Untied by Timothy Ellis

Author:Timothy Ellis [Ellis, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty Four

“Darren and the others are in your Unreal outer office.”

“What do they want?”

“A quick word. Conference table?”

“May as well.”

I rose, and walked across to it, once again aware of how far I was traveling with just a step, although not knowing which one. At the conference table, I sat at the head, and waited. They came in immediately. It wasn’t all the shareholders, which I’d been expecting. Just my original pilots, without Angie, or her people. They all sat. Trip came in behind them, and stood to one side.

“Have you thought any more about building Judges?” asked Darren.

“No. Too much else going on, and nothing to drive the decision.”

“We’d like you to.”

I looked at him steadily, and he met the look. A quick check of the others saw them all nodding.

“All of you want one?”

“We’re putting the band back together,” said Doug. “We’ll retain our Fours, and probably fly them from time to time, but we’re mindful of being lost in the crowd now, and the fact we’re no longer flying as a flight.”

“Haven’t been for a while now,” added Tom.

“I thought Angie was grooming you all for leading random wings?”

“She is,” said Darren. “And we might still do that at times on smaller missions where only fifty fighters are needed. But none of us expected to ever get oak leaves, and it’s not really in our skill sets.”

It was in his, but only with a lot more experience than he had, and someone changing his perception of himself. Damn, that sounded familiar.

“Are you thinking about your assessments when we got shit-canned?”

They’d been pretty dismissive of all of us. Even Doug and Tom had not been assessed as worth keeping by their militaries.

“Partly,” said Nyle. “But also in part, we brought those on ourselves. We’ve all changed and grown, but we know our limitations as well, and leading wing sized groups of fighters was never in our futures, even if we had been properly groomed for it.”

“Which we weren’t,” added Tom.

“But we can learn to fight a Judge,” said Darren, “and the six of us could develop some new attack plans for using them.”

“Backed up by some dreadnaughts?” I asked.

“Six of them, six of us?” suggested Brook.

“You’re serious about this?”

“We want to be a flight again,” said Tom. “You’re not flying anything smaller than a Judge these days, so that’s how we do it.”

“And we know as part of a militia we lose some say in how things are done,” added Darren. “The question is, can we be part time for both the militia and the company?”

“I don’t see why not,” I told them. “Okay, if you’re really sure, I’ll get Aisha onto building five more Judges, and a couple more Relentless. Anyone want one of those?”

“Hell, no,” said Brook.

“That would defeat the purpose of the exercise,” said Doug. “Unless we all moved to a Relentless.”

“That’s not in my plans,” I said. “Fine. We’ll get them started. Let Angie and Elsa know. Angie will have to adapt to you not always being available when she wants you.

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