else in the process. And if you’ve got a problem with that, I suggest you take it up with the Maintenance Officer. Sir.” The chief turned abruptly and stalked away.
Bird Dog stared after him for a moment, and then started after him. As he reentered the Handler’s office, he saw Chief Franklin’s broad back disappearing down the passageway. He started after him.
“Lieutenant!” the Handler said sharply. “You’ve got a mission to fly. I suggest you get your ass out to that aircraft before your event gets canceled. And get your head in the game. You got problems with your chief, you leave them down in your Branch spaces. Don’t be airing your dirty laundry up here.”
Jesus, was everybody in the whole air wing out to ream him today? Bird Dog stopped short of snapping out an angry response and nodded abruptly. There was some truth to what the Handler said. Always, the mission came first.
He turned and headed for the hatch again, ready to start his preflights. He stopped abruptly as he caught sight of the slim figure framed by the entrance.
Shaughnessy. How long had she been standing there? He glared at her. Everything that had gone wrong so far had been her fault. If she’d just worn her cranial on the flight deck like she was supposed to …
“Just coming in to sign your aircraft out as safe for flight, sir,” she said. Her voice sounded tight. “Could I have the MAF, please?”
The Handler slid the multipart form across the desk to her. She ran her eyes down it and then scrawled her signature across the bottom. “Your aircraft, sir.” She started toward the hatch.
“Shaughnessy-” Bird Dog started.
“Sir. Excuse me, but I’ve got three other aircraft to preflight,” she said, finally looking up at him. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her face looked thinner than it had the last time he’d held quarters inspection. “Could it wait?”
“Of course,” he said finally. “We’ll talk when I get back.”
She nodded abruptly and led the way out to the aircraft. As Gator and Bird Dog performed their preflights, she followed them around the aircraft, occasionally double-checking a panel fixture or wiping a smudge off the fuselage.
Finally, Bird Dog clambered up into the cockpit, and Gator followed. Once they were seated, Shaughnessy followed them up, stepping carefully on the pull-out steps on the fuselage. She checked to see that the ejection seat pins had been removed, and double-checked the ejection harness connections to the seat. Finally satisfied, she gave both of them a weary nod. “Good flight, sirs,” she said, fixing her eyes on Gator.
Gator waited until the canopy slid into place and then said, “Sometimes you can be a real asshole, Bird Dog.”
“Seems to be the unanimous opinion today,” the pilot snapped. “You want to go fly or you want to share more of your exciting insights with me?”
Gator sighed. “Let’s just get airborne, Bird Dog. At least I know that you know how to do that.”
Bird Dog taxied forward, following the Yellow Shirt’s hand signals and carefully sliding the Tomcat into position on the catapult. Halfway to the catapult, the fear hit him again. He was so tired — oh, Jesus, was he tired! Two days of flight-deck operations, launching alert aircraft every time the Chinese sortied, struggling to get back on board the pitching deck at night, fighting not to think about the monster that grew larger every day! It was past the point of mere preference and into the issue of safety. Even the surge of adrenaline that had hit him when he’d heard about the inbound raid had faded away to a dull, aching jangle of nerves. Had Airman Alvarez been this tired when he’d wandered behind the Tomcat that night? What had it been like — to be so tired he hadn’t seen the danger, so tired he hadn’t noticed the screaming F14 turning on the deck? Alvarez would have been thinking about his rack, six decks below, calling to him. Maybe he’d even felt a momentary gleam of hope — Bird Dog’s event was one of the last to launch, and Alvarez could have looked forward to perhaps almost an hour of unconsciousness before he’d have been called back onto the flight deck to start recovering aircraft. Not in his rack, no. Not with that many aircraft airborne, due back on deck too soon. Alvarez probably would have simply gone down one deck and stretched out full-length in one of the passageways that crisscrossed the interior of the carrier like a maze.
When did he realize what had happened? When the jet’s sucking pull first hit him? The second his feet left the deck? Or had it taken a few milliseconds, long enough for him to come fully awake only as he was hurtling through the air, suspended in the air between the ship and the jet engine?
How many times had he stepped over the exhausted plane captains lining the passageways? Cursed as he tripped over a sound-powered telephone cord stretched across the linoleum to an outlet, the earphones still clamped firmly to the plane captain’s head? Had he ever even stopped to think that the flight deck crews had no mandated crew rest requirements between flights, or that too few of his fellow officers ever gave a thought to the countless bone-tired enlisted people it took to get the elite aircrews off the deck?
“Bird Dog! They gonna start charging us rent, man,” his RIO said into the ICS.
Bird Dog was suddenly aware of the waving green lights in front of him. The Yellow Shirt was motioning frantically for him to move forward, to clear the way for the next aircraft.
Was he safe to fly? Bird Dog hesitated, and then slowly eased the throttle forward. He held the image of Alvarez’s face before him for a moment, then forced it back into the compartment of his mind that held everything not associated with the immediate mission.
Suddenly, a figure darted across the flight deck toward the catapult. Lights flashed red as the air boss called a foul deck. Bird Dog craned his neck to try to see what poor fool had just incurred the wrath of the tower.
For the third time in the last hour, he choked on Shaughnessy’s name. What in the hell was she doing now! She’d already formally certified the Tomcat as safe for flight and turned over responsibility to the Yellow Shirt and the pilot.
The young airman was pointing at the left side of his Tomcat and making jerking motions with her hands. The Yellow Shirt shook his head no. The airman put both hands on her hips and leaned forward, standing close and screaming in the senior petty officer’s ear to be heard over the noise. The Yellow Shirt shrugged, then nodded. Bird dog saw his lips move as he spoke with someone on the flight deck circuit. Finally, he looked back up at Bird Dog and shook his head from side to side.
Enraged, Bird Dog began demanding answers. “Your aircraft is down,” the Handler replied. “You might have a control surface problem — we want to get it checked out. You need to move back off the cat.”
“Damn it, this aircraft is fine!” Bird Dog yelled. “It feels fine! Don’t you think I’d know if I had a control surface problem? Look!” He cycled the stick again.
“Off the cat, mister,” the Air Boss snapped. “You want to argue, you come up here and see me!”
Bird Dog swore and backed the Tomcat off the catapult. He taxied back to the spot and shut down. He jammed the canopy back and vaulted out of the aircraft, ignoring the steps and welcoming the hard shock of hitting the deck.
“What the hell are you doing!” he swore at the plane captain. “This your idea of revenge? You just bought your ass another trip to Captain’s Mast!”
Airman Shaughnessy ignored him. From the handler’s shack, Chief Franklin came over at a trot and interposed himself between the pilot and the plane captain. Bird Dog tried to get around him, but the chief grabbed Bird Dog’s shoulder and slammed him up against a buffer, shouting, “Hold still, you arrogant son of a bitch!”
Bird Dog watched Shaughnessy pop one panel open, then another. She hauled herself up to the fuselage, and the upper portion of her torso disappeared into the airframe, leaving only her legs sticking out. For the briefest second, Bird Dog remembered how Alvarez had looked as he disappeared into the sucking maw of the jet engine. He shuddered, part of his anger dissipated by the horrendous memory.
Gator stood by the half-visible airman, talking to her as she rummaged around in the guts of the hydraulics system, electrical lines, and avionics that controlled the Tomcat. Finally, even over the shriek of the flight deck noise, Bird Dog heard her exclaim, “Got it!” Her butt wiggled as she backed herself out of the airframe. Gator caught her waist and helped her lower herself gently down to the deck.
Her eyes shining with triumph, Shaughnessy held up her prize. Clutched in her left hand was a wrench. “It was jammed up next to the actuator, Chief!” she said excitedly. “When I saw 205 cycling on the cat, something looked funny to me. You know how it is, you get familiar with how your birds look. Just as the surface dropped, I thought I saw a little hitch. Kind of a bobble, just like a second or two when it wasn’t traveling smoothly.”
The chief nodded. “Couldn’t have caught it in your preflight, though. And if that bird had launched with it, there’s a damned good chance those control surfaces wouldn’t have responded when the lieutenant tried to level
