She cleared Coach to rejoin and Magic to get his own separate clearance back to Homestead as she contacted Miami center. She would have to climb up through airliner jet routes to make it home safely, so she declared a fuel emergency. The Miami controller was more than willing to help, and cleared her directly to Homestead at whatever altitude she needed.

After the long descent directly to the field, Moss landed with just under 1200 lbs of gas, well within legal limits. She had been conservative in declaring an emergency, but she was sure that if she hadn’t she would not have had sufficient fuel to land safely.

After signing the forms with maintenance and hanging up her flight gear in life support, Moss regrouped with Coach and Magic in the vault to debrief. She found an empty briefing room and cued their Digital Video Recorders to the “Fight’s On” of the first engagement.

“Anything for motherhood?” she asked as she started the debrief process. The “motherhood” of the mission referred to the administrative portions that included getting to and from the training airspace.

“You were late on check in,” Coach said as he looked at the notes he had scribbled on his card.

Moss frowned and looked at Magic for support. She didn’t want to argue with her instructor, but Coach had clearly buffooned the check-in. She was hoping Magic would intervene, but he looked away in silence.

“And most importantly, you overflew your bingo and then declared an emergency when you didn’t need to,” Coach said as he pulled of his glasses.

“I was being conservative,” Moss replied sheepishly.

“Conservatively over-flying your fuel states?”

“I fucked up, sir,” Moss finally admitted.

Satisfied, Coach motioned for Moss to proceed. They went through the first two fights watching the virtual playback of the jets on the debriefing system. Moss’ jet was represented by a blue F-16, Coach’s jet was green, and Magic’s jet was symbolized by a red MiG-29 as they watched the god’s eye view of the fights. At the end of each of the first two engagements, Moss wrote down learning points to discuss, but overall, they had gone exactly as advertised. Moss was cautiously optimistic.

They watched the third engagement in real time. Initially, Magic had locked onto Moss’ aircraft until switching to fight Coach. Moss’ heart sank as she watched the engagement between Coach and Magic play out. The red MiG-29 was defensive the entire time. She watched as her jet turned the corner and locked Magic’s jet, only to break lock and shoot Coach’s jet. She had committed a blue-on-blue fratricide. Her eyes started to water as she stopped the tape.

“Gator 11 calls a kill, blue on blue with Gator 12,” she said. Her voice was shaking. She could see the concern in Magic’s face. He was projecting empathy. Coach grinned smugly as he furiously scribbled notes on his card.

“That will be a keg for the squadron bar, and you’ll brief this at drill weekend,” Coach said, still grinning. “I prefer a dark beer.”