Bo stretched and laughed as his squadron mates cut up. They had been out nearly three months flying combat missions off the U.S. Space Carrier Yorktown. Bo was a squadron commander of one of the elite squadrons in the U. S. fleet. He and his men had flown dangerous mission after dangerous mission over the past 90 days. The pilots flew two three month tours a year and the scuttlebutt was that they were standing down and heading home tomorrow. Bo was glad. The men had worked hard and he had seen stress and fatigue take its toll. Several pilots from other squadrons had lost their lives over the last few weeks and their loss hurt the close knit pilots and raised the stress level in their already deadly job.
Bo's thoughts turned to his girlfriend, Sara, a shuttle pilot on the Yorktown. She was one of the top rescue pilots in the fleet. She and her squadron had been busy pulling in pilots who'd had to eject during the day's combat operations. As she worked to rescue a downed pilot, her shuttle had been hit by enemy fire. Bo and his squadron had landed and he was post-flighting his fighter when one of the ground crew told him Sara was in trouble. He'd double-timed it from the hangar bay to the Landing Signal Officer's cramped booth overlooking the landing bay. Luckily, he'd know the LSO pretty well and had been given a headset and allowed to stay. When he'd donned the headset, his blood ran cold. Sara's voice, normally cool and calm, was frantic. She'd lost one engine completely and another had become unstable. To make matters worse, her on-board computer was malfunctioning, which meant that the controls weren't responding well and she would have to land the shuttle manually. The craft was pitching and yawing erratically and Sara appeared to have little or no control. Bo had spoken calmly, trying to guide and reassure her as her craft veered unsteadily toward the landing bay entrance. Incredibly, she'd gotten the shuttle on the deck in one piece.
That had been six hours ago. He'd heard that she was alright, but that she was being debriefed and evaluated. Now, as the party in the pilot lounge got rowdier, Sara's friend and roommate, Rita came in and motioned for Bo. He stepped into the hall and asked, "how's she doin'?"
"She's alright," Rita responded, "Once the CAG figured out she was ok, he made her go through a complete post-mortem on the mission. She's pretty fried and still a little shaken up. She was really glad you were helping the LSO. She said it helped to have you there."
"I don't know if I did much," Bo replied, "I'm glad she's ok. Are they making her stay in medical?"
"No, they released her. I told the doc her head was so hard a little bump wasn't going to slow her down," Rita responded, and they both chuckled, "She wants you to come by if you can."
"It's getting late," Bo responded, "Are you sure?"
