But at least you have some control over your own destiny. If you're just a little bit faster, a little bit smarter, or a little tougher, you know you'll make it out. And if you've got the right stuff to be a fighter pilot, you're all those things and more.
But it's entirely different watching someone else go through the same thing, unable to help or hurt them.
Brandon was talking now, his words faint over the roar of the engine and the slap of the sea against the rubber-bottomed boat. "Admiral, if you can hear me, I think we may need to move up that schedule a little bit. The devices are in place and set to go off right before the strike is on top, but I think you need to move a little quicker. They're alerted now, sir. They're gonna be searching the revetment, and they might find our little presents. Suggest you command-detonate now, get the strike airborne as fast as you can, and play the cards as they lay. We're almost home ― the helos just blinked their lights at us, and I'm turning toward her."
I turned to Lab Rat. "You bet the cards?"
He nodded. "Do it now."
One corner of the CVIC's space was occupied by a signal generator linked to a high-frequency transmitter. It had a dedicated antenna on deck right now, hard-wired for just this purpose.
I watched Lab Rat as he set the signal generator to the appropriate sequence, then thumbed the switch on. We heard nothing. At least not inside CVIC.
From Brandon Sykes's microphone, I heard a small, muffled thud. Then a scream of exultation by the SEAL. Sheer joy, followed by a hurried commentary. "Good work, guys! Hell of a light show out here. Man, did it ever go boom." The sheer, reverent wonder in his voice at the size of the explosion was gleeful.
Lab Rat handed me a microphone. He pointed at a red light on top of the SEAL receiving gear. It blinked green. "Want to congratulate them yourself?" Lab Rat asked.
I cleared my throat, then picked up the mike. "Good work, men. Now get your asses back here."
With the helo airborne, we were already at flight quarters, but now the hard rolling thunder of a Tomcat engine spooling up rattled the 03 level. Strike was one step ahead of me, as usual.
The first launch took place five minutes later, just as Brandon Sykes's headset camera swung around in a gut-wrenching panorama, briefly inverted, and then steadied on the helicopter above him. He'd just hooked the rope they were dangling to hoist him and the other SEALs up into the helo. The camera steadied on the inside of the helicopter, then turned to the open hatch on the side of it. Brandon was staring down at the water, and I saw a dull flash of light, followed by a geyser of water. He'd just blown the RHIBs.
"Admiral, we're launching the first wave." Strike's voice over the bitch box was spooled up. "J-TARPS mounted on one Hornet and two Tomcats, Admiral."
I motioned to Lab Rat. "Go ahead and switch the picture ― I think we're done with the SEALS."
How quickly we'd become accustomed to new technology, capabilities that would have seemed sheer magic just ten years before. The J-TARPS display had awed me just the day before, and now I was casually directing my Intelligence Officer to display an air battle and strike for me real time.
Lab Rat quickly complied. "They've got MiGs in the air," he warned as he glanced at another piece of gear. "Launch indications now."
"It figures." The catapult was thumping steadily now, shooting off another one of my aircraft every twenty-two seconds. Twelve aircraft airborne so far, one of which had to be a tanker. We'd agreed that the SEAL helicopter would serve temporary duty as SAR bird during launch while we shot everything we had off the deck. After the bomb-laden fighters were airborne, we'd launch another SAR helo and bring the SEALs back on deck.
The first J-TARPS was mounted under Hornet 301. "Who's flying?" I asked.
"Thor Hammersmith. You remember him," Lab Rat answered.
Indeed I did. Thor was a Marine's Marine, an infantryman on temporary assigned duty in the cockpit, as they called it. Every Marine underwent basic indoctrination in ground combat and infantry tactics, a fact that made Marine Close Air Support ― CAS ― a deadly potent capability. Marines wouldn't leave Marines, they were fond of reminding us.
The other two cameras were mounted on Tomcats configured for bombing runs ― bombcats, we called them. Once Thor got within killing range of the MiGs, however, I barely even glanced at the other two monitors.
I was raised on Tomcats, the biggest, meanest fighter in the fleet. Sure, I knew the Hornets were more maneuverable, had even seen them in action myself. But watching it from another aircraft or from the flight deck, or even on a radar scope, is nothing compared to the picture you get when you're slung onto the undercarriage of one.
The Hornet darted and whirled, playing an intricate game of cat and mouse with its MiG opponent. It was a different fight from the kind I was used to, given that they were both angles fighters. They were equally matched in thrust to wing area, giving them similar performance characteristics. The battle was not the harrowing series of power climbs and scrabbles for altitude that I was used to, but rather a close-in, parry-and-dart knife fight. Thor was closer to a MiG than I'd ever been in my life ― and closer than I ever want to be. But the movement of his aircraft was swift and sure. There was no hesitation or sudden changes of angle on the MiG that would lead me to believe he'd miscalculated or changed his mind. The Marine was a deadly fighter in his aircraft, a lethal capability that took on a whole new meaning as I watched the battle progress.
Thor's Hornet was loaded with Sidewinders and Sparrows, along with a full charge of rounds in his nose cannon. He used the Sparrow first against the incoming MiG, forcing it into a defensive position. The MiG pilot was good, but not that good. Thor had harried him into a mistake with the Sparrow, then slipped neatly into a perfect firing position behind him. Fox three, and then the MiG was a smoking fiery hole in the dark night.
Now what? Thor was down to one Sparrow and two Sidewinders.
Listening to the air battle over tactical as well as watching it through the three-camera displays was more comfortable now, the second time through. I heard the cry for help, saw Thor's Hornet bank hard to the right, the stars wheeling crazily across the camera screen through the broken cloud cover. The MiG appeared center-line, and I waited for Thor to launch one of his remaining missiles.
What the- Thor wasn't launching. I had a sinking, foreboding feeling that I knew just exactly what he was planning.
His Sparrow-Sidewinder tactic was clearly a favorite. He was planning on saving all the remaining missiles for a second shot of his own, but still needed to shake this MiG off his buddy's butt. I groaned out loud. "No, Thor, don't do it ― don't do it."
But he did. With the MiG preoccupied with jockeying into firing position on another Hornet, Thor swooped in from above like an avenging angel. There was no sound, but I saw the staccato stream of tracer fire arc out ahead of me and stitch a line across the MiG's fuselage. The Hornet it was following broke hard left, on Thor's command, and Thor pulled up and hard to the right. The J-TARPS camera caught the first microseconds of the fireball that had once been a MiG.
I slammed my hand down on the table. "Damn it, that glory-hogging-" I stopped abruptly, and reconsidered my analysis.
Sure, I was an admiral and in command of this entire battle group. I'd even flown Hornets, had qualified on them, as it was necessary to do before assuming command of this battle group. It was part of the long, tortuous process of taking this job, one that included far too long at the nuclear-propulsion training command in Idaho, command of an aircraft carrier, then requalifying on every aircraft that landed on the deck of a carrier. Hell, I even had my time in helos.
But despite my experience and the genuine qualifications I had for wrestling a Hornet down onto the deck, I wasn't a Hornet pilot. Nor was I a Marine. Thor knew far better than I the capabilities and tactics that worked with his aircraft one-on-one against a MiG. If I wanted to go along for the ride, I damned well better shut up and just watch.