Josiah West 1: Kaleidoscope (15 page)

CHECK RIDES

“It was so easy.” Nora was practically bouncing around their room.

It’s a good thing she’s not a coffee freak.

She finally dropped into the other chair, “They’re, basically, a good group with a couple of organizational and procedural mistakes, but as I suspected from reading the file, they need higher rated pilots.” She smiled and pushed a data pad along the desk, “Here are the files and log entries on four people there that look like candidates for an upgrade. I told them we would be there at 0700 tomorrow and to have these people ready for your gentle touch. You will wear your whites with all of your medals and ratings to properly impress them and I will wear greens because I will be working in the trenches again.” She had a smug smile.

“And just how easy did they think it was to get a staff officer and CI to come when you wagged your
little finger?”

She still kept the smug expression, “Oh, they have no idea who’s coming. I just wandered out on the flight line and called Ally to see how things were going and show off my staff officer shoulder boards. I took my time, and then I sternly advised them that I had managed to divert an instructor from his current assignment for one day of training and check rides. I ordered these four to hit the books tonight. How am I doing?”

She had what he could only think of as a happy puppy smile on her face. Josiah’s expression was not so happy, “Depressingly well, it seems, 0700, huh?”

“I told Sam that we would need the Falcon ready by 0615. Oh, I have something for you.” She pulled a chip case out of her pad pouch and inserted it into the desk work station. A video and audio recording from the Falcon’s two, port side, external pickups started playing.

He switched from one to the other and zoomed in for a close look at the expressions on the faces of the six people that met her at McCord. By the time he had finished a detailed study, he had an approving smile on his face, “Perfect, absolutely perfect!” he froze the image from the bow pickup and pointed along the tops of their heads, “It looks like you might have been close to the tallest one there, and it’s really easy to see from their expressions that they just saw a Goddess grace their presence. You know, your greens aren’t anywhere near skintight, but it’s more than obvious that you’re not one of the boys. I hope you kept up the intensity and mystery all day.”

“Oh, yes! I just made glancing references to my ‘special’ assignment whenever the subject came up. I went so far as to let slip that the head of Westland Flight Systems had personally called Admiral Jacks and requested my presence.”

Josiah’s mouth fell open, “You didn’t!”

Nora got defensive, “I did, and it wasn’t like I was lying.”

“I know it wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie; I’m just shocked at your ability to convert the truth into such a staggering whopper.”

Josiah reached and took both of her hands in his, “Have I mentioned that I love you?”

She sat up straighter and got a wide-eyed, blank expression on her face. She managed to whisper, “No.”

“Well, I do; get used to it.” He stuck his nose up and sniffed, “Dinner’s ready.”

Nora was quiet on the way down stairs and still had that soft, wide-eyed expression every time she looked at him over the dinner table.

Sam always looked the same no matter how long he had been working or what infernal hour it was, “Hi, kid!” He held out the ground inspection release data pad for Josiah to sign off on.

Josiah just waved him away, “Get away from me; she’s PIC.”

He had been getting used to not having to report for duty until 0900. Looking at a sun that was only a little above the horizon was annoying. Still, it beat shipboard duty where there were no cool morning breezes and the sunlight was artificial.

Sam handed the pad to Nora as Josiah entered the Falcon, “You shouldn’t keep him up so late.”

She signed the pad and gave him a slightly embarrassed smile, “It wasn’t, entirely, my idea.”

There were ten people waiting when they touched down, “I get a bigger crowd; I must be more important than you.”

“The four on the left are yours; the other six are mine.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

Josiah stopped at the hatch before opening it, “I have been advised by more than one person that our interaction comes across as being on a somewhat intimate level. Let’s do our best to keep it official and sterile.”

“Oh, they’ve noticed, huh? Ok, sir, open the hatch.”

It was pretty obvious that he was well beyond what they had expected. After returning the surprised salutes he shook Ridge’s hand, “Commander Ridge, I’m Josiah West; I’m Admiral Jacks’ personal shuttle pilot. It appears that,” he cast a slightly annoyed glance at Nora who, pointedly, did not see it, “Lieutenant Parente has managed to find something for me to do while the Admiral recovers from his latest regen session and my duties are lighter than normal. To be honest, it has been awhile since I have had the opportunity to do some training and check rides, so it wasn’t really too hard to get me here.”

Ridge’s smile had a tinge of relief in it, “I think it’s easy to see that we weren’t expecting anyone like you, but we are pleased beyond words to have you here.” Ridge turned and waved a hand at the four people standing at the side of the group, “Let me introduce you to your class.”

It was 2320 as Nora eased the Falcon into the hanger. Sam was still there and closed the door behind them; he was waiting at the steps when they exited, “Hi, kids, how’d it go?”

Josiah gave Sam a tired look, “If I ever agree to something like this again, someone shoot me.”

Nora turned an annoyed look on him, “Don’t be so crabby, you did a wonderful job.” She turned to Sam as they headed for the door, “He got all four of them a boost in their ratings and gave them a week’s worth of training. He even held an informal class during lunch, and by mid-afternoon he had drive and systems people following him around while he told them about some of the things you do here.” She grabbed Josiah’s arm with both of hers and smiled at him, “Commander Ridge was totally flabbed at what we did for his group, and he told me he was going to let Admiral Jacks know how grateful he is for sending us.”

All Josiah could mumble was, “Sixteen hours.”

“It was fifteen and a half; don’t exaggerate.”

Allea, his Mother and a dozen other people had come out on Sunday afternoon to see them off. Josiah was reduced to relative unimportance as he stood in the shade of the Falcon’s starboard stub wing with his Father and Sam, “Dad, it’s nice that you invited Marty and his family to come and meet Nora.”

“I didn’t invite them.” He gave Josiah a resigned look, “Since word got around, it’s made me regret not charging admission. I have this creepy feeling that everyone knows about that ring in your pocket except Nora.” His expression took on a serious cast, “Have you made a final decision?”

“Oh, maybe; maybe not.”

Paul would have pushed it further except that Nora and her entourage were approaching. Josiah got in one quick questioning look at Sam, “All loaded, kid.”

His Mother separated Nora from the crowd and gave her a kiss on the cheek, “Nora, I will be very unhappy if you don’t make plans for coming back here.”

That statement would seem to have been intended only for Nora, but Josiah knew it was aimed right at him. Nora compounded his discomfort with a questioning look over her shoulder, “I suppose that depends on who invites me.”

PICNIC

She was still smiling at him as she brought the reactors up off idle. Josiah tapped a set of coordinates into the nav system, “Get a free-flight clearance, and go here.”

She looked at the latitude and longitude he had entered, “That…looks like southwest
Arizona.”

“The
Painted Desert National Park, to be exact.”

“You want me to land on a mesa?”

He pointed to a small isolated mesa at their two o’clock, “That one looks good.”

Confusion was back in her head as she settled the Falcon onto the top of a vertical piece of real estate that was about the size of a hikiball field.

“Advise ATC that we are down for systems check and evaluation, and shut it down.”

Josiah opened the rear hatch and then one of the storage compartments. The first thing he took out was a green case. He stuck the sharp probes of each of the ten devices that it contained into the ground, and turned them on. When he was finished, they formed a rough circle around the Falcon. Nora came and sat on the steps, “Why are you putting shriekers out?”

He went past her and got more stuff out of the compartment, “Because we are having a picnic, and I do not care to invite the local critters.”

He laid out a large blanket in the shade of the stub wing and put the two baskets on it. He walked over to Nora, bowed, and held out his hand, “If the lovely lady will join me.”

She had a shy grin as she placed her hand in his, and he helped her off of the steps. “Thank you, sir; I would love to.” As she sat and crossed her legs, she looked around at the stark, spectacular scenery and the overall improbability of the situation, “How much does a Falcon cost?”

“Huh?” He looked up from the basket he was pulling things out of and looked at the ship they were sitting next to. He returned his attention to the food, “Fourteen mil, give or take.”

“And you’re using it to take your girlfriend on a picnic in a National Park that is off limits to air and ground traffic? What would the taxpayers think?”

He smiled and tapped the red on his left shoulder as he handed her a plate, “Many things are possible, besides, my parents are taxpayers; they packed the baskets.”

Two hours later, they were lying with their heads propped up against a large blanket roll watching the colors in the land before them intensify as the sun neared the horizon.

“I’ve received orders.”

It took a moment. Nora, abruptly, sat up. The confused look was back, “WHAT? How could you get orders? You work for the Admiral. Where are you going?”

Josiah sat up and crossed his legs. He got her to cross hers so she was right in front of him. He took both of her hands in his; she had a very worried look on her face.

“Actually, the orders are from Allea and my parents.”

If she had looked confused before, there was no describing this expression.

Josiah reached into his right breast pocket and palmed the ring, “Allea has always wanted a big sister, and my parents are near fanatical about having you as a daughter-in-law.” He opened her left hand and slid the spectacular and glittering, twin spectrum ring onto her finger; he looked into her dark, wide eyes, “And I have lost the ability to imagine a day without you. Lady Nora Parente, will you marry me?”

“I…I…ah….”

She was near gasping for breath; he started to wonder if she was going to pass out, “I believe it is customary at this point to provide the gentleman with…”

“YES!” And she jumped him.

The sun was halfway below the horizon when she calmed down enough to look at the ring, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s a custom job. Remember Marty Napoli and his family?”

She nodded, “The jewelers…oh!”

“Right, it was a special project that he had been planning for decades.”

Josiah explained the history of the stones in the ring and how the wedding band would fit. When he was finished, she thought for a few seconds before asking the obvious question, “It’s not
important to me, but how much does something like this cost?”

He told her. Maybe he shouldn’t have told her

By the time he got her breathing normally again, there was only a blue glow where the sun had been, and the stars were filling the sky; one bright spark of light in the northern sky shown like a beacon. They both watched the abandoned Hahn-Wright Survey Station pass above them until it lost the light of the setting sun.

AFTERMATH

Tuesday, 8 September 2133:
2240 hours Uniform Time (UT).

Silence…total…black…peaceful…silence….

There was no sound…no feeling…no pain…no thought…there was just…drifting…peaceful…silence….

???...”Cĭ jiān, cĭ jiān”…pain…darkness…silence…

PAIN…”Easy, easy”…pain…”West, if you can…”…darkness…peaceful…

The smell of his Mother’s meatloaf filled his lungs and mind as he walked along the path that went around the low hills between the Westland plant and his home. The stream that flowed next to it was as clear and calm as ever. Half way there, he stopped to pick a juice block from the cooler cabinet in Mister Seymour’s store. It was nice of Mister Seymour to move the drink cooler out to the path because the path seemed extra long today.

He sat down on the steps in front of Mister Seymour’s store and
watched…

S
omething touched his right arm; there was nothing there.

Pain…PAIN.