port side just aft of the island. The “CAG bird,” normally reserved for
Tombstone when he wanted to log some hours, was being readied by several
men in green shirts with black stripes, the air wing men who performed
aircraft maintenance.
Before boarding, Tombstone and Tomboy both circled the aircraft,
checking for faults, open access panels, and tugging at the weapons to
make sure they were secure. Four Sidewinders and four AMRAAMs were
slung beneath its belly and wings. Stores of AIM-54Cs had been running
low, and in any case, the fighting over the Kola had mostly been
close-in combat, a real waste of the high-tech, million-dollar Phoenix
missiles. As Flynn settled into the rear seat and pulled her helmet on,
Tombstone finished his walk-around, then clambered up the ladder and
swung into his seat.
“You’re already checked out and on the flight plan, CAG!” the plane
chief, a burly man in a brown jersey, called up to him. “They’re
squeezing you in on Cat One right behind a KA-6.”
Tombstone saluted his acknowledgment, then began running through his
preflight list. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was doing this …
except for the obvious fact that his people had taken some heavy losses
so far, and maybe he could help fill in.
Morale was still bad, and it would be worse when they started realizing
their losses. More of them might be tempted into stupid stunts like the
one that had killed Striker and K-Bar.
Maybe if the Old Man put in an appearance, it would help pull things
together.
Hell, he was guessing and he knew it. Coyote and Batman were doing fine
out there without him. But he wanted to be there. With them. With his
people.
“Now hear this” blared from a 5-MC speaker on the carrier’s island.
“Now hear this. Rig the barricade. That is, rig the barricade. Crash
crew, fire and medical personnel, stand ready on the after deck.”
Uh-oh. Tombstone twisted in his seat, studying the hazy sky aft of the
Jefferson. That would be Shotgun One-three coming in. He’d been
following the damaged plane’s progress down in Ops, and he’d reluctantly
agreed to Arrenberger’s request that he try to trap on Jefferson’s deck
rather than eject over the sea. There was still no response from his
RIO. If Blue Grass was still alive, the violence of an ejection–or of
plummeting unconscious into ice-cold water–would almost certainly kill
him. Slider wanted to bring his crippled F-14 in–a risk, certainly,
but the only way to save Blue Grass’s life. Tombstone had been in the
same position once, years before, trying to get down on the deck with a
wounded RIO.
Just aft of where Tombstone and Tomboy were sitting–a fifty-yard-line
seat if ever there was one, he thought–two lines of deck personnel were
busily erecting the crash barricade, a horizontal ladder of wire and
fabric strips designed to stop an aircraft that, for whatever reason,
could not make a normal arrested landing. Tomcat 209 had one engine
out, and if his tailhook failed to engage an arrestor wire, he wouldn’t
have the power necessary to complete a touch-and-go and would bolter off
the forward end of the flight deck again. For that reason, Slider and
Blue Grass would be making a barrier landing.
Nearby, men in red jerseys with black stripes stood ready to go, fire
extinguishers in hand, some of them crouched atop deck tractors rigged
out as fire-fighting vehicles. Men in white with red crosses were
hospital corpsmen, standing by with first-aid kits and wire-frame Stokes
stretchers. The ungainly struts and braces of the four-wheeled
aircraft-handling crane known as “Tilly” loomed above them in the lee of
Jefferson’s island. One man standing on the crane was completely
anonymous, clad head to toe in brightly reflecting flameproof silver. He
had one job only. If Shotgun One-three crashed and burned, he would be
the one to brave fire and exploding fuel in an attempt to pull Slider
and Blue Grass from the wreckage.
Looking aft again, Tombstone saw the Tomcat, dropping toward Jefferson’s
roundoff. Across the deck from him, the LSO and his crew were at their
station in front of Jefferson’s meatball, guiding the crippled aircraft