“Gonna be a pilot like your old man, huh, O’Neil?”
Coda’s body tightened at Moscow’s words, but he continued forward, acting as if he hadn’t heard him. He felt his friends’ eyes on him, but they took his lead, letting the taunt go unanswered.
“Seeing as your old man went rogue and killed his wingmen,” Moscow continued, “I’m not sure I like that very much.”
Coda let out a long, slow breath, silently repeating Captain Hughes’s words over and over again. You don’t learn from your mistakes. You don’t learn from your mistakes. You don’t learn from your mistakes. Letting Moscow goad him into another fight wasn’t a mistake he would make again. He wouldn’t give Moscow the satisfaction.
“You hear me, O’Neil?” he said even more loudly. “You going to kill us like your old man killed his wingmen?”
Coda’s resolve broke. He turned to face his tormenter.
“What do you say—”
“Stow it, Lieutenant!”
Every pilot inside the corridor froze, their eyes falling on Commander Coleman, who had just exited the ready room.
“Do you have an issue with who I assembled for this squadron?” Commander Coleman asked, advancing on Moscow.
The other rookie looked genuinely terrified. His eyes darted to the small gang he had assembled, but each of his new friends gave him a wide berth. He was on his own, and he knew it.
“I asked you a question, Lieutenant!”
“No, sir.”
“Then you will cease all talk of Lieutenant O’Neil’s family. Do you understand?”
“Understood, sir.”
“Are you sure, Lieutenant?” Commander Coleman closed the remaining distance between him and Moscow in a single step, bringing his face inches from the other pilot’s. The larger officer made Moscow look like a child by comparison.
“Crystal, sir.”
“Good.” Commander Coleman surveyed the corridor, looking at Moscow’s gang and the others who were milling around. “Anyone else?” When nobody answered, Commander Coleman returned his attention back to Moscow. “Get to your barracks.”
“Yes, sir.” Moscow turned and started down the corridor. He didn’t say anything to Coda as he passed, but his eyes burned with anger and embarrassment. This isn’t over, they seemed to say. Not by a long shot.
As Coda turned toward the barracks, Commander Coleman’s gaze settled on him. The Commander’s expression was unreadable, and as the moment drew longer, Coda grew increasingly uncomfortable. Turning his back on the commander felt inappropriate, especially since he had just come to Coda’s defense. Fortunately, Commander Coleman nodded at him then continued down the corridor in the opposite direction, sparing Coda from further scrutiny.
“Come on,” someone said to him, and Coda found himself being pushed toward the barracks.
Back in the privacy of their quarters, Coda’s new friends huddled around him.
“What the hell was that all about?” Squawks asked. “I mean, I knew you and Moscow didn’t like each other, but damn.”
Coda shrugged, not sure how much he wanted to talk about it.
“Seriously,” Squawks pressed. “What just happened?”
“Nothing,” Coda said quietly.
“Didn’t look like nothing.”
“It’s… complicated,” Coda said.
Squawks opened his mouth to say more, but Uno laid a hand on his shoulder. “Lay off him. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“No,” Coda said. “It’s fine. Me and Andrei have been rivals since our first day at the academy. I don’t know why, but we never got along. Actually, I’m pretty sure he hated me since day one. And it only got worse when we got our own squadrons. Anyway, when Commander Coleman recruited me, he told me that he had flown with my father. That he was a good man. I guess hearing Moscow bad-mouth him pissed the commander off as much as it did me.”
Coda’s friends shared an uneasy look. Joseph O’Neil wasn’t someone people usually talked about, and when they did, they certainly didn’t praise him. Calling a known war criminal a “good man” just didn’t happen—especially from a superior officer.
“The commander flew with your father?” Uno asked tentatively.
Coda nodded.
“Did he say when?” Squawks asked. “I mean, was he there when… you know…”
“When he allowed the Baranyk to wipe out his entire squadron?” Coda asked bitterly. “He didn’t say. But I got the impression that they knew each other pretty well. They might have even been friends.”
Squawks whistled his surprise.
“Are you going to talk to him about it?” Uno asked. “You know, so you know for sure.”
“No.”
Another awkward silence, made worse by the other pilots’ reluctance to meet his eye, fell over the group. Coda wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. He hated talking about his father, because when he did, things got awkward… and he lost friends.
“Look,” Coda said, “I know you’ve all thought about it, so if we’re going to fly together, you deserve to know. Yes, my father is a war criminal. Maybe even a traitor. And his wingmen died because of it. But my father’s mistakes were his own. Not mine. And for as long as we fly together, I promise I will do everything in my power to be the best wingman I can be.”
“You don’t have to say that, Coda,” Uno said.
“Yes, I do,” Coda said. “It’s important to me. And I need all of you to understand that, okay?”
He was met with a series of small nods.
“We’re going to kick some serious Baranyk ass, aren’t we?” Squawks said, his playful bluster shattering what remained of the awkward moment.
“Hell yeah.” Coda was grateful for the new subject and gave Squawks a knowing smile. He reminded him of Buster, who’d had a rare ability to say the right thing at the right time, protecting Coda with words when he resorted to fists.
Uno hooted his own battle cry, and the rest of them followed. Before Coda knew it, they were smiling and laughing again, their nerves and concerns disappearing. Coda took part in all of it, silently noting that for the first time since he could remember, nobody cared who he was or where he came from. In that
