Christmas at Steel Beach

by M. L. Buchman

  That explained why she was here. Here on a Special Operations Force’s ship.

  Gibson must have set a pre-request so that when her name had popped up as being available, the system had swept her out to the Peleliu.

  She’d always heard that the number one qualification for being Special Operations was that you didn’t fit in anywhere else. And Delta was the pinnacle of that, the guys were barely controlled renegades to hear most commanders speak of them. “Very effective ones,” they would always immediately amend their statement.

  She’d always liked the sound of that, but there was no such thing as a Special Operations Chief Steward.

  Except now maybe there was.

  Because the military’s premier soldier had decided that she was exceptional beyond the kitchen.

  Something else she didn’t need to know.

  No pressure!

  She looked out the rear window and spotted Gibson moving out onto the deck. Maybe she should go down and ask, but she knew her reasoning was right. Perhaps she should go down and argue with him, point out that he was completely wrong about her.

  Except hadn’t the lead pilot of the 5D just said that “being a mess” was a necessary qualification? Oh brother.

  She saw Michael look up and back behind the LCAC; she did as well.

  “Keep it steady, Chief,” she called out as one of the SOAR helicopters slid up from behind and twenty meters above them.

  “Goddamn it!” A huge wall of spray arced up from over the bow. She watched it slam into Michael, expecting to see him washed up against the rear gate battered and bloody.

  Instead, he stood back up from where he must have ducked behind one of the M-ATVs at the last second before the spray had hidden him.

  “What happened, boss?” Nika called over the intercom.

  “Downdraft from the helo drove my bow down into a wave. I’m compensating now. What’s it doing so low?”

  Gail watched as a line spun down from the Black Hawk’s cargo bay.

  Michael walked up to the line and grabbed it as if it wasn’t flopping madly about in the wind of the LCAC’s passage and the rotor’s downdraft. He snapped it to his vest.

  Another wave slammed aboard. Michael rose out of the resulting spray headed aloft like an angel on a string—a very heavily armed angel.

  “Michael, can you call them off?” Sly was cursing quite impressively.

  “Your Navy is showing through, Chief Stowell. Besides, Michael’s up there ahead of you.”

  The three drivers looked up to see the man dangling from the rapidly shortening line as the helicopter shot ahead.

  “Where the hell is he going?”

  “My guess?” Gail could feel herself smile. Knew she was right. “He’s going to go steal a fuel truck.”

  Chapter 11

  What was a frustrating two-hour trip on the hovercraft was a thirty-minute flight for the helos. Sly hoped to god they’d kept the downed plane safe until he arrived.

  He breached the shoreline and roared across the four-lanes of Bassam Expressway without even slowing to look. Cars and trucks veered and dodged. He did his best not to run over anyone. The rubber skirt could take a great deal of damage before too much air leaked out to provide good lift, but he didn’t want to start whatever was coming with it already torn up.

  He managed to cross over the big roadside ditch and make it to the airport tarmac.

  Which plane was involved was obvious. It was parked in the middle of the runway and a hornet’s nest of helicopters swarmed about it shooting at lines of vehicles along the runway and taxiways. Some trucks were burning, sending great plumes of black smoke skyward. A few were flipped. Some sat at an angle that said their tires, or perhaps their whole engines had been shot out.

  Stopping here at the outskirts of the airport to off-load the Rangers so that the M-ATVs could join the fray seemed like the best approach.

  “No!” Gail called out as soon as he slowed his craft. “All the way in Chief.”

  He surveyed the layout. No passengers on the ground. Maybe they were tucked away in a terminal somewhere safe, or already captured.

  “Talk to me, Gail.”

  “The plane’s doors are still closed. No exit ramps either. They must still be aboard. Get right under the main passenger door in front of the wing.”

  “Hell of a jump,” that door was a dozen meters up in the air. It was an Airbus A380, the biggest jetliner in the world. “I hope to Christ she isn’t full.”

  “They won’t be jumping,” Gail sounded pretty wound up. “Get right under it, then park nose out and get the Rangers out of the way.”

  Driving into the middle of a riot wouldn’t be his first choice. But she sounded so sure of herself. And he’d overheard Gibson say that he’d been right about her.

  Right about how good she was?

  It was enough to tip the balance in his mind. So much of a dynamic situation was gut feel and his gut said, “Go!” He went, swinging wide around the tail and wing.

  He radioed his intent up to Lola who acknowledged even as she swooped down to kill another pickup that had found its way through the demolition derby already in place.

  Clint Barstowe didn’t even respond, he simply got his Rangers loaded. The instant the front gate was down, the three vehicles and the Rangers roared off the ramp.

  “This had better be good, woman.”

  # # #

  “Oh, this is good, Chief. Tell the plane to pop their evacuation slide.”

  When he didn’t respond, Gail reached out and nudged Sly hard.

  He shook loose from his momentary shock with a laugh. “Goddamn! You are good! I didn’t even see it. Flight,” he called over the radio, “pop your evac chute. Front door only. Get them down here now.”

  Gail spun around in her seat to watch; they all did.

  The passenger door swung open high above them. Then the giant plastic chute billowed out and inflated. It landed almost perfectly in the center of the LCAC’s deck.

  Gail popped her seatbelt, grabbed a portable radio, and rushed down the ladder.

  The power of the uniform, even if it was a helmet and vest over a t-shirt and standard khakis, put her in charge by the time the second passenger was down the chute. She and the deckhand, Jerome, directed them toward the back of the LCAC’s deck area as they slid down.

  “Sly,” she got on the radio. “Raise the front gate enough that no one tries to run away in panic.”

  “Also so that a stray bullet doesn’t bite your ass.”

  She hadn’t thought of that, “That would be bad.” She could feel herself freezing, as panicked as the civilians streaming down the chute toward her.

  “Real bad,” Sly offered drily. “It’s a very cute ass.”

  That jarred her loose. “You’re just biased.”

  “Damn straight.”

  She didn’t have time to be afraid, so she shoved it aside. Though she was plenty glad when the gate raised enough that she could no longer see the distant mob.

  The loud roar of a truck racing toward the hovercraft almost scared the daylights out of her. She was sure they were going to be rammed.

  “Hi Michael,” Sly called out over the radio. “While you’re filling her up, would you mind washing the windows and checking the oil?”

  There hadn’t been a fuel truck when they pulled up to the plane. That meant Michael had been dropped behind what she could only think of as “enemy lines” and crossed through the battle zone driving a vehicle filled with explosive through an angry mob armed with guns. D-boys were even scarier than she thought.

  Soon passengers were packed aboard so tightly there was no room to sit. Strictly standing-room only.

  Finally, after what felt like forever, she saw the plane’s officers in suits at the head of the ramp and knew they were almost done. Which was good. There was barely going to be enough room for the flight crew. The stewards and then the flight officers slid down; the last one closing the door behind him and latching
it, as if that was going to make a difference, before letting gravity sweep him down the chute.

  Gail decided that she wouldn’t be telling him about the two bullets that passed into the fuselage right where his head had been moments before.

  The engines began cycling back up.

  “Sly! The Rangers,” both the front and the back gates were closed. There might not even be room for the men.

  “They’re okay. Get back up here.”

  “I think I’d be of more help down here.”

  “That’s the stewards’ and flight officers’ jobs. It’s going to get rough and I don’t want you getting broken. They’re trying to fly a medical team down from the carrier, but the storm is much worse up there. Consider it an order.”

  They might be of similar rank, but he was the craftmaster and that made it an order. You didn’t disobey an order and expect to have a career.

  Gail looked up at the black clouds. Her visor was covered with spatters of rain. She hadn’t even noticed when it started. The LCAC lurched to life sending the packed crowd stumbling to one side then the other. It was enough mass to rock the hovercraft badly.

  She helped raise the plane’s emergency chute up over everyone’s heads. Eager hands helped, batting it aloft until the hovercraft slid out from underneath. The big opening left behind in the middle of the deck filled quickly with passengers, which eased the pressure on the crowd.

  Gail signaled to the flight crew and shouted over the roar of the engines.

  “Get them sitting. Pack them as tight as you can. Have them sit with their legs around each other, anything you need to do to brace them, but get them off their feet. Cotton, torn cloth, anything you can get in their ears will help.”

  Her instructions galvanized the shell-shocked crew into action. In moments, she recognized that she was in the way and began heading for the control tower, signaling people to sit down as she went. A few panicked ones grabbed for her, but a flight steward intervened quickly. They’d been trained in handling panicked civilians, she’d been trained in handling irate diners. And in the Navy, except for the occasional besmirched Captain, those were very rare.

  Everyone had assumed because of her helmet and vest that she was far more important than she was, but as it gained her a clear passage back to the cockpit, she wasn’t complaining.

  # # #

  “Here, Chief.”

  A hand rested on Sly’s shoulder for just a moment, but he knew it was Gail’s without her needing to tell him. The relief rolled through him like a wave.

  As he headed for the beach, he heard her snap her seatbelt closed behind him. Now he could think. Like how to get out of here.

  The helicopters and Rangers had performed a military miracle to keep the mob back and retain an open lane back to the beach.

  But time was running short…very short.

  The Rangers had driven down the field and a twin-rotor Chinook helicopter had swooped in to gather them all up. The three vehicles sat abandoned on the grassy verge and the mob was already moving toward them.

  “We can’t let that happen.” An angry mob with heavy weaponry was not something he wanted close behind him. But there was nothing he could do, so he aimed down the center of the narrowing lane and pushed ahead as fast as he dared.

  After he flew past the vehicles, he heard a massive explosion behind him, louder even than the LCAC’s engines.

  “What the hell?”

  “One of the Black Hawks just punched a Ranger vehicle. I think that was a Hellfire missile. There’s nothing left. Two more!” she called a warning.

  He heard the double Krump! even as the shock wave caught them and threatened to nose him down into the ditch at the field’s perimeter. He managed to keep the nose up and make it over the highway and to the beach. Now they were out on the water, which made it both better and worse.

  Dave kicked on the windshield wipers against the storm’s rain.

  The helicopters were moving out ahead of him. They’d be back aboard the Peleliu long before he could get there. The only way the folks on the hovercraft’s deck were going to survive the ride to safety was if he took it slow. Thirty knots max compared with the eighty he’d run at to get here. Now it would be a dance of speed and fuel, even more than passenger safety.

  Despite the darkness of the storm, a brilliant light reflected off the inside of his windscreen. He didn’t dare turn away to look, it was taking all of his concentration to crawl out through the breakers.

  “What was that?”

  “The plane,” Gail’s tone was an awed whisper. “Why would SOAR blow up the plane?”

  Sly sighed, “They wouldn’t trash it. That was a four hundred million dollar piece of equipment. The M-ATVs were only a half million each. The plane was probably blown up by some idiot with an AK-47 who took a pot shot and hit a wing tank wrong.”

  # # #

  Gail watched the column of fire that reached up into the cloud layer until it disappeared astern.

  Then she looked back down at the miserable passengers below. Instead of deplaning at Heathrow and complaining about how long it takes to unload luggage, they were going to arrive soaked to the bone inside a steel ship of war.

  “I—” she turned to face forward once more and decided it would be better if she kept her mouth shut. She was so far out of her depth here. She didn’t belong no matter what Colonel Gibson thought.

  Windshield wipers slapping side to side were barely keeping the windows clear. Dave and Tom were conferring quietly over load, speed, and fuel calculations.

  “What?” Sly asked her.

  She shook her head and then realized how utterly useless that was while sitting behind him. “Nothing.”

  “What?” Sly repeated a little more firmly.

  “I’m feeling pretty damn useless. I’m a chef. I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Shit!” was Nika’s response over the intercom. “You’re the reason half those folks are alive. Dumping the slide right onto the deck was a totally righteous move.”

  “But—”

  “Own it, girl.”

  She wasn’t saying it right. Gail knew she’d helped. But it was pure chance she’d done anything right. She was a chef in a battle zone.

  Sly remained quiet.

  It took a moment, but then she understood why. He was being decent…again. He knew her future career was in the balance and that she didn’t know which way to go or what she wanted. And he didn’t want to weigh in on that. Didn’t want to influence her decision with his own personal preferences.

  Gail stared back out the window.

  She could see the shocks ripple through the crowd as the hovercraft slammed into wave after wave.

  At least it was a warm rain, but they’d view that as a small favor.

  Well, she knew one thing she could do.

  “Tom, can patch me through to the Peleliu?”

  “Okay, you’re patched.”

  She called in her request.

  # # #

  Sly met the racing Peleliu before he ran out of fuel, but it was a close thing.

  The high load and heavy wave action had combined to chew up almost nine thousand gallons of fuel. If Gail hadn’t connected that they could refuel at the airport, a real Duh! moment for him, and Michael hadn’t braved the mob to steal the fuel truck, it would have been a disaster. They’d have been ditched miles out to sea in weather bad enough to swamp them and possibly sink them.

  As it was, he made it up the steel beach, inside the Peleliu, and managed to settle the hovercraft down. The buck and roll of the ship was enough to slap him side to side of the Well Deck, but they were home. The passengers were safe; at least the ones who’d survived the journey.

  He collapsed back in his seat and peeled his helmet as Dave shut down the engines.

  “Fumes,” Dave mumbled. “I swear, we made it on the fumes of fumes.”

  “Well, that sucked,” Tom dropped the front gate until it landed on the garage ramp then scrubbed at his
face.

  “How bad is it?” Sly couldn’t get out of his seat to look. “How many did I kill?”

  “Don’t know,” Nika spoke from her position atop the port control tower sounding as weary as he felt. “You’d have to ask her.”

  “Who?” but Sly turned and saw that the observer’s chair was empty, the vest and helmet had been laid across the seat.

  He staggered to the window, sore and stiff from the extended passage. He looked down and had to blink a couple times to make sense of what he was seeing.

  At the head of the ramp was a long table on one side and a huge stack of blankets on the other. Each passenger was helped to their feet and guided up the ramp. One person wrapped a blanket over their shoulders and another placed a steaming cup of soup in their hands.

  Gail.

  Soup personally served by Chief Miller with her entire team rallied behind her.

  All he could do was watch the miracle of it as people were guided out. He assumed they were being led to bunks that had once been occupied by the Marine Expeditionary Unit.

  A med crew was moving about the hovercraft’s deck, but they had yet to pull a blanket over someone’s face. He saw arms and legs being splinted, an IV here and there, but no bodies. Gail’s idea of having them sit in long lines with their legs around each other had saved them the battering Sly had so feared.

  He knew he should go help, but he was too drained. He’d never fought the LCAC for nine straight hours, and never through such weather. That might be a first for this class of craft. He should record this mission for the other LCAC craftmasters while the experience was still fresh.

  Instead, he stood at the window and simply watched. He couldn’t look away until the spectacle was done and his boat once more sat empty, parked in the Well Deck with the Peleliu’s stern gate raised against the storm.

  Dozens had left his deck on stretchers, but not one beneath a shroud despite the rough ride.

  His crew had been helping. Only he was numb past the ability to respond.

  Tom came up and gave him a nudge to get him moving. Dave called from below to make sure Sly had a good grip on the ladder as he went down each rung.

  Nika and Jerome met him at the front ramp and the five of them walked back up the steel beach and onto the ship together.