Chain of Command

13

I went down to Medical to see how Gator was doing, but the corpsmen wouldn't even let me in the door until I'd had a shower. They damned near grabbed me and pitched me in one right there, claiming I posed a health hazard to the entire ship. I gave up trying to get in and went back to my stateroom to hunt down a clean pair of skivvies. My roommate was blessedly absent ― I didn't feel like doing any explaining. Not after the last week.

I showered quickly, soaping up and washing down three times before I finally felt clean. I scratched my head, wondering if anything had taken root in it during my time in the jungle.

I was getting sleepy now that I was clean, but there was one last task I had to perform. Donning clean skivvies and a flight suit, as well as the blessed comfort of clean socks, I headed back down to Medical. The corpsman almost didn't recognize me. He did a double take, then motioned me into the ward.

"How is he?" I asked.

The corpsman nodded with satisfaction. "He's gonna be just fine, sir. We shot him full of antibiotics and put him to bed. He's out cold now." He gave me an assessing glance. "Something you ought to consider doing yourself."

"I want to see him," I said, ignoring the suggestion that was sounding better and better each minute. "Just for a minute."

The corpsman led me over to the private curtained-off area where Gator was. He had some color back in his face, and he looked better now that he was clean. His shoulder and knee had been bandaged, and I saw an IV line running into his right arm. I patted him on the arm and said, "You're gonna be fine, buddy. These guys are doing a good job. You're gonna be just fine."

As I left, I cornered the first doctor I saw and asked, "How about the knee? Is he going to be able to fly again?"

The doctor's face was guarded. "It's too soon to tell," he finally admitted. He glanced back at the curtain, as though making sure Gator couldn't hear. "There's been a lot of damage. He'll need surgery, obviously. After that, we'll see how it goes."

"He can't fly now, though, right?" I asked. It was a very, very stupid question, given the condition of his knee as I'd last seen it. Another indication that I badly needed sleep and food, not necessarily in that order.

The doctor's face was worried as well. He took me by the arm, leading me over to another treatment cubicle. "You're cleaned up, right?" he asked. "Here, let me check you over."

"No, I just came down to see how Gator was doing," I protested. "I'm fine."

The doctor shook his head. "I doubt it. Let me have a look at you. I'll make it an order, if I have to."

Silently, I shrugged out of my flight suit and stood there in clean skivvies and socks. "On the examining table," the doctor ordered. "On your back."

I shrugged and complied. Might as well get it over with. Then I could get back to my rack.

The doctor ran his hands over me, asked a few questions about how I felt and when I'd last eaten, then finally nodded. "You're exhausted, of course," he said. "When were you planning on getting some sleep?"

"In a little while," I said. I had been planning on going straight back to my stateroom, but I hated being pushed around by doctors. They seemed to think they had absolute control over everyone's life, and I wasn't about to let him tell me I needed some sleep.

"I see." The doctor looked thoughtful. "Well, I want to run a few lab tests ― no, no, I insist. No telling what sort of nasty blood toxins you could have picked up down there." He disappeared out of the treatment cubicle for a moment, then returned with a syringe and a couple of vials. "Make a fist," he ordered.

I started to comply, then felt a sudden sting in my upper arm. I turned my head to look at him. "Hey! Since when do you take blood out of my shoulder?"

The doctor smiled gently. "Ever since I want to make sure a hardheaded pilot gets some sleep before he becomes a danger to himself. Consider yourself grounded for two days ― longer, if you don't do what I tell you to do."

The world was fading around me, becoming gray and fuzzy. I protested, I tried to struggle up into a sitting position, but there was no use fighting it. Whatever he jabbed into my shoulder was a lot stronger than I was at that point.

I was still trying to climb off the bed and onto my feet when darkness washed over me completely. I went down hard for the count.

This time, the admiral briefed us himself. That wasn't usually done. Under normal circumstances, you get jammed into the CVIC briefing room with the other guys flying the same mission and you get your data dump from Lab Rat or one of his assistants. But it wasn't every day that we went to war without a full-scale buildup, Air Force tanker support and careful testing of the civilian waters by the politicians back home.

Or that we faced a target that scared the shit out of all of us.

Nuclear weapons take warfare to a whole new level of pucker factor. With a target like this, ringed with SAM sites and shoulder-mounted Stingers, you got to take life seriously. The admiral knew that ― down deep, he was still one of us, even though he was carrying around a hell of a lot of metal on his collars. He wouldn't be in the air with us ― at least not physically. But from what I'd seen of the J-TARPS, it was the next best thing to being there.

I expected him to start off with a pep talk. You know, the God-and-country routine.

Bastard surprised me again. I hate it when that happens.

The lights dimmed and a photo flashed up on the wall. I sucked in a hard breath. Not something tactical, a copy of the flight plan, or much of anything else relevant to the mission. No, this one was a beauty.

It was an aerial view. Burnt jungle surrounded by those overwhelming patches of green wilderness. Smoke still curled up from some areas. Down in the lower left-hand corner, a picture of raw dirt. An excavation, maybe. It looked like…

"No," I said involuntarily. "It can't be."

Even in the dim light, the admiral's eyes seemed to find me. I was staring, feeling like a catfish that someone had started gutting, trying to breathe but feeling panicky.

"Next slide," the admiral said as if he was briefing us on the weather.

A closer view now. I could see figures running away from the excavation, heading toward the sheltering jungle.

Running might have been too strong a word for what we had been doing right then. I had Gator half over one shoulder, and was stumbling along trying to keep him off the ground and moving in the right direction. I remembered the fear, the feeling of dirt caving in on me, the sheer impossibility of thinking about anything else except being out of the cave we'd almost died in.

"You saw us," I said, the words spilling out barely under control. "My God, you saw us!"

The admiral nodded. "We didn't know who it was at first. Took a while to get the picture cleaned up enough to make out the details. Once we did, we realized it could be our people. By then, you and Gator had disappeared."

I slumped back down in my chair, reliving the nightmare. A hand clamped down on my arm, startling me. "Get over it." Two calm, green eyes looked back at me. "You weren't there."

"You aren't there. So listen up and pay attention to what you can do something about."

Lieutenant Commander Julie Karnes ― the name to match the face popped into my mind. "What the hell are you doing here?" I demanded.

"Paying attention to the brief. Like you ought to be doing," she answered, no more perturbed than a turtle sunning on a rock.

It wasn't an answer, but it was a good suggestion. I turned back to the screen, and tried to concentrate on what the admiral was saying.

"You've all already heard the stories," Admiral Wayne said. "About Bird Dog and Gator. This is where it happened. Next slide, please."

Some damned photo dog had been lying in wait for us when we'd come off that helo from being in country. He must have been using a zoom lens, because what we saw now was a full-face close-up of the three of us straggling off the SAR helo. Hell, I damned near didn't recognize myself, as battered and filthy as I was in that picture.

"I could tell you how important this target is," the admiral continued. "But you already know that. I could tell you what the effects will be if we don't take it out now, that we'll be seeing these weapons everywhere in the world in the next year if we don't stop it now. And I could tell you the dirtiest secret of all ― that the government wants us to take care of this problem now. Quietly, efficiently, and now. There's no time for foreign policy consultations, for diplomatic dickering and horse trading. And all of that would be true."

He paused for a moment, and I saw him look around the room to take the measure of each one of us. "True, and wouldn't make a whole lot of difference. Not to you right now. Hell, not even to me, for that matter. But what I do care about is my people. And those bastards tried to kill some of them. Succeeded, in a couple of cases. Shot down the E-2, the helo, and a couple of fighters. As nasty as that was, it's sort of one of the risks of military life. You hate it, but it's there."

"But this" ― Admiral Wayne pointed at the photo ― "is something different. Something more brutal than anything we can conceive. Torture, pain, and trying to bury a pilot and his RIO alive. Now that is something to get pissed about. You got any questions about it, you just take a good look at Bird Dog. Or go down to sick bay and see Gator. Remember what happened to them and watch out for the SAM sites. Remember, and make them pay."

With that, the admiral stepped away from the briefing podium and handed the slide clicker over to Lab Rat. Lab Rat flashed up a smaller-scale aerial photo that encompassed the entire missions area. The burnt jungle was still visible, but took up less of the picture now.

Julie Karnes. Now just what the hell was she doing on Jefferson?

Back a couple of years ago, I'd spent a year at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. It was the first time I'd had shore duty since my earliest days of pilot training, and I'd run amok.

Well, sort of amok. At least until I'd met Callie Lazier, a surface warfare officer in my class. I'd fallen for her hard ― hell, I'd even proposed. What's worse, she'd accepted.

Then, when the opportunity came up to scoot back out to Jefferson to do a little flying during a real crisis, it had all fallen apart. Callie was pissed at me for going. Started making this mumbo-jumbo touchy-feely crap about fear of commitment and all that stuff.

I'd pointed out that she knew I was a pilot when she got hooked up with me. Just where the hell did she think I would be after War College?

She hadn't understood ― but then, those surface pukes never do. It's a whole different Navy, steaming around at the hair-raising speeds of thirty knots.

We'd made up for a while, but it hadn't lasted. She'd Dear-John'd me on the next cruise.

And Julie Karnes ― she'd been Callie's roommate through it all. I knew her, of course, but not well. She was an F-14 RIO, which should have given us a lot in common. Except there were other things I was interested in when I was over at their place, things that had nothing to do with radar, ESM, or even flying.

Plus, I'd gotten the feeling she didn't like me too much. I'd figured it was because I took off to go fly missions over Cuba while I was supposed to be making like a student and keeping good ol' Callie happy. Those women ― they stick together.

So aside from Callie, the last person I really wanted to run into was Julie Karnes.

The female in question shot me another nasty look, as if she knew I wasn't paying attention. I looked back up at the front of the room.

Lab Rat was running through the estimated SAM locations, warning us in every other sentence that the damn things were mobile and could be anywhere. Our ingress and egress routes were planned to avoid their detection envelopes, but there he went again. "They could be anywhere, people. And the range is-"

I tuned it out, and concentrated on the routes inked out in blue marker on the screen, picking out landmarks and drop points.

"Is he boring you?" The whisper was so quiet I almost missed it.

"Gator will ― I mean, my RIO will take care of it," I whispered back, annoyed at her for breaking my concentration.

That cool green stare again, clearly pissed now. Like I cared.

But I wasn't flying with Gator this time, was I? What about the RIO I would get? Would he be as good as Gator? I'd been spoiled a little by flying with a solid, experienced backseater for so long. Hell, by all rights, I should have had a nugget in the backseat ― the Skipper tries to put a seasoned guy with a newbie to increase the chances of survival. It was just that a lot of people didn't want to fly with me. I had no idea why.

So maybe I would have to worry about SAM site planning, more than I would have before. Shit ― — all I wanted to do was fly.

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't," she replied. "There're two of us up there." She said the words casually, like it was no big deal.

"I pity your pilot," I answered.

I swear to God, she smiled. I hadn't meant it as a joke.

"So, now I know two things about you that Callie never told me. First, you don't pay attention at briefings. And second ― you don't read the flight schedule."

She was right about the last one. I hadn't wanted to see it, to see my name on there without Gator's right below. But I had this weird sinking feeling that I was missing the point.

Now she was turned full-face to me, paying as little attention to the brief as I was. "You didn't read it, did you." A statement, not a question. "You're flying with me, Bird Dog. And I swear to God, you're leaving command-eject selected."

We trooped out of the ready room and headed for the paraloft to pick up our gear. Karnes was already carrying her brain bucket and knee pad, but I wasn't suited up yet.

"This isn't a good idea," I said as we let the parariggers help us adjust our ejection harnesses. Mine was brand new ― the last one had already done what it was supposed to. "Flying together, I mean."

"Why not?" she asked, reaching down to adjust her crotch straps. I watched, still slightly bewildered at the machinations women go through with them. Like what do they have to adjust has always been my question. "Not that I'm disagreeing with you," she continued, evidently satisfied with the fit.

"Because! We've never flown together. I don't think hostile SAM country is a good place to begin our relation ship."

"Ah. So unless it's a nice peacetime hop ― or War College ― you don't believe in new relationships. Is that it?"

"That's not it, and if you were any kind of a RIO, you'd agree with me," I shot back. There was something in that oh-so-cool voice that really pissed me off.

Truth be said, the last crack was below the belt. And not true. The Tomcat community isn't all that big, and the chicks had gotten a lot of attention from the press and from everyone else. I knew what kind of aviators they were, more from their squadron mates than from the media, and I knew more about them than I would have known about a guy in the same position.

An oddly erotic memory of Callie popped into mind at that word ― position. Ah, the things we'd tried…

I shoved the thought away. You don't let stuff like that distract you when you're getting ready to fly a combat mission.

The point of the whole matter was that everything I'd heard about Julie Karnes was good. Not too good to be true, not that sort of bullshit. The golden-halo effect, you can pick it out after a while in the canoe club. No, it all had the ring of an honest assessment. So maybe she didn't have as much time in an ejection seat as Gator did, but she was supposed to be a damned competent RIO.

"I am a kind of RIO. But I'm not Gator's kind." She turned around to face me, hands on hips, her helmet dangling from one hand. "I gave up babysitting after junior high school. It didn't pay enough. It doesn't now either. So get this concept through that overblown ego of yours, amigo. We go out there as a team, not as hotshot young pilot with Daddy in the backseat. You have a problem with that concept, you speak up."

"I have a problem with your attitude, lady."

She sighed, then put her helmet down on the long table that the riggers use for packing parachutes. "Then try to find someone else who's willing to fly with you, Bird Dog."

The tone set me back. I'd expected her to be pissed, to come back with some smart-ass remark. Instead, the voice she'd used was gentle, almost kind.

"You won't, you know," she said, turning her back slightly to me as she fussed with the crotch strap again. Damn, I wished she'd stop that. "Everyone in the squadron knows you. Knows how you are. And after this last stunt, where Gator finally had to put your ass in the drink to put out the flames, they're all spooked."

"They are not."

"They are too." She shot me a look of pure exasperation. "Go ask your skipper if you don't believe me. I talked with her when I checked in ― they stashed me with VF-95 since I was only on board flying in with Admiral 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, were trying to run the air battle, in typical Soviet fashion. It doesn't work against a flexible, fluid force like a Hornet pack.

I saw one Vietnamese missile brush by a Hornet with what looked like only inches to spare. The Hornet driver jinked, and flew ight into the second missile. Not a direct hit ― the missile clipped the tail assembly. A huge, bright chunk of Hornet took off for the ocean, and the rest of the aircraft flew by sheer momentum alone before starting spiraling toward the water. Just as the spin went flat and deadly, a chute popped out of the canopy. I flashed on that, remembering how it'd been.

Still we pressed on, leaving the first waves battling behind us. The MiGs just couldn't get around those Hornets at us, the fat, high-value targets they were after.

More MiGs, more Hornet interceptors. Another wave peeled off to take on the new flight.

"How're they doing back there?" I asked over ICS.

"Looks good ― only two MiGs left in the first wave, four in the second. Those Hornets are kicking some ass." Karnes sounded cheerful.

"Yeah, well, we're the ones who'll have to live with the bragging when we get back," I grumbled. "Hate landing with 'Winders on the wing."

"Five minutes to feet dry," she answered, reminding me that we weren't all that far from starting our bombing run.

I kept track of the air battle over tactical, listening to the Fox calls and yells. A few of my Hornet brethren and sistren got into trouble. I heard another call of "I got a chute," a pilot reporting seeing another one punch out successfully, and the gleeful cry of the woman that took that particular MiG out of play forever.

"Feeeeeet dry," Karnes sang out. The further we got into the mission, the more cheerful she sounded. I started to wonder why I ever thought she seemed such a straitlaced little priss.

Jungle beneath us now, smooth and unscarred miles of trees and foliage. Pines on the higher slopes, the vegetation still thick and luxurious. Way far to the north, smog and smoke clotted the horizon, indications of city life. Not our problem. We were headed deep into the jungle to the secret facility hidden there. It could hide too much.

"SAMs," Karnes said, interrupting the mood I'd been drifting into, watching the jungle and remembering. "Search mode now ― no indication it's got us."

"Won't be long, though." The RIO's counter-ESM gear could detect hostile emissions long before the bad guys could see us. One of the standard problems of any piece of gear that spits out energy into the air is that it's detectable long before it's useful. "We're not doing much to avoid detection, unless you've got a cloaking device installed back there that I don't know about."

"'Fraid not. Just the Prowlers."

The EA6-B Prowlers were tucked in just below us, under both our limited anti-air capability and that of our remaining Hornets. They were equipped with HARM missiles and a variety of jamming gear. We were about to play a delicate game of timing with the bad boys on the ground.

As soon as we started jamming, they'd know we were inbound. Their radar screen would turn into broad spikes and circles of noise, overloaded by the massive amounts of electromagnetic energy the Prowlers would be putting out. The trick was to get the HARM missiles off the rails at the antennae before we were actually detected, let them do their work, then jam the hell out of the remaining antennae. And it all had to happen before they knew we were inbound, which should be- "They got us," Karnes announced. "Snoopy's got them too. Solid lock ― they're going to targeting mode, Bird Dog," she warned.

No noise, just bright light streaking away from below me as the Prowlers shot their load. Too late? Maybe ― if the Vietnamese detected the missiles inbound, they'd shut down all electromagnetic radiation. That tactic had worked well on older HARM missiles, which had to hold the radiating source all the way into impact point.

Not so with the newer variants. They could lock on and hold the position in their tiny little computer brains long enough to blow the shit out of a recently shut-down antenna. But not while the Prowler was jamming ― that was the tricky part.

Of course, they already knew in a general sense that we were coming in. Their fighters would have been relaying position reports back to their GCIs. But like they say ― the devil's in the details. Where and when we'd be going feet dry and where we'd go after that were still up for grabs.

"Vampires inbound!" The E-2 Hawkeye removed all doubt from my military mind. The SAM sites had us ― and cold.

Two Hornets vectored off to intercept, dropping our escort service down to six. What the hell was the point of having them fly CAP if they weren't going to stick around?

The high-spot Hornet held back a bit, waiting for his wingman to take the first shot. He'd retain a measure of altitude and maneuverability, waiting for a second shot if the first Hornet missed.

"Two more. Bird Dog, three missiles inbound." Karnes was starting to sound a little shaken now.

"Slow movers, honey," I said reassuringly. "Don't forget ― they're strictly subsonic. I have to, I can outrun them."

"I know that."

"I know you do," I said, still trying for the cool and casual tone. "I'm just talking aloud to convince myself. Just think about how bad it's going to be when we get back to the boat, listening to those Hornet drivers boast. First thing you know, they'll be claiming there were thirty missiles instead of three and that they took them all out with guns."

Shit, I was starting to sound like Gator. How many times had he pulled that routine on me, trying to get me to settle down and fly the aircraft? He'd talk, just as if we were out on a normal training hopping, making these little observations about how slow the missile was, how good a shot I was, anything he could think of to keep me focused and confident. And here I was doing the same thing to a RIO.

Still, everything I said was true. Just like Gator would have done it. The missiles were a lot slower than we were, and the Hornet pilots would be boasting.

"Yeah." Silence from the backseat after that.

I let her think about it for a while, then asked, "So, you know any good jokes? I'm getting bored up here, and Gator always had a couple of new ones."

"Bored?"

"Yeah, bored. How do you feel about aerobatics?"

"Love 'em."

Another surprise. Gator always puked unless I gave him plenty of warning. "Maybe on the way back then."

"Sure."

A small puff of smoke off on the horizon, then another. Some too cool, too casual boasting from the Hornet pilot ― two missiles scratched.

"Where's the other one?" I asked, just to keep her head in the game.

"Still inbound ― five miles and closing." Good, she sounded steady and cool like she ought to. Maybe I'd learned something from Gator after all.

"High guy will get him," I said. I made sure my position in formation was solid, then turned my head to the right to watch.

I could see it now, arcing up and spewing a trail of white smoke behind it. I hoped Karnes wasn't looking at it. Every time I see one, I get this cold crawling in the pit of my belly. She sounded okay now, but I didn't want to be nursing her back to health every five minutes. "Any other contacts in the area? How long till IP?"

She spouted off the answers, and I knew from the sounds of her voice that her head was buried in the black plastic hood fitted around her radar scope. It keeps the sun off the screen, makes for better visibility. "Four minutes ― on profile, on time. Starting descent and approach in two minutes, ten seconds."

"Okay."

While her head was down, I reached up to the switch overhead in front of me and switched us out of command-eject. If she pulled the plug, she'd be the only one going. Not that I didn't trust her, mind you ― I just didn't want her deciding when I ought to depart the aircraft.

The Hornet overhead was moving now, streaking down toward the remaining missile and vectoring off dead on so he could improve the angle on the target. Head-on shots are hard to make ― worse, because of the rate of closures, you might not have time to get a second shot off. He turned back in toward it, giving me a classic quarter-stern view of him. A nice bird ― if you like Hornets.

Another missile off the rails, then a second one. He was getting a little antsy, just the way I would be if I had missiles inbound on the back of my attack aircraft. Still, he should have waited a little on the second shot, given himself some time to look at it. "Thirty seconds," Karnes announced, her voice still slightly muffled. I knew she could see the Hornet, his missiles, and the incoming SAM playing out on her scope. There, though, it was controllable. Not like having to watch real aircraft and real missiles against the cloudless sky.

I knew it before she did. And before the E-2C and the other Hornets. The geometry was wrong, all wrong. It would be close ― but not close enough.

"Incoming! Break formation!" Even as I started shouting over tactical, I rolled the Tomcat into a tight right turn, barrel-looping down toward the water. I flashed by the two Prowlers, saw the startled look as the guy in the right-hand seat turned toward me, heard the beginning of a curse over tactical.

Karnes yelped once, then settled down into feeding me a steady stream of information. "Okay, Okay, there's no lock, no lock… still heading for the formation… Hornet's taking another shot."

What the hell was wrong with them? Gaggled up together there, they were a missile sump. I stared up at the formation as it flashed by, passed out of view, then steadied up overhead as I pulled out of the dive.

Finally, they were starting to react. Skeeter was ahead of the rest of them, peeling out of formation in a hard left break, electing for a straight dive for the deck instead of a rolling descent. The Prowlers were accelerating and descending as well, on a straight line that pulled out ahead of the formation. One went high once they steadied up, the other low.

The rest of the airspace was cluttered with Hornets and Tomcats, some breaking high, others opting for distance. Like I said, we could outrun this sucker only if we tried to. It was a mile away now, streaking toward the last spot its radar had spotted large patches of metal in the sky. It wavered a little, like a hunting dog scenting the air, then picked out one of the Prowlers. They were slower than we were ― I wasn't so certain about their chances.

"You've got the angle," Karnes announced, breaking her normal monotone for an insistent suggestion. "Bird Dog, you're the only one within range who's out of their evasive maneuvers."

"All I've got is Sidewinders. IR-seeking."

"It's hot ― look at that exhaust. The 'Winder will see it."

I toggled one on, and sure enough got the signal. A signal ― who could be certain in the mass of metal and aircraft all going in different directions just then.

"There's a Prowler on the same bearing," I said, "I can't…"

"You have to. He hasn't got the speed."

"If I miss, the Sidewinder will get the Prowler."

"Then don't miss. You're the only chance he's got."

She was right. I knew it the moment she spoke.

I selected the Sidewinder, waited for the growl, then toggled it off. "Break down and right, Prowler," I shouted over tactical as the missile leaped off my wing tip.

The Prowler was listening and paying attention. It broke hard, straining the ancient airframe past any G-tolerance ever built into it. Too close, too close.

For one second, I was certain I'd missed.

I hadn't. The Sidewinder caught the SAM at an angle on the tail and sent both of them tumbling end-over-end through the air. Something hit, something cooked off ― a brilliant fireball erupted where the second before there'd been flashing metal and sun.

"Thanks, Bird Dog." Jake "Snake" Allen, the Prowler pilot, sounded like he meant it.

"Got one left ― you stick close on me, Jake. I'll take care of YOU."

We formed back up loosely, more loosely now. We were on final approach to the drop point. There was every reason in the world to abort the mission. We'd just screwed up every detail of the carefully planned bombing run, the precision timing between our aircraft, the spacing, everything. But no one said a word. We were there to put metal on target, and that's exactly what was going to happen.

Back before global positioning systems, before precision avionics and high-tech black boxes, aircraft dropped ground ordnance. They did it the old-fashioned way, with eyeballs and sheer judgment. We still practice it some, but not as much as we should. Not as much as we were going to right now.

"Looking good, Bird Dog. Twenty seconds out ― ease back off Runner now, you're crowding up his tailpipe. Piece of cake, piece of cake…" Karnes continued as though nothing of importance had happened. Whatever nerves she'd experienced early on were gone now, replaced by precision guidance and ice water in her veins. I listened, double-checked her suggestions against ground truth as I saw it, and slid back slightly to give Runner in the aircraft ahead some clearance.

"Ten seconds… nine… eight… a little to the right, that's good…" she said, continuing the countdown methodically along with a running commentary on our orientation to the IP ― impact point. It was working with us now, smooth and telepathic, almost as solid as with Gator. "You're in, you're in ― now!" I dropped the bombs and peeled off at a right angle, following the egress plan we'd briefed on board the ship.

Karnes pulled herself off the radar and twisted to stare back over her shoulder at the IP while I flew the aircraft.

She didn't need to. I could have told her how they'd hit. A little to the left of center, about thirty feet or so. But well within the lethal circle of death we'd designated on the chart earlier that day.

"Oh, yes," she said quietly. "Yeah, they're dead on."

"Not a little to the right?"

She was silent for a second, then said, "Well, maybe. Still good, though."

"I know."

"How?"

I shrugged. "Don't know. I always do, though. You believe it too, or you wouldn't have told me to shoot that Sidewinder."

"Maybe I do," she said thoughtfully. "It was just something Gator told me ― about your flying map of the earth in the Arctic in zero visibility. I figured if Gator was willing to go up with you, it must be true."

"Just remember ― hell, you admitted it earlier. I'm immortal. The guy in the backseat is the one I have to worry about."

"It's beautiful back there," she continued. I took a quick glance back at her ― she was still craned around in the seat watching the IP. "I can't see anything anymore. Just smoke and flames."

"That's the way we like it."

We had about five seconds of peace and quiet to contemplate the pleasures of a good, hard-hitting bombing run. Then her ESM detector went off.

"Crap. More SAMs." She was back in the hood now. "That Prowler ― where is he?"

"Cut out before we did. You got his squawk?" I suggested, referring to his IFF signal.

"Yeah, I got him. Carrier's keeping him under close control. I think he's out of range of the site now. Uh-oh."

It always worries me when RIOs say that. "Uh-oh what?"

She sighed. "The Hornets ― they took out most of the MiGs, but then they started getting low on fuel. They're cutting out one by one to hit the tanker."

"And the MiGs?" I prompted.

"Headed toward us, but bearing to the north some. I can't tell if they're running an intercept or not. The geometry doesn't work for it, but…"

"But they could if they wanted to," I finished for her. "Wouldn't take a whole lot of fuel, not with us each carrying one or two Sidewinders."

"Yeah. I'm watching them. If they're going to turn into us, it'll have to be ― shit, they just did. Six of them, Bird Dog, about eleven o'clock and high."

I gave the sky a quick once-over and had them. They were there, just barely visible.

"Viper 201, Snoopy. Be advised, six bogies inbound." The E-2C bubba sounded alarmed. He rapped out a quick series of vectors to open the gap between the MiGs and us, then added, "We're buster back into the inner air zone. Say your state?"

I glanced over at the fuel gauge. "Enough for a shot at the deck without tanking. Hold one ― we're vectoring in to provide CAP for you."

"Me too," another voice chimed in on tactical. "We got enough fuel." Skeeter. How did I know he would be in on this? "No, Skeeter," I said firmly. "You go-"

"Not this time, Bird Dog." There was a cold note in my wingman's voice I couldn't quite place. "No, not again."

"Just what the hell does that mean? Skeeter, you get your ass out of here!"

"No way. You think you can shake me off, go ahead and try."

I groaned. "Listen, we're almost back inside the cruiser's missile coverage. It's not like this guy's going to need CAP for long. He'll be back on the deck before you can get over here."

"Nope."

"Umm ― Bird Dog? Two thousand yards back and forty-five degrees down ― it's a little late to be sending him home, don't you think?" Karnes's voice had the first note of amusement I'd heard in it since we'd gotten airborne.

And just why didn't I want Skeeter around? I tried to convince myself that it wasn't necessary, that I could handle taking care of the E-2C by myself.

Sure. Like I did last time, There was a reason we fought in pairs.

Then what was it? I could only think of one possibility, one that pissed me off right down to my boots.

Skeeter was a hell of a stick. So was I. Something about that bothered me.

He didn't have any judgment, no sense of when to call it quits and back off for another shot. I couldn't depend on him the way ― The way Gator depended on me? Look what had happened to my RIO.

"All right," I said finally. "Take high station on me." Two clicks on the circuit acknowledged my order.

Skeeter made a smooth transition to his new station. I reached up and switched the eject-select switch back to command-eject.

The MiGs were definitely inbound now, balls to the walls for us. The Hawkeye was going buster back to the boat, but it was going to be close. "Pull off. Stay between the E-2C and the MiGs," I said.

"Roger."

Now we were orbiting, letting the Hawkeye make his dash back to the boat while we loitered high waiting for the MiGs.

"First Hornet's off the tanker," Karnes reported. "But he's Winchester ― out of weapons."

"Who's got anything left on their wings?" I asked over tactical. A few Hornets answered up. Altogether, we had eight Tomcats with two Sidewinders each, me with one, two Hornets with two Sparrows and two Sidewinders, and three Hornets with one of each. Not a lot of firepower, but it was all we had airborne.

Six MiGs versus fourteen U.S. fighters ― nine Tomcats and five Hornets. Twenty-two Sidewinders and four Sparrows on our side, God knows how many air-to-air missiles on the MiGs. I liked the odds.

"Carrier's launching the reserve Hornets, but it's going to be about ten minutes," I heard over tactical.

"We don't have the time or the space," Karnes said. "It's us, guys."

"More MiGs," the Hawkeye chimed in. "We got them just launching to the north. Getting too hot for us here, shipmates. We're out of here."

"Roger, Snoopy. See you back on the deck. Break ― Viper Flight. There's not going to be an E-2 overhead giving us the big picture," I added. "Wait for them, call out your targets, and kill them. No excuses, no wasted shots. We hold on until the cav arrives, you got it?"

A chorus of clicks on the circuit acknowledged my transmission.

Like I said ― good odds. The MiGs had more missiles, but we had something they didn't have.

Each other.

It didn't take long. Within five minutes, all that was left of the MiGs was smoking craters in the sky and oil and debris floating on the ocean. We were all Winchester and low on fuel. A quick plug and suck at the tanker, and we formed back up in a starboard marshal pattern to wait for our look at the deck.

They were waiting for us just inside the island, crowding around the metal hatch that let out onto the flight deck. I pushed past most of them, too exhausted to pay any attention to them. I just wanted to go pee and get something to drink. Then maybe shoot some pool ― yeah, that'd be good. That's what the carrier needed most of all ― a pool table. Make it mandatory, just like the popcorn machines.

I looked up just as this was all starting to make sense to see Admiral Wayne blocking my way down to the ladder. "Hi," I said, aware that it wasn't probably the most appropriate greeting I could manage to the senior officer on board the ship, but still preoccupied with the desire for a pool table.

The admiral looked at me with an odd expression. "Hi yourself, mister. Medical's looking for you. Want to explain to me how you managed to slip out of there? And what you're doing flying when you're not medically cleared for it?"

"Ummm… not exactly, Admiral."

"To which part?" Now the admiral looked truly disgusted. "Oh, never mind. I should know better by now. But if you're not too busy, would it be too much trouble for you and your RIO to get your butts down to CVIC for a debrief?"

"No, sir." I glanced back, and saw Karnes moving toward me. Odd, I'd never realized she was so short.

"We were just heading down there, Admiral," Karnes said smoothly, sliding in between me and the admiral. "Just on our way, sir."

I nodded, trying to look like that had indeed been my intention. I wondered if Karnes played pool.

We slithered down the ladders and passageways to CVIC, Karnes practically dragging me by the scruff of my neck. "And the next time you get some bright idea about skating out of sick bay without permission to go flying with me," she hissed, giving another jerk on my collar, "I'm going to kick that little stud ass of yours up and down about twenty ladders until you come to your senses."

"It seemed like the right thing to do at the time," I offered, aware that it wasn't much of an excuse.

"You don't think. You fly. Thinking is my job," she answered. "Now, just shut up and let me handle the debrief." I waited until the admiral and Lab Rat left the room. "So how's Callie?"

Karnes looked up at me, grime streaking that pretty little face of hers. "Same bitch as always, Bird Dog. What the hell did you ever see in her anyway? The boobs?"

I felt my jaw drop. "But you two were roommates at War College! I thought ― then what was all that flack about me being a stud?"

Karnes shrugged. "Had nothing to do with what Callie said about you, shipmate. Just a personal assessment."

And I'd thought MiGs were hard to read. This woman had them all beat to hell.

"So maybe when we get back to the States ― or the next liberty port," I started, not sure where I was going with the idea, but getting reeled in as surely as a trout on a fly line.

"When we get back, we're going to dinner," she answered immediately. "And more. Think you're up to it? Or did that MiG shoot down something I didn't see?"

"Oh, I'm up to it," I said, fumbling for answers. "But trust me ― that's the only time you're getting in the front seat. The rest of the time we're out here, you're the guy in back. Got it?"