There was a certain irony to it. His previous job had been in the Pentagon, pushing papers. He'd prayed and lusted for release from that job, whose main excitement every day was finding a decent parking spot. Then he'd gotten his command of his air wing - and been stuck with more admin crap than he'd ever faced in his life. At least he got to fly twice a week if he were lucky. Today was such a day. His command master chief petty officer gave him a grin on the way out the door.

"Mind the store, Master Chief."

"Roger that, skipper. It'll be here when you get back."

Jackson stopped in his tracks. "You can have someone steal all the paperwork."

"I'll see what I can do, sir."

A staff car took him to the flight line. Jackson was already in his Nomex flight suit, an old smelly one whose olive-drab color was faded from many washings, and threadbare at the elbows and seat from years of use. He could and should have gotten a new one, but pilots are superstitious creatures; Robby and this flight suit had been through a lot together.

"Hey, skipper!" called one of his squadron commanders.

Commander Bud Sanchez was shorter than Jackson. His olive skin and Bismarck mustache accentuated bright eyes and a grin right out of a toothpaste commercial. Sanchez, Commanding Officer of VF-I, would fly Jackson's wing today. They'd flown together when Jackson had commanded VF-4I off the John F. Kennedy. "Your bird is all dialed in. Ready to kick a little ass?"

"Who's the opposition today?"

"Some jarheads out of Cherry Point in 18-Deltas. We got a Hummer already orbiting a hundred miles out, and the exercise is BARCAP against low-level intruders." BARCAP meant Barrier Combat Air Patrol. The mission was to prevent attacking aircraft from crossing a line that they were not supposed to cross. "Up to some heavy ACM? Those Marines sounded a little cocky over the phone."

"The Marine I can't take ain't been born yet," Robby said, as he pulled his helmet off the rack. It bore his call-sign, Spade.

"Hey, you RIOs," Sanchez called, "quit holdin' hands and let's get it on!"

"On the way, Bud." Michael 'Lobo' Alexander came from around the lockers, followed by Jackson's radar-intercept officer, Henry 'Shredder' Walters. Both were under thirty, both lieutenants. In the locker room, people talked by call-sign rather than rank. Robby loved the fellowship of squadron life as much as he loved his country.

Outside, the plane captains - petty officers - who were responsible for maintaining the aircraft walked the officers to their respective birds and helped them aboard. (On the dangerous area of a carrier flight deck, pilots are led virtually by the hand by enlisted men, lest they get lost or hurt.) Jackson's bird had a double-zero ID number on the nose. Under the cockpit was painted 'CAPT. R. J. Jackson "SPADE" ' to make sure that everyone knew that this was the CAG's bird. Under that was a flag representing a MiG-29 fighter aircraft that an Iraqi had mistakenly flown too close to Jackson's Tomcat not so long before. There hadn't been much to it - the other pilot had forgotten, once, to check his 'six' and paid the price - but a kill was a kill, and kills were what fighter pilots lived for.