LITMIR.BIZ

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operational instincts pushed anything else out of her mind. The plane rolled alarmingly to port and she threw a quick shout at her copilot. “Help me out here, David!”

      “Engine number four, gone. Wing on fire.”

      She never lifted her gaze from the control panel, where she confirmed that they’d lost an engine. Annunciator lights in the cockpit also indicated that number three, the other engine on the starboard wing, looked as if it was going to quit at any moment.

      “We’ve lost both hydraulic systems,” the FE shouted.

      “Roger. Pull the boost out handles!”

      The FE leaned down and pulled the three yellow-and-black striped handles by his feet.

      This left them with only manual control of the aircraft.

      “What’s next, XO?” David yelled into his mic, even though he was right next to her. They’d never hear each other over the roar of the aircraft as it struggled to maintain altitude.

      It was a losing battle. The altimeter showed they were dropping at an alarming rate.

      One, maybe two minutes was all she had to prepare her crew.

      They’d trained with the hope of three minutes.

      “We’ll never make it to land, David.” She tore her gaze from the instrument panel and looked at him. His profile was set and determined, but she recognized the same fear she felt.

      No one wanted to die. Not like this.

      “You with me?”

      He turned his stare on her and an understanding passed between them.

      Whatever it takes.

      Yells and shouts mixed with expletives over the ICS as the crew went through their trained-for responses.

      The flight engineer pushed the button that issued the deadly warning—one long ring on the command bell. The sound she never wanted to hear while flying a P-3 reverberated through the entire aircraft.

      They were going to ditch.

      “Prepare to ditch!” She yelled what might be her last command—she had no choice. They’d lost two engines and were damned lucky they were still airborne.

      The controlled panic of the crew aft of the flight station was palpable. Gwen heard swear words, prayers then silence as the country’s best-trained professionals prepared to fight for their lives.

      Lives in her hands.

      “Everyone got their LPAs on?” She referred to the survival vests that would be their only flotation device, other than the three life rafts, once they were in the harsh seas.

      “Condition One set!” Lizzie, the TACCO or tactical communications officer, confirmed that everyone was prepared to ditch.

      God help us all.

      Ten thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean, approximately five miles off the southwest tip of the Philippines, they were about to ditch. The condition of the sea was abysmal, with waves that were ten feet and higher, And it was quarter past midnight.

      Pitch blackness.

      Her worst nightmare come true—a nighttime ditch in rough seas, miles from land, oceans from the nearest naval vessel.

      Robert “Mac” MacCallister, the flight engineer, worked in sync with the copilot to complete the ditching checklist. It was standard procedure they’d all practiced and prayed they’d never need to use.

      I’m ditching in the ocean.

      She’d practiced it in the flight simulator countless times, mentally rehearsed the most undesirable event for any naval aviator.

      “I’m here if you need relief, XO.” The voice of the third pilot rose above the rush of air that swept through the cabin. He clutched the back of the copilot’s seat as he shouted in her ear.

      Gwen couldn’t spare him a look.

      “Go back to your station and strap your ass in, Aidan!” If any of them were going to survive they had to be properly secured. She had to bring the bird onto the water safely and in one piece so they could get out before it sank.

      “But ma’am, if you—”

      “Take the freaking order!” Before she even finished her statement, Gwen had to grab the yoke back after it was wrenched out of her hands.

      “Help me out here, David!” she shouted to her copilot.

      “I’m pulling as hard as I can!”

      Gwen didn’t have to see David’s face to know the young officer spoke through clenched teeth.

      “Come on, gal, give us one more break!” Gwen yelled at the old bird, then groaned as she stretched her shoulder and back muscles to their limit in her effort to pull back. Losing hydraulics after two engines had been blown apart by the surface-to-air missile wasn’t just bad luck.

      It was fatal.

      She had to beat it.

      That was her crew’s only chance.

      “Five thousand feet.” Scott reported each time the altitude dropped another thousand feet. Soon it would be every hundred feet.

      “Wind direction is two-four-five at 45 knots,” her navigator, Bryce Griswald, shouted from the nav station, aft of the cockpit.

      “Roger, Grizzy.”

      Gwen checked the compass heading and was grateful for one small miracle in this hell. She was taking the plane down at the right angle of descent to keep the waves from becoming brick walls lying in wait to destroy the aircraft.

      Forgotten images of her life appeared before her in quick succession. The first time she rode her bicycle without training wheels, her dad’s smile, Mom’s hugs, Drew’s first kiss, her graduation from Annapolis.

      Their wedding.

      Drew.

      “This plane is coming down in one piece. We’re all getting out.” It might be the last thing she ever did for them.

      “Two hundred feet!” David hadn’t missed a beat.

      “One hundred feet!” David’s shout reached Gwen just before she saw the last glint of white-capped waves through the night darkness.

      “Hang on!” She pulled back on the yoke with all her strength.

      “Fifty feet!”

      David’s last report.

      “Hands off power levers!” Gwen shouted the order for David to join her in letting go of the power levers and gripping the yoke. They’d lose their fingers if they didn’t release the levers.

      For the length of an indrawn gasp, the world stood still as she waited for touchdown. Her mind struggled to convince her that this was like any other landing, the end of any other mission she’d be able to walk away from.

      That delusion shattered when the plane hit water. What remained of the two operating engines’ combined ninety-two-hundred shaft horsepower screeched to a halt as metal propellers met the ocean surface with such a violent impact she was sure they were finished. Panic threatened to drown them before their greatest enemy did. The sea.

      Not yet.

      Water sprayed against the windshield and blinded her. It took all her mental discipline to ride out the ditch, hands on yoke. Each creak, groan and shudder as the aircraft broke apart echoed in her bones.

      After interminable moments, the aircraft’s forward motion stopped and the race for their lives began.

      “Out, out, out, let’s go!” Gwen used her deepest shout, the one that had its origins in her plebe summer at the Naval Academy, to motivate her crew. Not that they needed any motivation—their quick decisive actions flashed in front

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