Chapter 15

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I found the Sergeant where he was supposed to be, in the mess hall, peeling potatoes. He obviously wasn't too happy about it, and was grumbling at the peelings in front of him. His back was to the door when I came in. 

"Had a few errands to run, Sergeant?" I asked from the doorway. 

He growled under his breath, not looking up from the tuber he was mutilating, so I yelled, "ATTEN-TION! On your feet, wise ass!" 

This took him by surprise, and his boot camp training brought him to his feet before he realised who I was. Both knife and potato went skidding across the room. 

Before he could drop back to the stool he had been sitting on, I kicked it out from under him and continued, "You disobeyed a direct order, Malone. You also took advantage of what little trust I still had in you. Now, according to me, you have nothing. You have no social life. You have no rank. You barely even have a Veritech. The only reason you're still on active duty and not in the brig is because you haven't actually broken any laws. However, insubordination is plenty for me to have you placed on suspension, and I'm looking for any excuse to remove your sorry little ass from service. Fortunately for you, the RDF needs every pilot it's got, no matter how bad they are. I should just throw you into space and be done with it, but I think you might be worthy of another chance. So, instead, I'm going to leave your official rank as it is, and I'm going to let you stay in the Nighthawks. Keep in mind, though, I'm watching every action you make and I'm going to listen to every word you utter. If you so much as sneeze at one of my orders, I'm going to do everything in my power, and then some, to make the rest of your existence, however short it may be, a LIVING HELL! For your actions today, I've placed you on K.P. until further notice. You hear me, Sergeant?" 

"Yes Ma'am," he said, softly. 

I stepped closer behind him and yelled, "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" <Just like the movies,> I thought, grinning evilly. 

He said, this time louder, "Yes Ma'am!" 

"Not much better, but it's acceptable." I turned to leave, but stopped at the door. "You're gonna know more about potatoes than any one else on this ship. You'll be the envy of your peers," I sneered. 

Walking down the passageway, I had to wonder where the heck we were getting all those potatoes. 

[] 

The next day's patrol was uneventful, except for Sergeant Malone's grumbling. I was flying the squadron in groups of nine, with three wings in each group. I made sure Gamma wing never left my sight, and I had to take on Beta wing, because Lieutenant Fate was on special assignment to Thallin Braywater for the course of their experiment. The other two groups covered their own quadrants, with Delta wing and Theta wing in charge. 

Just to sound official, I was calling each group a 'flight.' Mostly, however, I was trying to act like I knew what I was doing. I didn't. 

After eight hours of flying, we all returned to the fortress. We had the rest of the day off, and then we were going to start rotating the schedule, so that one flight was in the air at all times. It seemed like a good system, and it also meant I could reduce the number of hours in space. Four hours was a little bit more comfortable, but it was too short for our military's purposes, and didn't allow for much free time or sleep, so I set the length to six hours. 

I also opened the subject to my crew, so that, if they had any better ideas on how to run things, I would take them into consideration. Of course, I ignored most of Sergeant Malone's inane suggestions, but the rest of my crew came up with some pretty good ideas. 

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After patrol, I forced myself to go back down to Medical. I had to talk to Corporal Ditkins about 'Christina.' I had to find out how he had found the photograph. 

I knocked on the wall near the section his 'office' had occupied the previous day, but there was no one around but a young orderly. I asked her where the Corporal was, and she said he had been given a real office in the new Macross City. After getting directions and thanking her for her help, I went into town to find him. 

I was walking down New Maple when I heard a shrill whistle from behind me. Turning around, I saw a woman in a red jumpsuit standing next to one of those annoying robot vending machines. She yelled, "Hey fellas, wanna let a girl buy you a drink?" at a bunch of pilots. As the men crowded around her and her machine, I thought cynically, <The things some people do to get attention.>It took me another half hour to reach the new hospital. <Nice building,> I thought as I walked in the automatic doors on the front. <Let's see... The orderly had said he was on the second floor, in room 215.> I pressed the elevator button, too tired to take the stairs, and waited. When the elevator pinged and opened its doors, however, Ditkins was standing in it. 

He smiled pleasantly at me and said, "Ah, nice to see you again. How's your head?" He stepped out of the elevator and stood in front of me. 

I tried to smile, but only managed to look haggard as I said, "It's fine, but that's not what I came to talk to you about, Corporal. I need to know where you found that picture." 

His expression changed slightly, he looked around as he said, "Err... Can you walk with me a bit, then?" 

"Sure." I followed him out the door. 

Once we were down the street a ways, he said, "I'm really sorry about your friend. I'm sure she was an excellent pilot." 

"Then you know what happened to her, then?" I asked. 

He stopped, startled, and looked at me. "Hey! I didn't have anything to do with that. The body just disappeared." 

This surprised me. "What? What do you mean 'the body just disappeared?' What happened to it?" 

"I was on duty in the morgue, and my 'buddies', Charlie and Quyen, noticed the body had gone missing. I was in another room, so I didn't see it happen. They thought that, since I had taken the picture, that I had gone and done something sick with the body. I didn't have anything to do with it, I tell you!" He said, stepping back, getting more and more upset with every passing moment. 

"All right! All right. Calm down, Corporal. I wasn't blaming you for anything. In fact, you've just opened up a whole new set of questions." He looked as if he was about to run for his life, so I added, "But I won't bother you with them. Thanks again for your help." Then I turned and walked away. <The body turned up missing? This is getting really weird. I still feel like I'm missing something, though.> I sighed, exasperated, <My memory... I know it's got something to do with a table though... a table and a cloth.> 

[] 

I racked my brain for a long time, trying to remember the piece to this puzzle I had forgotten. Several patrol rotations came and went, and I passed the time socialising with my squadron members. A lot of them were great and interesting people, like Haroun, who had been studying ancient sword fighting techniques through an organisation called the S.C.A. His full name was Haroun ibn al Habid. I think it meant he was the son of Habid. Then there were the Montgomery brothers. A real pair of chess nuts, they would play each other and the other members of the squadrons endlessly. I, myself, had lost three games before I learned better than to play against them. I also had a philosopher in the group, a moody little introvert named Augustine Rasimus. He spent a great deal of time avoiding me, but I heard from the others that it wasn't anything personal; women made him nervous. Of course, David Marshall turned out to be a nice guy, but he never seemed to be able to break from military decorum, and I had to remind him several times not to call me 'Sir' when we weren't on duty. I didn't get much time to hang out with Tony Martuchi, though. He spent too much time in the hangar bay with his Veritech, which he had nicknamed 'Ol' Yeller.' At first, I thought that he had just named it such because he was fond of the movie, and he was, but it was also because Tom Charter, with his odd sense of humour, had gone and painted all our Veritechs with different colour schemes. Someone else had taken the joke and run with it, assigning us flight suits with colours to match. Both Martuchi's fighter and uniform were actually a lemon yellow. <That's gonna make him one hell of a target, both for bullets and jokes.> 

[] 

A couple of weeks later, the brass decided to take the offensive. They were sending a few squadrons of Veritechs after an entire fleet. <Stupid.> My squadron, however, being primarily green, was ordered to stay behind and keep a regular patrol pattern, although we were covering a wider area than usual. Delta flight was flying with us, but Theta flight was supposed to be on sleep shift, so I let them stay on board the fortress, on standby watch. I hoped I wouldn't need them. 

I decided Gamma wing should fly a close patrol, while I led Alpha wing and the shorthanded Beta wing on a wider track around the fortress. I had Delta flight on another, parallel, patrol pattern so we could cover a wider area. I figured it was the best thing I could do. At least we had Luna Squadron running their own tracks, so we wouldn't have to cover the entire fortress on our own. 

Every forty-five minutes, we would pass within visual distance of a Luna patrol, so we could keep tabs on each other. This was a backup precaution in case our communications network was either overloaded or jammed. It, apparently, was Luna Leader's idea, not the higher-ups', so I liked it and planned for it. 

We were to take off and start our patrols three hours before the main attack was launched, so I assembled my squadron at 0700. Everyone was present and on time, but almost none of them looked like they had got enough sleep. I knew they were nervous, and I perfectly understood. Theta flight was looking especially haggard as they had just come in from patrol, and hadn't slept at all the night before. 

I explained the situation to them again, in almost the exact same words they had received in a general briefing the day before, and then detailed the plan that Luna Leader and I had worked out. Theta flight, as I had expected, was noticeably relieved when I announced the patrol positions, but Sergeant Malone's eyes flared angrily when he heard his wing's assignment. 

Once I had finished with the last minute details, I dismissed the squadron. We were due in the 'air' in forty minutes. However, I stopped Sergeant Malone before he left. I whispered, "Do your job, Sergeant. I know what you're thinking, and I don't want you showing off. This is far too important." 

With an angry nod, he stormed out of the ready room. I sincerely hoped he didn't screw things up. After a few moments, though, I realised I had only made things worse. <God, I hope I didn't fuck this up!> 

Forward to Chapter 16.
Back to Chapter 14. 

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