Author's Note: Truthfully, I didn't feel like this one turned out that well. I might do a big re-write of this one in the near future. Suggestions are welcome, of course.

Chapter 11

"It won't be that bad," Amanda St. Crowe said to 2nd Lieutenant Ben Jacobs.

"That's easy for you to say," Ben said. "You're so much better than everyone else in the squadron it's not even funny."

Amanda sighed. "That's not true."

"False modesty doesn't work for you," Ben smiled. "Seriously. Even Colonel Mitchell and Major Barnes are amazed at how good you are. I hate performance reviews," he finished glumly.

Amanda wanted to argue, but she couldn't. The truth was that she really was very good. Colonel Mitchell and Major Barnes had gone to some lengths to try to hide their opinions on her flying skills, probably because they thought if she knew their opinions, it would go to her head. Cocky young pilots tended to have a short life expectancy in combat, so her CO and XO were taking pains to make sure she didn't have reason to become overconfident.

Still, Amanda was pretty good at reading people. Mitchell and Barnes both thought very highly of her performance in simulators so far, and both had failed to completely conceal that sentiment from her. She supposed it was gratifying in its own way, but it mostly annoyed her.

She had always refused to accept anything that even resembled special treatment. Intellectually, she knew that Mitchell and Barnes were not giving her special treatment because she was one of the few female combat pilots in the Air Force, but emotionally it was harder to accept. Some of her professors in the academy had tried to bestow special treatment in yet another misguided display of political correctness. Those same professors had been very surprised when she had politely and very respectfully requested that she be judged the same as her classmates.

"Come on," she said, breaking free from her wandering thoughts. "Let's get this over with."

The two of them entered the base's briefing room. Most of the squadron was already present, as was Major Barnes who stood at the front of the briefing room next to roll out screen for a projector. Many of the pilots in the squadron had learned to hate that damned projector. That's where the recordings of their simulations, and more to the point, their mistakes in their simulations were played for all to see and to be critiqued by Barnes and Mitchell.

A short blonde waved, and Amanda made her way to a seat next to 2nd Lieutenant Leslie Carmichael. Carmichael was the only other woman in the squadron, so Amanda had naturally gotten to know the petite blonde first.

Truthfully, the two of them were almost nothing alike and shared few interests besides flying. In civilian life, they'd likely have never become more than passing acquaintances, but her flirty squadron mate was friendly enough and they'd gotten to know each other.

Ben, being partial to blondes, was quite amenable to sitting near Carmichael. Carmichael was already becoming well known for being the 'life of the party' in the squadron, and her flirtatious nature endeared her to her fellow male pilots, but she had also seemed to take a keen interest in one 2nd Lieutenant Ben Jacobs.

Amanda often wondered if her cheerful extroversion was a mask she wore in public. Whatever she might appear to be, Carmichael was a very good pilot and a math genius to boot. Of course, Ben apparently also had a thing for nerdy girls, which explained why Carmichael could reduce him to babbling incoherence just by smiling at him. Amanda suspected that she secretly enjoyed being able to do that. Amanda assumed it was her friendly, if somewhat sadistic, way of making friends.

"Amanda," Carmichael said. "And hi there, Ben," she said smiling.

"Err, um, high Leslie," Ben stammered out. Amanda grimaced. Sitting poor Jacobs in the same room with Carmichael was like sending lambs to the slaughter. Not that Jacobs wasn't completely OK with that.

"Hi, Les," Amanda said. "Ready for our weekly ass chewing?"

"Of course," Carmichael drawled. "I always look forward to it."

Ben groaned.

"Oh, seriously, Ben. It's not like they're trying to make us feel like incompetents," Leslie said.

"So? They still do," Ben retorted.

"It's part of the job," Amanda said. "I'd rather suffer a bit of humiliation now rather than suffer having my atoms scattered all over some nameless planet in the ass-end of nowhere because my training had been subpar."

"Your blinding optimism humbles me again," Leslie said sardonically.

Before Amanda could respond, Colonel Mitchell entered the briefing room. Everyone quickly began to stand at attention but Colonel Mitchell, looking slightly annoyed, waved everyone back to their seats. "As you were."

Mitchell reached the podium and began without further preamble. "Major Barnes and I have reviewed the result of the last set of simulations, and I'm pleased to report that we are happy with the results. But, as always, there is room for improvement." Mitchell started up the projector.

It showed a split screen display of several pilots' cameras. The recording equipment in the simulators was identical to that used in the F-302s themselves. They kept a complete visual, communications, and sensor record of every mission.

"This is Section One, consisting of Tomlinson, Nelson, Diaz, and Huang" Mitchell informed the crowd.

Amanda was familiar with the scenario, of course, having run through the same simulation. It was a particularly devious simulation in her opinion, one that she was pretty sure that Major Barnes's diabolical, evil mind had concocted.

It had appeared to be a routine escort simulation. Four fighters were deployed to run an escort for a group of landing shuttles ferrying troops to the surface of a planet. The briefing had indicated that the planet was defended by enemy ground forces, but that friendly forces controlled the planet's orbitals. It was an interesting set up. Escorting landing shuttles wasn't something they expected to be doing often. Ground forces could be more safely deployed with transporters, but the technology to block Asgard derived transporters was becoming so common that the military had saw a need to devise alternate methods of landing troops and vehicles. The new landing shuttles were the answer to that particular question. They'd expected the escort to be uneventful with the biggest threat being ground fire and maybe the occasional Death Glider. After that, they'd expected to run close air support for the ground forces.

That all went out the window when eight Al'Kesh medium bombers had dropped out of hyperspace right on top of them.

Surprise was total, of course, but each Section of four pilots had reacted admirably in the face of a surprise attack.

The mission wasn't exactly one that was meant to be 'won' in a traditional sense. The F-302s were based off of a troop transport in this scenario which had very little defensive armament. The Al'Keshes had broken into two groups; one was sent to attack the transport ship, the other group went after the landing shuttles. The purpose of the exercise was to force the Section Leader to choose whether to save the landing shuttles or the transport. There was no time and insufficient forces to save both.

Tomlinson was the leader of Section One. He had elected to save the landing shuttles. Saving the landing shuttles also allowed the primary original mission to be accomplished; to ensure the Marines landed safely. Of course, the destruction of the transport left the F-302s stranded with only whatever makeshift air strips the Marines could cobble together on a hostile world to support them.

A pilot's normal instinct would be to defend the ship he operates from, which is more or less his home. That kind of thinking would've been correct if the Section Leader had had to choose between landing shuttles and something like a Daedalus class battlecruiser or one of the new heavy carriers slated to enter service in the near future. Ships like that were very valuable, moreso than a group of landing shuttles loaded with Marines. The cold calculus of war meant that the transport, nearly empty once its Marines had debarked into the landing shuttles, was a very low value target. That was unlikely to be of any comfort to the crew of a transport should it actually face such a situation, but such was the cold calculus of war.

In any case, the simulation was a test to see if a Section Leader could override instinct and training when it was appropriate. Amanda, being leader of Section Two, had made the same choice that Tomlinson had. The leader of Section Three had not made that choice, however, and Amanda wondered if Mitchell would remove him from the Section Leader post in favor of someone else.

It was pretty likely in her opinion. It wasn't exactly a nice thing to do, but the military didn't have room for nice. It had to get the job done. The leader of Section Three was still a damned fine pilot and he wouldn't penalized directly, but Amanda was sure that he'd not be considered for a command position, at least in the near future.

And that was another thing this exercise was about. They were looking for Section Leaders and, ultimately, squadron XOs and squadron COs. The Air Force's F-302 program was expanding rapidly, and officers who showed the talent for command were likely to rise in rank very quickly to fill newly created command-level positions in those squadrons

Amanda was keenly aware that she was being groomed for command. She wasn't sure how she felt about being on what amounted to an accelerated promotion track, but that's where she was.

Mitchell let the recording of Section One's simulation play, saying little. Barnes did most of the talking, and most of it was reaming the various pilots for any mistake he found. Mitchell occasionally played good cop to Barnes's bad cop and offered a bit of encouragement when they did something right. The playback concluded, and Mitchell brought up Section Two's playback.

"This is Section Two, consisting of St. Crowe, Carmichael, Jacobs, and Oakley," Mitchell said.

After the recording played for a few minutes, he stopped it. "Ladies and gentlemen, pay attention to this maneuver." The pilots leaned forward, watching closely. Amanda just groaned inwardly, knowing what was coming next.

The recording showed Amanda leading her fighters head on at the attacking Al'Keshes. The front two had split slightly apart so that Amanda's fighter was bracketed on either side by them. It set up a deadly crossfire that had the potential to wipe out her whole squadron. Normally, she'd have just ordered her fighters to evade them, but taking the time to get out of the line of fire might've also given the other two Al'Keshes time to run down and destroy the landing shuttles before her squadron could stop them.

"Beta Section," she heard her recorded voice announce over the radio, "concentrate fire on the bogey at 1 o'clock. I'll take the one at 11 o'clock."

Amanda's wingmates unleashed a tornado of missiles into their target. The naquadah enhanced anti-fighter missiles were a bit small for taking out Al'Kesh, but her squadron fired enough of them to completely disable the enemy ship. At the same time, Amanda dropped her entire load of missiles into the other Al'Kesh which didn't damage it much, but did deplete it's shields.

As Amanda and her squadron were about to pass the remaining Al'Kesh, she disengaged her inertial compensators and engines. Coasting on a ballistic course, she had used her thruster controls to turn her fighter sideways so that she was facing a direction perpendicular to her flight path. Which also happened to align her fighter's railguns directly on the last Al'Kesh.

The Al'Kesh had not expected this, and it proved fatal. Amanda had laid down on her firing trigger, and railgun rounds stitched all across the Al'Kesh. It's hull breached in dozens of places, internal systems dying even faster than its simulated crew had.

It all happened in the blink of an eye, which was a testament to just how good Amanda's reaction times were. Her fighter slid past the broken and dying Al'Kesh. She restarted her engines and inertial compensators, leading her squadron after the remaining Al'Keshes.

The rest of the recording wasn't nearly so exciting. Amanda and Section Two had eliminated the enemy Al'Keshes with only one of her F-302s (Jacobs, in this case) being lost to enemy fire. Hers was the only section that had managed to finish the scenario with such light losses. When the playback showed Jacobs getting shotdown, Barnes just shook his head ruefully, and shot Jacobs a severe look. Jacobs sunk down in his chair, attempting to disappear into the floor.

After the recording was over, Barnes spoke. "Of course, the noteworthy thing here is Lieutenant St. Crowe's unusual tactic of cutting her drive and inertial compensator to make a passing snapshot on one of the lead Al'Kesh."

"It was an impressive bit of flying, Lieutenant," Barnes said. "It was also incredibly risky and borderline stupid. Though it worked out for you this time, this sort of high risk, high reward tactic could just as easily have gone the other way and gotten your entire section wiped out."

"Ouch," Carmichael whispered.

"I don't want you to make a habit of pulling those kinds of stunts in the future, Lieutenant. Are we clear on that?"

"Clear, sir," Amanda replied.

"Good," Barnes said. "With that said, it was a pretty amazing piece of flying and, this time, it worked out for you. Now, moving on to Section Three..."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Wow, it wasn't me getting an ass chewing," Jacobs said with awe after the debriefing session had ended.

"You see, Jacobs. Even our fearless Section Leader can make a mistake now and then and bring the down the mighty wrath of Major Barnes," Carmichael said.

"Very funny, you two," Amanda said.

"Lieutenant St. Crowe," Mitchell walked up to where Amanda was sitting. "A word in private, please."

Amanda stood quickly and followed him. "Yes, sir."

She followed him out of the briefing room and into his office. The office was very spartan. Colonel Mitchell had always eschewed decorations. She knew he was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, a fact that most officers would've advertised by displaying a certificate or something in their office, but Mitchell didn't seem to think that way.

Mitchell motioned for her to sit. He seated himself and began without preamble. "It's not official yet, but we're going to be activated, and soon. I will need permanent Section Leaders before that happens. What I need to know is if you're up to the job. And before you answer that, I need you to consider something."

Mitchell continued. "That last simulation was intended to teach a lesson about command. Eventually, you're going to be forced to decide who will you save and who you will let die. I wish it wasn't that way, but it's the cold hard reality of command."

Amanda considered carefully. "Sir, permission to speak candidly?"

"Granted," Mitchell replied.

"Sir, I'm not sure if I'm ready for command. That's not to say that I'm sure I'm not ready either. The truth is, I just don't know," she said. "I only graduated from the academy a few months ago, after all."

"I thought you might say that," Mitchell said. "You're a good officer and very intelligent. It's normal to be concerned that you'll do the right thing in the sort of crazy, upside-down situations like what we saw in that last simulation. No one wants the deaths of others on her shoulders."

Mitchell's voice hardened a bit. "However, it is the responsibility of officers who have a talent for command to step up and assume those duties, whatever her personal feelings might be telling her. That's always been true and is even more true now than in normal circumstances. We simply don't have enough junior and mid-level officers to fill Section Leader, squadron XO, and squadron CO slots that are opening up. That means some people are going to be put on a rapid promotion track to fill those slots. I think you are a good choice for Section Leader."

"May I ask what your reasoning is, sir?" Amanda asked.

"You may," Mitchell said. "Leadership isn't just barking orders and expecting them to be followed. Ultimately, your people will do their best in combat situations if they follow you because they want to, not because they are required to. Everyone in your Section looks up to you, Lieutenant, especially Jacobs."

"Sir?" she asked.

"That kid virtually worships the ground you walk on," Mitchell said.

Amanda grinned. She couldn't help it, even though it wasn't exactly proper military decorum. Mitchell didn't mind though, he wasn't too big on decorum anyway. "It's not like that, sir. He's a good pilot, he just needs a bit more confidence."

"Which you have helped him find," Mitchell said. "Did you know that?"

"I guess I hadn't really thought about it much, sir," she said.

"It's not that Jacobs wasn't already a good pilot. Most of this unit's pilots are inexperienced but all were tested for piloting aptitude. There are no second-stringers in this squadron. But consider this little bit of info. When Jacobs was assigned to your Section, his performance numbers went up forty percent within three days. Three days, Lieutenant. You may not realize it, but you have the touch for leadership," Mitchell explained.

"Thank you, sir," Amanda replied.

"So, what is your answer?" Mitchell asked.

Amanda thought for a moment. She hadn't fully thought of the implications of the previous simulation until Mitchell had pointed them out to her. Those implications were...unsettling. She had a horrible vision of having to choose between saving Carmichael or Jacobs, and she shuddered at the prospect.

But Mitchell had known what to say to her. It was her responsibility to step up to the task if she was capable of doing it. Mitchell seemed to think she was able to, and she wasn't immune to the allure of advancement either.

"I can do it, sir," she said.

"Good," Mitchell said. He reached into his desk and pulled out a case. He set it in front of her, and opened it. Inside were rank pins in the shape of a double bar.

"Congratulations, Captain. The paperwork hasn't cleared yet, but that's a mere formality that will be taken care of by tomorrow," Mitchell said with a smile.

"I won't let you down, sir," Amanda said.

"I never doubted it," Mitchell replied, smiling.

He does have such a nice smile, she thought. Oh stop that, she chastised herself.

She stood and shook his hand. "Dismissed, Captain."

"Sir," she said.

She turned and left Mitchell's office. She walked into the hallway to find Carmichael and Jacobs waiting for her.

"So, what's the verdict?" Carmichael asked. "Let me guess, 10 days of head cleaning duty?"

"Actually," Amanda said. "I got promoted."

Carmichael mocked disappointment. "And I was so looking forward to seeing you taken down a peg."

At that moment, Mitchell came out of his office. Amanda and her squadmates came to attention quickly, trying to look as if they hadn't been hanging around Mitchell's office in morbid curiosity, wondering what trouble Amanda had gotten into.

Mitchell suppressed a laugh. "Good evening, Captain," he said to Amanda.

"Good evening, sir," Amanda replied.

Colonel Mitchell walked down the hallway leaving the young pilots to their conversation.

Amanda's eyes followed Colonel Mitchell for a moment, until she heard Carmichael make an appreciative sound.

"So, Amanda my friend. You find our CO quite fascinating, don't you?" Carmichael asked.

"I have no idea what you could possibly mean," Amanda said.

"Hey, nothing wrong with him. Granted, he's a bit old for you, but he's really, really, really easy on the eyes," Carmichael teased.

"Oh for God's sakes," Amanda said.

"Hey, nothing wrong with having a thing for him," Carmichael said. "In fact, I think it's cute. Of course, he's your CO so there's regs against it, but that it makes even better! It's taboo, forbidden, and oh so deliciously wicked."

"There is no 'thing', Carmichael. And by the way, I'm a Captain now, so if you don't shut it I'm putting you on report for being a pain in my ass," Amanda said.

Carmichael mocked innocence. "You wound me, Captain." She threw an arm around Jacobs. "Come on Ben, let's go to the Officer's Club."

Amanda groaned. "Carmichael, don't get him too drunk this time. We're about to get activated and deployed and I need both of you clearheaded tomorrow."

"You're no fun," Carmichael pouted. "Don't worry, Amanda," she said more seriously. "I've suspected we were close to getting deployed. I guess things with the Lucian Alliance are as bad as the rumor mill is telling us. I'll be ready, when the time comes."

"Good. Because I have a feeling we're all going to have be on our best game," Amanda said.

"Now, with that bit of depressing reality dealt with, I'm going to go have a bit of fun," Carmichael said. "Join us?"

"Not this time," Amanda said. "I didn't sleep much last night, I'm really beat. I think I'm going to head back to the barracks."

"Sweet dreams then, hopefully including our dashing CO," Carmichael teased.

Amanda grimaced. "I'm going to get you, Carmichael."