The Identity Mine

VIII

‘Razor Flight, approach vector, ETA overhead sixty seconds.’

Commander Sandy Vieron kept his gaze fixed on the F–18C Hornet fighter upon which he was formating as the two aircraft descended through broken cumulus cloud that raced past them, the wingtip of his formation leader barely eight feet away. The surface of the vivid blue ocean sparkled beneath them, cloud shadows drifting across it as Sandy changed hands on the control column and without looking pulled a lever that extended the arrestor hook from the stern of his fighter.

Beside him, he saw the lead F–18’s black and white striped hook lower at the same time, a visual signal to the Landing Signal Officer that both aircraft intended to land after their overhead pass.

Bright sunlight flared between the clouds as Sandy switched his hands back to the throttle and stick, shadows flickering across the cockpit in quick succession as Sandy input tiny variations on all of the controls to maintain position in close formation with his leader as they levelled out below the broken cloud base, descending to eight hundred feet above sea level at three hundred fifty knots.

The mission had been an uneventful Combat Air Patrol some two hundred fifty nautical miles to the west of the carrier’s position, close to the border of Iranian airspace. Now, close to bingo fuel status and tired after four hours in the saddle, Sandy was looking forward to some rest and a meal. The sunlight flickering through the canopy lulled his eyes and he felt the warmth from it, so hot and irritating up until now, suddenly cosset him in a blanket of warmth and safety. Sandy smiled beneath the plastic oxygen mask he wore as he held station alongside Razor One and saw their runway appear from the surface of the ocean before them.

The huge nuclear aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was a thin strip of dull metallic gray, her hundred thousand ton steel hull dwarfed by the vast and pristine ocean. The two Hornets were approaching the immense vessel from astern in close formation, and as they passed overhead Razor One called their position.

‘Razor flight overhead for recovery.’

As Sandy held position and the carrier rushed by eight hundred feet below the flight leader’s Hornet suddenly rolled onto its side, displaying to Sandy an oil — streaked belly and combat load of sleek air — to — air missiles and a pair of five hundred pound laser — guided bombs. The fighter pulled away hard, vapor trails spiraling off the wing tips as it broke into the pattern.

Sandy watched the Hornet pull away and then without thinking he rolled and pulled too, G — forces crushing him into his ejection seat as the fighter loaded up into the turn. Sandy blinked, coming awake as though from a dream as he pulled the fighter through the turn and heard his leader report his position, downwind to land.

‘Razor One you’re number one to land, report ball.’

Sandy levelled his Hornet out, now a nautical mile abeam the carrier as he rapidly selected his undercarriage, lowered the flaps and went through the pre — landing checks that he had carried out hundreds of times before, finishing with locking his ejector seat harness. As the G — forces eased he felt the warmth returning, began to smile to himself once more. He looked up through the Hornet’s Heads Up Display, and through the flight information displayed on the glass he saw his flight leader turning onto his final approach.

‘Razor one, you’re at three quarters of a mile, call the ball.’

‘Razor one, ball, clara one decimal eight.’

‘Roger, Razor.’

Sandy listened as he heard the Landing Signal Officer, himself a fighter pilot, take control of the landing phase from the carrier’s tower as the Hornet descended toward the rolling, pitching deck. He smiled as he watched his leader making a perfect approach, reveled in the warmth of his cockpit and fought the urge to sing a song as he flew by unthinking reflex toward the final turning point and eased his Hornet into the base — leg turn, the fighter’s wings rocking on the wind currents and the G — force increasing gently again as he turned.

Hypoxia.

The word leaped into Sandy’s mind and his brain sharpened once more as he glanced at his oxygen indicators. Hypoxia, the result of oxygen starvation to the brain, started with feelings of inexplicable comfort and then euphoria, swiftly followed by unconsciousness, coma and death. Sandy and all military pilots were trained to identify the onset of hypoxia before it became lethal but as he looked at his oxygen indicators he realized that both were in the green, normal flow, plenty of oxygen available. Sandy blinked, confused as he continued his turn and levelled out, his Hornet fighter now just four hundred feet above the ocean and a nautical mile astern the carrier.

‘Razor Two you’re at three quarters of a mile, call the ball.’

Sandy glanced at the ball, a series of lights on the port side of the massive carrier’s deck called a Fresnel lens that indicated how far, if at all, he was high, low or adrift of the optimum glideslope to bring the Hornet slamming down onto the crowded deck and decelerate from one hundred forty knots to a standstill in the space of a hundred feet.

‘Razor Two, roger ball, clara one decimal six.’

Sandy completed his final checks, the ocean sparkling before him and the sunlight flickering through the clouds drifting high above. Fuel checked, harness locked, weapons cold… Sandy’s eyelids drooped even as he heard the LSO’s gentle commands.

‘You’re looking good, a little high, ease off the power…’

Sandy’s head drifted up to look once again through the Heads Up Display, and then his arm moved of its own accord from the throttle to the armament switches on the control panel before him. Sandy flipped the switch’s security cover off and activated the Hornet’s ordnance array as with another switch atop his control column he switched the HUD from landing settings to ground — attack display.

‘Keep it comin’, you’re looking good.’

Sandy moved the control column and rocked the throttles without conscious thought, keeping the Hornet on a near — perfect glideslope designed to ensure that the fighter’s arrestor hook snared the number three wire. Too low, and the aircraft risked smashing into the “fan tail” at the ship’s stern. Too high, and it risked missing all the wires and shooting a “bolter” right off the deck and into the air again.

‘A little high,’ the LSO warned, ‘come off the power.’

Sandy could see his leader’s F–18C taxiing across the deck, its wings folded up to conserve space on a deck crowded with crew and parked aircraft and helicopters, the ship an immense floating city and airport all in one. The movement and the aircraft’s colorful tail markings, denoting the Commander of the Air Group’s personal jet, caught his eye and his gloved hands twitched on the controls.

‘You’re high and wide,’ the LSO called.

Sandy barely heard the LSO as he turned the F–18C Hornet and lined up the aiming reticule in his HUD onto the taxiing aircraft’s gray fuselage. The voice in his ears grew loud and panicked.

‘Razor Two, wave off, wave off, power!!’

Sandy smiled as he moved his thumb across the fire switch and slammed the Hornet’s engines into full afterburner. The fighter lurched forward as flames blazed from its twin exhausts and the aircraft roared overhead the deck, and Sandy chuckled to himself as he squeezed the launch button twice in quick succession.

The Hornet’s fuselage shuddered twice as powerful charges propelled the two five hundred pound incendiary bombs off the inner wing pylons. Sandy pulled back on his control column and reached out to retract the undercarriage and flaps as suddenly the Hornet rocked violently from side to side.

Sandy looked over his shoulder as he rolled to one side in a steep climbing turn and saw his bombs impact the carrier’s deck with twin blossoming fireballs that raked across the parked aircraft. Two parked Hornets, their wings laden with live ordnance, exploded amid the massive fireballs and Sandy saw bodies hurled off the deck to spiral into the ocean below as his earphones screeched with horrified commands.

‘Razor Two, desist immediately! Razor Two, do you copy?!!’

Sandy heard only a distant cacophony of cries as he held the throttles wide open in full afterburner despite his perilously low fuel supply. The Hornet climbed vertically away from the ugly clouds of black smoke billowing from flames sweeping across the carrier’s deck, fuel lines and bomb trolleys ablaze as Sandy watched through the top of the canopy as his Hornet came off the top of a loop two thousand feet above the carnage.

Sandy kept pulling, kept the throttles wide open as he began to dive, keen to see the results of his efforts. The Hornet soared downward and accelerated wildly, and then suddenly the G — forces increased and slammed Sandy down into his seat, pulling the blood from his head and brain as his G — suit inflated to prevent his blood from pooling in his legs.

Sandy blinked as though coming awake from a dream, and before him a kaleidoscopic milieu of color sharpened into focus and he saw the deck rushing up at him and a scene of utter carnage, of running crewmen trailing flames, of bodies scattered in pieces across the scorched deck, of burning aircraft and helicopters and corpses.

Sandy’s scream joined the terrible cacophony even as his Hornet slammed vertically into the carrier’s bow with the force of a fallen angel at four hundred knots and vanished in a superheated fireball that spread across the deck.