Fire Ant Page 8

  “Now that,” she said, pointing to the fighter, “is going to take you quite a bit longer.

  “I’ll let Jorge know I’m done and send him over,” she told the senior chief.

  “Thanks, Tasha. You’re the best.”

  “Damned right I am!”

  “Should I get into my fighter?” Beth asked as the tech walked away.

  The senior chief shrugged, then said, “We can’t start synching you until Jorge gets here, but why the hell not? I imagine you’re anxious to check out your baby. Frye, power up the systems.”

  “Yes, Senior Chief,” the spaceman said, and a moment later, the lights inside the console lit up.

  “Well?” the senior chief asked Beth.

  She didn’t need him to say anything else. She didn’t have a stepladder yet, but there were foot indents that would disappear back into the hull once the fighter was underway. It was a reach, but she got her foot into the bottom indent, then using the leg still planted on the deck of the hangar, hopped up, grasping the edge of the cockpit. After that, it was easy to scramble up and slide into the fighter’s seat.

  Ultra-cool, she thought, excitement threatening to make her head explode. And it’s mine!

  “How does she feel?” the senior chief asked.

  “Not bad,” she said, as nonchalantly as she could.

  It felt far better than “not bad.” This is what she was born to do, and by God’s miracle, she, a little girl from the barangays had somehow been plucked from obscurity to be given a freaking Wasp. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was. She slid her right hand into the control sleeve and tapped out the command to engage thrust—she knew, of course, that the powerplant was not lit, but she imagined the Wasp streaking across the black.

  “She’ll feel better as we get you synched in. Give us an hour, and you’ll feel like she’s a part of you.”

  Except that it took almost three hours. Jorge, another KenCorp civilian tech, was methodical, and he wasn’t pleased with her seat. It had been printed based on Beth’s body specs, but even after some adjustments, both printing a seat insert and pounding it with a wrench, he declared it a total wash. He ordered an entire new seat be printed, which took over 40 minutes.

  Beth was excited to have her own Wasp, but she was getting bored, standing around doing nothing, then becoming little more than a mannikin being dressed by a designer. Finally, Jorge was satisfied, and the lieutenant called over for his check and sign-off.

  “Frye, power her down, then get to chow. You, too, Dalisay. I’ll find out when you’re scheduled for your shakedown, and let you know.”

  “I’ve still got my gear in the CO’s office, Senior Chief. Should I take care of my berthing first?”

  “Hell, Dalisay. You’re a damned petty officer, a pilot to boot. I’m not going to lead you by the hand around here. Do what you want—just be here tomorrow when I tell you.”

  Even if she was a petty officer, she’d been a recruit, then a student, and in both cases, she’d been following a set schedule, with someone else telling her what to do and when to do it. She had to get it in her mind that she was expected to be much more self-reliant.

  “Roger, that, Senior Chief. I’ll handle it.”

  She gave Spaceman Frye her helmet, the rumbling in her stomach making the decision that it was chow first, berthing second. She started to walk off but turned back for one last look at the fighter. She gave it one last possessive pat on the bow.

  It wasn’t just any Wasp. It was her Wasp.

  Chapter 8

  Beth leaned against the passageway bulkhead, eyes closed. That had not gone well.

  She’d never made it to chow. She’d remembered that the command master chief had told her to check in after the synch, so she’d stopped by her office, expecting to leave a message, but the master chief was there and called her in. For a good hour, Beth had sat quietly in the chair across from the squadrons senior enlisted sailor, a member of the squadrons “Big Three” of commander, XO, and command master chief.

  Most of the time had been spent with the master chief telling Beth about herself and her philosophy on life. The master chief was a glass-half-empty type of person who seemed to believe that sailors did best when their feet were held to the fire. Beth knew the type—people suspicious about the motives of others—and she didn’t exactly mesh well with them.

  At first, Beth just sat there, nodding, as the master chief when on. She had authority over Beth, true, but as a pilot, Beth thought she’d be somewhat protected from her control. At least, that was how PO1 Muhamed, back at Type School, had explained the dynamics of the new enlisted pilots.

  Listening to the master chief, though, Beth wasn’t sure that would be the case.

  After giving Beth her history, she made it clear that she owned Beth. Sure, as a pilot, Beth would be working directly for her flight commander, Lieutenant Hadley. However, “to be 100% clear,” when she was not actually flying, Beth belonged to the her.

  Through other comments, it also became 100% clear that the master chief did not approve of enlisted pilots, and even more disapproved of Beth’s unorthodox jump from spaceman recruit to petty officer third class. Comments such as “Don’t think you’re going to sit on your ass and escape normal duties” and “I’m putting you on the watch list starting the day after the next exercise’s endex” pretty much made the woman’s point.

  Beth thought the master chief would keep going, but a call came in that requited her attention, so with an “I’m watching you, Dalisay,” she let Beth go. Too late for chow, though. The station was small enough that it didn’t have 24-hour service, and Beth would have to wait until midrats to calm her angry belly.

  She took ten deep breaths, calming herself. She’d been up against far more in her life, and she wasn’t going to let an asshole, even one with power over her, affect her. Pasting a smile on her face, she went next door to the CO’s office to retrieve her seabag, entered the space designator that the master chief had given her into her wristcomp, then dragged her seabag, following the path to her quarters. She started to buzz the entry button, in case her new bunkmate was inside, but thought screw it and waved her wrist comp over the access, opening the hatch.

  The space was a little bigger than her quarters at HB: about ten feet deep and five feet wide. There was a fold-out desk at the far bulkhead and two bunks along the right-hand side. What caught her attention, though, was the woman in mismatched underwear lying on the bottom rack and watching something on a screen that folded down from underneath the top bunk.

  “Well, Satan’s nuts, girl, you’re a fucking hobbit!” the woman said, folding up her screen and swinging her legs around to sit up at the edge of her bunk.

  Beth stared at the woman—her new bunkmate—and a spark of anger began to blossom within her. She’d just put up with a ration of shit from the master chief, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to put up with any more from this . . . this shaved-headed freak.

  PO2 Hamlin had impossibly bright red hair—on half of her head. The other half was shaved, leaving a tiny bit of stubble in geometric patterns. She had three huge rings piercing her right nostril and one running through both her upper and lower lip on the right side of her mouth. Beth wondered for a moment if she’d stumbled into the wrong quarters and the woman was a civilian tech, not a naval petty officer.

  “Don’t stand out there gawking, girl; get your ass in here and let me look at you.”

  She jumped out of the rack, and Beth saw her new roomie was almost as short as she was. The woman pulled Beth by the arm into the space, and the hatch closed behind them.

  “Hell, turn around,” she said, physically turning Beth away.

  Beth was about to protest when she felt her bunkmate’s butt up against hers, then her hand pressing down on the top of her head.

  “I fucking knew it. I’ve got at least four centimeters on you. I’m no longer the squadron sandblower,” she said, turning a bewildered Beth back around.

  �
�How tall are you?”

  “Uh, four-foot . . . uh, a hundred-and-thirty-seven centimeters.”

  “And I’m one-forty-one. Boom!” she shouted, slapping the top bunk. “Mercy Hamlin, your bunkmate. But you can call me ‘No Mercy,’ ‘cause I don’t give none.”

  That’s not going to happen.

  “So, welcome to the Stingers, Floribeth. Do I call you that? Anyway, welcome. We’ve been waiting for you, and you’ve got to spill. So, what were they like?”

  The rapid-fire comments, none seemingly connected, confused Beth. “Beth. Most people call me Beth. And what were who like?”

  Mercy rolled her eyes, then said, “The fucking aliens, of course.”

  Beth could feel her face going white. That was supposed to be a closely-held secret.

  “You know?”

  Mercy laughed, filling the small stateroom with light. “Of course, I know. We all know. Even the snake eaters here on Sierra. Why do you think we even exist?”

  “I don’t know. I thought—”

  “We’ve seen the recordings, but how did it feel? Satan’s nuts, girl. What was going on in that little gourd of yours?”

  Beth’s defenses were up, but the almost overwhelming enthusiasm of Mercy was breaking them down.

  “I was just trying to survive,” she said, leaving it at that.

  “You did a little more than that, sister.”

  “No, really. I was scared, and I was running.”

  Mercy snorted, then said, “Yeah, and in a piece of shit corporate scout. You’ve got big balls, girl.”

  Beth felt a surge of defensiveness. Her Hummingbird was not that bad of a craft.

  Well, compared to a Wasp, maybe it was.

  “Believe me. I’m not brave.”

  Mercy snorted again and said, “Then you’re in the wrong place now. But the Commander, he don’t make no mistakes like this. You belong here.”

  “The command master chief sure doesn’t think so,” Beth said before she could stop herself.

  “Or No Go? She doesn’t think anyone’s good enough, especially none of us peon enlisted swine.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. She’s enlisted, too.”

  “But she ain’t no pilot, and she don’t like that none. She’s not even fleet. She’s admin, part of the skeleton staff before we stood up, and she’s afraid a fleet command master chief’s going to show up and take her job, so she’s got to be a hard ass to prove she’s up for it.

  Beth thought about that for a moment, then nodded. It made sense.

  “What am I doing, gabbing your ear off? I’ll be there at your brief on Tuesday.”

  Brief? What brief? No one told me about that.

  “Look, you’ve got the top rack. You can store your gear under here,” she said, pulling open closet that took up half of the space under her rack.

  There were some dirty clothes inside, which Mercy pulled out.

  “I’ll make some room in the desk for you.”

  “Thanks,” Beth said, then after a moment, “Uh . . . your nose rings. Are they reg?”

  Mercy reached up, and in an instant, the nose and lip rings were off. “Can’t wear these on flight status, but this is my kingdom here . . . uh, our kingdom, so we can do what we want.”

  That relieved Beth, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because the nose rings were so at odds with what had been driven into her at boot camp, or maybe the Navy’s image as portrayed on the holovids.

  “And your hair, is that—”

  “Real? Real as shit. Do you want to check the basement to see if it matches the roof?” she asked, starting to pull down the front of her panties.

  “No, no, I believe you!”

  “Anything else you want to know?” Mercy asked, a sly smile on her face.

  There was something, something that had been gnawing at her since she realized Mercy’s height.

  “Were you OPW, too?”

  “What? OPW? Satan’s nuts, no. My family hired them, mostly Roma and Trogs, to work our mines, but me? Actually work? Not on your life. Why do you ask?”

  “I didn’t mean . . . uh . . . well, you’re not very tall, and the zaibatsus only hire people like us.”

  “Oh, my family could have gotten one of the big boys to hire me, I guess, if I’d asked, but not as an OPW. No way . . . oh,” she said as it dawned on her. “You were an OPW?”

  Beth wished she’d never mentioned it now, but there was nothing to be ashamed of. “Yes, I was.”

  “They never told us that when they said you were coming. An OPW. No, shit. You’re going to have to tell me about that sometime.”

  Beth’s stomach took that moment to rumble again, and Mercy said, “Damn, girl. Did you get chow?”

  “No, the master chief tied me up.”

  “That woman is so blind that she probably forgets to eat herself.” She pulled open her closet, rummaged around, and pulled out a packet. “You like Pop-Pop bars? It’s a long time ‘til midrats.”

  Navy regs prohibited food items in berthing spaces. Beth didn’t know if Mercy was thumbing her nose at those regs or if they just didn’t matter as much out here in the fleet. She did like Pop-Pop bars, though, so he held out her hand.

  “I’ve got more where they came from, so just let me know. For now, get a load off your ass,” she said, patting a spot on her rack. “I’m about to give you the gouge on everyone you need to know, starting with George, our flight leader.”

  It took a second for Beth to realize that “George” was Lieutenant Hadley, whom the “Or No Go” had informed her was her flight leader—which meant Mercy was in her four-man flight as well.

  “George—Swordfish—is a good guy,” she started, eagerness lighting up her eyes as she started to gossip.

  She had initially recoiled when she first met her bunkmate, but she was quickly warming up to the woman. Beth was sure they were going to get along just fine.

  Chapter 9

  “Any saved rounds?” Lieutenant Hadley asked his three flight members.

  Beth just wanted to get going. She was excited, and this would be the first time she’d be flying with her flight. She’d gotten in the ten hours the commander wanted in Tala, as she’d named her Wasp, the last time with the commander himself, where she chased him through the Navy’s Westerman Training Area, matching him maneuver-for-maneuver.

  She’d been pretty proud of that until Mercy told her that the CO, for all his vision and leadership, was not the greatest pilot. He didn’t really fit into his Wasp, as big as he was, despite modifications made to it, but he insisted on flying like the rest of pilots.

  She stole a quick glance at her Wasp, Tala. She had agonized for two days on the name, finally settling on the ancient Filipino goddess of the stars and the nighttime sky. She’d never known anything about the ancient gods and goddesses, but once she uploaded the information, the name seemed to fit. “NSP3 Floribeth S. O. Dalisay” was printed on the nose, under which was “Ant.”

  “Did you get that, Beth?” the lieutenant asked.

  “What? Oh, sorry sir.”

  “I told you to stay back as much as possible. Just get your feet wet this time, OK?”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” she said.

  He’d gone over it enough times in the debrief. Fox Flight was tasked with providing screening from the robin sector, making sure that the main force was not surprised by the enemy. Beth didn’t like it—she wanted to be able to mix it up with the bad guys, but she understood his intent. She would basically be screening the screening force, letting Mercy, the lieutenant, or Lieutenant (JG) Kevin Bendick handle any action.

  “Well, let’s get to it. We launch in twenty.”

  The four pilots bumped fists together, then turned to their Wasps. Beth restrained herself from pulling down on the crotch of her bright red-and-maroon flight suit—the colors chosen by the CO when the squadron stood up. Her suit was new, and, of course, all the standard sizes were too large for her. This one had been adjusted for her size
, but it didn’t quite fit right yet. It tended to ride up when she walked, pinching her where she didn’t want to be pinched, but she knew there would be eyes on her, checking her out, eyes belonging to crew and pilots, and she didn’t need to be seen grabbing at her crotch.

  Spaceman Josh Frye was standing at attention by Tala, ready to strap her in. He was very junior to be a plane captain, but Senior Chief Garcia had assured her that Frye was up to the task. He did seem competent, but Beth didn’t like it. She knew Frye, as an E 3 spaceman, was her plane captain so she could be senior to him, but that wasn’t reason enough to push for a change. The minute he screwed up, though . . .

  She’d already completed her physical check when the lieutenant had called the flight together, so all she had to do was to get in and run the interior checks.

  “I still need this stupid suit adjusted as soon as I get back,” she said as she climbed into the cockpit.

  “Still riding up on you?” he whispered as he checked her connections.

  She was a little embarrassed to admit that to the young man.

  Come on, Floribeth. Be professional.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m on it.” He looked down at his Check Master, then after a moment, said, “I’ve got all green, Pilot Dalisay.”

  “Very well.”

  She started her checklist. One by one, her telltales turned green. After a minute, she gave Frye a thumbs-up.”

  “Let’s power her up.”

  A Wasp was made for space flight, but it was capable of landing on a planet, even one with an atmosphere. It could shut down, then be started up under its own power. Both atmosphere and starting up like that, however, contributed to wear and tear, so before a launch, the fighters were powered up by portable initiators.

  Frye moved to the initiator, called out, “Powering now,” and a surge rushed through the ship, one she could almost feel.

  Mercy said it was like a man becoming tumescent—well, her wording was rather cruder—but now that image was stuck in Beth’s mind. She smiled, looking over to where her friend was about ready to power up her engine. Mercy looked up, caught her eye, then slowly erected a middle finger as her Wasp powered up.