Back to You // Bradley Bradshaw

Chapter Fifteen

Haley groaned as she looked at the class rankings. Her brother was number one, followed by Phoenix, then Haley. She wasn't behind by many points, but they'd been hard to make up lately. She was pretty sure everyone was exhausted with the Hangman show by now. Despite not playing well with others in the sandbox, he was leading. It was in the end of September, and they still had two more months in the program.

Regardless of what happened a few weeks prior bowling, things seemed okay between her and Blaze. They'd talked a little about it. She apologized for not realizing he'd felt the way he did. He apologized for making assumptions. Haley felt better since they had cleared the air. She really didn't want to lose him as her WSO, or have things be awkward.

That morning, they were going to going over basic fighting maneuvers. They had a guest lecturer coming in to teach. Haley was curious to see who it was. She looked up as he entered the room and was being introduced. A man Haley had only seen in pictures, but had never come face to face with.

Captain Pete Mitchell, callsign Maverick.

Haley looked over at Rooster, wondering if he knew that Maverick was coming that day. He shook his head at her, clearly not being aware of it either. She didn't think it was any kind of problem, just interesting. He was quite a legend around there and imagined the lesson would be worthwhile.

    "Captain Mitchell will be leading you in your training exercise today." Cypher announced.

    "Still a Captain at your age?" Jake chided.

    "A highly decorated Captain." Maverick responded. He looked as if he recognized right away what type of pilot Jake was. He'd probably flown with several before.

It was a similar exercise to what they had done once before, except Maverick was an even bigger challenge than Cypher had been. Like before, the goal was to shoot down Maverick before he shot you. Haley found out really quickly how hard that was. She didn't think anyone expected that. Some of the team wanted a wager on it, and Maverick agreed. Anyone shot down had to do 200 push-ups.

"Holy shit!" Blaze said from the back after Maverick blew past them.

"Did you not see him on the radar?!" Haley exclaimed as she straightened the jet up. She looked and saw Maverick was in a dog fight with Rooster. She pushed toward that direction, but couldn't get a lock on Maverick.

"And that's a kill." Maverick said over the radio. She could hear Rooster curse. "A deal is a deal, go see Hondo about your push-ups." She sat Rooster's jet turn to begin the short journey back to the runway.

"We can still get him," Blaze told Haley. They weren't out yet. So far everyone had been shot down in the class. They were the third group to go up.

Haley took off toward Maverick, who dipped right as Haley would have had him locked in. She shot down right after him. She was holding her own fairly well.

"Not bad, Hurricane." Maverick said over the coms system. "Not over yet, though."

Haley continued to hold out against Maverick. She almost had him once again in missile lock but he managed to slip away. Damn, he's good for an old timer, she thought. She was able to get behind him, but then everything after happened quickly. They hit jet wash.

"Flameout! We've lost an engine!" Blaze yelled.

Haley was trying everything she could think of to regain control of the jet. She not only had herself to think of, but Blaze in the back. Nothing was working, and they began to enter a flat spin.

"Eject, eject, eject!" Maverick yelled over the radio. "You can't save it!"

Haley knew he was right, it was over. They were heading toward a desert mountain side without any way to pull up. She reached for the ejection handles. At the same time, she and Blaze both ejected from the jet. Both parachutes opened as they were expelled into the air. They both watched as their jet crashed, exploding upon impact.

In what felt like a lifetime, they finally landed on the ground. Nothing else was around them. Haley felt blood running down the side of her face, not sure what she had cut it open on. She saw Blaze had a few scrapes, but otherwise seemed okay. She felt like she was okay but was extremely hot.

"Haley!" Blaze yelled, but his voice sounded like it was fading away. Haley could barely see him running toward her.

Then everything went black.