Devon's Blade Read Free Page A

had decent records at the Academy and were near the top of their classes in flying aptitude. Trouble seemed to start after they got into theater and started flying against the real enemy. This was not uncommon for a small percentage of the pilot community, what was uncommon was how many cases like this there were in one squadron.
    The previous commander was an outstanding leader and a hardened veteran from what I could tell. He started to turn around the squadron’s combat record until he and about five other pilots were all killed during a single engagement with the enemy. His replacement obviously didn't want the job and couldn't wait to leave.
    There were obscure mentions of an enemy ace that had come onto the scene about that time and as a result, many pilots had refused to fly against him. Not hard to imagine when one in every three Alliance pilots who engaged the enemy didn’t come back.
    I poked around the squadron databases for Intel on this enemy ace and couldn’t come up with anything useful. They called him various names including; the Red Ace, Blue Bastard and Kron. His KiV-3 was reportedly painted all red so everyone knew who he was. I dug through gun camera footage and was able to find only one short clip of the red KiV diving away out of sight. I paused it and tried to zoom in on the fighter to see if it was anything other than a standard enemy fighter. It was silhouetted against the blue sky but didn’t have any modifications that I could tell. He was probably just a damn good pilot.
    I got up and took my empty water bottle out into the briefing room to refill it. Several pilots were standing at the sortie board talking quietly amongst themselves. They saw me, but didn’t engage. I filled my bottle and went back into my office without a word.
    Outside I could hear several fighters landing from the afternoon mission. Checking the computer I saw that they hadn’t encountered any enemy and everyone returned safely. That figures. When most of them were too scared to fight, it stood to reason that there were next to no contacts on routine missions. That was about to change, but first I needed to get these kids their confidence back and that was going to take some remedial training. Soon basic flight training would begin and I would be the instructor.
    * * *
    That evening I slept very little. It was hard to get comfortable in the heat and humidity of Kew. I finally slipped out of my bunk and headed over to the hooch tent. To my surprise there were a few patrons nursing drinks at the bamboo shack. I was wearing just a tank top and shorts and feeling under-dressed but the other patrons were wearing that or less. There were two women sitting on the porch sharing a bottle and one older man at the bar. I sat down beside him and ordered a beer on tap. My taste for hard liquor had waned in recent years to the point of being non-existent.
    He looked up from his own nearly depleted mug and surveyed me with eyes that seemed world weary. His short cropped hair was stiff and gray and his tan t-shirt was wet with sweat and dirty with grease. He wore tattered combat pants and black boots.
    “Don’t recall seeing you around here before. Name’s Chet,” he said as he extended a big hand. His voice was raspy but not harsh, it kind of reminded me of my father.
    “Devon,” I said, shaking his hand.
    His eyebrow lifted and he looked at me closer. It was difficult to deduce much about me other than my looks. His hand was dirty with grease, but that never bothered me.
    “Sorry about the grease,” Chet apologized.
    “No worries, I had some trouble getting to sleep so thought I’d come down for a drink.”
    He grunted and shook his head. “I remember my first night here. Damn, seems like so long ago now. I laid awake all night swatting bugs and rolling around in my wet bunk,” he laughed to himself.
    “Sounds familiar.”
    The bartender pushed a drink in front of me and copped a long look at my breasts. He was a young kid