"Where are they?"

"Don't see 'em  yet."

"You ain't gonna see 'em until it's too late."

"See if you can pick them up on LIDAR."

"Nothing.  No blips."

"Give 'em a minute. They'll show up."

"Yeah, rushing the bad guys is rude."

"PEOPLE, CUT THE SKIPCHATTER UNLESS YOU GOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY!"

A glassy sea of black speckled with light lay serenely before Caleb.  He adjusted his grip on the stick of the Israeli TB-54 Endo/Exo Starbrute fighter, then checked the heads-up display superimposed on the canopy.  Data bars within the HUD told him all systems were in the green.  He looked above to the Light Detection And Ranging image.  The LIDAR was devoid of enemy craft, yet he knew they were there.  he grew tense inside his helmet and pressure suit, then reminded himself that he was at the tip of a spearhead of warplanes, and each cool, mean craft, with its forward-swept wings that supported proximity guns and multiple laser cannons could bite a lethal chunk out of anything it met.

But then he re-reminded himself that an ace can fly a piece of crap made from tape and coat hangers and still inflict heavy casualties on the enemy.  Pilot equals everything.  Was Caleb up to the task?  He knew one thing.  His inexperience kept creeping into his voice.  "All right. Let's check them again, people."

"Come on, Caleb," Counter moaned in Caleb's link.

"Do it," he replied flatly. "My 12, low and high, is clear."

"Red Leader, R-Three.  My 2 to 4 is looking good," Laura said.

"R-Two here," Batra began unsteadily. "And, uh, we're okay over here.'

"R-Four?" Caleb asked.

"What do you think?"

"R-Four.  Report properly."

"Our 6 and 3 are full of nothin' but space."

"R-Five. Your turn."

A loud yawn crackled through Caleb's link.  "Yup."

"Yup, what?"

Berkson dropped his voice in an overwrought attempt to sound serious. "7, 6, and 5, low high, and any other ways you wanna look at 'em, are clear."

"R-Six. I'm clean all around," Cross reported.

Something flashed on Caleb's periphery.  He turned his head.  It seemed that the stars were blurring as if suspended above a barbeque pit.   Then his heads-up display went awry:

Six targets knifed into his 2:00.  His NAV system was already plotting an intercept course and targeting locks were already hovering across the display.

"This is Red Leader.  6 contacts at 2:00.  Confirm."

"Red Leader, this is R-3.  Confirm.  A-0-A: 15 degrees." Laura sounded intense.

And then Counter, all business, added his voice to hers.  "R-4.  Confirm.  Check 6."

Caleb's suit kept him too cool to sweat, and there was definitely something unnatural about that.  His pulse, rocketing at least as fast as the Starbrute, should be accompanied by clammy palms and soaked brow.  He eased back on his stick while he checked the LIDAR.  The bandits were moving behind the wing.  R-5, check 6!  5, check 6!"

He waited for a few seconds.  Nothing.

"Berkson!  Answer me!"

Dead air.

Caleb looked back to take physical account of the wing.  Batra was on the right, Laura on the left, both in the 1st division.  Counter, the tank, and Cross, made up the 2nd division.  He focused on the tank's fighter, directly behind him.  Though he couldn't see Berkson, he imagined that the pilot had his feet kicked up on the console and was snoring.  Or, maybe, was flying nonchalantly with his link turned off.  Either way, the tank was screwing up royally.

"Enemy craft have us locked on!" Laura announced.

Caleb's HUD showed that the bandit's had banked left and rolled around to the wing's 6:00. "Juke right! Buzz east!" he ordered.

Caleb cut the stick, rolling his Starbrute tightly in an evasion tactic that he hoped the others would follow.  Indeed, the HUD confirmed that 1, 2, 3, 4 Starbrute were behind him as he came out of the roll, pulled the stick back, and engaged full thrusters to begin a 75-degree climb.

"Berkson!"

Caleb looped around, sticking to his original plan to fall low and then come up at the enemy's six.

"All fighters! Break off from leader!" Laura cried.  "Caleb!  YAW TO EVADE!"

"R-3!  What are you doing?" he asked, dumbfounded.

Then Caleb's jaw nearly fell in his lap as looked dead ahead.  The LIDAR sounded an alarm to underscore the nightmare image:

He was headed straight for Berkson's fighter.

A yawn from Berkson sounded through the link as Caleb tried---at the last possible second---to drive his stick forward and dive beneath the oncoming fighter.

The nose of Berkson's Starbrute, with its small slightly upturned forward wings, filled Caleb's view.  Then the thermoplastic canopy shield abruptly shattered amid a torrential rain of fiery hell.

"Counter, look...."

"Oh, shit!"

"Pulling up!  Can't hold..."

Caleb saw the other ships go down like dominoes behind him, one exploding after another, complex machinery and fragile flesh and bones turned to wreckage and ash in the vacuum of space.

Punching straight up, Caleb's gloved hand connected with the plastic.  "Damn!"  His cockpit rose slowly.  He looked over his shoulder and spotted Sergeant Steinberger leaning into Caleb's cockpit.  The DI seemed to be floating in space.

"YOU'RE DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD!" Steinberger waved a hand, gesturing to the other ships.  "THE ENTIRE WING IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!"

The starfield around the ships faded into the antiseptic white walls of the simulator room.  The only section remaining of the Starbrutes was their cockpits, each interlinked with the others to simulate attack formation fighting.

Unfortunately, they simulated just a little too well.

Caleb hung his head out of the cockpit and shot back a menacing look.  "You stupid damn tank!"

Laura had her gaze fixed upon Berkson. "What the hell are you doing?" Her tone sounded as if she were giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"Screwing up is what he was...."

"YOU TWO SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU'RE DEAD!"

Laura looked at Caleb, pursed her lips and shook her head.  

The tank smiled.  "What're you so pissed off about? This ain't real."

Steinberger went to seize the tank's collar, then made a quick fist and held himself back.  Caleb dug his own fingernails into his palm.  Steinberger shouted, "SOMEDAY, NUMBNUTS, IT WILL BE REAL!" Then the Samud grew quiet, a volume that seemed much more dangerous to Caleb.  "You'll be in the middle of a hairy-assed furball and you will"----he resumed the shout---"DIE! With you around, the wing doesn't have to be scared of the enemy!"

Caleb gritted his teeth.  "I should've blown your ass off."

The tank fired off a look that had challenge written all over it, and Caleb imagined himself taking the look, chomping down on it, swallowing it, then vomiting it back into the tank's face.

And then Steinberger was in Caleb face.  "Is that right?  GET OUT!  GET OUT OF THAT COCKPIT!  EVERYONE....OUT!  OUT!"

Caleb unplugged the computer cable that attached his flight suit to the cockpit, then hustled out to join the rest of the recruits.

"OVER HERE! TOGETHER!"

The group formed a semicircle around Steinberger, with Caleb and Berkson on opposite ends.

Steinberger turned to Caleb and pointed to the tank. "You!  Grab his ass!"

Caleb grimaced. "Sir?"

"THAT'S AN ORDER!  GRAB IT! EVERYONE LINE UP AND GRAB THE ASS OF THE SOLDIER NEXT TO YOU!"

As Caleb grasped the tank's butt, he saw Caleb maneuver himself to a place behind Cross.  She smirked at Counter.  Caleb withdrew his hand from the tank as Laura stepped in front of him.   He reached out to grab her.

Berkson then cut between Caleb and Laura, blocking Caleb's hand.  The tank locked a paw into position on one of Laura's cheeks.

Caleb's breath quickened.  He considered yanking the tank around and beating the quack pilot's face into a purple sheen, but then Steinberger would take him into the latrine and do the same to him.  Resignedly, he resumed clawing the tank's butt, feeling the tank's butt, feeling the bile build at the back of his throat.

"YOU FEEL THAT SOLDIER'S ASS?  THAT'S YOUR ASS!"

"Ouch!" Laura looked at the tank and scowled.

"You may fly in individual rockets, but you're a TEAM.  If you risk your ass, you risk the team's.  You people have been here six weeks and still ARE NOT gung ho.  Have you already forgotten what that means?"

Cross raised her hand and spoke, "I remember, sir.  It's a term the Americans taught us---it means working together."

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT A RHETORICAL QUESTION IS?" Steinberger asked her.

"YES, SIR!"

"NO, YOU DON'T! SHUT UP!"

Caleb thought that when it included tanks like Jonas Berkson, working together was not just an impossibility, it was a violation of natural laws.  Berkson was a reckless loner, a maverick, and a dead weight.  If Steinberger had any sense, he'd flunk him out of the academy, thus getting that weight off the wing's back.

"Now.  If you soldiers do not learn to work together, then that fatty clump of flesh in your hand will be blown to every speck of the galaxy---and yours will follow it."

Caleb sensed that everyone was letting the DIs words sink in, but he though the whole demonstration was a joke.  What was sinking deeper into him was his hatred for the tank.

"Sir," Counter said, dropping a word into the silence, "maybe Jonny would do better in a real spaceship, sir.  I know I would."

The tank craned his neck to regard Counter with a quarter-smile.

Steinberger crossed to Counter. "I'm afraid of you in a SIMULATOR!  Now get back in your pits. We'll do it again 'til it's right!  MOVE!"

Laura slapped away Berkson's hand then shot Caleb an unreadable look.  She headed for her cockpit.

Caleb paused a moment to stare down the tank, who, in turn, stared him down.  His fist and arms trembled. Then, deciding that the weaker man would be the guy who turned away first, Caleb held his ground and his gaze, even after Steinberger walked up from behind him and asked, "You got a problem with your feet?"

"Sir, no sir."

The tank grinned sardonically, then marched away.245Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcByWTLPTMa

Caleb lowered his head and ambled back towards his simulator.

"I got both your numbers, Waxman and Berkson," the sergeant warned.  "And anything but by the numbers from you two now and I'll be dining on both your livers."

A nice White Zinfandel would go good with that, Sarge," Counter suggested.

"GET THE HELL IN THAT PIT!"