Star Girl (12 page)

“What?”

“This must be some kind of joke the Colonel’s playing.”

I am in my dress uniform, skirt, and several of them can’t keep their eyes off my legs, at all.

“How old are you sweetie?” The oldest looking asks me sincerely.

I take a deep breath and grow a fierce look. If they want to make me mad, it’s working. “Gosh, I’m twenty three and a half now, grandpa!”

They all looked shocked for a split second, and then they bust up laughing hard.

“Oh lord, what is become of my precious four sixty first?” One guy howls at the ceiling.

“Time out fellows! Time out!” One of them calms the others. “I don’t know if any of you boys have noticed yet, but our pretty young Captain here is wearing a damn Silver Star gentlemen!”

They all come right over to me to verify this, and I feel like a monkey at the zoo.

“Don’t touch grandpa!” I slap a couple of the fellows’ hands away.

“Please accept our sincerest apologies Captain Romero, it is just that we have never seen any pilot be assigned to us younger than thirty. You must have done something really deserving to be here. Please let us welcome you to the Four Sixty First.”

They all cheer, and say congratulations again, as if I had just won the lottery or something. I guess maybe I did.

          The man who first saw my decoration invites me for a drink at the bar as all the other fellows gather around me.

“Hey Beck, where you going?” One shouts.

“I got to go tell the Colonel how you guys reacted, he wanted to know. That was so great.” He laughs as he leaves.

“I think he’s my ride.” I muse.

“You never have to worry about that here Captain, or can we dispense with the formalities in the lounge here. I’m Dan Greenly, I’m a Colonel for outside the lounge.”

“I’m Stephanie, Dan. Pleased to meet you.” I give him a sturdy hand shake, or my version of one anyway.

          All the other fellows introduce themselves, and their rank lastly for outside. There are two full bird Colonels, three Lieutenant Colonels, and two Majors. I am the lowest rank. The next youngest to me is in their mid-forties I swear. Talk about being out of place.

“You will have the duty from Friday to Sunday Stephanie, the rookie always pulls the weekend duty. It will stay like that until the next one of us either retires, or is promoted to general. No generals allowed in the club.”

“No generals!” Several of the others cheer.

“So, what is the duty like?” I ask.

“On test days you will fly experimental aircraft as requested to do. Otherwise on duty days you are free to indulge as you wish, minus the booze of course.”

“Not a problem.” I have barely touched the scotch I was poured.

“The rest of the time, welcome to club paradise lady!” He starts laughing and they all join in.

          “So please do tell us how you earned that shiny star there Stephanie.” Dan points to my chest.

So I tell them the story, and they are all silent as I do, with widening eyes. I leave out the part about being raped, as I don’t really want them to know that.

“You took a missile for your wingman, I’ll be damned. That sure does qualify you for that wonderful medal. I know I sure wouldn’t do that for any of these jokers.” He chuckles.

“Ditto.” Another laughs back.

I start to feel right at ease now among these guys, and they sure have warmed up to me it seems.

“What birds can I qualify on here Dan?”

“You name it.”

“A Falcon?”

“Sure. You’ll love that little hot rod.”

“How about a one seventeen then?” I throw the gauntlet down.

“Yup. We have one of the prototypes still, but it has been upgraded with all the production goodies.”

“No kidding?”

“It’s a true dog though. However just let anyone of us know when.” Dan shrugs. “We even have quite an assortment of oldies but goodies that might catch your fancy as well.”

“Like what?”
“One oh fours, one oh sixes, Phantoms, one elevens, and we even have an operational Blackbird too. There’s more, we’ll show you.”

“A seventy one, I am so down!”

“That means she likes it fellows.”

“You will have to play our war games with us too Stephanie, but you’ll like them.”

“What, like Red-Flag type stuff?”

“Exactly. We enjoy the hell out of mock dogfighting, so we do it a lot.”

“Count me in.”

“Good, you will take the place of General Hough on the red team.”

“A damn red? Really? Whatever. Are we the bad guys I suppose?” That really gets them all busting up, but I don’t understand why.

“There are no good guys and bad guys Stephanie, just live guys and dead guys.”

“Reality it is then.” I nod.

“Tomorrow morning we have a game mission Steph, can I call you Steph?”

“Please.”

“Now you are qualified on what exactly, so we know how to fill the sorties.”

“The Raptor, the Phantom, the Eagle, and the T one so far.”

“Let’s put her in a Phantom Dan.” Ed Corker a Lieutenant Colonel suggests.

“That suit you Steph?”

“Love it.” I grin.

“Good, because we all love to go nostalgic with our wars.”

“We need to qualify her on the other oldies quickly.” Ed insists.

I nod with a huge smile. “I’m game fellows.”

“You’ll fit right in Stephanie.” John Douglas pipes up, he’s the other full bird colonel.

“I’ll drink to that.” I raise a toast, and they all join me with rowdy cheer.

          After a couple drinks Dan calls a car for him to take me to chow in. The driver drops us at the front of what looks like a posh restaurant, and it is! We are seated immediately as though they were waiting for us, and soon the other fellows show up and take nearby tables. A wonderful, and elegant five star dinner is served without delay. They even have some vintage wine for us. I did win the lottery! Big time! It freaks me out that no bill is presented at all, and it is explained that this is just another amenity, though they did have the welcome dinner pre-ordered.

          I am escorted back to the BOQ by Dan, and he bids me to sleep well, and be ready to get my ass shot off in the morning. Before I shower and hit the rack, I e-mail Major Hanford, and tell her all the wonderful things that this place offers. After my shower I have a return e-mail from her.

To: Captain S. Romero USAF.

From: Major S. Hanford USAF.

RE: Good to hear from you.

          Hi Captain, I got your e-mail, and will read it to the squadron our next duty day. I can tell that things must not be all that great just by how good you made them sound; no way! I’m sorry baby. Give it some time and maybe it will get better. Until then I will be thinking well of you, as always.

With love, your second mom.

          It makes me laugh out loud. She doesn’t believe me. Ha! I guess that what I fell into here, is pretty hard to believe after all. In the morning the front desk wakes me with a call explaining that the van to our aircraft will be boarding in an hour. I get my flight gear together and my suit on and I go wait down in the main lobby for the van. The hospitality expert there at the desk serves me a wonderful cup of coffee. I see the other pilots come down after a while, and the van pulls up right as they exit, they motion me to follow them. We fill into the van and are driven to our flight line.

“I hope you are ready to show us what you got Captain.” Dan grins.

“Or get your tail waxed!” Ed laughs boisterously.

They are all quite different looking than the evening before, and in their flight suits they look like respectable veteran pilots, not a failed band of beach bums.

“You’ll be on the F four as we decided captain, but you won’t have a back-seater with you. All the combat will be with simulated heat seekers, and simulated cannon fire, so you can handle it from the front seat alone.”

“How do we simulate the fire sir?”

“We have the same pods they use in Red-Flag. We did help develop them, so we kept some.” He shrugs.

          We get to our planes at the refueling revetments and Lieutenant Colonel Corker comes up to me. “You are on our team Captain, red team. Here is your flight map, and our mission plan.” He hands me an old school map, and explains the parameters to me. I am his wingman of the two flights of our team. It is a simple air superiority mission at medium altitude, which is sure to get low and nasty.

“What’s the hard deck sir?” I need to know.

“When you crash into the ground, you have found the hard deck Romero. We’re test pilots, we ain’t scared.” He grins.

          Once in the air, and the engagement has begun, I find that I am in the midst of seven expert pilots like Colonel Tucker was. I get shot down rather quickly, as the Phantom sure isn’t as maneuverable as the Raptor is.

“RTB Captain, see you in a while.” Ed radios as they are all still busily engaged in mock combat. That was fun, I am so going to love it here, and I am going to be unstoppable by the time they are done with me.

          One by one the others wander into the pilot’s lounge where the ground crew told me to wait. Each one was the next in line to be killed. They even keep intricate track of the running tallies.

“Don’t worry about getting waxed Steph. We all get it eventually.”
“I’m not. That was so much fun! I am going to get so damn good under all of you.” I laugh.

“That’s the spirit pilot!” Ed nods.

          The very next day Ed asks me if I would like to qualify on the one oh four Starfighter. I don’t even have to answer, my wide eyes say everything. He takes me out to one of the four Starfighters they have, and gives me ground school the old fashioned way. With me sitting in the cockpit as he teaches me all the controls. I actually learn it almost instantly with his expertise. Within an hour he chuckles at me after I answer every question he tosses at me.

“Okay test pilot. Why don’t you give it a test flight then?”

“Seriously, just go for it?”

“You are a test pilot aren’t you? Just remember the ungodly high stall speed on those stubby excuses for wings. The landing will be hot, so use your drag chute.” He steps down the boarding platform, and signals the ground crew to wind me up.

          This is a first, and I am slightly nervous; I just sat down in this bird an hour ago. Sure I had taken to the Eagle seemingly just as quickly, but I had numerous hours in the simulator beforehand, and dad had the controls if needed. The single J seventy nine engine that I am just about sitting right on top of whines to life, and I close the canopy as I give the throttle just enough to get me rolling. This thing is just a cockpit stuck on the massive engine, and tiny little wings added making it look more like a missile than an aircraft. When I punch it, the tiny thing lurches wildly forward as it is so light, and I scream down the runway. It takes way longer to get it airborne than what I have experienced yet. But once I am in the air, the missile plane is not bad at all, just a little slow to turn, but damn is it fast.

          I take the hour plus time of fuel I have to play with the bird and get to know her. I like this plane, at high speeds it competes, but lose air speed and it is a dog. It lands very hot too, and I use the drag chute to slow me down on the runway. Ed is waiting for me in the air conditioned SUV. I join him and we drive off.

“I think all the fellows are at the lounge, if you want to join us Captain.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world sir.”

          I have been living the life of absolute luxury here at Edwards now for three months. I have had to actually perform a few brief test flights of the ATF, which will be designated as the F thirty five Lightning two. The contactors who built the bird give me a ground school for a week before I even sit in the cock pit. Another three full days of instruction there and I finally fly the bird. It’s much easier than they made it out to be. By now the old honchos have qualified me on the Starfighter, the Delta Dart, and the old F one oh five too. The new ATF, or F thirty five Lighting II is not hard for me to control at all, and I soon become one of the go-to pilots on it. We test fairly regularly, though we still have so much down time.

          In all our mock war games I have only shot down two of the old honchos, and have been shot down too many times to count, but I am getting better. It just seems that these veterans always have one more card up their sleeves than I do. My life has become a beautiful pattern of flying, and luxury the likes of which I have never experienced before. Major Hanford and my family back in New Mexico still don’t believe I am living the life of Reilly. They think I am just trying to make them feel better about me being gone, or something.

          Soon though my hormones start to rage again, but this time like I have never felt before. I have to do something, and quickly. So I borrow the Phantom and fly into LA just a few minutes away. From LAX, where I put my plane on standby in the Air force hangar, I call a cab. The guards at the small gate almost choke at how tiny my dress is, I just smile at them. Once in the cab and on our way; I ask him to take me to the finest lesbian bar or night club in town. He says he knows just the place. It is after dark when we get there, and I get his card from him so I can call him directly for a return trip.