Wait Until Dark (The Night Stalkers) by M. L. Buchman

chair at the two-top table.
    “I’m sure.” And he was. Now that was interesting. Cute, leggy, and willing orderly with skin the color of night. Cool and remote white-chick Sergeant Connie Davis who always ate alone. Always sat by herself. But there wasn’t really a contest. Connie brought that incredible mind of hers. Also a gentleness that he’d bet would surprise her if he pointed it out. And the more he watched her, the more he liked her looks. No longer just pretty, they were becoming familiar.
    He couldn’t read that poker face that she always wore, not yet, but he caught hints through its mighty shield.
    She cleared her tray, setting plate, napkin, cup of tea, silverware as if she were dining at home. Perhaps she was. He remembered that his question of home had been answered with a list of Army air bases. She treated her past as a closed book, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to know more about her.
    For one thing, she was nervous. He could tell by the way her eyes shifted to his even as she sat. Nervous around him?
    “Something bothering you?” He dug up a mouthful of something from his plate but didn’t taste it.
    She fooled around with the toast on her plate, as if studying it for hidden secrets. A bite of hash browns and some more messing with her toast before answering. “They’ve been working on our helicopters since the moment we walked away from them.”
    Why did he feel that was a topic change, even if he couldn’t quite pin it down?
    “Not unusual. We’re fresh in from a forward theater of operations. Frankly, I’m glad to have someone else muck out all that dust and grit. Every bit of it brings back dusty, gritty, and downright nasty memories. I mean, what am I gonna do if I don’t find sand in my shorts and a dusting of brown dirt on my dinner? Have withdrawal? Go for it. That’s what I have to say.”
    “They aren’t cleaning. They’re installing. New systems.”
    He dropped his fork. He didn’t intend to. It simply slipped out of limp fingers and tumbled a piece of sausage into his coffee. A sheen of oil rose to the surface and shimmered across it.
    “What new systems?”
    “They didn’t say.”
    “Didn’t or wouldn’t?”
    Her shrug was eloquent.
    He started to rise, then caught her expression. It shifted. For just a moment. Her eyes casting down to the left as if he’d sworn at her or something.
    He dropped back into his seat. Sat and stared into his breakfast. What had been a banquet moments before now looked to be slowly congealing under layers of cooling syrup and long drools of dull-red hot sauce. He ate a piece or two of bacon, but his heart wasn’t in it.
    “What are they doing to my chopper?” he asked himself. Not looking up, not wanting to see the pain that had slid into those gentle eyes when he’d made to leave her alone at the table.
    “Five external fittings.” Her voice was unchanged. A glance showed her eyes were recovering.
    “Huh?” He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud and had momentarily forgotten about Connie. But now, so close, he could smell her. The freshness of soap and shampoo, with an underlying treat of spice. Not the home-cooked freshness you’d expect from a girl like her, but rather a bright, enticing drift just barely kissing the air.
    “Two low forward, one low aft. Front and rear high.”
    “ADAS.” He breathed it. It felt like a prayer on his lips. There’d been rumors, even a limited press release of initial testing. But field ready?
    She nodded. Clearly her guess as well.
    “This I gotta see. Are you done?”
    Connie looked down at her untouched plate and his mostly full one.
    Then she focused back on him and did the impossible.
    She smiled.
    The warmth of it, the force of it, slammed him back in his seat. It lit her up with a radiance that nearly blinded. It made the rest of the room pale by comparison. It shifted her from merely beautiful to the most stunning creature he’d ever seen.
    “Yes, I think we are.” He