Afterburn c-7

by Keith Douglass

  “Oh, my God!”

  Cat’s words over the ICS said it all. Dixie felt a cold, hard lump in his chest and throat, felt sweat sticking the skin inside his helmet, felt the hammer of his heart beneath his safety harness.

  Years of training, years of work, years of battling idiocy and prejudice to get him his one golden chance as a Navy combat aviator.

  And it had just ended with a downed U.S. helicopter.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No!”

  0954 hours (Zulu +3)

  Tomcat 201

  One mile abeam U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  “Tomcat Two-oh-one, Charlie now.” The voice of Commander William Barnes, Jefferson’s Air Boss, sounded over Batman’s headset, giving the order to commence his final approach to the carrier.

  Batman pulled the control stick over, guiding the Tomcat into a 4-G turn toward the carrier deck. He cut back on the throttles and hit the Tomcat’s speed brakes to slow the fighter to below three hundred knots. The computer started to reset the position of the wings to a forward position to compensate for the reduced speed, but Batman overrode the controls without really thinking about it. Most naval aviators liked to come in with the wings in their swept-back position, claiming the computer’s preferred wing setting made the Tomcat look like an oversized goose. Batman’s actions were virtually automatic after years of handling carrier landings, but this morning he was doubly distracted.

  He still couldn’t believe that he’d just scored an own goal downing an American helicopter. Damn damn damn! How in hell had that happened?

  He forced himself to concentrate on the approach. Batman flicked on the switch to lower the Tomcat’s landing gear as he continued the turn. His HUD display showed his speed falling below 230 knots, and Wayne dropped the wing flaps to further reduce the speed of the aircraft. He scanned his console readouts, noting the rate of descent, 615 feet per minute, and the range to the carrier, just over three-quarters of a mile. His angle-of-bank was twenty degrees as he finished his turn and lined up on the flight deck, making his approach from astern.

  Jefferson was making fifteen knots, steering east through relatively calm waters under a clear blue sky. Landing conditions were almost ideal, and for a pilot who had made landings in the most difficult weather conditions ― and, worse yet, at night ― it should have been an easy approach. But Batman Wayne was finding it hard to stay focused, and on something as tricky as a carrier landing that could be deadly. From his vantage point behind and above the carrier, the flight deck seemed an impossibly small target set in the wide blue expanse of the sea.

  He could see the ship’s Fresnell landing system mounted on the squat tower on the port side of the carrier, the “meatball” that helped a pilot estimate his glide slope. “Tomcat Two-oh-one, seven point one, ball,” he radioed. Calling the ball was the signal that he had the meatball lined up and was starting his final approach with 7 1 00 pounds of fuel on board.

  “Roger ball,” Barnes acknowledged. That passed control of the approach from Pri-Fly to the Landing Signals Officer stationed on a platform just below the Fresnell lens.

  “Glide slope’s a little steep, Batman.” The voice of Lieutenant Gene “Lassie” Lassiter, the LSO on duty for the Vipers this morning, was flat and calm. “More power.”

  He pushed the throttles forward and pulled the Tomcat’s nose up, cursing under his breath. There was no reason for this to be anything but a routine trap on the flight deck.

  No reason beyond the simple fact that he couldn’t get the image of that burning helicopter out of his mind.

  “Easy now,” Lassiter said. “Don’t overcompensate now.”

  The very best LSOS in the fleet were the ones like Lassiter who could keep calm and unflappable, giving guidance without sounding like world-class nags.

  “Ease off, Batman!”

  Shit… he had overcompensated. The fighter was coming in too high now.

  The red lights on either side of the meatball came on, but he was almost up to the carrier’s roundoff and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it now.

  “Wave off! Wave off!”

  His landing gear shrieked as they touched the deck, too far forward for the arrestor hook to snag a cable. Batman pushed the throttles forward and pulled up on the stick, cursing aloud this time. The engines thundered, the acceleration pressing him into his seat as the plane lifted clear and headed back into the open sky once again.

  “Bolter! Bolter! Bolter!” the LSO called. Batman felt himself flushing behind his oxygen mask. Of all the stupid rookie tricks to pull!

  “Take it easy, man,” Malibu said behind him. “Don’t let it get to you.

  Just circle around and get your focus back.”

  “Shit, Malibu! If you don’t like my flying, you can get out here and walk back to the boat!”

  “Chill out, dude,” the RIO responded with a trace of his usual bantering style. “Just stay frosty, right? You can cool off while they bring Dixie down. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Yeah. Nothing to worry about.”

  Except for the fact that he’d just downed an American aircraft, maybe killed its flight crew.

  Nothing to worry about at all.

  1007 hours (Zulu +3)

  Tomcat 218

  Flight deck, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  The Tomcat snagged the arrestor wire with a jolt that flung Tom Mason hard against his shoulder harness. “Good trap! Good trap!” the LSO was calling on the radio as he cut the throttles back. The roar of the engines faded to a low rumbling whine. A yellow-shirted traffic director ran onto the flight deck in front of the fighter, waving his twin rods to guide Mason on his taxi path.

  He backed the plane up far enough to take the strain off the arrestor cable and let it drop to the deck, “spitting out the wire,” as it was called. Then he folded the fighter’s wings and started slowly forward, following the Yellow Shirt.

  “Good trap” echoed in his mind. He’d made it down in one try, at least.

  After Batman’s bolter, Mason had been worried he’d have trouble, too. After all, if the commander had been shaken up by the downing of a U.S. chopper, how much worse should it have been for the man who made the bad call in the first place? Somehow, though, when the time had come to start the approach, Dixie had been able to push his concerns aside and concentrate on the landing.

  “Does that make me a good aviator or a callous one?”

  “I’d vote for callous,” Garrity said from the backseat.

  Mason suppressed a curse. He hadn’t realized he’d been thinking out loud. “Hey, lay off, Cat,” he said. “I made a mistake back there. But just because I didn’t bolter…”

  “Relax, Dixie,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Pressure hits different people in different ways. The Batman was probably shaken up by a lot more than that Black Hawk. He’s got a whole squadron to worry about.”

  “Yeah,” Mason said. He pulled into the space reserved for his plane and killed the engines, then paused before opening the canopy. “Just between us, Cat, what do you think’s gonna happen?..”

  She didn’t answer for a long moment. “Look, I don’t have any answers,” she said at last. “I didn’t get a good look at that helo when we made the pass. From back here, though, it looked to me like you saw exactly what you wanted to see, and that was a hostile bird you could go after.”

  “But-“

  “You asked for my opinion, Dixie. I’m not saying you were making things up, or anything like that. I just think you were a little too eager, that’s all.” She paused. “If CAG thinks the same, he could throw the book at you. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I started carrier duty, it’s to play everything as chilly and professional as possible. Magruder doesn’t tolerate anything less and he shouldn’t.”

  “Cat, I know what I saw-“

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure you’re convinced of it now.” There was an even longer pause. “But I’ve got to tell you the truth, Li
eutenant. I’m going to ask to be assigned to another plane for a while. I don’t think I want to ride with somebody I can’t trust to keep his head in a tight spot.”

  The canopy lifted slowly, and the plane captain was alongside to unfold the ladder so Mason and Garrity could climb out. He didn’t answer her.

  The problem was, he wasn’t sure he could answer her.

  Because, deep down, Tom Mason was very much afraid she was right.

  CHAPTER 9

  Saturday, 31 October

  1038 hours (Zulu +3)

  Viper Squadron Ready Room, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  Coyote Grant paused outside the locker room where Viper Squadron kept their flight gear, prey to a confusing mix of emotions. He had been a part of VF95 for more than four years, and CO of the squadron since their deployment to Norway nearly eighteen months ago. It was still hard to adjust to his new role as Deputy CAG, no longer flying Tomcats almost daily alongside his men but instead a staff officer who had to think of the entire Air Wing, the interaction of all the different aircraft in Jefferson’s formidable arsenal.

  He missed the Vipers. He saw them every day, of course, and even flew with them when he could, when he needed to log some flight time, but it wasn’t the same.

  Aviators, more than most, showed that peculiar human trait that classified other people as “them” or “us.” It could be an especially cold-blooded fraternity. A fellow aviator might be a close buddy, a wingman, a fellow member of the squadron until the night when he lost his nerve in a particularly hairy recovery on board and turned in his wings. After that, he was an outsider, greeted, perhaps, in friendly fashion… but always with a lurking trace of condescension, a knowing smile that said, Shit, he didn’t have what it takes, after all. The guy might still be flying, but it would be as a pilot, not a naval aviator, definitely a cut below the best of the best.

  Coyote was still rated for carrier duty; he flew whenever he could get out from behind his desk, every chance he could find in an increasingly paper-logged schedule. But he was no longer a member of the Vipers. He could see it in their eyes when he greeted one in a passageway, or when he was delivering a briefing. His feet were firmly planted now on the same career ladder Tombstone was already climbing. Down the line he might be a CAG himself, and someday he might even rise to command a carrier like the Jefferson. Every naval aviator’s dream…

  For the moment, though, his sights were fixed on the immediate future.

  He could expect to follow this Deputy CAG assignment with a tour of duty Stateside, possibly on the command staff of a Naval Air Station. That meant time with his wife and daughter, time to try to rebuild a marriage that was already in tatters.

  It had been especially bad during this last deployment back to Norfolk.

  Lots of tears, lots of recriminations, and the knowledge that there really wasn’t much he could do about it, unless he was willing to resign from the Navy and get a nice, normal, steady, safe civilian job. In some ways, Coyote had almost been glad when the unexpected orders came through, sending the CBG to the Med… and informing him that he’d just been moved to the carrier’s Deputy CAG slot.

  Most of Julie’s worries were those typical of a woman left alone to raise a three-year-old girl by herself while her husband spent months on end at sea, risking his life every day. The presence of women on the Jefferson hadn’t helped things, either. When he was still CO of the Vipers, Coyote had usually flown with Cat Garrity as his RIO, and during that last rotation home he’d made the mistake of telling Julie how much he respected the woman as a naval flight officer. That, coupled with some of the more lurid stories filtering back to the States through the media ― stories about sexual harassment cases and the goings-on among the mixed crew ― had raised all kinds of unfounded suspicions in Julie’s mind. They were the sort of fears he could have allayed in seconds if he’d just been there with her to show her how much he still loved her.

  But that simply hadn’t been possible. When the Navy said go, you went;

  he loved Julie, but he also had a career to consider. If the Navy had wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one with your seabag ran the old saw among enlisted men. Sex and saltwater don’t mix was another.

  Maybe, just maybe, his recent promotion would prove to be the first step in putting his marriage back together again. In the meantime, though, it was a letdown working on the CAG staff instead of flying with the Vipers. Worst of all were the days like this when he had to watch one of his old friends sit in the hot seat.

  Grant double-checked to be sure the sign saying WOMEN was neither posted by the hatch nor lying on the deck. There weren’t enough female enlisted personnel to assign to watch the ready rooms on every shift when female flight officers might need to change, so unlike the showers the ready rooms functioned on an honor system, with the aviators taking turns… except, of course, when there was a scramble and every man and woman had to be suited up as fast as possible. The sign was a courtesy, used when there was time to observe the niceties of civilized behavior.

  So far there hadn’t been any deliberate violations of ready room privacy, though there had been that one time when the sign had fallen down and one of the men from the War Eagles had gotten an eyeful when he went to suit up. Apparently, though, Cat Garrity had already finished changing and was on her way to debriefing.

  He heard Malibu talking as he entered the changing area. “Look, all I’m saying is you’ve got to ease up on yourself,” the RIO was saying. “Quit acting like the weight of the world’s on your shoulders.”

  “Good advice,” Coyote said. Malibu was already in his khakis, hanging up his flight suit in his locker. Batman was sitting nearby, still wearing his own flight gear.

  “Coyote!” Malibu said. His features broke into a grin. “What’re you doing in here? Slumming?”

  “Just making sure you two get your sorry asses up for debriefing,” Grant said. He studied Blake for a moment. The RIO had been uncharacteristically quiet lately, almost withdrawn, but he seemed more animated now. Coyote suspected he was worried about how Batman was dealing with his new role as CO of the Vipers. The two had been inseparable friends for years, with a bond that sometimes seemed almost psychic.

  “I’m on my way,” Malibu said. “The Bat here has a bad case of the slows.”

  “I’ll get him over that.” Grant waited until Malibu had left before turning to Wayne. “Bad time this morning, huh?”

  Batman fumbled with the zipper of his suit as he replied. “There’s an understatement,” he said. “Sort of like saying Krasilnikov’s a troublemaker.”

  “Look, I just got a report down from Ops,” Coyote told him. “Thought you’d like to hear right away. The flight crew on that helo’s okay. They’re pretty dinged up, but they got picked up by a Marine medevac and flown out to the Guadalcanal. The word is they’ll be okay.”

  Batman let out a long, slow sigh. “Thank… God.”

  “You can also thank the Army pilot on that Black Hawk. He gentled his machine down after you popped one of his blades.”

  “Army? Shit, what’s the Army doing over here?”

  “Damfino. I thought the Canal was just carrying Marines this time. We don’t have the full story yet, but Ops is working on the theory that we weren’t given all of the IFF computer recognition codes… which would explain why they registered as a hostile.”

  “God.”

  Someone rapped on the door, then stuck his head in. It was Lieutenant Randolph Wojiewski, one of the assistant LSOS. He held a clipboard in one hand. “Commander Wayne?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, got your scores, sir. Two bolters. Mr. Lassiter says it happens to the best of us.”

  “Right.”

  “On your landing pass, you were still a little high, a little tight. You were showing a tendency to over-correct when the LSO fed you the word.” Wojiewski continued ticking off the flaws in Batman’s trap. This was a routine that followed every landing aboard a carr
ier, and the results were posted on the big greenie board outside each squadron’s ready room. It was a way of showing each aviator where he stood with all the others, and giving him instant feedback that would let him improve his technique.

  “All in all, not too bad, though,” Wojiewski concluded. “Mr. Lassiter’s giving you a ‘fair.’ Okay?”

  Batman scowled, and for a moment Coyote thought he was going to lash out at the ALSO. In the highly competitive world of carrier aviation, each landing could receive one of four possible grades. Best of all was “okay,” and a green square on the greenie board. Next was “fair,” with a yellow square. “No grade” and no color on the board meant the trap had been dangerous to people or to aircraft on the deck. Lowest of all was a red square with the letter “C” marked in, for “cut.” That grade was reserved for a landing so dangerous it could easily have ended in disaster.

  Batman, Coyote knew, carried a fierce pride in his abilities as an aviator. It would take a while to wash that yellow from the record book he kept inside his skull.

  “So, what happened?” Coyote pressed him, after Wojiewski had left the compartment. “What’s your side of the story?”

  “Mason happened. Shit, Coyote, I don’t know what went down out there.

  The kid IDED the bogey as a Hind. I got weapons clear and went Fox two. Next thing I know, I’m hearing about a downed American helo over the radio and I’m being ordered back to the bird farm.” He managed a wry, drawn grin. “And two bolters to get me down.”

  “We all have our day inside the barrel,” Coyote said, using the expression that referred to an aviator who made pass after pass on the deck but couldn’t connect with the arresting wire… each failure making the next failure that much more likely. “But this own goal you scored, that’s serious, even if the crew’s okay. Stoney’s about to go ballistic. He was over on the Shiloh when word came through, conferring with Admiral Tarrant. He was not pleased, let me tell you!”