He walked out and spotted Quick coming down the passageway. Crap. He was about to turn and walk the other way when she noticed him, so he stopped to wait. She was shuffling along in her flight gear, holding her helmet in one hand. If you could call a sweaty, dirty, disheveled girl decked out in bulky flight gear cute, she fit the bill. She looked tired but happy. He sensed she was aware she was doing well, but they both knew he wasn’t at liberty to confirm it.
“Sir,” she muttered as she approached. As neutral a greeting as there was.
He hugged the wall, offering as much room as possible to squeeze by. “Really? Sir?” he laughed. “What has my boat done to you?”
She turned, a little curl of a smile at the end of her mouth. “I love this boat. Makes me feel that much closer to being a fighter pilot.”
Ouch. “Okay, I deserved that. Sorry.” She shrugged and turned to walk away. He watched her for a moment, his mind at war with itself, then blurted, “Wait. If you qual tonight, I’ll make it up to you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How?”
“I’ll buy you dinner. It’s the least I can do. We’ll talk about anything under the sun except flying. Or the Navy.”
She narrowed her eyes, cocking her head. “What about all the stuff at your party?”
“My Mom told me to shut the fuck up.”
“Really?”
“Not exactly, but yes.”
She laughed and turned to walk away. “I think I like your Mom. Maybe.”
He watched her move down the passageway. “Kick some butt tonight.”
“Oh, I will,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m working up an appetite for some serious surf and turf.”
Oh shit, he thought. Well if she quals, the fighter pilot thing would be someone else’s problem. The surf and turf, I can handle.
Dusty sat in the dark on a hard metal chair in an otherwise empty stateroom, still in full flight gear, her helmet tucked under the chair. It had gone exactly as she’d envisioned. Precision and repetition being what she excelled at, she’d finished the day landings with surprising ease. She hadn’t been afraid—not afraid for her life, anyway. She knew the LSOs, the Air Boss, and the captain of the ship would all fry if she crashed. They would keep her from hurting herself, that was their job. All she need do was stay within the acceptable parameters of safety and predictability. Their job was to help her qualify.
She sat in the dark room visualizing the night approach. Over and over, her hands moved in concert with her imagination, reaching toward landing gear and hook handles. Her head bobbed side to side as she imagined the turns in holding and the correction changes to the final approach course. She told herself the plane didn’t care if it was light or dark. It flew the way it flew regardless. It wouldn’t act any differently now that the sun had gone down. She could feel her heart beating faster as her imaginary Rhino closed in on the landing area. She soothed the bumps and burbles, correcting constantly for the ship’s drift to the right. She imagined the orange glow of the ball parked dead center of the lens all the way down till she smacked into the deck.
Her hands were going through the pantomime of the post-landing clean up when the door burst open, flooding the room with the harsh fluorescent light. She squinted at the form silhouetted in the frame as it reached over and flicked on the room’s blinding overhead lights. “Jeez Dusty, what the hell you doing in here all alone, all dressed up, in the dark?” HOB asked as she blinked rapidly.
“I was getting my night vision ready,” she replied brusquely, climbing to her feet.
“Oh, sorry.” He clicked off the lights. “Did you eat? It’s almost time to walk.”
“I had a Power Bar. I’m all set. You ready to go?”
“Yeah, I just have to gear up.” He held the door open for her as she walked into the passageway headed for the ready room. “Nice job today, by the way. You were rockin’ it. I never got scared once.”
“Thanks,” she replied perfunctorily, her mind miles away.
Quick and Dingle shot off the bow at dusk as the day melted into the sea in dramatic layers of gold, orange, purple and black. By the time they’d made it into the holding pattern twenty miles behind the ship, a pale gibbous moon snuck up, giving off a silvery light that reflected off the dark glassy ocean. It was not enough light to provide a horizon however, and as she began her descent from 1200 feet at 3 miles behind the Reagan, she had to force herself to stay inside on her instruments. There was a nearly overwhelming urge to look out at the tiny specks of light blinking enticingly in the black void. That would spell certain disaster, though. A recipe for almost instantaneous vertigo. The trick was keep your eyes inside the cockpit and fly the instruments until the last possible instant. Until the hairs on the back of your neck stood straight up and you were sure you were moments from a fiery death. Then you’d move your gaze outside to the carrier meatball for the last few seconds, making minute, frantic corrections all the way into the deck. At least that was what she’d been told.
She ran through the landing checklist with Dingle—gear, hook, flaps. He picked up his cadence, sounding off their rate of descent every other heartbeat or so. “Seven hundred…seven hundred…seven hundred…”
This was so unlike the day landings it was almost a different act altogether. Instead of orbiting over the ship at the same altitude as the other Rhinos and figuring the separation yourself, the planes orbited individually twenty miles aft stacked every 1,000 feet in altitude. They needed to hit their starting fix at precise one-minute intervals and fly a prescribed approach pattern managed by the carrier’s air traffic controllers. There was a lot more chatter on the radio, especially from the LSOs. She heard far more sugar calls for power and lineup than during the day.
She hit two miles at 800 feet, Dingle still chanting her descent rate, “Seven hundred…seven hundred.” The plane ahead of her, Moto, was on the ball.
She heard Slammer’s first sugar call to him and it sounded almost gentle. “Don’t settle.” Then a moment later, “Power…power,” each call more urgent. She fought to stay focused on her own pass as she mentally urged Moto on. Almost immediately Slammer yelled, “POWER, WAVEOFF, WAVEOFF!” She chanced a peek out of the cockpit toward the black abyss and the carrier lights; even from a mile and a half away she could make out the flashing red lights. Shit.
Dingle’s voice brought her back. “Tighten up, Quick. Six hundred…five hundred. Focus!” She was shallowing her descent, going above the glide-slope—an instinctive reaction to Moto’s low pass. A few quick corrections brought her back down.
“Thanks, Dingle,” she snuck in between his calls.
“Seven hundred,” he answered.
A moment later the controller transmitted, “Two-zero-seven, three quarters of a mile. On and on, call the ball.” Her turn. She glanced out once again, just to confirm. Sure enough there was the ball beaming cheerily at her, smack in the middle, and the white lights of the landing area looking like a tiny rectangle suspended in the abyss of deep space bobbing gently in front of her. Even from inside a mile the 100,000-ton warship was completely invisible, cloaked in the smothering dark.
Dingle called the ball, “Two-oh-seven, Rhino ball, seven point oh.”
Slammer answered right away, his voice sounding warm and familiar. “Rooooger ball two-oh-seven. Don’t settle.”
She felt a jolt of fear surge through her like an electric charge. Why did he say that? It was the same call Moto just got. Looking out at the ball again it appeared perfectly centered. The instruments in the cockpit showed her right on glide-slope. Doubt and confusion joined the nagging fear. Then she heard Dingle call, “Eight hundred…” She squeaked on a smidge of gas and noticed the ball start to sag low.
“Little power,” Slammer said instantly. She goosed the throttles now, fighting the fear rising like snakes all around her.
From the back Dingle chanted, “Six hundred…five hundred.” Crap, she was overcorrecting. She would flatten out and fly through the high s
ide of the glide-slope and miss all the wires. She yanked off what she guessed was the right amount of throttle as the Rhino descended through a hundred feet above the water, seconds from touchdown.
“Power back on,” Slammer intoned immediately. She was lost. Her sense of where the throttles should be for the proper rate of descent was completely gone. She reacted to Slammer’s call with a panicked gob of power as the ball began to sink again.
Smash! The Rhino slammed into the flight deck and she was thrown forward with the violent deceleration. A moment later she throttled back and raised her hook with shaking hands. As she taxied out of the landing area she struggled to follow the glowing yellow wands held aloft by the Yellow Shirt, her legs shaking like nerveless logs. The flight deck below the ship’s island was illuminated with a weak hazy light making depth perception all but impossible. She could barely make out the edge of the metal world in front of her, marked by a string of pale blue lights. Beyond those lights her eyes registered nothing. The ballet of taxiing and launching planes was essentially the same at night. The same people scurried about in front and around her, but it was an eerie scene, made more so by the spooky clouds of steam erupting frequently from the catapult tracks on the bow, obscuring the Yellow Shirts momentarily as they were whipped aft by the constant wind.
“How’re you doing up there, Quick?” Dingle asked.
“Give me a minute,” she replied shakily, not wanting to spare any processing power in this foreign and terrifying environment. In her periphery she could see other planes moving about extremely close to hers, and other yellow wands waving them in seemingly random directions. Bodies scurried between and under the jets as they rolled slowly along the deck, maintainers sprinting for parts or plane captains running for chains. It was the same coordinated chaos as in the daylight hours, but in the dark it wasn’t fun and exciting, it was confusing and menacing. Finally the Yellow Shirt taxied her to the end of the line of planes waiting for the catapult. She was third back and she watched the first creep forward over the blast deflectors. She set the parking brake and took a moment to assess the events of the last twenty minutes. This was the complete opposite of the day. There was nothing fun about it. It was sheer terror from the ball call to this very second and her body was shaking with adrenaline and fear, but mostly fear. “Oh my god, Dingle. That sucked. There’s no way I can do that five more times,” she said, her voice tight.
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about Quick. The ball barely moved and you pulled out the three. Looked just dandy from back here,” he answered. “Don’t know about you, but I’m having a shit-ton of fun. I can’t believe we do this crap! It’s so damn cool. Look at all those guys runnin’ around on the deck fixin’ shit and moving stuff. It’s a goddamn miracle.”
“I caught a two wire?” she said with wonder.
“Yup. Looked like a nice pass from back here. A couple things to smooth out, mind you. But darn good.”
She took a few deep breaths trying to flush some of the tension away. Okay, first night landing of her life, done. Time to get on with the rest of them. Just then she heard Moto call the ball for his second attempt, “Two-zero-two, Rhino ball.”
“Roger ball, don’t settle,” Slammer answered immediately. Not a good start.
She twisted in her seat, looking back over her left shoulder at the blinking red and green navigation lights of the Rhino on approach. It was impossible to tell from her vantage how Moto’s pass was progressing, but Slammer’s calls made it clear.
“Eaaasy with the power. Now back on. Fly the ball!”
She could see Moto’s plane wag its wings, telegraphing the storm in his head. “Come on Moto, smooth it out,” she breathed.
“He’s gonna save it,” Dingle whispered back.
“Power,” Slammer urged. Then, even from their spot up by the bow they could see Moto’s Rhino dip sharply, as if rolled off a table. Her stomach dropped with the Rhino. Slammer’s voice filled the airwaves, “WAVEOFF! WAVEOFF! BURNER, BURNER, BURNER!”
Moto’s plane sank so low it was almost out of sight behind the ship. She could barely see the lights on the tips of the rudders as it struggled to stay out of the water. She was glued to those blinking tail lights, willing them to claw back into the sky. In her peripheral vision she could see the flight deck personnel sprinting for cover as the Rhino wallowed toward the aft end of the ship, moments from cracking into the edge like a giant metal egg. Her gut tightened as she stared in disbelief, bracing for the inevitable fireball.
“BURNER, BURNER, BURNER!” Slammer continued to yell over the radio. At the last moment she squeezed her eyes closed, unwilling to witness Moto and Busta consumed by flames. She could hear herself hyperventilating though the intercom as she tensed for the horrible finality. “Oh, God.”
“Go, go, go, YES!” Dingle screamed over the intercom. She snapped her eyes open to see Moto streaking the length of the landing area with the nose pulled high like a wheelie, afterburner plumes licking the deck. The tailhook touched down just past the wires and kicked up a shower of sparks until finally thrust overcame inertia and the big jet leapt into the dark sky. She watched the twin cones of white fire climb and climb like a rocket until finally Moto, realizing he was alive and safe, pulled out of afterburner.
She blinked away tears and muttered, “Holy shit, that was close.”
“Uh huh,” Dingle answered, his voice subdued for the first time that day.
Slammer broke the silence. “Moto, this is Slammer. Clean up, make sure you put your hook up. Head back to North Island. I’ll talk with you in the morning.” His voice sounded surprisingly kind.
“Roger that,” she heard Moto answer assertively. She was proud he was putting up a professional face but she could hear the pain and the finality as well. She was stunned by the swiftness of it all. Just a few seconds had passed from when Moto received the first power call to his narrow escape.
The roar of motors and thump from the catapult ahead snapped her from her reverie. A plane launched and a Yellow Shirt was waving to catch her attention. Legs shaking once again, she taxied up, stopping just behind the blast deflector, now second in line. As the jet in front of her roared down the catapult track and launched into the inky void, she released her brakes to inch toward the shuttle.
“You good?” Dingle asked.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to let Moto go. “I’m good. Let’s do this. Five more rides to go, brother.”
Chapter 20
13 July
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Quick plopped herself next to Pig on the couch and they watched Moto shuffle back and forth across the living room in a ratty T-shirt and sweatpants, clutching his cell phone in both hands. He hadn’t changed or shaved in two days. Not since his Pilot Evaluation Board. He was on death row now, a stomach full of acid just waiting for the call to report for the firing squad. As he walked, he stared at the floor between his legs like a beaten dog. She felt sick for him as he mumbled, “All I remember was looking up at the ship and thinking, what the fuck is Busta waiting for? He better punch us out. That’s our only chance.”
“You were literally looking up at the boat?” she asked.
Moto nodded. “No shit, looking up. It happened really fast.”
“You got down to about fifty-five feet. That’s what your plane’s recorder popped,” said Pig. He was sitting on the far end of the sofa clicking away on his laptop.
Moto stopped at the glass door, staring out into the humid July afternoon. She saw the other residents of the complex lounging by the pool in bikinis and swim suits laughing and flirting, apparently completely unconcerned that her roommate’s world was coming apart. “I didn’t look down…but I could feel it. Something huge and hungry was down there, in the dark. Some massive monster with its mouth wide open just waiting for me to get low enough to…” his voice tailed off. He turned and began pacing in front of her again. “I could really feel it wanting to get me.”
S
he felt schizophrenic. One second she was so happy she could barely keep from dancing around the apartment, and the next she would catch a glance of the dead man walking. The hopelessness and fear radiating from her friend would hit her in the chest, causing her to choke up. She and the rest of the class had passed. They’d all done really well, in fact. She had scored just a bit better than Pig, but she came in a resounding second to Dusty. Second place and Moto wearing the carpet bare with his homeless shuffle were enough to send her into a black mood. She flashed again between relieved and elated, then worried sick about her friend, and then royally pissed that she scored behind Dusty. Oh, that burned. Then she would suddenly remind herself she was now officially a Fleet Rhino pilot and the emotional roller coaster would start anew.
“What the fuck am I going to do?” moaned Moto for the thousandth time.
“It’s too bad you’re Scottish. Otherwise you could do porn,” Pig said, glancing up from his laptop then right back to the screen.
“Fuck you.”
She kicked Pig from across the couch and flashed him a sour look.
“What? The Scottish.” He held up his pinky. “Not very big.” He shrugged. “Not my fault.” She pulled her leg back to kick him again but Pig scooted out of range. “He’s going to be fine, eventually.” He looked at Moto, “Let me see your hands. Can you do dishes, amigo?”
“Fuck you,” Moto repeated without breaking stride. The stress had definitely narrowed his verbal repertoire. The phone in his hand rang and he jumped, then stared at it stupidly as it rang a couple more times.
“Answer it, you idiot,” Pig said as he typed.
“I don’t want to.” But he did. She perched on the edge of the couch, listening intently as Pig ignored the whole scene. “Hello? Yes sir, this is he, um, me.” She watched him lock up at attention, chin held high as if waiting for the fusillade. He listened for a minute then sank to his knees on the carpet, nodding slowly, the phone still jammed to his ear. “Yes sir, I understand.” He listened for a while longer, his face blank. “Of course. Yes sir.” He pulled the phone away and mashed the off button with a shaky finger. It slipped from his hand and bounced on the carpet as he flopped down and tucked into a fetal ball.
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