The next morning we were awoken early by a call from General Arnold's aide, he was in the lobby with orders to pick us up and have us at Arnold's office by 0900. Buffy told him to get a key from the front desk and come to our room and to order coffee and Danishes for breakfast, we would be out when we were showered and dressed.

When we had returned the previous night the hotel had offered a roll away bed but we had declined and had shared the large bed, but that was all we had shared. I was in a quandary, what we had done in the cave the evening before our escape had been fantastic, I had never felt anything nearly so good, physically or emotionally. Since then too much had been happening and too many people had been around to even think about repeating it. Even the night in the hotel in Halifax all we had done was share a kiss and sleep in each other's arms, exhausted from the pace in England followed by the long flight. Now we had a private hotel room and I didn't know what I wanted.

As we got ready for bed Buffy had watched me as I removed my clothes and followed my example. I took off my clothes slowly, thinking about what I wanted and unable to come to a decision, then I found myself nude. I thought for a moment about putting my panties back on but instead I crawled into bed as I was. Buffy smiled slightly and stripped off her remaining clothes and crawled into bed and lay quietly on the other side.

Finally I reached over and took her hand, "Congratulations, Buffy."

She was startled, "Huh? Congratulations for what?"

"For your medal, silly."

She squeezed my hand, "Oh… thanks, and congratulations to you."

"Thank you."

I tugged on her hand slightly and she immediately rolled over until she was pressed against me, she lay on her side, her head nestled on my shoulder. Her leg came across mine and I could feel the soft curls of her bush pressed against my hip. I wrapped my arm around her and held her against me while her arm came up and cupped my breast. I nuzzled the top of her head until she tilted her head back and I raised mine, she stretched up, her body sliding on mine, until our lips met. The kiss lasted a long time, our lips caressing each other and then opening to let our tongues explore. Finally we separated and I felt her body slide down a little as she laid her head on my chest. Her fingers were softly brushing my breast, caressing it and then playing with the nipple that stood erect for her.

"Buffy, I don't know what to do."

"About what?"

"About making love with you… about us becoming lovers."

"We've made love, we are lovers."

I shook my head slightly, "No… we've made love… but I'm not comfortable with us being lovers… at least not yet." Her hand stopped playing with my breast and I could feel her muscles tense as she prepared to move away from me. "Buffy…"

She didn't move but she didn't relax either, after a moment she prompted me, "What?"

I thought for a moment, "Would it be too hard for you to just hold me tonight?"

I felt her relax against me and then I felt her cheek crinkle a little, I knew she was smiling, "I'll hold you for as many nights as you need."

"I'm sorry, Buffy, I…"

She interrupted me, "Shush… there is nothing to be sorry about. I'll wait… I may take a little longer in the shower in the morning than normal…"

It took me a minute to think of what she was implying; then it came to me, "I'm sorry, you don't…"

"Barb, I was just letting you know."

I lay there for a minute trying to think of how to respond; finally I decided "You know, that was not something that you really had to tell me."

"TMI"

"TMI?"

"Too much information."

I nodded, "Yeah, TMI. Good night Buffy."

"Good night, Barb."

I had gone to sleep with her in my arms and woken when the phone rang. She finished talking with the aide and lay back down beside me, her body pressed against mine. I tugged her and she slid up until we could share a long kiss, when we finally broke I looked up into her eyes, "Time for your long shower."

She grinned down at me, "Won't have to be that long, I think I'll go off real quick!"

"TMI!"

She was still smiling as she hopped out of bed and went into the bathroom, closing the door softly behind her. I lay on the bed imagining what she was doing in the bathroom, wondering if she had been serious or was just kidding; then a small sound from the bathroom told me she had been serious. My hand moved of its own accord down my body and I found myself accompanying her.

We had gotten dressed and had our breakfast and rode quietly through the city and back over toward Washington National until we came to a huge new building, the Pentagon, which had been completed earlier in the year. The aide led us through a maze of passageways until we finally came to General Arnold's office. We arrived a little early but only had to wait for a couple of minutes; then we were escorted into his office. Buffy and I walked to the front of his desk and came to attention, then Buffy raised her hand in salute, "Colonel Summers, Lieutenant Colonel Thompson, reporting as ordered, sir!"

Arnold returned her salute, "At ease, Colonels, take a seat ladies." He indicated with his head a pair of chairs to the side of his desk. We walked over to them and sat down while he swiveled his chair to face us, "Coffee?"

"Yes sir," both Buffy and I chorused.

He nodded to his aide who asked, "Colonel Summers?"

"Black"

Before he asked me I echoed her, "Black, also."

We talked with Arnold; he seemed to be trying to get our measure. While we had met, and even talked for a while before we had organized the 101st those conversations had been more about what we were going to have to deal with. Now he seemed to be searching for something else, his questions were more probing but I couldn't identify what he was trying to determine. And it seemed that he was looking for something different from Buffy than from me. We had been discussing tactics and methods for fighting the Germans and what our experiences and thoughts were about the Germans.

Then the conversation to a new track, "Colonel Summers, I've been hearing some strange, maybe even outlandish tales, about the 101st's organization at Spilsby."

"Sir?" Buffy asked, puzzled by the question, "it's a standard three squadron fighter group, our fourth squadron has always been here in the states providing replacements, as I'm sure you're aware."

He shook his head, "I was referring more to the quarters at the base."

'Oh no, shits going to hit the fan now,' I thought.

Buffy was still for a moment, then spoke very calmly, "It's a standard arrangement; each squadron has three Quonset huts, each with half a dozen two man rooms and the rest open barracks. We've got another couple of barracks Quonsets for the group officers and enlisted personnel in the headquarters cluster."

He nodded, "Yes… but the 101st doesn't have a normal complement, most of your officers are female and I also understand almost 15% of your enlisted personnel are female. How do you accommodate them?"

Buffy sat back in her chair and looked at him steadily for a few moments, "The 101sts personnel are assigned quarters based on their unit and rank."

He looked at her seriously, his eyes widened a little, "Then the rumors are true?!"

I could tell Buffy was forcing herself to remain calm, "I don't know what the rumors are, sir."

"That you have men and woman living together! That they're sharing the same heads!"

"Yes sir."

He seemed startled by her casual response; it was feigned casual I knew but she carried it off well, "How could you do that!"

"Because it was necessary, sir."

"WHAT?!"

"We were having too many conflicts within the group, the group, and even worse the squadrons, were not becoming cohesive entities. I can't lead them into combat; nobody can lead into combat, if the underlying components aren't working together - at least not effectively."

"And you think turning your group into one giant orgy helped!"

"Sir, there has not been one single orgy that I'm aware of, and I would have been aware of it. Men and women and perfectly capable of living together without jumping each other's bones just because they see a member of the opposite sex without any clothes on. In fact it's easier, and safer for the women, the men treat them like sisters just like they treat each other as brothers. I think some of the girls have even gotten a little frustrated because the men they're interested won't respond because they are like brother and sister."

"The NCOs, both male and female, have learned to come down hard on anyone that starts getting too pushy or tries to take advantage. Usually they don't even have to do anything; others in the unit will take care of the trouble makers. I only had to deal with one case since we integrated, an attempted rape and that was prevented by the intended victim and her platoon mates; he was in pretty bad shape when the MPs got to him. Once we started investigating we didn't even have to hold a court martial, it turned out he was an escapee from prison where he was in for life on a couple of rape convictions."

"Sometimes it takes newbies a few days and maybe a talk or two for them to adjust, but it's really not that hard to adapt to. It eased a lot of the tension that was developing within the group, and I think it actually makes life easier for everyone. They may not get the sex they want but they get to see and interact with members of the opposite sex all the time."

Arnold was looking at her sternly, I couldn't tell if he was accepting her statements or not, "And you're comfortable being seen in the nude, ogled by men."

"We try to teach the men, and women, not to ogle."

He turned to me, "And you've exposed yourself to men… to dozens of men at a time… and you're okay with it?"

"Yes sir." He stared at me, I think trying to determine if I was really telling the truth, "It's not one sided, sir. It's not like a strip club where a bunch of guys with their clothes on are yelling at me to take mine off. If I'm nude with some guy then he's probably nude to, or was the last time I saw him when I had some clothes on."

He looked back at Buffy and she stood up and started unbuttoning her uniform coat, "Would you like to see if my body is significantly different than any other woman's body you've seen?"

"NO Colonel Summers I would not! Sit down!"

Buffy buttoned her coat and sat back down, "Sir, I don't mean to sound flippant but I suspect that you, and most of your classmates, had issues, inside yourselves probably, the first time you were in communal showers in the locker rooms at West Point. Or maybe for you it was when you were in high school. But you adjust pretty quickly. Putting the men and women of the 101st together in the same quarters, organizing them by unit and squadron solved a lot of the problems we were having. And it did not create any new problems, they adjusted."

"I'll be blunt sir, the first time you see two soldiers in a screaming argument and they are both stark naked and one's dick is bouncing up and down and the other's tits are matching it it's pretty damn funny. It had the whole barracks rolling on the floor laughing at them and I had to break it up. I'll admit I almost lost it too when she called him a 'simpering cunt' and he called her a 'prick'. They both got eight hours extra duty but the next time I saw them they were in the enlisted rec room having a beer and talking about their respective girlfriend and boyfriend."

Arnold looked at her for a long time, "You think it will really work in the general case?"

"As long as the officers involved keep everyone on a level playing field it will work just fine. If you let someone get in charge who thinks the other sex is inferior then you can be a situation that will cause some real trouble. But that is no different than any other situation where you have an authoritarian structure and the wrong person gets in command."

Arnold looked at us for several minutes, "Well, we'll see how it works under the 101st's new commander."

Buffy thought for a moment, then spoke up, "And at the 143rd, Major Carson is using the same policies and her group is going to be much more balanced in terms of the male/female officer ratio. We had over 90% female officers while I was in command of the 101st. I talked to Hel… Major Carson about it when I saw her before we came back, I told her she was going to have to keep a careful eye on the male officers to insure no one started to abuse their authority. She said she was well aware of that and that she and her XO, Ben Franklin, were on top of it."

He thought about it for a minute and then started a new subject, "Colonel Summers, would you care to speculate why your female pilots are performing so much better than their male counterparts?"

It was a subject Buffy and I had discussed several times and I knew she had some opinions, I wasn't sure if she should try to share them with the General but he had seemed pretty reasonable so far this morning. I think the same thoughts were going through her mind because it was several seconds before she answered him.

"Sir, I think there are probably two reasons. First, the female pilots have been winnowed several times, first by getting into the army, then getting through the flight training, and then by volunteering for combat and going through our training."

"The male pilots go through the same training; except for the volunteering for combat - I don't see a difference."

"But the men are expected to do that, they've been brought up in a culture that supports that. Women doing that have been fighting that culture their whole life and they've been winning. I think they are tougher and know more about fighting, at the gut level, than the men. Also, because they are physically weaker than the men, on average, they have to concentrate more and work harder to succeed. But those that do are special; they are the best of the best."

"If it was completely open, exactly the same for both males and females, how would they stack up?"

Buffy thought for a moment, "You would, should, never get equal representation. I would guess about 80% male and 20% female, the mental attitude to make a good fighter pilot is much rarer among women than men. So is the physical strength to do the job although we concentrate a lot on that in our training, we can bring a lot of marginal women up to standards. But there are other factors that can side track a lot of women, cultural or social pressures so strong that they'll never break out and try. Family issues, getting pregnant and raising kids reduces the pool some, but I'm not sure of the effect of that since the mental attributes that make a fighter pilot are probably not real conducive to domesticity so that may have less of an impact than an initial analysis might indicate. But I would be surprised if you ever get to 20% female combat pilots."

General Arnold contemplated her for several moments, "You said there were two reasons?"

I knew Buffy's second reason, this one was going to be controversial, "Ah… well I think physiologically women have an advantage."

"What?!"

"Barb and I noticed it when we were training male fighter pilots at March field, and again in England when we were working up and flying with the 89th. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I suspect it has something to do with the female anatomy." She paused for a moment, organizing her thoughts I suspected.

"What does?"

"Other things being equal women can take higher Gs and not black out." In combat in a fighter it often came down to who could turn their aircraft faster, and the faster you turned the aircraft the more 'gravity' your body was subjected to, in common terminology 'G force' or simply Gs. At the extremes you developed tunnel vision and finally blacked out. We had found we could take half a G to a full G more than most men before we reached the same level of impairment. So we could turn harder and not black out or lose as much vision, it translated into an enormous advantage.

Arnold looked at her skeptically, "You really think so?"

"We've tried it, Barb and I experimented with Ben Franklin at the 89th; he was in our squadron and a hell of a pilot."

"I've heard of him, he's the XO of the 143rd now."

Buffy nodded in agreement, "I had him and Barb pull the same high G maneuvers and note how much tunnel vision they developed. Barb was consistently a little over half a G higher when she got to the same extent of tunnel vision."

"And you?"

Buffy lied through her teeth, she never felt any impairment at any of the Gs we could pull in the aircraft we were flying, "Uh… closer to a full G."

"And you think this is physiological?"

"It's the only thing I can think of… if I had to guess I would suspect that the structural differences in a woman's abdomen enable her to restrict the blood pooling to her legs, lessoning the effect of the Gs."

General Arnold nodded, "We've got eggheads looking into the high G problems and they've been trying to come up with something to help. What's looking most promising are some kind of pants that squeeze the legs to prevent the wearer's blood from pooling in the legs. So you think women's bodies naturally do that better than men's?"

Buffy nodded in agreement, "Yes sir."

General Arnold looked closely at Buffy for several minutes, Buffy returned his look with a steady gaze of her own. Finally the General seemed to nod to himself and come to a decision, "So, Colonel Summers, do you wish to know what your future holds for you?"

A grin came to her lips, "Are you a seer?"

The question startled him and then a grin came to his lips, "No, but I am the one that writes your orders."

"Yes sir."

"I've been of two minds of what to do with you…"

"Alaska or the Antarctica?" Buffy quipped.

He chortled and then shook his head, "No… your formal education seems a bit spotty, at best."

"Yes sir, but I've done a lot of studying on my own. Not that most of it is terribly relevant these days but some of it has seemed to help."

He nodded, "I think you may be taxed some but I've come to the opinion that you'll be able to handle it." Buffy didn't respond, after a couple moments he went on, "You'll be doing a war bond tour for the rest of the year."

"Yeah, that will certainly be taxing…" a worried expression came on her face, "that is the end of this year not next year, isn't it sir?" I could even hear a little pleading in her voice.

"Yes Colonel, until the end of this year. After the first of the year you'll report to Leavenworth to attend the C&GS long course. It used to be a yearlong course but they've chopped it down, time wise, to ten months - although they supposedly haven't dropped any of the content, they just work you that much harder. It's a graduate level course, do you understand what that means and will you be able to hack it?"

"Yes sir, it means it's for people that already have their Bachelor's degree, and yes I think I can hack it."

He nodded and turned to me, "I'm afraid we're going to be breaking up you two."

"Yes sir."

"Do you want to know what you're going to be doing?"

I thought I knew, the war bond tour, but I wasn't going to put it in his mind if he had thought of something different, "Yes sir."

"You'll be doing a similar war bond tour to what Colonel Summers is doing but its duration is more up in the air, when it will end will depend on something not completely in my control. We are having those two Me-262s that you managed to bring home crated up and shipped back here. We aren't risking both on one ship so there is still some question exactly how long it will take. Once they are here they're going to the research facility we're putting together at Wright-Patterson. You'll be joining them."

"Sir, I'm not an engineer. I only completed a semester and a half before I had to quit school."

"You've had some training and have proven that you are one of the best maintenance officers in the field. I'm hoping with that and your combat experience you will be able to keep the eggheads from designing some super plane that we can't build or maintain. As both of you so succinctly put it last night, we're in deep ca-ca until we get a fighter that can deal with the Me-262 on an even foot, and hopefully better than an even foot."

"Yes sir. Why Wright-Patterson? Isn't that primarily a materiel command base?"

"They've got lots of space and they've also got some good technical people. In addition, some of the most advanced jet engine development we've got is just down the road at the General Electric Evendale plant. Their engineers are going to be spending a lot of time up at Wright-Patterson trying out those German engines and seeing if they can't figure out what's wrong with them."

Buffy looked over at me, "Lucky stiff!"

"What?!"

"You get to play with the toys… I have to sit in a classroom!"

I grinned at her then turned my attention back to the General, "I'll try to do as much as I can."

The Ides of March were on us and it was cold and miserable outside, raining softly but by night fall it was going to be freezing and the entire place was going to be coated with ice. I looked out the window at the disgusting weather and then turned back to the draftsman that was working on the plans for the plane we were trying to design. I had reported to Wright-Patterson the second week in July and found Buffy and my Me-262s half disassembled in a large hanger. I'd worked with the aircraft engineers analyzing the planes and with the GE engineers up from Evendale going over the engines. I'd also tried to work with the design group that was trying to design the first US jet fighter but that had been less successful. They were a tight group and didn't want to let me in.

I had several conversations with Brigadier General Howard who commanded the tech unit that was analyzing the Me-262s and to which I was officially assigned. He had finally given me permission to go ahead on my own, more to get me out of his hair than anything else I thought. I had a couple draftsmen assigned to work for me and two engineers from North American Aviation, the company that had come up with the P-51, were also spending their time working with us. They were supposed to be consulting with the design group but they had been pretty much frozen out also. The five of us got along well and we seemed to click and I thought what we were coming up with had some real promise, although a couple of problems had us stymied at the moment.

There was enough enthusiasm among the group that the guys didn't mind working late on a Saturday afternoon, long after everyone else had knocked off. The engineers and I had been hashing out one of the problems and I thought we might have a handle on it and the draftsmen said they would have the drawings updated by Monday. Then we could get the modeler to modify the scale model to match and then the wind tunnel would tell us if we had found the solution.

I'd said good-bye to the engineers; they were headed out of the building to go home and enjoy what remained of the weekend. I went the opposite direction down the main hallway and then turned down the side hall to my office. I saw a small form seated on the bench outside of it, "Buffy!" I yelled and broke into a run. She had reached her feet by the time I came up to her and picked her up in a tight hug, I swung her around a couple of times before I finally came to my senses and put the struggling Slayer down. "What the hell are you doing here?"

She looked up at me and grinned, "Thought it was time for a visit."

I was a bit skeptical, "Is everything all right?"

"Its fine, Barb, everything is fine."

"School going okay? Are you keeping up with your studies?"

She looked at me a little grimly, "Yes mother! I'm doing my homework and turning in all my papers on time."

I could feel myself start to redden a little, "Sorry…"

Her expression returned to a happy grin, "Can you get away from here or do I have to order you to knock it off for the weekend?"

I glanced at the folder full of papers that was still in my hand and thought briefly, there was nothing that I really had to get done before Monday and I would have some time then while the modeler made the necessary changes. "I can knock off; just let me put these away and lock up."

"Have you got transportation, something you can take off-base or should I keep the cab I've got?" Buffy asked.

"I've got a jeep; I can take it anywhere I need to go."

"Okay, I'll be back in a minute."

I watched her as she trotted down the hall and turned the opposite direction I'd come from, her cab must be outside the main entrance. I'd wondered how she'd found me but then figured she'd just checked with the MPs coming on the base, they'd give her both my quarters and office locations. But how the hell had she gotten here and what was she doing skipping school?

I shook my head and went back into my office. I put the file in my desk drawer and locked it and made a quick check of the other two desks, the ones the NAA engineers used, and nothing was out that shouldn't be. I got my leather flying jacket and cap and turned out the lights. I'd just locked the door when I heard footsteps coming back down the hall, I looked up to see Buffy turn the corner. I looked at her closer, she looked fresh scrubbed and her hair looked a little damp although that might have been from the rain outside.

"Buffy, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I told you, I thought it was time for a visit."

"But what about your school?"

She snorted, "Every once in a while even Leavenworth gives us a little time off for good behavior."

"Oh…"

She grinned at me, "We've reached our quarter break, that's what we call it. When the class was a year they gave the students a week after each quarter. One of the ways they shortened it was to take away those three weeks between quarters. We finished the first quarter exams on Friday and once the scores were posted if you weren't on academic probation you got a weekend pass."

"But how did you get here?"

"Oh, I needed to get some time in to keep my flying status current so I checked out a plane for a little cross-country flight and then the weather closed in and I had to land here. I notified them I would RON (Remain Over Night) here, the weather is supposed to break tomorrow afternoon."

I looked at her skeptically, "It's been raining all day, how did you get in?"

"There was a break in the clouds and I spotted the field, otherwise I would have had to stretch my fuel limits to get back to Kansas."

I looked at her skeptically, "Buffy, there's been a five hundred foot ceiling and solid overcast all day."

"Well… I thought I saw a break…"

"Jesus Buffy!"

"Hey! It's not like there are any mountains around here to run into! I let down slow through the overcast and if I hadn't gotten clear by the time I'd gotten down to 250 feet I would have just climbed out and gone back to Kansas!" I gave her as stern an expression as I could and she looked at me a little worried, "Barb, don't you want to see me?"

I relented and smiled at her, "Yes! It's great to see you!" I gave her another hug and she hugged me back, then I let go of her and stepped back and looked at her. After a moment a question came to me, "If you flew in what was with the cab?"

"Turned out I landed at Patterson, had to take a cab over here."

"So, where did you want to go?"

"I thought I'd take you out to dinner."

"Did you have anyplace special in mind?"

"I've heard the 'Top Hat' at the Biltmore is supposed to be pretty good."

I looked at her a little startled, "Pretty expensive!"

She shook her head, "I've been cooped up in the middle of Kansas for the last three months; money is not a problem. Besides, money shouldn't be a problem for either of us if we have a little bit of sense."

She was right but I hadn't broken out of the mindset I'd grown up with during the Depression. My family had never been poor, we always had the ranch outside of Sunnydale where I grew up, but there had been frugal times. Now the ranch was doing very well with the war going on and had been turning a healthy profit even after having to pay a manager to run it. Buffy had hardly touched the money Whistler gave her when she'd woken up in my orchard, over $30,000, and when we'd joined up she'd put the money in some investment accounts and it had grown substantially. I knew because when she created the accounts she'd put my name on them along with hers. I got the quarterly statements because I handled things like that, she'd just chuck them without ever looking at them. I'd tried to argue with her about putting my name on her accounts but she shut me down, since I'd put her name on the ranch a couple days before I didn't really have a leg to stand on.

I didn't think about it a lot but it brought to mind that our lives were deeply intertwined. We'd both named the other the beneficiary of our military life insurance policies, and we gave each other everything in our wills, neither of us had any other family. For all practical purposes our lives were as intertwined as a married couple, and knowing Buffy and her desires that was just the way she wanted our lives. As I thought about it I realized that that was the way I wanted them also. Whatever else happened I couldn't imagine, and certainly didn't want, a life without the little blonde in it.

"Earth to Barb, Earth to Barb - are you receiving?"

With a jerk I realized I'd been standing there daydreaming for quite some time, "Sorry… got lost in my thoughts."

Buffy nodded, "Top Hat okay with you? And are we dressed up enough?"

We were both in what I considered 'office' daily uniform, khaki slacks, shirt, and tie but in addition to our rank insignia on our collar points we had our ribbons and wings on our shirts. Our leather jackets had our rank insignia on the epaulettes and our wings and names embossed on a leather patch over our left breast, "Yeah, I think so. I've heard they've slacked off on the coat and tie requirements for service men."

"Well let's hope they've extended it to women too."

That brought a chuckle from me and I shook my head, "I need to stop by and let a couple guys know I'm heading out."

"Lead on."

We walked down the hall and turned down the main corridor toward the drafting room. I'd been trying to get a larger office, one big enough for all five of us but hadn't succeeded. As it was when they were done they'd have to bring all the drawings back to my office and secure them in the special plan's cabinet in the office. I'd given Joe, the senior draftsman, a set of keys so I didn't have to stay around for them but I wanted to make sure they were set and wouldn't need anything from me.

As we were nearing the door it opened and Joe started out, coming to an abrupt halt when he saw us, he looked worried, "Colonel, I think we might have a problem with that latest fix."

I waved him back into the room, "Let's take a look at it."

As I walked in I saw Charlie was at Joe's drafting table, studying the plans on it. He looked up as we came back in, "Yeah, Joe, it's a problem…" He broke off as he saw Buffy coming in after me.

Joe was in his early thirties, tall and lean, a committed bachelor with an eye always out for the ladies. Charlie was just out of high school, bright but very shy and Joe was always needling him about his lack of a girlfriend. A couple times so severely that I'd had to pull him aside and tell him to knock it off. They were both civilians, Joe had a bad knee and was exempt from military service. I'd gotten Charlie a draft exemption, over his protest but I told him he was too valuable to go off and fight. I'd had to warn him that if he went off and enlisted I would just have him back under orders within a week and he'd be doing the same thing at a lot lower pay. I don't know if I'd actually be able to do it but I would have given it one hell of a try.

Joe noticed Buffy but I don't think he really looked at her, certainly not enough to recognize her or realize she was a bird Colonel, "Hey, Charlie, here's a nice girl for you! Maybe a little young but if you ask her dad real nice he'd probably let you take her out, chaperoned of course!"

Charlie blushed bright red and looked at his feet, I could see Buffy staring at him in surprise, before things got too far out of hand I spoke up, "Joe, Charlie, I'd like you to meet my old CO, Colonel Buffy Summers." I stressed the 'Colonel' and Joe's eyes went wide in shock. I couldn't tell what Charlie thought, he was still looking at the floor.

Buffy stepped up to Joe and held out her hand, slowly he took it as she grinned up at him, "It's been a long time since I've had a chaperone, and longer since I've needed one."

"Uh… Sorry, ma'am"

Buffy turned her head to me, "Haven't you trained them?"

I shook my head, "I haven't even tried."

She turned back to him, "It's Buffy, or if you have to be all formal you can throw in a 'sir' now and then… but I'm not an old lady… some would say I'm not a lady at all."

Joe nodded his head silently as she let go of his hand and she stepped over to Charlie, he was looking up enough to see her although this head was still mostly bowed. When she held out her hand he took it, "Charlie, I don't bite."

He raised his head some more and looked at her, still blushing slightly, "Yes ma… sir, It's an honor to meet you."

I turned back to Joe, "What's the problem?"

He walked around to his drafting table and I followed behind, Charlie moved to the side a little to make room for us, "See here, where we've added the flap extension, I think there is going to be too much pressure when the flaps are fully extended for these to hold."

The problem we'd been trying to solve was a low speed stability issue. The aircraft we were designing was using a laminar flow wing like the P-51 but it had been swept back 15 degrees for better high speed performance. But it was turning out the configuration was resulting in a bad stability issue at landing speeds, at least in wind tunnel tests. The solution we'd come up with was based on modifying the flaps so that as they extended not only did they increase lift but they increased the wing area between the fuselage and the wing. We thought that should solve the stability issue but now that Joe had pointed it out I realized that the entire flap structure was going to be too weak. "Shit!"

Buffy had walked around and was looking at the drawings on Joe's table, you couldn't tell a whole lot looking at the detailed drawing of the flap area but on the top of his table he had a small drawing of the airplane we were designing. She had a slim, slightly triangular fuselage and narrow wings mounted low on the fuselage where it was widest. The wings were set well back, almost half the fuselage's length projected in front of the wings, the wings swept back and narrowed slightly toward the tips. Just in front of the wings was the cockpit covered with a bubble canopy that was a copy of the P-51s.

The strangest thing about her, compared to contemporary aircraft, was the placement of the engines - they were in nacelles mounted on either side of the aft fuselage between the wings and the tail. We didn't want the engines in the wing or hanging from it for two reasons, we didn't want the airflow around the wing disturbed by them and we didn't want the weight out on the wings. She had tricycle landing gear and the main gear was fairly widely spread, just outboard of them we had two hard points for ordnance or drop tanks. If we had mounted the engines on the wing that's where they would have had to go which meant we would only have the fuselage centerline hard point for external stores.

We'd thought about putting the engines in the wing roots but felt that would limit cooling and also take up space for fuel tanks. Fuel was a major concern, we knew she had to have long legs to fight in Europe and at the same time the fuel consumption figures we were getting from GE weren't very good; having the engines outside of the fuselage gave us more room for fuel tanks. Putting them in external nacelles also meant simplified access to them for maintenance and swapping out an engine would be almost trivial. Another advantage was that they were further from the ground, she sat level on the tricycle landing gear and with the engines up on the fuselage it lessened the chances of them picking up debris during take-offs and landings.

Mounting them on the fuselage had necessitated the other major difference; the horizontal stabilizer with its two elevators was mounted on top of the rudder, forming a 'T'. This kept the stabilizer and elevators out of the hot exhaust of the engines and away from the turbulence around the engines and coming off the wing. Wind tunnel tests were also showing us that we could use a smaller stabilizer than expected because it was in clean air, which meant she had a lower drag co-efficient.

Buffy whistled softly, "She's a pretty plane, but what are you guys doing?"

I looked at her and grinned, "Designing her."

"Designing her?!"

"Yeah, we're getting frozen out by regular design team so we thought we'd try it on our…"

I was interrupted by Charlie, "Wait a minute!" He grabbed a blank sheet of paper and quickly sketched a complex shape, "Colonel, I know you want to keep machined parts to a minimum, but if we machine a part like this out of round bar stock and fit it in here," he pointed with his pencil, "and have a corresponding piece on the flap slides like this…"

I watched as he added another smooth shape to his sketch, then tried to imagine the movement that was required of the flaps and it all fit together, Joe and I started nodding at the same time, "Yeah," Joe said, "machined out of a solid billet of aluminum, 2014 or maybe 2024, and it will be plenty strong enough. Make it just a little wider and we'd be able to get rid of this frame here and probably end up lighter overall."

I nodded in agreement, "Great idea, Charlie! Why don't you guys knock off and we'll finish up on Monday."

Joe shook his head, "No, skipper… We'll stay and get the drawings changed."

"Joe, it won't make a difference to the modeler."

"Yeah, but I want it done for the engineers to check Monday morning."

Charlie spoke up, "I'll do the detail drawing on the part; Joe can do the airframe modifications… It won't take us that long skipper."

"Okay, thanks," I dug into my pocket and got out my billfold and got out a twenty and put it on Joe's drafting table, "Dinner and drinks are on me tonight… thanks for the work and have fun."

Charlie grinned up at me, "Thanks, Colonel."

Buffy looked at the two men, "I see why she likes working with you guys." She looked back at the drawing on the top of his table, "She's a pretty little thing, looks like she'll fly well."

Joe grinned, "Just like you, ma… sir."

Buffy looked at him for a moment in incomprehension and then her jaw dropped and her eyes went wide with surprise, I couldn't completely suppress the laugh that came out and her expression hardened as she looked at me and then back to Joe. After a moment it softened again and she smiled at him, "Thank you… I'd take you for a ride but I'm not sure you'd survive…"

Now it was Joe's turn to look at her in shock, before it could escalate I interrupted, "Okay, you two, you could exchange barbs all night but I thought we had things to do. Buffy and I are going to head out, I'll be in tomorrow afternoon so if anything comes up leave a note on my desk. Buffy?"

She nodded, "Nice meeting you two."

"Night guys," I said as I led Buffy out of the office followed by Joe and Charlie's good-byes. We headed down the corridor toward the outer door. When I opened the door I could feel the chill in the air, it was almost dark and still raining lightly; everything glistened in the fading light. We stepped out onto the small porch and zipped up our flight jackets against the cold. "Buffy, are you sure you want to be heading off base? It's going to get awfully icy out there tonight."

"That's no problem; I've got a room, actually a suite, for us at the Biltmore."

I looked at her, "Extravagant aren't we?"

"Just want to treat my girl right."

"I'm not your…" I stopped myself; with Buffy gone I'd avoided the issue of our relationship. I still wasn't ready to make any decision, certainly not on a porch in the middle of an Army airfield on a cold and rainy night. Instead I decided to try to keep it light, "Are you trying to seduce me?"

She glanced around, the area was deserted and she turned back to me, "I'm always… I always want you, Barb. Tonight I was hoping that minimally I'd get to sleep with you… in the literal and not the colloquial sense, beyond that it is up to you. It's always up to you."

I looked down at her, "I'm sorry I'm being such a pill about this… maybe you should find someone else.

"Barb!"

"Okay… Yes, I'll sleep with you tonight." I left it at that, not clarifying what it meant because I wasn't sure what I meant, "Assuming, of course, that we survive the drive to the hotel."

"I'll drive!"

I looked at Buffy, "I said we needed to survive the drive to the hotel."

"Hey, I'm a good driver!"

I nodded in agreement; she was in all actuality a very good driver. Unfortunately her reactions were so fast that she was sometimes too much for the vehicle or the other drivers, I shook my head no, "Buffy, I told you I have a jeep."

She nodded reluctantly, she and jeeps did not get along very well, "Okay, you drive."

I tugged my cap down tight so it wouldn't come off and then headed out at a quick jog to a jeep parked half a dozen slots down the side of the building. All the other vehicles except for Joe's old Model T on the other side of my jeep were long gone. I opened the canvas door and climbed in; Buffy had run around the jeep and gotten in before I'd gotten halfway through the door, damned Slayer speed! It was cold and damp and the seats were like ice. I got out the keys and started the jeep, at least she started right away but I knew it was going to be a long time before the heater started producing anything but cold air.

Half an hour later when we pulled up to the front of the Biltmore the heat was just starting to remove some of the chill from inside the jeep. It was full dark and for the last five minutes I'd driven slowly as patches of ice had started to form on the streets, I was glad I wasn't going to have to go back out again tonight. I ignored regulations and gave the keys to the valet; if someone wanted to steal an Army jeep from the valet parking lot I figured they needed it more than I did. The valet wasn't much impressed with the ride I was giving him so I figured it was safe enough.

Buffy and I went through the doors and took a couple of steps into the lobby to get away from the draft and then we stopped and just enjoyed the warmth. "Barb, I think I understand why you spend all your time working. This is even more miserable than Kansas and I thought that was as bad as it could get!"

"But think, Buffy, in another couple of months it will be 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity, we'll be wishing we had this nice weather back."

She snorted and shook her head, "Why the hell did we ever leave California?"

"Buffy, it's all your fault!"

"Hey! If I remember correctly it was your idea to go and join the Army!"

"But it was your idea to take those planes to England. If we'd just stayed with ferrying we'd still be in LA."

"Yeah, but think of all the fun things we would have missed!"

I smiled at her, "Do you really want me to count all those fun things or do you want to go eat."

She looked at me with a serious expression, "You could get out anytime you wanted, Barb."

I shook my head, "I don't want out, I wouldn't have missed this for the world."

She smiled at me, "Okay… let's go eat."

We went across the lobby to the entrance to the restaurant, the maître de looked at us a little askance in our leather flying jackets but when Buffy pointedly looked at a couple of male officers similarly attired at a table in the dining room he seated us without anything more than a snooty look. The waiter on the other hand was quite eager to wait on us; considering the place was almost deserted he appreciated any business he got. Buffy ordered a bottle of wine which he went and got and then we put in our orders, a huge porterhouse for her and the small prime rib for me.

When we were alone Buffy spoke up, "So what's the story with you designing a new plane?"

"The design group I am supposed to be working with doesn't seem to have much use for my input; I've sort of given up trying to talk to those pricks."

Buffy's eyes went wide, and then she grinned, "Language, Barb!"

"I know very well what language I'm using, and it is accurate."

Buffy nodded, "Yeah, there are a lot of them around."

I nodded in agreement, "But my boss is pretty cool. We ran out of things to do with the Me-262s pretty quick, everyone grabbed the parts they were interested in and went back to their labs and disappeared. I went to him when I got frozen out and asked for a couple draftsmen so we could work on documenting the 262s, but after a couple days I realized that wouldn't accomplish much. Most of that information was already in the maintenance manual you got."

"So you started this project just to pass the time?"

"Not really, the design engineers are all Douglas; they're freezing everyone else out. North American sent a couple engineers but they weren't able to get any further than I was so we decided to try working together. It's been working pretty well so far."

"Any chance of getting her built?"

"If we can come up with a viable design North American is going to do a prototype on spec, they haven't been able to get any backing from the Army, sort of like they did the P-51. The General in charge of the design team, a two star named Pallett, is ex-Douglas, I think he's trying to keep it all tied up for his friends. We've got two major problems left; hopefully one if what we just came up with solves the problem we'd been working on. The other problem won't stop the prototype but I don't really want to go forward without it solved.

"What is it?"

"Armament," I replied.

"Armament?" Buffy asked, her eyebrows raising in curiosity.

The waiter came to our table at that moment and delivered our salads. We spent a couple minutes taking the edge of our hunger, when we were down to chasing the last lettuce leaves Buffy spoke up, "You were saying?"

It took a moment to get back to where we had left off, "Oh… we're having a tough time coming up with an effective set of guns. Initially I thought I'd just use the arrangement we used in the P-38s, a 20mm cannon and four 50s. But the problem is with the speed and range we're trying to get all those holes in the nose really create a lot of turbulence, the wind tunnel tests are showing about 30 knots and 10% increase in aerodynamic loss - way too much as far as I'm concerned."

"The wings are two thin and we don't want the weight out there, same reasoning as the engines. We've tried gun covers, but ones that would reseal after shooting are tough to make and I'd hate to see the effect if they didn't clear, the mess that would make would really screw up the aerodynamics. You'd be under halfway out by your fuel consumption and suddenly you'd lose so much efficiency you couldn't get back."

"What about cutting down on the number of guns?"

"We tried it, we'd have to go down to two to get the numbers in an acceptable range and that's just too little fire power. We've sort of back-shelved the problem until the ones stopping us from flying were solved but now that we've got them taken care of, I hope, we're going to have to figure something out or just take the hit. If we want to have any chance bucking the bureaucracy we're going to have to have a very good and complete package."

"Well, good luck…"

The waiter delivered our dinners and we ate in a comfortable silence until most of the food was gone. As usual Buffy's food had disappeared much quicker than mine. When she was down to trying to find the last nibbles of her steak on the bone I stopped eating long enough to ask, "So, how's school going?"

She looked across the table at me as I continued to eat, "Okay… Actually most of it is pretty interesting." She glanced around the room, no one was near us, then spoke more softly than normal, "I doubt if I'd have been able to hack it without Slayer stamina, but I'm getting a pretty good handle on it and it's starting to come easier."

"Missing some of the background?"

She nodded, "And having to double and triple check things to make sure I don't include something from my time."

I hadn't thought of that, she could get into real trouble if she inadvertently put down something that hadn't occurred yet, "Be careful, Buffy."

"Oh, don't worry, I am."

I finished the last of my dinner and took a sip of wine, "So how are you doing."

She grinned a little sheepishly and then held up two fingers, it took me a moment to realize what she was implying, "You're second in your class?!"

"Yeah, there's one guy who's a real egg-head and he nudged me out by .1 for the first quarter, but I'll get him before long… he doesn't have the background to keep it up as we get in deeper."

I smiled at her to make sure she didn't take it the wrong way, "And you do?"

"Yeah, I think I do. Between running the 101st and all the research I did under Giles I think I do."

"You can relate all that to what you're doing now?"

"Not directly, but it's more about figuring out the answer to the problem than looking up the answer. There was a lot of that in the first quarter but I think they'll be less looking up existing answers and more coming up with the answer, and I don't think he's going to beat me at that. Actually, I'm more worried about a couple guys further down the list in that respect."

The waiter was back at our table, "Dessert, ladies?"

I shook my head, "I'm not going to be able to eat at all tomorrow or I won't be able to get into my uniform."

Buffy shook her head, "I saw some ice cream sundaes on the menu?" He nodded, "chocolate on chocolate, please."

He looked at her in confusion, "What was that?"

"Chocolate syrup on chocolate ice cream, man!"

Now he looked at her in shock, I decided to help him, "She claims she has a sense of taste but no one has ever found any evidence of it."

"Yes ma'am," he said as he looked between the two of us.

"You don't have to eat it, just serve it." Buffy said as she glared at me, "besides, it keeps the mooches from stealing my ice cream."

Buffy talked some more about her school while she ate her dessert and then she signed the check and we headed up to her, our, room.

Hours later I came slowly awake, I was lying on my back on the bed, just a sheet covered us but I wasn't cold, I had a Slayer blanket over me. Buffy was lying on me, one of her legs between mine and her cheek resting on my upper chest. One of her arms was under me, her hand pressed flat against my back. Her other hand was cupping my left breast and her fingers were softly brushing my skin. My body was still spent from what Buffy had done to me, but a shudder of pleasure went through me when her finger tips brushed over my nipple. That must have been what had woken me but now my mind was awake.

"Sorry, Barb" Buffy's voice came softly out of the dark.

"Sorry for what?"

"For waking you up, I should have left you alone… it's just too tempting."

"Buffy, I'm happy to be awake. I want to spend as much time with you as I possibly can… I can sleep some other time."

Her fingers continued to massage my breast, I couldn't tell if I liked it or not, my body didn't seem to be responding to her. That didn't completely surprise me, it had already responded more times than I could count and at levels I didn't believe possible. "Buffy, I think you may have exhausted me, at least for a while."

Her fingers stopped moving and she cupped my breast in her hand, then snuggled against me, "Sorry, Barb."

"Quit saying you're sorry or I'll begin to think that what we've been doing for half the night is wrong!"

"Sor… I hope I didn't hurt you."

"Buffy, you made me feel the most incredible things I've ever felt. I know how much you love me, and I love you Buffy. More than I ever knew was possible. I just don't know how this is all going to work out."

"We'll find a way, Barb."

"I hope so… Buffy there are so many things that you can do… I don't want you to lose the opportunity to do them. There are also things I want to do… I'd hate to have to give them up. But, for me, if it came down to it I'd give up everything as long as we were together."

"Barb, we'll find a way for both of us to do what we want and we'll be together. We'll work something out. For now we'll take the times we can…"

I kissed the top of her head and then lay my head back down and let my mind drift while I enjoyed the feel of her against me. Time passed, five minutes or half an hour I wasn't really sure, when Buffy spoke again, "Gatling."

"What?"

"Gatling gun."

"Buffy you have me completely lost." She squirmed around and then she wasn't laying on top of me anymore, "Hey! Where's my blanket think she's going?"

Buffy chuckled and then the bedside light came on, I shut my eyes to block out the brightness. There was some more thrashing around and then I felt Buffy climb back on top of me, "You can open your eyes now."

I opened my eyes, a dim light filled the room, I glanced over and saw she'd thrown a pillow case over the light which reduced it to a more comfortable level. I turned my attention back to Buffy, she was lying on me; her chin held up in her hands, "You've heard of a Gatling gun."

"Yes, I've heard of a Gatling gun." One of the earliest types of machine guns, the six barreled Gatling gun had been invented sometime around the Civil War and had been used by the Army up until the turn of the century when more modern machine guns replaced it.

"That's what you should use in your plane."

"A Gatling gun?"

"A powered Gatling gun, you could get an incredible rate of fire out of one gun, and then you'd only need one gun port."

"Where the hell…" then I realized this must be something from the future.

"I don't know a whole lot about it but we've been studying a lot of the battles of the Civil War and the Indian wars. There were lots of debates and issues about the use and deployment of the new weapons and the Gatling gun was one of them. I did a paper on the conflict between Artillery and Infantry, Artillery wanted them classified as artillery pieces, but that kept them too far back from the front lines to be really useful as far as Infantry was concerned."

"Okay… and this is relevant how?"

"We've talked some about 'Top Gun'."

"Yes, I know you're in love with Tom Cruise."

Buffy wiggled against me, "I'm not in love with Tom Cruise. I'd just dreamed about riding his bone a lot."

"Buffy!?" I squeaked.

"That was past tense, Barb, now I dream about riding your fingers."

"Jesus, Buffy! TMI!"

"You're concerned about me talking about riding some guy's bone after all we've done tonight? Or is it that I dream about you?"

It wasn't a subject I really wanted to discuss, "No! I just don't… Let's get back to whatever point you were trying to make, not who you'd like to make love with."

"Oh, okay. So… back to 'Top Gun', I never realized it at the time but now that I'm a little more knowledgeable, I'm sure the jet fighters of my time were armed with Gatling guns. I remember in the movie there were some shots of them firing, it sounded like ripping cloth, not like a 50 or a 20mm cannon. I've tried to remember but it wasn't something I paid a lot of attention to but I think there was something about 6000 rounds per minute, and I think it may have been 20mm."

I thought about it for a minute, the cannon in our P-38s had been rated at 700 RPM, 6000 RPM would be better than having nine individual cannons, that was heavier armament than any fighter flying, even the 262s four 30mm couldn't throw that weight of projectiles. "Buffy, do you really think we could build a gun like that?"

She thought for a few moments, "I don't know… but I think they were around since the 60s, so I don't think it's a technical issue."

We lay together in our own thoughts for a couple of minutes; then her hands started to caress my breast again. I filed my ideas and concentrated on her, stroking her body, soon she slid up and her lips found mine. Neither of us got much sleep.