Fic- “Long Ago (And Far Away) (1/10)”
Title: “Long Ago (And Far Away) (1/10)”
Authors: everybetty and Kristen999
Genre: Gen
Spoilers: None
Words: 90,000- with over forty pictures (posted in ten chapters)
Rating: PG-15
Warnings: Soldier language, ethnic slurs associated with the era, and some war violence.
Summary: WWII-based AU. The Team as we know it has been transplanted to the South Pacific. Major John Sheppard, his navigator, Lt Rodney McKay, and his gunner, Sgt Ronon Dex, are stationed on the island of New Guinea on the eve of the island nation’s greatest battle. Native friend and sometime spy, Teyla Emmagan, aids the efforts against the Axis powers.
Authors’ Notes: There was an immense amount of research involved in this undertaking; however, we are not historians, so please be aware there will probably be inaccuracies and we did take some liberties with a few historical facts and military protocol for creative license reasons. This fic takes place in the 1940’s where the term politically correct hadn’t even existed. These are soldiers in the middle of the biggest war most nations have ever been a party to. They smoke, swear, spit and casually use rough language and ethnic, racial and gender-based slurs as was typical of the time.
Many thanks to Wildcat88 for her betaing and support as well as sharpes_hussy for her invaluable advice.
A gigantic, amazing round of applause to Tridget for taking all our collected images and creating seamless backdrops and alterations so they could be presented authentically.
Feedback as always is appreciated.
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The sunset was gorgeous, reds and deep oranges embracing a serene blue sea. The moment was absolutely perfect, something to cherish and hold on to. But, like all beautiful moments, it was fleeting, brought to a sudden halt as reality came crashing down.
The throaty rumbling of cassowary calls and the cries of the seemingly always mating riflebird competed with the hum of a million buzzing insects. It was the same battle every day and raged from dawn to dusk on New Guinea. The creepy-crawlies had won this round, their noise drowning out anything on two or four legs. That is, until the 475th Fighter Group and their eighty-eight engines arrived.
John slapped his neck, crushing whatever was dining there into a bloody smear. With miles of peaceful ocean in front of him, it was hard to imagine the swarms bursting out of the jungle behind him. Chiggers, wasps, cockroaches, fleas. They were a relentless pestilence, as if on orders from Tokyo to devour them whole.
He flicked his wrist and looked at his watch; twenty hundred hours had come and gone. He was late. He wiggled his toes in the sand while glaring at his dusty boots. Socks that hadn’t seen real soap in over three weeks were stuffed inside the heavy Red Wings. He hated having to put them back on, but his men were waiting.
Groaning loudly he stood, both knees popping, but he never tore his eyes away from the lapping waves as he forced his feet into crusty socks and old leather. He’d stop by his tent to splash on some Aqua Velva to cover up the aviation fuel and sweat that clung to his skin. Maybe he’d put on a pair of pants. Sometimes it sucked being an officer when all he wanted to do was hang out in shorts and a t-shirt.
His cap was crushed from being used as a pillow for too long so he bent it back into shape and swatted the air around his face with it, fending off a squadron of bloodsucking mosquitoes. No use wearing it; the weather was just too damn hot. He made his way up the beach and had just stepped up to the dirt road when a jeep nearly clipped him.
Oily brakes screeched and a pimply-faced kid no older than eighteen jumped out. “Oh, Lord. Sorry, sir. Are you--”
“Stand down, Private. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
“I just didn’t see you, sir. And my L-T said he was gonna chew my ass a new one if I didn’t bring him--”
“Take a deep breath, Private…”
“O’Malley, sir!” the squirrelly private shouted as he saluted.
Milk-white skin covered in a multitude of freckles and a carrot-orange crew cut. Could the kid be anymore Irish? “It’s fine. No harm, no foul. Go on. I wouldn’t want your CO to be pissed that I kept you.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” the private stammered, scrambling into his jeep and nearly stripping the clutch as he gunned the engine.
John grimaced at the painful sound of the jeep stop-starting before taking off down the dirt road. He checked the time again and sighed. “Crap.”
He doubled-timed it back to his bunk with a watchful eye peeled for privates barely old enough to drive. His quarters were at the far end of the base, close (sometimes too close) to the officers’ latrine and the mess hall.
The door flap of the canvas tent had been closed up tight and he sighed with familiar resignation as he began working the recalcitrant zipper. It got stuck halfway up the flap but he managed to yank it down and step through, only to have a web of mesh attack him. “Damn it, McKay!” he growled to himself as he tried to detangle from the triple layer of netting.
By the time he changed into a fresh tee and slid his arms into his khaki over-shirt he was sweating through both layers. He looked down at his boots, remembered why he laced them loose, and chucked them off before quickly pulling on a pair of trousers.
His crew was going to kill him for being so late.
He stripped the belt from his shorts, threaded it through the loops of his pants and verified that his knife and .45 were secured. The trunk by his bed was unlocked despite McKay’s insistence that the Aussies stationed on the base had sticky fingers. He opened the lid and shook his head.
What on Earth McKay could think he had that was worth stealing? His clothes stank to high heaven; sea water and a sprinkling of laundry powder got rid of grease and oil stains but not much else and a few of his t-shirts could crawl away on their own after too many forty-eight hour stints of not changing.
He shoved his clothes to the side and dug around for his comb. It was only as he spied the sorry-looking, broken-toothed thing on the floor of the chest that it dawned on him that a few issues of his Superman comics were missing.
“You’re a dead man, McKay,” he muttered.
Standing before the broken mirror attached to the center tent pole he tried to wrangle into place his unruly hair but the humidity had made it untamable. It was a pointless battle, but he figured he’d try to appear presentable for tonight. Then again, he wasn’t gonna try too hard. Officially he was off duty, so he didn’t do anything about his heavy five o’clock shadow.
The walk to the officers’ club was a minefield of tent stakes and inches-deep puddles of mud left by the daily deluges. Briefly panicked, he patted down his shirt front then smiled as he remembered, and pulled a wrinkled pack of Lucky Strikes and a Zippo running low on butane from his pants pocket. It took a couple tries for the flint to ignite in the damp before he lit the end of his cigarette. Smoking gave him a few seconds of clarity only matched in the highest altitudes of the sky. Or, according to a certain annoying navigator, it was a false, chemically toxic high. McKay could be so annoying.
John hurried past airmen and soldiers, nodding instead of saluting at those he passed. The deafening roar of engines overhead gave him pause as he counted the P-38 Invaders returning from supplying artillery fire for the Marine battalions making their way in-country twenty miles north. The landing strip was at the far end of the base and it had only taken him a few days to get used to the noise of the hourly takeoffs and landings before he could sleep right through them.
The P-38s were attack craft with sleek bodies painted in dark and light greens. The twin propellers were huge, able to push speeds up to four hundred and fifty mph and they had glass noses instead of solid steel bearing the squadron’s emblem.
“They all make it back?”
John glanced up to see the smiling face of Captain Evan Lorne. His dress shirt was completely unbuttoned and both sleeves were rolled up. The captain sported a two day-old beard which was surprising since he was usually a weird stickler for regs. Then again, John couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen a can of shaving cream; they’d all been forced to use soapy water that left razor burns.
It was tough enough for ships to bring them food provisions let alone ‘luxury’ items. Thankfully New Guinea had enough berries, bananas, and pineapples to supplement their C-rations. They’d also hired a few of the locals to climb trees loaded with fresh coconuts, since many airmen had learned the hard way that the rotted ones on the ground caused dysentery.
“Not sure. The 5th Squadron returned from a bombing run earlier... we lost three escort fighters to heavy fire.” John exhaled heavily. “Resistance’s been pretty fierce.”
“Capturing Noemfoor Island’s the final step in MacArthur’s grand plan,” Lorne remarked with only a little contempt as he lit a cigarette. “Bombing Biak using Navy carriers isn‘t working. If we capture those airfields the Japs built at Noemfoor, we‘re only ten miles from their main airbase.”
“Yeah, bomb the hell out of Biak and hope we weaken their forces enough for those crazy paratroopers,” John remarked, having memorized the objectives. Things always sounded better on paper.
Lorne chuckled. “You don’t like jumping out of airplanes, sir?”
“I prefer staying inside the cockpit. Besides, all this is just warm up. We capture Biak and we’ve got a launching pad to strike Vogelkop. And that leaves fifteen thousand Japanese troops between us and retaking the rest of Western Guinea. Piece of cake.”
They all knew MacArthur’s real objective. The whole Guinea campaign was another step on his path back to the Philippines and it didn’t matter how much blood was spilled to get there. The drive was relentless. Island after island. Landing after landing. Always moving west. The death toll on both sides was ringing into the thousands. But no one spoke out loud about the general and his plans; John had learned that the hard way.
He kept his eye on the sky, counting the returning planes. “Eighteen. Looks like we lost two,” he sighed as he crushed his cigarette with the toe of his boot, taking with it a few of the dozens of bugs that wriggled all over the ground. Damn place was infested with insects, but that’s what happened when you cut and burned down a jungle to plant your base on.
No sooner had one squadron returned than the next one took off, the sky now filling with the Flying Knights. John’s heart raced along with the P-38 fighters as they set off to protect the vulnerable B-29s readying on the east airfield. The raids were constant, reaching an almost non-stop twenty-four pace of bombing, and the engineers had cleared out a third landing strip just to keep pace with the relentless attacks.
John watched the fighters take off from the rocky roadway, imagining his hands on the throttle and the adrenaline rush of twelve thousand pounds of aircraft under his control.
“You miss chasing Zeros?” Lorne asked, his eyes glued to the fighter planes.
“Naw, they still chase me,” John said, smiling. “If I recall, one almost took out your tail the other day.”
“What can I say? All those cameras make my bird heavy in the ass,” Lorne chuckled.
The two of them stood there, watching the flying fortresses take off next and silently wishing all the crews success. The lighter, more maneuverable P-38s would engage any Japanese air opposition and hopefully clear the skies for the heavy bombers to drop their payloads.
“I can‘t imagine flying one of those beasts,” Lorne said, pulling out another cigarette.
“I have.”
“Of course you have.” John shot him a dirty look and Lorne smiled. “I mean, with your colorful career, I shouldn’t be surprised you‘ve been in a B-29.”
“Is that your kind way of saying I’m old, Captain?”
“You weren’t there when the Wright Brothers took off at Kitty Hawk?”
John only had three or four years on the Captain. “You know, my engine had a hell of a squeal on our last mission. Maybe I should have you dismantle it and oil all the gears. Shouldn’t take you more than ten hours.”
Lorne’s smile disappeared. “Or maybe I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Now you’re talking,” John said, clapping him on the back.
“Besides, I doubt McKay would let me touch a single cog of his precious modifications,” Lorne snorted.
John wanted to throttle the genius who put the officers’ club in the middle of camp. Walking through pockets of steam made his t-shirt fuse to his skin and he flapped the collar of his over-shirt in a futile attempt to cool down.
Lorne took a long swallow from his canteen and pressed it to his sweaty forehead. “Maybe Pete scored some ice today.”
“I’ll give him my Miss June pin-up for a cold beer.” John laughed then stopped short in front of the large, inviting tent. “Crap. I forgot to check the daily fuel reports,” he sighed, and started to turn away.
Lorne grabbed John’s shoulder. “With all due respect, sir, we’ve done over five hundred sorties in the last three months. We have a couple days off. How about enjoying them?”
“And if this week’s supply transport got hit and all our extra fuel and ammunition are at the bottom of a coral reef?”
“Then it’s Colonel O’Neill’s problem for the next seventy-two hours, sir. Let him duke it out with the Navy brass. That’s his job.” Lorne pushed open the flap. “There’re real electric fans in there.”
Dusk was settling in with storm clouds ready to dump another five inches of rain. It down-poured every day as the monsoon season started gearing up again. John scanned the thick brush that threatened to overrun the base with its vines and trees.
“Don’t think it’s dark enough for one of her visits, sir,” Lorne said quietly.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Come on; let’s go in before McKay sends the MPs to find us.” But John gave the jungle one last glance before joining his waiting crew for a much needed night of relaxation.
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The officers’ club was a 20 by 20 green Army tent that leaked at every seam, despite fifty degree declines for all the water to drip down the top flaps. It was the officer with the least seniority’s duty to go around and replace the overflowing buckets during a storm. Plywood boxes outnumbered chairs to sit on while men played cards on fold-up tables and empty munitions crates.
The bar stood in the back; several members of the 5th Air Corp Engineers had built it after clearing away acres of impenetrable jungle for the runway.
“This is the Allied Radio Network with your news for this June 18, 1944.”
John tuned out the newscast, not wanting to hear about the war effort. He stood in front of a small fan circulating the same hot air in a fruitless effort to cool down, and started listening again when Benny Goodman drifted out of the crackling speakers.
“Can I get ya something, Major?”
John tossed a smile and a nod at the tall, gangly kid behind the bar. Corporal Pete Petoskey was as laid back as he was lanky. He’d been a young bartender in Detroit at night and apprenticed as a plumber during the day before the draft snagged him. His casual manner helped balance the daily stress involved with maintaining supplies for hundreds of vehicles and the miles of bureaucratic red tape that went with it. He was also the scratch man for off the book supplies and that made the twenty-something very popular.
“Got anything other than jungle juice?” John inquired, giving Pete a charming smile. Alcohol was scarce; the last real supplies had gone dry months ago and now the only source of inebriation was fermenting the fruit around the island, or worse - soaking bread in rubbing alcohol and mixing it with grapefruit juice.
“For you and your men? I’ve got rum.”
“No shit?” Lorne grinned from ear to ear.
John had been prepared to give away Miss May and Miss June for some watered-down beer. He was still dumbstruck when a glass appeared in front of him and his eyes grew wider at the three ice cubes melting at the bottom.
Pete was cool as a cucumber, pouring the unlabeled bottle of liquor as if it was the brown water they boiled daily. Who knew how long it had taken to smuggle it or cook it up in the back of the mess. One thing was for sure, each bottle would fetch a week’s pay. John swirled the drink in his glass before sipping, showing his appreciation of the effort and the risks probably taken in obtaining it.
A scan of the other tables told him that several other crew members had already enjoyed a couple rounds. Good. They deserved it. And considering what their next set of orders was…well. Nope. He wasn’t supposed to think about that for the next seventy-two hours.
“Thanks, Pete.”
The corporal smiled. “No problem, sir. Sergeant Dex’s already used it to sucker a bunch of guys from the 112th outa two months pay. He said he got tired of waiting for you to show up.”
That would explain where his gunner was. John spotted Ronon at one of the far tables, dealing a hand of poker; a single bottle sat next to a stack of chips.
“How much does he have to wager with?” he asked.
“Oh, about a pint. He took a couple of glasses with him, but he hasn’t lost even a shot’s worth,” Pete chuckled.
“That’s because his expression is always the same,” Lorne piped in.
The bartender cocked his head in confusion until John added, “Yeah. Always pissed off.”
The three of them laughed, and the officers tapped the bottoms of their glasses onto the bar in salute before taking large swallows. The rum left a trail of fire down John’s throat, forcing his eyes closed.
“Jesus!” he exclaimed, nearly choking on the vile liquid.
“It’ll put hair on your chest, sir,” Pete laughed.
“I’d say that’s already covered,” John choked out between bouts of coughing.
“Oh, for crying out loud. Are you drunk already, Major? I only stepped out for a few minutes,” a familiar voice whined.
John’s face was flushed and he reached for the glass of water that Pete had poured in anticipation. After gulping down half the tepid liquid he turned to his other crewmate. “No, not yet, McKay. But gimme enough time and I might.”
Lieutenant Rodney McKay’s over-shirt was still tucked into his trousers and was buttoned all the way up. Even in this sticky, stifling heat he wore long sleeves due to his constant fear of disease-carrying mosquitoes. Consequently, he drank triple the average airman’s water rations and complained more about the miserable weather than anyone.
McKay scowled at John. “If you ask me, things were better during Prohibition.”
“No one did,” Lorne muttered under his breath.
McKay whirled on the captain, all gears winding up for full-on rant mode when John grabbed him by the collar and dragged him over to the bar. “Come on, have a shot.”
McKay let out a squawk of protest and swatted John’s fingers away while trying to fix his uniform. “Watch it. Do you know how hard it was to get all the wrinkles out? I had to pay some local fuzzy to hang it on a very tall and precarious tree branch to dry so no one would take it.”
“No one’s gonna steal your clothes and besides...” John wiped his wet hand on his trousers. “They’re already wet.”
“It’s drizzling outside, Major,” McKay huffed.
“Wasn’t raining when we came in,” John said, smiling at Pete as he doled out another shot.
“Gee. Has it been two whole minutes?” McKay grouched, crossing his arms.
“Good point,” John conceded, handing him the shot glass.
McKay rolled his eyes at the offered drink. “If I wanted bacteria-laden fruit juice, I’d drink the hooch you force me to concoct for you and Ronon.”
“It’s real ru-um,” John enticed, swirling it under his navigator’s nose.
“Really?” McKay curled his hand around the glass and sniffed it suspiciously. “No citrus, right?”
At John’s very serious headshake he relented. “Wouldn’t want it to go to waste on those who think drinking vinegar serves as a suitable substitute for the real thing,” he muttered before swallowing.
Lorne snickered as McKay gasped at the liquid fire and sprayed rum all over his own t-shirt. “I’m going to find my crew, sir. You guys have fun.”
John leaned back against the bar with a wide grin while his lieutenant’s face went from red to violet. “Did I mention it had a bit of a kick?”
“I just burned through ten thousand brain cells, Major! Remember that the next time you ask me to calculate longitude and latitude when navigation’s on the fritz and visibility’s zero.” McKay grabbed one of the few empty chairs and sat down heavily, pulled off his cap to run his hand through his disheveled hair and waved it at his sweaty face. “The humidity has to be ninety percent in here.”
“Your head stores most of your body heat. Maybe you should leave the hat off,” John suggested.
“Says the guy whose scalp’s not at risk.”
“Risk, McKay?”
“Hello? Malaria, Typhus, Dengue Fever, not to mention the million other tropical diseases carried by a single insect bite. I keep sending letters to HQ about our staggering loss ratios from illness versus battle casualties. Not that any of them have the I.Qs to figure out that the damn insects are the real threat and we should be allocating more research to medical prevention of--”
“Lieutenant.”
“Right. Shutting up.” McKay slid his cap back on and reached for the canteen constantly holstered at his belt and took a long swallow.
Duke Ellington was up next on the radio. John recognized the tune, couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was one of those numbers that got your toe tapping to the beat.
This was what it was all about. Talking and drinking. Relaxing or playing games. Like rare snapshots on the beach. He lived for this. He fought for this.
“Son of a bitch!”
All heads spun at the sound of a chair falling to the floor. One airman was calming another; a deck of cards was scattered across the table. John had seen it a hundred times before. Alcohol and money jacked up tension and stress. Then he noticed how Ronon sat quietly, shuffling another deck, eyes passing briefly over all those at his table.
John was the ranking CO, but he didn’t care for using his oak leaf if he didn’t have to. Blowing off steam was pretty rare on base and was sometimes a much needed diversion. So he watched and waited. Players switched places; new blood replaced those too intoxicated to keep up. It wouldn’t matter, though; Ronon rarely lost at cards.
He watched out for his crewmate as some of the players gathered up their chips, knowing when they were being outplayed. One of the officers headed for the bar to drown his sorrows in liquid comfort. John didn‘t recognize the face, but ten new squadrons had just arrived and eight more were due in the next two days.
“Hey, Corporal, how about something that doesn’t taste like gasoline?”
Pete was wiping doggedly at a water ring stain with a dingy cloth, shook his head in response. “Got jungle juice, sir, but it’ll cost ya.”
The officer sighed. “I just lost two weeks pay.”
“Then you still have two weeks left,” Pete said, leaning on the bar with a grin.
The officer’s gaze wandered over to the unlabeled bottle and his eyes grew wide. “Hey, how about some of that rum? I’ll pay whatever you want for it.”
“Sorry, sir. That’s for Major Sheppard’s squadron.”
The lieutenant glanced over, eyes now going even wider as he noticed John for the first time and quickly straightened and started to raise a hand in salute. “Maj--.”
“At ease,” John cut him off.
The officer relaxed a little, but he hadn’t stopped staring, making John uneasy under the scrutiny. “Something bothering you, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir. I mean…it’s just...”
“Just what?”
“You’re Major Sheppard, sir.”
McKay rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”
“Last I checked,” John drawled, taking a swig of his drink.
“You used to fly with the Flying Tigers.”
“Yep, a couple years ago.”
“You hunted down Nips before any of us.”
“Not this again. Who hasn‘t heard about your exploits over Burma?” McKay grumbled.
The lieutenant looked like he‘d just graduated flight school despite the rank on his sleeve. “Is there anything you could tell me? You know. Some advice? I have a P-40 Warhawk.”
All the aerial drills in the world and hours clocked in the cockpit could never replace real air combat. “How long’ve you been flying, Lieutenant?” John inquired, feeling his every year in the air.
“About three months, sir. But most of that was over the last few weeks, doing mop-up over Borneo.”
John tried not to grimace. Four years ago the Army had controlled the Air Corps. Then after Pearl they’d gone from 500 to 6,000 pilots in under two years and expanded into their own sector of the military, all green recruits. It was hard to imagine being that wet behind the ears. From the cornstalks of Kansas to the tropics halfway across the world. Green airmen with six months of exercises against hardened Japanese pilots with years of dogfights over Manceria.
“Always attack in a group. The Zero can outmaneuver you every time. Don’t enter a turning fight. Always use a slashing attack then dive away to set up the next one.”
“But...I mean. That’s not what we were taught,” the lieutenant questioned.
“Excuse me, but the Tigers suffered fourteen losses and racked up three hundred kills in a single year. I’m assuming basic math competence was required for flight training?”
“McKay...” John warned, part impressed and part embarrassed that his friend knew those stats. He turned to the airman. “The P-40 can achieve a superior attitude much faster than the Zero. Use it to your advantage.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
The young officer stood there, revealing the stress of too much responsibility hefted upon a set of shoulders no older than twenty-one. John didn’t want to talk about combat today. He wanted to drink and argue with his crew about who had the hottest curves, Veronica Lake or Claire Trevor. He was a Lake man himself. Loved the hair and the mystery.
Sweat pooled at his hairline as he flicked away the ants crawling over the bar to give him a few seconds to think. McKay stood up, ready to pull him over to a table for what would probably be a spontaneous discussion of needed instrument adjustments.
John lived to fly, but that didn’t mean he gloated over those he shot down. But he was surrounded by a bunch of kids; the least he could do was talk to them. “Something else you wanted to know, Lieutenant...?”
“Lieutenant Betts, sir. Um.” The young man looked around; a couple airmen from a nearby table had stopped talking and had begun listening in. “Is it true? You‘ve flown bombers and Invaders, too? Before joining the Tigers?”
John had flown more than that, but that wasn’t important. “I’ve been behind the stick of a few fighters.”
“Now you command the 17th Recon Unit.” The lieutenant looked at McKay. “With um...”
“With what?” John pressed, feeling defensive.
“With a very interesting crew,” Lieutenant Betts quickly added.
“They’re the best,” John said proudly.
McKay beamed and John knew there would be no hearing the end of the man’s list of contributions to their current run of successful missions. He reminded himself to keep all future praise out of his navigator’s earshot.
Lieutenant Betts nodded in Ronon’s direction. “Dex. He’s your gunner.”
“Yeah,” McKay said.
Betts cleared his throat. “He’s non-commissioned.”
“Yeah, he’s a non-com.” John challenged. “But he’s part of my crew and he won’t be excluded from any of our activities.” That included allowing him inside the officers’ club, a battle John had fought long and hard for and still put up with a lot flack for breaking such huge protocol, but he’d pulled in every favor in the book. It seemed to have worked for the time being.
Betts nodded. “I hear tell he’s a hell of a gunner. Never seen him in action but know the stories.”
“They’re all true,” John announced.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did he join your crew?”
“How?”
“Well...he’s not...”
“White.”
“Yeah. I mean, yes, sir.”
John nodded at Pete to pour him another drink. “First off, he‘s Polynesian. And secondly, that’s a very interesting story...”
It was pouring again, like it had the day before and the day before that, covering the base in rivers of mud. John’s boots sank all the way to his ankles, and each step made a slurping sound as he trudged through the gunk. This was his third temporary base in four months and they were gearing up for another drive to the mainland.
And with what? Spitballs?
He stomped through the puddles, splashing rancid water halfway up his pant legs. They hadn’t seen supplies in over twelve days; for all the talk about New Guinea being the Navy’s front, their boats certainly got picked off enough by Jap subs. He hadn’t had eight hours of sleep in the last week. It seemed every night if there wasn’t a storm crashing and rattling its way overhead it was a Jap air raid, sending him and his men scrambling out into the dark in their boxers (for those that bothered wearing them in the heat) to the .50s they had bunkered all over the base.
And if physical action wasn’t needed, his head would take over. He and McKay had been on a boondoggle expedition for badly needed parts for his embattled squadron. At this rate, they were going to have to swap out pieces from the motor pool. And they were done on ordnance. But he’d be damned if he told his men to fly over Lau to record enemy troop movements with orders to conserve ammunition because they risked running out.
By the time he arrived at the airfield he was soaked to the bone. He shook out his arms, drops raining from his fingertips, sheeting down his arms and face. A quick flick or three of his head had water spraying in all directions.
“What are you, a dog? Jeez! Ever heard of an umbrella?”
“Yeah, you got one?” John grumped, leaving a trail of mud-spattered footprints inside the temporary hangar. No chance of drying off in here either; the tent trapped humidity, turning the hangar into a pressure cooker. If he pinched his skin, it was bound to ooze water.
McKay sat on the ground, surrounded by hundreds of motor parts. John winced at what he was sure was a stroke coming on as he realized it was from their plane. “What the hell? Those are supposed to be inside the bird!”
“Duct tape. I’m trying to repair this… this heap with duct tape!” McKay spat, waving his hands around at the guts of their engine. “You just had to push the limits on our last run, didn’t you? Well guess what, Major? We carry thousands of pounds in radar and surveillance equipment. We’re not a hang-glider with guns. We’re heavy.”
“Bombs are fuckin’ heavy and I never had a problem before. Besides, we were being shelled. I was just keeping us from meeting some of the Rising Sun’s finest face to face.”
“Next time try getting out of the way of the bullets.”
“I was. In a diving motion,” John replied, demonstrating by drawing his hands in a steep, downward gesture.
McKay was on his feet, pointer finger out like a dagger, face going from pink to scarlet when he couldn’t chew John out like he wanted to.
John didn’t budge while McKay fumed silently, sweat pouring down his rosy cheeks. In some ways John envied his navigator. At least he had something purposeful to do. A task to distract a wandering mind.
They were grounded after all.
“Don’t you have three months worth of pencil pushing to do?” McKay asked finally. His words were snappy but his features carried less hostility. Were even a little sympathetic and that was something John didn’t want to be on the receiving end of.
“Is there a reason for pulling out the motor when I asked you to look at the left dorsal gun?”
There were those familiar burning blue eyes. John knew exactly how to get the vein in his friend’s left temple throbbing. McKay scowled in righteous indignation. “We have a pair of specially fitted one thousand pound engines.”
“I’m well aware of this.”
“So that means we should be able to fly faster than five hundred miles an hour.”
John laughed. “Those are factory specs to get government contracts. I should know. I used to work for Wright Manufacturing.”
“Really?” McKay expression broke out in wonder. “Are they related to--”
“No, but they thought it’d sell more engines. Though I did hit five-ninety once.” John shrugged. “That was without machine guns or fancy cameras.”
“What‘s the point of having specially made turbocharged engines if they don‘t live up to their name? No, don‘t answer that. I‘m not in the mood for some cocky response.”
“They do tend to overheat when I push ‘em too hard.”
“I fixed that problem already. You can thank my ingenuity for coming up with a cooling system.”
“And I did when I gave you six issues of Life.”
McKay snorted, “That you got by trading in moonshine that I distilled.”
“Still cost me a week’s worth of coffee.” McKay seemed genuinely horrified to John‘s amusement. “It was worth it. Didn’t want Uncle Sam’s re-fit.” Like hell would he go back to the limitations of 330 mph.
McKay however was a bloodhound on a scent, unable to let go. He picked up a screwdriver and started waving it around. “We’re still inefficient. We’re only hitting four-eighty. These engines have the power capability to reach five-fifty. I just need to fine tune it. Strip out redundancy, lighten a few areas. Maybe I can play with the torque a little but then heat will start building up...”
Rodney McKay was all about science. John never questioned McKay‘s mind; in fact, he was often astonished that the man wasn‘t locked away in a government lab, constructing the world’s next super weapon. It was amazing luck that he was part of John’s crew. Of course, when John’s luck was on a hot streak, it was on fire. When it was bad... well, those were days he‘d rather forget. “I take it that’s a bad thing?”
McKay snorted. “Ever heard of the Laws of Thermodynamics?”
John shot back, “First, second or third? You want Carnot or Thomson’s version?
Leaving McKay speechless was a win in John’s book, so he took advance and changed fronts. “What about the heavy gun that helps keep us alive?”
“Beyond repair,” his friend huffed.
“That’s not an answer. We can’t spare any Brownings. Hell, we can’t spare any nuts or bolts. All our supplies are bottlenecked outside New Britain. As of right now, we‘re cut off.”
“We wouldn’t be cut off if they hadn’t sent most of the fleet to North Africa,” McKay muttered.
“Doesn’t change things. So, about our artillery?”
“Last I checked, we had mechanics for lowly scut work.”
“Says the man knee-deep in engine innards.”
“Did I mention that our so-called ‘state of the art’ cameras must be from the Civil War?” McKay thrust an accusing hand at the underbelly of the plane. “We could draw stick figures and be more accurate than the resolution from those lenses.”
“We’re twenty-five thousand feet up and flying though storms that’d ground most commercial craft at home. That’s why we’re a specialized unit. And you’re avoiding the subject. If you have time to play mechanic, how about fixing what’s actually broken?”
“There’s an art involved in rebuilding an engine. A sophistication beyond fit tab A into slot B. You don’t need a genius; you need a priest to fix the left gun.”
“I’m sure I can find another miracle worker. Maybe that Russki. What’s his name? Zelinsky... Zelenkovich?” John teased, knowing exactly the effect of his inquiry.
“He’s Czechoslovakian and don’t you dare compare the two of us!” McKay snarled. “I don‘t know what you expect me to do. The shaft was jammed and something damaged the chamber. I dumped it off for spare parts. If you run, maybe you can retrieve it before someone melts it down.”
McKay dismissed him with a shooing motion then wiped away the sweat collecting at his brow with his fingers, leaving a smear of grease streaked across his forehead.
John left without saying a word, content with letting McKay act and look like a grease monkey.
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The maintenance part of the hangar was appropriately busy as it was the backbone of the base. Its unsung heroes worked eighteen hours shifts or longer, repairing everything from bullet-riddled wings to fuselages with gaping holes. It was dirty, demanding work, the least glamorous of duties, but vital to the non-stop bombing operations and coordinated attacks with the Navy off the coast.
This was where broken planes were stripped and gutted for parts and precious steel. P-40s, B-20s, even a few fallen Mitsubishi ‘Sally’ and ‘Ann’ Japanese attack bombers all waited in the metal graveyard to be turned into much needed scrap.
Repair crews yelled back and forth over the noise of welding tools and blow torches. John made his way to the far end of the hangar; the area reeked of burnt oil and smelting steel. He eyed the piles of discarded wheel mounts and twisted propellers among heaps of mangled metal.
“This is a needle in a haystack,” John muttered. He was taking one last glance around when he noticed a guy sitting on the floor with the pieces of a very familiar machine gun surrounding him. “Hey! What’cha doing over there?”
The mechanic never glanced up, clearly focused, to the point of tunnel vision, on his task. “Fixin’ this,” he replied.
“Yeah? What’s wrong with it?”
The mechanic kept his head bowed. “Extension assembly’s messed up.”
“That all?” John inquired.
“No.”
John watched him scrape inside the gun barrel with an odd, flat tool. “I think it needs more than just a cleaning.” The guy didn’t respond, and it piqued John’s curiosity even higher. “I dunno. Thing looks pretty shot up. Might be better to melt it down.”
“A gun’s meant to fire bullets.”
John smiled. “Yeah, it is. This one crapped out when a Zero tried to ram into my bird.”
The guy finally looked up and quickly scrambled to his feet. “Didn’t know I was being addressed by a superior officer, sir.”
“That’s because you never looked up.” John paused, gauging the mechanic’s reaction.
The man stiffened, waiting to take a dressing down, but kept his eyes locked with John’s. Ready and willing to accept his reprimand.
“I won’t fault you for your dedication.”
The mechanic remained at attention but John shoved his hands in his pockets and adopted a casual stance. “Can you fix it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ve got it on pretty good authority that it can’t be fixed. Wanna tell me how it’s salvageable?”
“Assembly’s got dents inside, but I’m smoothing them out. Oil buffer’s bent, so it can’t lubricate the barrel. Gonna straighten it. Stop cartridge’s sheared off.” The mechanic shrugged. “That’s easy to replace.”
John was impressed. “That’s a lot of pieces to keep up with.”
“Fifty-six in a Browning.”
“What’s your name?”
“Sergeant Dex.”
“Major John Sheppard. You got a first name?” he asked, extending his hand.
“Ronon.”
“This is where you shake my hand, Ronon,” John encouraged.
“Um...yes, sir. Sorry,” Ronon replied, taking John’s hand awkwardly.
John was pretty sure the guy wasn’t showing off by almost crushing his fingers. Ronon was large with several inches and about fifty pounds on John. He was young and had that driving glint in his eyes. “When did you sign up?”
“Two years ago.”
Yeah, John could tell. Those who were drafted fought hard and fought with loyalty. Those who asked to go to war and fight were an altogether different type of soldier.
“I was stationed at Wheeler Field a few years ago. Hawaii‘s a beautiful place.”
The muscles in Ronon’s neck knotted with tension. “Yeah, it is.”
John nodded to himself, a suspicion confirmed. Hawaii was a U.S territory. Thousands volunteered after the bombing of Pearl. It didn’t take a genius to guess where Ronon was from, and John had been around enough native Hawaiians to spot a person from a Polynesian background. But one thing was bugging him.
Ronon had curly hair down to his chin. It was unheard of in the military, not just bending the dress code, but obliterating it. He had to admit it was cool seeing someone else get away with defying regs, and so blatantly.
John gestured to Ronon’s head. “How’d you keep it?”
“I told them I took a religious oath not to cut my hair till Japan burns in Hellfire.”
John nodded. He’d never had much experience with the judge advocate side of things except for disciplinary actions that didn‘t require a court hearing. For all he knew there was a hidden loophole for side-stepping that aspect of the dress code and not just the couple of inches John got away with.
“Religious, huh?”
The big man didn’t reply or change expressions, but John could see the smirk in his eyes. “Were you in Hawaii long, sir?” Ronon asked with a smooth change of topic.
“About a year, but not during the bombing at Pearl.” John had been flying missions over Burma months beforehand. He’d known, like a lot of other people, that the U.S would go to war, but none of them had been prepared for the attack on American soil. At least not Hawaii.
Ronon was quiet, lost in thought or memories. Maybe both. He stood there in a green T-shirt, damp with sweat; his dog tags appeared as specks of metal against the bulk of his huge form. A heavy belt hung slightly low on his hips, weighed down by a side arm, knife, and extra tools.
John cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the silence. “What maintenance group are you with?”
“I’m not.”
“Motor pool?”
“No.”
“Why are you here?”
Ronon crossed his massive arms. “I was bored. Finished my regular duties and decided to hang out. Sir.”
“You hang out here?” John asked curiously, looking around the hangar. “On your down time?”
Ronon shrugged. “We can‘t afford to throw away artillery when it can be fixed.”
If only other airmen were as studious as this guy, John thought. “What’s your designation?”
“I’m a gunner.”
“Which squadron?”
“None.”
“What do you mean none?”
“I don’t belong to a crew.”
Maybe the heat had poached his brain, but John couldn’t fathom what he was hearing. “What do you do exactly?”
“I drive the fuel trucks.”
Ronon was Marine huge. All bulging muscle with a couple tattoos inked across thick, tanned arms. It was possible he had a short fuse. “You working off an article eight?”
“No, sir!” Ronon growled.
“Sorry, sometimes my thoughts need a filter before they reach my mouth,” John joked. But he knew he’d crossed a line, jumping to conclusions about disciplinary problems. “Figured you might crush annoying COs with your bare hands when they say stupid things.”
Ronon’s expression went from pissed to pleased. John knew a lot of officers who wouldn’t admit out loud to their mistakes. “Got any theories why you’re not shooting down Nips?”
“Maybe.”
“Yeah. Me too.” John sighed.
He was all too aware of the tendencies of the military. Realizing that a lot more time had passed than he intended, John checked his watch. Crap. He had a meeting in ten minutes and was going to have to double-time it in order to make it.
“Look, I have to go.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be back.” John pointed to the mess on the ground. “I expect my Browning to be working when I return. It belongs on my Havoc, not in a scrap yard.”
Ronon grinned. “I’ll see what I can do.”
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Water trickled down John’s cheeks and nose, and a stubborn drop lingered at his chin. He’d stepped outside the hangar just as the bottom had dropped out of the sky. Because of the torrential rains, his clothes had gone from slightly soggy to plastered to his skin in the thirty seconds he’d been out in them. He stood there waiting, catching the last of the sports scores from the tiny radio sitting on O‘Neill‘s desk.
“The Tigers beat the Yankees, 3-2. Rookie Stirnweiss, hit his first major league homerun and Detroit’s Overmire improved his ERA to 3.14. And that’s your sports for May 27th, 1943.”
Colonel O’Neill turned the volume off after the report. “I hope you didn’t track mud in here, Major. I just had the floors cleaned,” he muttered without looking up, preoccupied with sifting through wrinkled maps and dog-eared reports scattered across a wobbly-legged desk. A tiny fan sat on the very edge and the light breeze it managed to stir in the heavy, humid air ruffled the inches-high piles of paper barely held in check by paperweights.
The colonel nearly spilled his mug of coffee as he waved his hands in a flourish of triumph. “Ah, here they are!” He finally looked up at John, scrunching his eyebrows together. “Good grief, Sheppard! You look like a drowned rat.”
“Kinda feel like one, sir.”
“Yeah, well. It’s the monsoon season and all. Oh, by the way,” he added with a thrust of his chin over John’s shoulder, “General Hammond’s asked to sit in on this meeting.”
John turned around to see General George “Texas” Hammond sitting quietly in the corner, studying him with hawk eyes. It was disconcerting, standing in the same tent as WWI flying aces that he‘d read about in Battle Birds when he was a kid. “Nuts” O’Neill he’d served under for a year but Hammond he only knew by reputation.
“As you know, Sheppard, we want to leap frog the Jap forward defenses and hit Hollandia by June. We can only do that by securing a base northwest of Sarmi,” O’Neill announced without pretext.
“Yes, sir.” John knew all about the upcoming offensive and the failed attempts to gather the proper reconnaissance for it.
“There are eleven thousand hardened enemy troops entrenched in and around Hollandia,” Hammond spoke up. “They’ve already given up Sarmi as a loss and abandoned their air fields there. They expect our assault at Aitape, but not both.”
“But we still don’t know where their airstrips are between Aitape and Hollandia,” John recited from previous briefings. “And the past three attempts to gather surveillance have been hampered by heavy cloud cover.”
“Then unhampered it this time, Major. Your squad needs to pinpoint those damn airfields. Find out their completion rate and what we might be up against in terms of air power,” Hammond demanded. “We won’t get another chance. This is a three-pronged operation with the Navy and Marines. Thousands of lives are at stake. Find a way to get those pictures.”
“Yes, sir. What’s our deadline?” John asked.
“In the next three days,” Hammond announced.
Three days? John could only find one problem with that.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re down a crew member. Sergeant Markham’s accident was a terrible loss,” O’Neill said kindly. “You never want to lose a man in battle. It’s harder when it’s just a dumb accident.”
Markham’s death had been a senseless waste, a freak mishap. One moment he’d been walking toward their Havoc and the next, a truck full of sweaty nitro hit a hole in the dirt road and exploded, killing him, the driver and one other. All three men had been incinerated, depriving their mothers of proper burials.
“I know it’s only been four days since the accident, but you need to select a new gunner.” O’Neill tossed a half dozen files at him. “Here are the best candidates. All arrived last week; you get first pick.”
John dreaded this. He’d been flying with Markham for a year. There was a special bond created when confined inside a metal beast for hours, a harmony between your men, the air, and your plane. Most of John’s career he’d been solo. He’d preferred it that way.
Or he thought he had.
He flipped through performance jackets and evaluations, staring at some impressive stats, but his gut wasn’t going for any of them.
“There a problem, Sheppard?” O’Neill looked on expectantly. “Hard to choose?”
There were three lieutenants and two master sergeants; all five airmen had been enrolled during the Air Corps’ big push in ‘39. When John was in flight school he trained for thirty-two weeks. Now they rolled out navigators, pilots, you name it, in ten weeks flat. These candidates had actual experience with various types of bombers, a real rarity, but John trusted his instincts. And they were telling him to look deeper.
“What about Sergeant Dex?” John asked casually.
“Dex?” O’Neill’s voice took on a shrill quality. “Who’s Dex?”
“I think he arrived the last time we were supplied with fresh bed sheets,” John deadpanned.
“Well then, lemme check the stack labeled ‘bath and beauty’,” O’Neill responded with a sigh as he began digging through boxes and notebooks on the floor. “And why am I looking for someone I’ve never heard of?”
“I talked to him earlier. He was repairing one of my Brownings on his down time.”
“Really?” O’Neill hmmed to himself, still searching for the wayward file. “Sounds like he needs more duty hours.”
“I think he really likes his job,” John quipped then added under his breath, “If he were allowed to actually perform it.”
“Got it, no, wait…why aren’t these in alphabetical order?” O’Neill grumbled.
The ceiling banged in the high winds and the overhead light bulbs flickered as the temporary generator struggled to meet the electrical demands of the base, and the metal walls of the Quonset hut shook, making it feel like the whole thing would collapse.
“Found it,” O’Neill said, waving the file. He hooked the back of his chair with his leg and slumped down to study it.
John stood there with arms at his side and tried to keep still hands that hated being idle. There was a reason why his fingers were covered with calluses before he’d hit his thirtieth birthday. But he waited as patiently as he could while O’Neill flipped through Dex’s jacket. It took him longer than it should’ve; a good CO knew how to read between the lines of any eval and Nuts was one of the best.
Then O’Neill handed the service record to Hammond who wordlessly flipped through the contents before finally giving it to John. Both men’s features were schooled into carefully neutral expressions.
“Sergeant Dex doesn’t have the proper experience required for a position on your squad,” O’Neill began. “I’m sure after a couple of years under his belt he’ll make a fine officer.”
John honed in on the comments section of the jacket since it was the only thing that truly mattered to a commander. “Says here, Dex identifies ammo by touch after his first day, exceeding the three week requirement.”
Bullets were color coded for gunners for ease of learning and John knew a few that still relied on them in the heat of battle. He skimmed for more highlights and read them out loud. “Mastered the principles of the pursuit curve, hit targets on the fourth day…helped fellow lagging cadets between classes…. Ranked first in accuracy of Turret Topline, Spadegrip shotgun, M2 Basic and M2 Heavy barrels.”
“There’s a difference between achievements in class and actual air combat. You know that,” O’Neill objected.
“Served with the 18th Fighter group over Guadalcanal, made Corporal. Action over the Solomons, promoted twice. Huh…he’s flown in both the A-20 and the P-61,” he argued.
His COs communicated silently with each other and John knew this was his only opportunity. “The 61s are used exclusively for nighttime operations. When am I gonna find another gunner with that type of experience?”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t impressive, Sheppard. But those were joint Allied programs with the RAF,” O’Neill countered.
Right. Ronon had served with the Brits--not with a U.S. crew. Different cultures, different views. John resisted the urge to bang his head against the bureaucratic walls in front of him. Ronon Dex was the right person; he knew it. There was no logical explanation, no personal connection or real reason to go to bat for a complete stranger. What he had was a feeling, a stupid tingle that had saved his ass more times than he could count.
“Sirs.” John looked from O’Neill to Hammond. “Both of you’ve followed your guts in the air. Used evasive maneuvers before getting a visual, fired a wild shot that by some miracle found its target.”
“Major Sheppard, this is about more than trusting your instincts. You’ve got good ones-- most of the time.” Hammond got up and looked John right in the eye. “This is about winning a war. You command the only recon squadron in New Guinea. There’s no other unit. We’re stretched thinner than women’s stockings out here. Every time I turn around, HQ diverts another squadron to Africa, France, England.”
John stood straighter and gave the second in command of the Army Air Corps over Guinea his full attention. But he kept his shoulders squared, his jaw set.
“Do you understand me? You guys are all we have. The only ones with the skills to pull these missions off. The 17th Recon has six planes. Six of the most trained, experienced crews. Why, half the guys we’ve got are ones you recruited from the Tigers when you got the assignment. I know a few people who are still pissed that you stole Captain Lorne for yourself.” Hammond must have thought he wasn’t getting through and switched tactics. “We’ve even allowed McKay to keep his unauthorized modifications.”
“Modifications that’ve been one of the reasons for our high success rate, sir,” John retorted respectfully.
“Which is why we’ve given you a lot of leeway.” Hammond looked over at O’Neill for help.
“He’s right, Sheppard. This has nothing to do with policy. I was one the loudest supporters for the Tuskegee project. Hell, I want any good man under me. Brown, black, red, white or blue. This isn’t what you think,” O’Neill growled. “If you were in command of any other squadron, I’d say do whatever you want. Take him. I don’t care as long as he can shoot.”
“What is it, Major? Haven’t been rebellious enough lately?” Hammond took two quick strides to his chair, thumbed open a briefcase and fished out a thick manila folder. “You have a very colorful history. It takes a lot of money to fly as a civilian. Especially to join those illegal air races across the desert. How many of those did you participate in?”
“Don’t remember. A few,” John hedged. He’d flown in dozens, winning several.
Hammond didn‘t buy it. “You live for the thrill. There’s no aviator worth his wings who doesn’t. I’ve seen kids become test pilots after they got bored with those idiotic contests. Pretty exclusive club back then. How many active airmen were there when you graduated?”
“I‘m not sure, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me son. You know.”
“One hundred and ninety-two.”
Hammond gave a low whistle. “Fewer than two hundred men. Hot shots and rabble rousers creating the backbone of the Air Corps. The military got experienced men and you guys got to play with the fastest machines on Earth.”
“Seemed like a good fit, sir.”
“You’re one hell of a pilot, Sheppard. Got yourself a matched set of bronze and silver stars. Distinguished Service Cross, couple of Flying Crosses. I won’t bore you with your other merit awards. Thirteen years of training and testing.” Hammond shook his head in the same disappointed manner of John’s father. “For every achievement you had to do something stupid.
Your tendency to buck authority hasn’t helped your career. Performing unauthorized maneuvers, risking expensive government property in the process.” Hammond flipped through his jacket and raised his eyebrows at a particular entry. “You buzzed the Golden Gate Bridge?”
John kept his mouth in a straight line.
“Not to mention disorderly conduct. I know about the one Jack covered up for you. Distinguished airmen do not get into bar fights, no matter what the reason, Major.”
O’Neill rolled his eyes and Hammond gave up the argument there. They’d all be in the brig if the brass actually cared about the roughhousing that took place off duty. “I guess what I’d really like to know is…why the hell would you purposely crash that B-15?” Hammond demanded.
John knew he’d always have to defend his choice made on that hot day in Arizona. The Army had recruited him for his expertise as a test pilot and that meant measuring all safety factors. Not that certain companies with their shareholders’ eyes on the bottom line would care. “I didn’t intend to crash, sir. But I knew those engines would stall out at two-sixty. All the previous exercises were purposely conducted under one-ninety.”
“That wasn’t your call to make, Major.”
“The ink was practically dry on the contracts. I worked for Douglas. All they smelled was a fat government contract. They didn’t give a damn about the men who’d die in those cockpits!” John growled, knowing but not caring that he was overstepping his bounds in front of a superior.
“You disobeyed a direct order to keep your plane at the conditions agreed upon for the final test flight and instead you destroyed a prototype that cost more than a lifetimes’ worth of paychecks.” Hammond was a bottle cap ready to pop. “Did you think to report your suspicions up the chain of command?”
“I tried. When no one listened, I took the chance and accepted the consequences, sir.”
O’Neill came out from behind his desk, trying to calm things. “Okay, alright. We all know about Major Sheppard’s exploits as well as his accomplishments. Uncle Sam never bought those birds after a thorough investigation. It ended up saving millions of dollars and more importantly, lives.”
“Yes, it did,” Hammond agreed, his focus on John. “And it saved your ass. So you started slowly rebuilding the pieces of your career, came on as part of our coastal defense program. Then you went and retired to join a bunch of mercenaries.”
“Sir, with all due respect, the Tigers were one of the most respected squadrons of the war,” O’Neill spoke up.
“And do you really think those who volunteered knew that at the time? Or was it all money and glory?” Hammond questioned O’Neill.
“If you’ll recall, sir, I wanted to join that mission,” O’Neill responded, arching an eyebrow. “Come on. They destroyed over three hundred Zeros and only lost fourteen men.” O’Neill turned to John. “You know I’ve given you whatever you’ve needed. I’ve even looked past the regs on your hair. And before you say anything, I know all about your superstition about keeping it long. Hell, once I was assigned a mission I never changed my shorts ‘til I got back.”
Hammond actually took two steps away from the colonel.
“Give me one mission to test him out, Colonel; that’s all I ask,” John implored. He sought the proper argument, teetering between begging and yelling. “Entire operations depend on our data. I know that. The difference between success and failure lies with my squad’s ability to gather accurate intel. I’m not out there trying to collect the most kills. I’m trying…” John swallowed. “I’m trying to do the best I can…to prevent more casualties. I was recruited after my stint with the Tigers to command this squadron. Allow me to do it.”
The gears were turning, each of his superiors gauging the validity of his argument.
“Look. There might be more experienced gunners out there. But how many of them witnessed the bombing at Pearl? How many lived there? Pearl’s not just a shipyard, or a base. It goes beyond the deaths--it was an attack on someone’s land. If anything, I think Dex has more to fight for than a lot of us.” He stiffened his back and pulled back his shoulders. “Sirs.”
Hammond wandered back to his chair and sat down heavily, fishing a pack of smokes from his shirt pocket. “I rarely tell those I’ve placed in command what to do. I’ll leave the decisions to you, Jack.”
“Oh, gee, thanks. Is it happy hour yet?” O’Neill sighed, rubbing at his temples.
John waited, tension a familiar knot in his shoulders and stomach.
“Take him out, Sheppard. See how he does. A commander always knows on the first mission if it’s the right fit.” O’Neill picked up a leather attaché case and handed it over. “I expect a full report when you return.”
John took the case, feeling its literal and figurative burden. “Thank you, sir.” He waited for Hammond to nod a dismissal at him then exited the tent to go see his new gunner.
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“Chapter Two”
Authors: everybetty and Kristen999
Genre: Gen
Spoilers: None
Words: 90,000- with over forty pictures (posted in ten chapters)
Rating: PG-15
Warnings: Soldier language, ethnic slurs associated with the era, and some war violence.
Summary: WWII-based AU. The Team as we know it has been transplanted to the South Pacific. Major John Sheppard, his navigator, Lt Rodney McKay, and his gunner, Sgt Ronon Dex, are stationed on the island of New Guinea on the eve of the island nation’s greatest battle. Native friend and sometime spy, Teyla Emmagan, aids the efforts against the Axis powers.
Authors’ Notes: There was an immense amount of research involved in this undertaking; however, we are not historians, so please be aware there will probably be inaccuracies and we did take some liberties with a few historical facts and military protocol for creative license reasons. This fic takes place in the 1940’s where the term politically correct hadn’t even existed. These are soldiers in the middle of the biggest war most nations have ever been a party to. They smoke, swear, spit and casually use rough language and ethnic, racial and gender-based slurs as was typical of the time.
Many thanks to Wildcat88 for her betaing and support as well as sharpes_hussy for her invaluable advice.
A gigantic, amazing round of applause to Tridget for taking all our collected images and creating seamless backdrops and alterations so they could be presented authentically.
Feedback as always is appreciated.
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The sunset was gorgeous, reds and deep oranges embracing a serene blue sea. The moment was absolutely perfect, something to cherish and hold on to. But, like all beautiful moments, it was fleeting, brought to a sudden halt as reality came crashing down.
The throaty rumbling of cassowary calls and the cries of the seemingly always mating riflebird competed with the hum of a million buzzing insects. It was the same battle every day and raged from dawn to dusk on New Guinea. The creepy-crawlies had won this round, their noise drowning out anything on two or four legs. That is, until the 475th Fighter Group and their eighty-eight engines arrived.
John slapped his neck, crushing whatever was dining there into a bloody smear. With miles of peaceful ocean in front of him, it was hard to imagine the swarms bursting out of the jungle behind him. Chiggers, wasps, cockroaches, fleas. They were a relentless pestilence, as if on orders from Tokyo to devour them whole.
He flicked his wrist and looked at his watch; twenty hundred hours had come and gone. He was late. He wiggled his toes in the sand while glaring at his dusty boots. Socks that hadn’t seen real soap in over three weeks were stuffed inside the heavy Red Wings. He hated having to put them back on, but his men were waiting.
Groaning loudly he stood, both knees popping, but he never tore his eyes away from the lapping waves as he forced his feet into crusty socks and old leather. He’d stop by his tent to splash on some Aqua Velva to cover up the aviation fuel and sweat that clung to his skin. Maybe he’d put on a pair of pants. Sometimes it sucked being an officer when all he wanted to do was hang out in shorts and a t-shirt.
His cap was crushed from being used as a pillow for too long so he bent it back into shape and swatted the air around his face with it, fending off a squadron of bloodsucking mosquitoes. No use wearing it; the weather was just too damn hot. He made his way up the beach and had just stepped up to the dirt road when a jeep nearly clipped him.
Oily brakes screeched and a pimply-faced kid no older than eighteen jumped out. “Oh, Lord. Sorry, sir. Are you--”
“Stand down, Private. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
“I just didn’t see you, sir. And my L-T said he was gonna chew my ass a new one if I didn’t bring him--”
“Take a deep breath, Private…”
“O’Malley, sir!” the squirrelly private shouted as he saluted.
Milk-white skin covered in a multitude of freckles and a carrot-orange crew cut. Could the kid be anymore Irish? “It’s fine. No harm, no foul. Go on. I wouldn’t want your CO to be pissed that I kept you.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” the private stammered, scrambling into his jeep and nearly stripping the clutch as he gunned the engine.
John grimaced at the painful sound of the jeep stop-starting before taking off down the dirt road. He checked the time again and sighed. “Crap.”
He doubled-timed it back to his bunk with a watchful eye peeled for privates barely old enough to drive. His quarters were at the far end of the base, close (sometimes too close) to the officers’ latrine and the mess hall.
The door flap of the canvas tent had been closed up tight and he sighed with familiar resignation as he began working the recalcitrant zipper. It got stuck halfway up the flap but he managed to yank it down and step through, only to have a web of mesh attack him. “Damn it, McKay!” he growled to himself as he tried to detangle from the triple layer of netting.
By the time he changed into a fresh tee and slid his arms into his khaki over-shirt he was sweating through both layers. He looked down at his boots, remembered why he laced them loose, and chucked them off before quickly pulling on a pair of trousers.
His crew was going to kill him for being so late.
He stripped the belt from his shorts, threaded it through the loops of his pants and verified that his knife and .45 were secured. The trunk by his bed was unlocked despite McKay’s insistence that the Aussies stationed on the base had sticky fingers. He opened the lid and shook his head.
What on Earth McKay could think he had that was worth stealing? His clothes stank to high heaven; sea water and a sprinkling of laundry powder got rid of grease and oil stains but not much else and a few of his t-shirts could crawl away on their own after too many forty-eight hour stints of not changing.
He shoved his clothes to the side and dug around for his comb. It was only as he spied the sorry-looking, broken-toothed thing on the floor of the chest that it dawned on him that a few issues of his Superman comics were missing.
“You’re a dead man, McKay,” he muttered.
Standing before the broken mirror attached to the center tent pole he tried to wrangle into place his unruly hair but the humidity had made it untamable. It was a pointless battle, but he figured he’d try to appear presentable for tonight. Then again, he wasn’t gonna try too hard. Officially he was off duty, so he didn’t do anything about his heavy five o’clock shadow.
The walk to the officers’ club was a minefield of tent stakes and inches-deep puddles of mud left by the daily deluges. Briefly panicked, he patted down his shirt front then smiled as he remembered, and pulled a wrinkled pack of Lucky Strikes and a Zippo running low on butane from his pants pocket. It took a couple tries for the flint to ignite in the damp before he lit the end of his cigarette. Smoking gave him a few seconds of clarity only matched in the highest altitudes of the sky. Or, according to a certain annoying navigator, it was a false, chemically toxic high. McKay could be so annoying.
John hurried past airmen and soldiers, nodding instead of saluting at those he passed. The deafening roar of engines overhead gave him pause as he counted the P-38 Invaders returning from supplying artillery fire for the Marine battalions making their way in-country twenty miles north. The landing strip was at the far end of the base and it had only taken him a few days to get used to the noise of the hourly takeoffs and landings before he could sleep right through them.
The P-38s were attack craft with sleek bodies painted in dark and light greens. The twin propellers were huge, able to push speeds up to four hundred and fifty mph and they had glass noses instead of solid steel bearing the squadron’s emblem.
“They all make it back?”
John glanced up to see the smiling face of Captain Evan Lorne. His dress shirt was completely unbuttoned and both sleeves were rolled up. The captain sported a two day-old beard which was surprising since he was usually a weird stickler for regs. Then again, John couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen a can of shaving cream; they’d all been forced to use soapy water that left razor burns.
It was tough enough for ships to bring them food provisions let alone ‘luxury’ items. Thankfully New Guinea had enough berries, bananas, and pineapples to supplement their C-rations. They’d also hired a few of the locals to climb trees loaded with fresh coconuts, since many airmen had learned the hard way that the rotted ones on the ground caused dysentery.
“Not sure. The 5th Squadron returned from a bombing run earlier... we lost three escort fighters to heavy fire.” John exhaled heavily. “Resistance’s been pretty fierce.”
“Capturing Noemfoor Island’s the final step in MacArthur’s grand plan,” Lorne remarked with only a little contempt as he lit a cigarette. “Bombing Biak using Navy carriers isn‘t working. If we capture those airfields the Japs built at Noemfoor, we‘re only ten miles from their main airbase.”
“Yeah, bomb the hell out of Biak and hope we weaken their forces enough for those crazy paratroopers,” John remarked, having memorized the objectives. Things always sounded better on paper.
Lorne chuckled. “You don’t like jumping out of airplanes, sir?”
“I prefer staying inside the cockpit. Besides, all this is just warm up. We capture Biak and we’ve got a launching pad to strike Vogelkop. And that leaves fifteen thousand Japanese troops between us and retaking the rest of Western Guinea. Piece of cake.”
They all knew MacArthur’s real objective. The whole Guinea campaign was another step on his path back to the Philippines and it didn’t matter how much blood was spilled to get there. The drive was relentless. Island after island. Landing after landing. Always moving west. The death toll on both sides was ringing into the thousands. But no one spoke out loud about the general and his plans; John had learned that the hard way.
He kept his eye on the sky, counting the returning planes. “Eighteen. Looks like we lost two,” he sighed as he crushed his cigarette with the toe of his boot, taking with it a few of the dozens of bugs that wriggled all over the ground. Damn place was infested with insects, but that’s what happened when you cut and burned down a jungle to plant your base on.
No sooner had one squadron returned than the next one took off, the sky now filling with the Flying Knights. John’s heart raced along with the P-38 fighters as they set off to protect the vulnerable B-29s readying on the east airfield. The raids were constant, reaching an almost non-stop twenty-four pace of bombing, and the engineers had cleared out a third landing strip just to keep pace with the relentless attacks.
John watched the fighters take off from the rocky roadway, imagining his hands on the throttle and the adrenaline rush of twelve thousand pounds of aircraft under his control.
“You miss chasing Zeros?” Lorne asked, his eyes glued to the fighter planes.
“Naw, they still chase me,” John said, smiling. “If I recall, one almost took out your tail the other day.”
“What can I say? All those cameras make my bird heavy in the ass,” Lorne chuckled.
The two of them stood there, watching the flying fortresses take off next and silently wishing all the crews success. The lighter, more maneuverable P-38s would engage any Japanese air opposition and hopefully clear the skies for the heavy bombers to drop their payloads.
“I can‘t imagine flying one of those beasts,” Lorne said, pulling out another cigarette.
“I have.”
“Of course you have.” John shot him a dirty look and Lorne smiled. “I mean, with your colorful career, I shouldn’t be surprised you‘ve been in a B-29.”
“Is that your kind way of saying I’m old, Captain?”
“You weren’t there when the Wright Brothers took off at Kitty Hawk?”
John only had three or four years on the Captain. “You know, my engine had a hell of a squeal on our last mission. Maybe I should have you dismantle it and oil all the gears. Shouldn’t take you more than ten hours.”
Lorne’s smile disappeared. “Or maybe I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Now you’re talking,” John said, clapping him on the back.
“Besides, I doubt McKay would let me touch a single cog of his precious modifications,” Lorne snorted.
John wanted to throttle the genius who put the officers’ club in the middle of camp. Walking through pockets of steam made his t-shirt fuse to his skin and he flapped the collar of his over-shirt in a futile attempt to cool down.
Lorne took a long swallow from his canteen and pressed it to his sweaty forehead. “Maybe Pete scored some ice today.”
“I’ll give him my Miss June pin-up for a cold beer.” John laughed then stopped short in front of the large, inviting tent. “Crap. I forgot to check the daily fuel reports,” he sighed, and started to turn away.
Lorne grabbed John’s shoulder. “With all due respect, sir, we’ve done over five hundred sorties in the last three months. We have a couple days off. How about enjoying them?”
“And if this week’s supply transport got hit and all our extra fuel and ammunition are at the bottom of a coral reef?”
“Then it’s Colonel O’Neill’s problem for the next seventy-two hours, sir. Let him duke it out with the Navy brass. That’s his job.” Lorne pushed open the flap. “There’re real electric fans in there.”
Dusk was settling in with storm clouds ready to dump another five inches of rain. It down-poured every day as the monsoon season started gearing up again. John scanned the thick brush that threatened to overrun the base with its vines and trees.
“Don’t think it’s dark enough for one of her visits, sir,” Lorne said quietly.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Come on; let’s go in before McKay sends the MPs to find us.” But John gave the jungle one last glance before joining his waiting crew for a much needed night of relaxation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The officers’ club was a 20 by 20 green Army tent that leaked at every seam, despite fifty degree declines for all the water to drip down the top flaps. It was the officer with the least seniority’s duty to go around and replace the overflowing buckets during a storm. Plywood boxes outnumbered chairs to sit on while men played cards on fold-up tables and empty munitions crates.
The bar stood in the back; several members of the 5th Air Corp Engineers had built it after clearing away acres of impenetrable jungle for the runway.
“This is the Allied Radio Network with your news for this June 18, 1944.”
John tuned out the newscast, not wanting to hear about the war effort. He stood in front of a small fan circulating the same hot air in a fruitless effort to cool down, and started listening again when Benny Goodman drifted out of the crackling speakers.
“Can I get ya something, Major?”
John tossed a smile and a nod at the tall, gangly kid behind the bar. Corporal Pete Petoskey was as laid back as he was lanky. He’d been a young bartender in Detroit at night and apprenticed as a plumber during the day before the draft snagged him. His casual manner helped balance the daily stress involved with maintaining supplies for hundreds of vehicles and the miles of bureaucratic red tape that went with it. He was also the scratch man for off the book supplies and that made the twenty-something very popular.
“Got anything other than jungle juice?” John inquired, giving Pete a charming smile. Alcohol was scarce; the last real supplies had gone dry months ago and now the only source of inebriation was fermenting the fruit around the island, or worse - soaking bread in rubbing alcohol and mixing it with grapefruit juice.
“For you and your men? I’ve got rum.”
“No shit?” Lorne grinned from ear to ear.
John had been prepared to give away Miss May and Miss June for some watered-down beer. He was still dumbstruck when a glass appeared in front of him and his eyes grew wider at the three ice cubes melting at the bottom.
Pete was cool as a cucumber, pouring the unlabeled bottle of liquor as if it was the brown water they boiled daily. Who knew how long it had taken to smuggle it or cook it up in the back of the mess. One thing was for sure, each bottle would fetch a week’s pay. John swirled the drink in his glass before sipping, showing his appreciation of the effort and the risks probably taken in obtaining it.
A scan of the other tables told him that several other crew members had already enjoyed a couple rounds. Good. They deserved it. And considering what their next set of orders was…well. Nope. He wasn’t supposed to think about that for the next seventy-two hours.
“Thanks, Pete.”
The corporal smiled. “No problem, sir. Sergeant Dex’s already used it to sucker a bunch of guys from the 112th outa two months pay. He said he got tired of waiting for you to show up.”
That would explain where his gunner was. John spotted Ronon at one of the far tables, dealing a hand of poker; a single bottle sat next to a stack of chips.
“How much does he have to wager with?” he asked.
“Oh, about a pint. He took a couple of glasses with him, but he hasn’t lost even a shot’s worth,” Pete chuckled.
“That’s because his expression is always the same,” Lorne piped in.
The bartender cocked his head in confusion until John added, “Yeah. Always pissed off.”
The three of them laughed, and the officers tapped the bottoms of their glasses onto the bar in salute before taking large swallows. The rum left a trail of fire down John’s throat, forcing his eyes closed.
“Jesus!” he exclaimed, nearly choking on the vile liquid.
“It’ll put hair on your chest, sir,” Pete laughed.
“I’d say that’s already covered,” John choked out between bouts of coughing.
“Oh, for crying out loud. Are you drunk already, Major? I only stepped out for a few minutes,” a familiar voice whined.
John’s face was flushed and he reached for the glass of water that Pete had poured in anticipation. After gulping down half the tepid liquid he turned to his other crewmate. “No, not yet, McKay. But gimme enough time and I might.”
Lieutenant Rodney McKay’s over-shirt was still tucked into his trousers and was buttoned all the way up. Even in this sticky, stifling heat he wore long sleeves due to his constant fear of disease-carrying mosquitoes. Consequently, he drank triple the average airman’s water rations and complained more about the miserable weather than anyone.
McKay scowled at John. “If you ask me, things were better during Prohibition.”
“No one did,” Lorne muttered under his breath.
McKay whirled on the captain, all gears winding up for full-on rant mode when John grabbed him by the collar and dragged him over to the bar. “Come on, have a shot.”
McKay let out a squawk of protest and swatted John’s fingers away while trying to fix his uniform. “Watch it. Do you know how hard it was to get all the wrinkles out? I had to pay some local fuzzy to hang it on a very tall and precarious tree branch to dry so no one would take it.”
“No one’s gonna steal your clothes and besides...” John wiped his wet hand on his trousers. “They’re already wet.”
“It’s drizzling outside, Major,” McKay huffed.
“Wasn’t raining when we came in,” John said, smiling at Pete as he doled out another shot.
“Gee. Has it been two whole minutes?” McKay grouched, crossing his arms.
“Good point,” John conceded, handing him the shot glass.
McKay rolled his eyes at the offered drink. “If I wanted bacteria-laden fruit juice, I’d drink the hooch you force me to concoct for you and Ronon.”
“It’s real ru-um,” John enticed, swirling it under his navigator’s nose.
“Really?” McKay curled his hand around the glass and sniffed it suspiciously. “No citrus, right?”
At John’s very serious headshake he relented. “Wouldn’t want it to go to waste on those who think drinking vinegar serves as a suitable substitute for the real thing,” he muttered before swallowing.
Lorne snickered as McKay gasped at the liquid fire and sprayed rum all over his own t-shirt. “I’m going to find my crew, sir. You guys have fun.”
John leaned back against the bar with a wide grin while his lieutenant’s face went from red to violet. “Did I mention it had a bit of a kick?”
“I just burned through ten thousand brain cells, Major! Remember that the next time you ask me to calculate longitude and latitude when navigation’s on the fritz and visibility’s zero.” McKay grabbed one of the few empty chairs and sat down heavily, pulled off his cap to run his hand through his disheveled hair and waved it at his sweaty face. “The humidity has to be ninety percent in here.”
“Your head stores most of your body heat. Maybe you should leave the hat off,” John suggested.
“Says the guy whose scalp’s not at risk.”
“Risk, McKay?”
“Hello? Malaria, Typhus, Dengue Fever, not to mention the million other tropical diseases carried by a single insect bite. I keep sending letters to HQ about our staggering loss ratios from illness versus battle casualties. Not that any of them have the I.Qs to figure out that the damn insects are the real threat and we should be allocating more research to medical prevention of--”
“Lieutenant.”
“Right. Shutting up.” McKay slid his cap back on and reached for the canteen constantly holstered at his belt and took a long swallow.
Duke Ellington was up next on the radio. John recognized the tune, couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was one of those numbers that got your toe tapping to the beat.
This was what it was all about. Talking and drinking. Relaxing or playing games. Like rare snapshots on the beach. He lived for this. He fought for this.
“Son of a bitch!”
All heads spun at the sound of a chair falling to the floor. One airman was calming another; a deck of cards was scattered across the table. John had seen it a hundred times before. Alcohol and money jacked up tension and stress. Then he noticed how Ronon sat quietly, shuffling another deck, eyes passing briefly over all those at his table.
John was the ranking CO, but he didn’t care for using his oak leaf if he didn’t have to. Blowing off steam was pretty rare on base and was sometimes a much needed diversion. So he watched and waited. Players switched places; new blood replaced those too intoxicated to keep up. It wouldn’t matter, though; Ronon rarely lost at cards.
He watched out for his crewmate as some of the players gathered up their chips, knowing when they were being outplayed. One of the officers headed for the bar to drown his sorrows in liquid comfort. John didn‘t recognize the face, but ten new squadrons had just arrived and eight more were due in the next two days.
“Hey, Corporal, how about something that doesn’t taste like gasoline?”
Pete was wiping doggedly at a water ring stain with a dingy cloth, shook his head in response. “Got jungle juice, sir, but it’ll cost ya.”
The officer sighed. “I just lost two weeks pay.”
“Then you still have two weeks left,” Pete said, leaning on the bar with a grin.
The officer’s gaze wandered over to the unlabeled bottle and his eyes grew wide. “Hey, how about some of that rum? I’ll pay whatever you want for it.”
“Sorry, sir. That’s for Major Sheppard’s squadron.”
The lieutenant glanced over, eyes now going even wider as he noticed John for the first time and quickly straightened and started to raise a hand in salute. “Maj--.”
“At ease,” John cut him off.
The officer relaxed a little, but he hadn’t stopped staring, making John uneasy under the scrutiny. “Something bothering you, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir. I mean…it’s just...”
“Just what?”
“You’re Major Sheppard, sir.”
McKay rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”
“Last I checked,” John drawled, taking a swig of his drink.
“You used to fly with the Flying Tigers.”
“Yep, a couple years ago.”
“You hunted down Nips before any of us.”
“Not this again. Who hasn‘t heard about your exploits over Burma?” McKay grumbled.
The lieutenant looked like he‘d just graduated flight school despite the rank on his sleeve. “Is there anything you could tell me? You know. Some advice? I have a P-40 Warhawk.”
All the aerial drills in the world and hours clocked in the cockpit could never replace real air combat. “How long’ve you been flying, Lieutenant?” John inquired, feeling his every year in the air.
“About three months, sir. But most of that was over the last few weeks, doing mop-up over Borneo.”
John tried not to grimace. Four years ago the Army had controlled the Air Corps. Then after Pearl they’d gone from 500 to 6,000 pilots in under two years and expanded into their own sector of the military, all green recruits. It was hard to imagine being that wet behind the ears. From the cornstalks of Kansas to the tropics halfway across the world. Green airmen with six months of exercises against hardened Japanese pilots with years of dogfights over Manceria.
“Always attack in a group. The Zero can outmaneuver you every time. Don’t enter a turning fight. Always use a slashing attack then dive away to set up the next one.”
“But...I mean. That’s not what we were taught,” the lieutenant questioned.
“Excuse me, but the Tigers suffered fourteen losses and racked up three hundred kills in a single year. I’m assuming basic math competence was required for flight training?”
“McKay...” John warned, part impressed and part embarrassed that his friend knew those stats. He turned to the airman. “The P-40 can achieve a superior attitude much faster than the Zero. Use it to your advantage.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
The young officer stood there, revealing the stress of too much responsibility hefted upon a set of shoulders no older than twenty-one. John didn’t want to talk about combat today. He wanted to drink and argue with his crew about who had the hottest curves, Veronica Lake or Claire Trevor. He was a Lake man himself. Loved the hair and the mystery.
Sweat pooled at his hairline as he flicked away the ants crawling over the bar to give him a few seconds to think. McKay stood up, ready to pull him over to a table for what would probably be a spontaneous discussion of needed instrument adjustments.
John lived to fly, but that didn’t mean he gloated over those he shot down. But he was surrounded by a bunch of kids; the least he could do was talk to them. “Something else you wanted to know, Lieutenant...?”
“Lieutenant Betts, sir. Um.” The young man looked around; a couple airmen from a nearby table had stopped talking and had begun listening in. “Is it true? You‘ve flown bombers and Invaders, too? Before joining the Tigers?”
John had flown more than that, but that wasn’t important. “I’ve been behind the stick of a few fighters.”
“Now you command the 17th Recon Unit.” The lieutenant looked at McKay. “With um...”
“With what?” John pressed, feeling defensive.
“With a very interesting crew,” Lieutenant Betts quickly added.
“They’re the best,” John said proudly.
McKay beamed and John knew there would be no hearing the end of the man’s list of contributions to their current run of successful missions. He reminded himself to keep all future praise out of his navigator’s earshot.
Lieutenant Betts nodded in Ronon’s direction. “Dex. He’s your gunner.”
“Yeah,” McKay said.
Betts cleared his throat. “He’s non-commissioned.”
“Yeah, he’s a non-com.” John challenged. “But he’s part of my crew and he won’t be excluded from any of our activities.” That included allowing him inside the officers’ club, a battle John had fought long and hard for and still put up with a lot flack for breaking such huge protocol, but he’d pulled in every favor in the book. It seemed to have worked for the time being.
Betts nodded. “I hear tell he’s a hell of a gunner. Never seen him in action but know the stories.”
“They’re all true,” John announced.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did he join your crew?”
“How?”
“Well...he’s not...”
“White.”
“Yeah. I mean, yes, sir.”
John nodded at Pete to pour him another drink. “First off, he‘s Polynesian. And secondly, that’s a very interesting story...”
It was pouring again, like it had the day before and the day before that, covering the base in rivers of mud. John’s boots sank all the way to his ankles, and each step made a slurping sound as he trudged through the gunk. This was his third temporary base in four months and they were gearing up for another drive to the mainland.
And with what? Spitballs?
He stomped through the puddles, splashing rancid water halfway up his pant legs. They hadn’t seen supplies in over twelve days; for all the talk about New Guinea being the Navy’s front, their boats certainly got picked off enough by Jap subs. He hadn’t had eight hours of sleep in the last week. It seemed every night if there wasn’t a storm crashing and rattling its way overhead it was a Jap air raid, sending him and his men scrambling out into the dark in their boxers (for those that bothered wearing them in the heat) to the .50s they had bunkered all over the base.
And if physical action wasn’t needed, his head would take over. He and McKay had been on a boondoggle expedition for badly needed parts for his embattled squadron. At this rate, they were going to have to swap out pieces from the motor pool. And they were done on ordnance. But he’d be damned if he told his men to fly over Lau to record enemy troop movements with orders to conserve ammunition because they risked running out.
By the time he arrived at the airfield he was soaked to the bone. He shook out his arms, drops raining from his fingertips, sheeting down his arms and face. A quick flick or three of his head had water spraying in all directions.
“What are you, a dog? Jeez! Ever heard of an umbrella?”
“Yeah, you got one?” John grumped, leaving a trail of mud-spattered footprints inside the temporary hangar. No chance of drying off in here either; the tent trapped humidity, turning the hangar into a pressure cooker. If he pinched his skin, it was bound to ooze water.
McKay sat on the ground, surrounded by hundreds of motor parts. John winced at what he was sure was a stroke coming on as he realized it was from their plane. “What the hell? Those are supposed to be inside the bird!”
“Duct tape. I’m trying to repair this… this heap with duct tape!” McKay spat, waving his hands around at the guts of their engine. “You just had to push the limits on our last run, didn’t you? Well guess what, Major? We carry thousands of pounds in radar and surveillance equipment. We’re not a hang-glider with guns. We’re heavy.”
“Bombs are fuckin’ heavy and I never had a problem before. Besides, we were being shelled. I was just keeping us from meeting some of the Rising Sun’s finest face to face.”
“Next time try getting out of the way of the bullets.”
“I was. In a diving motion,” John replied, demonstrating by drawing his hands in a steep, downward gesture.
McKay was on his feet, pointer finger out like a dagger, face going from pink to scarlet when he couldn’t chew John out like he wanted to.
John didn’t budge while McKay fumed silently, sweat pouring down his rosy cheeks. In some ways John envied his navigator. At least he had something purposeful to do. A task to distract a wandering mind.
They were grounded after all.
“Don’t you have three months worth of pencil pushing to do?” McKay asked finally. His words were snappy but his features carried less hostility. Were even a little sympathetic and that was something John didn’t want to be on the receiving end of.
“Is there a reason for pulling out the motor when I asked you to look at the left dorsal gun?”
There were those familiar burning blue eyes. John knew exactly how to get the vein in his friend’s left temple throbbing. McKay scowled in righteous indignation. “We have a pair of specially fitted one thousand pound engines.”
“I’m well aware of this.”
“So that means we should be able to fly faster than five hundred miles an hour.”
John laughed. “Those are factory specs to get government contracts. I should know. I used to work for Wright Manufacturing.”
“Really?” McKay expression broke out in wonder. “Are they related to--”
“No, but they thought it’d sell more engines. Though I did hit five-ninety once.” John shrugged. “That was without machine guns or fancy cameras.”
“What‘s the point of having specially made turbocharged engines if they don‘t live up to their name? No, don‘t answer that. I‘m not in the mood for some cocky response.”
“They do tend to overheat when I push ‘em too hard.”
“I fixed that problem already. You can thank my ingenuity for coming up with a cooling system.”
“And I did when I gave you six issues of Life.”
McKay snorted, “That you got by trading in moonshine that I distilled.”
“Still cost me a week’s worth of coffee.” McKay seemed genuinely horrified to John‘s amusement. “It was worth it. Didn’t want Uncle Sam’s re-fit.” Like hell would he go back to the limitations of 330 mph.
McKay however was a bloodhound on a scent, unable to let go. He picked up a screwdriver and started waving it around. “We’re still inefficient. We’re only hitting four-eighty. These engines have the power capability to reach five-fifty. I just need to fine tune it. Strip out redundancy, lighten a few areas. Maybe I can play with the torque a little but then heat will start building up...”
Rodney McKay was all about science. John never questioned McKay‘s mind; in fact, he was often astonished that the man wasn‘t locked away in a government lab, constructing the world’s next super weapon. It was amazing luck that he was part of John’s crew. Of course, when John’s luck was on a hot streak, it was on fire. When it was bad... well, those were days he‘d rather forget. “I take it that’s a bad thing?”
McKay snorted. “Ever heard of the Laws of Thermodynamics?”
John shot back, “First, second or third? You want Carnot or Thomson’s version?
Leaving McKay speechless was a win in John’s book, so he took advance and changed fronts. “What about the heavy gun that helps keep us alive?”
“Beyond repair,” his friend huffed.
“That’s not an answer. We can’t spare any Brownings. Hell, we can’t spare any nuts or bolts. All our supplies are bottlenecked outside New Britain. As of right now, we‘re cut off.”
“We wouldn’t be cut off if they hadn’t sent most of the fleet to North Africa,” McKay muttered.
“Doesn’t change things. So, about our artillery?”
“Last I checked, we had mechanics for lowly scut work.”
“Says the man knee-deep in engine innards.”
“Did I mention that our so-called ‘state of the art’ cameras must be from the Civil War?” McKay thrust an accusing hand at the underbelly of the plane. “We could draw stick figures and be more accurate than the resolution from those lenses.”
“We’re twenty-five thousand feet up and flying though storms that’d ground most commercial craft at home. That’s why we’re a specialized unit. And you’re avoiding the subject. If you have time to play mechanic, how about fixing what’s actually broken?”
“There’s an art involved in rebuilding an engine. A sophistication beyond fit tab A into slot B. You don’t need a genius; you need a priest to fix the left gun.”
“I’m sure I can find another miracle worker. Maybe that Russki. What’s his name? Zelinsky... Zelenkovich?” John teased, knowing exactly the effect of his inquiry.
“He’s Czechoslovakian and don’t you dare compare the two of us!” McKay snarled. “I don‘t know what you expect me to do. The shaft was jammed and something damaged the chamber. I dumped it off for spare parts. If you run, maybe you can retrieve it before someone melts it down.”
McKay dismissed him with a shooing motion then wiped away the sweat collecting at his brow with his fingers, leaving a smear of grease streaked across his forehead.
John left without saying a word, content with letting McKay act and look like a grease monkey.
--------------------------------------------
The maintenance part of the hangar was appropriately busy as it was the backbone of the base. Its unsung heroes worked eighteen hours shifts or longer, repairing everything from bullet-riddled wings to fuselages with gaping holes. It was dirty, demanding work, the least glamorous of duties, but vital to the non-stop bombing operations and coordinated attacks with the Navy off the coast.
This was where broken planes were stripped and gutted for parts and precious steel. P-40s, B-20s, even a few fallen Mitsubishi ‘Sally’ and ‘Ann’ Japanese attack bombers all waited in the metal graveyard to be turned into much needed scrap.
Repair crews yelled back and forth over the noise of welding tools and blow torches. John made his way to the far end of the hangar; the area reeked of burnt oil and smelting steel. He eyed the piles of discarded wheel mounts and twisted propellers among heaps of mangled metal.
“This is a needle in a haystack,” John muttered. He was taking one last glance around when he noticed a guy sitting on the floor with the pieces of a very familiar machine gun surrounding him. “Hey! What’cha doing over there?”
The mechanic never glanced up, clearly focused, to the point of tunnel vision, on his task. “Fixin’ this,” he replied.
“Yeah? What’s wrong with it?”
The mechanic kept his head bowed. “Extension assembly’s messed up.”
“That all?” John inquired.
“No.”
John watched him scrape inside the gun barrel with an odd, flat tool. “I think it needs more than just a cleaning.” The guy didn’t respond, and it piqued John’s curiosity even higher. “I dunno. Thing looks pretty shot up. Might be better to melt it down.”
“A gun’s meant to fire bullets.”
John smiled. “Yeah, it is. This one crapped out when a Zero tried to ram into my bird.”
The guy finally looked up and quickly scrambled to his feet. “Didn’t know I was being addressed by a superior officer, sir.”
“That’s because you never looked up.” John paused, gauging the mechanic’s reaction.
The man stiffened, waiting to take a dressing down, but kept his eyes locked with John’s. Ready and willing to accept his reprimand.
“I won’t fault you for your dedication.”
The mechanic remained at attention but John shoved his hands in his pockets and adopted a casual stance. “Can you fix it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ve got it on pretty good authority that it can’t be fixed. Wanna tell me how it’s salvageable?”
“Assembly’s got dents inside, but I’m smoothing them out. Oil buffer’s bent, so it can’t lubricate the barrel. Gonna straighten it. Stop cartridge’s sheared off.” The mechanic shrugged. “That’s easy to replace.”
John was impressed. “That’s a lot of pieces to keep up with.”
“Fifty-six in a Browning.”
“What’s your name?”
“Sergeant Dex.”
“Major John Sheppard. You got a first name?” he asked, extending his hand.
“Ronon.”
“This is where you shake my hand, Ronon,” John encouraged.
“Um...yes, sir. Sorry,” Ronon replied, taking John’s hand awkwardly.
John was pretty sure the guy wasn’t showing off by almost crushing his fingers. Ronon was large with several inches and about fifty pounds on John. He was young and had that driving glint in his eyes. “When did you sign up?”
“Two years ago.”
Yeah, John could tell. Those who were drafted fought hard and fought with loyalty. Those who asked to go to war and fight were an altogether different type of soldier.
“I was stationed at Wheeler Field a few years ago. Hawaii‘s a beautiful place.”
The muscles in Ronon’s neck knotted with tension. “Yeah, it is.”
John nodded to himself, a suspicion confirmed. Hawaii was a U.S territory. Thousands volunteered after the bombing of Pearl. It didn’t take a genius to guess where Ronon was from, and John had been around enough native Hawaiians to spot a person from a Polynesian background. But one thing was bugging him.
Ronon had curly hair down to his chin. It was unheard of in the military, not just bending the dress code, but obliterating it. He had to admit it was cool seeing someone else get away with defying regs, and so blatantly.
John gestured to Ronon’s head. “How’d you keep it?”
“I told them I took a religious oath not to cut my hair till Japan burns in Hellfire.”
John nodded. He’d never had much experience with the judge advocate side of things except for disciplinary actions that didn‘t require a court hearing. For all he knew there was a hidden loophole for side-stepping that aspect of the dress code and not just the couple of inches John got away with.
“Religious, huh?”
The big man didn’t reply or change expressions, but John could see the smirk in his eyes. “Were you in Hawaii long, sir?” Ronon asked with a smooth change of topic.
“About a year, but not during the bombing at Pearl.” John had been flying missions over Burma months beforehand. He’d known, like a lot of other people, that the U.S would go to war, but none of them had been prepared for the attack on American soil. At least not Hawaii.
Ronon was quiet, lost in thought or memories. Maybe both. He stood there in a green T-shirt, damp with sweat; his dog tags appeared as specks of metal against the bulk of his huge form. A heavy belt hung slightly low on his hips, weighed down by a side arm, knife, and extra tools.
John cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the silence. “What maintenance group are you with?”
“I’m not.”
“Motor pool?”
“No.”
“Why are you here?”
Ronon crossed his massive arms. “I was bored. Finished my regular duties and decided to hang out. Sir.”
“You hang out here?” John asked curiously, looking around the hangar. “On your down time?”
Ronon shrugged. “We can‘t afford to throw away artillery when it can be fixed.”
If only other airmen were as studious as this guy, John thought. “What’s your designation?”
“I’m a gunner.”
“Which squadron?”
“None.”
“What do you mean none?”
“I don’t belong to a crew.”
Maybe the heat had poached his brain, but John couldn’t fathom what he was hearing. “What do you do exactly?”
“I drive the fuel trucks.”
Ronon was Marine huge. All bulging muscle with a couple tattoos inked across thick, tanned arms. It was possible he had a short fuse. “You working off an article eight?”
“No, sir!” Ronon growled.
“Sorry, sometimes my thoughts need a filter before they reach my mouth,” John joked. But he knew he’d crossed a line, jumping to conclusions about disciplinary problems. “Figured you might crush annoying COs with your bare hands when they say stupid things.”
Ronon’s expression went from pissed to pleased. John knew a lot of officers who wouldn’t admit out loud to their mistakes. “Got any theories why you’re not shooting down Nips?”
“Maybe.”
“Yeah. Me too.” John sighed.
He was all too aware of the tendencies of the military. Realizing that a lot more time had passed than he intended, John checked his watch. Crap. He had a meeting in ten minutes and was going to have to double-time it in order to make it.
“Look, I have to go.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be back.” John pointed to the mess on the ground. “I expect my Browning to be working when I return. It belongs on my Havoc, not in a scrap yard.”
Ronon grinned. “I’ll see what I can do.”
-----------------------------------------------
Water trickled down John’s cheeks and nose, and a stubborn drop lingered at his chin. He’d stepped outside the hangar just as the bottom had dropped out of the sky. Because of the torrential rains, his clothes had gone from slightly soggy to plastered to his skin in the thirty seconds he’d been out in them. He stood there waiting, catching the last of the sports scores from the tiny radio sitting on O‘Neill‘s desk.
“The Tigers beat the Yankees, 3-2. Rookie Stirnweiss, hit his first major league homerun and Detroit’s Overmire improved his ERA to 3.14. And that’s your sports for May 27th, 1943.”
Colonel O’Neill turned the volume off after the report. “I hope you didn’t track mud in here, Major. I just had the floors cleaned,” he muttered without looking up, preoccupied with sifting through wrinkled maps and dog-eared reports scattered across a wobbly-legged desk. A tiny fan sat on the very edge and the light breeze it managed to stir in the heavy, humid air ruffled the inches-high piles of paper barely held in check by paperweights.
The colonel nearly spilled his mug of coffee as he waved his hands in a flourish of triumph. “Ah, here they are!” He finally looked up at John, scrunching his eyebrows together. “Good grief, Sheppard! You look like a drowned rat.”
“Kinda feel like one, sir.”
“Yeah, well. It’s the monsoon season and all. Oh, by the way,” he added with a thrust of his chin over John’s shoulder, “General Hammond’s asked to sit in on this meeting.”
John turned around to see General George “Texas” Hammond sitting quietly in the corner, studying him with hawk eyes. It was disconcerting, standing in the same tent as WWI flying aces that he‘d read about in Battle Birds when he was a kid. “Nuts” O’Neill he’d served under for a year but Hammond he only knew by reputation.
“As you know, Sheppard, we want to leap frog the Jap forward defenses and hit Hollandia by June. We can only do that by securing a base northwest of Sarmi,” O’Neill announced without pretext.
“Yes, sir.” John knew all about the upcoming offensive and the failed attempts to gather the proper reconnaissance for it.
“There are eleven thousand hardened enemy troops entrenched in and around Hollandia,” Hammond spoke up. “They’ve already given up Sarmi as a loss and abandoned their air fields there. They expect our assault at Aitape, but not both.”
“But we still don’t know where their airstrips are between Aitape and Hollandia,” John recited from previous briefings. “And the past three attempts to gather surveillance have been hampered by heavy cloud cover.”
“Then unhampered it this time, Major. Your squad needs to pinpoint those damn airfields. Find out their completion rate and what we might be up against in terms of air power,” Hammond demanded. “We won’t get another chance. This is a three-pronged operation with the Navy and Marines. Thousands of lives are at stake. Find a way to get those pictures.”
“Yes, sir. What’s our deadline?” John asked.
“In the next three days,” Hammond announced.
Three days? John could only find one problem with that.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re down a crew member. Sergeant Markham’s accident was a terrible loss,” O’Neill said kindly. “You never want to lose a man in battle. It’s harder when it’s just a dumb accident.”
Markham’s death had been a senseless waste, a freak mishap. One moment he’d been walking toward their Havoc and the next, a truck full of sweaty nitro hit a hole in the dirt road and exploded, killing him, the driver and one other. All three men had been incinerated, depriving their mothers of proper burials.
“I know it’s only been four days since the accident, but you need to select a new gunner.” O’Neill tossed a half dozen files at him. “Here are the best candidates. All arrived last week; you get first pick.”
John dreaded this. He’d been flying with Markham for a year. There was a special bond created when confined inside a metal beast for hours, a harmony between your men, the air, and your plane. Most of John’s career he’d been solo. He’d preferred it that way.
Or he thought he had.
He flipped through performance jackets and evaluations, staring at some impressive stats, but his gut wasn’t going for any of them.
“There a problem, Sheppard?” O’Neill looked on expectantly. “Hard to choose?”
There were three lieutenants and two master sergeants; all five airmen had been enrolled during the Air Corps’ big push in ‘39. When John was in flight school he trained for thirty-two weeks. Now they rolled out navigators, pilots, you name it, in ten weeks flat. These candidates had actual experience with various types of bombers, a real rarity, but John trusted his instincts. And they were telling him to look deeper.
“What about Sergeant Dex?” John asked casually.
“Dex?” O’Neill’s voice took on a shrill quality. “Who’s Dex?”
“I think he arrived the last time we were supplied with fresh bed sheets,” John deadpanned.
“Well then, lemme check the stack labeled ‘bath and beauty’,” O’Neill responded with a sigh as he began digging through boxes and notebooks on the floor. “And why am I looking for someone I’ve never heard of?”
“I talked to him earlier. He was repairing one of my Brownings on his down time.”
“Really?” O’Neill hmmed to himself, still searching for the wayward file. “Sounds like he needs more duty hours.”
“I think he really likes his job,” John quipped then added under his breath, “If he were allowed to actually perform it.”
“Got it, no, wait…why aren’t these in alphabetical order?” O’Neill grumbled.
The ceiling banged in the high winds and the overhead light bulbs flickered as the temporary generator struggled to meet the electrical demands of the base, and the metal walls of the Quonset hut shook, making it feel like the whole thing would collapse.
“Found it,” O’Neill said, waving the file. He hooked the back of his chair with his leg and slumped down to study it.
John stood there with arms at his side and tried to keep still hands that hated being idle. There was a reason why his fingers were covered with calluses before he’d hit his thirtieth birthday. But he waited as patiently as he could while O’Neill flipped through Dex’s jacket. It took him longer than it should’ve; a good CO knew how to read between the lines of any eval and Nuts was one of the best.
Then O’Neill handed the service record to Hammond who wordlessly flipped through the contents before finally giving it to John. Both men’s features were schooled into carefully neutral expressions.
“Sergeant Dex doesn’t have the proper experience required for a position on your squad,” O’Neill began. “I’m sure after a couple of years under his belt he’ll make a fine officer.”
John honed in on the comments section of the jacket since it was the only thing that truly mattered to a commander. “Says here, Dex identifies ammo by touch after his first day, exceeding the three week requirement.”
Bullets were color coded for gunners for ease of learning and John knew a few that still relied on them in the heat of battle. He skimmed for more highlights and read them out loud. “Mastered the principles of the pursuit curve, hit targets on the fourth day…helped fellow lagging cadets between classes…. Ranked first in accuracy of Turret Topline, Spadegrip shotgun, M2 Basic and M2 Heavy barrels.”
“There’s a difference between achievements in class and actual air combat. You know that,” O’Neill objected.
“Served with the 18th Fighter group over Guadalcanal, made Corporal. Action over the Solomons, promoted twice. Huh…he’s flown in both the A-20 and the P-61,” he argued.
His COs communicated silently with each other and John knew this was his only opportunity. “The 61s are used exclusively for nighttime operations. When am I gonna find another gunner with that type of experience?”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t impressive, Sheppard. But those were joint Allied programs with the RAF,” O’Neill countered.
Right. Ronon had served with the Brits--not with a U.S. crew. Different cultures, different views. John resisted the urge to bang his head against the bureaucratic walls in front of him. Ronon Dex was the right person; he knew it. There was no logical explanation, no personal connection or real reason to go to bat for a complete stranger. What he had was a feeling, a stupid tingle that had saved his ass more times than he could count.
“Sirs.” John looked from O’Neill to Hammond. “Both of you’ve followed your guts in the air. Used evasive maneuvers before getting a visual, fired a wild shot that by some miracle found its target.”
“Major Sheppard, this is about more than trusting your instincts. You’ve got good ones-- most of the time.” Hammond got up and looked John right in the eye. “This is about winning a war. You command the only recon squadron in New Guinea. There’s no other unit. We’re stretched thinner than women’s stockings out here. Every time I turn around, HQ diverts another squadron to Africa, France, England.”
John stood straighter and gave the second in command of the Army Air Corps over Guinea his full attention. But he kept his shoulders squared, his jaw set.
“Do you understand me? You guys are all we have. The only ones with the skills to pull these missions off. The 17th Recon has six planes. Six of the most trained, experienced crews. Why, half the guys we’ve got are ones you recruited from the Tigers when you got the assignment. I know a few people who are still pissed that you stole Captain Lorne for yourself.” Hammond must have thought he wasn’t getting through and switched tactics. “We’ve even allowed McKay to keep his unauthorized modifications.”
“Modifications that’ve been one of the reasons for our high success rate, sir,” John retorted respectfully.
“Which is why we’ve given you a lot of leeway.” Hammond looked over at O’Neill for help.
“He’s right, Sheppard. This has nothing to do with policy. I was one the loudest supporters for the Tuskegee project. Hell, I want any good man under me. Brown, black, red, white or blue. This isn’t what you think,” O’Neill growled. “If you were in command of any other squadron, I’d say do whatever you want. Take him. I don’t care as long as he can shoot.”
“What is it, Major? Haven’t been rebellious enough lately?” Hammond took two quick strides to his chair, thumbed open a briefcase and fished out a thick manila folder. “You have a very colorful history. It takes a lot of money to fly as a civilian. Especially to join those illegal air races across the desert. How many of those did you participate in?”
“Don’t remember. A few,” John hedged. He’d flown in dozens, winning several.
Hammond didn‘t buy it. “You live for the thrill. There’s no aviator worth his wings who doesn’t. I’ve seen kids become test pilots after they got bored with those idiotic contests. Pretty exclusive club back then. How many active airmen were there when you graduated?”
“I‘m not sure, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me son. You know.”
“One hundred and ninety-two.”
Hammond gave a low whistle. “Fewer than two hundred men. Hot shots and rabble rousers creating the backbone of the Air Corps. The military got experienced men and you guys got to play with the fastest machines on Earth.”
“Seemed like a good fit, sir.”
“You’re one hell of a pilot, Sheppard. Got yourself a matched set of bronze and silver stars. Distinguished Service Cross, couple of Flying Crosses. I won’t bore you with your other merit awards. Thirteen years of training and testing.” Hammond shook his head in the same disappointed manner of John’s father. “For every achievement you had to do something stupid.
Your tendency to buck authority hasn’t helped your career. Performing unauthorized maneuvers, risking expensive government property in the process.” Hammond flipped through his jacket and raised his eyebrows at a particular entry. “You buzzed the Golden Gate Bridge?”
John kept his mouth in a straight line.
“Not to mention disorderly conduct. I know about the one Jack covered up for you. Distinguished airmen do not get into bar fights, no matter what the reason, Major.”
O’Neill rolled his eyes and Hammond gave up the argument there. They’d all be in the brig if the brass actually cared about the roughhousing that took place off duty. “I guess what I’d really like to know is…why the hell would you purposely crash that B-15?” Hammond demanded.
John knew he’d always have to defend his choice made on that hot day in Arizona. The Army had recruited him for his expertise as a test pilot and that meant measuring all safety factors. Not that certain companies with their shareholders’ eyes on the bottom line would care. “I didn’t intend to crash, sir. But I knew those engines would stall out at two-sixty. All the previous exercises were purposely conducted under one-ninety.”
“That wasn’t your call to make, Major.”
“The ink was practically dry on the contracts. I worked for Douglas. All they smelled was a fat government contract. They didn’t give a damn about the men who’d die in those cockpits!” John growled, knowing but not caring that he was overstepping his bounds in front of a superior.
“You disobeyed a direct order to keep your plane at the conditions agreed upon for the final test flight and instead you destroyed a prototype that cost more than a lifetimes’ worth of paychecks.” Hammond was a bottle cap ready to pop. “Did you think to report your suspicions up the chain of command?”
“I tried. When no one listened, I took the chance and accepted the consequences, sir.”
O’Neill came out from behind his desk, trying to calm things. “Okay, alright. We all know about Major Sheppard’s exploits as well as his accomplishments. Uncle Sam never bought those birds after a thorough investigation. It ended up saving millions of dollars and more importantly, lives.”
“Yes, it did,” Hammond agreed, his focus on John. “And it saved your ass. So you started slowly rebuilding the pieces of your career, came on as part of our coastal defense program. Then you went and retired to join a bunch of mercenaries.”
“Sir, with all due respect, the Tigers were one of the most respected squadrons of the war,” O’Neill spoke up.
“And do you really think those who volunteered knew that at the time? Or was it all money and glory?” Hammond questioned O’Neill.
“If you’ll recall, sir, I wanted to join that mission,” O’Neill responded, arching an eyebrow. “Come on. They destroyed over three hundred Zeros and only lost fourteen men.” O’Neill turned to John. “You know I’ve given you whatever you’ve needed. I’ve even looked past the regs on your hair. And before you say anything, I know all about your superstition about keeping it long. Hell, once I was assigned a mission I never changed my shorts ‘til I got back.”
Hammond actually took two steps away from the colonel.
“Give me one mission to test him out, Colonel; that’s all I ask,” John implored. He sought the proper argument, teetering between begging and yelling. “Entire operations depend on our data. I know that. The difference between success and failure lies with my squad’s ability to gather accurate intel. I’m not out there trying to collect the most kills. I’m trying…” John swallowed. “I’m trying to do the best I can…to prevent more casualties. I was recruited after my stint with the Tigers to command this squadron. Allow me to do it.”
The gears were turning, each of his superiors gauging the validity of his argument.
“Look. There might be more experienced gunners out there. But how many of them witnessed the bombing at Pearl? How many lived there? Pearl’s not just a shipyard, or a base. It goes beyond the deaths--it was an attack on someone’s land. If anything, I think Dex has more to fight for than a lot of us.” He stiffened his back and pulled back his shoulders. “Sirs.”
Hammond wandered back to his chair and sat down heavily, fishing a pack of smokes from his shirt pocket. “I rarely tell those I’ve placed in command what to do. I’ll leave the decisions to you, Jack.”
“Oh, gee, thanks. Is it happy hour yet?” O’Neill sighed, rubbing at his temples.
John waited, tension a familiar knot in his shoulders and stomach.
“Take him out, Sheppard. See how he does. A commander always knows on the first mission if it’s the right fit.” O’Neill picked up a leather attaché case and handed it over. “I expect a full report when you return.”
John took the case, feeling its literal and figurative burden. “Thank you, sir.” He waited for Hammond to nod a dismissal at him then exited the tent to go see his new gunner.
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“Chapter Two”
