Chapter 12

I immediately realized that the impending air strike on the convoy was why Nephele had to go back to the base urgently. Panic struck my heart. My gut told me she wasn’t going to evacuate her squadron. She was going to fight.

I flew out through the doors of the bar, jumped in my car drove out like a mad woman to the airport.

On the airfield, the crew members ran like mad between the jets, getting the jets ready. Twelve jets in two neat rows flush with missiles beneath their wings.

I sprinted between the jets and weaved between the frantic aircrew. They paid me no attention. They were mission focused. I knew what that meant. I knew full well what the missiles meant, too. My fear was becoming realized. They weren’t getting the fighters ready to fly back home. They were gearing up for combat.

I sprinted past Nephele’s Lotus fighter. Out of my periphery, the lotuses looked like white flames. Crew members were hoisting a missile up into a pylon beneath a wing. Another was filling the jet with fuel. The smell was explosively sweet and intoxicating, filling me with a sense of urgency. The air pressure was high, and a biting wind came through. Thunderheads rumbled in the distance. Blue storm clouds were coming.

I ran into the main terminal building. Empty hallways. Papers spilled out of rooms, scattered on the floor chaotically, signs of a rushed escape. At the end of the hallway, there was a makeshift briefing theater. In the semi-frosted double glass doors, I could see dull silhouettes of sitting people.

I ran to it and burst it open. The Skybreakers were there. All geared up. Their helmets on the school desks. They sat with morose expressions, some fidgeting and tapping their feet with clear anxiousness. There was a TV in the top corner of the room. It was turned on to the news but turned down so low that the reporter’s voice came out a muffled noise. The sound of the TV was strangely calming, though it threw flashes of war. They turned to stare at me.

“Where’s Nephele?” I asked.

Trigger pointed to a closed door at the front of the room.

“She’s talking to the boss.”

I marched towards it.

“Hey, you really shouldn’t -“

Too late, I was already in the room.

Nephele was leaning over a speakerphone. A surprise on her face when she looked up to find me standing there.

Tiny, leaning against the wall, straightened up when he saw me.

“Faye?” said Nephele. I was huffing from running. I cleared my throat.

“Don’t do it,” I said.

“Can we talk after this?”

A voice crackled from the speakerphone.

“Who the hell are you talking to, Major?”

The voice crackled again. There was snarling anger in it.

“Let’s get back on topic. As I was saying, your orders are to bring your squadron back. You are NOT authorized for this mission. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal, sir. But who’s going to give our guys covers?”

“That’s not your concern, Major. I will relieve you of your command if your squadron doesn’t touch ground here by noon.”

“It’ll be a fucking turkey shoot, sir!”

“Not going to say another word about it. Get your ass home.”

There was a slamming click, then a dial tone. Nephele glared at the speakerphone. Then, in a bout of rage that I’ve never seen from her, she picked up the disc and threw it against the wall, causing the thing to shatter into bits of plastic shards. Tiny flinched. He also seemed to be unaccustomed to this bout of rage.

“Fuck you!” she screamed and stuck a middle finger at the broken phone.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Only the sound of Nephele’s angered breathing. Tiny and I exchanged a nervous glance. I offered to broach the silence.

“So, you’re going back to Donavia then?”

She crossed her arms. Her face was flushed red, hot. She turned to look out the window. Through the window were the jets. All lined up. All nearing ready to fly. The fuel truck was now filling the last jet in the row. Most of the other aircrew were walking back towards the hangar, wiping their brows and hands of grease and lube oil.

She sighed. Turned to face me and said with a calm look of resolve on her face,

Tiny nodded in kind and picked up his helmet as if to pick up a sword.

“You’re not fighting them,” I demanded.

She walked past me, opened the door, and stepped into the briefing room.

Tiny put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a weak, consoling smile. He opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words to say to me, so his face went stone cold again, and he followed Nephele to the briefing room to be by her side before the others.

Nephele stepped out in front of the Skybreakers. She put her hands on her hips and spoke with unerring confidence.

“It’s been confirmed that there are five carrier air wings off the coast, sending every available fighter into the sky to strike a death blow to the Third Army. A direct contravention of international laws of war. Our squadron is the only one available to provide air cover. However, we have orders to go home. Officially, I am hereby ordering you to take your jets home. You are to land no later than noon. But I do not intend to go home. I intend to disobey those orders and intercept the hostile fighters before they reach our troops. Anyone who wants to join me may do so. But know that you will be subject to court-martial if you do.”

She gave no one time to respond. Instead, she walked through the center aisle between the desks and out the door behind them, putting on her helmet. Tiny followed her.

Outside, a biting rain had started to come down in needle bursts. She began jogging towards her jet, ignoring my shouts for her to stop. I caught up to her and jogged alongside her.

“Neph, please don’t do it.”

“Why do you have to? No one wants you to do it.”

“Why? To rack up more kills?”

“It doesn’t matter why.”

We reached her jet. The crew chief awaited her. He gave her a crisp salute. She saluted back and hopped onto the ladder. I grabbed her wrist and yanked her off. Instinctively, she pushed me away but pulled me back in and embraced me tightly.

She took a step back and took one last good look at me. Then something behind me caught her attention. I looked over my shoulders and saw the other pilots jogging out to their jets. They were not geared up to fly home. They were geared up for combat. Even I could see that.

I turned back to Nephele. She offered me a smile. I could see in her eyes that there was nothing I could say or do to convince her not to go. So, I gave her back a smile. Tears welled up in my eyes. I wiped them away with my sleeve.

She pulled out a handkerchief inside her flight suit. The handkerchief that I had given to her the day that Bat died.

“Forgot to give this back to you.”

“Keep it. It’s for good luck,” I said.

She nodded and stuffed it back into her flight suit.

She started to climb the ladder. I stopped her again. I grabbed her wrist again. Only this time, I didn’t yank her down. I only looked up at her and said,

“Promise me you’ll stay alive.”

“I promise,” she answered.

She put her hand in mine, squeezed it, and climbed into the cockpit. The crew chief climbed up the ladder after her to assist her, and when he was done, he hopped down and took the ladder from the jet. The engines whined on. The cockpit canopy came down. Nephele slid her visor down so that the only visible part of her face was her cheeks and lips.

The crew chief tapped my shoulder and pointed back towards the hangar.

I followed him, and we joined the crew that stood in a neat line at the mouth of the hangar to watch the jets.

The crew chief offered me a cigarette. I refused. He lit it, smoked it himself, and said to me, in reference to my shaved head,

“Hope they treat you kindly when they come.”

The planes taxied to the runway in pairs and took off with a tremendous roaring sound that I could feel on my skin and lungs.

As each pair of jets rose into the sky, they banked left in the same way, turning towards the southern sky. In short order, all twelve were reunited in the air, growing small until they looked like nothing more than a flock of geese converging into a concrete grey horizon.

I waited hours for Nephele’s return. I had parked my car at the top of the hill plane-spotters once used to watch planes take off and land. With my arms wrapped around my legs and chin propped against my knees, I constantly scanned the horizon.

It was silent, save for the chirping crickets, the whispers of the wind, and the tall grass rustling. The sun fell behind a long stretch of distant anvil clouds. Below the clouds, the sky was a dark red, and above them, a darkening blue. The first stars appeared in a clearing between the clouds to the east.

I scanned the direction in which the squadron disappeared when they flew off towards the fight, squinting hard to spot any minuscule dot that might be one of their planes. Every now and again, I’d see something that would excite me, but it would turn out to be a seabird or just my mind playing tricks.

When the last daylight faded into twilight, I heard a distant thunder rumble. When the thunder didn’t fade but grew louder, echoing across the valley, I knew it was the returning squadron. My heart leaped. I jumped to my feet on the hood of the car, held my hand to my brow to block the glinting light of the remaining sun, and scanned desperately for the source of the loudening thunder.

Then came dots, enlarging into shimmering, wavy silhouettes of jets against the dimming sunlight. Green and red lights blinking. Wheels lowered. They came down on the runways in pairs. Tires screeched. Puffs of tire smoke went up. Engines roared down.

I watched each intently. Heart thumping hard against my chest as I looked for the white lotuses on the twin tailfins.

They had really taken a beating. Hardly one without bullet holes strafed across the entire side of the fuselage. Stabilizers cut into ribbons. One spewed black smoke from its jet nozzles.

Eight returned so far, taxiing to the side of the runway, lining up into neat rows. Scores of crew members, firefighters, and medics rushed out to support the dogged pilots. None of the jets had white lotuses.

A few minutes later, the roaring sound of jet engines again. I spotted them coming in from the same direction. Three dots on the horizon in a triangle formation. Only three. Surely, she was among then.

The first landed, then the last two. No lotuses. No Nephele. I sat back down onto the hood of the car, distraught. Twelve had taken off. Eleven had returned. And roars no longer echoed off the mountains. The only sounds were the chirping crickets and the rustling grass.

How could it be possible that the best among them was the only one to not return? I couldn’t believe it. I refused to believe it. I continued waiting. I waited for an hour. Then two. I waited even as the pilots and the crew members — ants from this far away — petered back into the hangar until no one was left on the runway and the blue runway lights turned off. Then the lights from the control tower. Then the hangar lights. Without the lights, the airport became a lifeless husk. Its opened hangars the pitted eyes of a skull. The accompanying sound of silence, a deafening heartbreak. She would not be coming back.

I did not cry for Eli when he did not return. It was the same now with Nephele. Once I feared something was wrong with me that prevented that would not allow me to cry. But now I knew it was only my body naïvely clinging to hope. I let it cling.

I climbed into the driver’s seat. Turned the key, turned the headlights on, put the car into gear, and drove back to the bar. I had to go back. I had to open the bar because, after a big mission, the pilots congregated there. I did it thoughtlessly. Like it was breathing.

Surprisingly, they showed up shortly after I opened. The first of the pilots filtered in a half-hour after I opened. I poured them beers. They greeted me with a sullen nod, took their beers gratefully, and sat and drank silently.

Tiny was the last one in. His eyes were swollen, and red. Dried streams shone on his cheeks. He drank an entire pint in a few gulps and handed me back the glass for a refill. He was bursting at the seams, close to coming undone.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He shuddered, then he went to say, “No one saw her… She didn’t….”

“I know,” I interrupted softly.

“Who’s in charge now?” I asked.

“What’s going to happen to the squadron?”

I handed him the refilled pint. He took a large gulp, then wiped his mouth of the foam.

“There’s nothing much else to do. We’re headed home right after this. But the troops will be alright. The other squadrons heard about us going up. They joined the fight. A mass mutiny. We were able to stop the Allies. At least for today. It’ll buy them enough time to evacuate, I think.”

“And Neph? Will there be a funeral?”

He let out a shuddering sigh. “Yeah. I suppose there will be one.”