Baby Mav

Old Faces, Same Anger

Maverick walked into the run-down diner, his entire suit smoking. The second he walked in the door, everyone looked at him. He walked up to the counter, unable to speak. With a shaking hand, he reached forward and pointed at the glass of water on the waitress's tray. To Maverick's surprise, she handed it to him. He graciously took it and downed the entire thing with everyone watching him.

"Thank you," he whispered once he had finished. He cleared his throat, trying to fix his voice. "Where am I?"

"Earth." A little boy sitting nearby said.

"Is there someone we can call. . . Should call?"

Thanks to the waitress, Maverick was able to call Hondo. They instantly sent a helicopter and escorted him back to base.

"This should be interesting," he mumbled as he got out of the helicopter after it landed.

"Admiral Cain would like to see you," one of the two security guards said as they approached him.

"He'd be crazy if he didn't want to," Maverick mumbled as he followed them through the ship.

The guards stopped outside an office. The second he walked in, he saw Admiral Cain behind the desk, glaring at a file in front of him. He didn't have to guess to figure out whose file it was being analyzed.

"Maverick," he said through his teeth.

"Yep," Maverick confirmed in his mind but definitely not out loud. His file.

"Thirty-plus years of service. Combat medals. Citations. Only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last 40 years. Until, the F-18-20 flight three years ago. But you knew that, of course. Distinguished. Distinguished. Distinguished. Yet you can't get a promotion, you won't retire, and despite your best efforts, you refuse to die."

"I can't leave my girl, sir," Maverick said.

"You should be at least a two-star admiral by not, if not a senator," Admiral Cain continued without being phased by Maverick's mumbling interruption. "Yet here you are: Captain. Why is that?"

"It's one of life's mysteries, sir."

"This isn't a joke," Cain said instantly. "I asked you a question."

"I'm where I belong, sir."

"Well, the Navy doesn't see it that way," Cain sighed. "Not anymore. These planes you've been testing, Captain, one day, sooner than later, they won't need pilots at all. Pilots that need to sleep, eat, take a piss. Pilots that disobey orders. All you did was buy some time for those men out there. The future is coming, and you're not in it."

Maverick looked away, biting back his anger. "Escort this man off the base," Admiral Cain continued. "Take him to his quarters. Wait with him while he packs his gear. I want him on the road to North Island within the hour."

It took Maverick a minute to realize what Admiral Cain had ordered.

"North Island, sir?"

"Call came in with impeccable timing," Cain began to explain, "right as I was driving here to ground your ass once and for all. It galls me to say it but. . . for reasons known only to the Almighty and your guardian angel, you've been called back to TOPGUN."

"Sir?"

"You are dismissed, Captain," he interrupted Maverick.

The news still hadn't sunk in, but he was dismissed, so he started leaving. He was barely to the door when Cain spoke up again.

"The end is inevitable, Maverick. Your kind is headed for extinction."

Maverick couldn't help himself. He paused at the door and slowly turned toward his superior.