Vince glanced over at Muller. He'd worked with the man for less than two days, but he had already judged that the Chief knew his business. Currently, the burly, balding CPO was hunched over the other terminal, intently studying the stream of telemetry flowing in from Zero Two's systems.
"Was she running on her internal fuel or the drop tank when she started to pack up?" he inquired thoughtfully.
"I'll find out." Vince keyed his microphone again. "Ah, Retainer Zero Two, were you on internal or the drop tank when the problem started?"
"Gray Lady, I was on the drop tank. I'm sorry, sir, but she's lost power so badly a couple of times we've almost gone in the water. Nothing seems to help, so I figured I'd better bring her in."
"We concur one hundred percent. Bring her home, Retainer."
Vince turned back to Muller. "What do you think?"
"I think she's got air contamination in the fuel system, probably through a fault in the hardpoint connector. You get a slug of air in there, get some bubbles under a filter, and you can get surge and fade like this."
"That ain't supposed to happen with the Comanche anymore, Chief."
"There's a lot of stuff that ain't supposed to happen anymore, Lieutenant, but it still does. They only got a partial fix on that problem. It still crops up every once in a while. Just rare enough so that the diagnostic program for it was deleted from the onboard software. These kids aren't being taught what to look for.
"As it is, Ensign Delany went right along and followed all of the proper procedures for a standard feed-flow problem and managed to involve the whole damn fuel system instead of just the drop tank feeds."
"What can we do about it?" Arkady inquired.
"Not a whole hell of a lot beyond getting her on the deck as fast as we can. In the next thirty seconds the bubbles could work out of the system and she could be right as rain, or she could have a total blockage and fall right out of the sky. I'd give you even money on it going either way."
"Okay, let's bring her straight down."
Arkady went back on the circuit. "Retainer Zero Two, we've got your problem spotted. Just bring her on in. We'll sort it out once you're down on the deck."
As he talked, Vince called up Zero Two's stores list on his terminal. It was the package he had authorized, the suspect 110-gallon drop tank, an SQR/A1 dunking sonar pod, and a half-load of sonobuoys.
"Hey, Nancy. Do you still have your stores onboard?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, get rid of 'em. Lighten yourself up."
"That's okay, Lieutenant. I think I can bring them home."
"Jettison your stores, Ensign. That's an order. We can buy you more toys later. That's what we keep the taxpayers around for.
"Damn kid's trying to conscientious herself to death," Arkady muttered as he dialed up the bridge. "I guess we'd better let the boss know what's going on."
"Bridge, aye," Amanda Garrett answered the call herself a moment later.
"Captain, this is Arkady back in Air One. Retainer Zero Two is inbound with a fuel-feed problem. She'll be in position to recover in about five minutes. I request we go to emergency flight quarters."
"I concur," she replied coolly. "We've also been monitoring the situation up here. I'll be putting the ship across the wind at this time and we'll be bringing the stabilizers up full.
"Also be advised we've got a flight of Argentine jets moving in on us. We're not sure what they want, but they'll be overhead about the time we'll be making recovery."
"Joy for fucking ever unconfined."
"I'll worry about the Argentines. You take care of our helo. If I can assist you by maneuvering, let me know."
Amanda's voice became a little less professional and a little more concerned. "Do you think you can get them home, Arkady?"
"Talk to me again in about five minutes, Skipper, and I'll have an answer for you."
"Flight quarters! Flight quarters!" the MC-1 circuit thundered. "Aviation Fuel Repair team and Crash and Salvage teams lay to on the double! All compartments set Condition Zebra!" All to a background of honking alarm klaxons and slamming watertight doors.
Down on the helipad, landing lights began to flash rhythmically at the four corners of the main elevator. Around the outer perimeter, containment barriers rose up out of their belowdeck slots and flared open like the petals of a nylon strap and aluminum flower. Aviation and damage-control personnel, many swaddled in silvery firefighting rig,stood by, watching for the first sign of their troubled charge.
In Air One, Chief Muller pointed and said, "There she is. I got her strobe. She's swinging out wide to the west."
Arkady dumped the Alpha Screen image on his workstation and called up the MMS system. Laying one of the cameras on the approaching helo with the terminal joystick, he engaged the autotrack and zoomed in on the little aircraft.
"Damn, she's in worse shape than I figured." He could see the power fades hitting the aircraft every few seconds. The Sea Comanche would sag down out of level flight as it lost turbine RPMs and Delany would firewall her throttles to stay airborne. Then the surge would hit, gray smoke would smear out of the exhausts, and the helicopter would buck and lunge forward and upward.
Muller shook his head. "Lieutenant, if she drops off like that comin' over the rail…"
"Don't draw me pictures, Chief. The thing is, what the hell else are we going to do? Let's just apply the KISS protocols here and bring her straight on in."
Arkady keyed his mike. "Retainer Zero Two, we have you visually. The ship is thirty degrees across the wind and we are showing twenty-eight to thirty knots over the deck. You are cleared for a standard quartering approach. Recovery teams are standing by. Take your time, Nance. If you go bump, we'll have a pillow under you."
"No sweat, sir. I got a handle on it."
Could have fooled me from the sound of your voice, kid,
Arkady replied silently.
She came in high, not daring to get too close to the sea too soon, trying to find a pattern or rhythm to the power fades, seeking the few moments of full control necessary for a landing pass.
She went into a station-keeping hover fifty yards off the starboard quarter. The landing-gear bay doors flipped open in the Sea Comanche's sleek belly and its wheels lowered. Slowly she started to angle in toward the helipad.
A voice blared in Arkady's earphones. "CIC to Air One! Descending traffic turning in on us! Range closing fast! Oh, Jesus! Watch it!"
In Air One, there was a blur of motion to starboard, literally at eye level. Arkady was able to snap his head around fast enough to catch and mind-freeze a single clear image: a pair of dark blue Panavia Tornadoes, each bearing an azure and white roundel and the word ARMADA on its flank. Both strike fighters had their wings swept full back and had shock-wave-studded flame spewing from their afterburners. The point-blank thunderclap of their passage hit with the impact of a hard-swung two-by-four across the chest.
Riding the concussion of the first brace of Tornadoes, a second pair blasted past to port. Pulling up into the near vertical, all four aircraft climbed out of sight in mere seconds.
If the Argentine flat-hatting run had startled Arkady and Muller, it had nearly killed Nancy Delany and her systems operator. Not only had her concentration been shattered but Retainer Zero Two had been hammered by converging streams of jet wash.
The helo staggered and torqued almost a full 360 degrees around its rotor mast. A power fade hit and the pilot wildly tried to compensate. She overpitched and the aircraft plunged out of the sky.
At the last possible instant, the fade cleared and the turbines shrieked back up to flight power. The Sea Comanche pulled out, so low that one of the landing-gear trucks ripped through a wave top.
"Who were those guys? Just damn it! Who were those guys?"