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showed off his skills in friendly competition without
any real danger to himself. Out there, he thought correctly, was only hard,
dangerous work among pilots equally or more skilled than he. He dreaded the day
that would bring his next assignment.
    He looked truly miserable and Nova
relented. "Don't worry; I won't mention it. I'll see you later."
    She left him to hurry along too-slow conveyors,
struggling to untangle a few strands of copper-colored hair that had escaped
its clasp, patting ineffectively at her wrinkled uniform. A pleasant thought
had struck her. Was she, finally, to be transferred back into serious work?
    * * *
    She was out of breath when she reached the
Colonel's suite. Once admitted to his work space she found him at a desk, bent
over lectures and speeches that he planned to deliver to the expected new
recruits.
    She waited at a respectful distance as he
spoke into a recorder. His voice still held the authoritative ring of the combat
command that he had given up years ago before taking this post on Myra. As a
respected commander of troops, many of his feats had passed, with suitable
embellishments, into legend. No less respected now, he was charged with turning
young pilots into the able warriors so much needed by the Union for her wars
against a growing rebel force.
    But not for the first time did Nova notice
his age, the once sharp features blurred by time, his height decreased by a
slight stoop of his shoulders. She was reassured only when he looked up at her.
The expression of deep concentration left his face to be replaced by a smile.
It seemed to erase the years that had etched their passage into the stern
facade. His eyes were clear and did not betray his emotions.
    "Father," Nova went to his desk,
her stride unmistakably military. "You were looking for me?"
    His smile faded as he regarded her silently
and for an uncomfortably long time. Nova clasped her hands behind her back to
prevent them from fidgeting helplessly. She began to think that Fynn had sent
her here for a joke to embarrass her in front of her father.
    "I did,” Whiteside said at last,
rising to his feet. "I see that I caught you unprepared for this
interview."
    Nova blushed and resisted an urge to fuss
over her rumpled sleeves. "The race..."
    "I know. I just spoke to Major
O'Neill. You seem to have had some difficulty with your emergency
landing."
    "I did," she said simply.
    He waited for more, pleased when she didn’t
budge. “We know how you were forced to land. And we know that you didn’t panic
and we also know that you stayed in neural link until you landed. Laudable,
Captain.” He did not mention that he had hung on every second of the
transmission until the moment she left the plane safely, fearing that she would
try to take manual control of the craft. “I’m less pleased with Bridger’s
deportment. I will be glad to see him shuttled off my base and onto someone
else’s.”
    "Fynn? Why?"
    "His time here is up. And Major
O'Neill and I, among others, now agree that the best place for him is on
Targon. We're sending fifty of your group to Targon in a few days."
    "Targon?" Nova gasped. Targon was
the very center of the Union's military activities in the Trans-Targon sector. The
few and too-short visits she had made to the planet had sparked her desire to
become a part of it. Targon, the Center, after which this entire sector was
named. Targon, where the Union employed the best of her warriors, weapons and
planes to drive their enemy back, out of Union domain, dispatched glorious
battleships...
    "...battleship."
    Nova broke out of her reverie.
"Huh?"
    "Please pay attention, Captain,"
Whiteside snapped. "I said that Lieutenant Bridger will be stationed on Isora ,
the battleship cruising the Targon-Feyd corridor. A fighter plane and some
strict combat discipline should make repairs of whatever it is that drives the
young man. He is lucky that Targon is requesting able pilots rather than
valiant characters. His record does not