Island Warriors

TWENTY-SIX

Batman paced the compartment, an angry, fearsome presence. TFCC was minimally manned, little more than a radio watch. Yet he could not avoid the compulsion to be here when anything was happening. He paced the small compartment just as he had in the old days, agitated, trying to think of some way he could help, something he could do.

But there was nothing. After all, what was Jefferson now except a spare parts depot? Oh sure, he understood the importance of spare parts in supporting the mission, and knew that he wasn’t just out here killing time. After all, not everybody could be on the front lines, could they? The tooth to kill ratio was always about ten to one, meaning that the fighting forces were always outnumbered by their own support forces by a factor of ten.

Still, why did it have to be Jefferson? Hell, he didn’t even have a normal complement of communication gear — they had cannibalized his crypto to supply other ships, and he was left with just one secure circuit. He listened to the battle going on over it, longing with all of his soul to be part of it, if not in the air, at least in command of the forces.

Suddenly, a new voice came over. “Homeplate, meet me on…” and the voice reeled off a frequency, asking him to reconfigure his secure gear to listen on that channel.

Batman turn to his TAO, or what passed for one on the Jefferson now. “What the hell?”

“New channel assignment, I guess?”

Batman felt the overwhelming sense of frustration. Not only was he not permitted to be in the conflict, he was now not even allowed to listen to it. “Do it,” he snarled.

“Roger, sir.” The TAO made the arrangements for the frequency change, and then turned to him, a puzzled look on his face. “Admiral, that voice sound familiar to you?”

Batman played it back in his mind. A smile started across his face. “Yes. Yes, it sure as hell did.”

As a light went on indicating that the channel assignment had been changed, Batman picked up the mike, and said, “Stoney, this is Homeplate. Go ahead. Over.”

Tombstone smiled at the sound of his old wingman’s voice. There would never need to be call signs or recognition codes between the two of them, not when they recognized each other’s voice so easily. He imagined the look of surprise on Batman’s face, could almost see that shit-eating grin spread from ear to ear. Well, there’d be time enough to explain when he got onboard — and that was the first problem.

“You doing okay back there?” he asked over ICS. He glanced in the mirror and saw Jason’s pale, strained face.

“I’m fine. It’s not serious, I swear. Hurts like hell, but it isn’t going to kill me.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not worried about that.” Tombstone tried for more confidence in his voice than he felt. “It’s just that you’re getting my cockpit all fouled up.”

“Yeah.” Jason tried to smile, but was unable to quite pull it off. Tombstone switched back to tactical. “Homeplate, I got a situation up here. You got any deck space?”

“That’s about all I got, as you well know,” Batman answered. “How come you’re not heading for big brother?”

“The circumstances are… ah… a bit difficult,” Tombstone said, not wanting to go into detail over the circuit. No matter how highly classified any radio circuit was, he wasn’t sure enough about any system in the U.S. inventory to make him comfortable discussing this. “How about an arresting wire and catapult? Are those operational?”

“Yes. We just use them for post-maintenance flight checks. You’re serious about this?”

“Dead serious, Batman. Clear me out a spot, will you? I can’t head for big brother for very good reasons. I’ll explain it all what I get down on deck, okay?”

“How do you know they’re not listening in?” Batman asked.

“You remember that radio installed just before you left? Well, if you check with your communications officer, you’ll find Pete has some very special instructions that you know nothing about. Just for situations like this. Now, are we going to stand here talking about old times or are you going to get me some deck space?”

“Give us fifteen minutes — hell, I have to wake up half the civilians. But we’ll be ready for you, Tombstone. We’ll be ready.”

As Tombstone signed off, he glanced again in the back seat. Jason appeared to have nodded off. Before he ended the transmission, he said, “And Homeplate? I’ll need medical assistance right after we get down. My backseater.”

“Roger, Tombstone. We’ll be waiting for you. And unless you lost your touch, you won’t need the safety barrier.”