Red Bull

twelve

"Range control to Maverick. Green Range is confirmed, but I don't see a scheduled event for you, sir?" The range control manager questions.

"Well... I'm going anyway."

Phoenix turns around to Rooster, and says, "Nice."

We had no live visual of Maverick, but we watched the icon of his F-18 move across the map on the monitor. His plane is lined up at the starting point of the mock canyon.

A smile appeared on my face, was he going to be the first one to complete the course in front of the Admirals?

"Seeing time to target, 2 minutes and 15 seconds."

Our target was 2 minutes and 30 seconds, how was he going to pull this off?

"Maverick inbound."

The timer on the screen began to count down

2:14:00 seconds left.

And with every checkpoint he passed, it was flagged down on the screen.

He was only halfway through the canyon, and he entered the straight, the easiest part to lose time off your run.

Bob grabbed my hand again, and I let him. I didn't even notice he had, I was too busy praying for Maverick to finish before time ran out.

Maverick started to really punch it now, and we saw as he gained numbers in altitude on the screen. He was going over the mountain wall, and within seconds, Maverick would soon be going down.

The target was the only part of the course that we had a visual, that way Mission Range could immediately mark if we had hit the target or not.

Maverick moved into the screen.

"Bombs away." He said through the radio, and then left out of frame within milliseconds.

Our own eyes and the motions sensors confirmed that it was a perfect hit.

Go Mav.

We hear grunts, as Maverick, who has about 30 years on us, struggles to climb back up the mountains. But he makes it up and over, finishing the course.

Then the timer went off.

0:00:28 seconds left.

Less than half a second left. But did it. He got out. Maverick did it.

And boy, Maverick was back, baby.

When I looked over at Bob, our hands were still connected.  I blushed as we dropped our hands simultaneously, looking in the opposite direction.

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After the excitement of the day wore off, and Maverick won his spot back as our instructor, I stayed behind in the classroom.

I just needed a few moments to collect my thoughts before I left for the day.

I was sure I was the only person in the room, until I stood up and turned to leave. Bob was leaning on the table behind me, cleaning his glasses.

He looked fine without them. Don't get me wrong, he looked good with his glasses, but I had never seen him without them. I didn't even notice through my staring that Bob put them back on.

"Red Bull. Scarlett!"

"Sorry, yeah Bob?" I spluttered, trying not to make myself more of a fool than I already was.

"You okay? You were staring off into space."

No, I was checking you out. You're just too oblivious to notice.

Stop it, Scarlett. No feelings, no distractions. Get in, get out, do the mission.

"Sorry, I guess the new timeline was stressing me out a little. We're closer to the mission than I thought."

"It's been moved up a week, but time makes all the difference," Bob says. "You'll be fine," he tried to assure me.

I correct him, "We'll be fine."

"Yeah we will." He agrees with me.

I nod, and promise him, "We're going on that mission, Bob."

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