Sabrina
Copyright© 2026 by The Outsider
Chapter 37: Beat Down
02 August 2027 – Edwards Air Force Base, Kern County, California
“How’s the ankle?” Evan Porter asked as he walked from the parking lot to the schoolhouse.
“It hurts, Bart,” Sabrina grumbled. “That’s why I’m limping...”
“How soon until you’re back in the cockpit?”
“Another week. I’m just glad to be back on duty. A week of sitting in the house listening to jets take off when I couldn’t join in was maddening!”
“And being here while you’re not allowed in the aircraft is better?”
“At least I’ll feel like I’m contributing.”
They walked over to the list of the week’s groupings on the bulletin board near their primary classroom.
“You sure about that?” Evan asked as he nodded at the list.
“Has someone figured out why she doesn’t like me?”
“She doesn’t like anybody, Sabrina. She won’t like you the most today because you’re now part of ‘her’ team,” Harper Dominguez said as he walked over. “We’ve all had our turn on that merry-go-round! Don’t know how you’ve avoided her this long.”
“Gee, thanks, Harpo. Lach, would you mind giving him a wedgie or something?”
“Can I just throw something at him? I’d have to get his flight suit off before I give him a wedgie...”
“Someone want to tell me how she’s made it this far into the course when she treats people the way she does?” another of their classmates asked.
“Because she’s almost as brilliant an engineer as you are, Evie...” Reese Jones replied to Evelyn Kaur. “She wants to be the best, but you already are.”
“Thanks, Stitch.”
Stitch Jones was right. Eve Kaur was brilliant, as in ‘higher than 4.0 GPA in her undergrad and graduate courses,’ brilliant. While Johanna Salazar was almost as brilliant academically, the major difference between them was that Eve could interact with others like a regular person.
Salazar’s ability to solve technical problems was likely the only reason she was still at TPS. No one enjoyed working with her because she treated you like an inferior species, regardless of your accomplishments. TPS accepted people based on their own merits, and everyone had their own reasons for being here. Sabrina’s classmates might not be the best pilots, navigators, or engineers around, but they were within the top five percent of people in their fields. They also solved problems and made plans. Not everyone did.
Johanna Salazar entered the building, and everyone around the board slipped into the classroom before she walked over. Sabrina reluctantly sat at the desk on the assignment list. There she greeted the other members of the group and pointedly ignored Salazar as she walked up. Salazar tossed papers onto the table.
“Here are the assignments for today,” she said in a haughty voice, which was her usual tone.
Sabrina waved off the rest of the team as they each reached for a page. With a disdainful look, she picked one up, read it, and then tossed it back onto the table.
“Nope. Not happening.” Salazar glared at Sabrina. “Where’d you get this list? From the cadre, or did you make it up yourself?” More silence. “That’s what I thought,” Sabrina snapped. “I’m not playing your games, Salazar. If you want to be part of a team, we’ll figure it out. If you’re telling us what to do, the answer is ’f•©k you!’”
“Don’t start with me, Knox! The military answers to civilians!”
“Get bent, bitch!” Sabrina growled in response. “You’re on a military base taking a class run by the military. Franco and Joey have more experience than all of us combined! Who cares if they don’t have some vaunted degree? They get the job done, they ask the right questions when something isn’t clear, and they keep newbies like us out of trouble!
“And where do you come off with this high-and-mighty attitude? What makes you think you’re better than us? I’ve got a master’s in aerospace engineering and my Air Force pilot’s wings. I’m IFR- and multi-engine-rated with the FAA. Happily married. Despite all that, I treat others like human beings, unlike you. And I’m a second-degree black belt, so if you start something, I’m gonna end it!”
“That’s IT!” Salazar screeched. “I’m going to talk to the cadre about this!”
“Go ahead,” Sabrina answered with a shrug. When Salazar reached for the pile of job assignments, Sabrina slapped her hand down on them. “Nope. These stay here, so you can’t get rid of them. I want the cadre to see them.”
Salazar stomped away.
“Well, she’s gone off a bit narky...” the group’s British exchange student/navigator, Dougie Henderson, quipped.
“‘Narky?’” Joey Souza asked.
“‘F•©king pissed’ for us ignrant ‘Muricans,” Sabrina explained.
“Sabrina, that’s not fair to Dougie!” Franco Cardoza laughed. “You know he doesn’t think that way about us demented colonists!”
“You folk are a bit daft,” Henderson added.
“He’s right in that regard, that’s for sure,” Sabrina admitted.
A cadre member, Major Sanderson, approached the table and looked at Sabrina. Salazar and another cadre member were visible through the door, standing in the hall.
“Knox? Come with me.”
Sabrina stood.
“Respectfully, Sir, if this has to do with Johanna Salazar and her attitude, I’d rather have the meeting out here, in the open. She’s the issue. None of the rest of us have a problem with any of our classmates or staff except her.” Sabrina stared at Salazar through the door’s window. “And she feels everyone is beneath her.”
“And, I asked you to come with me, Knox. I know you know what a ‘request’ from a senior officer means, right?”
“I do, Sir,” Sabrina answered after locking up at attention. “After you, Sir.” She grabbed the team’s assignment sheets from the table after Major Sanderson turned toward the door.
Once in a small conference room with Major Sanderson, Major Tomarek, and The Devil Herself, Sabrina remained at attention until ordered to sit. Even then, she sat at attention.
“Ms. Salazar,” Major Tomarek started, “you asked for this meeting. Please go ahead.”
“Knox was disrespectful, argumentative, and out of line from the start this morning. She refused to perform her duties as assigned and then threatened me with violence.”
“‘Duties as assigned,’ Ms. Salazar?” Major Sanderson asked. “Are those duties listed on the papers Captain Knox-Jones has in her hand?” Sabrina rose slightly, placed the papers in front of the majors, and then sat back at attention. Major Tomarek picked up an ‘assignment list.’ “Interesting. Which cadre member did you get these from, Ms. Salazar?” he asked. The silence dragged. “And the ‘violence’ you referred to?” The silence remained. Major Tomarek turned to Sabrina. “Captain?”
“I told Ms. Salazar that I was a second-degree black belt, Sir, and that if she started something I would end it.”
“Everyone has the right to self-defense, even the captain, Ms. Salazar,” Major Sanderson added. “As someone who studies the martial arts, Captain Knox-Jones knows about a proportional response as well.”
Sabrina fought to keep a blank expression and not glare at Salazar or give her an evil grin.
“Now hear this loud and clear, ladies,” Major Tomarek said, catching their attention. “Neither of you runs this place. This school is part of the United States Air Force. The 412th Test Wing. I don’t care how many degrees you have, Ms. Salazar, and I don’t care how many flight hours you have in your logbook, Captain Knox-Jones. You have both been assigned to this course, and you can be unassigned just as easily. Do I make myself clear?”
“YES, SIR!” Sabrina barked after popping to attention. Johanna Salazar grumbled her response.
“We’re done here, then.” Salazar spun on her heel and left the room. Sabrina remained where she was, having caught Major Tomarek’s signal to stand fast. Major Sanderson closed the door. “Have a seat, Sabrina, and at ease,” Major Tomarek said in a quieter voice while motioning her back to her chair. Sabrina sat and looked at the majors expectantly. “Sabrina, you understand why I had to do things this way, I hope?”
“I do, Sir. I was on the verge of crossing the line with Major Sanderson when he came to get me, and what I said to Salazar could be interpreted as a threat.”
Tomarek looked at Sanderson, who shook his head.
“You wanted to air your grievances in public, Sabrina, and I understood that,” Major Sanderson said. “Salazar’s attitude has been an open secret here since your class started. We were close to acting ourselves, but the possibility of her filing a sexual harassment suit against the school slowed us a bit.”
“She’s not exactly a team player, Sir.”
“Not just your opinion, Sabrina,” Major Tomarek added. “There have been others like her in previous classes, and the curriculum straightened them out. She’s held on to the attitude longer than any of the others did, however.”
“What are my orders, Sir?”
“Straight and level, Sabrina,” Tomarek said with a smile. “Ignore her when you can. She’s your group’s flight engineer, so you’ll have to deal with her for the moment, but only for studying your aircraft. How’s your ankle, by the way?”
“About ninety percent, Sir ... thank you for asking. I’m not ready for a shift on the power play team yet, but I’m getting there. Office work won’t be an issue.”
“Boston? I can hear it in your voice.”
“Outside 128, Sir. Out in the wilderness of Massachusetts, if you listen to Bostonians. I played hockey all the way through school, including club hockey at the Academy.”
“Get back to work, Knox, and try not to break any more aircraft, would ya?”
“I was in the back seat, Sir. You’ll have to speak to Major Seaver about that.”
“Get lost, Captain...”
Sabrina saluted the majors and got lost.
“You okay, Sabrina?” Tommy asked later that night. “You rarely spend that long doing katas.”
“More BS with Salazar today, Tommy. I wanted to work stuff out of my system.” Sabrina dropped heavily onto the couch next to Tommy. “She tried to hand out work assignments to the rest of the team this morning.”
“I’m guessing cadre placed you in her team this morning?” By now, Tommy was used to the TPS schedule.
“They teamed us together with three other folks, Tommy. It ain’t her team.”
“And I know you don’t think of it as ’yours,’ either, unless you mean the inclusive ‘yours.’”
“‘There is no “I” in team.’”
“But there are two in ’imbecile... ‘”
“Now, don’t respect the lady. She is wicked smaht!”
“Apparently not,” Tommy snorted. “Seriously, babe, is this gonna come back to bite you?”
“It shouldn’t,” Sabrina said with a shrug. “Why? Are you going to show them where I like to be bitten if it does?”
Batting your eyes is required when asking this type of question.
“Um, no! Your husband has reserved them for his exclusive use!”
Sabrina draped herself over her husband.
“I can think of other husband-reserved activities I’d enjoy tonight.”
“Then what are we doing sitting on the couch, darling?”
Tommy carried his wife into the bedroom, surrounded by her laughter.
Sabrina browsed the Los Angeles Times website as she waited for folks to return from lunch. An article on last week’s fatal F-35 accident over the Sea of Japan caught her attention. The 480th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron F-35 faltered while trying to land at Kadena Air Base and crashed into the water west of the field. The wingman watched the doomed jet’s pilot eject, but after he circled around, he couldn’t locate the other pilot.
The 31st Rescue Squadron found the pilot in the ocean thirty minutes later, floating face-up and in the automatic-deploying life vest. The PJ who jumped in to retrieve the officer found her dead, and ‘face-up’ was a relative term.
The relatively shallow water off the coast from the base allowed quick recovery of the plane and ejection seat. Examination of the seat showed a catastrophic failure of both the ejection propellant canister and parachute deployment unit. The canister burst during ejection, destroying the parachute. The pilot hit the water at flight speed from an altitude of three hundred feet, which crushed her chest. It would have been an exquisitely painful way to die if she hadn’t already lost her head.
Literally.
If the method of the pilot’s death wasn’t bad enough, Sabrina knew the pilot personally. The pilot was Alejandra de la Cruz, the USAFA Cadet First-Class who protected Sabrina from the unwanted advances of another cadet, the infamous Devin Fairhaven, over a decade ago.
This was the second service-related death of an Air Force officer Sabrina knew, the first being Arne ‘Thor’ Thorvoldson. Firsties didn’t interact with four-degs regularly, other than to boss them around. Sabrina wasn’t familiar with de la Cruz, personally, other than what the newspaper website had printed. Still, the loss hurt in a way she didn’t fully understand.
What the article didn’t explain was the reason for the propellant canister failure. Failures during wartime were possible because of combat damage to the aircraft. Failures during peacetime were extremely unlikely, though not impossible. The investigation into the incident would be extensive. Franco Cardoza noticed Sabrina’s look when he walked up.
“Are you okay, Sabrina?”
“Hey, Franco,” she greeted her teammate. “That F-35 crash in Japan last week? I knew the pilot.” Sabrina stared at the wall. “She was a few years ahead of me at the Academy and helped me out with a problem.” Sabrina looked back at Franco. “I didn’t really know her that well, but this feels like a personal loss.”
“As much as your friend from Germany? Don’t look at me like that, Sabrina! Joey, me, and the rest of us ‘techs’ have worked with enough of you jet jockeys. We look up all the incoming class members before you get here! We know who we want to avoid and who we’ll enjoy working with before any of you report.”
“All of the incoming class members?”
“All of them, Sabrina,” Franco confirmed with a nod. “We knew what to expect.”
“So nice of you to warn us.”
“You found out soon enough. So? The pilot from Kadena?”
“No,” Sabrina admitted, “Alejandra’s loss isn’t as personal as Arne’s loss was, especially since I was his wingman that day. I haven’t seen Alejandra since she graduated. Alejandra and I never served in the same unit either. It’s still too close, though,” she added as she looked back at Franco.
“She stood up for me at the Academy and taught me a few things about leadership and how to treat coworkers. You and Joey are working with us on this project; it doesn’t matter what your role is, because we couldn’t do the job without you. Dad taught me the same thing. I just didn’t recognize it.”
“What does your dad do?”
“When he’s not an obstacle race contestant on TV, he’s the vice president of an ambulance company. He worked on the road as a paramedic for a few years for the same company before 9/11.”
“Did 9/11 push him off the ambulance?”
“No, a bad call did, back when my brothers and I were young. He re-enlisted in the Army because of 9/11, then went back to the ambulance company after he got out.”
“Longevity and loyalty are his trademarks, then? I can see that in you, that’s for sure.”
“Thanks, Franco.”
Franco did something with his phone.
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