Nanowrimo 2022

Arrival

American Kingdom Day 30

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We woke up with the dawn seeping in through the cracks in window shades, first as gray strips of light that barely registered and then as the sun rose out of the Atlantic on the other side of the plane, as hot, bright bars of light on the cabin roof, quickly dropping down onto passengers startled by the sudden transition.

I looked at Hazel with some affection. “I needed that. I really did.”

“I could tell,” she said. “Want another?”

“Mmmmm, yes, but not right now. I need something else.”

“Oh. I went before. You were sleeping.”

“Well, that bit of me has woken up and needs to say hello to the world.”

She untangled herself from blanket, pillow, seatbelt, and headphone cord, stood up, and stepped into the aisle.

“They say rude things in Spanish if you try to use the Business facilities. We have to line up with the great unwashed.” She indicated the bathrooms further back, where a line of people was already forming.

“Oh great.” A thought struck me. “I hope we get a break in Madrid. I could use a shower.”

“Yeah. Nothing like a shower between the legs of a long-haul flight. I could help you with those hard-to-reach areas.”

Breakfast followed soon after. The coffee, at least, was welcome.

“Hazel,” I said after a while watching our position on the moving map track across the western Atlantic aimed squarely at the middle of Spain, “I never had a real chance to ask you about that phone call from the Palace. You said it was routine but it appears to me that whatever it was changed the routine of decades of Intake Courses and sent us rushing across the world.”

“Oh Molly, don’t you go blaming me for all this! It was routine. I was asked about my skills and experience, nothing more. I think they want a fresh set of eyes on some comms problem. As for putting rockets on we five at a moment’s notice, it makes as much sense as selecting the top student on a recruit course based on how well they get on with others. Maybe we ought to have faith that someone up above knows what they are doing.”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe the Air Force runs things different. To me it sounds like the regular Army bullshit. The guys at the top do what they want and the grunts on the bottom get screwed. Hurry Up And Wait. I’ll bet that when we get there after all this rush, we get to cool our heels for days while they work out what to do with their new toys. Us.”

“You got a better way of running an army? Have the troops order the brass around?”

“Okay. Point taken.”

We enjoyed the flight from then on. The coast appeared ahead, we crossed it, and I was back over Europe. Much as I loved my country, some parts of Europe were civilized in a way that we’d need another few hundred years to find. Scandinavia, for example, seemed to regard the common herd as more than just consumers and voters to be cajoled every couple of years into voting for some no-chancer, moron, criminal or combination of the above.

Half the time I didn’t bother voting because the choices on offer were so dismal. Some places in Europe had candidates that delivered what they promised. I could handle that.

But not, as Hazel pointed out, a good way to run a military service.

And then we were fastening seatbelts, ensuring our tray tables were stowed away and so on, landing with a thump in Madrid.

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Notes

Just filling in a bit here. I’ve been having a break after the non-stop madness of NaNoWriMo. Somehow the 50,000 words ended at a crucial point. From now on things get interesting and that means I have to put on my thinking cap and think about some of the decisions I need to make now because some of these things may well have consequences well down the track.

Like two or three or ten books down the track.