"Hope those guys don't take all night about this."
That was a given. Arkady didn't bother to answer.
The copper sulfate taste of fear was starting to build in the back of his throat. A little while ago, he'd bragged in front of a lady that he'd never been afraid of any aircraft in his life. That had been an inexact statement.
All airmen fear the weather.
Most won't admit it, but the fear is there. Weather doesn't give a damn how good you are, or how well trained, or how lucky. It just fills up your sky, and if you can't escape to the ground, or get out of its way, it kills you with the bland indifference of a boulder rolling over a bug.
"Retainer, this is Gray Lady." Amanda's voice sounded in his earphones, distorted by wind roar and the feedback from the helo. "We have a further complication. The RAST system won't take the tether. You'll have to bring yourself down with your pod winch. We'll give you the word just as soon as we get things secured on this end."
Out of the corner of his eye, the aviator followed the undulating snake of the cable down from his wing until it disappeared into the red glow of the helipad.
"Why not?" he sighed.
The cable end was bent around the center of the two shoring spars and a wrench flashed as the bolts of the shackle were tightened.
"All secure, Captain!" the AC hand yelled up from the deck of the hangar bay.
"Right. Everyone down there stand clear! Way clear!"
Amanda returned her attention to deck level. "All hands! Turn loose of that cable and get back up against the superstructure!"
As she waited for her order to be obeyed, she called in to the bridge. "Ken, we're bringing him down now. Stand by."
"Aye, aye. We're set."
"Retainer Zero One. We're ready to recover. Stand by."
"Roger, Gray Lady. Let's get it done."
She took a final look around to make sure the pad was clear, then she scrambled back herself.
"Retainer, commence recovery now!"
"Executing approach. Up dome!"
The tether went taut and the shoring beams whipped upward and jammed across the hatch frame with a crash that made the deck shudder. Riding that pull, the shadowy outline of the Sea Comanche began to sweep down out of the storm rack.
"Up dome!" Arkady was pushing his flying skill beyond consciousness, adapting and responding to a multitude of different factors simultaneously, with each second. Wind, power settings, rate of descent, the movement of the deck, the need to keep the undesigned load from stripping the gears of the reel drive.
The helipad target grew larger rapidly, then too rapidly, as the Cunningham bucked like a mustang trying to rid itself of a horsefly.
Arkady flared back, heaving taut. However, as the ship fell away once more, he felt Zero One twist in midair. Shit! The off-center drag from the sonar pod was now rolling them onto their side. Instead of trying to correct, Arkady dumped pitch and dove, followed the deck down. An instant later, the undercarriage hit with a crash that took up every millimeter of the shock-absorber play.
Arkady's hands flew around the cockpit. Fuel flow off! Battle damage switches on! Ground brakes locked! Rotor brake engaged!
"Gus, lock the winch reel!"
"Got it!"
Master power off!
"Let's get out of this thing!" Arkady yelled.
"No shit, Lieutenant!"
The canopies swung open and the freezing blast from outside erased the pocket of warm air they had contained in a microsecond. As the two aviators swung down from the cockpit, the tie-down crew moved forward, waiting for the windmill of the rotors to slow before approaching the helo.
"Glad you made it, sir," Chief Muller yelled, coming up to Arkady. "Real rough night out." "Tell me about it, Chief."
Looking forward, Arkady saw a figure, still slender in her cold-weather gear, standing outlined in the glare of the red work arcs.
Up on the bridge, Commander Ken Hiro shifted his vision from one bank of video monitors to another. One set was focused aft, covering the events developing on the helipad. The others, aimed forward, were operating in low-light mode. Scanning the sea ahead of the ship, they granted the bridge crew and the lookout team vision in the now near-total darkness of the failing day.
One of those lookouts now sang out. "Object in the water. Bearing five degrees off the port bow, sir."
More than an object. Hiro saw a small hill's worth of ice rolling down on them, a berg fragment being driven into the destroyer's path by the force of the storm.
"Hard to starboard! Come right to zero zero zero degrees!"
There was just barely enough time to get on the MC-1.
"Beware on deck! We're going into the trough!"
Amanda felt her ship turning across the weather even before Hiro's warning call thundered out of the deck speakers. The only constructive thing she could do in the seconds she had was to knock the open deck hatch off its holdbacks and slam it partially shut on the helo tether. A moment later, a wall of dark water curled up over the portside rail and collapsed down upon everyone on deck.
As with the others of the recovery team, Amanda had been suffering from the slow, invasive chill coming on from the freezing spray and wind. The shock of this glacial-temperature inundation, though, made the heart stagger and slam in the chest and vision gray out.
Amanda clung to the hatch frame until the liquid avalanche had passed. Shaking the salt water out of her eyes, she looked up and around. The majority of the other deckhands had been scythed down by the wave as well, and now, literally looming over them, was a new threat.
There had been no chance to get Retainer Zero One's tie-downs secure. Its only hard connection with the deck was the single point of the sonar dome tether. Now, as the ship wallowed broadside on to the gale, the helicopter began to pivot around that hard point, skidding wildly across the slick decking with the force of the roll.
In the bloody deck lights, the angular form of the helo resembled some insectoid horror from a 1950s science-fiction film, striving to break out of the pen of the containment barriers. As Amanda looked on, the sweeping Fenestron flattened two hands who had failed to get clear in time. Then she saw a third figure riding the side of the copter's fuselage like a cowboy trying to bulldog an out-sized steer.
It was Arkady.
"No!"
She tried to scramble to her feet but found that she was fouled in the tangle of her lifeline and headset lead. Frantically, she struggled to kick clear as the ship reached the farside of its roll to starboard.
Arkady bailed off the helicopter as it began its reverse swing. Dragging the two injured men to their feet, he shoved them forward toward the safety of the superstructure. Instead of following, though, he recovered one of the nylon restraint straps they had been carrying and snubbed one end through a tie-down. The aviator was not going to allow his aircraft to kill itself.
Amanda tore off her headset and hit her safety-belt release, freeing herself, but too late to intervene.
Another deluge raked the destroyer's decks. This time, no one topside could even feel the searing cold of it. As Zero One began its new wild arc across the helipad, Arkady threw himself flat, letting the low-riding tail boom sweep over him. As the helo hesitated at the neutral point between waves, he rolled over onto his back and reached up, snapping the free end of the restraint to a hardpoint under the fuselage.
Captured, Zero One jerked up short.
A moment later, Chief Muller led the general charge to surround the helo and complete the tie-down. Amanda saw a set of wheel chocks adrift at her feet and she caught them up. Joining the rush, she dropped down beside one of the landing-gear trucks and pounded the rubber wedges into place on either side of the tire.