Well, not luck really. Skill is more like it.
"Take it easy, Bird Dog. You're coming in a little fast on me." The KA-6 tanker's pilot was a bit testy.
I guess I couldn't blame her. We had been coming in a little bit fast for her.
"Now, darlin', you just hold steady," I said, trying to make light of the situation. "Let me try this again."
I eased back off the tanker and lined myself up again. The mistake that most people make when they're trying to tank is they get fixated on watching the basket bob around in the air in front of them. You don't want to do that ― you want to be staring directly at the lights on the tanker and maintaining the correct relative position between your two aircraft. Otherwise you get disoriented from the little bobbles and jerks the basket does in the air. It was something I knew better than to do ― and I'd just done it.
The second time went smooth as silk, my probe sliding right into the hard plastic basket like ― well, I wasn't going there. Not on cruise, not with the women on board the ship looking better and better every day that went by.
"Good seal," the tanker pilot said. "Ready to transfer fuel."
"Ready to receive."
I could hear the slight gurgle as the fuel fed smoothly into the probe and was distributed to the two wing tanks. Five thousand pounds, that would hold me until we got back to the boat. Enough to make two passes at the deck, although I doubted that I'd need more than one. It had been a long time since I hadn't gotten back on board on my first pass, and I didn't aim to break my record now.
"That'll do me, darlin'," I said finally. I shut off the switches that allowed fuel to flow in through the probe, and allowed her to do the same. Then I gently backed off, slid further back until I was well clear, and rolled off to the right. "See you back on the deck," I called out as a farewell.
"Not anytime soon," she answered tartly. "Got a bunch more customers up here soon enough."
"Those Hornets get thirsty fast," I agreed.
Despite some relatively decent performance statistics, that was the one problem with the F/A-18 ― it was a hungry little bastard. The trade-off for having a lightweight aircraft was that it could carry less of everything. Fuel, weapons, hell, probably even piddle packs. You never want to get into a fight with a bunch of Hornets without having a lot of gas in the air nearby.
I was just four thousand yards away from the tanker when I heard the tanker pilot start screaming. "Bird Dog, get back here! He's on me, he's on me!"
I slammed into afterburner and rolled and turned, heading back to the tanker. I knew what was wrong ― one of those goddamn Hornets had let a MiG sneak through and make a run on their Texaco. That should have been the first thing they'd done, make sure that their tanker was protected. If I'd been down there The MiG was almost toying with her, like a cat with a mouse. It was a bit above her, and well aft, in perfect firing position.
I sighted in, got the low growl of a Sidewinder, then said, "Gina, break left. Now!"
Tankers aren't the maneuverable airframes that fighters are, but she did the best that she could. As old as those birds are, she probably damn near tore the wings off trying to get away. The KA6 rolled hard, overshot, and exposed her underbelly to the MiG, then completed the roll and fell down toward the ocean in a spiral. It's always nice to use gravity if you need to gain some airspeed in a hurry.
I waited two seconds, enough time to get her out of range of the fireball, and just long enough for the MiG pilot to start getting truly pissed.
A missile leapt off his wings, the ignition of its booster blinding me slightly. I thumbed off the Sidewinder at the same time.
I had one second to see the canopy of the KA6 peel off, shatter into pieces, and two ejection seats rocket up at forty-five-degree angles from each other. They were barely clear of the aircraft when it exploded into flames.
The smoke and fire blanked out my view of the two chutes. Had they opened? I didn't know, and now I sure as hell couldn't see. The MiG I'd shot the Sidewinder at was a smoking black hole in the air.
"Get down ― look for chutes!" Gator said.
"On my way." I took time to make a quick visual scan of the area around me, knowing that Gator was doing the same thing with his radar. "All clear?"
"I'll tell you if it's not."
I put the Tomcat into a steep dive, pulling up just about at the altitude where I estimated the chutes would be. We made a 360, each of us craning our necks trying to see them wherever they were. I felt a heavy, rotten, sinking feeling in my gut. There hadn't been time ― not enough distance. Even though they'd cleared the aircraft, the fireball must have got them.
"Get down lower," Gator said. "Maybe we missed them."
I did as he suggested, far too low over the ocean for my own comfort, but desperate to see any trace of the tanker pilot and her RIO.
"Bird Dog?" Gator's voice asked. "Have you got 'em?"
"Not yet." I wished he'd just shut the fuck up and let me look for them.
I'm joining on you," Skeeter said.
"No ― get back to the boat," I ordered. The last thing I needed was Skeeter poking around down here while I was trying to find the two women who had gone down. "One of us is enough."
"But who's gonna cover you?" Skeeter asked. "Bird Dog, you can't-"
"Back to the boat, Skeeter," I said again. "Jesus, why don't you just follow orders for once without arguing?"
Two clicks on the circuit acknowledged my last transmission. I kept my eyes glued to the ocean, hoping for something, anything. "He's right, you know," Gator said. "Fuck him."
"No, fuck you." There was a note in Gator's voice I rarely heard, but knew better than to ignore it when I did. "Bird Dog, he's got enough fuel, we need another set of eyes out here, if not for the crew, then for any of those nasty little bastards that want to jump US."
"How about you keep your eyes on that radar scope and keep that from happening," I suggested.
"Damn it ― too late for that. Bird Dog, MiGs at five o'clock, four miles off and closing fast. They're in targeting mode ― Bird Dog!"
"I'm coming in," Skeeter said, still on the net. "Hold on, Bird Dog."
I was a little bit too busy to answer at that point, trying to get my turkey ass off the deck and back in the air where it belonged. How had I got suckered into this? I know better, I damn well know better.
"Targeting radar," Gator warned, his voice higher now. "Bird Dog, we're too slow ― too low. We can't make it out of this one."
"I'm almost there," Skeeter said. "Please, Bird Dog, just-"
"We'll get some distance," I said, thinking furiously. "I've still got one Sparrow, the gun ― we're gonna make it, Gator."
"The hell you say," Gator's voice had a note of quiet desperation in it this time. "Bird Dog, get ready. You know we're gonna have to punch out."
"I'm not punching out. This is my aircraft, and no goddamned Vietnamese is going to take it away from me."
"Vampire, vampire," Skeeter screamed over the circuit, his voice losing every trace of cool it had ever had. "Jesus, Bird Dog ― punch out. Punch out now!"
I'm not-"
The wind ripped the words out of my throat and slammed my head back against the headrest. I had just a split second to realize what had happened before the canopy broke away from the airframe, tumbled backwards in the sky above us before falling back in the slipstream. A microsecond later, the pan of the ejection seat slammed me up. Over the noise of the wind and the explosion in my ejection seat, I heard Gator's seat go, saw out of the corner of my eye the bright flash of his ejection rocket firing. My vision was already going gray, and every bit of exposed skin felt numb and sandpapered. The gray crowded in on all sides, until my vision dwindled to a mere pinpoint of light in front of me. Then quietly, amazingly understated in the fury of noise and sound around me, that too winked out.