Operation: Recovery
Chapter 10:New Ship, Same...
It wasn't long after the last of my unit were in space that the Taiga broke through the outer most meteors and slowly came to a stop not far behind the Savannah; its guns still smoking from punching through hundreds of meteors. Compared to the Savannah, the Taiga was smaller and the hangar showed it. With just thirty-five arwings in it and two larger transports at the very back, the hangar was packed. I went to unlock my canopy but an engineer off to my right started waving at me and I stopped just in time to watch one of the transports fly over me on its way to pick up our engineers. I turned back towards the engineer and he gave me a thumbs up, signaling it was alright to get out now. I walked across the hangar and joined a growing crowd of pilots standing in front of the only exit, which was being blocked by a feline woman with short black fur wearing an officer's uniform.
"Is that the last of you?" She asked, looking from pilot to pilot. She quickly counted everyone before, satisfied, she nodded and continued talking. "I am Lieutenant Commander Andrews. For those of you who don't know, I am second in command on-board the Taiga; the only person who outranks me is Commander Cody who would have met you here if he wasn't busy with his own debriefing. I've been instructed to lead you to a spare barracks where you will rest until your engineers arrive. After that, your ships will have to be recalibrated to protect them from our weapons and that could take a few hours, so I suggest you get comfortable. When your ships are ready either Commander Cody or I will debrief you on your orders." Lt. Commander Andrews turned, before adding, "This way."
We'd been walking for about a minute when Duke spoke up.
"Why do we need to be briefed on our orders? I thought they were to find the bastards that jacked our convoy and blow them out of the sky?" Duke said. Lt. Commander Andrews stopped before turned her cold, steely gaze on Duke.
"That's right." She said, "Or about as right as I'd expect someone like you to get." She turned back around and kept walking. "You're new, so outside of simulators I'm guessing you've never had to do an S and R. Well let me be the first to tell all of you that you could not have picked a worse spot or worse time to do this. Ignoring the fact that neither the Taiga nor the Savannah has the fire power needed to go punching through asteroids for more than a few hours and ignoring the fact that we're going to lose the Savannah for at least a day in just a few hours we've got a number of other problems. Your ships are busted up, there's no denying that and, although your engineers may be able to do a patch job here or there, they won't be in the condition they need to be for asteroid field diving. On top of that, we don't have nearly the number of pilots we ought to for a search of this size which, even if we had all of the 15th Division at our disposal, wouldn't be enough. Given all of that, it's up to Commander Cody, myself, and a few others to somehow make this all work or we'll have one massive failure forever hanging over our heads. Now," she said, stopping and turning back around. She pointed to the door to her right. "This is your barracks for so long as you're staying here. I'll have someone come around later to get all of you spare flight suits and whatever else you need. If there's nothing else, I'll leave you to it."
The second Lt. Commander Andrews was gone someone from Alpha Squad called dibs on the bunks at the front of the barracks. Immediately afterwards Beta pushed their way through our group and quickly threw themselves down on the back five bunks. With a shrug I led Omega squad past Alpha and took the bunks next to theirs. Duke, Chuckles, Vivian and I sat down but the pilot from Timberwolf, Lieutenant Michael Tyson, kept walking, choosing instead to sit with Beta Squad.
"Fine by me." Vivian said, watching him for a second. "Guy's barely said a word to any of us anyway."
"Think they'd let Beta fly with six pilots?" I asked.
"It's not like we need him." Duke said, standing up and walking to the front of his bunk. He knelt down to examine the footlocker in front of him and I had to ask,
"What're you doing?"
"Seeing if anyone from Timberwolf or Dhole left anything valuable in here." He said, undoing the latches on both sides of the box only to find nothing. Disappointed, he sat back down.
"Don't you remember?" Vivian asked. "Grimmsley had us haul everything belonging to them off the Taiga and on to the Savannah." Duke shook his head.
"Guess he had me doing something else." He said. Jackson, whose bunk was right next to mine, turned to me and said "Speaking of remembering, how's the memory loss coming, Captain?"
"Given a few more days I just might remember what happened to me." I said.
"Oh yeah?" Jackson said. I nodded.
"I still don't remember a lot, but I finally remembered something from that night." I said.
"What?" He asked.
"I remember Vivian ducking out of the bar and leaving me to pay." I said.
"Hey! We agreed that you were buying!" She said defensively.
"Either way, I remember paying for the drinks but after that…" I stopped. Something in my head was trying to make a connection, and once again I felt like something was stuck on the tip of my tongue. A second later something in my mind clicked, as if a light to a previously darkened room was suddenly turned on; I remembered more. I became aware of everyone nearby staring at me but I ignored them. "…after that I ran out into the alleys to look for you." I said, quietly.
"What?" Vivian said.
"Yeah…" I said, making sure of the memory's authenticity. "That's right! The bartender told me you'd slipped out the back door and I went to make sure you weren't passed out in the alley. I left the bar and started following some tracks but then…" I mentally dug around in every corner of my brain, trying to remember what happened next because I somehow knew it would explain everything. After about a minute of silence I shook my head, giving up. "..I don't remember what happened next." We fell silent again before Jackson, with a grin, slapped me on the back.
"That's alright!" He said. "You're close; I can tell. Pretty soon you won't have to worry about what happened that night ever again."
"What if there's a reason he hasn't remembered yet?" Chuckles asked. "What if he doesn't want to remember?"
"That's crazy." Vivian said. "Why wouldn't he want to remember?"
"What if what happened to him was seriously traumatic?" Chuckles said. "You were shot twice weren't you?" I nodded. "Could you blame someone for trying to forget that?"
"Maybe not, but he'd been shot at more than just twice that day." Vivian said. "We're pilots; being shot at's part of our daily routine. Why would being shot two more times be so much worse?" Chuckles didn't have an answer to that, but Duke did.
"You don't see the guy shooting at you in a dogfight nine tenths of the time." Duke said. "It's a lot more personal when it's just two guys, face to face." Chuckles nodded, but Vivian didn't seem convinced, and neither was I.
"Soo…" Vivian said, trying to fill the lull. "Do you think you'll be able to stand being away from René for more than a few hours Chuckles?"
"Why do we always have to talk about my love-life?" Chuckles shouted, exasperated.
"Because Duke's stories are all exactly the same." Vivian said. "He meets a girl, either she thinks he's hot or she's drunk."
"Or both." Duke added.
"Or both," Vivian repeated, "they get a room, they have sex, and by the next day it's over between them."
"What about Matt?" Chuckles asked.
"There's not a lot to tell there." Duke said. "We all know the Captain hasn't scored since he left the academy. Before that…" Duke thought for a moment before turning to me for an answer. I shrugged.
"I don't remember." I said. Chuckles turned desperately from me to Duke before finally, in a last ditch effort to avert the topic, turned to Vivian.
"What about you?" He asked.
"Me?" Vivian said, a little surprised.
"We always hear about Duke, we know Matt hasn't had any action in a while, and you all know about me, but we've never really heard about your love-life Vivian." Chuckles said.
"Now that you mention it…" Duke said. "I think you might be right."
"So, how about it?" Chuckles said, turning to Vivian.
"If a girl doesn't kiss and tell, there's no way in hell she's going to say anything about having sex." Vivian said, turning her attention to the ceiling.
"That's not exactly fair." Duke said. "I sorta feel like you owe us at least one story." Vivian ignored him and closed her eyes. Duke stood up and walked over to Vivian's bunk. "Come on. What was it, a one night stand?"
"Leave me alone Duke." Vivian said, still trying to ignore him.
"Something a little more?" Duke asked. "A few night stand?"
"Duke, let it go." I said.
"Maybe it was something serious." He said. "Maybe it ended in—"
"I said forget it!" Vivian shouted, sitting up and glaring at him. The barracks grew quiet as everyone turned to stare at Vivian who, realizing she'd become the center of attention, grew red. She sighed before lying back down and turning away from Duke who, after a moment, realized the discussion was over. He walked back over to his bunk and sat down.