To: Shuttle Sierra442

From: Air-Flag, Hammerhead

Stand by your position to rendezvous with Alliance destroyer Summers.

Please acknowledge.

Crash looked at the transmission and said, “This might be interesting. Looks like my old buddy Rattler wants to talk. Send: We acknowledge and are standing by. Then send our position.”

As Danny was keying in the text transmission he said, “Who is Rattler”?

Crash laughed and said, “The second craziest pilot I've ever met. His name is Hiro Tanaka”.

“Admiral Tanaka”, Tom asked?

“The one and only“, Crash said. “I used to be his CAG when he was skipper of the Halsey”.

Tom said, “That was the battle…”

Crash sighed. “Yeah. That’s the one I got splashed and roasted by radiation until I wasn’t up to fleet specifications.”

Danny said, “What happened?”

Crash said, “You’ve heard of Omicron Ceti?”

“Yeah, it’s the fleet base on the corridor out to the Carina arm. It’s the only way in or out of the Carina sector that's not too radioactive to travel", Tom replied.

Crash said, "It’s where the fleet drew the line: this far and no further. We’ve fought at least a dozen big fleet engagements there. I was there for four of them. The last one was three years ago.”

“We were escorting a convoy of supply ships to the base at Omicron Ceti. We jumped right in the of the biggest fire fight I’ve ever seen. When we jumped in, we were twenty-five light minutes from the action.

We covered the supply ships as they jumped out and then our task force formed up and joined the battle. We rolled out everything we had. Fighters, fighter/bombers, strike craft, electronic warfare birds: we cleared the decks. I was flying an old FB-68 Kestral leading an attack squadron. We lined up on a group of targets, released our missiles and went back to the carrier for to reload and rearm. I got hit on my third pass at the enemy formation. Never saw it coming. It was probably big chunk of debris; I didn’t get a missile lock warning. It sheared off my starboard wing at the root and my engines and avionics went dead. The shock of it knocked me unconscious and broke my right arm and leg. It sent me into a long flat spin that took me away from the battle area at high speed because I was on an attack run.”

Danny noticed that Crash was sweating and his hands began to grip the control yoke much tighter than necessary.

“When I woke up it was all over. The Halsey was so badly shot up that they had to scrap her but she fought all the way to the end of the battle. It took search and rescue 36 hours to find me. I had been out there for so long that I was getting radiation sickness. We won the battle. Our Task Force turned the tide. Tanaka made Admiral and got sent back to get the new fleet carriers in shape. I got a medical discharge. I can’t complain really. I stayed on with the Academy as a flight instructor. I still train nuggets and I’m making a killing off the hotel.”

Tom said, “Is that what they gave you the Alliance Cross for?”

Crash said, “You know about that?”

“Of course, you’re a legend”, Tom replied. “That’s deep blue hero stuff. Everybody wants you as their flight instructor.”

Crash laughed bitterly and said, “All the heroes in this war are dead kid. The rest of us are just survivors. Between the hard radiation and the hard vacuum, surviving takes a lot of work and a whole lot of good luck.”

Danny was watching the sensors at the engineering station and said, “Jump point forming 335 degrees, Z+20 degrees 10 kilometers out.”

They all looked out just in time to to see a brand new battle destroyer or BDD jump into real space. She was big for a destroyer, even at this distance; sleek and armed for bear.

The shuttles voice communication system crackled to life, “Shuttle Sierra442, this is the Alliance destroyer Summers. Please dock in our number two shuttle bay and accompany us back to Capella anchorage.”

Crash grabbed a head set and keyed the mike, “This is Shuttle Sierra442. We will be docking momentarily. Thanks for the lift Summers.”

Crash leaned back in his seat with his hand behind his head and said, “Ok Nugget. Make an approach and landing in Summers shuttle bay that’ll make your flight instructor look good.”

Tom powered up the shuttle and said, “Aye sir.”