Magruder. She came looking for me earlier today, asked how I felt about flying with you. She was going to take you herself, just to prove something to the rest of the squadron, but she's got some nugget to look out for. So I told her I'd do it.' This little revelation left me speechless. Sure, I knew some of the wimps in the squadron were worried about flying with me. But Gator'd always been there to defend me. It'd never come down to the point of having to cram someone else in the backseat, and even if it had, Gator would have made them go. Made them, as one of the senior RIOs in the squadron. He'd personally vouch for the fact that I'd behave.
But like I said ? Gator wasn't here. Only this skinny broad with the green eyes and the mouth.
'So what if I say no?' I asked.
She sighed again. 'Then either the skipper flies with you or you're off the schedule. I don't know whether she'd put up with another temper tantrum from you right now, and I don't want to find out.'
Off the schedule. No way. Not during this strike. This one was personal.
She evidently read minds. 'So you think you can get over your attitude problem long enough to go kill some dirt?'
'Why did you? Agree to it, I mean.' It mattered to me, if not to her.
That cool, long look again. Like seawater, but warmer. 'I've been around you a little more when you weren't playing hotshot,' she said finally. 'I don't think you'll get me killed in the air, and that's really my only criteria for flying with a pilot. If anything, after your little trip downtown, you'll be a little more cautious.'
'Scared, you mean.'
This time she laughed. 'Oh, no, not that. Not in a Tomcat. Bird Dog, listen ? let's come to an understanding. I'll agree that you're the best pilot in the world, absolutely invulnerable in the air.'
'Okay.'
'And you admit that while you're immortal, maybe the guy in the back isn't. So it's not a matter of whether or not you're afraid, okay? It's a matter of having to fly with us lesser beings, ones that get killed when the aircraft is hit. That suit you?'
Oddly enough, it did.
'Let's go check out a bird and preflight,' I said finally. 'I got a mission to fly.'
'We do, amigo. Learn the word ? we.'
I signed our bird out from Maintenance, and Julie followed me up to the flight deck. The noise was overwhelming ? engines turning, aircraft taxiing, all under the watchful eyes of the yellow shirts and the flight deck handler.
We preflighted, doing together the things I would normally have relied on Gator to do alone, the brown- shirted plane captain tagging along with us. He had a worried look on his face. Evidently the RIOs weren't the only ones worried about my flying.
'I'll bring it back,' I told the youngster. 'In one piece.'
He nodded doubtfully. 'Good hunting, sir.' We climbed up into our seats, and he helped us secure the ejection harness. The whole routine had a new significance to me now that I'd had to trust my ass to one.
More checklist, then finally we were ready. I kicked over the engines, immediately relaxing as I heard their pure, throaty growl. The noise enveloped me, holding me safe in the middle, protecting me against anything bad. I felt safe. 'You ready?' I asked over the ICS.
'Ready,' she said shortly.
Okay, so she wasn't a talkative one. I'd already figured that part out from remembering her at War College.
I taxied slowly across the deck, following the yellow shirt's signals. We were a little slow off the spot, delayed by that touching little heart-to-heart in the riggers' shop. Women ? just what had she accomplished with all that crap? Why do they always want to talk? Okay, so maybe I'd started it by not wanting to fly with her, but still…
The rest of our flight was already off the deck, forming UP and cutting slow patterns in the air while they waited on me and a straggler still sitting on the waist cat. Some mechanical problem. Green shirts, the enlisted technicians who know how the guts of this beast work, were popping open panels and swarming all over the bird.
We rolled slowly past them. They scattered, evidently flushed off the deck by the Air Boss, and then we had a green deck.
I cycled the control surfaces one last time for the catapult officer. The retaining pin that anchored my nose wheel to the catapult shuttle was already in place. I got the full-power signal, and slammed the throttles forward into full military power. One last check of the control surfaces, then the yellow shirt popped off a sharp, theatrical salute at me. I returned it. I owned the aircraft now, and anything that went wrong was my complete responsibility.
A few seconds later, that sudden jolt that says the shuttle was moving. Then that sickening, exhilarating buildup of speed, blasting us forward to 140 knots in just over that many feet. Just barely enough airspeed to get airborne, with more thrust than lift.
The first seconds off the cat are critical. You're in free fall for a moment, waiting for the aircraft to decide to fly. When the seas are rough, the waves are so close you think you'll never get airborne.
But you do. Unless you have a soft cat, a launch with insufficient airspeed, a Tomcat on afterburners has enough forward speed to stay up. But you always hold your breath a little, waiting for that to happen.
'Yee-haw!' A cheer from the backseat came over the ICS. It startled me. I'd heard other pilots say that their RIOs enjoyed the cat shot ? I love 'em myself ? but Gator always hated them. In landings, he was steadier than I was, but something about the launch just got to him. I'd hear him quit breathing, then give a long gasp after we were airborne for sure.
'Nice to have an appreciative audience,' I said. Maybe this flight wasn't going to be as bad as I'd thought.
We climbed quickly, joined on the rest of the formation, and slid into position. We were flying in the last spot in the V, to lead's right. I glanced over at the other side of the formation and saw the distinctive face of Skeeter Harmon. He shot me a short, quick wave, then got back to the business of flying welded wing.
There were nine of us in the wing, all Tomcats fully loaded with ground-attack weapons and two little Sidewinders on wing tips. We were surrounded by Hornets with full anti-air loads, flying in loose-deuce pairs and covering all angles of approach. The Hornets, thirsty little bastards that they are, had launched first so they'd have time to hit the tanker before the real firepower showed up. There wasn't a lot of chatter on tactical, although I heard Thor's distinctive drawl rap out the punch line to a rude joke.
Hornets versus Tomcats. It was a good mix this time. I'd rather fly anti-air than ground-attack roles, but those damned little lawn darts were better at maneuvering against the MiGs. And we could carry a lot more firepower to the dirt than they could. I just didn't want them to get too used to it.
We were only fifty miles off the coast, well within Vietnam's coastal radar range, so it wasn't like this was going to be a complete surprise. They must have been on some sort of alert schedule. As soon as we reached the twenty-mile point, they were coming out to meet us.
Four pairs of Hornets peeled off to deal with the first wave. It chapped my butt to continue on inbound and let somebody else fight the air war, but there it was. You fly the mission you draw. Safe ? or relatively so ? inside a cocoon of Hornets, I pressed on and got to watch the air battle from the outside.
Ten MiG-29s against eight Hornets. Hardly seemed like a fair fight, our Hornets were so quick. They were fighting in the loose-deuce formation, one guy high covering the one down below fighting. The high position had the advantage of being able to trade altitude for speed almost instantaneously, and of having a little longer radar range.
The first MiG made an immediate, deadly mistake. He took on our lead Hornet without waiting for backup. Think of it as a cop walking into a bad neighborhood late at night alone. He should have known better. The pilot in the high slot nailed him with a Phoenix while the MiG was boring in, fixated on that lonely little Hornet out in front of the pack.
They started smartening up after that, although I'd wondered that it'd taken them that long to do it. You'd think the first engagement would have taught them better.
Never underestimate the value of training. You fight me way you train, and it was clear that these pilots had been thoroughly brought up in the Ground Control school of air combat. The interceptors on the deck, the GCIs,
