Lightning, p.4
Lightning, page 4
The last part was the handoff to her. The Air Marshall handled flights from fifty to five nautical miles out. His task was to vector aircraft in an orderly flow for her to pick up.
“892, low state two.” Two thousands pounds of fuel remaining, which was low but not dangerously so. That was the twenty-four minutes of fuel Gabe should have after landing, not on arrival in the pattern. But the other extreme, landing an aircraft still heavy with fuel, was significantly more dangerous. Slamming down hard with eight tons of fuel still in the jet’s wing tanks could collapse the landing gear with the least error.
Gabe’s next report should be when his flight reached five miles out. At his approach speed of four hundred knots, that was still forty-five seconds away.
She was glad she’d come on shift in time for his landing. The other Mini Air Boss headed below after making sure the handoff to Falisha was clean. The off-shift Air Boss remained for now, watching the show. Which meant two Air Bosses were watching her, but that had happened enough to not bother her—much.
Falisha kept an eye out the window of PriFly for Gabe as he headed toward the Stack—the five-mile-wide circle of the holding pattern, two thousand feet above the carrier’s deck.
On the deck itself, Commander Phil Emerson, the Air Boss, had three aircraft in the launch queue, a landing bird that had snagged the number one wire—earning himself a crappy rating of two of a possible five from the landing officer—and another in-bound, already in the pattern for final approach. So she would keep Gabe’s flight out of his way and circling in the Stack for the moment.
Gabe never earned less than a four for his landings, snagging the third wire of the four on the Big Stick and doing it dead clean every time. A five was reserved for when he nailed his landings in harsh storms or at night. LSOs weren’t big on giving out fives, but Gabe always earned them when conditions warranted.
It was a precision she enjoyed greatly in her personal life as well. Mom had warned her off fighter jocks—and Dad had done nothing to disprove her warnings. His affairs and lies had created a disaster area of her childhood worse than even the South China Sea. But she finally understood why Mom had married him in the first place. Falisha was completely gone on Angel Brown, who was bound to be anything but.
The twenty-four hours she’d asked for after Gabe proposed last night—to try and wrestle her common sense to the forefront—had failed utterly. Even knowing what the future would hold, tonight she was going to say yes.
She checked for the inbounds. Gabe, with the three other birds of his flight trailing close behind, was sliding into the top of the Stack. Exactly on cue, he called it in.
“Tower, 892, overhead, angels two, low state two.” And she’d bet that he was within ten feet of angels two, precisely two thousand feet above her deck.
“892, Tower. Roger.” Dead smooth. Pure professional.
That’s how she’d play it.
She wanted her Navy career as badly as he did. So, she’d solve the creating a family issue by not having one. And when they were sick of each other in two years or five, they could both walk away clean. Maybe after that she’d be ready for a man to settle down with for the long haul. The final crash landing from life with Gabriel “Angel” Brown would be hell, but it would also be hella-awesome while it lasted.
“Flight of four entering the Stack,” she warned the Air Boss.
He didn’t waste time nodding, offering only a low grunt of acknowledgment. Six more staff worked behind them, double-checking that there were no surprises and that Emerson’s orders were carried out in the most efficient way. Jostling eighty aircraft around on a ship eleven hundred feet long ranked right up there with rocket science.
Today she was handling everything entering their perimeter, and Phil knew she’d keep it all under control until he was ready.
PriFly had the best view and the busiest job on the boat. The captain on the Command Bridge a story below steered the boat—at the moment to PriFly’s precise direction. The admiral, another story below on the Flag Bridge, could only order it about.
From here, she and Phil commanded all flight traffic within ten miles. In the Stack, on approach, or on the deck, all orders flowed through their PriFly post high on the Island.
She checked the deck. The first of the line at the bow catapults was punching aloft, they were the patrol to pick up where Gabe’s flight had left off. The trap wires at the stern were all clear and reset for landing.
“Peel ’em,” Phil called out without turning his attention away from the launching aircraft. Long experience had taught her that he didn’t need to look, he knew the exact state and location of everything that even thought about his flight deck, probably including stray seagulls.
Falisha contained her surprise and carefully double-checked the skies and the deck.
With the first launch gone, the next-up aircraft, an EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jet, was taxiing into position at the head of Cat One. The catapult’s carriage raced from the bow back to midships along its slot in the deck. In a carefully orchestrated ballet, deckhands were positioned to latch the front wheel onto the carriage the moment both arrived, which fifteen seconds from now would be slinging the Growler down the deck and off the bow at flight speed.
Latched. Safety checks. The jet blast deflector swung up behind the plane to deflect its exhaust upward.
The same ballet, ten seconds behind, was happening on Cat Two.
At the proper signal from the deck, the pilot advanced the throttles to full, then saluted the deck.
She knew she was avoiding taking action. Peel ’em?
A carrier could manage simultaneous launch and recovery operations, but when the pressure wasn’t on, the Air Boss usually ran the entire on-deck show personally, doing one task, then the other.
Phil knew exactly what she was feeling, of course, and spoke without turning. “You’re ready, Falisha. Hell, you can do the whole thing as well as I can. But for the moment, only approach and landing ops are yours—but all yours. Do it.”
The proper response was immediate action, but she did take one more moment to revel in the feeling. The Air Boss saying she was ready to step from Mini Air Boss to Air Boss was a dream she’d been pursuing for the last four years. Rockin’ it!
Then she keyed the radio and swung into gear.
“892. BRC is zero-three-zero,” she called up to Gabe. Gabe needed the Bearing Recovery Course to line up with the ship’s runway, which was presently angled thirty degrees east of north. “Your signal is Charlie.” C for Cleared to enter the landing pattern.
He dropped out of the Stack on his next circle around and began descending. He flew forward past the starboard side, turned a one-eighty in front of the bow but well above the launching aircraft. He then turned to fly sternward, well off the port side in clear view from PriFly.
With her big field glasses, Falisha double-checked as he passed directly abeam that his flaps were extended and the wheels and tailhook down. He waggled his wings in a quick wave because he knew she’d be watching. Yep, arrogant as could be, so why was she touched?
“892, in the Break,” he reported exactly ninety degrees off the ship.
Gabe was guaranteed to break her heart, but she already knew that wasn’t going to stop her. Her revised goal? Enjoy the hell out of it while it lasted.
Descending through eight hundred feet, he carved another hard one-eighty and approached from astern.
He entered the Groove of final approach at three-quarters of a mile off the stern.
She released Gabe’s wingman from the Stack to start his own approach.
“892, call the ball,” the Landing Signal Operator radioed aloft.
“892, F-35C. Roger ball. Low state one,” Gabe called back.
The deck would now be verifying that the landing wires were set to react properly for an F-35C with low fuel.
Low state one. A thousand pounds. Twelve minutes. So like Gabe to push the limits. If there was some deck failure or problem with his tailhook, he’d be hard-pressed to reach any Vietnamese airport. The closest land was two hundred miles away.
She glanced forward to make sure that a tanker jet was sitting in the Corral, the area halfway between the Island and the base of the catapults. It was always there in case someone aloft needed fuel pronto.
Gabe had probably been fudging the two thousand pounds of fuel report on entering the pattern because he’d been pushing his flight limits too far—again. That scared her in a way it never had before. He was like the heavy-foot drivers who could never stand to go merely ten over the speed limit.
What if he pushed that envelope past its breaking point one day? She’d be left to live on without him. A thought that made her sick to her stomach.
Breathe, Falisha. Focus on the job.
A thousand pounds of fuel didn’t leave much leeway for even a missed approach. Not that it mattered. Gabe never missed a landing, nor did the rest of his flight. They were a very tight team—the top one aboard. They were the kind of flyers that could be tapped for the Blue Angels demonstration team, they were simply that good.
Rumor was that he had never missed a carrier landing, not even as a trainee. A smooth operator in every way there was.
Falisha had called her Mom this morning for help talking herself out of marrying him. All her mother had done after listening to her was sigh. Then she’d said, I know exactly how ya feel, honey. Trust me. Exactly! Her promise to also be there when Gabe was gone—to patch Falisha back together afterward—hadn’t been encouraging, but it had been thick with the voice of experience.
Paddles, as the Landing Signals Officer was commonly known, didn’t have to say a word to Gabe. Not one single correction, because Gabe really did fly the same way he made her feel—like an angel.
The carrier was moving ahead at twenty knots, into a fifteen-knot wind, giving Gabe thirty-five knots of help in nailing the landing. Flying at a hundred and thirty-five knots, he was moving at only a hundred relative to the ship—a twenty-five percent advantage.
A US carrier’s landing area was angled ten degrees to the side from the carrier’s centerline so that if there was a major problem, the approaching plane could take off again without slamming into the planes launching from the bow. Or, if a worst-case scenario occurred and a plane went into the ocean, it would go off the side and not be run over by the aircraft carrier.
That was a problem with many other nation’s carrier designs but not America’s supercarriers. It made the landing trickier but US Navy pilots were the best in the world and proved it with every landing they made. Damn but she loved being in the service.
That angle meant that Gabe had to constantly sideslip as he simultaneously managed his angle of descent, his yaw, thrust, and a jillion other minutiae that had been trained to the point of instinct.
He flew clean all the way to the deck. So focused on that Number Three Wire that he wouldn’t see anything else.
It was so damn sexy to watch him fly.
It would help if the man didn’t know that.
4
Gabe flew best when he didn’t think about it too much. Mom had been a ballet dancer turned teacher and Dad had been a wide receiver for the Houston Oilers for eight years back in the day before coaching college ball. Gabe had grown up in Mom’s studio, and playing endless practice games with Dad’s Houston Cougars. He and Mom had season tickets to the Houston Ballet, he and Dad to the Houston Texans.
As a wide receiver for the Air Force Falcons, Gabe had been light enough afoot to play in two Bowl games himself, plus an All-Star Bowl. The NFL had scouted him but he’d always dreamt of flying. And the Lightning II was like the best dance across the sky there ever was.
Instead of focusing too hard, he trusted his honed instincts of the natural flow of the flight. And he thought of Falisha as he let his deeply instilled flight skills stay locked into the guides of the ball lights, and focused on that third wire on the shifting deck of the Big Stick.
Departing the playing field of women wasn’t something he’d ever expected to do. Not this side of retiring anyway.
But LC Falisha Johnson was the third wire of women—the perfect landing. Cute as hell, sure. He’d always enjoyed a bountiful supply of those. Tall too, only two inches under his six-foot height. They fit together so perfectly.
However, the best thing about Falisha was her crazy level of competence.
He’d heard the bosses talking when she wasn’t around. Falisha was a shoo-in for the next time an Air Boss slot opened up on one of the nation’s eleven carriers. That was sexy as it ever got, before she’d get started on how she loved to watch him fly. If ever there was a person in a position to judge the quality of that, it was an Air Boss. Knowing how she saw him made him an even better pilot than he’d ever dreamed was possible.
Did he make her a better Air Boss? He sure as hell hoped so because Mom and Dad had proved that’s how it was supposed to work. Mom said she’d always danced for Dad even when he couldn’t be there. And Dad’s stats had exploded up out of average from the day they’d started dating.
Sure, Gabe had seen the train wrecks of other fliers’ families. Long deployments didn’t bode well for family stability—even worse than pro-ball players.
Dad hadn’t been perfect by any stretch, but his lessons had reached far beyond the ball field. You do not ever barely miss the big catch. You damn well find a way to reach those extra inches to make it. No such thing as missed it by an inch. Look at your mama. That woman is way outta this boy’s league. But I went for her with everything I had and I won the big game.
For a woman like Falisha Johnson, Gabe was damn well going to make that catch no matter how far he had to stretch.
Gabe made a last check that his aircraft was properly trimmed for landing. Normally he’d have the other three planes of his flight fully on the deck before descending to land himself.
Not this time.
Hand on the throttle, he nursed the last of the remaining fuel. He was going to catch hell for that when Captain Levi saw his refueling load sheet. He’d fallen out of Low State One and was definitely Bingo Fuel now. If he had to do a go-round, he’d be deep enough into Emergency Fuel that he’d probably have to swim back to the ship. The Navy would not be amused if he dropped a hundred-and-twenty-million-dollar plane into the drink.
Frankly, this time he’d be lucky if they didn’t hammer him with a disciplinary action. What’s more, Falisha would be royally pissed at the unnecessary risk, and that wouldn’t be good at all. Arguing that the Chinese J-20 Mighty Dragon that foolishly tried to intimidate them away had needed a lesson wouldn’t buy ground with either the Captain or Falisha.
He should have called up the damned tanker.
Next time.
Yeah, how many times had he said that before. But it was different now. If Falisha said Yes, the future would be completely different and it was time to start living up to that new standard.
The landing lights of the Ball were still all centered. The electronic systems agreed. Zero drift. Not a word from Paddles.
Deck threshold in six, five…
There was a flash of heat in the cockpit.
Four…
Searing heat! No fire alarms but something was burning. His helmet and his suit would protect him long enough to land.
Three…
Raise the tailhook? If there was a fire, the safest action for the carrier would be to let the jet bolt off the deck. He could eject before it smacked water.
Two—
It was cooking him alive.
Still no alarms.
He blinked hard, but his vision was tunneling to black. No atypical g-forces to explain that. He could still breathe—barely. It hurt.
He couldn’t see anything but black with massive red spots as his vision tunneled to the Ball of the landing lights and finally zeroed out.
One!
Gabe slammed his left hand forward, driving the sidestick past full throttle and straight into afterburners for maximum thrust. He’d burn off his remaining fuel in under a minute at this rate but it was the only logical action.
He continued reaching forward to flip the switch high on the top left corner of the console to raise the arrestor tailhook. With his thousands of hours of training and flights, he didn’t need to see it—which was good as his world had gone completely black.
With his right hand he hauled on the sidestick to tip the nose up in hopes that he could fly clear rather than shooting off the deck and into the sea.
It was the last mistake he ever made.
5
Lieutenant Commander Gabriel “Angel” Brown had waited four-point-six-hundredths of a second too long to act effectively. At a hundred and thirty-five nautical miles an hour, a hundred and fifty-five mph, his actions started ten feet, seven inches too late.
The F-35C Lightning II could accelerate while climbing straight up, especially when as light on fuel as Number 892 was. But not this time.
Because LC Brown had raised the nose to a high angle of attack in his attempt to return to flight, the retracting tailhook was tipped down enough to snag the fourth wire with three inches to spare.
The inch-and-a-quarter-diameter arresting cable had a braking ability of two hundred and fifteen thousand pounds. It could stop a landing jet one hundred and twenty-five times between replacements. Wire Number Four had made a hundred and seventeen arrests since installation. Its replacement was already coiled on the deck like a giant tabletop coaster, waiting on the deck.
An empty F-35C weighed thirty-one thousand pounds.
For today’s patrol, Number 892 had carried a full load of ordnance, both the load hidden inside the stealth fuselage and the load on the external hardpoints. The latter decreased the F-35C’s stealth profile, but it was intended to give the Chinese something to see and think about.
The ordnance load added sixteen thousand pounds.
The pilot and the two hundred and nineteen pounds of remaining fuel were of little consequence.
