CARRIER 9: ARCTIC FIRE By: Keith Douglass

Berkshire nodded. “Right five degrees rudder,” he translated for the

after-steering crew.

Both men watched the repeater twitch, then move slowly to the right,

indicating the ship was responding to rudder control from after-steering.

They repeated the maneuver, using increasing degrees of left and right

rudder, until finally Berkshire was satisfied that they had control of the

ship.

“Now find me some wind,” the air boss ordered. “You know what we

need.”

“The easiest way to do that is to just start a turn and watch the

relative wind indicator until you get what you want,” Berkshire responded.

“I can do the calculations manually, but-”

“Do it the fastest way,” the air boss answered. He glanced up at the

sky, as though looking for Tomcat 201. “Let’s get those boys down on deck,

rearmed, and back in the air.”

1318 Local

Tomcat 201

“Will you look at that?” Gator said.

Bird Dog nodded and adjusted his own flight pattern to compensate for

the carrier’s movement. “Trying to get her nose into the wind, is she?”

“Looks like it to me. Bird Dog, since we’re the only damned aircraft

in this pattern, how about we settle in two miles astern? Save us some

time when we want to start making our approach.”

“Good idea.” Bird Dog relayed their plan to the air boss, then moved

the Tomcat back aft of the carrier. With no other aircraft in the pattern,

he started executing a lazy figure eight instead of the standard oval orbit

track.

The call came ten minutes later. “Tomcat Two-oh-one, you’re cleared

for final,” Bird Dog heard the air boss say.

“Ready, partner?” he asked Gator.

“As ready as we’ll ever be. Remember, we’re going to be getting on

board without an LSO. You keep a close watch on that meatball.”

“And you speak up if you see anything going wrong,” Bird Dog

responded. “Unless there’s anything else, let’s get it done. We’ve got

ordies with armament waiting for us on the deck.”

Bird Dog headed the Tomcat away from the carrier, taking it out to the

five-mile point. He slowly decreased his altitude, finally settling in

right on glide path two miles behind the ship. He headed for the boat,

keeping a careful eye on the stern, making minute course and altitude

corrections that his gut told him were right.

Finally, at the half-mile point, he got a clear visual on the

meatball.

“Oh, shit,” he swore. “Gator, the meatball is down.”

“What? You mean-”

“The last idiot out of the LSO platform turned it off. I’m not

getting any indications at all.”

Gator was silent for a moment. “How do you feel about making an IFR

approach?” he asked finally.

“I don’t see that I’ve got much option, do I? At least I got some

practice recently, over that damned island. Hell, landing on the carrier,

at least I can see it.”

“Okay, let’s go for it. They got power on the arresting cables?”

“Yes, the air boss said they were already set for us. I gave him my

final weight just a second ago.”

“Let’s do it.”

1311 Local

TFCC, USS Jefferson

Tombstone observed the large blue tactical screen in the front of TFCC

out of the corner of his eye. He tried to avoid giving Rogov any

indication that he was watching closely the events transpiring there. He

wished he knew what the hell was going on. He’d seen from the course

repeaters that the carrier had changed course, and that the wind over the

deck was now acceptable for most landings and takeoffs. Recalling the

lessons he’d learned while in the pipeline for commander of the carrier

group, he decided that the bridge–or whoever was in control of the

ship–must have shifted steering back to after-steering. The bridge itself

was clearly under the terrorists control, which he knew not only from what

he’d overheard over the radio, but by the rule-of-thumb approach he saw the

carrier taking toward good wind.

The symbols on the screen were virtually motionless, the carrier

moving so slowly that her track was barely perceptible. Only one other

symbol moved–that of a friendly aircraft. He watched it break out of the

marshall pattern and head for a holding pattern aft of the ship. His eyes

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