NaNoWriMo 2022

The Battle Begins

American Kingdom: Day 12

Previous scene:

The fighter jets — and weren’t they taking me back to my days in uniform — disappeared behind us. Perhaps they had just been on a converging course on some training exercise.

“Molly, my side.”

There, breaking one, two, three, four out of a rolling curve from behind and below were four shark-like fighter jets. Like the Blue Angels putting on a display over Charleston Harbor except these were gray, serious military jets aimed at war, not pleasure.

The nearest one was coming in close, taking a good hard look at us. I swallowed hard and tried to look nonchalant, like when a highway patrolman looked over from the next lane on the Interstate.

As I watched, he rocked his wings from side to side and made some gestures. Some sort of pilot code?

Dee made some in return. She grinned and looked at me.

“His name’s Rocky, he wants to know where we’re going, and if you are available for dinner tonight.”

“Um, no, not that I’m aware of. I could be eating cold tins of pork offal halfway up some Missouri mountain, the way you talk.”

“I already said you were unavailable. He is happily married, by the way, so no ideas, you sultry siren you.”

“How do you communicate all that? You reading minds?”

“Sure am! In the case of this young man, I’ve been doing it since he was born. It’s not hard. He’s my son, a major in the Air National Guard.”

I laughed in relief and waved anyway. He saluted and with a roar and a plume of flame from the back end of his jet, he was gone. One by one his wingmates formed up on him, four diminishing dots rising up into the blue.

Our own little plane shook and rattled in his wake.

“Huh. Show-off!”

“Hey,” Dee said. “If I were driving that thing, I’d be doing exactly the same. Wouldn’t you?”

“You bet.”

“He’s a good kid,” she said, digging out her phone. “I don’t know how he did it, but he gave me the cutest grandchildren in the world.”

I had to agree, about a hundred photographs later.

I was feeling pretty drained as the afternoon wore on. Dee looked at me, yawning. “Head on back, sit down in one of those chairs, buckle up and lean it back. I’ll wake you up when we land.”

I shook my head. “I said I’d keep you awake, and that’s the least I can do. But I might go find the ladies’ room. That coffee is starting to let me know it wants out.”

“Can you bring me back a pop when you’re done? Something with citrus in it.”

“Oh, you mean a coke?’

“Sure, whatever. Something for yourself. No alcohol in the cockpit, though.”

The galley was amazingly well-stocked. I could have quite happily cracked a beer and leaned back in one of the comfy seats but instead I found us a couple of fizzy drinks, glasses and ice. After all, I was serving a princess. I added some cookies to the silver tray — hey, do the thing proper, Molly! — and returned to the cockpit.

Dee looked approvingly at me. “Just the thing! Good sugar hit and we’ll be bouncing off the walls all the way home.”

I cracked open a can of Fanta, poured it into a glass and handed it to Princess Dee of Kansas and Nebraska. Root beer for myself.

“You be careful with that, Molly. I appreciate it but if they think you like serving the nobility, you’ll be in the Regent’s Palace learning etiquette and manners until you’re saving up your farts for the spa bath.”

I took a sip of my Virgils. It may be made in California but it is what they drink in Heaven, I’m sure. Cane sugar, none of this HFCS crapola.

“I thought I was wanted for my Ranger experience? Am I supposed to be some handmaid or something?”

“They need security there. Can’t trust the locals. No, just a whisper from a little bird but they pick one out of every recruit course for the Palace. Looks good on your record and you generally get some sort of honor for your service but I think you’ll have a lot more fun out in the real world. Just you be careful, okay? It’s not something you can turn down if you are chosen.”

She pulled back after that. She talked about the pleasures of grandchildren — “we get on so well because we have a common enemy, you see” — the joys of flying over the Ozarks — “look, there’s old Route 66 down there; you ever drive the Mother Road in a Mustang, Molly?” — and the blessed days out on the ranch when the calves were dropping and you worked so hard you were asleep before you lay down flat in your bunk — “but then you wake up to visit the bathroom and outside the stars are so close you can touch them and sing their songs” — and before long we were gliding in to another big flat airfield with long concrete runways and a few ancient sheds — “old bomber base from the war; Camp Whiffie’s two hours hike that way but if they are nice they’ll lay on a truck for you to ride in the back with the bags of beans and hog carcasses”.

I said goodbye Princess before she turned her jet around and climbed back into the afternoon sky to dance among the clouds but before she was in the air there was a rough voice in my ear telling me to sling my shit in the back of that pickup and be right smart about it, Recruit Turd.

Next scene:

The whole story (Nanowrimo work in progress)

Daily notes

This was easy to write. Making my daily words at a reasonable pace, taking breaks out to work out what comes next and feeling my way toward a long term view.

I think I’ll have enough in the tank for this book to show Molly surviving recruit camp and getting her first mission in. Next book, who knows?

I’m catching glimpses of the future stretching out. It will probably change, especially if I have to get those Story Cubes out and roll a few dice but I’m reasonably confident that I can entertain a few dozen readers for a while.

Let me know how you like it — or not — and I’ll be motivated to keep going. Or not!

Molly