FOUR: A Case of Oatmeal

"I had this guy all lined up, right? I mean it was a cherry shot, Slash,” Vellum said grinning to Rick Vorhees as Victor climbed out of his Myrmidon. He was excited, wildly animated. His first lead assignment had gone incredibly well. No good guy losses and the bad guys took a beating. He was all waving arms and exaggerated motions.

Vellum wasn’t the only pilot counting coup. The whole Task force was excited.

The blockade and counterstrike had apparently gone very well. Reports had come in that despite heavy resistance by the NTF at Alpha Centauri, the 3^rd fleet had established a crucial blockade, taking down the Destroyer Jacobus and the Cruiser Hengst.

Adding the Corvette Belisarius to the growing total, not to mention the scores of enemy fighters, bombers and support craft lost, it was turning out to be a very bad day for the Neo Terran Front.

There was a wave of euphoria among the returning Pilots as they recounted stories of harrowing escapes and spectacular kills. Vellum saw Victor and pointed to him, grinning wildly, “and super-fly here, comes barreling through and steals my kill.”

“Knowing you, Potshot, you were too busy missing,” Rick noted dryly.

Vellum ignored the remark, choosing instead to walk over to Victor and throw his arm around him, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Next time vape the Herc before you fly through him though,” he said, noticing the damage to the front of Victor’s Myrmidon. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Gave you a heart attack!?! How do you think I felt?” Victor said.

The Myrmidon was nose pit design, meaning that the pilot was situated in the nose of the fighter. In fact, the nose of the Myrmidon was the canopy, a thin framework of reinforced steel and transparent titanium. The only thing that saved Victor was the fact that his forward shield were at full force when he hit.

He didn’t seem to mind and neither did any of the other Myrmidon pilots. Even though the cockpit design meant that Victor was forced to fly the craft almost standing up, it was very comfortable. It gave the pilot the feeling of flying, of being part of the fighter that few other fighters could duplicate.

“Even with the shields and the inertial dampeners I got knocked around a bit.”

“I’ll bet,” Vorhees added.

He joined the two in admiring the damage; there was a morbid curiosity about having survived a brush with death. He and the rest of the 53^rd Squadron missed all the action this time around. The NTF fighter and bomber strike never materialized, though they did manage to capture a trio of supply transports and a corvette.

“Damn. I’ve never seen gouges that big on a fighter that actually made it all the way back.” Rick said as he ran a gloved hand along the gashes. “Did you really hit him?”

Vick grinned sheepishly, “Yeah, he didn’t die fast enough.”

He recounted his fiery encounter with the Herc, “I knew I was going to fast but I had a nice, high angle on him, picking at him with the Subachs. I was switching to my Tempest rockets when he threw the skids on. Reversed his thruster and stopped that pig on a dime. I was lucky I was already firing when he did it other wise I would have had to eat him. As it was, the impact collapsed my forward shields completely, damn near shooked me out of my harness.”

Victor noticed a chunk of metal protruding from the body of his fighter. He tugged and pulled at it, eventually wrenching it from the frame.

“That’s a piece of the Herc you rammed.” Vellum said, slightly awed. Vick tossed him the hunk of metal, “Nice souvenir huh?”

“Did you think you were going to die?” Rick asked. Vellum passed the metal to Rick who turned it over in his hands a few times trying to figure out where what part of the fighter it came from.

“I honestly didn’t have time to think about anything. I just reacted,” Victor said with a shrug. Most of the 53^rd had returned at this point and they could see Captain Loukakis talking with another Squadron Commander near the flight deck officer’s control station. They decided to leave the Myrmidons to the servicing crews and head over to see the boss.

Vellum was still excited when they reached Loukakis. “This boy was all over the place. You should have seen him!”

Loukakis looked both Victor and Vellum up and down, smiling approvingly.

“Good work boys. Word is you held off the rebel attack and saved both remaining transports. The Vasudans were very impressed and that’s not an easy thing to do.”

“Thank you Sir,” they replied.

Loukakis turned to lead the men into the ship proper, “Let’s head to the galley and see what’s for breakfast.”

“So, how many wings did you encounter?” Loukakis asked over coffee five minutes later. He knew of course, he had been briefed earlier but wanted to hear it from his officers. A yeoman walked over to him with a medium sized box and a datapad for him to sign. He looked at the pad and a look of mild surprise came over his face briefly. He signed for the box and set it on the table.

“There were four wings sent in, Hercs.” Victor said. Vellum leaned back in his chair and let his wingman tell the story. “The first two waves didn’t know we were there and we popped them before they got off a shot. The Epsilon guys were damaged so we left them in close to cover the transports while we pounded the wings on the way in. The third group got off a few shots, but that was because they jumped in a lot closer to the Vasudan transports than the others did. One got a few hits on me with his blasters but I nailed him before he could launch his missiles. They were really gunning for the transports. The Vasudans got one or two of them plus a couple of assists. You know what though? Even though we had the drop on them they get gunning for the Transports. Crazy bastards never stopped coming.”

Loukakis nodded his head knowingly, “They are true believers, fervent, dedicated and dangerous. Some are even skilled. There are more than a few former GTVA officers in their ranks.”

“I’m not surprised. They managed to get the drop on the Vasudans and took out three of the transports and two of the fighter escort before they were stopped.” Victor added.

“Well, I heard you done good your first time out.” Morales said affably.

He, Denim and two other pilots Victor had only briefly met showed up. They grabbed their victuals and joined the rest of their squadron at the table.

“Must have been one hell of an assault,” commented one of the other pilots. Victor couldn’t remember what her name was, Moira something or other. She was small, with bright red hair and pale green eyes, her fair skin standing out in stark contrast to the olive drab of her flight suit. He glanced at her call sign patch.

Moneypenny.

Then he remembered, Cash, Moira Cash, that’s what her name was. Odd call sign, I wonder where she came up with Moneypenny? It sounded familiar but he couldn’t remember why. He filed it away for later.

“So you didn’t wet your flight suit did you?” Denim said smirking.

“No Sir. Dry as a bone.”

“He’s a nut, certifiable,” Vellum said jumping in. “You got what, four, five kills?”

“Four I think.” Victor answered.

“Actually you got six,” Loukakis said. “I just spoke with a friend of mine on the GVD Psamtik and their initial assessment of the fight after your arrival was GTVA 12, NTF 0. They have you as getting six, Potshot here, getting three and the Vasudans claiming the other three total kills. Not a bad first days work.”

“Six?” Denim said, eyebrow raised, clearly impressed. “Not too shabby.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“I think you’ll fit in just fine Mister Victor. Now all you need is a call sign.” Loukakis said rubbing his chin.

“Did you have something in mind, Vick?” Denim inquired.

“No. Not really.”

“How about Loco, Vick? It’s Spanish for crazy” suggested Morales.

“Vellum says you’re a nut,” he said pointing to Potshot.

Loukakis waved him off, “Nah, too close to Loki. You call him on a combat frequency at the wrong time and a capitol ship is bound to microwave him with particle cannons.”

“Hey, wait, give him my call sign. I want a new one anyway,” Vellum suggested.

Captain Loukakis shook his head at Vellum’s suggestion, smiling into his coffee.

“Dogleg.” Victor said finally

The squadron sort of stood there for a moment wondering what the hell Victor had said. They waited for him to translate. Loukakis set his cup down on the table.

“Dogleg?” he said dubiously. “What is a dog and does it really have legs?”

“A dog is, well…” He thought about it for a moment but figured it would take too long to explain what a dog was. “Never mind, Dogleg is an old golf term. It’s what my dad’s security call sign was when he was in the GTA back in the Great War.”

“Ok, Dogleg it is.” Loukakis said shrugging his shoulders. “Oh yeah, one more thing. The Vasudans sent you a gift.”

“A gift?” Victor was surprised. “Me? Why?”

“Well, for both you and Vellum here.”

“Sweet! We get schwag! Wait a minute, what kind of schwag do you get from Vasudans?”

Loukakis pushed the box that he had signed for over to Victor who accepted it sheepishly and opened the cardboard box.

It was full of small packages. He pulled one out and read the label.

“Baked apples and cinnamon Oatmeal. Oatmeal?”

When he said oatmeal the rest of the squadron rushed forward including Loukakis and Morales. Victor thought maybe they had mistaken it for something valuable.

“Great googily moogily. Are you serious? Is that a whole case of oatmeal?” Voorhees said trying to look over a shoulder.

“Sweet Georgia brown sugar.” Loukakis said.

“What’s so special about oatmeal?”

“These instant oatmeal packs are like gold out in the fleet. They are really, really hard to come by. If you catch a crew on the way in from a really long patrol, this stuff,” Morales said picking up a handful of packages, letting them slip through his fingers one at a time. “This stuff is like hard currency.”

Victor looked around waiting for someone to slap him on the back and tell him it was all a gag.

No one did.

“You guys are serious?”

“Yes.” Loukakis said gravely. “You must have saved a member of the royal family or something. Oatmeal to Vasudans is like a wonder drug and aphrodisiac all in one. They value this stuff more than we do.”

“You guys are putting me on.” Victor said laughing a little.

“No way man, no one jokes about oatmeal. Too bad these aren’t the Cinnamon and Raisins one. Not that I’m complaining.

It was too far fetched. Who ever heard of instant oatmeal being sought after like money? They all just looked at him.

“You guys want some?”

“You’re kidding right?” Moira said.

He tossed a pair of packages to each member of the squadron and still had plenty left over to split with Vellum. Vellum didn’t seem to mind sharing, not really sure that he wanted a gift from a Vasudan. But oatmeal was oatmeal.

“So what’s golf?” Vellum wanted to know.