Mack Maloney - Chopper Ops

Not counting the bumpy ride down there, neither of them had slept much in the forty-eight hours since receiving their new orders. The odd surroundings were doing nothing to dispel the sleepy notions. So Gillis walked over to the first bunk and collapsed on top of it. Ricco selected the bunk next to him and did the same.

They were both quiet for a few minutes, drifting in and out of sleep. Finally Gillis broke the silence.

“Hell, you know, there’s a chance we might be looking at something pretty good here,” he sighed. “A couple weeks in the sun wouldn’t hurt me any.”

“Same here,” Ricco replied sleepily.

Yet no sooner had they both drifted off again when they were awakened by a huge crash. This was followed by a flash of light so bright, it blinded them both. Then they heard shouting, and the sound of glass breaking and doors being kicked in.

“Jessuz! What the fuck? ” Gillis yelled, nearly falling off his bunk.

Suddenly the building was full of armed men. They were coming through the doors, through the windows, falling from the ceiling. They were soldiers, in full combat gear, from shielded Fritz helmets to gas masks to ammo belts and flash grenades. They were running up and down the room, expertly “clearing it” as if they’d done it a hundred times before. In seconds, many very nasty-looking machine guns were pointing at Ricco and Gillis.

The two pilots were terrified. Several soldiers picked them up and hurled them to the floor, their gun barrels jammed to the backs of the pilots’ necks. Both pilots were certain now that they had landed somewhere other than the U.S. and that they were about to be shot to death. Ricco cried out. On his lips was one last curse for Norton and Delaney.

“Those fuckers!”

But then someone blew a whistle and everything froze. The soldiers all stopped in their tracks. There was suddenly no more noise. No more shouting. No more footsteps.

Nothing, just the wind outside.

Then one man pushed his way through the crowd of soldiers surrounding Ricco and Gillis. This man was Asian, short but rugged and sturdy-looking. He was wearing the desert camouflage uniform of a U.S. Marine Corps captain.

He took his helmet off and glared down at Ricco and Gillis.

“Who the hell are you two? We’re in the middle of an exercise here!”

With shaking hands, Ricco and Gillis quickly pulled out their Presidential Action Letters and showed them to the young officer. The captain hastily read them and then nodded to his men.

“OK, let’s call this a false start,” he said calmly. “Reset everything and we’ll do it again in ten minutes.”

At this, the soldiers all lowered their weapons and began to empty the building. Those who had burst through the windows went out the same way. Those who had come down from the ceiling, climbed back up and disappeared through the roof. Still others drifted out the front door.

The Asian officer then looked at Gillis and Ricco’s PALs again and helped them to their feet.

“So, you’re the aerial refueling team,” he said. “The Air National Guard guys…”

Ricco and Gillis nodded with relief.

The officer handed the letters back to them.

“Well, this is the combat-simulation building,” he told them. “And it’s off-limits to just about everyone. I believe you’re bunking in next door.”

He gave them a quick once-over and added: “I think you can grab a shower and new pants over there as well.”

With that, the young captain walked briskly out of the building, barking orders to his men as he went. And just like that, Ricco and Gillis were alone again. They both looked at each other and realized they’d been so scared, they’d wet their pants.

“Oh, man,” Ricco groaned, inspecting his damp crotch. “What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?”

Jazz Norton was in big trouble.

Four MiG-29 Fulcrums aligned in perfect combat formation were breaking through the low clouds right in front of him.

Their wings seemed to sag, there were so many weapons hanging beneath them. Each MiG was bearing at least four Aphid air-to-air missiles, plus a huge cannon in its nose. All four were painted in brown-and-tan desert camouflage. To Norton’s tired eyes, the color scheme looked particularly sinister against the background of dreadful lemon sky.

The MiGs were projected just five miles off the nose of his attack helicopter. His threat-warning screen began blinking furiously when the four dots representing the dangerous MiGs showed up. A loud screech went through his headphones. The MiGs had spotted him! Their radars were now keying in on his chopper, arming their air-to-air missiles as a prelude to firing at him.

Other panels on Norton’s control board began blinking. A TV readout of his ground-threat-warning status was buzzing madly. It was displaying no less than six SA-6 SAM sites going hot on the ground below, as well as a dozen separate radar-guided antiaircraft batteries hidden in the hills all around him. Their gunners had spotted his copter, too. Like the Fulcrums, they were preparing to fire at him.

His target-acquisition screen was also blinking. It was displaying an odd collection of buildings in a hidden valley surrounded by high desert cliffs just ahead. Many helicopters were whirring above this place, which, to Norton’s eyes, looked like a rambling ranch of some sort. There were six buildings in all. Soldiers were running through the streets between them. There was a T-72 tank sitting at one end of the compound. A large red circle on his acquisition screen was completely covering it.

The display warning was blinking: Time to Fire: 8 seconds… 7 seconds… 6 seconds…

Norton grabbed his control stick and started squeezing it very tightly.

Damn… what now?

He hastily scanned the copter’s control systems. What the hell was he supposed to do again? Was it add power and dive? Or cut back and flip over? The T-72 was his main target—it seemed to constitute the greatest threat at the moment. But should he postpone firing at the tank and take out the nearest AA battery first? Or should he continue on to his main target and hope the AA gunners were not accurate with their first shots? And what about the Fulcrums? Could they shoot him before he could shoot the tank?

Norton didn’t know the answers to these questions or the few million others racing through his brain. So he just jammed the stick forward and increased throttle, not waiting for the copter’s computer to reply. He was going in on the tank.

But suddenly a SAM warning buzzer went off in his ear. One of the SA-6 surface-to-air missiles had been fired at him. Damn! He’d forgotten all about them! More out of self-preservation than anything else, Norton leaned even further on the controls, plunging two hundred feet in three seconds and miraculously dodging the SAM streaking up towards him.

He somehow recovered flight at 250 feet and realigned himself with the tank. But was he now too low to fire his antitank missiles? Should he pull up and go around again? Should he fire at that AA gun sitting on the eastern edge of the town first, then try for the tank?

While all this was bouncing around Norton’s skull, yet another cockpit buzzer went off. It was his fuel warning light—he was past his bingo point. He now did not have enough fuel to get back to base. Another buzzer went off. A stream of AA was heading right for him. Then another buzzer began screaming.

Norton looked up just in time to see the Aphid AA missile coming right at him. The Fulcrum that had fired it at him was already pulling up and away.

The missile hit the copter a second later. Norton saw yellow flame first. Then orange. Then deep red.