BORN OF HEROES

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 47
 

“I had a kid on my last ship that was more competent than you!” Lena bellowed at the mechanic that was running a diagnostic of her Kestrel fighter. “If I say the controls aren’t working, it means they aren’t WORKING! I don’t care what the computer says! I’m not going to hang my fluffy butt out there to dry when countermeasures take three seconds to fire or my weapons systems enter reset mode when I’m in a tussle because you say the computer can’t find a problem! Now check it again! And if that doesn’t work, check it again! You get me? I’m not going to lose another one of my pilots because you’re too lazy to do anything more than trust your flaming computer!”

  The wolverine technician backed up a step and saluted. “Yes, Ma’am!” he all but screamed in response, his own anger flaring, and hustled off to rerun his diagnostics before running a visual check of the fire control systems.

  Lena turned and stalked off the flight deck towards the pilots’ ready room where pre-mission briefings were held. As soon as the hatch shut she began a tantrum to release her anger, hurling her helmet across the breadth of the ready room and following the uncharacteristic outburst with a series of swear words and cursing that should have peeled the paint off the bulkheads. Someone came in behind her and the doe spun ready to light into whoever it was.

  Turning to find Rovi Tambor brought her up short. 

  “Lena, you’re officially off duty. Go get some down time,” the ebony furred fox told her. “Randy’s off duty. How long has it been since the two of you spent any time together?”

  “I can’t! Not while-”

  “You can and you will. It’s either that or I talk to Lem and have your wings clipped on a medical.”

  The rabbit’s eyes hardened for a moment before she deflated, her rage running out. With a whimper she collapsed onto one of the padded chairs and buried her face in her hands. “If my weapons hadn’t malfunctioned I could’ve kept Vik from buying it. I could’ve covered her! Why can’t that rock brained son of a bi-”

  “What’s happened can’t be changed, Lena,” the fox said as he took the seat next to her. “We can’t go back in time. You and I both know when your number’s up, that’s it.”

  “C’mon, Rovi! We both know that’s a load of scat! I had that cat in my sights and nothing happened when I hit the trigger. Three times my guns refused to fire. Once is odd, second time is coincidence, third time’s incompetence. I could’ve saved her!”

  Rovi pulled her into a fatherly embrace. “We can’t save them all. I’ll personally go over the systems with you next duty cycle. For now I want you to go and let off some steam. Preferably not by beating a certain tech into a pulp. Go see Lemuel, get some relaxers. Better yet I’ll tell him to give you a small bottle of something potent. For medicinal purposes, of course. Just get away from here for a few.”

  “Is that an order?”

  The fox thought about it before nodding. “Yes,” he finally said. “It is. We’re all strung out a little, and it’s not over. Not by a long shot. We’re all going to need you to be frosty for the next one.”

  Lena stood and signaled acquiescence. She turned to the hatch that led to the main corridor, her head low.

  With a sigh Rovi stood and headed back to the flight deck. He stepped up to Lena’s fighter with the words Pay Back painted in bold red script on the section just forward of the cockpit. The wolverine was staring at the readout on the diagnostic as he approached. “What’s the story, corporal?”

  “Everything checks out according to this,” the youthful technician said shaking his head.

  “Let me see it,” the ebony fox ordered, holding his hand out. The tech passed over the device and Rovi looked at it, his anger suddenly rising by several degrees. “Do you, in your professional opinion, think this might function better if you switched it from test mode to external diagnostic mode? Might that have something to do with your inability to find a problem?”

  “What?” the wolverine said, his eyes going wide. “Colonel…I…we’ve been short on sleep and…hey, anybody could’ve made that mistake, Sir!”

  “A rookie could have, but you’ve been in how long? This is incompetence of which can’t be ignored. Now tell me what it says about fire control, Technician Third Class,” Rovi said icily as he handed the unit back.

  “Third Class? That’s a demotion equal to apprentice, Sir!” the tech complained.

  “I believe you’re right. Now what does it say?” he said slowly, his eyes narrowing.

  Almost dropping the unit, the wolverine looked at the readout. “Uh…that…well, there’s a short in the primary fire control circuit board, Sir,” he whispered weakly.

  “A mistake that got one of my pilots killed, another who’s an emotional wreck because she could’ve prevented it, but instead of admitting that you were wrong, you wanted to argue about it.” Rovi straightened and looked at the SPO on duty for this section of the ship. “Security!” he bellowed. The fox pointed at the technician. “I’m placing him on administrative arrest for dereliction of duty, insubordination and contributing to the death of a fellow Spatial Police Force officer. Get him of my deck before he kills someone else from stupidity.”

  The SPO slung his carbine and pulled a pair of binders from his belt, shackling the stunned wolverine’s hands behind his back. The technician complained that it wasn’t fair and continued to argue about the long hours. When that didn’t work he started screaming obscenities until the hatch closed cutting of his voice.

  Rovi turned to the rest of the flight deck. “You,” he said pointing at a serval that had been watching the event play out with wide yellow-green eyes, “Go get Chief Rollins. I don’t care if he’s asleep, in the shower or on the head. I want him in my office in fifteen minutes.”

  The serval snapped to attention and saluted so briskly that he almost poked himself in the eye before running off to do as he was instructed. Rovi turned for his office, a headache causing the top of his head and back of his neck to throb in time with his elevated pulse. He’d given the human fifteen minutes not because he was being lenient, but because it would take that long to compose himself.

***

   Randy ran a brush through the silken fur of Lena’s back, eliciting a sigh from the doe, though he couldn’t tell if it was from the enjoyment of his ministrations or something else. The wolf wished that there was more that he could do to salve the raw emotions of his lover. The battle had been harrowing for all of the fighter pilots, but the rabbit had had difficulties that shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.

  He set the brush down on the shelf next to the oversized bunk, designed for Silloni physiology, and stroked the doe’s ear, something that she always enjoyed. “What can I do to cheer you up, Lover?” he asked softly.

  Lena turned her head and looked at the wolf. “You can hold me for a while,” she said and sniffed before a single tear formed and rolled down over the fur of her cheek.

  “Yeah. I can do that,” he replied and gave her a half smile, holding her small form in his arms.

  It still amazed the doe that someone so large and strong could be so gentle with her, and she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. Despite trying to get over what happened, Lena continued to see the Ganlin Legion fighter line up on Shawna Vik’s ship and the feeling of horror that came over her when she dropped in behind the rogue merc and tried to fire her weapons. She saw again and again the guns of the cat’s fighter as they chewed into Vik’s Kestrel before the marten hit the ejection lever. Her cockpit pod had cleared the wreckage of her fighter like it had been designed to do. Then out of all context of decency and the Laws of War, the Legion pilot had fired on pod.

  All she had needed was for her weapons to work and the young pilot officer would still be here. And just before lifting Shawna had been talking about getting married to her longtime partner, another marten from Alexandrius.

  So many friends gone.

  Not for the first time, Lena thought about resigning. It was drastic, but how long would it be before something like that happened to her? Or to Randy? All she had ever wanted to do was fly, and with her time in the SPF she was qualified to pilot almost any vessel in Known Space. The Maker knew the pay, even with a small company would be better than what she was making now. It would be enough to make owning her own house a reality. The big question would be if Randy would agree with her. If he didn’t resign, neither would she. She wouldn’t chance losing him as well.

  “Randy, the first night we spent together, what was that song that you were playing in the cargo hold of the Angel?” She watched his brow furrow as he tried to recall that night.

  “Um, I think it was ‘Waltz of Joy’ by an old Earth artist that did a kind of music they called New Age. Her name was Constance Demby. She did a lot of sweeping instrumental pieces I like.” He coughed self consciously. “To be honest, after you kissed me, I don’t recall a lot of what happened before that.”

  “Are you saying I caused the Great Randal Mercks to become distracted? Little ol’ me did that?” She smiled half heartedly and batted her thick lashes at him.

  “Oh yeah. Until that night you made me very nervous on a regular basis. When you kissed me I thought I was going to have heart failure.”

  “Why did I make you nervous?” Lena asked sitting up and putting her hand on his arm, loving the feel of the coarse guard hairs and the soft coat underneath, kind of like the wolf himself. On the outside he was a little rough, tough and gruff, but once you got past the outer part he showed to the universe, he was kind and caring and tender. The only time she’d really glimpsed it prior to them becoming a couple was when she caught him playing his music.

  “Because you were so pretty and graceful and I was just a grunt. Girls like you never fall for guys like me, no matter what the space operas and movies depict.” He looked up at her with a look of wonder in his bright yellow eyes.

  “Um, I don’t know if I should point this out, but I did fall for you, you big goof.” To prove it she leaned over and gave him a gentle kiss on the end of his muzzle.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think it could happen at the time. Fortunately I know better now.”

  “Randy, would you play that song for me again?”

  “Now?” he asked to which she nodded silently. “Sure. Hold on a second.”

  Lena watched as he got his keyboard out from the locker where they both stored a few things and returned to the bed, sitting with his back to the bulkhead. He switched it on, made some adjustments and cracked his fingers. When he began it was in a different sounding instrument, and there was an electronic sweeping tone that followed each note. As his grey furred fingers danced over the keys, blurring the tones together in a way that seemed magical, Lena felt as if she were transported back to that moment that had happened only a bit over a year before, but at the same time seemed like a lifetime ago.

  No sooner had he started the song than she felt her eyes begin to mist as she lay in front of him listening to the music. She felt the same emotions again course through her that she did the first time hearing her lover play. The notes swelled and faded and came back, gently rolling and for a moment all of her pain and frustration evaporated. She hadn’t realized he’d finished until she felt him wipe her tears away, much as he had that first night they spent together.

  “Randy? What are your plans? After operation Hammer Blow, I mean? What are you going to do?” the rabbit asked, her stomach in knots at what he might give as an answer.

  The wolf set the instrument down and looked at his lover with an earnest expression. “I guess that depends on Elias and Cerise,” he told her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lena, you can’t tell anyone else what I’m going to tell you. Promise me.”

  The rabbit nodded. “I promise,” she told him solemnly.

  “This is Elias’ last cruise with the SPF. I don’t know what he plans on doing after wards, but I think that he’s been talking to his friend Merlin about possibly flying for him, or maybe even getting his own ship. All I know is that this will be his last mission.”

  “Really? You’re not joking me on this?”

  Randal slowly shook his huge head. “Serious as can be. He and Cerise are both going to turn in their commissions. If he does, I’m going with him.”

  “What?” she exclaimed. “You…you’re serious!”

  “I was going to talk to you about it eventually. I…I was hoping you’d come with us…that you’d come with me,” he admitted.

  It was the first time that Lena had ever heard him speak in a tone that belied uncertainty and that did more to warm her heart than anything else had in a long time, and the wolf had a made it a habit of melting her heart on almost a daily basis. It told her that he needed her.

  “The rest of the old crew have all talked about it. If Elias and Cerise leave, we’re going with him. You were the only one that I haven’t talked to because I know how important flying is to you.”

  “Randy, I was thinking about resigning and asking you if you would come with me!” she exclaimed with a look of surprise. “Of course I’d stay with you and the others! All of us on the same ship? It would be just like…old…times…”

  The wolf nodded. “Almost. There are a couple of absences that would be felt,” he agreed.

  Lena crawled up onto her lover’s lap and wrapped her arms around him relishing the surge of love and affection that filled her. “Count me in. Maybe I can teach you to fly,” she said as she rubbed her nose against his, her mood substantially improved.

  “I think I’d like that,” he told her with a grin.

  “There is one thing more you can do for me right now, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hand me my bag of jelly beans. They’re in the top drawer.”

  The wolf reached over and found the bag in the front of the drawer, his ears drooping as he looked at the plastic bag. “They’re all red and green,” he said with a slight tremor to his voice.

  “I know,” Lena replied with a wicked grin and snatched the bag out of his hand.

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.