Chapter 646

Aboard Ship, Arlene, Ann and Selina are teaching the Morales family how to field strip, clean and reassemble a pulse rifle.

...”Very good, Mr. Morales. That’s a whole lot better than I did the first time,” Arlene blatantly lied. “Okay, Jasmine, do you know what’s next?”

“Well, I did until you scrambled the parts,” Jasmine said with a chuckle, “but I think it’s that thing over there — a modulator, I believe you called it.”

And the process went on.

The next time they field stripped the rifle, she allowed them to leave the parts in the order they came off the rifle.

After field stripping and reassembling their rifles twice more, “All right. Good start. You have the video the Sergeant gave you, right?”

“In my shirt pocket,” Morales assured her as he patted his pocket.

“Good. The video will walk you through the process. I suggest that you form a habit of doing everything slowly and precisely for several times of field stripping the weapon, then the next time, push yourself just a little, then back to the precise method. If you find yourself dropping parts or having to stop and try to remember, slow down and work through the trouble area several times until it comes together easily, then continue with the rest of the process. But for tonight and tomorrow, never push as fast as you can. Just learn the pattern until you don’t have to think. Speed will come a little later. The rifle is a very logical piece of equipment and can be disassembled and returned to its firing order under very adverse conditions. But, you want to teach muscle memory just as much as your normal memory, because you need to be able to do this even under combat conditions where your life might well depend on it. That said, lay the parts out in order after field stripping the weapon, then with the lights out, reassemble it. Take your time and concentrate on remembering the feel of each part.

“When you can assemble the weapon with the lights out, put it aside until tomorrow. Always try to stop at a high point. I know that you have to gather vegetables, but if you can work it in, it would be good to spend thirty minutes or so a couple of times throughout the day so everything stays fresh on your mind.

“Hopefully, by the time we pick you up day after tomorrow morning, you will feel confident that you can field strip and reassemble the rifle smoothly in total darkness, if not very fast.

“I haven’t mentioned cleaning or normal maintenance,” she said as she motioned to their kits, “but the vid covers that in detail. Make certain you carry it out exactly as indicated on the training video. You should be ready to prove to the Sergeant that you are capable of field stripping the weapon and caring for it.

“Kayla has been working with the alien females lately, but we’ll try to bring her with us day after tomorrow. She has been involved in a combat situation where it was both near dark and raining very hard, indeed. Think deluge during a tornado. She might give you more insight into why you should know your rifle by touch.”

After hugs goodbye and with Ship hovering over the cave, the three stood watching as Ship placed Morales, his women and the wolves in the entranceway and waited until they were all safely inside.

“Okay. Ship, please put us on the bridge.”

Ship put the items in her hold a few feet to the left of the cave entrance while Selina was computing their course.

“Course computed and laid in, Commander.”

“Initiate.”

Selina’s plotted course back to Earth was a little different this time, and they came out of warp high above the General’s headquarters. After notifying the appropriate personnel, Arlene had Ship translate them from orbit to the underground hanger where the aviators were waiting with their duffle bags sitting beside them. As soon as they were aboard, Ship warned the ground personnel about the noise before translating to orbit, then to a position high above the Retreat. A moment later, Ship was hovering in her usual spot as Arlene walked into the lounge where the pilots jumped to their feet.

“As you were,” she said as she walked to the front. Oddly enough, none seemed to think anything about a teenage girl leading the Wing — not anymore. More than one also thought she filled her uniform out very nicely, but their eyes never drifted as she turned to address the group.

“I’ve been told that you have already had a full day, so I will be brief. As you all know, we have been taxed with providing a world parade which is to include several of the world’s largest cities. Particularly, some of the major ones that received damage and lost citizens during the Miadax attempt to subjugate Earth.

“We have delayed the parade until the worst shock should be over — hopefully. I’m told that the funerals and memorials are also over, and the cleanup process is well underway. It will take years before some of the cities will even begin to look normal again, and unfortunately, some of the smaller ones that were hit the hardest will have to be rebuilt almost entirely. In the overall scheme of things, we can do little to help rebuild, but we can, hopefully, assist in restoring our people’s sense of pride.

“People tend to enjoy parades, especially when it is emphasizing something they find near and dear to them. We have tried to get the Mayors and City Managers interested, but unfortunately, most seem to want to follow their own agenda which leads to more politics with their own names prominent. That’s not what this is. We want to show the pride we feel for what Earth did to defend itself and assure the public that the interceptors and Ship, which they never actually saw, will be here to defend Earth should the need ever arise again.

“Tomorrow, we begin our practice, and I hope you will like the venue,” she said, tongue in cheek.

Arlene turned the group over to Ann, who brought them to Attention. “Report for breakfast here tomorrow at 0700 hours wearing your flight gear. Dismissed.”

As the group filed out to go to their quarters — they had already been told that their living arrangement would be the same as when they were fighting the Miadax. Worthington and Camp stood to the side nervously waiting to speak with their Wing Commander.

“Crap,” Arlene quietly said to her partner when they noticed the two waiting for them. “I was afraid they would want to talk.”

“You saved their asses, then their jobs, but they didn’t get to say diddly to you afterward. You can bet they expected to be ejected from this unit and maybe their old jobs as well. Not only are they flying again, but they are now obviously also still flying interceptors.”

“Well, as you certainly know, that was my first impulse, but they are darn good pilots, as our husband so aptly pointed out, and we don’t have another team trained. They had difficulty answering to a seventeen-year-old girl, and they wanted some action but seemed to be in the wrong place every time something happened. So, they did something stupid and wound up paying for it.”

Ann grimaced. “Somehow, they seemed to forget that the seventeen-year-old-girl kicked their asses regularly in our interceptor training.”

“Seventeen-year-old girl and her partner,” Arlene corrected. “You were the one who did most of the firing. But our age and the fact we are females just frustrated them more, and they, I think, honestly thought that we had cheated somehow. Maybe their attitudes have changed. If not, I won’t be so forgiving next time,” Arlene grimly said. “Okay, they obviously know that we’ve seen them. Let’s get it over with.”

The two walked over to where the aviators were nervously waiting. Normally, they didn’t salute inside Ship — the habit could cause problems and slow things down in combat — but the two either forgot because of their nervousness, or else they wanted to make certain they showed respect.

“Ma’am,” Worthington said, “I, uh, we wanted to say thank you. We know that we don’t deserve to be here after disobeying your orders, not to mention causing our interceptor to be destroyed...”

“And also all but getting your dumb asses killed,” Ann snapped before she could stop herself. “Not to mention putting several others in extreme danger during your rescue.”

“Ann,” Arlene quietly said as she touched her partner on the shoulder.

“Sorry,” she apologized.

“She’s right, Ma’am,” Worthington said, “and most of the fault is mine. I pushed Camp into doing several things that he would not have done on his own. He cautioned me over and over.”

“Nevertheless, I knew what I was doing, even when I was cautioning you. I should have stood my ground, so I’m just as much to blame as he is,” Camp said.

“As I told you before. It is forgotten as far as I am concerned. However, the rest of the Wing might not be as forgiving. We will be doing some precision flying in the days to come, and each day the tension will increase. I suggest that you get a good night’s sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow, and I imagine we will train for a minimum of ten hours; although, it will be interspersed with frequent short breaks and meals. You have fought for longer periods without breaks, and not all of our training before parade time will be actual flying, but flying in Ship’s trainer can cause just as much fatigue, as you are certainly aware. However, the training tomorrow will be in an interceptor. Get some sleep. That is all.”

The two again saluted, did an About Face in unison before marching down the passageway.

“I hope you’ve done the right thing by not dropping those two from the Wing.”

“Not any more than I do,” Arlene said with a grimace, “but our husband mentioned that we all screw up sometimes, no matter how hard we try not to. Then he casually said that a little compassion sometimes works better than an ass chewing. They endangered lives — mainly theirs, but if we had been left out of the fighting, what would we have done?”

“We’ll never know because we went to wherever the action was. You designated us as part of the backup, in case you’ve forgotten,” Ann said as she grinned at her partner. “And ... we kicked ass,” she finished with a chuckle.

Arlene grimaced a bit. “Jeff did mention that he had been ‘burned a time or two.’ I didn’t ask him what he meant, and he probably wouldn’t have told me, anyway, but I suspect he was referring to being too easy when someone fucked up. But ... I can’t imagine anyone on his unit ever screwing up.”

“So, all of our group is tucked away for the night. They all have private quarters and even a rec room designated just for the aviators. Plans?” she asked her partner with a grin.

“As my father/husband would say, ‘Damned straight.’ Wanna race to the shower?”

Ann frowned. “But that would be going away from our husband. He’s here on Ship, probably with Kayla or Adrienné, since they are both working with the alien women today.”

“True, but if we show up, our husband will have us playing practice dummy for the alien women,” Arlene reasoned.

“But at least we’ll be with him,” Ann argued. “We might be able to talk him into stopping off at the suite here on Ship. It’s been a while since the two of us had him all to ourselves.”

As the two young women entered the aliens’ exercise area, they passed a glance. Helen was obviously teaching a basic self-defense course, and from the looks of it, she had been using Kayla, Adrienné and Jeff as practice dummies, all looking a bit shopworn, especially Jeff. Arlene suspected that the alien women had much rather practice on a man — Jeff — than throw a woman on her face.

While they waited, Helen went over the new move again, and of course, demonstrated by using her favorite practice dummy. When Jeff stepped up behind her, she spun, grabbed a wrist and took him down across her hip to land on his face while maintaining control of an arm.

“Hey, she hasn’t taught us that one, and it looks dead simple,” Ann told Arlene. “I’m jealous.”