Coyote had almost been glad when the unexpected orders came through, sending the CBG to the Med… and informing him that he’d just been moved to the carrier’s Deputy CAG slot.
Most of Julie’s worries were those typical of a woman left alone to raise a three-year-old girl by herself while her husband spent months on end at sea, risking his life every day. The presence of women on the Jefferson hadn’t helped things, either. When he was still CO of the Vipers, Coyote had usually flown with Cat Garrity as his RIO, and during that last rotation home he’d made the mistake of telling Julie how much he respected the woman as a naval flight officer. That, coupled with some of the more lurid stories filtering back to the States through the media ? stories about sexual harassment cases and the goings-on among the mixed crew ? had raised all kinds of unfounded suspicions in Julie’s mind. They were the sort of fears he could have allayed in seconds if he’d just been there with her to show her how much he still loved her.
But that simply hadn’t been possible. When the Navy said go, you went;
he loved Julie, but he also had a career to consider. If the Navy had wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one with your seabag ran the old saw among enlisted men. Sex and saltwater don’t mix was another.
Maybe, just maybe, his recent promotion would prove to be the first step in putting his marriage back together again. In the meantime, though, it was a letdown working on the CAG staff instead of flying with the Vipers. Worst of all were the days like this when he had to watch one of his old friends sit in the hot seat.
Grant double-checked to be sure the sign saying WOMEN was neither posted by the hatch nor lying on the deck. There weren’t enough female enlisted personnel to assign to watch the ready rooms on every shift when female flight officers might need to change, so unlike the showers the ready rooms functioned on an honor system, with the aviators taking turns… except, of course, when there was a scramble and every man and woman had to be suited up as fast as possible. The sign was a courtesy, used when there was time to observe the niceties of civilized behavior.
So far there hadn’t been any deliberate violations of ready room privacy, though there had been that one time when the sign had fallen down and one of the men from the War Eagles had gotten an eyeful when he went to suit up. Apparently, though, Cat Garrity had already finished changing and was on her way to debriefing.
He heard Malibu talking as he entered the changing area. “Look, all I’m saying is you’ve got to ease up on yourself,” the RIO was saying. “Quit acting like the weight of the world’s on your shoulders.”
“Good advice,” Coyote said. Malibu was already in his khakis, hanging up his flight suit in his locker. Batman was sitting nearby, still wearing his own flight gear.
“Coyote!” Malibu said. His features broke into a grin. “What’re you doing in here? Slumming?”
“Just making sure you two get your sorry asses up for debriefing,” Grant said. He studied Blake for a moment. The RIO had been uncharacteristically quiet lately, almost withdrawn, but he seemed more animated now. Coyote suspected he was worried about how Batman was dealing with his new role as CO of the Vipers. The two had been inseparable friends for years, with a bond that sometimes seemed almost psychic.
“I’m on my way,” Malibu said. “The Bat here has a bad case of the slows.”
“I’ll get him over that.” Grant waited until Malibu had left before turning to Wayne. “Bad time this morning, huh?”
Batman fumbled with the zipper of his suit as he replied. “There’s an understatement,” he said. “Sort of like saying Krasilnikov’s a troublemaker.”
“Look, I just got a report down from Ops,” Coyote told him. “Thought you’d like to hear right away. The flight crew on that helo’s okay. They’re pretty dinged up, but they got picked up by a Marine medevac and flown out to the Guadalcanal. The word is they’ll be okay.”
Batman let out a long, slow sigh. “Thank… God.”
“You can also thank the Army pilot on that Black Hawk. He gentled his machine down after you popped one of his blades.”
“Army? Shit, what’s the Army doing over here?”
“Damfino. I thought the Canal was just carrying Marines this time. We don’t have the full story yet, but Ops is working on the theory that we weren’t given all of the IFF computer recognition codes… which would explain why they registered as a hostile.”
“God.”
Someone rapped on the door, then stuck his head in. It was Lieutenant Randolph Wojiewski, one of the assistant LSOS. He held a clipboard in one hand. “Commander Wayne?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, got your scores, sir. Two bolters. Mr. Lassiter says it happens to the best of us.”
“Right.”
“On your landing pass, you were still a little high, a little tight. You were showing a tendency to over-correct when the LSO fed you the word.” Wojiewski continued ticking off the flaws in Batman’s trap. This was a routine that followed every landing aboard a carrier, and the results were posted on the big greenie board outside each squadron’s ready room. It was a way of showing each aviator where he stood with all the others, and giving him instant feedback that would let him improve his technique.
“All in all, not too bad, though,” Wojiewski concluded. “Mr. Lassiter’s giving you a ‘fair.’ Okay?”
Batman scowled, and for a moment Coyote thought he was going to lash out at the ALSO. In the highly competitive world of carrier aviation, each landing could receive one of four possible grades. Best of all was “okay,” and a green square on the greenie board. Next was “fair,” with a yellow square. “No grade” and no color on the board meant the trap had been dangerous to people or to aircraft on the deck. Lowest of all was a red square with the letter “C” marked in, for “cut.” That grade was reserved for a landing so dangerous it could easily have ended in disaster.
Batman, Coyote knew, carried a fierce pride in his abilities as an aviator. It would take a while to wash that yellow from the record book he kept inside his skull.
“So, what happened?” Coyote pressed him, after Wojiewski had left the compartment. “What’s your side of the story?”
“Mason happened. Shit, Coyote, I don’t know what went down out there.
The kid IDED the bogey as a Hind. I got weapons clear and went Fox two. Next thing I know, I’m hearing about a downed American helo over the radio and I’m being ordered back to the bird farm.” He managed a wry, drawn grin. “And two bolters to get me down.”
“We all have our day inside the barrel,” Coyote said, using the expression that referred to an aviator who made pass after pass on the deck but couldn’t connect with the arresting wire… each failure making the next failure that much more likely. “But this own goal you scored, that’s serious, even if the crew’s okay. Stoney’s about to go ballistic. He was over on the Shiloh when word came through, conferring with Admiral Tarrant. He was not pleased, let me tell you!”
Batman didn’t reply right away but continued changing to his uniform.
“How did you handle it, Will?” he asked after a long moment. “Being skipper of the squadron, I mean. How did you know when to get tough and when to go easy?”
Coyote raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking me if you should cover for Mason and Garrity?”
“I didn’t say that,” Batman said.
“You want to tell me what happened up there? I mean exactly.”
Batman shrugged. “Dixie was eyeball, I was shooter. He led the way in by three miles or so. Watch Dog wasn’t picking up IFF on the target. Neither did we, when we got close. Then Cat reported that they were being painted by a Zoo, and I guess she was busy turning knobs about then, because she didn’t see the target. Dixie reported a Hind.
“About that time, Malibu picked up something about the UN flight being under attack. Since the bogey was trailing UN Two-seven, I assumed, I mean, it looked like the bogey was after the UN bird, right? Anyway, I launched.”
“Was there any way you could have checked on Dixie’s ID?”
“What was I supposed to do? Ignore him because he’s a rookie and insist on another pass before I made up my mind? I might’ve flown us right into triple-A if that Zoo had turned out to be a hostile. Anyway, I can’t treat the rest of the squadron like they’re a bunch of idiots.”
“No, you can’t,” Grant agreed. “You have to trust their training. I remember Tombstone chewed my ass once
