Cripple squadron the 1st.., p.11
Cripple Squadron (The 1st Solar War), page 11
“Funny meeting you here, Sherry,” he said to the brunette in the seat next to his.
Lieutenant Sharon Bitters had been speaking to the person to her left and turn to see who had spoken. “Aw, they brought in our Marine troublemaker,” the medically retired Air Force pilot said.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on, or is this just a gimp pilot’s convention?” Stuart asked. As he had negotiated the trip to the seating area, the Marine had perused the others present. About half were in uniform and those sported various pilot’s wings. Stuart knew Sharon had been an Air Force pilot and had flown the Air Force version of his own F-35.
“I’m sure my orders weren’t any different from yours, though mine was really a request since I’m not on active duty any longer. They didn’t say anything except the Air Force thought I’d be interested in this demonstration,” Sharon said. “My treatment coordinator got a little scuttlebutt, though.” At Stewart’s raised eyebrow, Sharon elaborated. “My doc claims it has something to do with new prosthetics. Or, at least, that’s what he heard.”
Stuart was about to ask another question when a loud rumble rolled across the airfield. Anyone who’d ever flown jets knew what it was. Someone just went supersonic, and they were nearby and low.
An F-22 confirmed Captain Barnes’s suspicions when it streaked in at treetop level and flew straight down the runway. The Air Force had retired all its F-22s ten years ago. As the ancient jet reached the end of the airfield, its pilot pulled its nose up into a vertical climb and punched in the afterburner. The jet rocketed skyward several thousand feet, then did a hammerhead stall and dove back toward the ground.
Stuart wondered if this was some sort of punishment as the jet’s pilot performed various aerial combat maneuvers over the next ten minutes. After all, everyone present was a pilot who couldn’t fly anymore. Barnes looked around and could see he wasn’t the only one who thought that.
The jet throttled back, circled the airfield once, and then made a textbook landing.
“Quite the demonstration,” Sherry said from next to Stuart. “I personally think it was a little sadistic to punish us like that, but what the hell, it’s good to remember what I once could do.”
It surprised Stuart when the F-22 taxied right up to the base admin building and stopped. Ground crew rushed up to chock its wheels and two of them pushed a boarding ladder up to the cockpit. Captain Barnes watched as a thin pilot unstrapped herself from the fighter. It was obviously a woman with those tits. She removed her helmet and shook out shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair, then scampered down the boarding ladder and walked straight to the podium positioned in front of the seated observers.
“I promise you there was a reason for that demonstration, and it had nothing to do with torture,” the pilot addressed the group. “I’m Commander Victoria Buckner, United States Space Force, and I’m the person all of you came to see today. It was important that you see me fly that airplane.”
Victoria Buckner, why does that name sound familiar? Stuart asked himself.
“Can you place that name?” Sharon whispered. “I recognize it, but I don’t know from where.”
Before Stuart could answer, the pilot continued. “Now I know this next part is going to be a pain in the ass. I’d like all of you to join me in the base operations conference room for a combination reception and presentation.”
The F-22 pilot made a motion to the group of enlisted Air Force personnel standing to one side. They moved forward to assist the twenty-two guests into the building.
He had to admit that the Space Force commander had choreographed the evolution well. The airmen had been subtle and respectful as they helped the injured veterans into the building. The variety of refreshments surprised him. Beer, good beer, Stuart thought, liquor, again high-quality hooch, and wine, along with various appetizers and finger foods. Stuart admittedly was a poor judge of wine and couldn’t comment on its quality.
Captain Barnes also didn’t miss the fact that Commander Buckner—Damn that name is familiar—remained with them. He had expected her to go somewhere and change out of the flight suit. Instead, right in front of the group, she kicked off her boots, then unzipped and shrugged out of the flight suit. The cute blonde, now clad in a pair of shorts and T-shirt emblazoned with the Space Force logo, went to the front of the room and sat on a desk positioned there.
“Take your time, but once everyone’s seated, we can begin the important part of today’s presentation,” Commander Buckner informed the group.
***
With most of the group already in their seats, Vicki decided it was time to start. “Ladies and gentlemen, while we wait for the last few to get settled in, I’d like to introduce the other two members of my group.”
Vicki motioned at the two men standing with her. “The Space Force officer is Captain Norman Stecker, who’s in charge of the project. The geeky-looking man next to him is in fact a super geek. He’s Professor Malcolm Forrester and the project’s scientific advisor.”
“You keep talking about a project. What project, and why would any of us be interested?” a man asked from the front row.
Vicki looked at the wheelchair-bound man. He was an amputee, with only one artificial arm currently attached. He obviously uses the arm to operate his motorized wheelchair, Vicki thought. “If you bear with me, I’ll answer everyone’s questions.”
When the last person finally took their seat, Vicki began. She pointed at Marine Captain Barnes seated in the front row. “Captain Barnes, would you come up and help me with a demonstration?” Vicki had placed Stuart Barnes in the front row for a reason. Two of them, in fact. First, he had two good arms that she needed for the demonstration, and second, he was the best pilot in the group.
“What did you think of the flight demonstration, Captain?” Victoria said loud enough that everyone could hear the question.
“Besides its rudeness, you mean? It wasn’t nice to force a bunch of pilots to watch things we can’t do anymore,” Stuart responded acidly.
“Yes, besides that, Stuart,” Victoria responded.
The answer shocked Captain Barnes. The Space Force pilot knew who he was. “You did an excellent job putting a thirty-year-old fighter through its paces. I’m not sure I could have done better back when I could still fly.”
Victoria held up her left arm, pointing it straight out in front of her toward the assembled group. “Stuart, if you look in the vine pattern encircling my arm, you’ll find a rose. I want you to grab my forearm with one hand and use the index finger of your other hand to push hard on the rose.”
Stuart thought the request made no sense but did as asked. He grabbed her forearm and then pushed hard with an index finger. Stuart realized it felt like he was pushing a button, then he heard a pop and a gasp from the crowd. Dumbfounded, he stood with what was obviously a prosthetic arm in his hand.
Victoria reached over and plucked her arm from his grasp, and then easily reattached it. “I feel naked when I don’t have it installed,” she explained to the group. “And just so you know, both legs are prosthetic as well.”
Victoria scanned the faces of everyone in the room and saw both shock and hope. “Yes, I’m an amputee and I just flew that F-22. Stuart.” Vicki addressed the startled Marine captain and waved him to return to his seat.
“How? I’ve stayed up to date on anything related to prosthetics,” Stuart asked. “What you demonstrated is impossible.”
Victoria raised a hand to forestall any other questions. “It’s obviously possible because I just did it. And yes, I performed the theatrics in the fighter to emphasize what I can do. It was a little showy, but I think I made my point. Besides, I’m never going to pass up a chance to fly.
“Professor Forrester is a professor of neurology and bionics. As part of a top-secret project, he developed a neurological implant to let a pilot directly interact with a space fighter’s computer. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it work. Fortunately for me and for some of you, we found a new purpose for the implant.”
“You use the implant to control your artificial limbs?” someone in the group said.
Victoria nodded and smiled. “Exactly. And it allows me to control them so well, that it’s hard to tell they’re not real. In fact, they are better than the originals.”
“So why us?” Sharon Bitters asked from her seat next to Stuart.
“There are several answers to that question,” Norman Stecker spoke for the first time. “First, you’re all veterans and we owe you. We owe you better lives than what you’ve been left with after your injuries. But it’s not only that. We need pilots for space fighters. Pilots that can fly extended missions in space. I’m not talking five- or ten-hour missions, I’m talking three-, four-, even ten-day missions.”
“We can’t get into all the details right now,” Victoria took over the conversation. “We are here today recruiting volunteers. All of you are pilots in one way or another. When I woke up in the bed, missing two legs and an arm, I know what I felt like. I knew I’d never fly again. I want to give you what I now have, a chance at a new life. But there is a catch.”
“We have to agree to become part of this program,” Stuart Barnes said.
Vicki pointed at the Marine captain. “What he said. There are still a lot of details to work out. And the upper brass haven’t decided how long you have to stay in the program. The captain and I brought you here to show you what is possible. But, before we can go further, you have to sign the paperwork. Anyone wanting to move forward would have to be reinstated into the service and agree to the security requirements of the program.”
Victoria looked around the room. “That’s it for today, folks. There are vehicles outside that’ll take you to your quarters. There will be a reception at the officer’s club tonight, and tomorrow we’ll fly you back to wherever you came from.”
Questions started peppering Vicki and Norman from around the room.
“People.” Norman had to raise his voice. “We’re not going to answer any questions about the program. Before we can do that, you have to agree to reenter service and sign security forms. We’re not going to allow you to do that today. We’re going to force all of you to think about it for a week.”
“In the meeting packet we provided each of you when you arrived, there is a business card with my name on it,” Victoria informed the group. “We’re going to force you to think about this. Five days from now, you can call the number on that card. You’ll get a computer program that will ask you a series of questions. Primarily it comes down to do you want to join the program, yes or no. If you say yes, then someone will be back in touch with you. If you say no, then we will not bother you again. If we don’t hear from you, we will not bother you again.”
Victoria moved off the desk where she’d sat. “I look forward to seeing you tonight at the O club.”
***
Norman’s eyes followed Victoria as she worked the crowd in the officer’s club later that evening. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have her in his life.
“You know, she’s changed,” Malcolm Forrester, who stood next to him, said. “Partly that was because of the accident. But mostly it’s because of you.”
Norman nodded his agreement. Victoria had changed. She wasn’t the wild, reckless hellion any longer. A year ago, she would have worn a little black cocktail dress that showed every curve and flirted with every man in the room. Now, he chuckled to himself, she was a professional officer. Dressed in a Space Force uniform, she’d chosen to wear dress slacks instead of the optional uniform skirt as she worked the room. She moved from table to table and answered questions.
“She’s become the woman I knew she was,” Norm said.
As the two men watched their colleague meander around the room, a third man joined them. Captain Stuart Barnes stiffly walked up.
“I’ve heard through the base rumor mill that Commander Buckner’s implant allowed her to use her mind to fly the fighter,” Stuart said.
The two men who had once been in charge of Project Daystrom glanced at each other. Norman shrugged at Malcolm, an indication he’d answer the question.
“What’s the old phrase you Marines use? I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you,” Norman informed Stuart.
“For those of us who sign on, will we be getting the same implant?” the Marine asked.
“No!” Malcolm Forrester answered the question sharply. “If what you heard was true, and I will neither confirm nor deny that, it’s likely that it didn’t work.”
Stuart Barnes understood the subtle answer and nodded.
“I’ve developed a different version of the same implant. That’s the one you will get,” Professor Forrester explained. “Not for further dissemination. I felt responsible for Victoria’s injuries in the crash. I felt guilty and responsible.”
At the Marine’s raised eyebrow, Malcolm continued. “The device itself works. It was the interface program that failed. It was my failure and because of it Victoria became an amputee. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t make it react fast enough, and they pushed the project to the back burner. Since Victoria still had her implant, we can’t remove it once we implant it, I decided it would be possible to use neural links to control prosthetic devices.”
“And here she is,” Norman said, and waved toward Victoria. “If you didn’t know, you couldn’t tell she was a cripple.”
“I’ve talked to some of the other pilots you brought in,” Stuart said. “There’s nearly universal agreement that’s what’s most important to us. Being whole again.” He chuckled. “Hell, not depending on anyone anymore. And the cherry on top is that we might get to fly again.”
“That was the reason I designed the new neural link,” Malcolm said. “It was my penance to pay. And while it doesn’t have the same capabilities as Victoria’s, it’s more than sufficient for this.”
“I have to ask this. They trained me to fly advanced jets, and I know there are other fighter pilots in the group, but what about the others? Bomber pilots, commercial airline pilots, hell, helicopter pilots. You’ll teach all of them to fly space fighters?”
Norman bit off a laugh. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Captain, or spread it around. One thing Space Force discovered early on was that fighter pilots, and it didn’t matter if they were Marine, Navy, or Air Force, sucked as space fighter pilots.”
“But aerial combat is aerial combat,” Stuart tried to argue.
“Not in space. In atmospheric flight, a pilot is always concerned about the aerodynamics of his bird. Can I do this and not stall? In space, you don’t have to worry about that. Then there’s the matter of distance.”
“Distance?” Stuart asked.
“You engaged in aerial combat, correct?” Norman asked. At the Marine’s nod, he continued. “I know advanced missiles have ranges of up to one hundred miles. But do you ever fire at that range?”
“No, you can easily evade or decoy missiles fired at extreme range. Your chances of a hit suck,” Stuart answered. “Besides, between jamming and everything else, you usually wouldn’t see a target farther than fifty miles.”
“Now think about the same situation in space. Your sensors are better, especially thermal, so you can see targets much farther away. And the missiles have longer ranges. And you and the enemy are both flying faster. We discovered former fighter pilots like to volley their missiles and then bore in for dogfighting.”
“That’s the way we’re taught aerial combat,” Stuart said.
“Dogfighting in space is extraordinarily hard. You’re flying at much higher speeds and you’re more maneuverable in all directions. Remember how the F-22 had vector maneuvering? As long as it was flying forward, it could slide sideways in a fight. It wasn’t a lot, but it was more than enough to break a target lock or evade a missile. A space fighter can do that easily,” Norman explained.
“So, you’re saying it’ll be easier to train non–fighter pilots because they don’t have bad habits?” Stuart asked.
“Essentially, yes,” Norman said. “All those we asked to attend the demonstration are pilots of one type or another. We thought that was important because they understand the layout of a cockpit and know basic flight procedures. But for space combat they are a clean slate, and Vicki can teach them to fight the way she does.”
Norm saw the skepticism in the Marine’s eyes. “You should talk to her about it yourself. Specifically, ask her about her first combat mission. She was one of eight pilots engaged. The rest were all experienced fighter pilots, but no one in the two sections had fought space combat. Hell, as far as we knew at the time, no one had. They destroyed eight pirate space fighters in that action and we lost three. Not a bad ratio, if you look at it from just those numbers. But Vicki shot down five of those eight, and everyone who survived credits her with saving the day.”
“The commander shot down five space fighters in one engagement as a rookie?” Stuart asked. “And everyone else involved only managed three?”
“Our doctrine was screwed up,” Norm said. “It was as simple as that. The other seven pilots volleyed their missiles at long range. The initial volley knocked down three pirates, but the rest easily evaded the missiles.” Norm waved toward where Victoria was still mingling with the guests. “She understood what was going on and had the guts to go with a different strategy, even as the squadron commander screamed at her to launch missiles. She waited till the enemy was at point-blank range before she fired, and only launched when she had solid target locks. Every one of her missiles killed an enemy space fighter, and she got one kill with her autocannon.”
“That was what, ten years ago?” Stuart asked, and at Norman’s nod continued. “Why’s no one ever heard of that?”
“Because it embarrassed Space Force,” Norman explained. “Basically politics. A lot of high-ranking people had devised our fighter doctrine and all of them had egg on their faces. Even more importantly, we’d have lost all eight of our fighters if not for Vicki.” Norman shrugged his shoulders. “So they classified it and it’s still classified. As is Victoria’s Space Cross citation. If you were to look in her record, there is a note about her being awarded the Space Cross and where you can find the classified citation, if you have the clearance.”
