“Give it to me straight, sir.”
The lieutenant colonel sighed. “We didn’t find anything.”
The pit in his stomach shot to his throat, and Colt leaned back in his chair as if he had been slapped. “What?”
“We ran the data through the computers again and couldn’t find any irregularities to account for an uncontrolled roll or dive.”
“But…”
“Colt, I’m sorry.”
“Did maintenance run it through any tests?”
The skipper nodded. “Could not duplicate on deck.”
Colt shook his head. “This doesn’t make any sense. There has to be a logical explanation!”
“Colt…”
“Can you ground the planes until we get a tech rep from Lockheed out here?”
“Colt, CAG made up his mind.”
He stood and looked down at the skipper, not wanting to believe it had come to this. “About what?”
“He’s not going to ground the planes.”
“But…”
The skipper jumped to his feet. “Get ahold of yourself, Lieutenant!”
Colt snapped his mouth shut and stared straight ahead, focusing his eyes beyond the skipper’s stern face. It had been close to a decade since he graduated from the Naval Academy, but he still knew how to compose himself despite the torrent of emotions threatening to sweep him away.
“I fought for you,” the skipper said. “But CAG made up his mind. He doesn’t believe your story and doesn’t think there is anything wrong with the Joint Strike Fighter. He’s putting you on the first COD off the boat in the morning.”
Colt swallowed hard and reined in his anger before speaking. “Roger that, sir.”
“I’m sorry, Colt. But he’s going to recommend your commanding officer convene a FNAEB when you get back to Fallon.”
His eyes fell to the floor, and he felt his sails collapse in the stillness. Even his anger faded away to a simmer, and Colt was left with nothing but a feeling of hopelessness. His entire identity as a fighter pilot was on the brink of being ripped from him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
“I’d be happy to speak to the board on your behalf,” the Marine offered. “You’re a good officer and a skilled pilot, Colt. I don’t know what happened up there, but I don’t believe you did anything wrong.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
The skipper put a hand on Colt’s shoulder and squeezed it. “I’m sorry, Colt.”
At least I’m not going to mast, he thought.
8
After the skipper left his stateroom, Colt went forward to sit alone in the “dirty shirt” wardroom at the front of the ship, wishing for something stronger than the fountain drink in his plastic cup. He hadn’t been entirely surprised CAG had ordered him off the ship, but he naively believed the older aviator might have at least listened to him with an open mind. He knew there was something wrong with the F-35C, and it was going to kill somebody or succeed in taking out a ship if he didn’t find the problem and fix it. Soon.
“Mind if I join you?”
He didn’t bother looking up and motioned for the other pilot to join him.
There were two wardrooms on the aircraft carrier where officers gathered to eat their meals. Most of the ship’s company ate in the XO’s wardroom, located deeper in the bowels of the carrier, but the air wing officers and those who spent their time on the roof ate in the one located just below the flight deck. Known as the dirty shirt, it had once been the only wardroom to allow flight suits and flight deck jerseys, but even after the rules changed, it was still where the air wing’s pilots went to congregate.
“What the hell happened?”
Colt looked up and saw Smitty take the seat opposite him. “Thanks for taking my helmet,” he said without answering.
The Marine dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. “Want to talk about it?”
He took another sip of his root beer, still trying to calm himself from the whole ordeal. After leaving CVIC, he had gone to Flight Equipment to strip out of his flight gear and maintenance control to complete his paperwork, but his mind was still in the darkness out over the ocean. He saw the displays flickering and the pages cycling, and his heart raced as he relived the horror of almost blacking out and colliding with the guided-missile cruiser.
Smitty leaned forward and ducked his head lower to make eye contact. “Bro?”
But Colt’s vacant stare was fixed on the nightmare ordeal.
He couldn’t help thinking that the jet had spent decades in development and had been run through the wringer by test pilots at every phase. But, to his knowledge, nothing like this had ever happened before. If an experienced pilot like him had struggled to regain control, what would happen to a brand-new nugget pilot?
“What did you see out there? There’s some strange rumors,” Smitty said.
Colt cocked his head to the side. “What rumors?”
Was the entire air wing already talking about the TOPGUN pilot who CAG had kicked off the ship and recommended to a FNAEB? Was his reputation already so damaged that even if he managed to keep his wings and come back to the fleet, he’d be nothing more than a punch line? Reputation was everything in this business.
Smitty looked over both shoulders, but they were alone in the forward part of the wardroom. Their table was next to a large stainless steel contraption aviators lovingly referred to as the “dog machine,” and it hummed a low harmonic that drowned out the surrounding noise. Satisfied he wouldn’t be overheard, Smitty leaned even closer. “What did you see out there?”
Colt leaned back in his chair as it dawned on him. Smitty wasn’t talking about Colt’s insubordination, alleged flat-hatting, and subsequent exile from the carrier. He wasn’t talking about almost crashing into a warship and dying. He was talking about those glowing orbs that had been harassing the Mobile Bay.
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly.
“Some of the Hawkeye guys said there were drones or something?”
Colt had to hand it to him. He was trying every angle he could think of to get the tight-lipped pilot to spill his guts. But as much as he wanted to validate or disprove whatever theory Smitty had concocted in his head, he didn’t have much to go on.
“I just saw lights, man.”
“Lights?”
“Yeah. Just lights. Like ten or so swirling around the ship.” Colt let go of his plastic cup and circled his hands around it like it was a tin can full of sailors instead of a chalice for his root beer. “I don’t know what they were, but then they…”
The memory of the terrifying moments flooded back to the forefront of his thoughts and froze him.
“They what?”
Did the orbs disappear after he’d regained control of his jet? Was it just a coincidence? Though his body still vibrated from the raw fear that had gripped him in those moments, he couldn’t be certain his memory was accurate. Maybe he had the timing wrong. Maybe it didn’t even matter.
He looked up at Smitty. “They just disappeared.”
The Marine pilot furrowed his brow, clearly not satisfied with the eyewitness testimony. “What did they look like?”
Colt picked up his root beer and took another sip. Though he thought it likely his jet’s strange behavior was linked to the orbs in some way, he knew he needed somebody to listen to his concerns. And not how CAG had listened with open skepticism, but with earnestness. “Listen, forget the lights.”
“Were they UFOs?”
Colt shook his head. “Forget the lights. There’s something more important you need to know.”