Heart of Steel: B. Bradshaw

Three: Dog Fight

The first training session Maverick had them do was a lesson on dog fighting. They were all split into teams of three, switching team members after every time they flew. The first team was Hangman, Payback, and Fanboy.

Steely sat on a chair close to the radio as she waited for her turn. She listened intently to how the teams before her were doing and it seems they were fairing pretty well. Omaha sat to her right as he fiddled with the zipper on his fly suit.

"Ready for this?" Steely asked patting his knee with her right hand. His head snapped up to her and he nodded.

Time flew by quickly and it was soon their turn. They were paired up with Rooster for this particular training day. After all their plane checks were complete she set off into the sky.

"Good morning aviators, the sky is clear and the air is warm. Perfect day for a bit of ass kicking," Steely spoke into the comms keeping the plane at a steady speed.

"Sunshine, you see anything?" Roosters voice echoed throughout the plane.

"That's a question for the lovely boy behind me, Omaha take it away!" he chuckled slightly while drifting his eyes across the scanner.

"Nothing yet Rooster, we're all clear,"

"He's up here with us right?" Rooster asked making sure that Maverick was actually up in the sky.

"Should be, I didn't see him land earlier," Steely looked around puzzled. Bending her neck to look back and forth.

She pulled mouthpiece out and cleared her throat. Omaha and Bradley shared a few words as each of the pilots looked around for Maverick. At this point Steely and Bradley were flying quite close to each other. All of a sudden with no warning Mavericks plane shoots up between the middle of the two and he does a move where his plane is upside down over top of Roosters.

"Been here the whole time."

"balls on a bicycle what was that!" Steely shouts, her instinct causes her to pull her plane farther away from the two. She quickly fumbles to put her mouth piece back in and grabs ahold of the control stick once more.

"See me now? cmon let's get this over with," Maverick taunts looking down at Rooster. Steely could see his entire body tense. From day one Bradley has been quite gruff towards the older pilot and Steely could not figure out the reason.

"Fights on!" Rooster yells twisting his plane around.

"Please tell me we are not about to play who has the bigger dick up here" Steely groans as she watched Maverick and Rooster spin around each other, slowly but surely their planes plummet to the ground all while spinning around each other.

"Alright you put us here how are you going to get yourself out, how low are you willing to go?" Mavericks voice is strained as he fights to spin with Roosters plane.

"I can go as low as you can sir and that's saying something," Omaha hissed in the backseat clearly sensing the tension between the two.

Steely grabbed the control stick tightly and whirled her plane around to follow them. Her stomach lurched with fear as she watched them fall farther and farther. Neither one of them giving up.

"Rooster pull up this is not the time and place to do this," her forehead slick with sweat as she tried to stay close to either planes without getting in the way.

"What's past is past for both us of."

"You'd like to believe that wouldn't you."

"Hard deck is 5000 feet boys you are quickly running out of room," she hoped this would snap them back into action.

But of course this didn't work and she watched in
concern as they kept going. She was still above the hard deck and could just barley see as their planes kept spinning.

"PULL UP! PULL UP! FOR FUCK SAKES PULL UP!!" Steely screamed into her mic. Finally both Maverick and Rooster shot up and away from the ground. Maverick out in front and Rooster trailing behind. They began to play chase. Steely smashed the control stick forward and launched after the two planes.

"Cmon Rooster drop down and take the shot you have him!" She cheered flying close behind him.

"It's too low!" he's panicked, she can tell, and backs off a little to give him more space.

"Too late you had your chance, that's a kill" Next thing she knows Maverick is up and over Rooster and the G-Lock sound is the only thing heard.

"Damn Rooster you almost had him," She knew Maverick was still after her so she pulled closer and locked Maverick in.

Maverick slowed down next to Steely, he shook his head in a nod "Go see Hondo about your push-ups."

Once they had all landed they began to work on their push ups. Steely and Omaha still had to do some even though they locked Maverick in. He said it was because of him being distracted with Rooster so it wasn't a fair shot. After finishing Steely went back into the building and changed out of her fly suit. They were the last team so they were free to go. She came out of the locker rooms and into the room that they all sat in before. Out of the window she could see Rooster still on the tarmac doing his pushups.

She made her way over to him and kneeled down beside him. She waited for him to sit up then she began to speak.

"Breaking the hard deck, insubordination. Bradley what the fuck was that?" She questioned, trying to see his eyes but he refused to look at her.

"Don't worry about it."

"Look, Im going on this mission alright? if you get kicked out i'm stuck flying with hangman and i'm sure you can understand my frustration. You can talk to me I hope you know that."

"He pulled my papers." his voice came out rough and it was obvious he was upset.

"Who Maverick?" She asked confused as to what he meant.

"He pulled my application to the Naval Academy, set me back four years." Oh now she gets it, that's why he is so angry with him.

"Seriously? why would he do that?" She plopped her ass on the ground and sat closer to him.

"I don't know Sunshine and I don't care enough to find out. I want this mission over and done with and I want nothing to do with him." His hands waved all over the place as he angrily confided in her.

"I understand but you can't risk your life just because you hate him, when you're up their nothing else matters but the task at hand you need to put your anger aside. You scared the hell out of me and I never want to see you do anything like that again."

Steely didn't understand why she felt so scared for this man. She would consider them friends but this was the first time they had truly spoken to each other since they left Top Gun. She also didn't understand why she was ragging on him for something she could see herself doing. She was a wild card up in the sky but watching that happen today totally scared her.

"I don't know what I was thinking." His hands were on his face and his words came out muffled.

"You weren't thinking that's the problem. You are such a skilled pilot that I know you understand how dangerous that was."

"Your right it was stupid of me and I let my anger cloud my judgment." He finally looked up at her and the corner of his lips turned up "Thanks for talking some sense into me."

She flashed him a big toothy grin and reached forward to squeeze the top of his knee. She pulled herself up and began to turn away.

"Anytime Bradshaw." he smiled as he watched her walk away.