Starfire
Copyright© 2025 by Mark Randall
Chapter 18
The following week, Cynthia Holt, Captain Sullivan, Commander Olivet, and the two squadron leaders met again in Captain Sullivan’s conference room.
“Well, gentlemen, what have you come up with?” Captain Sullivan asked.
Before Thad could say anything, Max jumped to his feet. “Sir, “he started, “I propose that we set up a round robin, one-on-one competition. We could run a single or a double elimination setup. Personally, I prefer the double elimination. That would give everybody more than enough of a chance to succeed.”
Captain Sullivan looked closely at Max for a moment. Then asked, “Do you have an estimate about how long this one-on-one competition would take?”
“If we did a single elimination and there were no delays, we could do it in about a month. A double elimination would, naturally, take longer. Maybe 2 months.”
Commander Olivet spoke up, “You can count on a delay. There are always unexpected delays in this kind of operation.” It was obvious that Max was not happy with this information.
“2 months, maybe more? That’s quite a bit of time, isn’t it?” Henry asked.
“Well, yes, it would take a while, but we’re still a long way from Farside. We’ve got nothing but time right now.”
“Yes, that’s true. But I’m afraid everybody would probably become bored with this. And the whole point of this was to entertain the crew and give them a break from that monotony.”
Max paused for a moment, obviously deep in thought, then he said, “My second thought was that we could put everybody out all at once. Have a general melee.”
Everybody could tell that Max was making it up on the spur of the moment.
Olivet spoke up again. “Yes, that would speed things up. But I would be worried about the safety aspect of this idea. With all those ships speeding around, there’s bound to be accidents.”
Captain Sullivan turned to Thad. “How about you, Lieutenant Sawyer. What are your ideas on this?”
Thad pondered for a moment. “Well, Sir, I’m reluctant to offer a suggestion. The plan I have wouldn’t be fair to Max and the Blue squadron.”
“What do you mean?” Cynthia asked.
“Rather than a round robin or a melee, my thought was to use teams.” Thad seemed to be embarrassed by his suggestion.
“Teams?” Captain Sullivan asked.
“Yes, sir, I thought that we could probably do this in a week, maybe two, and with a smaller number of ships, safety control would also be easier.”
“Reasonable, but why are you reluctant?” Captain Sullivan seemed to be agreeable.
Thad continued. “My main concern would be that the Red squadron flies three-ship teams, while the Blue squadron only uses two-ship, wingman-style teams. I think that would give us, the Dragons, an unfair advantage.”
Thad’s naming the Red squadron as the Dragon’s was a dig on Max, and he knew it.
Max spoke up, “Unfair advantage? How do you figure?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Three against two? The Blue squadron would have a harder job at it.” Thad answered apologetically.
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