Sitrep:  I got the manuscript back from Rea and I went and shot it off to Goodlife after edits. She said to expect it in a week.

Here is a snippet from another story:

Grease Monkey

Pyrax:

AdmiralChambers frowned as she read the orders. They came direct from AdmiralPashenkov so she couldn't dispute them, nor would she. She would miss Trajanthough. He had turned out to be a good officer, a bit bent but not broken bythe war. She was glad he had gotten himself sorted out and had found somepeace. She hoped the order to go to the gate star system didn't break him. Itwould be a damn shame for the navy to lose his services.

Shehad to admit they were gambling a lot by sending him there rather than to Airea3 and the long way. There was no guarantee that the Spacebees in Tau would beable to get the gate functional in time. From the reports she had read aboutthe war fronts there, it wasn't good. Admiral Logan was pulling out all thetricks to stop the Taurens though.

~~~-^-~~~

Warrantofficer Mack Ihejirika stared at the kid that had been assigned to him. He wasthe number one plane mechanic on the carrier. He had spent years perfecting hisprofession into an art and now they sent him another fresh kid straight out ofthe schools as an understudy.

Thekid was stuffed with book knowledge. Who knows what they taught the kids thesedays. It was all recipe, follow-the-directions crap, not true art. The art of atrue mechanic was in being able to diagnose a problem and solve it with theclues they had. In being able to find ways to keep them flying with “bushfixes” and even tuning them to do better than expected.

Atrue mechanic was hands-on. They could do anything from an engine teardown toreprogramming the sensors. There were of course specialists, but they were notthe maestros of the trade like he was.

Technically,he had dozens of plane captains and mechanics on the ship. They answered to himand Lieutenant Eli Grande. But Eli wasn't a natural mechanic. He was anotherguy who had learned the trade from going to class rather than hands-on. Hespent most of his times in meetings and doing paperwork.

Tobe honest Mack preferred it that way. Eli took care of the paperwork andlogistics while he got his furry hands dirty. He could tune a fighter or bomberto fly at its best level, sometimes squeezing a bit more speed and efficiencyout of the systems that designers hadn't expected.

“Ah,I'm Spacer First Class Rob Potlik,” the human kid said.

Macksniffed and then turned away, ignoring the extended hand.

“Sorry,sir,” the kid said as he set his spacebag down and came to attention.

“Don'tcall me sir,” he muttered.

“Ah…”

“Isaid, don't call me sir. I work for a living,” the brown Neogorilla growled. Hewas a light brown and had a mix of gorilla and human features. Some of hisancestors had gene formed themselves to be more conformist to humans. He wasannoyed at that but he was publicly indifferent to people seeing him as different.He rather secretly treasured being different. He liked to stand out.

“Youfresh from the trade schools?” the gorilla asked as he watched the squadronsoutside the window. Ordinarily you couldn't see the tiny specs in the blackdepth of space but the window was a smart window. It had icons around eachcraft with basic data like IFF.

Barbwas mixing it up, running the squadrons through the ringer as usual. In orderto stay on top as CAG, she had to have the best fighter. Her double O washaving issues though. In fact most of the lead squadron had some gremlins inthe OMS.

“Yes,… ah, Warrant Officer,” the kid said. “I was top of my class. I wrote a paperon …”

“Papers,”the gorilla sniffed harshly. “They interfere with art. I don't need a piece ofpaper telling me if I know how to do my job!” he turned to point a finger intothe chest of the kid.

Thekid flinched, looking a bit fearful, but he held his ground.

Mackwas silently impressed. So, the kid did have some backbone. He had passed hisfirst test.

Hehad come into the navy after spending time in the space racing league as ateen. He'd been something of a loner, all mysterious, never letting friendsinto his room. His parents had tolerated his talk of mechanical work as art.

Hehad bonded with Barb over their mutual past with the space-racing league. Shehad been in Pyrax; he had been in Bek. Two of the pilots in her lead squadronhad been in the racing league in Antigua, another in ET, and another hadrecently transferred in from Bek.

Theyhad all been flying since they were ten. In Barb's case, six. She and herbrother Lyle had been flying shuttles too. She hated the things.

Hegrowled as he turned to listen to the chatter. The kid seemed to relax with a“few” shoulders slumping. Mack snorted again and then grimaced when Barb beganto complain bitterly about the sluggish response to her plane.

Thekid looked up to the audio chatter and frowned. “Sir, there is a problem withthe OMS? As I was saying …”

“No,there is a bump on my canvas!” the gorilla growled, turning a glower on thekid. “No one messes with my art! Until I know what to do with you, hands off,got it?”

Thekid nodded in earnest.

~~~-^-~~~

CaptainAtler checked on the new fighters and nodded. The crews were still shaking downwith the new designs. They were good, damn near E class according to allreports.

AnE class used an A.I. to balance the power supply load and shields. They weresmart A.I. that tended to bond with the host pilot in a symbiosis.

Cobrafighters used dumb A.I. to do the same job. They weren't as effective as thesmart A.I., but they got the job done. The new approach was an artificialneural network to balance the shields and reactor. It made the process almostinstinctive for the system, taking a lot of the processor load off of the A.I.and freeing it up to better support the pilot.

Theshields had also been reshaped. Any energy shield was simple; it was due to thenatural effect of gravity curving back in upon itself. Fighters had flattenedegg-shaped shields that made the network keep working to balance it. Byincorporating the neural network and making changes to the fighters’ design andincorporating Lemnos force emitter tech, the designers had made more efficientshields.

Thenew naval fighters had dropped the need to be aerodynamic in favor of aspace-only platform. The Marines, however, wanted to keep the aerodynamicdesign since they had to operate in the soup. They were taking on the oldCobras as they were phased out.

Allof those changes meant that there were places things could break down anddefinitely hardware to learn about, explore, and find the breaking points. Shewould much rather it happen in a training exercise rather than in combat so shepushed the CAG to keep a rigorous training schedule while they still had theopportunity to do so.

~~~-^-~~~