Return to Honor by Doug Beason Read Free Book Online Page B

shouldn’t he?” They stood by the jeep and turned back toward the TAV mock-up. Krandel’s driver stood at parade rest at the other side of the jeep, quietly ignoring the conversation.
    Weston put a foot up on the jeep and answered slowly. “Well, sir … I suppose so. But won’t you be going in with the rest of the battalion? They won’t be using TAVs to get to the combat area. My platoon is the only one that uses the TAV.”
    “There’s always a chance I could come with you.”
    Weston chewed on his lip. “You’re going to have to run through PLF training to get checked out first.”
    “Well, set it up. I want to be able to go with your squad tomorrow morning.”
    “Are you sure, sir?”
    “Look, Harv. If I’m going to have any credibility telling your men to risk their lives in a TAV landing, I’ve got to be able to do the same things they do.”
    Weston answered skeptically. “I understand. I’ll call HQ and have them ready the course. One hour?” Krandel nodded. Weston pulled out his cell and made his request. Finished, he clicked off the phone and said, “Let’s go on over, sir. They’ll be ready when we get there.”
    Krandel grunted his reply and climbed into the front of the jeep. Shaking his head, Weston climbed into the back and they sped off.
    Edwards Air Force Base, California
    The TAV crew chief leaned over the nose of the craft. Supported by an elevated roller, the master sergeant pulled back from the potpourri of electronic gear and wiped a hand across his brow. Even in the shade of the sprawling hanger the temperature climbed above one hundred degrees; the only respite was the relative absence of humidity.
    Major Robert Gould climbed up the shaky steel ladder to the top of the portable roller and squinted at the guts of the TAV. The heart and soul of the Trans-Atmospheric Vehicle lay in front of him. Mega myriad light fibers, some not more than fractions of an inch long, connected the brain of the TAV to the rest of the craft.
    Gould pulled his head out of the nose section and quizzed the crew chief. “Any idea on how much longer it’s going to take?”
    The master sergeant wiped his hands on his fatigues; the heat had forced him to strip down to a V-necked T-shirt. “No, sir. Depends if we can get the avionics hooked up.” He reached past Gould and grabbed a pack of cigarettes. He shook the pack and offered one to Gould. Gould shook his head. The sergeant took one out and stepped back from the equipment before lighting up, careful not to get any debris into the control system.
    Gould said, “What’s taking so long?”
    The crew chief drew on his smoke before answering. He pointed with his cigarette. “See them fibers, sir?”
    Gould glanced at the spaghetti mess of color-coded wires. “Yeah.”
    “Well, when we finally tracked down that glitch you found, Material Command let a contract with MacDac to upgrade the avionics to fiber optics. They tore out all the electrical wiring and replaced it with those fiber bundles—after, of course, they sold the air force a couple of million-dollar conversion units to transmit and receive the light impulses. The light fibers are EMP-proof; that way you won’t have to worry about your baby going down in a nuke war—as if we’re ever going to have one. Anyway, Material Command knew that AMC would never have grounded their TAVs to install the upgrade. So when we brought the birds in to find the glitch, the engineer types jumped all over us, wanting their new bells and whistles installed.”
    “Great.” Gould pulled back and moved to the side of the roller. The gashes where the JATO units could be attached barely disrupted the sleek aerodynamic lines of the craft. Even though the crew chief seemed optimistic, it seemed that more and more problems kept popping up. Gould was getting frustrated. Flying was his job—not waiting around for some newfangled engineering gizmo to adorn his craft.
    Gould had lobbied Colonel Mathin and had managed