III. THE NEW ARRIVALS
The next day Mike Derwent brought his partner to a place of particular interest for the flying mercs of Iffa.
"Tell me again what this place is," the RIO whispered as their footsteps echoed in the cavernous hangar.
"It's Magicland," Mike repeated, encompassing with a sweep of his arm the brightly-lit airconditioned space. "You got the money, you come here and get your plane customized, like I'm doing."
"No shit?"
"No goddamn shit. This has also got to be the greatest repository of stolen aircraft plans and engineering documents in the world," the pilot confided.
Gary Heberlein's response was an awed "Damn."
They made their way to one of the offices jutting out from the side of the hangar like a tan-colored shoebox. Peering through the open jalousies, Mike called, "Yoohoo! McCoy! You in there?"
"I'm out here, flyboy!" called a female voice. The two aviators turned and saw a woman in overalls, standing on a gantry by an F-16's wingtip, waving to them. Gary raised an eyebrow.
"The head herself," Mike said. "Suzanne McCoy. You tell her what you want done, she tells you if it's feasible, and charges you an arm and a leg for it." He laughed. "I don't mind, since nothing she and her team's ever done to my Cat has failed."
They came up to the foot of the gantry. "Hi, McCoy."
"Hi, yourself." The woman's paper-like skin creased in a thousand lines and wrinkles as she smiled at him. She was Caucasian, appeared to be around forty years old, and her washed-out brown hair matched the faded brown texture of her overalls. "Don't tell me you still want me to turn your bird into fly-by-wire."
"Naah. Maybe if I'm still here six years from now. Too expensive. Oh, meet my new RIO, Gary Heberlein."
McCoy nodded. "What brings you here then?"
"Haven't the bombing avionics for my Cat arrived yet?"
"Nope. Me bucko, there are wars other than the delightful little one we have here, and they're placing demands on the instrument makers."
"War's good business," Gary stated, his face straight.
"Yeah. You get the money, someone else gets the death. I could give you that Elisra package."
"No way, I don't want it. Then I'd be out of action for two whole months while you tried to find space inside my baby for it."
"I keep telling you to lose the second seat," McCoy said, looking apologetically at Gary. "Nothing personal."
"No problem," he reassured her.
"And I keep telling you I like having a backseater," Mike returned. "He keeps me honest."
"That'll be the day."
Gary pointed to the Falcon. "What's up with this bird?"
"Oh, the pilot's been having problems with the wingtip missile rails. I've traced the problem to the AIMRIUs."
"AIMRIUs?"
"AIM Rail Interface Units. This is an old Block Thirty-Eight, belongs to a Pakistani pilot named Yasrudin. AIMRIU problems used to plague that bunch. Either the RIU's electronics would fail or they would bend under high-g loads and get disconnected or broken. So I'm reinforcing them. That should solve the problem cheaply."
"Hmm. He won't use a newer Viper?"
"Naah. Some people are stubborn that way." McCoy looked straight at Mike as she said it.
"Hey! My baby's got a lot of life left in her. And if Vashtarl ever decides to buy an aircraft carrier, I'll be ready."
McCoy laughed. "An aircraft carrier for this godforsaken sandbox? What's he going to do, put little wheels on the keel and run it across the desert like a transporter from Dune or Star Wars?"
The Tomcat crew grinned. "Hey," said Mike, "if his enemies were crazy enough to tunnel through the rock below this place before, why not that?"
The sudden howling scream that passed above the hangar and shook it interrupted all conversation.
"What the fuck?" Gary involuntarily exclaimed, crouching.
"That's probably the visitors who're scheduled to arrive today," said McCoy.
"Who?" asked Mike.
"Couple of test pilots from god-knows-where, come here to do OT on brand-new thingamajigs for their manufacturers. The stuff they're bringing along is quite interesting, I can tell you."
The pilot raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yeah, it's bleeding-edge. I can't tell you more, you'd have to see for yourself."
Interest stirred, Mike asked McCoy if she had any estimate on when his avionics would arrive. When she answered that she didn't, he told her he'd be back and went outside to watch the new arrivals. Gary followed him.
------oOo------
The four F/A-18Es did a nice, tight turn to final and landed ahead of the six C-130s, who in Gary's eyes also did a respectable job or bringing their birds to earth, for a bunch of trash-haulers.
"Well, I'll be," said Mike, watching with him from just outside the hangar as the evergreen Hercules variants landed one by one on the 6/24 runway. "It's a goddamned Compass Call. Wonder what it's doing here." The X-shaped antenna on the turboprop's tail marked the communications tracker and jammer for what it was.
"Isn't that an ABCCC?" Gary asked of another Herky Bird, which had an extra section added forward of its vertical tail.
"Hell, yeah. What is this, a circus? What's the USAF doing sending them here? I thought everyone wanted them in their TAOR." His eyes slitted. "McCoy was right, this is quite interesting. My sphincter's reaching up and grabbing my heart."
"W-What?" Gary asked, chuckling at the same time.
"I mean I've got a bad feeling about this. The third Herc's a DC-130."
"A drone director?"
"Yeah. See the big pylons under the wings? Shit, what are they going to do here?"
"Heck, I wish I knew."
------oOo------
The aviators waited and watched as the heavily-laden F/A-18Es got parked near them and cut engines and opened canopies at the same time. Mike grudgingly gave their Blue Angels-worthy performance high marks. A Humvee and a Unimog truck sped up to the aircraft; the former collected the pilots and brought them to Mina Desai's office, a couple of buildings away from McCoy's hangar, while the people in the latter set about putting reflective covers on the Hornets' canopies and tags on the ordnance and aircraft.
"I wonder who those pilots are," Gary mused. "Maybe I've seen them around."
"Maybe. C'mon, let's go back to the barracks. We've got an Alert to stand tomorrow, like I told you."
------oOo------
Gary gathered his things to prepare for the temporary move to the Theater Air Base Vulnerability shelter. There were eighteen of the armored underground hangars and bunkers, positioned in groups of three and six at the ends of Iffa's two runways. Aircraft which stood Alert—meaning they could take off in 30, 15, 10, 5, or 2 minutes to intercept attackers—were stationed there, and for convenience's sake each TAB-V also had crew quarters which were Spartan but complete.
There was a knock on his door, and before he could go open it the person outside did that for him. The sweatbagged RIO found himself staring at an old, expressionless face. The man had blond hair and was wearing a modern gray flight suit, his g-vest and leggings still on, his helmet bag in one hand and his issue dark-blue travel bag in the other.
"Oh, sorry," he said quietly. "I thought this room was empty."
"I'm staying here," Gary replied. He jerked a thumb. "But the one next to mine's empty. I'm Gary Heberlein," he offered, extending his hand.
The man looked at his hand for a long time before shaking it with the one holding the helmet bag. "Shin Kazama."
"You know, you should dump those things in the PE room."
Shin Kazama looked at him with those empty eyes. "I know. I just wanted to find a room first. You're new here, aren't you?"
"Yeah. Only a couple of days in."
The man gave him the same look one would give a leper. "I see."
"And you're one of the Hornet pilots, am I right?"
"Yeah. Sorry to bother you." The pilot quietly closed the door.
Gary went back to his things. Uncommunicative bastard, he thought.
------oOo------
Shin Kazama opened the door of the next room. The bare brick walls brought back memories, memories of an earlier war, an earlier Asran. He didn't want to come back here, but once again his love of flying betrayed him. When the company he was working for as a test pilot had told him to shut up and move his ass to this hellhole or get out, there was very little he could do, save kiss Ryouko and his son goodbye.
It's been years, Saki, he thought. I wonder what you'd think if you knew Mickey and I were back. Then again, you probably already know that by now. He dumped his carryall onto the hard bunk, stripped his g-suit, and checked the room out briefly. Then he left for the nearby PE room to deposit his helmet and pressure suit and sidearm. The memories went with him.
------oOo------
"Since the Asran conflict is relatively unknown internationally, the US government thought doing operational testing here would be a good idea. So we want you to extend them every courtesy, as they'll be with us for a long time," Mina Desai concluded that afternoon. "Welcome again, gentlemen, and we're also sorry you're here." She once again presented her smile, to mesh with the scattering of laughs from the audience in the auditorium. "Especially you, Mister Simon, Mister Kazama."
The meeting broke up. Seats were folded, people stood and headed for the exits. The named pair lingered behind, however.
"Hard to believe we're in this place now, when we used to kill the pilots flying out of here before," said the ex-Navy Mickey Simon. He watched the retreating backs of the Iffa flyers. "Doesn't looking at them make you feel old, Shin?"
"Yeah. But there are some gray-haired ones among them too."
"Yeah, but some of them seem just as old as Kim Aba would be now."
"I know. But why should that surprise you, Mick? Fighting is the province of the young, with their hot blood and idealism. Us old soldiers know better."
"Huh." The blond American, still handsome at his age, smiled snidely. "You know how Area 88 tested us. In the end the only ones left were the hardcore and the war dogs. Us. All the pansies and glory hounds cleared out or died long before that."
"So?"
"So I'm saying we old dogs might still have a trick or two to show these young 'uns. We've been in the business longer than they have. We know what it's like to really fight. Not for fame, not for fortune, just for the sheer love of fighting."
"I don't doubt that. I wouldn't underestimate them, though. They're still alive, so that means they must be doing something right." Shin started to move off.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"I want to ask Miss Desai if I can make a phone call. I want to tell Ryouko I'm fine."
------oOo------
That night there was a general brouhaha in the barracks. "Star walk!" Giovanni Saffoni, the A-10 pilot, yelled happily in reply to Gary's question. "We have a group trip to the Star every so often," he explained in a low voice to the baffled RIO. When the puzzled face wouldn't go away, he said in a low voice, "It's a brothel, you idiot."
"Oh." That explained everything.
"Well, whatcha standing there for? Aintcha coming?"
"Naah. It's not my thing."
"Whaaaat? Holy shit, don't tell me you're queer!"
"Nope. Mike and I got an Alert Five to pull tomorrow. Can't do that if I'm all tuckered out."
"Oh. Well, see you, then."
Gary did visit the Blue Horse, though. The first thing he saw upon entering was Mina Desai seated by herself at the bar, nursing a drink. She was all alone, smoking a ciggie, and the RIO's hormones made him forget what Mike had told him on his first day about her attitude towards men. He ordered a drink and immediately made a beeline for her. Truly, Iffa aircrew devolved into all balls and no forehead when outside the base...
"Hi."
Mina Desai turned her eyeglasses on him. "Hi. You looking for company?"
Gary nodded.
"I'm not. Get lost, flyboy."
"You act like that towards everyone?"
"What do you think?"
"I don't think anything. I'm new."
"I know you are, Mister Heberlein."
"So couldn't you cut me some slack, Miss Desai? I'm not looking to hassle you."
"They all say that." She took a long drag from her cigarette and blew a large cloud of smoke into the air. "Fine, sit down. You can talk to me all you want. I won't answer."
Goddamn. What a bitch. Gary sat down and took a swallow of his drink. "You know, your attitude doesn't go well with your looks."
The woman just kept smoking and drinking.
"How come you don't get back on flying status?"
That made her stop and look at him. "What's it to you, ibn kalb?"
"Nothing. You just don't seem like the type who'd let her country go to hell in a handbasket without doing something about it, that's all."
"That's BS, as you Americans put it. My family's at odds with other factions in the government, and they've threatened to kill my parents and brothers and sisters if I ever took an active role in the Air Force again. There's nothing physically wrong with me, contrary to popular lie. That's just a rumor I spread around to save my family's name."
"So you mean you're letting all your talent go to waste?"
"Talent? What talent? Killing people is a talent? It's a curse, don't you know that?" The RAAF officer finished her drink and ordered another.
"I'm not talking about killing people. I'm talking about flying. None of us is an angel, Miss Desai. Didn't they beat that crap into you in flying school?"
"Yes, along with a million other things I don't really want to remember." She looked at him and raised her new glass. "Cheers, Mister Heberlein. You are a lens, through which the anger of my country is focused. Fuck war."
Gary raised his mug. "Fuck war." They spent the next two hours in companionable silence.