Disclaimer: All characters in the SAS are the creations and property of ARB, borrowed gratefully with the permission of the creator.  All characters in Number 5 Squadron, as well as the officers and crew of the HMS Ark Royal, are my creations, and may not be used without permission.  The characters of Shane Vansen, Nathan West, Cooper Hawkes and Vanessa Damphousse, as well as the Space: Above and Beyond premise are the property of Glen Morgan and James Wong, and are borrowed here without permission.  No offence or copyright infringement is intended.  'Learning to Fly', by Pink Floyd, is mentioned but not quoted (yet!).  Again, no offence or copyright infringement is intended.

This story takes place shortly after '…Tell our Moms We Did Our Best'. It's an attempt to explain how the 58th were re-united after their disastrous last mission. It's also an attempt to remind everybody that it's not just the United States versus the Chigs in the war. The Wildcards will play their parts, of course, but it's primarily about RAF pilots.

Note: The British characters in this story pronounce 'Lieutenant' as 'Lef-tenant'. I'd also like to say that things like 'colour' and 'manoeuvre' aren't misspellings – they're British spellings.

I'd like to acknowledge the assistance and support of ARB, without whom this document would never have made it this far, and Kashpaw, my beta-reader

Comments, complaints, criticism and death threats are welcomed and actively sought at Werrf@Globalnet.co.uk


Part Two

As the canopy of my fighter slowly wound up, Flight Sergeant Williams stepped up to take my helmet, but I brushed him aside and hauled myself up. I was standing behind Becky's cockpit a couple of seconds later. I held myself back as she climbed out, then I struck.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING?!" I yelled, my mouth inches from her ear. She jumped about six inches straight up, and came down facing me. A small part of me quailed at the look of pure fear on her face, but the rest of me wasn't going to stop.

"Sir!" She stood quivering to attention

"What were you trying to do down there?!" I was angry.

"Sir! Doing my job, Sir!" Her voice trembled slightly, but she was remarkably calm for someone who just a few minutes before had been on the wrong end of a Tornado fighter.

"Don't think you can get out of this by saying 'Sir' all the time, lady. You are in trouble. You were not doing your job, you were trying to kill yourself and your navigator! The RAF is no place for suicidal maniacs!"

"Sir! I was trying to save those Marines, Sir!"

"I don't care what reasons you thought you had for your actions, Flight Lieutenant. You disobeyed several direct orders, do you understand that?"

"Sir, yes, Sir!"

"I ought to have you Court Martialled. Both of you." A look of surprise passed over Chris's face, followed quickly by a refutation by Becky.

"Sir, I was solely responsible for my actions on the planet, and no blame should be passed to Flight Lieutenant Thompson, Sir."

It wasn't easy to stop myself from hitting her at that point. This was the first time I'd had to discipline anyone in the Squadron for misbehaviour in the field since I'd taken command. Damn, I thought, how the hell does Reggy make this look so easy? Trying to control myself, I pointed at the cockpit she'd just vacated.

"Flight Lieutenant Thompson, would you look in there, please." Hesitantly, he did as he was told.

"What do you see?"

"Instruments, sir. Computer readouts, LIDAR display…"

"And a bloody great control column in the middle of it all. Would you mind telling my why you didn't use it?" He just stood to attention and stared straight ahead.

"I was trying to get a positive fix on the distress signal, sir."

"You were disobeying direct orders! Five of them, to be precise! We are here to find these marines, not hinder them by making ourselves a target for every damn Chig squadron on the planet! What did you think you'd achieve?" I was focussing my wrath on both of them, now. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the Squadron huddling in a corner under the protective shield of Reggy. None of them wanted to be on the receiving end of a loaded me. I turned my attention back to the cowering pilots in front of me. It's difficult to cower and stay at attention at the same time, but these two were managing it.

"You two are experienced pilots. You know that a Squadron has to work together or die." I looked Becky straight in the eye.

"By pulling that little stunt," I continued, "you risked your own life, your Nav's life, and, more importantly, twenty million pounds worth of fighter. As if that wasn't enough, I had to come after you, so you risked my life, my Nav's life, and another twenty million pounds worth of fighter. Altogether, not a good day for you, Madam!" I turned my back on the pair of them.

"Dismissed. Report for debriefing at 0900 tomorrow. In the mean time, you're both restricted to barracks until further notice." I stalked back towards the Squadron, leaving the two pilots to scurry out. I stopped in front of the rest of the pilots. They stood rigidly to attention, everyone trying to hide behind my superior officer.

"You heard that. Debriefing at 0900. See you then." They all left, pleased to have got away without further yelling. As I wandered out of the launch bay, Reggy fell in beside me.

"You handled that well," he said quietly.

"Yeah? I didn't think so."

"That should've been my job, you know."

"Not any more, sir. You've been promoted, remember? You only get to tell me off, now."

"Too true," he sighed.

"Besides," I continued, "It meant more to her coming from me."

"There is that," he conceded. "Have you proposed to her yet?" I dipped a hand into my pocket to finger the small box inside. It contained a small ring I'd purchased a month before the war began. I'd spent the better part of a two years trying to find an appropriate moment to give it to Becky.

"Not yet, sir. And I don't think it's really appropriate at the moment."

"You may be right there." We walked in silence for a few moments. Then…

"You want to go to the Tut?" he asked, referring to the officer's club, the Tut 'n' Shive.

"Not now. There's some things I need to deal with. See you there later?"

"Jolly good." We went our separate ways.


When I reached the barrack room, Becky and Chris had already settled themselves down to a long night's confinement. She was lying on her bunk reading an old paper novel while he was at the rooms single computer console, writing a letter.

"Afternoon," I said as jovially as I could. "How's things?" The imprisoned pilots looked at me as though announced my intention to leave the RAF and join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as a potato peeler.

"The Wing Commander asked me if I'd mind inviting the pair of you to join us at the Tut 'n' Shive," I announced in my very best English Gentleman's manner. "I'd be so thrilled if you'd come, what?"

"I, er," Becky said hesitantly, "I thought we were confined to quarters?"

"Absolutely, confined to quarters until further notice. Consider this further notice, old girl."

"Aren't you angry?"

"Me? I never was angry. It was Squadron Leader McLean who was angry. He's in a corner somewhere sulking because he can't execute you. I'm here to invite you to the pub." She looked at me with a calculating expression.

"I'm not sure how easy it's gonna be to get used to you being my CO," she said.

"You've got the easy part," I replied. "I'm the one in charge, remember? As well as my first command, I've got you to think about." I looked over her shoulder at Chris.

"Coming?"

"I, uh…I'll be up later."

"Roger that, old boy." I turned back to Becky and offered her my arm. "Shall we?"

"We shall," she replied, taking it.

The Tut was nearly full by the time we got there, but the Squadron had taken over two large tables in the corner and carefully reserved seats for Becky, Chris and my humble self. I grinned at my pilots as I slipped into one of the seats.

"How the hell did you manage to keep three seats?" I asked. Normally at this time, you couldn't keep a seat free without stapling a Chig to it.

"Well," replied Flight Lieutenant Anna Winters, "there were a bunch of Royal Marines who wanted them, but we told them who we were keeping them for and they sort of backed down.

"These Marines wouldn't happen to have been from 'B' company, would they?" I asked. 'B' company weren't exactly our best friends. Just a few days before, we'd been sitting in the Tut listening to them making tasteless jokes about the RAF. The joking had ended when one of the Marines made a crack about me, at which point the whole Squadron had attacked them automatically.

"Why, yes, I do believe they were something to do with that unit, sir. How did you guess?"

"Just lucky, I suppose." With that, I settled down next to Becky to enjoy night at the pub with my friends.


Reggy stood in a corner and watched as I marched to the front of the room. As I requested, a map of 2063 Yankee had been placed on the screen at the back of the room. I gripped the podium.

"Okay. Thanks to Becky's suicidal urges, we've got our first bit of objective evidence that the Marines may have survived the landing. She picked up a distress signal from their APC. They were unable to get a positive fix on the precise location, but we have been able to rule out most of the planet. As a result, we'll be concentrating our search in this area." I indicated a large red circle on the map, with the point at which Becky had picked up the signal at the centre.

"A small problem," I continued, "is that this is also the area being searched by the Chigs at this precise moment. If we're going to engage the Chigs at all, this is when it's going to happen."


I never saw where they came from. All I saw was that all of a sudden our six Tornado fighters were being chased by fifteen Chig fighters. And they didn't really look like Good Guys.

"Bloody hell, Floggers, break and evade!" I yelled. I grabbed the throttle and stick, immediately deactivating the autopilot, and yanked the stick hard to the left. I was just in time. A Chig plasma burst passed just inches from the side of the plane, so close I felt the turbulence toss the plane around. I slammed the throttle forward, igniting the afterburners, and pulled back into a full loop-de-loop. The fighter complained slightly at being subjected to such a high-G turn after hours of gentle flying, but pulled the manoeuvre off happily enough. As I rolled the plane, a green box appeared around one of the Chig fighters on my HUD. I squeezed the trigger, and a small Spitfire missile dropped off a wing pylon and charged toward the enemy aircraft.

"Fox Two," I declared over my tactical radio. The missile shot toward its target, letting out a stream of cannon fire as it did so. Only a few of the shots hit, but they were enough, softening up the enemy enough that when the missile did hit, the explosion was really quite pretty. I looked out to starboard, to see Becky's plane flying in perfect formation. I did a quick check around, and saw everyone else had teamed up in pairs to hunt Chigs. I also noticed a small problem.

"Flogger Four, Flogger One, you've got one bandit on your six, over."

"Roger, Flogger One," came the strained voice of Flight Lieutenant Anna Winters, "I had noticed, over."

"He's mine, over." I shoved the stick hard over to starboard, lined the Chig up in my sights, and gave him a nice long burst of cannon fire. He broke hard to evade it, pulling his fighter up and away – and straight into the Spitfire Becky had launched.

"Good Shot, Two, over," I said, giving her the deserved credit for the kill.

"Thanks for the setup, over," she replied. I scanned the sky for a target, seeing that it was pretty much mopped up. The odds were always in our favour – they only outnumbered us two to one. They never really stood a chance. I looked ahead again, picked a target that was trying to run from the fight, and showed him what I thought about pilots who abandoned their colleagues in a dogfight. The description of my precise feelings on the matter came in the shape of a Hurricane medium-range missile. He acknowledged that he understood the lesson by blowing up.

"And don't you forget it," I muttered. My attention was suddenly snapped back to my own situation when I heard a yell from behind.

"Look out!" The reason for the exclamation was a rather large, flaming Chig fighter that was barrelling towards us. I flung the stick hard over to the left, checked that Becky did the same to the right, and broke hard away, narrowly avoiding a mid-air collision. By the time I'd recovered myself, I realised one of the last Chig fighters had picked me as a target. I was about to execute some hard manoeuvres to get rid of him when I noticed that one of the Tornadoes was trailing two Chigs. A quick check identified it as Jane Hayes' aircraft.

"Flogger Six, Flogger One, you have two bandits on your tail, I'm moving to assist, over."

"Roger that," she replied. "As soon as possible, please, over." She was trying to keep calm, but this was her first large dogfight, and it was pretty clear that she was frightened.

"Um, skipper, I don't know if you'd noticed," Mike said from behind, "but we've got a bandit on our tail as well."

"Well spotted. Any other gems of observational genius you'd like to share with me?"

"No, that's about all I've got right now."

"Pity. Flogger two, see if you can help me out here, over."

"Roger, Flogger One, I'm moving to assist, over." I released a second Hurricane, which quickly hunted down and killed one of the Chigs. The second was more of a problem. He was following all of Jane's manoeuvres, and adding a few of his own to shake me off his tail. It was probably an interesting sight – A Tornado, followed by a Chig fighter, followed by a Tornado, followed by another Chig fighter, in turn followed by another Tornado, all pulling exactly the same manoeuvres. At the time, though, it wasn't so much 'interesting' as 'terrifying'.

The Chig in front of me was firing randomly, hoping that one of his shots would hit Jane. Unfortunately, his tactic nearly paid off, as one of the balls of plasma skimmed the spine of her fighter.

"Oh, Shit. Jane, you still there, over?"

"R…roger, Flogger One…" she replied. She sounded pretty shaken up. I could hear the warning tones through the radio as she wrestled with the damaged aircraft.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm still alive…"

"Damn, this guy's good. Jane, on my mark, I want you to break hard right, give me a chance to kill the bugger, over."

"Roger…Flogger One…"

"Skipper," Mike yelled, "this bugger's breathing down our neck!"

"I know, Mike. Three, two, one, mark!" Jane's fighter curved off to the right. The second Chig followed, but this time, because I knew where Jane was going, I could pre-empt his flight path with a stream of cannon. The explosion lit up the sky. Unfortunately, it was followed a couple of seconds later by a second explosion. That one was my own starboard wing. Moments later, before he could follow the shot up, a Tornado – I didn't see who – ripped him apart with cannon. I struggled with the stick, trying to persuade the plane to fly straight.

"It's not gonna work, Drew," Mike told me, "the whole wing's gone." I looked over my shoulder to confirm that the entire starboard wing had broken off. No wonder I was having trouble keeping control.

"Becky, I've lost my wing, I'm going to have to eject. You're in charge till I get back, over." Without waiting for confirmation of the order, I grabbed the yellow and black handle between my knees and braced myself for the acceleration. I yanked up hard, and the rockets around the base of the cockpit ignited, hurling us safely away from the dying plane. I gritted my teeth as we went from dropping slowly to going up at over sixty miles per hour in less than a second.


On board the HMS Ark Royal, Major Anton Bates of the SAS waited outside the Loading bay used by Number 5 Squadron. If they found anything, this was the best place to be, close to the loading bays that housed the APC's that would be used to rescue the Marines on the ground. Also, if they found anything but didn't report over the radio, he'd be able to find out sooner. Both solid, sensible military reasons. He refused to admit that if anyone was killed, he wanted to know about it. Emotions weren't a luxury he allowed himself these days. He flattened himself against a bulkhead as a medical team ran past, carrying a stretcher with them. He turned to watch them, and realised they were waiting outside Number 5's bay. He walked over to join them.

"What's going on?" he asked quietly. The doctor jumped, startled by the sudden voice.

"Wha…God, you scared me.," she replied.

"Sorry. What's going on?"

"Number 5 Squadron's coming in, two injured people."

"Any idea who?"

"No, sorry, Major…?" She was trying to make this more than a casual conversation. He regarded her quickly. Young, earnest, not unattractive, and quite short, a good foot less than his six foot frame.

"Bates." He replied shortly.

"I'm Doctor Maria Peltzer. Nice to meet you, Major."

"Likewise, I'm sure." He put a good deal of meaning into that sentence. Basically, he meant 'Stop talking. I just wanted to know who was hurt.' She took the hint and shut up.

"Major Bates!" It was a stern, somewhat authoritarian voice. Bates looked up and saw Wing Commander John Reginald, his new CO. It was, he had to admit, rather strange to have a pilot in charge, rather than a soldier, but Reginald clearly knew what he was doing.

"Sir. What's happening?"

"Are your men ready for a recovery?"

"Yes, sir. Will we be needed?"

"I hope not."

At that moment, the pressure doors along the corridor opened, and they got their first view of the bay. A quick glance confirmed that one cockpit was missing, and a second was damaged. Wing Commander Reginald started forward into the bay, but was cut off by the Doctor, her cheerful smile suddenly replaced by a look of grim determination to do her job. When the medical team were out of the way, Bates followed Reginald into the hangar. He scanned the room, trying to remember who was in the Squadron, who was missing. A double check confirmed that Squadron Leader McLean was nowhere to be seen. He walked over to the damaged cockpit. The crew were still inside. Peering over Doctor Peltzer's shoulder, he identified the pilot as the youngest member of the Squadron, a Flying Officer, though he couldn't remember her name.

"I'm fine," he heard her tell the doctor. "Look at Ed." Bates assumed she was referring to her navigator. As the doctors moved away from her and started fussing at the back of the cockpit, the youthful pilot painfully removed her helmet and climbed stiffly out of the cockpit. Without thinking, Bates offered her his hand to steady herself. She took it gratefully, and looked up into his stern face.

"Thanks," she said warmly. He didn't reply, just kept his hand steady as she climbed out.

"Are you all right?" he asked as she steadied herself on the deck.

"Fine…"she replied, somewhat distantly, "I'm…fine…"

She wasn't fine. Without any warning, she collapsed. Bates caught her as she fell, and lowered her gently to the deck.

"Doctor!" he called. A couple of seconds later, the Doctor was at the young pilot's side. So were the rest of the Squadron. Bates backed carefully away as the crack fighter Squadron suddenly became medical orderlies and helped lift their injured colleague onto a stretcher. He leaned against a wall, closed his eyes, and tried to banish the feelings rushing around inside him. Fear…anger… worry… He could normally forget such emotions in a few moments of concentration, but this time it was a lot harder. He opened his eyes and watched the stretcher being wheeled away by some of the very best fighter pilots in the war, then closed them tight again and concentrated. His concentration was broken by a heavy hand landing on his shoulder.

"You all right, old boy?" Reginald asked.

"Yes, thank you for asking, sir," he replied, still somewhat shaken by the strength of emotion he'd experienced. "If you'll excuse me…" He didn't wait for a reply, but turned and marched out of the room.



© Werrf February-April 1998



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