by Mike Jenne
But while the US ground campaign might be over, the air war definitely was not. A massive air operation, Operation Linebacker, was incessantly pounding North Vietnam with the full brunt of US airpower, including B-52 strategic bombers. The air campaign, in response to the NVA’s Easter Offensive in the South, was slamming strategic facilities—factories, warehouses, marshalling yards, power plants, railroads, key bridges—in the Communist heartland, particularly in the vicinity of Hanoi and Haiphong.
The question remained how long it would go on and whether it might already be too late for Carson to earn his spurs. It looked like the North Vietnamese were clinging to the ropes, and that it was only a matter of time before they crawled back to the negotiating table.
The nation was woefully tired of war, so it was unlikely that politicians would be overly inclined to allow the military to become embroiled in another conflict, at least for the foreseeable future. Consequently, Carson wanted to deploy immediately, before it was too late, but he also knew that Tew would never approve. His eagerness made the training regimen a difficult pill to swallow. But even though it was a path towards the combat experience that he so desperately desired, the Navy training had also been the most humbling episode of his entire career. Falling in alongside ensigns, he effectively became a nobody, reduced to the lowest common denominator.
Besides being compelled to start at the bottom, Carson’s reunion with Badger—who would be his squadron commander overseas—had been very awkward. Shortly after his arrival at Pensacola last week, Badger offered him an off-the-books training hop over the Gulf. Flying an F-4 Phantom against Badger’s A-4 Skyhawk, Carson spent a hectic afternoon in full-out, no holds barred engagements. Badger swiftly established dominance in the air, spanking him in seven out of seven encounters. Since their last meeting over the Gulf over two years ago, Badger had undergone two more combat cruises and had served a tour as a Top Gun instructor. To say that he was proficient at air-to-air combat would be a gross understatement.
After issuing Carson his embarrassing comeuppance in the sky, Badger brought him down to earth for a fatherly chat. He informed Carson that the hop was his last free ticket; he reiterated Tarbox’s assertion that everything, from Pensacola through Vietnam and until his return to the Air Force, had to be legitimately earned.
Badger also told him that being known as one of Tarbox’s favored children was a rocky path toward making friends and influencing enemies. Besides the latent stigma associated with being a Tarbox protégé, if Carson did eventually matriculate to Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin, he would arrive with two strikes against him. First, Naval aviators were a clannish lot, very reluctant to accept outsiders in their midst.
Second, and probably a much more severe violation, Carson’s tentative slot at the prestigious Fighter Weapons School would require that a deserving Navy pilot be bumped from the roster. Selection for Top Gun billets was a highly competitive process, and regardless of what Carson might have done to steal a ticket to the front of the line, he could count on repercussions when he arrived at the squadron.
If that wasn’t enough, there was more. Tarbox’s stipulation that Carson be temporarily reflagged as a Navy officer also required that he would deploy under a pseudonym rather than his own name. There was a pragmatic reason for the ruse; although Carson’s feet would likely not touch dry land during his combat stint, it was still theoretically possible that he might land at an Air Force base—most likely Da Nang—if he sustained damage or experienced mechanical problems that would hamper a safe recovery aboard the carrier.
When and if he showed up at an Air Force base in Vietnam, all bets were off; certainly, the chances were good that if he arrived in a Navy jet then no one would pay him any undue attention, but it was equally likely that someone would recognize him and his flagged status would come to light. If that happened, he would probably be placed under arrest as he awaited the most expeditious means to return to the States for court martial.
As Tarbox and Wolcott had told him, the whole jaunt was planned under the notion that it was often easier to seek forgiveness than to ask permission; once Carson returned from Southeast Asia, his records would be restored to normal and his combat experience would be annotated accordingly. After all, it was a scheme cooked up between Wolcott and Tarbox; since Virgil was officially retired, there was little anyone could do to punish him, and Tarbox…well, save for perhaps the President himself, no one could lay a finger on the Ancient Mariner.
Although the flying came readily to Carson, the experience was still intensely challenging. The Navy was an entirely new and foreign culture to him. Prior to Pensacola, with the exception of a few impromptu “hassling” sessions in the air, most of his exposure to Naval aviators had occurred when they were off-duty. Navy pilots were widely renowned for their wild and crazy drunken antics, but Carson had discovered that even though they were swift to let their hair down in the bars, they were extremely disciplined in flight and shipboard operations. It didn’t take him long to realize why. At sea aboard a carrier, launching and recovering aircraft were incredibly complex operations in the best of circumstances.
A casual observer might see only continuous chaos on a carrier’s flight deck, but it was a tightly synchronized operation, with hundreds of interdependent actions occurring simultaneously. Space was always at a premium, and every square foot of empty deck spoken for. Every motion was calculated; no energy was wasted. Hazardous operations were everywhere, conducted in intimate proximity; planes were re-fueled only yards away from where ordnance was manually loaded onto wing shackles. Everyone—from the almighty Air Boss to the lowest ranking purple-shirted “grape” who topped off aircraft fuel tanks—relied on everyone else to be in their proper place and doing their job. Trust and discipline were the essential lubricants that allowed the cogs and gears to turn in order to make the big machine work.
For the aviators, perhaps one of the most grievous sins was to cause a fouled deck. A fouled deck could just as easily result from an overconfident aviator’s simple blunder as it could from a nugget rookie’s wobbly landing attempt. A fouled deck could not only derail a highly orchestrated strike operation, but if aircraft could not be brought aboard in a timely manner, it could cost lives as well. Consequently, Naval aviators were absolute sticklers for procedures.
Moreover, an aircraft carrier wasn’t simply a big ship that sported a runway on its roof. It comprised many other things—ordnance depot, power plant, maintenance shops, commissary, fuel depot, dormitories, aircraft hangars—all rolled into a single self-contained ocean-going airbase. And even though thousands of men lived in tightly cramped quarters, so long as they were away from home, it was their refuge and sanctuary.
But even aboard floating sanctuaries of steel, safety and security could be fleeting notions. While the aviators left the carriers to fly high risk missions over North Vietnam, death was never far away for the men who remained aboard. Although the ships were theoretically out of harm’s way, three horrible incidents had occurred aboard carriers in less than three years.
In 1966, a dropped flare aboard the Oriskany started a fire that killed forty-four sailors, injured 156 others, and severely damaged four aircraft. Next year, a freak calamity occurred aboard the Forrestal in which a Zuni rocket was apparently ignited by a stray electrical spark. The misfired rocket flew across the flight deck, set ablaze a parked A-4 Skyhawk and eventually caused a massive fire and several chain reaction explosions which killed 134 sailors, injured 161 others, and destroyed twenty-one aircraft. In January 1969, a Zuni rocket accidently detonated aboard the Enterprise, igniting a fire that killed twenty-eight men, injured 344 and destroyed fifteen aircraft.
Carson’s thoughts were interrupted by the hoots and catcalls of the ensigns; they crowded around the television monitor to watch as one of their mates botched a landing and slowly boltered back into the air. Grinning, he shook his head. These guys were different, and they were just barely down the long road to being full-f
ledged Naval aviators. And if Badger’s prowess was any indicator, his journey was also just starting as well.
If his circumstances were different and he had spent the past five years as just an anonymous Air Force fighter pilot, there was no question he would have flown in combat by now. But by virtue of his excellence, he had been set aside for more momentous—although secret—tasks. Now, if combat experience was his Holy Grail, he would have to venture forth with this strange new legion. It wasn’t sufficient to be a superlative pilot, a solitary warrior; he had to adapt himself to this new culture and be accepted within their brotherhood.
As Badger had asserted, it was definitely not something that would be handed to him; it was his to earn. So now, his quest had become less about just enduring the grind to secure his ticket to glory, and more about his need to prove himself adequate in their eyes. After over a decade of flying, always at the pinnacle of his profession, Carson hoped that he would be found worthy.
4
THE PERILS OF AN INGROWN TOENAIL
Krepost Pre-Launch Processing Facility
Burya Test Complex, Kapustin Yar Cosmodrome
7:32 a.m., Thursday, September 7, 1972
This morning, Gogol and Vasilyev were granted a welcome break from training. As of yesterday afternoon, the freighter had been packed with its mandatory load of bulk supplies, and now they were bringing their “personal preference items” to fill out the remaining space available. The freighter would follow them into orbit two weeks after they occupied the Krepost, and provide supplies sufficient for them to remain aloft for the remainder of their five-week mission.
Presently, since they were working under entirely separate schedules, the two men had not seen each other in over four days. Gogol’s time was committed to exhaustively detailed reviews of targeting data for the Egg, while Vasilyev’s time was consumed with lectures and practical training associated with an experimental fuel cell that would be delivered on the first freighter.
They had previously loaded the personal preference items in the trunk and backseat of the Zhiguli sedan. After Vasilyev parked the sedan, a pair of enlisted soldiers unloaded the assorted goods into a pair of wagon-like carts and followed Gogol and Vasilyev into the assembly building. Raindrops spattered the dusty ground as a late summer shower approached. The air smelled like damp clay.
Vasilyev was happy to be out of the car and in the fresh air, because Gogol stank. His coveralls were rumpled and unwashed, as if he had pulled them out of the clothes hamper this morning and put them back on. And although Gogol had shaved, he clearly had neglected to bathe. Of course, Gogol was a man of many idiosyncrasies, so it was doubtful that anyone would question his personal hygiene, since it could likely be part of some pre-flight superstition. If it was some sort of pre-flight ritual, Vasilyev found it odd that he had not witnessed it before their previous missions. As they walked toward the brick building, he noticed that Gogol’s pace was considerably slower than usual, and that he appeared reluctant to place too much weight on his left foot.
“Are you limping?” asked Vasilyev.
“I stubbed my damned toe,” snarled Gogol. “And the less you say of it, the better, unless you want me to take a hammer to your foot, kitten.”
They entered the assembly building to see that the workers were in the final stages of mating the Krepost to the Proton booster. It was difficult for Vasilyev to comprehend that it was only a matter of days before they would depart Earth and not return for over a month. A massive aerodynamic shroud, constructed primarily of fiberglass, was suspended from a nearby crane.
The Krepost would be launched with its nuclear warhead topmost. An escape rocket would be bolted to the fairing to complete the stack. In the event of a launch accident, such as the Proton booster spontaneously exploding on the pad, the solid-fueled escape rocket would fire to yank the Egg skyward, before parachutes deployed to allow a safe descent to earth. For all intents and purposes, the Krepost and Proton were considered effectively expendable in an emergency scenario, but for obvious reasons, the Egg had to be safeguarded by whatever means necessary. When Abdirov lobbied for the special Proton launching facility to be situated at Kapustin Yar, a significant portion of his argument centered on the dire setback that would befall the Soviet manned spaceflight program if the Egg was accidently cracked during a botched launch at Baikonur. For all of the arguments he had to justify before the General Staff of the High Command, that one was by far the easiest to win. Standing before them, mangled and horribly burned in the Nedelin catastrophe, he presented a very tangible example of someone who personally knew the terrible consequences of launch accidents.
They walked past a large assembly bay where their own Soyuz was being readied, and entered the clean room where the freighter waited. With its blunt nose pointed to the tall ceiling, the freighter was mounted on a massive support frame. The cargo-packing crew waited on a second level in the processing bay.
Gogol and Vasilyev ascended a ramp and reported to the chief packer, who was responsible for everything that would be loaded aboard the freighter. To a casual observer, the loading process might appear to be a haphazard operation in which boxes and bags of supplies and gear were crammed aboard the cargo module. In fact, it was a very sophisticated process, in which each item was meticulously assigned a position on a loading manifest, which took into account weight, volume and balance. Several heavy sacks, filled with various types of ballast, waited by a wall. Once the cosmonauts’ personal preference items were squeezed aboard the freighter, the sacks would be temporarily loaded in order to simulate the bundles of perishable foodstuffs—fresh fruits, vegetables, and bread—that would be stashed aboard the freighter immediately before launch.
The chief packer, an overweight RSVN major with brown hair and sparse moustache, wore spotless white coveralls and bore a clipboard. “I can accommodate fifty kilograms,” he declared.
“What? Fifty kilograms? That’s all? You had led me to believe that we would have more room,” groused Gogol.
“It’s that new fuel cell,” explained the chief packer. “When we discussed this a few weeks ago, we did not think it would be ready in time for your flight. It occupies a lot more volume than we had anticipated. I am truly sorry, Comrade Commander, but there’s nothing that I can do about it.”
“Fuel cell?” sniffed Gogol. He looked askance at Vasilyev; his sour expression made it abundantly clear that he blamed the shortcoming on the junior cosmonaut, since the fuel cell was notionally his responsibility.
The two cosmonauts walked over to the edge of the platform and peered downwards through the opening into the payload module. Partially obstructed by the pressure hatch that swung inwards into the dry compartment, the top of the fuel cell was barely visible with all of the bags and boxes packed around it. It was encased in a cylindrical metal shell, approximately the size of a standard two-hundred-liter fuel drum. The shell would be removed after the resupply freighter had been unloaded in orbit. Drawing from cryogenic tanks of oxygen and hydrogen in the cargo module’s wet compartment, the fuel cell would produce a substantial portion of their electricity and drinking water once it was activated. When they received a new freighter, after unloading its supplies, they would physically dismount the fuel cell from the old freighter, mount it in the new freighter, and connect it to the new freighter’s cryogenic tanks before jettisoning the depleted freighter.
Since Soviet engineers had virtually no success in creating a functional fuel cell on their own, they had taken their traditional detour to overcoming design shortfalls: they replicated an American design from stolen blueprints. The cylindrical unit that would partially power the Krepost station was almost an exact duplicate of the technology used in NASA’s Apollo spacecraft.
“So that’s it?” asked Gogol. To him, the internal workings of the fuel cell was almost the equivalent of some inexplicable alchemy, and he lent scarce stock to the prototype device functioning properly for the duration of their mission. “That’s the
fuel cell? I don’t like experimental gadgets. I’m not fond of gadgets or experiments, period.”
Gogol slowly made his way back to the table. He tugged a satchel from the cart and heaved it onto the table. The satchel was constructed of sturdy rubber-coated green-colored canvas, had two shoulder straps so that it could be worn as a backpack, and was slightly more than a half-meter long.
“First things first,” said Gogol, sliding the bulging satchel across the table’s shiny metal surface. “This bag contains my choices to supplement the survival gear on the Soyuz.”
Frowning, the chief packer shook his head. “The Soyuz contingency kits are very substantial, Comrade Commander. Their contents have been carefully selected by survival experts who know their business. The kits are more than ample to protect you in any region of the world, so I see no need to augment them.”
Gogol’s gruff manner made it abundantly clear that he was not in the mood to provide a more detailed explanation. When he chose to display his wrath, his glare could probably melt case-hardened steel. “Survival experts?” he sneered defiantly. “I wonder how many of those damned survival experts have been compelled to spend three years stranded in the desert, left to fend for themselves. If they had, then perhaps they would understand why I feel the need to bring some of my own stuff.”
“Okay, I cannot argue with your experience,” said the chief packer, prodding the bag with his pencil. “Open it, please.”
“Is that really necessary? It’s just some odds and ends,” said Gogol. His coarse demeanor swiftly dissipated, and a wry smile crossed his face. He reached out and gently touched the chief packer’s hand. “Besides, aren’t we old friends, Sergei? Is there really such a need to make a fuss over this?”
Obviously unnerved by the gesture, the chief packer yanked his hand away and replied, “Sorry, Comrade Commander, but I have my responsibilities. I cannot allow any hazardous items aboard.”