***A long time ago, I saw a documentary about a tribe of people on an island in the Pacific. They'd lived simple lives until World War II, when an army came to occupy the place. The tribe suffered and prayed to their deity, and as if in answer to their prayers, huge birds glided down out of the sky and disgorged men who fought the other men and defeated them. Even more, those friendly and kind men provided food from metal containers and medicine to heal the sick and injured among them. Then the mysterious saviors left.
For the next 30 years, those islanders worshiped large idols of the huge birds who had brought the other men and they prayed for their return.
That's what inspired me a little in this chapter. It has nothing whatsoever to do with history or any actual events in the past.
So we turn westward once more to the ruins of Lozenjellis. It's a rather dark place now.
But there are bright spots - if you look really hard. 0_o
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Book of the Merren Part 16
He lifted off slowly in just the way that it irked him to do it. He'd never throw the throttles to the stops and blast away as if he was back at a forward operating base or in a hot landing zone, but these 'regal' liftoffs and climb-outs were just wasting fuel cells to his mind. It bothered him to no end working at this job. But his meal ticket insisted on 'majestic' handling whenever he was aboard.
Tirran sarcastically translated the term in his mind for the hundredth time, adding the Merren's tired and creaky voice to it as a soundtrack.
"'Majestic handling' means take off and fly so smoothly near the ground and at slow speed so that I can look out of the window and not fear to spill a drop of the expensive and hard to obtain liqueur that I like to sip while my latest trophy pretends to enjoy sucking my withered old stick -- and The Balance save you if I actually get hard and you do anything after she climbs on, because if you do anything to upset that blessed event, I will see to it that you fly refuse trips for the rest of your worthless life."
The military Xer pilot kept stealing glances at the camera feed from the passenger compartment. If he saw this fucking miracle beginning to happen, he'd make sure that he'd magically encounter enough turbulence to cause the Merren ex-dancer and part-time whore to end up across the cabin with a broken arm and cracked ribs.
Just like the last one.
He was sarcastic and irreverent in his dealings with his assignment -- knowing just how much insubordination to toss into it at all times. They hated each other.
He'd spent his teenage years in the flight academy, pulling top scores every inch of the way, two more years in combat flight training and three tours in the duty. He'd flown it all, from transport to interception to heart-stopping 'ground-pounding' as the close air support role was termed. But the wars were dying down for a time as they always did now and then. Faced with too many pilots, there had been cuts made and though he couldn't prove it, Tirran knew who it had been that had ended his combat ride.
He'd been summoned to an office in a part of his unit's headquarters where he'd never been before for a meeting. It wasn't usually where the kiss-off came, but ...
He'd been told that he would be remaining on-strength but that he was being assigned to 'indefinite special duty', some of it covert and the request had been for him alone by name. If he accepted this assignment, he would be as classified as the missions so that meant that he was not to associate with anyone on the base. He couldn't understand that, but he went along with it because he had to. Any other answer but 'yes' would see him out on the street like so many other ex-pilots and Tirran needed to fly.
The 'Top-Secret' assignment had turned out to be flying an old hack Merren bureau chief around as his personal pilot for the most part. He'd been recommended when the Merren government minister had asked for the best. That meant little to Tirran's CO. He was another jock in a too-full crayon box and while Tirran really was his best fast-mover pilot, he'd also become a bit of a problem.
Tirran liked males, and his CO found a latent desire for the young officer within himself. It had gone on for half a cycle and had to end sometime. The CO had a career to protect and a wife who knew nothing of her husband's predilections. He was looking for a way to break this off which offered better odds that his young lover might survive, though he knew that Tirran would never have understood.
"It's the best I can do for you," the CO had said, "This way, you'll still get your rate and some hefty hazard pay because if something goes wrong - unless you manage to set it down near our units anywhere, there's nobody gonna come and get your ass out of the sling. There's even a bonus for every landing - if it's anything like you'd call hazardous, and that's up to your judgement alone since you're the crew.
Look, just fly this ticket wherever the hell he wants to go, because unless there's a war soon, when this ride ends, you're looking for another job so bank your pay while you're making good gold."
When the senior officer tried to explain why he was ending their relationship, Tirran's face had turned to stone as he stood waiting for his commander to finish speaking before he said a very cold thank you and saluted by the book, saying that he'd take the ride. Tirran had walked away then with something and someone else to hate.
The ride turned out to be a bit of a surprise in itself. It was a Xer frigate, almost new but retired and pulled out of the line of a rather covert squadron for this. It had been refitted and modified for single pilot operation, though the co-pilot's seat was still there. As it sat, it was all-business, a rather large but very capable hot-rod, stripped down to save mass and this variant had been made to engage multiple threats with ease - if one could survive the gut-wrenching and vision-darkening moves that a pilot like Tirran could put it through. That was why he'd been amazed to see one like this in the first place. This variant was classified out the ass. He'd heard of them - but he'd never seen one until then.
All of the insignia and unit markings were gone and it sat alone in a guarded hangar in new paint, as dull and black as a piece of bituminous coal -- looking as though it absorbed the light around it. Tirran had stared and wondered just who the fuck this old weasel was that he could command something like this to happen. As he'd stepped aboard, the first thing that he's done was look at the weapons compartments. He'd felt his jaw fall open then.
A Xer frigate for him to fly, armed and carrying a light combat load. No bombs of course, but there were missiles on the racks in the compartments, mostly what he'd have called defensive capability. The retracted gun pods weren't empty either.
