I Know You ~ J.Seresin

43

"Good Morning" Admiral Warlock's voice booms throughout the room. Tate and Maverick stood on each side of him as he talked to the aviators. "The uranium enrichment plant. That's your target. It will be operational sooner than anticipated," Tate holds her breath at the Admiral's words.

It was now being moved up. There were only 10 more days until it was active and only a week until the mission was to be flown.

"Sir, no one here has successfully flown a low-level course," Maverick says cutting the Admiral off. Warlock looks at him and purses his lips.

"You've been ordered to move on,"

Maverick opens his mouth to rebut but Tate shakes her head at him. Maverick purses his lips and takes a step back and lets Warlock finish.

Tate wanted to challenge the Admiral's demands just as much as Maverick did, but what could she do?

She was only a Commanding Officer. All she could do was put in writing to give the aviators more time. But that could just be brushed over.

Everything else would have to be decided by the Admirals.

Tate could tell her father, but with him also being a higher Admiral, he most likely would agree with them and have the mission set for the next week.

That reminded Tate to talk to her father after their exercises today.

Maverick clears his throat as Warlock steps aside from the front of the room. "It's time to focus on phase two. It's the most difficult stage of this mission,"

Maverick looks over at Tate, nodding for her to take on the next part of the lecture. He wanted to make sure that she felt included in the lectures.

He could tell that Tate felt uneasy when they stood in front of the pilots. He could tell that there were times when she felt like she didn't belong up there with him. She was a great pilot but she wasn't Maverick great.

Go down in history as them.

Well, she thought that. Everyone else knew she was going to go down in history just like her father.

Tate takes a step up to stand next to Maverick and she clears her throat. "It's a pop-up strike," Maverick then shows the demonstration of the blueprint they had put together.

"It's a strike with a steep dive requiring nothing more than two consecutive miracles. Two F-18s will fly in a welded wing formation. This is where your teamwork comes in handy,"

Maverick shows the pilots all the different demonstrations of flight maneuvers. Tate kept her gaze away from the aviators.

She assumed Jake would be looking at her.

And he was.

Jake still hadn't gotten a chance to talk to her. He stopped showing up at her doorstep, stopped leaving her things, and just entirely stopped trying to get her attention.

Tate clearly wanted nothing to do with him, and he finally got the hint. But a part of Tate felt bad. She felt weird.

She had gotten so used to him being around that now she feels like she has nothing else to do when she wasn't being an instructor. Like she was missing a piece of her.

Jake watches as Tate's head being to move up from the ground and her gaze moves closer to him. He turns his head looking out the window. His hand in a fist as it sat on his mouth.

He grits the toothpick between his back teeth as he watches Tate look at him from his peripheral.

She too had messed up.