he was provided because he was a squadron commander, was sparsely furnished with the basics and was very small. But Aiden was unhappy for another reason. The three rookies had been showing good scores and Green had been provided with the remaining six Valkyrie's on base. Then the five new guys arrived on base, and had been assigned to Green. Aiden groaned again as he remembered the pilot interviews earlier that day.
Hiro Yu, home world unknown, had been involved with a Reich Intelligence cell on an orbital colony above Sulis Vay. He had been sent to destroy an entire Tungrian base, and had actually succeeded, destroying it entirely by his own hand. The destruction had accidentally spread out to the city and some civilians had been killed. Perhaps that explained the young man's absolute lack of emotion. The entire interview had been a sort of question and answer session with Hiro speaking in a dull monotone. Aiden had decided that if the young man showed any odd tendencies in the sim, he would be gone by next week.
Duke Max was a native of Ark Royale and had built a Valkyrie for himself out of junk. He was a lot more emotional than Yu had been, maybe too much so, but he kept reasonably in line as long as anyone didn't make 'junk' jokes or talk about his unusual 2 foot braid.
Rowan Barton was unemotional as well, but not totally devoid of them. He was just a very quiet, reserved man, capable of keeping his cool in the most stressful scenarios.
Quarter Winn was the odd man out. He was from Korsica and according to his file he had had a serious argument with his father about the Tungari Empire and the Reich. Promptly after that he joined the Tungari Imperial Fleet Academy and then defected to the Reich. This had taken some doing as the TISB (Tungari Imperial Security Bureau) had cracked down on dissention in the ranks.
Wulf Jag was from the colony world Naugatuck. That world had had a record of being problematic for the Tungari Empire and had been 'disciplined' many times over the years. There rumors that Naugatuck been one of the Tungari's targets after it was supposed to have destroyed the Kondor base. Wulf was also reserved, but his record had shown that he could be insubordinate and could boil over into battle frenzy whenever the mood hit him.
Aiden groaned again. This was going to be a long day. A very long day indeed.
*** The next day all 11 Strike Wing Green pilots met in Dravin 4's cramped briefing room. Aiden stood up at the podium and gathered his courage.
"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Strike Wing Green. Until someone comes up with a better name, that will be our training designation for the time being. Let me introduce myself. My name is Captain Aiden Hunt and served with Strike Wing Blue, and yes, I was at Dravin, as were Commander Becker and Lieutenant Laredo here. After Dravin I served with Wolf Squadron up until the battle of Dravin 7. Admiral Raeder and I have a little understanding concerning this squadron. As you know, we are critically short of both fighters and pilots, so what I'm supposed to do is turn this training squad into an elite squad within three months."
Aiden was about to continue when John Walker's hand came up.
"Flight Officer?"
"Sir, just wondering sir. Will we be doing more sim work?" "That's a good question. Sit down, we will be doing more sim work yes. Plus it also has to do with the fact that we currently only have 11 Valkyrie's. Now, for flight assignments. I will be Green Leader. Call me lead, Green 1, boss, chief; whatever's your peril. And don't call me sir, it makes me feel old," he said with a grin, "Lieutenant Laredo will be my executive officer and Green 2, with Commander Becker as Green 3. Hiro Yu and Duke Max will be Greens 4 and 5, with Rowan Barton and Wulf Jag will be Greens 6 and 7, you'll be Green 8 and Walker's, Green 9, wing-man until we get a twelfth pilot. Finally Sovich and Siku will be Greens 10 and 11. Any questions?" Siku raised her hand.
"Flight Officer?" "Just wondering sir, when we'll get the Valkyrie's to fill out the squad?" "Not for a long while. By the way, if any of you have an idea for a squadron name, I'd like to see it on my desk. The lucky submitter will be awarded a three-day leave pass. Okay, you've got an hour and then we hit the simulators."
As the group broke up, Becker pulled Aiden to one side.
"Are you sure you've organized the squad correctly?' he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you think either Ru or myself should be in charge of one of the other flights?" "Well I just thought that if you and Ru were in the same flight, that you'd be able to spend more time training Blue's rookies."
"I thought you needed us here?" "Well uh, I want, uh, I want the rookies to learn how to be leaders within the squad, so I figured I should put two of them in charge of the other two flights."
"Okay if that's what you want to do," shrugged Becker, and walked out of the briefing room. Aiden now felt like he was betraying his old commander in some unfathomable way. He sighed and walked out of the briefing room.
20
Nineteen
Aiden learned the frustrations of being in charge the very next day. He gathered the eight rookie pilots together and split them into two flights. One Flight consisted of Hiro, Duke, Rowan, and Wulf. Two Flight consisted of Winn, Walker, Siku and Sovich. He thought that, after the performance evaluations yesterday, that One Flight would have the best run. He was wrong. It was a complete disaster.
The simulation began, a simple face off against an equal flight of Defender's. Within a minute Hiro had destroyed all four Defender's by himself. Thinking that Hiro had just gotten lucky, Aiden reset the sim so that Green flight faced off against a whole Defender squadron. Again, it was a disaster. Hiro flew off alone again, breaking with his wing-man Duke, and attacking the fighters. As Duke tried to catch up to Hiro, but picked up to Defender's on his tail. He called for his wing-man to come help him, but Hiro wasn't answering, off on his own mission. Rowan and Wulf moved to assist, but it was too late. The simulated Imperial blew Duke out of the stars.
When the mission was over, and the others had exited their sim cockpits, Duke shoved his face up to Hiro's. Words were exchanged and then Duke punched Hiro in the face. Shockingly, Hiro shrugged off the blow easily and then let fly with a punch the laid the poor braided pilot out on the floor. As if there hadn't been enough problems that day, Wulf came up to him and said that, although he didn't really mind flying with Rowan, he would like it if he was paired up with another wing-man. Later Aiden had Hiro and Duke in his office and TRIED to chew them out. Hiro barely said five words to h
is commanding officer and Duke flew off the handle when Aiden tried to chastise him about punching Hiro. In the end, he had both pilots confined to quarters and ordered them out of his office. A few minutes later, Ru came in to see him.
"You look like you just had a fight with a Drac, and lost," she said.
"Sort of. I suppose you heard about what happened between Hiro and Duke this morning?" She nodded.
"Well all I can say is 'welcome to the joys of command.'"
"You're not helping." "I wasn't supposed to. You do know that this is how it's going to be for the rest of the time you command a fighter squadron?"
"I know, I know but Jacen wasn't much older than me when he took take command of Condor Legion, so I'm relatively sure
NINETEEN
I can do it too. Besides it's not about me, it's about what the Reich needs."
"Well, just don't burn yourself out before the war is over… Rookie One."
"You're never going to stop calling me that, are you?" asked Aiden with a rueful grin.
"Do you want me to?" she asked, smiling back. Aiden felt something flutter within him when she did that. "No, feel free. It sounds… er, right when you say it…" he trailed off when he realized how dumb that sounded. Ru didn't seem to mind though, and she gave him a cheerful salute and stepped out of the door.
Aiden sighed and banged his head on the desk. His squadron was a disaster, now Ru probably thought… well, he was never quite sure what she felt and after all this it was very unlikely that Admiral Raeder would let him fly bulk freighters for the Kriegsmarine. This madness had to stop. But how? He sat at his desk, which was really just a sheet of titanium on a stack of crates, for two more hours, listlessly passing of approval for the final member of Strike Wing Green, Hera Una, to transfer into the unit. She had her own Valkyrie, which was a blessing in itself. It was at times like this when Aiden really wished he could go get Weis and Lilana and get fantastically drunk in the mess. But Wolf Squadron was gone now that they had their new Valkyrie's. Wolf Squadron… the idea hit him like lightning. All of sudden a way to sort out this squad's problems was clear, or at the very least, show these pilots why being a pilot was the toughest job in the Luftwaffe. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
