Ashes of Victory

— 5 —

Sitting in the dark at four in the morning, Lieutenant Commander Juan “Ricky” Ricardo suppressed a yawn as he fidgeted in the cockpit of his single-seater F/A-18E. A dim sickle moon cast a soft glow over the crowded, noisy flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, his home for the past six and a half months. Although officially called the “Super Hornet” because of the fighter jet’s evolutionary enhancements over the original Hornet, unofficially the F/A-18E and the “F” two-seater variant were often referred to as the “Rhino” in an effort to aid safe flight ops and avoid confusion in radio calls.

The massive ship gained speed, and its captain gave the order to turn into the strong wind. Twenty-foot swells crashed against the hull in explosions of white foam and mist that matched the rage Ricardo felt about the tragic attack on Truman. And, as a result, Vinson had been extended on station indefinitely, meaning Ricardo would once again miss his fiancée’s birthday, not to mention the one-year anniversary of their engagement.

He closed his eyes. His last video call with Jessie had not gone well. She wanted to set a date for their wedding and he couldn’t commit to one.

Ricardo sighed, remembering the JFK quote in his father’s study back in San Diego that had started him down this long and winding road: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

And how’s that been working out for you?

The naval aviator tried to put Jessie out of his mind for now as he watched yellow-shirted aircraft directors orchestrating the flow of armed planes to the catapults.

With her aircraft parked only inches apart, Vinson’s pilots and flight-deck crews in their varying colored jerseys worked in close harmony, putting on a ballet of high-tech weaponry. Red jerseys for ordnancemen, repair parties, and firefighters. Blue for aircraft handlers. Yellow for catapult officers and flight-deck directors. Brown for plane captains. Purple for anyone handling fueling of jets between missions. And finally, white for LSOs — landing safety officers — safety personnel, and sighting teams, also known as “Snoopy” or “Big Eyes” teams.

Swirls of steam rose from the two bow catapults, mixing with the helmeted men and women shifting about the deck and bringing an ethereal feel to the early-morning launch.

The flight leader of two Super Hornet strike fighters from the “World Famous Golden Dragons” Strike Fighter Squadron 192, (VFA-192), Ricardo had earned his place in the cockpit and squadron through hard work and proving himself a superior pilot. He had been an instructor pilot in the F/A-18E fleet replacement squadron before joining Carrier Air Wing 2 (CVW-2).

The carrier housed four strike fighter squadrons from CVW-2. Along with the Dragons’ twelve Super Hornets, it had twelve more belonging to the “Bounty Hunters” (VFA-2) and another dozen from the “Kestrels” (VFA-137), plus the Hornets from the “Blue Blasters” (VFA-34). At a price tag of almost one hundred million dollars each, plus all of the other support aircraft and helicopters, the aircraft of CVW-2 cost as much as the carrier itself.

Ricardo’s wingman in the two-plane section was Lieutenant Amanda “Diamond” Diamante. The daughter of an Iowa farmer, she had attended Annapolis and had become a first-generation aircraft carrier fighter pilot.

Being minorities in an otherwise Caucasian, male-dominated navy fighter squadron, she and Ricardo had formed a close bond. He had been one of her instructors when she’d attended Super Hornet transition training and knew she had the unique skills and natural instincts of an aerial warrior. Ricardo was on his third deployment with Vinson, and in addition to being proficient with the F/A-18E, he had undergone the transition training for the F-35C Lightning, the navy’s brand-new generation of stealth multi-role fighters. Amanda was on her second deployment and had also gone through the Lightning transition training at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.

Ricardo sighed. Compared to the Lightning, his F/A-18E was starting to look dated, but the navy had been slow in getting the F-35C deployed across all carrier operations. And that meant that Ricardo, as well as Amanda and other F-35C-certified pilots had to remain flying Super Hornets for the time being.

He took a deep breath and cleared his mind, focusing on his predawn mission to hit a target in Iran. With the ability to switch instantly from ground attack to air combat, the F/A-18E could conduct unescorted strikes against heavily defended targets.

The list of targets for CVW-2 were spread across Iran and multiple locations in Afghanistan, along its border with Pakistan — all part of President Macklin’s strategy to erase terrorist enclaves from the region.

And the sooner we do that, the sooner I can get my ass home to Jessie.

When the plane captain gave them the signal, Ricardo and Amanda taxied to the starboard and port bow catapults respectively, also known as Cat I and Cat II. He grinned under his oxygen mask, recalling the message the flight-deck crew had written on the tips of his bombs with black markers: FROM NS NORFOLK WITH LOVE.

His nosewheel launch bar securely in the catapult shuttle and all systems appearing to be “in the green,” Ricardo received the signal to increase power from the yellow-jersey flight director. He moved the two throttles to military setting, waited the requisite five seconds to check his flight controls for continuity, scanned the engine instruments and warning lights a final time, took a deep breath of cool oxygen, and flicked on the master switch for his external lights. That was the signal to the catapult officer that Ricardo and his jet were ready to be blasted into the dark void off the bow.

Ricardo then shifted his eyes to the catwalk, where the cat officer started his routine, looking left, then right.

Seconds later, when the catapult fired, Ricardo staged the blowers — meaning he selected afterburner on both engines. The punishing g-forces pinned him to his ejection seat as the Super Hornet accelerated from zero to 150 knots, or 172 miles per hour, in two seconds. He deselected burner shortly after the end of the catapult stroke, when he was confident he had a positive rate of climb above the black ocean, and then he raised his gear.

Amanda “Diamond” Diamante’s plane waited in Cat II. She had already gone over her checklist and made several mental notes, focusing on every detail of the carefully planned, low-level, night-attack flight, wanting this mission to be flawless.

She rocketed down the catapult track ten seconds after Ricardo. With no discernible horizon during the launch sequence, she kept her eyes focused on the flight instruments until she had a positive rate of climb. Following the departure route, she soon rendezvoused with her flight leader, settling at a relaxed one hundred yards abeam.

As her adrenaline began to ebb, the naval aviator took a moment to take in the spectacular star-filled sky.

The sight made her think of her many nights staring at a similar sky while growing up in Iowa. Her parents and brothers thought she was insane for considering anything other than tending their two hundred acres of corn in the northern part of the state. And for a while, Amanda had given the farming thing a good try, until the day she caught a ride in the neighbor’s Thrush 510G, a two-seater crop duster. The retired navy pilot, Commander Kirk Ripley, had flown the venerable A-6 Intruder in the skies over Vietnam, and he had taken the seventeen-year-old on an unforgettable “aerial application” trip over a cornfield that had forever changed her life.

Amanda had been taken aback by Ripley’s skills, easing over acre after acre of farmland with grace. When she had asked how he could be so damn calm skimming oceans of corn at dizzying speed with only a few feet of clearance, Ripley had said that when he sprayed the corn, it didn’t shoot back. Later, though, he admitted that throughout his career in aviation — military and civilian — it was the fear of dying that always kept him alert. And that’s when Amanda had first heard the famous quote from General George S. Patton: Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

And the rest is history, she thought, recalling the secret flight lessons that followed, and then her even more secretive application to Annapolis to attend—

“Three hundred miles from shore, Diamond. Radio silence,” Ricardo said.

Amanda snapped out of her reverie and clicked her mic twice to acknowledge before blinking away the past and mentally running though the plan of attack another half dozen times.

The immense flight deck of USS Carl Vinson looked nearly empty after the last two F/A-18E Super Hornet strike fighters from the “Bounty Hunters” were launched. Two spare F/A-18C Hornets from the “Blue Blasters” were armed and idling on deck in “Alert Five” status. If any of the fighters had a problem and turned back, the Alert Five pilots had briefed to take off as a team.

High above the nuclear-powered flattop, a division of four Hornets flew combat air patrol. Between the carrier and the most likely direction of enemy attack, two sections of two F/A-18Es flew barrier combat air patrol (BARCAP). Four Boeing KC-135R Stratotankers from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing garrisoned at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, and stationed at al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar, circled nearby to supply the thirsty fighters to their targets and on their return route.

The Vinson’s strike group turned to steam downwind twenty-three miles. The V-2 Division Arresting Gear crew would prepare to recover the first event of the strike force. At the bow of the ship, the V-2 Division Catapult crews got ready for the next launch cycle.

In the Mediterranean, the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group would concentrate on targets in Syria and Jordan. Other US warships and attack submarines in the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Mediterranean Sea were launching Tomahawks at targets in the Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. And on top of that, the Air Force had its own set of assets, primarily B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers, plus F-22 Raptors and A-10 Warthogs, unleashing their own wave of violence on insurgents along the border of Syria and Iraq.

The message from President Macklin had been crystal clear: he would keep turning up the heat until he’d made it far too costly for host nations to sponsor terrorist groups.