pins had been removed, and double-checked the ejection harness connections to
the seat. Finally satisfied, she gave both of them a weary nod. “Good
flight, sirs,” she said, fixing her eyes on Gator.
Gator waited until the canopy slid into place and then said, “Sometimes
you can be a real asshole, Bird Dog.”
“Seems to be the unanimous opinion today,” the pilot snapped. “You want
to go fly or you want to share more of your exciting insights with me?”
Gator sighed. “Let’s just get airborne, Bird Dog. At least I know that
you know how to do that.”
Bird Dog taxied forward, following the Yellow Shirt’s hand signals and
carefully sliding the Tomcat into position on the catapult. Halfway to the
catapult, the fear hit him again. He was so tired–oh, Jesus, was he tired!
Two days of flight-deck operations, launching alert aircraft every time the
Chinese sortied, struggling to get back on board the pitching deck at night,
fighting not to think about the monster that grew larger every day! It was
past the point of mere preference and into the issue of safety. Even the
surge of adrenaline that had hit him when he’d heard about the inbound raid
had faded away to a dull, aching jangle of nerves. Had Airman Alvarez been
this tired when he’d wandered behind the Tomcat that night? What had it been
like–to be so tired he hadn’t seen the danger, so tired he hadn’t noticed the
screaming F14 turning on the deck? Alvarez would have been thinking about his
rack, six decks below, calling to him. Maybe he’d even felt a momentary gleam
of hope–Bird Dog’s event was one of the last to launch, and Alvarez could
have looked forward to perhaps almost an hour of unconsciousness before he’d
have been called back onto the flight deck to start recovering aircraft. Not
in his rack, no. Not with that many aircraft airborne, due back on deck too
soon. Alvarez probably would have simply gone down one deck and stretched out
full-length in one of the passageways that crisscrossed the interior of the
carrier like a maze.
When did he realize what had happened? When the jet’s sucking pull first
hit him? The second his feet left the deck? Or had it taken a few
milliseconds, long enough for him to come fully awake only as he was hurtling
through the air, suspended in the air between the ship and the jet engine?
How many times had he stepped over the exhausted plane captains lining
the passageways? Cursed as he tripped over a sound-powered telephone cord
stretched across the linoleum to an outlet, the earphones still clamped firmly
to the plane captain’s head? Had he ever even stopped to think that the
flight deck crews had no mandated crew rest requirements between flights, or
that too few of his fellow officers ever gave a thought to the countless
bone-tired enlisted people it took to get the elite aircrews off the deck?
“Bird Dog! They gonna start charging us rent, man,” his RIO said into
the ICS.
Bird Dog was suddenly aware of the waving green lights in front of him.
The Yellow Shirt was motioning frantically for him to move forward, to clear
the way for the next aircraft.
Was he safe to fly? Bird Dog hesitated, and then slowly eased the
throttle forward. He held the image of Alvarez’s face before him for a
moment, then forced it back into the compartment of his mind that held
everything not associated with the immediate mission.
Suddenly, a figure darted across the flight deck toward the catapult.
Lights flashed red as the air boss called a foul deck. Bird Dog craned his
neck to try to see what poor fool had just incurred the wrath of the tower.
For the third time in the last hour, he choked on Shaughnessy’s name.
What in the hell was she doing now! She’d already formally certified the
Tomcat as safe for flight and turned over responsibility to the Yellow Shirt
and the pilot.
The young airman was pointing at the left side of his Tomcat and making
jerking motions with her hands. The Yellow Shirt shook his head no. The