Dan and the Bottle Ch. 16

He gazed at her for a long moment. "Young lady, even if I knew for certain, you know I couldn't tell you."

She nodded, eyes on his, and said "Well, have you heard any good rumors, at least? The whole base is buzzing, but nobody knows for sure."

"I couldn't tell you if I did know, hun... and I don't. The most I know is that I'm getting ready for a few of you kids to solo in some of the planes, and for that, we need to bring them up from the basement and make sure they're airworthy."

"The one you brought up this morning... that was what they call a 'Harrier', wasn't it?"

He nodded. "It's a tricky little bird to fly, but once you get the hang of it, it's all kinds of fun. I'm just making sure everything on it works like it's supposed to."

She grinned back at him, nodding. "I saw you... it really does take off straight up, doesn't it?"

He nodded... "Lands that way, too... doesn't need a runway. It takes some getting used to, but once you've flown it a few times, and gotten used to what it can do, you can hover in one spot for as long as you like, unload any weapon on it on an enemy target. I think those were made in a country called 'England', back before the war. I know that the Hawker company started there, at least... back in the 1930's and 40's, they were a big supplier to the English air force, if the history I read in school was accurate."

She frowned at that. "We don't have too many history books here. I don't think it was a big priority here, back then."

"Well, we'll have to do something about that; it's important for people to know their history. If you don't know where you came from, how do you know where to go?"

She smiled at this before excusing herself and moving on to the next table, filling coffee cups as she went until the pot she was carrying was empty.

Five minutes later, she was back, a cup of her own in hand. "Mind if I join you?"

He smiled, nodding towards the empty seat across from him.

She gazed at him across the table for long moments before asking the question he was expecting.

"Can I ask you something?"

He looked back at her, his expression unreadable, until he raised an eyebrow.

"Why haven't you ever asked me out?"

He gave her a sad smile. "Sweety, I'm a good ten years older than you, for one... and I make it a policy to never date a woman in a class that I'm teaching. It wouldn't look right, and if you did exceptionally well, there would be mutters of 'favoritism', while, if you weren't doing so well, you might think I was judging you more harshly than the rest of the class. I'd be put in a 'no win' situation."

She nodded, sitting back for a moment to consider his words, realizing the spot she might have put him in.

"Well, you're not teaching me now."

"This is true... but I will be again soon. I understand you're about ready for flight school."

"Oh! I hadn't thought of that! Well, what about after my flight training?"

"Well... we'll see. You're still quite a bit younger than me."

She grinned at this. "I've always thought older men were better lovers. They know what they're doing, instead of some young kid who's all hands."

He grinned at this. "Had some experience with those, I guess?"

She had the good grace to blush. "A little, yeah." She thought for a moment about her last date, with Robbie... she'd had to keep pulling his hands away from her ass. Of course, what he'd lacked in finesse, and size, he'd made up for in endurance... when she'd finally let him slip his cock into her, she'd begun to wonder if he was ever going to finish... she'd found out that night that she was multi-orgasmic.

Jamison, Corcoran, and Montgomery sat in Corcoran's office, going over the numbers a final time. The Cave would be fielding four thousand snipers, while the other two bases would each be sending a bit over fifteen hundred apiece... Juniper would supply the Harriers, while the Cave would bring a dozen Cobras and Apaches to the party, along with all of the armor. The Stealths had already been moved up from Juniper to the Cave.

It would be the biggest operation they'd engaged in to date.

Jimmy Cooper slid into the seat of the Hawker Harrier, plugging in his flight suit and the connections for his microphone and oxygen mask, going through his pre-flight as he listened to the chatter from the other four pilots. He was the ranking officer on this flight, and knew a bit more than the others.

"Alright, guys, knock it off! Davis, Weathers, what part of 'radio silence' did you not understand?"

"Sorry, Boss!" Came their answers.

He couldn't really blame them... they'd been told, at the briefing, that this was just going to be a quick transfer of the planes to the Militia Base, a place none of them had ever been to before. Little did they know that they'd be in combat the next day. They only knew that several Chinooks had been taking full loads of ground troops somewhere for the past two days, and a massive C-130 cargo plane had joined in with several much more substantial loads... and that huge cargo carrier had been brought up from the deep, undergroud bunker in pieces, to be assembled once it had cleared the huge tunnel mouth. It had taken nearly four days just to get the wings re-attached and all of the control surfaces working correctly.

The flight to the Cave was short and, thankfully, uneventful. As the engines shut down, Cooper and the others climbed down, to be greeted by Ed Greene, the Chief of flight operations for the Cave.

"Gentlemen, welcome to Militia base camp one. My name is Major Greene; I'll take you to the Great Hall, where the Commanders are waiting."

Cooper nodded, looking over his shoulder at the other four pilots, indicating they should follow with a nod of his head.