Aces High

Chapter 5

A couple days went by without anything eventful happening. No airspace incursions, no sorties outside of the usual patrols. Nothing. Every time I climbed into my fighter; Steven's words would echo through my mind. But more importantly, the blaze of his gaze felt like it was piercing into my soul. Of all people to take notice, it was Candid that brought it up after one of the debriefs. He pulled me aside once all of the pilots had left and sat with me.

"Jerome did something happen again?" he asked, cutting to the chase. "You've been acting different, and it's gone from a dead look to a concerned one."

"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm fine." I replied, avoiding his sightline.

"Cut the bullshit, Jerome. I've flown with enough pilots to know when something's up. You can tell me." I looked back at him, and I told him the exact same thing I said to Steven. But the look wasn't the same. "Jerome, you haven't seen anything yet." He propped his leg up on one of the seats, almost in a fashion a cartoonish sailor would on a crate. "Try navigating your way through a heavy SAM net with fighters on your ass. Now that's terrifying. Happened to me on my second or third Recce run. I was low, nearly pulling constant g loads, just barely dodging the rounds flying in from my twelve and six. The fighters only broke off when I made it over water again."

"Sounds petrifying." I replied. "What made you keep your cool?"

"Keep my cool? I'm gonna level with you, I was panicking hard. Like, hurling every obscenity in the human lexicon." Despite reliving the memory, he seemed almost jovial about it. "The boom operator looked my jet over, and saw I was trailing smoke. My wings were punctured, one of my stabs were missing entirely, but I made it back." I was stunned at the story to say the least.

"What he's trying to say, Jerome, is that fear is just another part you gotta conquer." Chip's voice scared the loving daylights out of the both of us, especially for Candid. "I'm sure whatever it is that's scaring you, you'll face something scarier. Speaking of which, you decided yet?" Chip leant against the wall, staring daggers at Candid.

"Oh, yeah. Good thing I've got you here. Since your combat performance has been spectacular recently, you're heading with me and Chip over to the next big exercise." I raised an eyebrow to that.

"You want me there?" I asked. "Both of you?"

"Bronco and Shutter have been numerous times already. Same with Shepard's pilots." Candid explained, waving his hand. "You and Bucky though, one, have been killing it recently, and you two have never been. So yeah, you two are going." I felt a little relieved that Bucky was, at the very least, going to be on our side in the exercise.

"We'll be gone for a couple of weeks to Olympic Island airbase. Largest US base in the program." Molly stated. "So ready yourself. These pilots, well, lets just say they don't hold us in the highest regard." She seemed a little upset, which made me wonder how other bases could even say such things about their fellow pilots. Then I remembered what her backseater said to me after my first sortie. I felt I was about to fly right into the hornet's nest, and this time, more people would be seeing downfall.

Molly wasn't lying about our date of departure, as almost exactly two days after our little meeting we began making the final preparations to head over to Olympic Island. The night before, Tristine made a stop by my room to give me something. She told me it was to help ease the stress after those long exercises. And then she embraced me. She locked me in her arms for what seemed like a lifetime, and just like that she was gone. I was lucky enough to get some sleep the night before as we had a long flight ahead of us. The briefing was, well, brief. It was just going over the flight plan for the day, which was a straight shot over Olympic Island, with a tanker link up along the way. Air traffic was going to be busy as Squadrons from Kennedy Island and Freedom Island were going to be making their way into the base as well, hence the tanker. Bucky and I hardly spoke, only exchanging looks and a soft-spoken good luck.