“What the hell?”
“Ma’am?”
Beth had spent years of her life sailing the world’s oceans and had seen strange and unusual things, but nothing could have prepared her for the unexplained phenomenon at a pivotal moment in her career. As she stepped out onto the bridge wing, she craned her neck upward and watched the glowing orbs swirling in the late evening mist like massive fireflies.
You are the captain, she reminded herself.
“Ma’am?” her XO prompted again.
“Radio the Abe and have them suspend the launch,” she ordered. “And call away the SNOOPIE team. I want to know what the fuck those things are.”
Fifteen miles south of the Mobile Bay, Navy Lieutenant Colt “Mother” Bancroft sat in the darkened cockpit of a brand-new Marine Corps F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. As a guest pilot, he was respectful of the trust the squadron’s commanding officer had placed in him. But as one of the most experienced JSF pilots in the Navy, the eighty-million-dollar jet was in good hands.
The sights and sounds beyond the canopy were familiar to him, but he felt a little out of place and took his time to prevent making careless mistakes. The Black Knights were only the second squadron operating the JSF from an aircraft carrier, and the first for the Marine Corps. To say there was pressure on them to succeed was an understatement. His job was to make sure they had the tools needed to integrate the fifth-generation fighter into the strike group.
They had already completed a check-in with the airborne E-2D Hawkeye Air Intercept Controller and received their seven-line Defensive Counter Air brief. He fought for control over his nerves as he waited for the Tophatter department head to initiate their event’s check-in.
“Taproom, Bolt check Aux, Taproom Three One.”
“Taproom Three Two.”
“Taproom Three Three.”
“Taproom Three Four.”
The first four jets in their event were FA-18E Super Hornets, highly capable platforms in their own right.
“Bolt Four One,” Colt said, craning his neck to look over at Smitty, a junior captain and the only other pilot flying the new fighter in the event.
“Bolt Four Two.”
The air wing leveraged the lethal integration of fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, and an additional four Super Hornets and two JSFs would launch near the end of their vulnerability window to relieve them on station. But Colt and his flight were first up, and he hoped to get a crack at the adversary aircraft orbiting north of them. A yellow-shirted plane director walked up to his plane and held his hands up above his head before patting himself on the chest, signaling that he was taking control of Colt’s jet.
Here we go, Colt thought.
The Marines around his jet responded to the plane director’s signal to break him down by removing the chocks and chains and freeing him from the flight deck as he prepared to taxi. Colt clicked his oxygen mask into place and armed his seat, prepared to follow the yellow shirt’s lighted wands from his parking spot forward of the island to the number four catapult on the port side of the ship.
His heart pounded in his chest when the yellow shirt crossed and uncrossed his wands, signaling for him to release his brakes and begin moving. He advanced the throttle and felt the turbofan engine spool up as he released the pressure on his brake pedals and inched forward, following the lighted wands and tuning out the rest of the flight deck’s activity.
“Looks like you’re first up,” Smitty said over their tactical frequency.
Colt double-clicked the microphone switch, acknowledging the transmission but too focused on taxiing to come up with something witty in reply. The yellow shirt passed him off to another in the landing area who steered him behind the outermost waist catapult before crossing his wands to stop him, then directing him to spread his wings. He selected the command on the touchscreen PCD, or Panoramic Cockpit Display, in front of him and confirmed it by clicking on the cyan box.
The butterflies bouncing around in his stomach settled, and he focused on the mission ahead. They all knew the scripted exercise would turn into a notional shooting war at some point during the night when their adversaries tripped the stringent Rules of Engagement. Then the gloves would come off, and they would bring to bear the might of the entire Abraham Lincoln strike group against the make-believe enemy. That was when Colt would get to witness what he’d come for.
As the first event to man Combat Air Patrols against the adversaries, Colt thought they would get to see action before being relieved on station and forced to return to the ship for their recovery. He was combat experienced, well trained, and was flying the most advanced fighter the Navy and Marine Corps had to offer. He was ready.
The yellow wands uncrossed and began moving in short arcs, and Colt replied by taxiing forward across the jet blast deflector. After lining up behind the catapult shuttle, the yellow shirt again stopped him and ordered him to lower his launch bar. Again, he chose the command on the touchscreen and clicked on the cyan confirm box, longing for the simpler analog days of the Hornet. He felt the launch bar drop into place with a satisfying thunk.
Colt looked over and saw Smitty lined up behind the catapult next to him. The orchestrated chaos of an aircraft carrier never failed to amaze him, especially at night, when only the tower’s dim sodium lights illuminated the precise ballet of planes and people dancing on the flight deck. Shadows stretched across the non-skid surface and enveloped everything in darkness.
“OAKINE,” Smitty said.
Once A Knight Is Never Enough…
The yellow shirt uncrossed his wands again and taxied him forward until he felt the holdback fitting tug on his jet and hold him in place. Then the yellow shirt rotated his torso and shot a wand outward, giving the signal to take tension. Colt released the brakes and felt the nose strut squat as the yellow shirt handed him off to the Shooter. He advanced the throttle, manipulated his side stick to exercise the control surfaces, and stepped on the rudder pedals in both directions. At last, he flipped the switch to turn on his exterior lights as the signal he was ready to go.
The Shooter saluted him, then tapped the flight deck with his wand in a fencer’s lunge before raising it to point at the blackness beyond the flight deck edge lighting. Colt placed his helmet back against the headrest and waited for the catapult to fire and fling his Joint Strike Fighter off the pointy end of the ship.
When it did, he broke into a smile behind his oxygen mask. Nothing would ever dull the thrill of a catapult launch, not even the terrifying few seconds before he assured himself he was flying.
Good airspeed, he thought, watching the numbers in his Helmet Mounted Display tick upward into three digits, relieving him of the fear of a soft catapult shot. His body jerked forward with the sudden loss of acceleration at the end of the stroke.
“Three oh seven, airborne.”
Colt raised the landing gear and climbed away from the water, activating his combat systems in preparation to rendezvous with the tanker overhead the carrier to top off his fuel tanks.
“Three oh seven, tower, switch rep.”
Colt scanned his engine instruments, wondering why the Air Boss in the tower wanted him to talk to the squadron’s representative in the Carrier Air Traffic Control Center.
“Three oh seven,” he replied.
He dialed up the assigned frequency and caught the last of the broken transmission. “…oh seven, you up?”