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Danny as out of place was the cigarette Greenstreet popped into his mouth as they began talking; it was rare, these days, to encounter an officer in any service who smoked.
    â€œSo where are the Malaysians?” asked Greenstreet after he’d finished introducing Danny and Turk to the small group of officers and senior enlisted who’d come over to care for the planes.
    â€œThey’re due at the base tomorrow morning,” said Danny.
    Greenstreet nodded. “We’ll get them sorted. You’re going to handle ground coms?”
    â€œNot me personally. I have a captain with me,” said Danny. “He’ll train the Malaysians. We met them yesterday. They seem competent.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œThey’re going to set up a camp at the south end of the base,” said Danny. “Your Captain Thomas has already worked out the details. He said you have security, but if you need more, the Malaysians can augment you near the hangars and such.”
    â€œCaptain Thomas knows what he’s doing,” said Greenstreet. “We’ve trained with him before. And, uh, as far as the locals go: no offense, Colonel, but most of us feel more secure without them.”
    â€œUnderstood.”
    T URK FOLDED HIS arms as he walked toward the F-35. Even before he had begun testing new aircraft for Dreamland and Special Projects, he hadn’t been a particular fan of the Lightning II. Like a lot of fighter jocks—at least of the American variety—he saw speed and acceleration as the ultimate virtues of an aircraft; the Lightning II was known to be somewhat below average in those categories when compared to the F-22, let alone the hot rods Turk guided. These shortcomings might have been excused, at least in Turk’s opinion, if it made up for it with stellar maneuverability. But the plane’s weight and configuration made it less than acrobatic.
    Turk tried hard not to be a snob. The F-35 hadreal assets: dependability, versatility, and a suite of electronic sensors that were at least a generation ahead of anything else in regular service around the globe. But after flying the Tigershark II in combat, it was hard to look at any other aircraft and not think it was a bit of a pig.
    His opinion of the Marine aviators who flew the plane was quite a bit higher . . . mostly.
    While the fierce service rivalries that once characterized the military were largely a thing of the past, he’d had a bad experience with a squadron of Marines at a Red Flag exercise very early in his career. The Marines—flying F-35Bs, as a matter of fact—had been led by one of the most arrogant SOBs he’d ever met. The fact that the instructors at Red Flag had regularly spanked his squadron’s collective butt would have therefore been very satisfying—except for the fact that Turk and his two-ship element of F-22s was regularly charged with flying with them.
    His combined unit only managed to beat the instructors on the very last exercise, and that was because the F-22s followed their own game plan, essentially using the Marines to bait the larger group of aggressors.
    Different group, Turk told himself as he walked over to introduce himself. Give these guys a chance. Not every Marine aviator is a jerk.
    And besides, it was their commander who was the A-hole. The rest of them were decent human beings. For Marines.
    Two of the pilots, still in full flight gear, were stretching their legs near the wings of the planes.
    â€œHey!” yelled Turk.
    â€œHey, back,” yelled the Marine Corps aviator closest to him. Tall for a pilot—he looked like he might be six-eight—he started toward Turk.
    â€œHow you doin’?” asked the pilot. He had a southern California twang. “You the Air Force dude in charge?”
    â€œNo, that’s Colonel Freah. Danny Freah,” added Turk, pointing. “He’s over there.”
    â€œI’m Torbin Van Garetn,” said