Dogfighter Gospel
created by Damien Phoenix and Phoebe
this chapter by Marcus Fong

Log Ten: Performance Night


"That'll be fine. See y'all then."

Jacob fought, unsuccessfully, against his temper as 
Kassidy snapped the comm channel closed. "_Four hours?_ 
What kind of station... 'full traffic pattern' my--"

Jiang turned from her sensor board to shrug. "It's not 
_that_ unusual. Fleet stations are a lot more tightly 
organised, that's all."

Jacob caught the taut look Nadia threw Jiang at that, and 
winced inwardly. What surprised him, though, was that 
Ayako was eyeing the other pilot intently as well.

He supposed none of them--Nadia, Ayako, Kenji or 
himself--really trusted the two newcomers yet. It wasn't 
that easy to crew side-by-side with the people who, only a 
few days before, had been hunting you down and trying to 
kill you. But Kassidy and Jiang had only been doing their 
jobs--well, more or less--and he could understand that 
objectively.

Ayako, on the other hand... practically since the start of 
the trip, she'd been becoming more and more silent. 
Almost withdrawn. And the way she'd started looking at 
Jiang... maybe he should have a talk with Ayako. Soon.

Jacob blinked. _He_ was thinking of counselling _Ayako_? 
That was certainly a change...

                        *

"Well," Kenji groaned, rubbing at a stiff shoulder. For some 
reason, his sleep had been uneasy lately. "I guess there's 
nothing more to do but wait."

Nadia nodded, tapping her cheek thoughtfully with a 
finger, but said nothing.

"Anyway," Kenji muttered, "they'd better not have identified 
the Gospel when we crashed their little party at Eros, or 
we'll be drawing quite a bit of attention soon."

"We launched our fighters quite some distance away from 
the main battle, Captain, and then deliberately skirted 
around it," Nadia reminded him. "I detected no enemy 
ships close enough to ascertain our ship ID through battle 
jamming or read our hull markings."

"I know, I know," Kenji sighed. "We've been through this. 
But... you never know. And it pays to consider all the 
options."

Nadia shrugged slightly. "If they somehow have determined 
our true loyalties, then we either fight our way out or die, 
Captain. Correct?"

"Thanks for cheering me up, Nadia," Kenji commented 
sourly. He caught himself thinking Kassidy's company 
would be preferable at that moment, and immediately had 
to restrain himself from hitting his own head. _You've got 
enough problems as it is, "Captain..."_

                        *

By the time Jacob managed to corner Ayako alone, he'd 
been thinking for quite some time about how to bring up 
the subject... and failing miserably.

As it turned out, though, he didn't need to worry about it 
at all.

"Well, you met her. What do you think?" Ayako asked 
unexpectedly, her tone just a touch too light.

"What do you mean, 'Yako?" Jacob frowned, taken off 
balance.

"Remember when we tangled with Kass and another 
Whitehawk last time, near Holliday? You were wondering 
who her partner was, after the fight."

"Oh. Yeah." Jacob shrugged. "Seems nice enough. Saw her 
in action again when we nailed that bomb-hauler at Eros. 
Jiang's a hell of a pilot."

"I guess she is. Last time she cleaned my clock in two 
minutes flat, after all." Ayako slumped forward in her 
chair, making a tiny, irritated sound. "Maybe I'm losing it. 
You sure you want me on your wing, Jake?"

Jacob didn't even notice her use of his nickname as the 
pieces slotted in place. _So that's it..._ "'Yako, had you ever 
gone up against a Whitehawk before?" he asked, stepping 
closer. Without looking up, Ayako shook her head mutely.

"I had. We did dissimilar fighter training back at Cadence 
Point, when you were last on leave." Seeing no response, 
he continued. "The Whitehawk boosts quicker than the 
Mantis and it's got a lot more weapons. But it's got more 
mass and more inertia, so there are some manoeuvres it 
can't pull without overstressing the ship." He paused. "You 
didn't know that, and Jiang used it. The way she flew, she 
knew the Mantis pretty well."

Ayako shrugged wearily, still not looking at him. "She's still 
better than I am."

"Probably," Jacob conceded. "But don't sell yourself short. 
Remember, combat piloting isn't all about flying rings 
around the opposition."

He was relieved to see Ayako actually turn to face him, 
brushing her hair out of her eyes to study him intently... 
and then breaking into a poorly-concealed fit of giggles. 
"_You're_ telling me that? I must really be sounding down," 
was all she managed to get out.

Jacob frowned, but was spared having to come up with a 
reply by a hesitant voice from the doorway. "He's right, 
though." Jacob snapped his head around, to see Jiang 
essaying a shy smile. "I spent the first minute of that fight 
feeling you out. I noticed you were trying to fight my 
Whitehawk like it was a delta-dart."

Jacob quickly looked back to Ayako, apprehensive of her 
reaction, but his old friend's face showed only professional 
interest and he relaxed. Ayako was treating it like just 
another debrief, then, where the objective was to analyse 
your mistakes objectively and learn from them. Nothing 
more.

Breathing a silent sigh of relief, he excused himself and 
headed for the door, casting a quick look back as it slid 
open. Jiang was walking forward, her hands already 
coming up to mimic manoeuvring fighters as Ayako 
watched her. "When I turned away from you _here_, I 
backed off the throttle and waited to see what you'd do..."

                        *

_I bet Ji's havin' a lot more fun than me,_ Kassidy sighed 
silently.

"Ready One" duty wasn't exactly an assignment most pilots 
cherished. Having to be ready to scramble and be in space 
inside one minute meant that you had almost nothing to 
do except sit in your fighter and run preflight check after 
preflight check.

The other irritating part was that, with a grand total of six 
people aboard, she normally wouldn't have had to worry 
about it. The need for some fighters to always be prepped 
for immediate launch was way down on the priority list 
when a ship was that shorthanded.

But eventually, Kass had had to agree that floating out in 
space near a crowd of other ships was an awfully 
vulnerable position to be in--particularly when Fleet still 
officially had a bounty out on your ship. And she'd drawn 
the short straw, and so she was here.

_But does it have to be this boring?_ she griped to herself. 
Her fingers darted across Louise's controls, displays 
flickering as they switched from one readout to another. 
Once again, everything checked out.

She stopped with the sensor display, eyeing it morosely. It 
was hard to tell if it was working or not, anyway; with her 
Whitehawk's sensors nearly completely blocked by the 
Gospel's hangar around it, there were only a few scattered 
blips visible.

_Well, if I have to waste my time, so can they,_ she 
decided. Keying for comm, she cleared her throat. "...uh, 
Bridge, can I get a sensor check here?"

                        *

"Copy, Gospel One-Bravo," Nadia answered coldly, her tone 
icier than usual as Kenji suppressed a flinch. "Sensors 
show one light freighter bearing two-three-four slash 
seven, one bulk freighter bearing one-six-five slash three-
one..."

Kenji turned away, putting a hand to his face as Nadia 
continued reeling off the ships in the traffic pattern, her 
voice totally expressionless. _At this rate, she'll still be 
reading them off by the time we're docking ourselves. Why 
me?_

"...Captain?" He blinked, realising that Nadia's voice had 
suddenly changed tone. "Captain, please take a look at 
this."

Frowning in puzzlement, Kenji leaned over Nadia's console. 
"That ship over there?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Hmm... seems to be trying awfully hard to stay 
inconspicuous. The way it's keeping just behind and 
between those freighters--what?" Kenji eyed the readout. 
"A delta-dart? Here?"

"It seems to have been modified, Captain." Nadia paused, 
pulling up as detailed a sensor profile as she could from 
passive sensors--an active scan would have instantly 
alerted the delta-dart that it was being probed, after all. 
"Observe the slightly different engine signature, and the 
altered hull lines here, here and here... It's impossible to 
be certain, but I believe it may be one of the enemy ships 
which escaped the battle at Eros."

Kenji drew a long breath. "Well. I suppose at least we know 
we're not on a wild-goose chase."

A light on the communications console abruptly blinked 
green; Kenji almost reached for it before stopping himself, 
motioning to Nadia. "You'd better get it, Nadia. Looks like 
we're ready to dock."

                        *

"You should probably stay out here," Kenji cautioned. 
"Nadia and I can handle this. Besides, we don't want to 
make our contact nervous by bringing too many people in 
there."

Jacob nodded. "So, you want us to just play backstop out 
here?"

Kenji shrugged. "More or less. Just hang around, keep 
your eyes and ears open for anything unusual. You know 
the drill." Without waiting for them to acknowledge, he 
nodded fractionally to Nadia, and the two of them headed 
purposefully into the bar.

Jacob exchanged a complicated four-way glance with the 
other three as he watched Kenji and Nadia go. There was a 
moment of strained silence.

"Maybe we should split into pairs," Jacob said at last. "Two 
on each side of the bar, keep an eye on who comes in and 
out. What do you think?"

"Sounds great!" Kass declared. "We all ought to get to know 
each other, don't you think? C'mon." And with that, she 
grabbed Jacob's arm and towed him away, ignoring the 
surprised look on his face. "Have fun, Ji!"

Jiang exchanged helpless looks with Ayako. "So... I guess 
we're over there," the Chinese girl said resignedly.

Ayako nodded, watching Kass and Jacob out of the corner 
of her eye. They'd stopped a few metres up the street, 
Kassidy apparently keeping up a stream of animated 
conversation while Jacob replied with what looked like 
monosyllables.

"Do you think they'll actually give us those comm array 
parts?" Ayako asked idly, taking a few casual paces 
forward before turning around. It didn't matter, of course--
they had the replacement parts they needed thanks to 
Fleet, although they would have to wait before installing 
them so as not to arouse suspicions. But whether or not 
this "contact" would honour the deal would be a useful 
indicator of her trustworthiness.

She almost snorted at that. Trustworthiness: now _there_ 
was an odd word to be using, in her current situation.

_No. Don't go there._ Unbidden, a brief image of a man in a 
white jacket hurrying through the corridors of Holliday 
came to her mind. Following it were a few other memories, 
of the same man dressed differently in happier times.

Ayako let her head droop a bit, taking a couple of steps 
away from Jiang as she forced down the memories. Damn 
it, why was she getting this worked up? It wasn't like 
they'd even been that serious, after all...

_You dated a traitor._  Ayako sighed. That was it, all right. 
She wasn't ready to deal with it yet. Of course, she'd 
probably have to see him face-to-face again eventually, if 
this mission worked out, but--

The impact wasn't particularly hard, but it was more than 
enough to jolt her out of her reverie. "Sorry--" she began to 
apologise, looking up at the person she'd bumped into.

"No, it was my--" His eyes widened. "Ayako?"

_He's still wearing that jacket,_ was all that Ayako's 
shocked brain could come up with, as she stared into a 
very familiar face.


Author's Notes:

Yay. I now have the wonderfully enviable record of 57% of 
my chapters to date being submitted without prereading. 
You'd think that by now I should have learned what 
happens when Real Life and Impro attempt to mix. =P

Thanks to Phoebe for suggesting an ending which should 
actually lead to some plot development. I hope this was 
something like what you had in mind, Phoebe... ^_^

Good luck to all in the queue!

Marcus Fong