Page 16 of Badd B*tch

She darted a look at me after a minute or two. "What, no follow-up questions?"

"Only a billion and a half," I answered. "But I'm not gonna ask any of 'em."

This got me a long quizzical stare. "No?"

"Nope."

"Why?"

"Because you'd either just not answer or you'd feel obligated to answer, and I don't like either option."

Her cheeks were red and her grip on the controls white-knuckled—I must’ve hit a bullseye with that, and she really didn't like it.

"My grandfather is a retired admiral," she muttered. "There were…expectations. This gig does not meet those expectations. And just suffice it to say that in my family, unmet expectations are…its worst sin. Dad and Grandad would have been less disappointed in me if I'd turned up pregnant at sixteen."

I just stared at her. "Dude. That's fucked."

She blinked at me. "What?" She returned her attention to flying, but shot me another blink-fast look to indicate continued curiosity. "What do you mean?"

"Those kinds of expectations are fucking bullshit. You're a grown-ass woman. You're clearly fucking exceptional at what you do, or a guy like Thorvaldsen wouldn't hire you. He could point at any pilot on the planet and have them if he so chose, yet he hired you. And your parents are disappointed? That's sincerely and severely fucked up."

"Parent, singular. My mother is dead,” she delivered this flat, monotone, zero emotional content.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry. Clearly I didn't know."

"Clearly. Just clarifying. It’s just my sister, myself, Dad, and Granddad, the test pilot and the admiral. And oh yeah, did I mention my great-grandfather? He was a Rear Admiral. Dad? Not just a legendary test pilot. He has three air-to-air kills from the first Gulf War, and you can't know how rare that is in today's world of combat aviation. Even my great-great-grandfather was in the fucking Navy. He never got past the rank of Midshipman, but still. The Tiernan family is the United States Navy."

"So there was no question you were joining?"

"Nope. I was the oldest, and obsessed with flying from the time I could point at airplanes."

"Sister or brother?"

"Younger sister."

"She's Navy too, I take it?"

"Ha!" It was a sarcastic bark more than a laugh. "Nope. She graduated high school at sixteen, went to MIT, and then NYU. She's currently pursuing her second PhD at Harvard and is a research fellow at a hoity-toity East Coast think tank. And to be perfectly honest with you, Jax, I don’t have a single fucking clue what it is she actually does, other than something to do with the intersection of philosophy, ethics, and technology.”

"Damn, that's impressive," I said.

"Yes, it is. Tania is amazing."

"And your dad and granddad…are they disappointed in her for not going Navy?"

She cut me a sharp look, then. "No, they're not. I'm the eldest. It was always on me to carry on the Tiernan tradition. Family lore says Tiernans served in the British Navy going back to the seventeenth century, if not further, and it's always been the eldest who served.”

"Jesus. So she got to do what she wanted?"

Tea sighed. "I did too, Jax. I mean, no, there was no choice—it was indoctrinated into me my whole life that I was a Tiernan and Tiernans are Navy lifers. We're career. And from the first time Dad took me up in his Helldiver, I knew I was going to be a Navy combat pilot." She was quiet a moment or two. "My exit from the Navy was…well, that's a story for another time." Another pause. "I really don't like the look of those clouds. The weather report this morning said it was supposed to stay clear between Ketchikan and Nome."

"Nome?" I sighed. "Fucking Nome? Jiminy fucking Christmas.”

"You're just now finding out you're going to Nome?"

I nodded. "Yes, yes I am. Fucking Nome? Nome? My god." I looked at her, then. "This thing isn't getting from Ketchikan to Nome on a single tank of gas. It’s, like, over a thousand miles across some of the most rugged, inhospitable terrain on the planet. Why on earth would we take a fucking helicopter for this trip? We’re gonna have to stop to refuel several times. And yeah, weather can change in a split second."

"Well, this has a much farther range than a typical private helicopter, of course. As to why this and not a G6 or whatever? I don't know. It's not my job to tell him which aircraft we should take and why. He says fly this here; I fly this there. And yeah, we'll have to stop a few times, and probably an overnight stay somewhere along the way. I don't think Linus does things in a way we'd consider logical, Jax. I don't know."