Steel Walls and Dirt Drops by Alan Black Read Free Book Online Page A

another of his dazzling smiles and continued. “I don’t want to come across too harsh on our first day together, but my people tell me that you came aboard almost four hours ago. Why is it that you are just now presenting yourself to the vessel commander?” Before she could answer, he continued as the smile slid off his face. “No, please don’t interrupt. I really do think we should adhere to military courtesy between services. I am the captain of this vessel and its senior officer. I realize you are not of FAC crew caliber, but surely even APES report in when deploying to a new command. Perhaps you could explain yourself to me and my staff.”
    Misha looked at Britaine and his assembled staff. She wondered if he was joking or serious. The return looks she got from the men and the women in the room varied enough to not provide any clues to Britaine’s sense of humor. She was sure some of the officer’s expressions were well practiced poker faces.
    “With all due respect, Colonel -” Misha began.
    Britaine snapped back, “Whoa! Hold on there, APE. I truly hate it when I hear a sentence beginning with ‘all due respect’. It is an inevitable indication that I am going to hear something I don’t like. Are you certain you want to continue in that manner?”
    She began again, deliberately keeping her temper in check, “Yes, Colonel Britaine. With all due respect -”
    Britaine held up a hand for her to stop and said coldly, “Enough, girl. Let me make this clear to you. This is a direct order. No embellishments, no ‘with all due respect’ excuses, no extenuating circumstances. You will come to attention as befits who I am. You will apologize for your discourtesy to me. And yes, I see your fine pretty little ribbon on your chest. Giving an Aires medal to a ground pounder is like feeding fine earth caviar to an enlisted man.” He looked over his shoulder for his officer’s agreement.
    Misha slowly counted to ten, very slowly. Then looking Britaine directly in the eyes, while remaining at a comfortable at-ease stance, she counted to ten again. Inter-service relations were often strained, but she was sure relations on this craft would get real tense if she pounded this arrogant cretin. She was even pretty confident she would come out ahead if she took on this whole bunch of flight weenies in unarmed conflict.
    Most of all, Misha decided she was not going to kowtow to this petty tyrant. She had met his type many times before. They called themselves flight jocks. They were men and women who would take their tiny and deadly fast attack craft (FAC) into one on one space bound dogfights against an enemy FAC or even larger transport craft or motherships like the Kiirkegaard. To Misha, it was crazy work. Sure, she fought inside a tin can, much like FAC jocks, but she fought sensibly on the ground in an atmosphere where if, gods forbid, something goes wrong, at least she could breath.
    As a rule AMSF promoted pilots into command positions and pilots promoted other pilots who in turn promoted more pilots. Many command level officers continued to fly their FACs into combat. They left control of their motherships to junior ranking flight crew, often rotating control to give them each the experience of commanding one of the large spacecrafts they called trash haulers.
    A FAC jock’s rally cry was “If you ain’t a pilot, you ain’t shit.”. This seemed to fly in the face of logic. It caused many of them to treat their mechanics, engineers, and weapons technicians as serfs or second-class citizens. It was the height of foolishness to insult, even by omission, the very people your life might depend on when you went into combat. She decided it would be prudent to never get into a small craft piloted by Britaine. It might not be safe due to equipment malfunctions of the preventable sort.
    Misha thought briefly about her earlier rampage through the APES held parts of the craft. It might have ruffled a few feathers, but she