LITMIR.BIZ

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flying—and at least to another pilot. He cut the back end off the intercom and said to Narc, “It wasn’t my boat! Fuck, fuck fuck fuck FUCK. Twelve hundred pounds of fucking fuel left! We gotta land on the wrong fucking boat!”

      On the flight deck, the Landing Signal Officer was already jabbering to Pri-Fly, where a paunchy commander in a yellow jersey with “Miniboss” across the chest was staring into the rain.

      “What the hell?” the Miniboss (the Assistant Air Officer) moaned.

      “It was an S-3. We haven’t got an S-3 up.”

      “You sure? You better be sure!”

      “I’m sure.”

      Miniboss turned away from his bubble window and muttered, “Well, I’m not,” and he hollered at a lieutenant he didn’t know to check the sheets for an outstanding S-3. Had they got the goddam count wrong or what? And while you’re at it get somebody up here who knows S-3s even if you have to wake the squadron’s skipper because that sonofabitch is going to come around again; and he said into his mike to the LSO, “What’s he going to do?”

      “We’re under EMCON; I’m not in contact.”

      “The way I read it, he’s from the Jefferson. Get his fuel load.”

      “We’re under EMCON.”

      “Well, get out from under! Set the lens for an S-3 and find if he can get back to his own boat! If he can’t, prepare to receive.” He turned away to order somebody to keep the Combat Air Patrol airborne until it was over; get their fuel and estimated time aloft; while you’re at it—

      The LSO had already had the lens reset. He was already prepared to receive. He had expected to recover two F-18-As; the lens had been set for them. He imagined the S-3 catching a wire set for the much lighter F-18-A and winced.

      All in a night’s work.

      Rafe caught the flare of lights that signaled him to try again. Narc had talked on the ball to the LSO and told him that their fuel was down. So, the worst was going to happen: he, LT George Rafehausen, veteran carrier pilot, sometime wingman of the squadron skipper, was going to land on the wrong boat. Rafe blew out his breath in disgust.

      This time he kept it simple. By the numbers. He gentled Christine into the approach. His angle of attack was perfect. At least he’d make a good landing.

      Then he watched as the carrier began to turn.

      He had to chase the turn. His numbers went out the window. They were turning away from the squall to help him, but that made no odds to him. Why weren’t things ever easy?

      “Smoke in the tunnel,” Spy’s voice said over the intercom.

      There was a break, then Senior’s voice: “Tape’s still turning. Friction fire. Gawdamned Christine.” Then, “I’ll get it.”

      The brightness of the deck was close.

      “No time,” Rafe said. “Senior, stay strapped; I’m putting this sucker down.”

      Rafe coughed as the smoke hit him. Why wasn’t he wearing his mask? His eyes watered. This time he kept the carrier in sight. He had his landing well in hand again; he could feel it. Again the light hit him, and then the deck reached up and slammed the plane.

      His angle was too steep. Not by much, just some instant’s inattention in the fumes. Too steep and too soon, and the tail smashed the deck just forward of the one wire. Bitched. Rafe felt it and was into high power, and the plane shot off into the looming dark.

      Another bolter. He couldn’t believe it.

      The LSO was already on to Pri-Fly. “Hook snapped,” he said.

      “Oh, shit.”

      “Readying the net.”

      “Understood.”

      Hooks take a beating. Crews check them after every landing. But they can miss a hairline fracture, especially if a man is thinking about his wife or his debts or his future. Or maybe in this case it was Christine, trying something new.

      Anyway, they had lost their hook.

      On the flight deck, men in blue jerseys were clearing away the broken hook. Others in red jerseys stood by—the crash crew.

      The LSO announced the hooksnap to a stunned audience of four and said that the barrier was being rigged. Asked for their gas status: eight hundred pounds.

      Alan, for once, was unworried. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. His father had told him tales of landing crippled aircraft into the “barrier,” which Alan, as a kid, had seen as a giant volleyball net raised across the deck to catch wounded planes. His father used to say he had done it so often they called him “Net” at the club. He said it was the easiest landing in the world.

      And, after all, you have no choice. There is no other way to put a hookless aircraft down on a flight deck—not one that keeps the pieces together.

      Senior Chief Craw seemed more worried about the smoking computer tape. He unclipped his harness and lunged for the tunnel behind their seats, wrestled with the box and swung it open. The smell got worse. Alan, now concerned for Craw because he was unstrapped and the break might come at any time, grabbed his thermos and, without thinking, poured cold coffee over the fire.

      The smell changed from burned electrics to burned coffee.

      The plane banked. Craw slammed against his seat and then slipped into it. The plane banked again.

      “Make ready!” Rafe growled.

      Senior Chief Craw was clumsy getting his straps clipped. The aircraft turned hard, and Craw winced. Alan realized that the man’s hands were burned.

      Alan reached up under his own safety toggles and pulled the clips. Free from the waist up, he leaned across the aisle and pushed the Senior Chief back in his seat, then moved the man’s hands away from the straps. Surprisingly, getting the prongs into the clips turned out to be easier on somebody else.

      “Here we go!” Rafe said.

      Alan slammed back into his seat and reached over his shoulder for his harness straps. They weren’t there. Of course not; he was leaning back on them.

      “Ejection positions!” Narc snapped.

      He forced himself to move slowly: lean forward, reach up and over your shoulder. Get one. Flip it out into position and pat around for the other. Find it. Lean back. Don’t think about ejecting. Clip one restraint. No problem. Clip the other. Regain your landing posture and brace. Only now do you have time to think, If we’d had to eject while the straps were off, I’d be dead.

      And then, he realized that he didn’t feel airsick. He felt fine. His mind was strangely, eerily clear. He felt ready for—was that Death, just down there ahead of them? No, it couldn’t be. He felt ready, then, for whatever came next. It was liberating, not having to think.

      He wanted to tell Rafe not to worry; that Rafe would catch the barrier just fine. He wanted to tell his father that he, his son, would be okay in the Navy; give him some slack. Yes, he had needed to experience this. He felt good.

      “Good lineup.”

      “Four hundred pounds fuel.”

      “You’re left.”

      “Good lineup.”

      “Power.”

      “Nose up—nose up—POWER!”

      Thirty thousand pounds of airframe hurtled into the net stretched above the wire and the wire strained and the tail rose and the whole mass skidded down the deck to the limit of the wire’s extension and the tail slapped down with a final crack, and alpha golf 707 came to a dead stop.

      Christine was home.

      She snarled. She still had enough fuel to bitch with.

      Rafehausen

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