Nearing the Edge

by Eagle

Welcome Home

There was total darkness and a feeling of discomfort, both mentally and physically. No amount of tossing and turning or grunting and moaning seemed to vanquish it. The feeling worsened when he noticed a presence very close by. One he had been hoping to avoid.

“Hey, wake up Cole!”

The pilot did not bother opening his eyes, responding with nothing more than an annoyed murmur. This was followed by him rolling on his left side, facing the wall and turning his back to his comrade. He pulled the sheets closer to him to cover up in his awkward bottom-of-the-bunk cot and tried to fall asleep again, even though he knew that would not be happening.

“Get up man, come on!” the voice asked again.

He knew he would not be getting out of this. Even when he heard the footsteps of someone entering the room, he was kind of hoping that it was just one of the men passing by. If they had come for him, maybe they would have a last minute change of heart and leave him be. But now that the talking started, that belief might as well be another dream in his now lost slumber.

“Alright... what’s up, Runner?” he groaned, turning and stretching out, “,and you’re supposed to call me ‘Lieutenant’, by the way.”

“Sorry, sir,” he replied.

"Or LT," Cole went on, trying to skit around the subject. "Or Looney... look you know I don't care, but why did you have to wake me up?"

“You forget what day it is?”

“It’s New Years,” Cole answered in a bored tone.

“It’s not just a new year, Lieutenant; it’s a whole new millennium,” his friend replied. “You should know that.”

John Cole ran his hands over his head to wipe the crust off of his face and stared at the end of his bed, trying to let his disappointment out in a private manner. Of course he knew what the occasion was, how could he not? They had been talking about it plenty all day, and much of last year for that matter. It was impossible to forget with the constant reminders.

“I know, Jack,” he continued, still not bothering to look over at him with his droopy eyes. “Now can I go back to bed?”

“I honestly don’t get why you’re so… bored about this,” his friend replied, bringing his arms out and shaking them over a small area as if he were describing a physical thing.

“It’s just a number to me, not much else,” Cole explained. “One year’s just like the other; twelve months, four seasons, whatever random events happen over that time. It all goes in the books and then it ends just like any other.”

He was not saying this just to send his subordinate away. Cole believed that years were just years; specific timelines people made to help keep a schedule. And as he grew older he noticed that, though the events were different in each, the year itself remained the same. It would go from winter to spring, then to summer and fall and back to winter. He did not think himself as cynical, and in fact tried to be the opposite, but they all began to blend together.

“I know, but still; it’s the year 2000,” his friend continued. “Nothing interesting about that?”

Cole rested his head back on the pillow for a second, accepting his fate. He knew he had to face what was coming to him. The whole point of the conversation was not about the philosophy of time, or even about the new millennium starting. Jack was here to fetch him for a New Year's party, one he did not want to attend.

“Ok, if I get up and go hang out, then I’m going back to bed right after the clock strikes midnight,” Cole bartered. “I assume you won’t let me go without that.”

“Not me, the Captain ordered everyone in the squadron to join.”

Cole sat up and moved his legs off to the floor, sitting on the bed and looking up at Jack.

“Did he really? I never heard it. Why?”

“Well… I wouldn’t say ‘ordered’,” Runner explained. “More like he noticed you were the only one absent, and asked me to come find you; politely, too.”

Cole shook his head, mainly to throw off the weariness.

“Ah, screw it; I’d rather not take the chance,” he said. “Damn, and I was going to try ordering you off.”

“Pulling rank just to get some sleep? Would you really do that?” Jack asked.

Cole gave him an irritated glare as an answer. He assumed that he could, but he was not entirely sure himself. Either way, it would not matter if the Captain did give such an order. Not to mention an abuse of his position was a slight integrity violation.

“Just wait for me in the hallway while I throw something on.”

“Yes, sir,” Jack replied.

Cole stood up and stretched again, popping his joints and finally getting the feeling of sleep out of his head. Even with a long day of work beforehand, he still felt he would not be left alone. Had it not been for that he might have decided to stay up, he did not mind a good formal celebration when he felt like it, or more often for his friend’s sake.

But from what he gathered this was just a simple get-together, and he had always been a loner. Even with friends as close as family in the service, he was never one for late nights of partying, or much else. That did not translate to a lack of care for them, but more of a lack of care for something he saw as unnecessary and unappealing. For one reason or another, hanging out with people was never really interesting to him.

Turning his mind to another subject while cracking his neck, Cole felt a bit sorry for the way he acted just then. Sure, it was a bit rude to wake up a person whom he knew did not want to be woken, but the ‘Runner’ never really did things just to do them, or without prior thought. He certainly did not do it just for a laugh or some vendetta; he was too scared of repercussions to try that.

That was the odd, almost bipolar nature of Jack Walker. When it came to official business, he was as official as he could make himself, trying hard not to gain any kind of wrath from a superior. Yet when it was unofficial, he acted like everyone was on the same level; as if no one was in the Air Force and they were all just good friends. They were good friends, but the amount ease and relaxation he treated everyone on the off-time was almost uncomfortable at times; perhaps it felt awkward as it reminded everyone what civilian life was like, without such strict hierarchy.

Cole made a mental note as he slipped on his civilian clothes to work on relaxing himself, so as not to get annoyed as easily or often. He assumed no one would bother very much with his attire, at least with the kind of informal, ‘buddy buddy’ celebrations the squad usually had. They were still off work, technically, so comfort came first to him when it could be afforded.

He did not figure anything too special for the squadron’s usual New Year parties. A regular white t-shirt and a black set of shorts did fine. Jeans might have looked better, but it still got rather warm at night where he was stationed, and tonight seemed to be particularly hot for some reason.

'Should I get my jacket?' he thought before going. 'Everyone else will probably have theirs.'

He reached over and grabbed his leather fighter jacket, threw it on, and took a look at himself in the mirror. As much as he wished he could keep the shorts, anyone with a brain cell and eyes could see how ridiculous it looked with the long jacket. He reluctantly pulled them off and dragged the set of jeans over his legs, buttoned them up, and ran a belt through the loops, making his appearance more acceptable.

As he turned to walk out he caught a glimpse of his squadron’s patch ironed on the right of his jacket. Unlike most pilots, who would feel proud at the sight of their unit’s logo, Cole felt a sense of sadness most of the time. It looked cool, he could say that much, but that was probably the best thing he could find about it.

The bottom of the circle held the name ‘1st Tac. Ftr. Sq.’, a shortened version of the unit's official name: ‘1st Tactical Fighter Squadron’, while the top held the squadron’s nickname: ‘Eagles’. The addition of the word ‘Tactical’ to the usual wording procedure of Air Force squadrons did add some meaning to the squadron’s mission, what little there was anymore. To Cole, it was just another word for ‘failed’.

“Just another failed experiment, left to die,” he said to himself with a heavy sigh. “Left out here in isolation to die.”

The idea of the Tactical Fighter Squadron had come into rather recently, as the Air Force, basking in its success during Operation Desert Storm, decided to try out a new idea. Many squadrons in the branch were assigned one type plane and given the mission that plane was designed to do. A squadron that was given the A-10s, planes specifically made for close-air support of ground troops, could logically be expected a strict schedule of ground support missions. Ones with air superiority planes like the new, deadly F-22s would be going against enemy fighters. Supplementing those kinds of planes and units were the multiroles, ones like the F-16 Fighter Falcons that could be outfitted for a variety of missions. They were not the best at anything, but they were close to it in many areas; being effective and easier to produce, their large numbers formed the backbone of the Air Force.

Then one day, someone in a high up command position somewhere wondered if people could be trained it that regard too, since pilots often flew many different planes over their careers. It was rather simple in the basics; get some good pilots and train them to undertake any mission, and assign them to a general-purpose squadron. So rather than have a group with the job of clearing the skies and another with the job of bombing and so on, there would be squadrons that could do all of them, eliminating what was perceived at the time as wasted resources; something people did not like in the post Cold War world.

Though the word ‘Tactical’ was nothing new; the Air Force had a few squadrons with the name ‘Tactical’ attached during the Cold War, but the meaning had been different. There lay another big difference. The Air Force had always been keen on renaming their units with fancy sounding words time and again. But the Tactical Corps was entirely new. The squadrons were not old units that were reactivated and renamed; they were raised specifically for that purpose, and coexisted alongside those that were already running. They had no prior lineage or history; all of that began now.

But the names and new units were not the problem; the real problem came in the form of a rather big fault that was found after it was underway, and a rather obvious one in hindsight. Despite the apparent brilliance of the idea on paper, the ‘revolutionary’ geniuses behind it made the fatal flaw of, somewhat ironically, following the tradition of restricting each squadron to a single aircraft type. While that normally would not prove a problem, as there were many planes in the Air Force that were able to play multiple roles, the test makers also set impossibly high standards across the board, some of which were impossible for the planes and men to match.

The first group of jets used for the squadrons were planes designed with the idea of specific roles in mind, and no amount of training could change that. The 1st Tactical was the first of the new Tactical Corps, and was given the famed F-15C ‘Eagle’ fighter jet, which was the where they took the name ‘Eagles’ from. The F-15 was designed as a pure Air-to-Air fighting plane, so even when they excelled in that area, they suffered greatly in the other areas as a consequence. Air-to-Ground missions did not meet expectations, and Air-to-Ship was even worse.

Despite the bad start, the higher-ups, and more importantly the politicians funding it, had put pretty much all their eggs in the basket of the Tactical Corps. Rather than allow several aircraft be available to the few squadrons to allow for better output on missions, they decided to make several more squadrons, using each as a test bed to see which aircraft could perform to their expectations. Several new units were created haphazardly overnight, some being large in number and a few even being a single plane, to see if any plane could do what they wanted to the degree the desired.

The philosophy of the Air Force is that flexibility is the key to air power, and the same is true for any situation. But, as much as one may despise the other, war and politics tend to go hand in hand. Too much money had been placed into the experiment to stop it, as it would only embarrass those who advocated for it. And in their attempts to fix the problems it faced, enough bureaucratic tape and been strung to thoroughly handicap any chance of success it had. The political advocates and higher-ups in the military refused to give up, from embarrassment or stubbornness, respectively.

The pilots themselves came close at times, with the multirole aircraft performing the best, as many predicted and tried to tell the commanders. The F-16C and F-15E worked well against most all works, but all the same, they were still below the impossible requirements. They even purchased a few planes from the navy in their desperation, but they still were not up to what was wanted. In the final days, the F-22 Raptors came the closest to passing the test; but the last exams based around anti-ship operations were still below standards.

It was all for naught; no one plane was able to meet the required expectations, at least not to justify the continuation of the program. Rather than simply lower the test requirements to a reasonable level and accept what they could get, it was finally canceled, and seen as failure and a massive waste of resources. The only thing that came out of it was a bunch of relatively normal squadrons with some extra training.

“Everyone is laughing at us,” Cole sighed. “Hell, even the normal guys in the Air Force don’t think much of us.”

He dropped the bad memories and kept walking, going out the door and meeting Jack in the hall.

“Hey, you ready?” Jack asked, leaning against one of the white walls.

“Sure, where is it again?” Cole asked.

“Just down the hall a little ways,” Jack answered. “Come on, it’s about a half hour till twelve.”

As Cole followed him down the hall, he found himself looking out the windows as they passed by, showing a sandy island and an ocean layered with darkness. His squadron was based on Midway Island, one of a handful of small islands out in the Pacific that the U.S. had controlled for over a century. Other than the military base present and a famous battle in the Second World War, Midway was little more than a stereotypical deserted island. Being assigned here was part of the reason he felt the Air Force wanted to forget about them, sending them off to a place not very many knew about.

If the project had done anything, it had produced a group of well-trained pilots, and even if Congress or the project's heads did not want to see that, the waste-watchers in both the military and in the political field did. It was bad that the project had, officially, been declared a failure, and Congress saw it as a huge misuse of money, but it would have been worse to just throw all the good men and equipment in the trash. That would have only been a bigger loss, and everyone agreed enough had been squandered already.

So, rather than decommissioning them, the Air Force treated them as regular squadrons, relatively; but that would not wash away the embarrassment. Each of the squadrons was deployed out to some far-off place that was virtually unknown to the populace, so they would not have to be used. All of that training, technology, and time added up to the Corps playing garrison duty on the most insignificant places America had. Though the name of Midway might have been spotted in some history books, few back home could point out its exact location on a map.

“So, John… you ready for the computers to break trying to figure out the date?”

“Huh? What’re you talking about?” Cole asked, turning his attention from the window to him.

“The Y2K problem? That idea that the computers can’t count to two-thousand, or something,” Jack explained. “Supposed to cause the apocalypse.”

Cole chuckled a little bit at the idea.

“Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that."

“You don’t think it’ll really happen, huh?”

Cole stopped for a second on that. Admittedly, anyone who said the apocalypse was imminent would not be taken too seriously, unless they had evidence harder than diamond. Though the idea of a computer problem was slightly more realistic than some of the others he had heard; slightly, but not nearly enough.

"Course not, we have geniuses to fix that,” Cole answered. “I’m sure they’ve predicted that if a couple of numbnuts like us can understand it.”

“Yea, that’s true,” Jack agreed with a grin. “And then there’s all those people saying it’s just because it’s the new millennium; y'know, just crazy people in general.”

“Well I’m sure that when the year one-thousand came around people were freaking out then,” Cole answered. “You aren’t really worried about the world ending, are you, Jack?”

Walker’s eyebrows rose a bit in surprise.

“What? Me? No, man, I’m fine; no need to worry!” he replied happily. “Just trying to converse is all.”

The response seemed a bit odd, but Cole could tell he was not totally lying; he knew Runner long enough to tell.

“Well, alright. So how much farther to go?” Cole asked.

“Uh, its right… up… here,” Jack said, looking at each of the similar doors. “Let’s see… just three more down.”

They moved down to the door, though it was hard to miss with the noise coming from inside. Other than the usual talking, someone had the radio cranked up high, blaring out 80s music, mostly rock. Cole guessed privately as to which pilot’s idea that was. Jack pushed the door back and entered first, with Cole following him.

Upon entering, he noticed most of his squadmates were immersed in their own conversations and actions. Jack went off to find the Captain and inform him, though that was probably unnecessary, leaving Cole on his own. He did not get any kind of rousing, synchronized welcome, but Cole was not a fan of them anyways. He preferred to simply enter and exit without any fanfare, and keep it simple. It’s how he liked doing many things in his life. Only one of the pilots noticed him immediately.

“Hey, Lieutenant! I didn’t expect to see you here!” the nearest one said. “You want something to drink?”

"No thanks; I already feel like I’ve got a hangover,” Cole said over the noise, folding out a chair and taking a seat next to him near the table holding the food. “How’ve you been, Hoover?”

“The usual,” Hoover replied, taking a long swig of his drink before continuing. “Just looking forward to retiring this coming March. I think it’ll be good for me to get back into the civilian life.”

“How so?” Cole asked.

Hoover stared into space for a minute before taking another swig and answering.

“I don’t know, be honest; I’ve just got a feeling,” he explained. “Don’t get me wrong, the service was nice and all, but everyone’s got to move on to something new. Hell, your time should be up right after mine, huh?”

“I think I’m going to stay,” Cole said plainly.

Hoover looked at him with a bit of surprise, though it quickly went back to normal.

“Huh, really? I thought you’d be itching to get out of here, what with how bad you beat yourself up,” he replied.

“I know, but I want to stay; I want to make something useful out of this unit, something that would make it important,” Cole explained, looking down at the floor in a sense of disappointment mixed with determination. “Something that’d make us worthwhile.”

Hoover simply shook his head and patted Cole’s leather jacket on the shoulder.

“Lieutenant, you know that wasn’t your fault,” he said, trying to help his friend. “Some idiots decided to see if they could get a bunch of planes and people to do things they just can’t do, that's it.”

Cole simply shook his head in disbelief.

“I know, but it could work in a way; like that big normal Wing did in the Gulf,” he said, referring to the 366th Wing, a unit that was made up of multiple different squadrons. “If we just trained well enough, and got the planes, we could do what they did on a smaller level. Some planes in the squadron assigned to ground, some to air, and the like. Maybe that would do something, wouldn’t-”

Hoover’s rather large hand came down on his shoulder again, this time a bit harder.

“John, the grand experiment’s over,” he said in a consoling tone. “Just let it go; we’re just another squadron now.”

Cole shut his eyes and breathed in deeply, exhaling a long gust.

“I… guess you’re right, huh?”

“Yep,” Hoover said, taking a final chug to finish the can. “Sorry, man.”

“Like you said, it’s not our fault, right?” Cole replied, as if he were not too sure of the answer.

“That’s right, that’s just right!” Hoover replied, just a bit tipsy. “Now why don’t you relax and enjoy yourself?”

“Sure, thanks Hoover,” Cole replied.

Cole got up, folded up his chair and a bottle of water, and moved through the room to the other side. The last part had been a lie, if only just to end the conversation there. Cole did not feel like talking about it much more, mainly because Hoover was right. It was not their fault, nor anyone’s in the squadron, but they were not going to do anything special for the rest of their days.

Laying out the chair and slouching down again, he looked out the only window in the room, right next to where he set his chair. Admittedly, he thought he might be able to have some fun, but the first chat had sent him into a small bout of depression. The only thing he felt like doing was staring out the window into the night sky.

If anything gave him comfort, it was the sky. Growing up he had always wanted to run up and touch it. He wanted to be able to fly like a bird; or, better yet, a superhero. And when the stars came out over their country home, he would stretch his hand out as far as he could to try and grab them. It all seemed terribly silly, looking back.

'But maybe not all that silly,' he thought, opening the water and taking a drink. 'I did get to fly. I got to do what men aren’t supposed to do by nature.'

That reminder did make him feel a good deal better. When he was a kid he always wanted to just jump up into the sky and fly off to see what was over the horizon. Now, he could do that and go beyond. Back home he always loved to watch the sunsets with their beautiful colors painting the sky like a canvas. He had gotten the chance to see it from the air, at an equal angle, actually go into it, witness that small miracle up close. At least he could do that, and he could not be more grateful for it.

“Eight!”

“Seven!”

In his thoughts he had forgotten where he was and what time it was; he felt a little forgotten since no one bothered to wake him from his daydream, but he figured that was his own fault.

“Five!”

“Four!”

“Three!”

“Two!”

“One!”

“Happy New Year!” the pilots all yelled, hoisting their respective beverages in the air to a toast.

Cole joined them from his seat, raising the bottle and then lowering it to his lips. The celebration made him smile more. Though he felt bad for the squadron’s failure, he was still friends with everyone in the squadron. It was more than that really; they were family. Each of them was like brothers, and he would be up there fighting with them no matter what. Come hell or high water or anything in-between, he would watch out for them, and he knew they would do the same.

“Hey! Happy New Year, LT!” Firebird, one of the pilots in his own flight, yelled, pouring a bottle of Champagne on his head. “You didn’t think you could get away, did you?”

“Ah, what the hell, man!?” Cole replied, switching between laughing and coughing.

Firebird held up the empty bottle next to his triumphant grin.

“One for the Captain and each flight lead! Enjoy!” he said. “Want me to break the bottle over your head, too?”

Cole forced himself to calm down and reached up, grabbing Firebird’s shirt and dragging his head down to try and dump the half-empty water bottle on it. Though he did not get it up far enough, and his target actually grabbed it out of his hand. Cole sighed in mock disappointment; he was a bit jealous that Firebird had such good reflexes, better than most in the squadron, as well.

He would need to get his clothes washed, including his jacket being steamed, but he could worry about it later. He got up and went to the long food table, grabbing a handful of napkins. He leaned over and shook his head furiously for about a minute to shake off the excess, then ran a few napkins over his face and head, easily drying his short hair. Sitting up, he felt a bit dizzy, with the room seeming to shake a bit.

But something was a bit off, mainly the people; the pilots all seemed to have gone quiet. The shaking was continuing, and by this time Cole guessed that the dizziness had worn off, and it was not that. Something was making the ground shake, but what? He ran a mental checklist of what could cause such a thing to happen.

'Did a plane crash or something?' he wondered to himself. 'Was it an earthquake or thunderstorm? They’re the only natural thing that could cause disruption out here.'

The shaking finally stopped, and the room was quiet enough to hold a funeral. Even the radio had gone silent for the event, leaving the perplexed crew to begin wondering what was going on. A few seconds after the shaking stopped the lights in the room flared and then went out, leaving the room pitch black except for the moonlight shining in its line through the window. Cole could not help but think of the apocalypse event Jack had spoken to him of.

“Huh… shit,” he said to himself, more out of genuine worry than anything else.

Even if it was not Y2K, something big had just happened; the radio came back to life to give some clue as to what. He quickly jogged out the room and into the hall, to see if anything else was happening they could not see; there were a couple others from other rooms also trying to find the source, but nothing that actually indicated it. Peering out the window, most of the outside that he could make out looked ordinary as well. He turned and poked his head back through the door, being answered by a grim message from the radio.

“-a tsunami warning is in effect for the Midway Atoll,” a human voice warned. “Please seek immediate cover; we will be playing the EBS’s tsunami warning message on record. Direction is believed to be from the northwest; large wave expected to strike Peale island anywhere from an hour to two hours. Good luck.”

Everyone in the room had already been told what to do and where to go, but many of them still began to panic, hurrying out the door past Cole and down the hall in one direction in a state of semi-organization. Being out in the middle of the Pacific, it was not impossible for Midway to receive a Tsunami threat, but it also was not common either. Usually, it came from Typhoons that gave prior warning days in advance, and gave a chance to pull the personnel off the island. None of the pilots ever thought they would have to suffer through one, and some started to get a little too nervous.

“This the Armageddon you were talking about?” Cole asked Jack, who was the last one out.

"Don’t joke about that, you bastard!” he replied in a suppressed anger while the group moved down the hall.

'So he was a little scared about that,' Cole thought. 'Poor paranoid guy; though I guess I don’t have a whole lot of room to talk.'

As the troop moved farther south to find a higher point in the island, what little height there was on the flat place, Cole started to wonder what caused the tsunami. An earthquake was the most likely reason, but it must have been close or powerful to make the lights go out and shake as it did, which made little sense. And the timing of it, on this day, right after midnight, it felt a little too much to be coincidence. He did not want to start jumping to wild conclusions, but he felt that something was not quite right; and he felt he would find out what soon.

Author's Note:

I tried to find a good balance between reality and imagination around the project. I don't think it's too far out there, in terms of probability.

Comments

[Saw Star]

Sounds about right that the Air Force would waste money on pointless shit that is unnecessary and mostly for a dog and pony show. Fucking spot on with the bullshit.

[Venerable Ro]

Oh storms, the water displacement... an entire continent's worth of water displacement. Everybody's gonna catch tsunamis from this... That's gonna put quite a damper on Celestia's first foray into global politics...