Wing Commander #07 False Color by William Forstchen (best books to read in life .txt) 📕

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"Sir, Christmas is coming up, and some of us were wondering . . ."

Richards smiled. "I think I can safely say that we'll be on a holiday watch rotation for Christmas, Lieutenant.

Father Darby was already in to see me the other day to discuss religious observances. We've got a good cross-section of faiths represented in the Chaplain's Office, so I'm pretty sure you'll be well covered spiritually. Anything else you need, I'm sure we can provide."

"If you want a tree, you're welcome to try the ones on Nargrast," Graham said with a grin. "Of course, they've got trunks as big around as this compartment and don't reach as high as the overhead, and they give off fumes that smell like something died, but they're green . . . sort of."

"Pass," Aengus Harper said.

"Any other questions before we get down to the regular business?" Richards asked. "No? Then the squadron officers are free to go, unless they want to sit around and listen to a lot of technical garbage. Mr. Clancy, I want you to go over the ideas you brought up last night concerning the improvements to the helm station. You've already got the thing cross-patched so many different ways I'm afraid to even think about powering up the engines, for fear of where we might land . . ."

And so the work went on

CHAPTER 12

"There is no such thing as a battle without honor, though it is possible to encounter an honorless foe."

from the First Codex02:28:10

Flight Wing Lounge, FRLS Karga Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System 1925 hours (CST), 2670.358

"Break left! Break left!" The voice in Bondarevsky's helmet receivers was urgent. "Come on, Captain, you can nail this guy!"

Bondarevsky pulled the joystick hard over, rolling to the left and trying to spot his quarry. The Strakha bucked and kicked as if it resented the very idea of a human pilot flying it, but he fought the controls and forced the fighter into the turn. He reached for the sensor controls to narrow the focus and try to get an accurate position estimate on the cloaked enemy fighter he knew was closing in for the kill, but a split second too late he realized he'd instinctively reached for the spot where they would have been located on one of the Ferrets he'd flown back in his days as Tarawa's Wing Commander. The sudden realization made him try to shift in mid-reach, but that sent his bionic arm into a feedback spasm.

The delay was fatal. The enemy Strakha decloaked bare meters off his starboard side, and the red flash of incoming fire washed through Jason Bondarevsky's cockpit.

The buzzer going off in his ear made him wince and grind his teeth. The cockpit opened up, revealing a crowd of men and women surrounding the simulator unit. Money was changing hands as they paid off their bets. Bondarevsky blinked in the glare of the lights.

"Bang, you're dead," Doomsday Montclair announced from the other simulator cockpit, climbing out with the aid of a pair of his squadron's younger pilots.

"I noticed," Bondarevsky replied dryly. "I've got to hand it to you, Doomsday. You haven't lost your edge."

Montclair grinned. "Didn't let them promote me out of the cockpit, skipper," he said. "But don't sweat it. You'll get the moves back. And if you don't, I'll be around to bail out your sorry ass!"

That sparked laughter from the audience. Bondarevsky started to clamber out of the cockpit, and Harper and Sparks were quick to help him. The simulator modules were cobbled together from a combination of Confederation and Kilrathi technology, mostly the former. The Kilrathi had less use for detailed simulations of flight missions than human pilots did. According to Jorkad Ian Mraal, the senior pilot from the Nargrast survivors who had been working with Sparks on building the modules, the Empire preferred live-training exercises with real ships, real maneuvers, and live ammo.

Jorkad was there now, looking out of place amidst the revelry of the Flight Wing's Christmas party. The Christmas holiday was something the Kilrathi couldn't quite grasp. The message of "peace on Earth, good will toward men" was so alien to their way of life that they simply had nothing to compare it to. But a kil enjoyed a good party as much as any human, and Jorkad seemed to be developing a special fondness for eggnog.

"I was studying your performance, Captain Bondarevsky," he said gravely. Jorkad was always studiously correct and formal. At first some of the members of the wing had assumed it was a mask for some underlying hostility to the humans, but on closer acquaintance the general consensus was that Jorkad was just naturally serious and punctilious all the time. "Your instincts are good. But I fear your reactions have been somewhat slowed by your injuries. The artificial arm . . ."

"Is a problem sometimes, yes," Bondarevsky said, feeling impatient. He still didn't like discussing the plastilimb, especially not with a Cat. "I'm getting the hang of it."

He wasn't good at reading Kilrathi expressions, but he thought Jorkad's look might have been the Cat equivalent of a frown. "I believe that Hrothark and I could design an interface that would connect your arm directly into the controls of the fighter," he said. "It is possible that you could substantially improve your performance by having many of the onboard systems essentially controlled by thought—or at least by the muscular impulses associated with specific actions, such as operating sensors or firing weapons."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Bondarevsky said.

Jorkad studied him curiously. "I do not understand. Why would you reject something which could give you an advantage in combat? Particularly when it turns a current handicap around and makes it an asset instead?"

Bondarevsky shrugged. "I don't know if I can explain it, my friend." He held up his arm. "Look here. You can see that the limb is designed to look as much like