I found Lieutenant Miller twenty-three minutes later.
He was descending.
Too quickly.
"Hawg Two, this is Hawg One. Visual contact."
His voice came through filled with static.
"Good to hear you, ma'am."
"Status."
"Right engine oil pressure fluctuating. Temperature indication is normal, but I've got vibration warnings everywhere."
Bradley's voice entered from mission control.
"Captain Jensen, the temperature data may be suppressed."
"I know."
There was a pause.
Then Bradley said something I never expected from him.
"I was wrong."
"Save apologies for the ground."
I moved closer to Miller's wing.
His A-10 looked normal from a distance.
That meant nothing.
Aircraft could hide catastrophic problems until seconds before they stopped flying.
"Miller, reduce right throttle ten percent."
"Copy."
He did.
A thin ribbon appeared behind the engine.
Smoke.
My pulse increased.
"I've got smoke."
"I don't see fire."
"Yet," Bradley said.
I almost told him not to say that.
Then Miller's voice sharpened.
"Oil pressure zero."
"Shut down right engine."
"Shutting down."
The engine wound down.
Smoke thickened.
The A-10 could fly on one engine.
That was one reason pilots loved it.
But terrain rose ahead.
Mountains.
Miller was low.
And his aircraft was heavy.
"Jettison external stores."
"Range isn't clear."
"Emergency authority. Jettison."
A moment later, training stores dropped away over designated desert territory.
The aircraft lifted slightly.
"Better."
Miller breathed.
Then his left engine warning appeared.
Bradley swore over the radio.
"What?"
I demanded.
"The corrupted patch is propagating reset requests through the cross-channel interface."
"English."
"It might be affecting the healthy engine sensors."
"Might?"
"I don't know."
His voice was strained.
For the first time, the man with two degrees didn't pretend certainty.
Strangely, I trusted him more because of it.
"Can the left engine still be healthy?"
"Yes."
"Can the software shut it down?"
"No. Advisory only."
"Then we ignore warnings unless physical indications agree."
Bradley paused.
"Correct."
Miller laughed weakly.
"That's reassuring."
"Focus, Lieutenant."
"Yes, ma'am."
We turned southwest toward Nellis.
One hundred nineteen miles.
Single engine.
High heat.
Mountain terrain.
Possible sensor corruption.
Doable.
Barely.
Then Miller said the words every formation leader hates.
"Flight controls feel heavy."
My hands tightened.
"Hydraulics?"
"System one dropping."
"System two?"
"Stable."
A pause.
"Wait."
His breathing changed.
"System two dropping too."
My cockpit suddenly felt very quiet.
Three years disappeared.
Korengal.
Smoke.
Warning lights.
The stick turning into iron.
Manual reversion.
Pain ripping through my shoulder.
I heard myself say, "Miller, listen carefully."
"Ma'am?"
"You may lose hydraulic assistance."
Silence.
He knew what that meant.
"I've never flown manual reversion outside the simulator."
"I know."
"Simulator says it takes about sixty pounds of force."
"Simulator lies."
That earned a nervous laugh.
"Wonderful."
"You're going to need both hands. Don't fight every movement. Anticipate. Small corrections."
"Copy."
Bradley interrupted.
"Captain, according to maintenance logs there was no hydraulic fault before departure."
"Then why is he losing hydraulics?"
"We don't know."
There it was again.
But now nobody was afraid to admit ignorance.
I preferred that to false certainty.
"Miller, any structural damage?"
"Negative."
"Bird strike?"
"Negative."
Then Bradley said, "Wait."
Keyboard sounds came over the channel.
"The engine failure may have caused heat damage to the hydraulic line."
"Location?"
"Right nacelle routing."
I looked at Miller's jet.
Smoke continued trailing.
Exactly where my own aircraft had been hit years earlier.
Different cause.
Same nightmare.
"Miller, prepare for manual reversion."
His voice became quieter.
"Understood."
A few seconds later he grunted.
"Lost it."
The aircraft rolled right.
"Miller."
"I'm on it."
He was struggling.
I could see it physically through the canopy.
His shoulders moved.
The nose oscillated.
"Easy."
"I'm trying."
"Don't chase the nose."
He corrected.
Too much.
"Relax your grip."
"Ma'am, I'm holding a falling building!"
"Then convince the building you're stronger."
A laugh broke through his breathing.
The nose stabilized.
"That's it."
We continued.
Mile by mile.
Every correction exhausted him.
His breathing grew heavier.
I knew exactly how his shoulders felt.
I knew how forearms began burning.
How fingers went numb.
How the brain started whispering that letting go would feel wonderful.
"Stay with me."
"I'm here."
"Nellis is eighty miles."
"That is not encouraging."
"Then don't think about eighty."
"What should I think about?"
"The next ten seconds."
I watched him.
"Fly ten seconds."
He did.
"Again."
Ten more.
That was how we'd get home.
Not eighty miles.
Ten seconds at a time.
Bradley's voice became quieter.
"Captain?"
"Go."
"I've isolated the corrupted routine."
"Can you disable it remotely?"
"No."
"Then why tell me?"
"Because I can calculate which warnings are false."
That mattered.
"Do it."
For the next forty minutes, Bradley became something different.
Not a lecturer.
Not an outsider.
A member of the team.
"Right vibration warning false."
"Copy."
"Left oil temperature valid."
"Copy."
"Generator advisory false."
"Copy."
"Hydraulic pressure obviously valid."
"Very funny."
"I deserved that."
"You did."
Miller groaned.
"Glad you two are bonding."
Despite everything, I smiled.
Then Nellis appeared on the horizon.
Runway.
Home.
Miller sounded close to exhaustion.
"Hands are cramping."
"I know."
"I don't know if I can land this."
"You can."
"You sure?"
"No."
A pause.
"Thanks."
"But you're going to anyway."
I moved alongside him.
"Gear."
"Coming down."
The aircraft pitched.
Miller fought it.
"Easy."
"Three green."
"Flaps?"
"Manual."
"Speed?"
"One-fifty."
"Too fast."
"I'd rather be fast."
"So would I."
Tower cleared the runway.
Emergency vehicles waited.
"Miller, line up."
His aircraft wandered.
"Small correction."
"I'm trying."
"Stop trying."
"What?"
"Fly."
The words came from someone who had said them to me three years earlier.
My instructor.
Colonel Reeves, back when he was still Lieutenant Colonel Reeves.
Stop trying.
Fly.
Miller's wings leveled.
The runway grew.
One hundred feet.
Fifty.
Thirty.
The right wing dipped.
"Correct."
He hauled on the controls.
Ten feet.
"Hold."
Touchdown.
Hard.
Smoke exploded from the tires.
The aircraft bounced.
"Hold it."
Second impact.
The nose swung right.
Miller countered.
Then he was rolling straight.
Slowing.
Slowing.
Finally stopping.
For three seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Nellis Control erupted with voices.
Miller came over the radio.
"Can somebody bring me new arms?"
I laughed.
A real laugh.
"Welcome home."
I landed four minutes later.
When I climbed from the cockpit, Bradley was waiting.
He didn't have his lanyard.
Security still technically controlled his access.
But Reeves had allowed him onto the apron.
He approached.
"Captain."
I removed my helmet.
"Bradley."
He looked toward Miller's aircraft surrounded by emergency crews.
Then at me.
"I owe you an apology."
"You owe twelve aircraft a software patch."
He nodded.
"That too."
"And pilots."
"Yes."
His eyes dropped.
"I talked to you like you were stupid."
"You did."
"I assumed credentials meant expertise."
"They mean education."
He looked up.
"Not the same thing."
"No."
He swallowed.
"I didn't know who you were."
I shook my head.
"That's the problem."
Bradley frowned.
"You shouldn't need to know who someone is before treating them with respect."
That hit him harder than anything else.
He nodded slowly.
"You're right."
Miller emerged from the ambulance examination area with both arms packed in ice.
"Captain!"
I turned.
He lifted his hands awkwardly.
"I'd salute, but apparently I've become decorative."
I walked over.
"You did well."
"Because you talked me through it."
"Because you flew."
His eyes shifted toward 81-0964.
"Is that really the aircraft from Korengal?"
"Yes."
He shook his head.
"How did you bring it home?"
"Bad judgment."
He laughed.
Then winced.
Colonel Reeves arrived.
His expression was serious.
"We've got another problem."
The humor vanished.
"What?"
"The software corruption wasn't intended to create random failures."
Bradley frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Reeves handed him a printed analysis.
Bradley read.
His face drained.
I took it.
The modification had been designed to activate only under narrow conditions.
Specific aircraft configurations.
Specific environmental conditions.
Specific maneuver profiles.
Those conditions matched Red Flag testing.
This wasn't ordinary sabotage.
Someone had built a flaw specifically to create failures during the exercise.
"Why?" Miller asked.
Bradley stared at the page.
"I know this code structure."
Reeves' eyes narrowed.
"Who?"
Bradley looked at us.
"One of my former engineers."
"Name."
"Evan Mercer."
I knew the name.
Mercer Aerospace Systems.
Bradley's company's biggest competitor.
Bradley continued.
"He worked for us until six months ago. I fired him."
"Why?"
"He falsified test results."
Reeves went still.
Bradley looked toward the aircraft.
"He told me I'd regret destroying his career."
The desert wind moved across the tarmac.
Somewhere nearby, an A-10 engine wound down.
I stared at the twelve aircraft affected by the corrupted patch.
A software problem had nearly killed Miller.
But suddenly it wasn't a software problem anymore.
It was personal.
And somewhere outside Nellis Air Force Base, someone knew exactly what he had done.
---