Chapter 11A

MPG Base, Eden
July 24, 2146

The office of Major Frank Jorgenson overlooked the flight line. Down below, on the floor, ground crews were busy doing pre-flight inspections on a group of Mosquitoes that would soon be launched on a training mission. Up above, Jorgenson himself, commander of the 27^th Attack squadron, was sitting behind his small desk, his Internet terminal showing a screen saver of vaguely pornographic images. Standing before the desk, dressed in his uniform shorts and T-shirt, was Brian Haggerty.

Brian was not in the least bit happy. "It's bad enough that you took Rendes away from me after we'd been flying together for almost two years," he told his commanding officer. "You already know how I feel about that."

"Yes, Haggerty," Jorgenson said with a sigh. "We've been through that quite enough I think. We had to break up the experienced aircrews so we could pair up some of the newbies with the veterans. That's all there is to it. Rendes is now in the 24^th."

"I'm down with that," Brian said. "Like I said, I don't like it, but I've accepted it. But what you've done now..." He shook his head angrily. "I'm sorry, Frank, but it's just not acceptable."

"You would be referring to your new sis, I assume?" Jorgenson asked dryly.

"Of course I'm referring to that! Did you think I was talking about the fucking food in the mess hall?"

Jorgenson let the impertinence pass. He and Haggerty did go back a long way after all. "Okay," he said. "Let's get this over with. What's wrong with him? He graduated third in the training class on navigation skills and second on gunnery. He's fully qualified to fly in that Mosquito with you. So what's the problem?"

"What's the problem?" Brian almost hissed. "He's vermin! That's what the fucking problem is. He's a lowlife, gang member piece of shit and I will not fly with him. There's no way in hell. I'll fucking resign first!"

"You'll resign before you fly with Mendez?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Goddamn right I will," he said. "If you can't give me Rendes then I demand a sis who knows what its like to hold a goddamn job at least."

Jorgenson cracked his knuckles thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair and appraising his pilot for a moment. This was of course not the first such conversation that he'd had along these lines — on the contrary, there had been many, particularly from the experienced systems operators who didn't want to fly with a novice pilot — but this was by far the most heartfelt. Haggerty's hatred of the unemployed class went far beyond what most projected, even for a police officer. Jorgenson even knew the story of why he hated them so much, how a group of gang members had raped and killed his pregnant wife. But at the same time, he had a squadron to run, time was getting very short before the Earthlings arrived, and order were orders.

"Is that the way it's going to be then?" he asked. "Either Mendez goes or you go?"

"That's right," Brian said.

"Okay then," he said. "I'll start processing your resignation immediately."

The smug look that had appeared on Brian's face suddenly disappeared, being quickly replaced by one of disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked.

Jorgenson ignored him and turned his Internet terminal towards him. "Computer, access personnel files," he said.

"Accessing," the computer responded.

"Frank, what are you doing?" Brian said, alarmed.

"I'm changing your status in the computer," he told him. "Will you be resigning from the service completely, or would you like me to just remove your flight status and find you a support position? You'd probably be a good help in the logistics..."

"You can't do that!"

"You just told me that you would resign before you would fly with Mendez, didn't you? Well Mendez has been assigned to your aircraft and he is not going to be removed from it. So that means you're going to have to be the one to go. So how about that logistics position? We'd really hate to completely lose..."

"Goddammit, turn that fucking computer off," Brian told him.

"Oh?" Jorgenson said. "Are we changing our mind? I wouldn't want you to compromise your ideals here."

"Fuck off," he said angrily. "I withdraw my resignation. But listen..."

"No, Brian, you listen," he cut in. "Don't ever try to bluff me with that shit again. The next time you come in here ranting and threatening to quit if you don't get your way, I'll kick your ass right the hell out of here. We have about three weeks until the WestHem marines establish orbit. I have an entire squadron full of flight crews that need to learn to work together before that occurs. I don't have time for this shit and I won't stand for it. Is that clear?"

"Yes," he said, fuming. "It's clear."

"Now Mendez is your sis. Period. End of story. You have three training missions a day scheduled for the next two weeks before we do a final stand down for maintenance. You'd goddamn well better find a way to put aside the problems you have with him or you're both going to end up splattered across a mountainside out there in the wastelands. I'm sure Mendez isn't any more thrilled than you are that he's been paired with a cop. But he hasn't been in her threatening me or bitching at me. So get your ass out there and run your mission like a good little pilot, okay?"

"Fine," he spat, turning on his heels and heading for the door.

"Brian," Jorgenson called when he was three steps away.

He turned to look.

"I'd accommodate you if I could. You have to know that. But there's simply not enough time to go changing things now. If I reassign your sis, I'll have ten crews in here in the next hour wanting to do the same thing. So don't take it personal, okay? It's not becoming."

Brian stared at him for a moment and then turned back around. The door slid obediently open in front of him. He walked through it without another word.

The mission planning room was a large, windowless office located directly adjacent to the ready room. It had small desks arranged in a manner so that as many flight teams as possible could occupy the space at the same time. Each desk had an oversize computer screen mounted on swivels so that it could be turned back and forth. As Brian entered the room the rest of the squadron was already in there, each flight team sitting together and going over the maps of the training area and planning their upcoming missions. The babble of conversation echoed through the room as the pilots and system operators discussed the best means of attacking the MPG column that was to be their target for the day.

Brian found Mendez sitting at one of the desks, a digital satellite shot of the training ground on the screen before him. Mendez, like all of the other flight crewmembers, including Brian himself, was dressed in the standard issue MPG red shorts and white T-shirt. He was smoking a cigarette thoughtfully as he traced over the landscape on the screen with his finger, highlighting certain areas. Brian felt himself seething with hatred as he looked at him, as he took in the Capitalist tattoo that was plainly visible on his arm. Not so long before he had been throwing vermin like that into jail. Now he was supposed to fly with one? To trust his life to him?

With another grunt of disgust we walked over and sat down in the chair next to him.

"Hey, boss," Mendez said. "Where you been? Have to take a big shit or somethin?"

"Where I was is not any of your concern," he said shortly.

Mendez stared at him for a second, hostility flashing in his face for an instant and then disappearing. He shrugged. "I guess not," he said. "Anyway, I started the mission plan while you was gone. I got a prelim path through the southern part of the range about sixty klicks from the target area. I think that the category four hills and ridges will give us good coverage for the..."

"I don't really care what you think," Brian cut in, grabbing the computer screen and turning it towards himself. "Computer, purge current document and set up a new one."

"Say what?" Mendez said.

"Confirming that you wish to purge the current document?" the computer asked.

"Computer, confirmed," Brian said. "Get rid of it and open a new one." A moment later the map and the tracings that Mendez had completed disappeared and was replaced by a blank view of the area.

"What the fuck did you do that for?" Mendez demanded. "I had a goddamn prelim path already completed!"

"Like I'm going to trust my life to any flight path that you've worked on," Brian spat. "No thanks. I'll figure out my own flight path to the target area if you don't mind."

"You didn't even fucking look at it," Mendez said. "I worked on that thing for half an hour while you were off jerking your missile somewhere."

"As I said," Brian told him, "my whereabouts were not your concern. And I don't really give a shit how long you worked on it, I'm not flying any path that you've come up with."

"We only got forty-five more minutes until wheels up," Mendez said. "And I was doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm the sis, remember? I'm responsible for..."

"Get this straight, newbie," he said. "You're not responsible for shit on my aircraft. I'll come up with the flight plan. I'll fly the goddamned plane. You will sit your ass in the back seat, keep your fucking mouth shut, and shoot at the targets when I get us into the target area. That is all that you will do. Is that clear?"

"That ain't how its supposed to work," Mendez told him.

"Well that's the way its gonna work on my aircraft. Now just sit your ass over there and shut up until its time to fly."

Mendez' hands clenched into fists and it seemed for a second that he was going to throw a punch at Brian. Brian sincerely hoped that he would. He would then have an excuse to kick the vermin's ass into the ground. He would also have an excuse to have him thrown out of the MPG. But Mendez didn't rise to the occasion. He simply took a few deep breaths and then slumped back in his chair.

"You're the boss, boss," he said through gritted teeth. "But you'd better get crackin I think. We got about twenty minutes until we hit the ready room."

They roared into the red Martian sky an hour later, Brian's hastily assembled flight plan programmed into the navigation computer. Matt tried reading off altitude and upcoming heading changes to him over the intercom — something that had been drilled into him in training — but Brian only told him to shut his ass again.

"I've got the nav references on my HUD," he said dryly as he leveled them off at 1000 meters. "I don't want to hear anything out of you until the target area, and even then the only thing I want to know is when your weapon is discharged."

Matt's glare burned into the back of his head through the cockpit partition. "Is it okay to breathe back here, boss? Or is that too noisy for you too?"

"You're talking, newbie," Brian said. "You can breathe, piss, shit, jack off, or do whatever the hell else you want back there. Just don't talk."

"You can't fly a mission this way, Haggarty," Matt told him.

"Oh? Are you basing that statement on your years of flight experience or on the superior education that you received in Helvetia Heights? Or is it maybe a combination of both?"

"It's common sense, asshole," he said. "Remember common sense? Its the thing we're supposed to be fighting for here?"

"Yeah, I remember it. And General Jackson showed a distinct lack of that factor when he let you vermin in the MPG. Now keep your mouth shut or I just might accidentally eject your ass over the Sierra Madres."

Matt fumed but did as he was told and kept quiet. Brian continued to fly without verbal input from his system operator and using a flight plan that had been put together far too quickly. It wasn't very long before things started to go wrong.

Brian descended the aircraft to 200 meters and streaked along the uneven surface towards the mountain peaks. He dropped down another 100 meters just before passing between two of the peaks. He cut hard to the right, his hands and feet manipulating the controls, his eyes watching the guidance carrot on the display in front of him as it moved back to center. He straightened the plane, flew onward for another fifteen seconds, and then the carrot suddenly swung back to the left. With no warning of the upcoming course change, he was forced to react strongly, pulling them into a turn of nearly four times the force of gravity. He then had to scramble to level the plane back on its course. Just as he did, the next turn came up, forcing him to cut hard to the right.

"Goddamn, Haggarty," Brian grunted as he was slammed up against his restraints and his G-suit squeezed forcefully on his legs. "You're gonna lose it if you keep this shit up!"

Brian didn't answer him. He simply pulled into the next turn, forcing another three and a half G's on them and missing the side of one of the mountains by less than half a kilometer. He could feel himself tense up uncomfortably. For the first time in hundreds of flight hours, it seemed like he was fighting to control the plane instead of reacting as if it were a part of his body. He spun them around another one of the mountains and then was flying high above a valley. Within two seconds the instruments began to pick up the tones of active search systems.

"You're too goddamned high!" Matt yelled in frustration. "They're getting a hit on us!"

"Shit," Brian muttered, pushing down on the stick and putting them into a steep dive. He pulled up just 50 meters above the valley floor, leveling out. The tones went silent once again but before he could even take a breath of relief, the next turn was suddenly upon him, forcing him to cut sharply right. This had him aimed directly at another mountain.

"You're off course now," Matt said, real fear in his voice for the first time. "Pull up!"

Brian, seeing the large red mountain looming in his view, acted more out of instinct than anything else. He pulled up and cut to the right, putting the plane through a narrow gap in a ridgeline, the left wingtip missing the side of the mountain by less than thirty meters this time. The tones from the ESM set began again as soon as they were clear.

"Way off course now," Matt said, his hands gripping the armrest. "And they've got a solid hit on us with a search set. Probable detection."

"I know what the fuck that means!" Brian yelled at him as he tried to dive back down out of the coverage. "Shut your ass while I get us back on course."

"You wouldn't be off course in the first place if you'd let me do my fucking job!"

"I said shut up!" he said, cutting hard left again, trying desperately to get the carrot to swing back towards the center. It refused to do so. They were now well off their path and there were too many mountains between them and the route back to it.

"We're off course, Haggarty," Matt told him. "I need to go manual and plot us a new path or we're never gonna find the targets."

"You're not plotting shit," Brian told him. "Computer, switch to manual mode and give me an overlay of the terrain on my HUD. Make sure that the course path is marked on it."

"What in the hell are you doing?" Matt demanded. "The only time you're supposed to put a course overlay up is if your sis is incapacitated. That's a fucking emergency measure."

"I said shut up!" Brian said. "You say another word and I'm cutting your goddamn intercom off!" In front of him, a faint outline of the surrounding terrain appeared, partially obscuring the windscreen. The course that he had plotted to the target area was marked in red. The blip in the center of the view, which was what represented their current position, was now more than thirty kilometers from that line.

"You can't run a mission this way, Haggarty," Matt said. "The map overlay is just so you can find your way clear if I get hit."

Brian ignored him, knowing deep down that his inexperienced, vermin system operator was right, but not wanting to admit it. He couldn't divert his attention away from the terrain they were flying through long enough to figure out a path back to his course. To take his eyes off of the mountains and ridges even for a second would cause him to fly into one of them. Still, he tried for almost a minute, turning and diving, banking and leveling, his hands and feet moving automatically, the aircraft rising and falling, pushing them back and forth.

"You're gonna kill us, you asshole!" Matt said in terror. Though he had long since gotten over the motion sickness that he had experienced early in training, he felt it returning to him now, a swelling nausea in his stomach as the G-forces slammed him this way and that, as rocky hills flashed by on both sides.

They got no closer to their target area or their course. They just went further and further into the mountain range, where the terrain became even more dangerous. Finally Brian was forced to acknowledge that this was getting him nowhere. With a frustrated sigh he pulled up and put on power, putting the plane into a steep climb. Within seconds they were above the highest of the mountain peaks and the ESM was beeping steadily.

"They've got a lock on us," Matt said disgustedly from the back seat.

"No shit," Brian said.

"And they've got a clear line of sight. If those would've been Earthlings they'd be blasting our asses out of the fuckin sky right now."

"Well, they're not Earthlings though, are they?" he responded, keying his radio transmitter. "Flight Alpha 7, aborting mission and returning to base."

"Flight Alpha 7?" the controller back at the MPG base asked, alarm in her voice. "Your status? Are you declaring an emergency?"

"Negative," he said, flipping on the transponder switch. "We're not declaring an emergency. We just need a vector back to the landing pattern. We were unable to complete our mission."

"I copy," she said slowly. "I have your transponder now. Your course is 95. Please maintain Angels zero-eight until the pattern."

Twenty minutes later, the aircraft was touching down on the runway and rolling towards the airlock. Twenty minutes after that, Brian and Matt were in their shorts and T-shirts once again and standing in Major Jorgenson's office giving him a debriefing on their aborted mission.

Brian was basically an honest person, not prone to assigning blame to others. True to his personality, he did not try to field the blame for what happened on Mendez. He told the exact truth in a sterile, monotone voice while Jorgenson listened in disbelief.

"So you're telling me," Jorgenson summarized when he was finished, "that you refused to let your sis participate in planning the mission?"

"Yes," he agreed.

"And that you threw together a flight course of your own in twenty minutes?"