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  “I thought you said you had things to do, Chief,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about that, Dalisay. I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  ***************

  Fifty minutes later, Beth was sitting in FT6-131, ready for launch. Her heart was racing. This was nothing like waiting for a Hummingbird launch, which was done entirely under the scout’s power. The Wasp had FC engines, and the thrust particles could wear down a hangar in short order. She’d seen ancient videos of old airplanes taking off of wet-water carriers, shot off of a steam catapult, and that was as close as she could imagine what was going to happen next. Her Wasp was about to be slung out into space at 40 Gs, well within the fighter’s ability to compensate and keep her body whole, but still, quicker than she’d ever had hit her at once before.

  She didn’t want to think of what would happen to her if the compensators failed and was suddenly glad that she’d done the physical inspection, green display lights or not.

  “FT6-132, are you green for launch?” the cat officer asked over the net.

  “Roger, green, CAT.”

  “Understand green. Standby, launch in five . . . four . . .”

  Beth tensed up, despite the fact that if something did go wrong, her tensing up wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference.

  “. . . three . . . two . . . one . . . launch.”

  And Beth was out of the station, just like that, hurtling through space along the launch path. Within seconds, the ship routed the angry beast of her powerplant, and photons poured through cerroalloy tubes, pushing her at a mind-numbing acceleration. The compensators were up to the task, and combined with her flight suit, she felt fine. Some pilots hated the feel of the constant battle between compensators and physics, but not Beth. The sensations never bothered her.

  She kept on the assigned trajectory, the Wasp still under the space traffic coordinator’s control. She could take over in an emergency, but until she was in her assigned training area, she was little more than a passenger.

  Oh, hell, no I’m not!

  She might not be controlling her fighter, but she had to go through her next checklist—she had so many of them that she was surprised the Navy didn’t have a checklist for taking a dump. It took her less than a minute, and everything was up and ready.

  Her display didn’t look much different from the one on her old Hummingbird. She was hurtling through space, just like before. As soon as she reached her training area, though, things would be different as she put her Wasp through its paces.

  Her excitement level rose the closer she got, and she almost yelled out when the STC told her, “You are now released. Stay within your TA, and happy flying!”

  Beth immediately took control of the Wasp and pushed it over into a wide, sweeping arc. As her speed built up, the arc flattened out, and she approached the boundary of her free flight zone.

  “Time for the vectors.”

  She shunted power to Ports 1 and 2, swinging the nose of the fighter to the right, pushing the little fighter to its limit. She felt a slight shift in her body as the compensators tried to keep her from becoming a red mush at the bottom of her cockpit. She watched her track on the display, and to her amazement, she could see her course tighten into an almost unbelievably tight arc.

  “I’ve got to see this for real,” she said, pulling up visuals.

  Contrary to holovids, fighters did not go into dogfights by peering through ancient canopies. Speeds were so fast and distances were so long that the human eye was not good enough. Eyes could be used for docking and other low-speed, close-up evolutions, but not much else. Every pilot, however, liked to bring up the visuals and just absorb the sights, especially closer to the galactic core.

  Refuge was closer to the galactic rim, but stargazing wasn’t why Beth shifted to visuals. She pulled the Wasp into another turn, this time vectoring thrust to Ports 3 and 4. In her Hummingbird, turns were slow and ponderous, and on visuals, she could barely see the stars shift as she came about. With the Wasp, the stars were moving like the night sky on speed. She could see how fast her fighter was turning.

  And this wasn’t even close to the limit. FT6-131 was a trainer, and the Navy wanted their new pilots back in one piece. As with all trainers, the 131 was “de-tuned.” This was the baby version of what Beth would be flying later.

  One hell of a baby, though.

  For the next hour, Beth put the Wasp through its paces. On her next training run, she’d be following a mission plan, eventually working up to offensive operations. But for now, the Navy was willing to let her just have fun.

  Beth pulled a 180, a procedure to reverse course that pushed almost half of her thrust out of Ports 11 and 12. It was sloppy, and she’d be able to do much better with a mission-ready Wasp and a G-shot, but she was still impressed with the results.

  “Oh, good girl,” she said, patting the fighter’s display.

  She was about to try again when the dreaded call came in. “FT6-131, playtime’s over for today. Head to Sierra-Charlie-Whiskey 03482125, 7678935, 2356921 where we’ll take over and bring you home.”

  With a heavy heart, she punched in the coordinates on the display, and keeping manual control, flew the Wasp to the turnover. She settled into her seat as the STC took over.

  She was flying high, however. The trainer had been great, but it only hinted at what a real Wasp could do.

  “It is a real Wasp,” she reminded herself.

  As soon as she whispered the words, it hit her.

  She was now a Wasp pilot

  Chapter 7

  “You ready to get to work, Petty Officer Dalisay?” Commander Tuominen asked, stepping from around his desk. “And at ease, for God’s sake.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m ready,” she said, relaxing her position of attention.

  “Good to hear it. We’ve got an exercise in three days, and I want you to be part of it.”

  “Uh, sir, I don’t have a ship yet. I just came over from Type School.”

  “Then what are you doing here gabbing with me?”

  “Uh . . . they told us at boot—”

  “Hell, Dalisay, calm down. I’m not serious.”

  Beth wondered if the commander knew just how imposing he looked. She’d actually been worried she’d done something wrong.

  “You do have to get going, and I’m snowed under with paperwork, but if I can’t take a moment to welcome my newest pilot, well, something’s wrong. Take a seat.”

  He slid into an oversized chair that fit his frame while Beth hopped up onto one next to him. It wasn’t quite as bad as the one in the conference room where they’d first met, but she wished there was something a little smaller, at least so she could rest her feet on the deck.

  “I’ve been watching your progress, and you did well in Type School, scoring in the 95th percentile.”

  Beth didn’t even know they were being ranked, but she should have. If she thought HB was detail-oriented before, she now knew the Navy was far, far worse (or better, depending on the frame of reference).

  “Chief Garcia’s got your ship primed and ready, and I want to you to get at least ten hours in before the exercise. The X models are a lot different than the T’s at Type School.”

  “I did a check-flight in a Bravo, sir,” Beth offered.

  The commander gave a short chuckle, then said, “Not even close.

  “Anyway, are you locked into berthing?”

  “No, sir. I just got here from Charlie.”

  Charlie Station was the largest of the stations around Refuge, housing over 2,000 smaller craft and with gates for 20 capital ships at a time. The administrative headquarters, as well as boot camp, family housing, the naval hospital, and scores of other facilities were on the planet’s surface, but most of the force was in orbit or scattered throughout the system. VFX-99 was located on Sierra Station, which was carved out of a rogue moon that had long ago broken free from the system’s main gas giant. Sierra was a secure station with limited access.
As far as Beth knew, VFX-99 and a SEAL team were the only units stationed there.

  “Well, we’re a little tight on space here, so you’ll be doubling up with Petty Officer Hamlin. Sorry about that.”

  “No problem, sir,” she said.

  She’d just spent eight weeks in a squadbay with 200 of her not-so-closest friends, then shared a six-person space with other petty officers at Type School.

  “OK, well, I want you to get your final fitting and synch with your Wasp today, so when you leave here, go to the hangar and get that done. Then worry about your berthing. Did Master Chief brief you on that situation?”

  “Master Chief Orinoco wasn’t in his office, sir, so I just came here.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be back soon, and you really need to see her. No, I’ll let her know you’ll stop by later. You go get synched,” he said, ignoring that Beth had assumed the master chief to be male. “In fact,” he continued, taking a look at his wristcomp, “I’m going to cut this short. We’ll have a longer chat later, but I really want you to get synched.

  “Chief Garcia, are you ready for Petty Officer Dalisay?” he spoke into his comp.

  “Primed and ready, sir.”

  “OK, I’m sending her down now. Let me know if there’s any holdup.” He looked up at Beth and said, “Chief’s in Bay 3. It’s a little convoluted here, so ask your comp. And with that, I’ll let you go.”

  He stood up and held out a hand, dwarfing Beth’s as he shook it.

  “What about my gear, sir?”

  “Where is it?”

  “Right outside your hatch, sir. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

  The commander strode over to the hatch, reached out, and easily dragged in the seabag that Beth had struggled with.

  “It’ll be fine here. Now go.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” Beth said, coming to attention before performing a credible about-face and marching out of the office. She whispered “Bay 3” into the comp, and the route to where her own Wasp waited illuminated on her ocular implant.

  The wrist comps were pretty righteous pieces of gear, each one probably costing a scout pilots annual salary. She didn’t even know half of what it could do, but what she had discovered so far was pretty impressive. Just take the simple route to Bay 3. The comp had interacted with the insubstantial implant in her right eye, and she could see the route laid out for her, as if it was painted on the deck.

  “Switch route to pink,” she said, and immediately the route glowed a shocking pink. “Rainbow.” The wristcomp complied.

  She giggled as she followed the path, then guiltily looked around. She was supposed to be a professional fighter pilot, not a little girl with a new toy. No one was in the passage, so she put on a serious face and followed the winding rock corridors as her comp led her.

  Being inside a planetoid was a little disconcerting. New Cebu was an empty, open planet without any of the lush foliage of the Philippine Islands, the home country of the planet’s first settlers, but a person could see for miles in any direction. Bally’s World, at least around the resort at which she was a housekeeper, was sculpted to please the masses, and Refuge had wide open spaces as well. HB’s station at Nexus Prime and the Navy’s Charlie Station were confined, but with nice, manufactured walls. This was different. She reached out to touch the walls, running her fingers along the rough surface. It seemed as if all the O2 inside could just eventually seep out.

  They say it’s safer in an underground station than one in orbit, she told herself.

  It was probably true, but it didn’t feel so.

  She passed several people, a lean man in a black workout singlet stopping to stare unabashedly at her as she passed. She was tempted to tell him to go shower—he reeked as she passed—but she held her tongue. In a real station, the air circulation would have whisked his smell away.

  She arrived at the hatch into Bay 3. Tentatively, she leaned into the scanner, wondering if she was in the system yet. She needn’t have worried—the door opened into a large—no, huge—bay. At least 30 Wasps were out on the deck, a dozen or so being worked on by sailors in green overalls.

  Beth was lost. She had no idea to whom she was supposed to go. At the far end of the bay, she spotted two figures in tan overalls standing over a Wasp. Tan signified chiefs, and as she didn’t see any others, she made her way through the parked craft to them. Several sailors stopped to stare as she walked by in her pilot blues, her gold pilot’s wings conspicuous on her chest. She subconsciously tried to walk taller before she realized what she was doing and forced herself to relax. They’d just have to get used to her.

  She knew she was already an oddity in the squadron without even considering her height. The Navy’s pilots were split about 60/40 officer-to-enlisted, and most of the enlisted were aboard the bigger capital ships, where officers commanded the bridge. Most of the remainder of the enlisted pilots handled shuttles and ships’ launches. It wasn’t until six or seven years prior that the Navy, in what some called another social experiment, started bringing in the best and the brightest of the enlisted pilots into single-seat fighters and scouts. Beth had already checked the squadron’s mix. Out of 54 pilots, three were warrants, and a grand total of 13 were enlisted. As a new PO3, Beth was the junior-most. Probably half of the enlisted in the squadron outranked her, but she would still have the absolute and final say about her Wasp.

  “You must be our new pilot,” the first chief said as Beth walked up.

  “Yes, Master Chief. Petty Officer Dalisay.”

  Master Chief Orinoco was a good foot or more taller than Beth, but she had a much larger presence even taking into account her height. Her voice was asbestos-hard, almost grating on her ears.

  “Well, the skipper wants you ready for the next exercise, so I’ll leave you with Senior Chief here to get you synched. If it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like to talk to you when you’re done here.”

  The Command Master Chief’s words were pleasant, but the tone was not, and Beth’s inner warning kicked off a few alarm signals.

  What did I do?

  The Master Chief strode off, and Senior Chief Garcia called out, “Frye! Your pilot’s here. Get Tasha to bring over her helmet so we can get this done before chow.”

  Beth turned around, eager to see her helmet interface. If her wristcomp cost a year’s worth of her previous salary, the helmet had to cost more like five years’ worth. This put the high into high-tech. Her head had been scanned to a micron, and that data was sent to one of the two manufacturers of the helmets in the entire galaxy. This would be the first time she would see it.

  As they waited, she was going to ask the senior chief if she’d said something wrong to the master chief, but she decided to keep quiet. She could just be reading into things that didn’t exist. After a minute, a tall, gangly, and very young spaceman came running up, carrying a case, followed by a heavy-set woman in KenCorp overalls. The spaceman set the case on the workbench, and the civilian tech opened it and then casually removed the helmet inside. It looked small in her hands, but the value was in what was it could do. Beth gingerly took it from the tech. It was surprisingly light, much lighter than the generic helmets she’d used at Type School.

  “Well, put it on,” the civilian said.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  She slipped it on, and it felt as if it had a mind of its own, like a puppy snuggling in on a cold night. She could barely feel it on her head, the interface was so smooth.

  “Give me the torch, Frye,” the tech told the young spaceman.

  When Beth had taken it, the faceshield had looked black, but looking through it, it was as if there was nothing between her eyes and the bay. She knew the visor was a thick, opaque ceramic, but the image shown against the inside was faultless. She instinctively reached up to touch her face, and her finger stopped fast after hitting the visor.

  “Pretty real, huh?” the senior chief asked.

  “Amazing.”

  At Type School, Beth had worn a gene
ric helmet, relying on her ocular implant for displays. Still, that had been far better than the clunky helmet displays they’d had with HB (which was why most Hummingbird pilots didn’t even wear them, relying on the scout’s heads-up display instead), but this was a leap up and beyond, and it wasn’t even synched yet.

  “I’m going to start the helmet synch,” the tech told her. “Raise your hand the moment you hear something.”

  Beth could hear the hustle and bustle of a busy hangar, and she was about to raise her hand when the sound cut off. The tech entered some data or instructions into the instrument she was holding—Beth assumed it was the “torch” she’d asked for. A soft, high-pitched beep sounded in her right ear, and Beth raised her hand. The tech studied her torch for a moment, and the sound stopped.

  “You can put your hand down now.”

  Her fingers tapped and swiped on the torch, then the same sound started in her left ear. That wasn’t quite accurate. Beth knew that she wasn’t actually hearing through her ears. She’d had microfibers threaded under her scalp before reporting to Type School, the transmitters boring into her skull at key points. The “sound” was bypassing her ears and directly stimulating her cerebrum’s temporal lobes. From her perspective, though, it was normal hearing.

  The tech fiddled with her torch another minute, told her not to blink, then pointed it at her, a bright light blinding her.

  Ah, that’s why it’s called a torch.

  The tech kept it shining for 20 seconds or so before switching it off.

  She checked the readout for a few seconds, then said, “OK, you’re good to go.”

  “That’s it?” Beth asked, surprised.

  “That’s it for the helmet. We’ve still got to synch it with your fighter,” she said, tilting her head at the ship.

  “Oh. It’s just that I thought it would take longer. My fitting at Type School took an hour.”

  This helmet was supposed to be more capable, so to go through the process in a few minutes surprised her.

  The tech laughed, then said, “That’s why it was so quick here. I already had your brain dump. Knew where we had to start. And this little baby,” she said, patting her torch, “is top-of-the-line.