18
Commander Susan Piazzawasn’t used to the kind of pushback she was receiving. Most of her career involved communicating with military personnel and she’d worked with her fair share of civilians—except never like these.
What did she have to do to get through to these people?
Most civilian contractors fell into one of two categories: cowed by her military rank, or self-important jackasses who she had no compunction about running over as needed.
In all fairness, there was a third category that she’d done her level best to cultivate over the years: the competent. She remembered something Richard had explained to her long ago. He was a JAG lawyer she’d dated whenever they’d chanced to land on the same base, until he’d settled down for some unknown reason. It was an urge she’d never shared. Life was far too much fun as a single woman. With no strings affecting her travel or career choices, it was a total win.
Besides, she’d tried the whole tie-the-knot trip briefly—complete fiasco.
Richard had said,They give a secret test in first-year law. If you’re incredibly smart and competent, you get a waiver. If you aren’t, you have to take twenty credits of ego.
Richard had no ego at all about his competence. Richard’s assistant, however, had clearly failed both the test and the ego courses, been required to takefortycredits worth, and would have been filed under PIA, for Pain in the Ass, if he hadn’t been so skilled in the courtroom. His win/loss record was the envy of JAG. Richard’s cases rarely reached court because he managed to work out solutions long before it went that sour.
Miranda’s team landed in the competent category…maybe.
Holly and Mike appeared to have plenty of ego, butappearedwas the key word there. The only people they were particularly on their guards with were each other, so much so that she couldn’t tell if they were a couple or not.
Captain Andi Wu, a top pilot for the 160th SOAR (averytop pilot if her record was to be believed), had absolutely no ego at all.
Susan always needed a calming breath before she could speak to Andi. She herself was qualified in several small helos, the Robinson R44 and the Bell LongRanger being her two best.
Captain Wu had flown Sikorsky Black Hawks, MH-6 Little Birds, and one highly classified report hinted that she’d been a lead test pilot on the S-97 Raider helicopter—thelead. If the R44 was a Ford Focus and the LongRanger a Honda Civic, the Raider was pure Formula 1, maybe even land-speed-record rocket car. The F-35 Lightning II of the helicopter world.
And nothing in Susan’s past repertoire aided communication with Miranda.
It was a nine-hour flight from JBER to Nha Trang. A C-37B had never been designed to land on an aircraft carrier, not even one that was still fully operational. Vietnam had granted them clearance to land, refuel, and transfer passengers between aircraft. Very careful of the delicate balance of the situation, the government had allowed only a fifteen-minute window for any US aircraft or personnel to be on the ground.
The pilots had informed her that they’d even been requested to declare a fuel emergency offshore, reporting they were en route to Singapore a thousand miles farther southwest. She wondered what excuse the C-2 Greyhound had been asked to use for happening to be at the airport for the same fifteen minutes.
The C-2 was a stout little plane that filled the COD—Carrier Onboard Delivery—niche. And it did look rather like a squarish Greyhound bus with wings. It was being replaced by the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor in the next few years and the thought made her sad. The old plane had been servicing aircraft carriers since Vietnam, and every trip she’d ever made to a carrier at sea had been aboard one. Soon it would be gone.
Not long after that, her own career would be ending when she reached mandatory retirement. She’d always been willing to let the Navy call the shots, except when she hadn’t, and then had to convince someone to change their orders. But she didn’t think that would work this time.
She’d miss the adventure and travel. Besides, there was still so much to be done, including here and now.
“Miranda,” Susan risked interrupting Miranda’s discussion with Mike regarding the possible causes of the species variations amongCanis familiarus.
Miranda continued as if she couldn’t even hear the midsentence interruption.
“—with a hundred and seventy recognized dog breeds you would think that the genetic variation would be at the genus or perhaps family levels, but they aren’t. There are surprisingly few genes that are changed to make this,” she nodded down at Sadie in her lap, whom she still hadn’t touched, “into a Saint Bernard. That might actually be an interesting experiment, to see how little was required.”
She started to reach for her little notebook, which woke up Sadie to look at her. Miranda instantly returned her hands to either chair arm and stared fixedly at the little dog until it had curled once more into a nap.
Susan tried again, leveraging off the momentary distraction. “Miranda.”
“Yes, Susan?” She didn’t look up, though Sadie had begun to snore gently.
“May we discuss the accident we’re flying to investigate?”
“What makes you so sure that it is an accident? And also, what do you mean by accident? Pilot error, maintenance failure, equipment breakage, outside actions like a bird strike, or something else? There are navigational errors, operational, command, design, and many other types within each category. As many variations as there are types of dogs?” She asked the question of herself. “Perhaps, though I can’t see any direct corollary that might constitute an enlightening application of such a concept.”
“It’s my first plane crash, I was unsure what to call it.”
When Miranda didn’t answer, Mike answered for her. “It’s an incident until determined otherwise.”
“An incident,” Susan prompted.