Captain Kevin Hatheway didn't like a lot of things. He didn't like early hours, though his chosen career didn't allow for anything else but early hours and truth be told, after nearly ten years serving in the Air Force to some degree or another (according to his 'official' background), being up, dressed and out the door by four in the morning had become so habitual that even on his 'off' days he couldn't help but be awake before dawn. He'd long accepted that he was likely to be a lifer anyways, so it didn't much bother him anymore, truth be told, but it was the principle of the thing.
He didn't like children, which was good because he didn't have any, nor did he have any siblings that could have annoyed him with potential nieces and nephews. He didn't care too much for overly serious people, fitness super freaks with bad haircuts and massive eyebrows, people that preferred the furry little assholes commonly referred to as cats instead of dogs, and when what should have been a relatively simple reconnaissance mission turns into a nightmarishly complicated shitshow for everyone involved.
So, when one of his days tended to involve three out of the five things he disliked the most, he tried to look on the bright side.
It could have been four out of five.
Not that that was much consolation, given his current location standing at rigid attention in front of the desk of Brigadier General Cathryn Harper, with his squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Alan Rourke. Neither of them looked particularly pleased, which was nothing new where Hatheway was concerned. General Harper didn't usually look like she was trying not to grind her teeth however, and Lt. Colonel Rourke looked somewhere between exasperated and almost manically cheerful. Which usually meant that the Lt. Colonel was actually absolutely furious or reasonably close to it.
"Alan, remind me again. What exactly were Captain Hatheway's exact orders, in regards to the request we received from the PRT early this morning?" Her eyes looked like they wanted to bore a hole directly through Hatheway's head, though her voice had the sort of inflectionless calm that made it difficult to judge just what exactly the Brigadier General was thinking. Fortunately Lt. Colonel Rourke was much easier to read.
"Well Ma'am, if I recall correctly," the older man mused in an almost happy-go-lucky tone, "He and Lieutenant Graham Walsh were explicitly ordered to intercept the bogey that had been just been located via satellite imagery while moseying its way and order it to land, and to shoot it down if it did not comply. Now, clearly there just had to have been some misunderstanding here, which leads me to believe that I may perhaps should have repeated those orders in French, or German. Possibly Japanese, given Captain Hatheway's previous posting."
Then he turned, and with that slightly manic smile growing just a little wider, said "Ima, nihongo o hanasu hitsuyō ga arimasu ka?" It occurred to Hatheway that pointing out that his commanding officer's Japanese could use some work probably wouldn't go over well. Probably. As such, he considered it to be a very fine example of his self-control that he didn't correct the other man.
"I think that's enough for now Alan," Harper said as she leaned back in her chair and retrieved a cigar and cutter from a desk drawer, and Hatheway found himself ever-so-slightly relaxing, because if the General was smoking in front of him, she probably wasn't quite so pissed as she seemed. "We've torn into the man enough. Now, At ease, Captain. I'd very much like to hear his justification for dropping this unpleasant mess into my lap." She nodded in Hatheway's direction as she cut down the length of her cigar by more than half.
"Yes General, Lt. Colonel," he was quick to say with a respectful nod towards each as he shifted to parade rest. "Lt. Walsh and myself made contact with the unidentified aircraft shortly after 0800 hours over the Massachusetts coastline, just below the cloud layer. Even when we closed to within seven hundred meters it was difficult to register the craft on our instruments. It doesn't perfectly replicate the… classified properties of the aircraft it resembles, but that may be due to inexperience."
The Lt Colonel nodded thoughtfully as he stared out the window. General Harper on the other hand shot him an impatient glance as she stuck her shortened cigar between her lips and ignited with the vivid blue flame of the butane lighter she picked up from her desk.
"When I opened communications with the aircraft on an open channel, rather than obey my instructions it attempted to evade into the cloud layer." Harper actually paused in mid-puff at that, with an incredulous expression briefly appearing on her face. Alan on the other hand let out a snort and looked away from the window to say, "You're kidding."
"As I said, Lt. Colonel, inexperienced. Extraordinarily inexperienced," Hatheway dryly replied. "In this particular instance, the ECM chaff the craft used gave us enough trouble that had that been used in conjunction with a more aggressive defense, Lt. Walsh and myself might have needed assistance from the other half of our flight which was waiting in reserve about a mile and a half out. As I closed in to intimidate the pilot into complying, I observed what appeared to be a human female attached to the ventral surface of the craft's fuselage, as well as what appeared to be multiple weapon bays built into the wings of the craft begin to open, only to close again."
The amusement that had begun to lighten the mood evaporated in an instant. Alan started to speak, only to pause when the General raised a hand in his direction. For a moment Harper stared thoughtfully at the ceiling, clearly marshalling her thoughts as she took a slow drag on her smoldering stump of a cigar.
"Elaborate," she ordered, and Hatheway promptly obeyed.
"Superficially, if I had to make an analogy, it looked as if Northrop Grumman took one of their heavy tactical bomber designs and transformed it into a modern take on a World War 2 era flying superfortress," Hatheway obediently reported. "As the craft structure is the result of a manifested Parahuman ability, I can't claim any accuracy as to the model or caliber of the two turrets that almost emerged from the dorsal surfaces of the wings only to immediately retract, but I'd cautiously estimate them as being entirely an adequate point-defense system against hostile aircraft as they brought to mind the GSh-23 tail gun assemblies that the Soviets liked for a few of their birds before things started going downhill for them. At that moment the craft structure's profile was disrupted enough for my instruments to temporarily get an adequate read on it at close range. Lt. Walsh still had difficulty."
"And?"
"Smaller than it should be, though that much is obvious General. We'd have to send the data from my flight recorder in for proper analysis, but off-hand I'd estimate if it had been an actual aircraft instead of the result of Parahuman ability, the craft would've been twenty-five to fifty percent larger than a B-2 Spirit. In fact, the contact briefly fooled my instruments into thinking it was a B-2, but the wings are comparatively too long and the engines too large.
"Your thoughts on the pil- on the Hebert girl?" Alan asked from his place at the window, with only a brief pause to correct himself into actually using the girl in question's name.
"Sloppy, careless, untrained and inexperienced, but has … adequate instincts," was Hatheway's immediate response. "About as dumb as most Parahumans I've had the displeasure of meeting, but was smart enough to not try and fight a fight that she didn't know if she could win. More nimble in the air than she ought to be, but she also took a turn so tight and so fast that most newbies in her place would've passed out from g-LOC even in a flight suit. But that could be Parahuman bullshit at play." Hatheway had a hunch it wasn't the case though, and his hunches hadn't failed him yet. "When she finally did start listening to reason, she did a decent job of slotting into formation on the flight back to base. Landings could use some work though." He paused, then dared to smirk as he added, "She also pissed and moaned for ten minutes straight about how unfair it was that our F-15Cs could outmaneuver her so easily. Didn't seem to care for the implication that she flies like an ice cream truck."
That got an exasperated sigh from his Lt. Colonel, who turned to glance at Hatheway with a raised eyebrow.
"I was referring to your assessment of her mental state while you were having your fun tormenting the kid."
"Oh. Well Sir, if what I've heard is true about Parahumans getting their powers, then I'd say that she currently has it together surprisingly well for a girl who, given the situation's current optics, very recently had a psychotic break following what she appears to feel was a murder attempt by one of the PRT's pet state-sanctioned kiddie heroes. Never realized that I was deliberately distracting her whenever she started brooding. Having said that, she does present the telltale stress markers of someone who's been in a hostile environment without support for an extended period. And I believe that she believes her antagonism towards the PRT is entirely justified and that she honestly believes that her powers are dangerous enough to make her an ill fit for their Wards program. At the very least she should be assessed for PTSD, though I doubt that in the short term she's a danger to anyone."
There was silence again as General Harper and Lt. Colonel Rourke both ruminated for a moment over his verbal assessment of the Hebert girl's mental state, though Hatheway was all but certain that he'd have to prepare a written report to be passed even further up the chain before the day was over, one that would end up so heavily classified and redacted that it probably wouldn't even have his current name on it anymore by the end of the way. Not that he had a problem with that. He liked being Captain Kevin Hatheway of the Air National Guard, and maybe with a little luck, he could keep right on being Captain Kevin Hatheway.
"If only that idiot girl hadn't blurted out that she had nuclear-equivalent capability during that little tantrum of hers at the end," Alan finally groaned out as he raised a hand to rub his forehead, and Harper briefly closed her eyes as she sighed around her cigar, exhaling a plume of smoke that briefly obscured her features. "She's a teenager. Teenagers are stupid like that," she dryly replied. "Unfortunately for us her destructive potential is now a matter of record thanks to that little outburst, and by law we cannot legally hand over to the PRT and Protectorate a Parahuman with that capability."
It was a polite fiction all three were aware of that the Protectorate was not permitted to knowingly possess Parahuman assets with the destructive potential to rival or exceed a nuclear weapon. But the key word there was knowingly. Tinkers usually got a pass in most cases. Hell, Hatheway knew of at least five Protectorate Parahumans on the east coast alone that he suspected could probably erase a town or a small city single handedly if they wanted to. And then of course there was that Eidolon asshole down in Texas. But the Protectorate was, as a rule, very, very, very careful to let people believe that no one Parahuman was that powerful. Pity Taylor Hebert had broken that rule without even realizing that it existed.
And then something happened that gave Hatheway a peculiar feeling of unease. He didn't like that feeling, because it usually meant that his life was about to get more interesting than he was generally comfortable with. He didn't like 'interesting' anymore. That's why he was Captain Kevin Hatheway. General Harper was staring speculatively at him as she tapped away the ashes from her ever-shrinking cigar.
"With parental permission, the youngest an American citizen can enlist in the military is seventeen," she mused. 'No,' Hatheway found himself thinking. Alan turned fully away from the window and raised a hand to brush the tip of his thumb against the corner of his mouth; one of his poker tells, not that anyone would ever break it to the man.
"Interesting notion, but Hebert's currently fifteen Cathryn," he said with a perfectly level expression." 'No no no.' Hatheway's thoughts grew more frantic.
"Only for another six months or so, then she turns sixteen in June. Plenty of time to pass up the chain my notion of a special dispensation to offer her early enlistment considering the extenuating circumstances. In the meantime, we can make the offer of an ROTC program. Not a standard one. I'm thinking something, if you'll forgive the unintentional pun, tailored to her unique abilities."
"Enlistment at sixteen? That'll never fly and you know it."
"Of course it won't. But if she's willing, and I suspect that she will be if only to shove her thumbs into the PRT's eyes and twist, we'll have her at seventeen and have more than enough time to train her, well pass Airman Basic physical competency to what I will suspect end in her being the youngest Second Lieutenant in modern Air Force history." Harper's lips curled into a faint smile as she stared at Hatheway.
'No no no no no no no no no no no no no!'
"And luckily, we have on hand an excellent pilot who's already built a rapport with her that would be ideally suited to teach her how to properly fly."
'FUCK.'
"Well, what do you think, Captain Hatheway? Speak freely."
Well, there was only one thing that Hatheway could say in response to that.
"Permission to go back to the NSA, Brigadier General?"
"Denied."
'FUCK.'