“Striker came to me early on,” Batman went on. “He didn’t know how to handle the whole thing. I advised him to break it off, but he didn’t. Thing was, it wasn’t that hard for him to come to me man to man. I sure never saw Lobo. Either she never had any doubts-“
“She did,” Conway told him.
“Well, she may have confided in you, but not me. See what I mean?”
“Yeah. I hear you. But where does that leave us? Do we have to start appointing two Execs in every mixed squadron, one per sex?”
He shook his head. “All we can do is try to do our jobs. I’ll talk to Sheridan and Marinaro. They have a right to put in for transfers, but in the meantime they’re damn well going to treat you like this outfit’s Executive Officer. As for the rest… you can’t force a man, or a woman either, for that matter, to share confidences with somebody he or she isn’t comfortable with. But I’ll try to discourage them bringing their problems to me behind your back.”
“They’ll probably just stop coming for help at all,” she said. “That’ll screw up morale even worse.”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of the new, improved, politically correct Navy,” he said, and he didn’t bother hiding the bitterness he felt. “Where everyone is equal. Equally miserable.”
The C-2A Greyhound made a perfect trap, snagging the carrier’s third wire and rolling to a stop, its twin turboprop engines slowing as the pilot cut his throttles. The plane rolled backward, pulled by the tension of the steel cable it had snagged, until it dropped from the hook. Crewmen started forward, a Yellow Shirt to guide the transport to an open spot on the deck, and men in green shirts bearing black letters to check the arresting gear before the next plane started an approach. Watching the activity, Coyote Grant never failed to be amazed that the dance on the deck involving so many men, so many aircraft, and so little actual room for maneuver could proceed so smoothly.
The Greyhound rolled to a stop and shut down its engines. Unlike the planes of CVW-20, the transport aircraft was not permanently assigned to Jefferson. It was part of VR-20, a Fleet Logistic Support squadron based in Sicily. Planes from VR-20 and other support squadrons were a vital link in maintaining America’s carrier battle groups at sea. Though bulk supplies were transferred from Underway Replenishment ships, small cargo shipments, mail, and personnel were sent out by Carrier Onboard Delivery planes like this one.
Coyote advanced across the deck as the rear ramp was lowered slowly. A work party was already assembled to unload the plane’s cargo, but Grant was here to meet some of the passengers. The Air Wing had been shorthanded for weeks, and this COD flight was supposed to carry the personnel they needed to bring the various squadrons up to full strength.
Several officers appeared, walking with the usual stiff, exhausted gait of Greyhound passengers. The planes were built for cargo and passenger capacity, not comfort, and after a few hours cooped up in the windowless passenger compartment, jolted by every air pocket along the way, even the most enthusiastic flier was happy to feel a ship’s deck underfoot again.
“Listen up!” he shouted over the noise of the flight deck. “Replacements for CVW-20, follow me! The rest of you should see Master Chief Weston.” He pointed to the carrier’s Chief of the Boat, who was standing nearby waiting for newly arrived carrier crewmen to finish disembarking.
“Commander Grant! Good to see you again, sir!”
Coyote hadn’t been paying much attention to the new arrivals, but now he recognized the petite redheaded woman striding across the deck to meet him with a smile on her freckled face. Lieutenant Commander Joyce Flynn, “Tomboy,” had been part of the original female contingent with Viper Squadron during the Kola campaign. She’d flown as RIO with Magruder when the CAG had taken out a Tomcat during the last desperate fight over the Polyamyy sub pens. When their aircraft took a hit and the two bailed out, Flynn had wound up with a broken leg. After the two had been rescued, she had been put aboard a medevac flight for the States and an extended hospital stay. Now she was back, looking fit and ready to fly. “Well, Tomboy, looks like they couldn’t keep you away from our little luxury cruise ship,” he said. “What was it? The colorful ports? The ambience?”
She laughed. “Face it, Commander, you’re not getting rid of any of us Amazons.”
He chuckled. The female combat fliers had earned that nickname in the early days of the deployment, but it was hard for him to picture the petite Tomboy Flynn as a woman warrior. “Good to have you back,” he told her. “There’ve been a few changes, but you’ll still know your way around.”
“Great.” They started across the deck toward the island. “Oh, hey,” she said, catching his arm. “Thought you might like to know. You remember Lobo?”
“Of course!”
“I got a letter from her just before I left the States.”
“You don’t say!” Coyote’s eyes widened. “How’s she doing, anyway?”
Tomboy grinned. “Instructor’s slot, no less. At Top Gun!”
“Well! Good for her! That’s great!”
But the mention of her name raised a small shadow in the back of Coyote’s mind. There was a dark side to women serving in combat, a topic not often discussed or even acknowledged among the men or the women aboard the Jefferson, but always, always there. Rape.
Lieutenant Chris Hanson, running name “Lobo,” had been one of that first batch of female aviators aboard the Jefferson last March. Shot down over the Kola Peninsula, she’d been captured and gang-raped by ill-disciplined militia. Hours later, she’d been rescued by U.S. Marines; they’d found her on display in a Russian village, locked inside a wire cage, naked, bruised from a savage beating, and shivering with the onset of deep shock. While her physical wounds could be treated easily enough, there’d been considerable question about the deeper psychological trauma she’d suffered. Her medical report had openly questioned whether she would ever fly again… especially in a combat role where she would have to face the possibility of going through the same ordeal again.
“There was talk for a while there, while she was in the hospital, that maybe she’d have to resign her commission,” Tomboy explained.
“I heard something about that,” Coyote said. “I gather she fought it, huh?”
“She’s tough. Tough enough she was fighting to be placed back on combat status, last I heard.”
Coyote didn’t reply. From what he knew of the Navy establishment, it wasn’t likely that Lobo would see combat again. Back in World War II, five brothers had all died on the same day when the ship they were serving aboard together was sunk by the Japanese. As a result, the Navy had made as standard policy a rule against close relatives serving aboard the same vessel.
When Lobo had been captured in the Kola, the Navy had suffered a public relations defeat very nearly as severe as the one they’d faced with the death of the Sullivan brothers. She’d been featured in a Timeweek article, interviewed on ACN, and the entire nation had been outraged… and horrified that such things could happen to its fighting women. The Navy, Coyote was certain, would not allow Lieutenant Hanson to fly combat missions again, not unless they wanted a conservative backlash to reverse all of the gains women had made in the service in the past few decades.
And that was damned unlikely, because too many high-ranking careers at the Pentagon were already at stake over the issue of women aboard ships and in combat roles.
And maybe it was just as well. Coyote tried to imagine what it would be like to be abused the way Lobo had been… then have to climb back into a cockpit and go face the same people who’d done that to you the first time. He couldn’t picture it. In fact, the only reasons he could imagine for even wanting to do such a thing were either to prove something to yourself ? like getting back on the horse after it threw you ? or for revenge.
He didn’t like either thought at all. He thought of Mason, jumping the gun on that helo ID because he was too eager to make his mark. A naval aviator needed to be a professional, to put aside love and hate, glory and fear.
There simply was no room for obsession in the cockpit of a Tomcat.
“Okay, Coyote, what else do you have for me?” Tombstone Magruder leaned back in his chair, feeling weary. Sometimes it seemed as if the paperwork and the endless details of running the Air Wing were far more difficult to cope with than the intensity of battle. He couldn’t remember being this tired after the hottest combat ops he’d been in, even during drawn-out situations that had tested him to the limits of physical endurance.
