Stephen Coonts - Combat

Vespa now knew that Pure Delight had launched with three other TA-4Js, all with four Mark 82s beneath the wings. Acting as range safety officer, she would clear the flight into the operating area and coordinate with the ground controller in keeping other aircraft away from the impact zone. She was authorized to cancel operations at any time with a knock-it-off call.

In her fifteen years in the navy, Liz Vespa had seldom seen live ordnance expended. Most of her flying had been in C-9 transports and TraCom T-34s or TA-4s. The closest she had got to tactical operations had been qualification as an A-4 adversary pilot, but even that coveted slot ended when all but two of the squadrons were disestablished.

Quitcherbitchin’ she told herself. She leveled the Foxtrot, nosed down slightly, and executed a precise four-point roll. Then for no reason at all she wondered what it would be like to kiss Michael Ostrewski. Do you, Scooter, take Ozzie …

Liz made a clearing turn to port, expecting to see Hawk Flight inbound. She forced herself to focus on the job at hand, upset that she had allowed her mind to wander in the air. That had seldom happened. It was one of the factors that separated her from so many other aviators, male or female. Her flight evaluations had repeated entries: “excellent situational awareness, full concentration, highly professional.” Now she found herself humming the refrain from South Pacific , her favorite musical. Gonna wash that man right out of my hair, and send him on his way …

She told herself she was not in love with Ozzie Ostrewski or anyone else, which was true. She knew that Ozzie had recently met “a nice Catholic girl” at a midnight Mass and presumably he was dating her. Once or twice Liz had thought of asking offhandedly, “Hey, Oz, how’s your love life?” She had demurred because she knew that The Only Polish-American Tomcat Ace would certainly interpret it as jealousy. Men are such swine. Well, at least some men. If only he weren’t such a good dancer …

“Hawk Twelve from Hawk Lead. I gotcha, Scooter. I’m about three miles back at your eight. Over.”

Damn it! Liz, get your shit together . She was angry at being “caught” by Zack Delight, flying in the backseat of one of the trainers. Vespa felt she should have made the first tally-ho on a four-plane flight instead of being tagged as a single. She knew that, despite his red-meat exterior, Delight was too polite to mention it again, but she also knew she had just dropped a point in the unrelenting tacit competition among aviators.

“Lead from Twelve. Roger, Zack. I’m clearing you onto the range. Check in with Gila Control before your first run.”

“Right-o, Scooter.”

Resuming her orbit, Liz awaited Delight’s initial bombing pass. Each Skyhawk would make four runs: one each from five thousand feet at sixty degrees; seven-thousand at thirty degrees; and two from the low-level pop-up pattern at forty-five degrees. She and Delight would mark the hits on their kneeboards for comparison with the data received from the range personnel before debrief.

Moments later Delight was on the air again. “Gila Control, this is Hawk Lead. Rolling in hot.”

Glancing down, Liz saw the jet roll over and slant into its sixty-degree dive toward the northerly target, an ancient truck. She knew that Wang was flying, with Zack observing in the rear seat. The other three Chinese — Deng, Yao, and Hua — were solo.

The lead Skyhawk tracked straight down its chosen path. Liz judged it a decent run, maybe a bit shallow, but the little delta-winged jet smoothly pulled up after making its drop. Wang’s lilting accent came to her ears, “Lead is pulling off.” Below and behind the TA-4 an orangewhite light erupted near the truck, spewing smoke and dust into the air.

Deng was next down the chute with a “Two is in” call. Liz watched with pride as her pupil put his first bomb near the target at five o’clock. If anything, he had released a little high. She imagined him flipping the master arm switch to safe as he recovered and called, “Two off.”

“Three going in,” came from Yao. Liz rolled port wing low to follow his run. She knew that Ozzie had literally taken the taciturn Chinese under his wing, and evidently the instructor’s extra attention had borne fruit. Mr. Yao would never be the best bomber in the class, but he showed steady improvement. For a moment Liz wondered if Ostrewski had invested the effort for Yao, or for himself. She literally shook the thought from her mind, snapping her head left and right. I’ve got to get him out of my mind for a while .

Yao was pressing, no doubt about it. Delight had just called “Three, you’re …” when Yao dropped. The hit was about thirty feet out at one o’clock. Zack came back on the air. “Too low, Yao. You were probably below twenty-five hundred.” There was no reply, so Delight added, “Acknowledge.” The hick on the turnip truck was gone from his voice, replaced by the Leader of Men.

“Acknowledge.” Liz could tell that Yao resented the rebuke.

As Four rolled in, Delight was climbing back to the perch, leading an aerial daisy chain of pirouetting Skyhawks. Vespa tracked each through the seven-thousand-foot pattern and the first pop-up, observing one hit for each pilot. On his fourth run, however, Hawk Lead pulled out without releasing; Delight had a hung bomb. Clearing the immediate area, he called Vespa. “Liz, I can’t get shed of this thing. We’re gonna have to divert to Luke. Over.”

Vespa realized that Zack Delight had no choice. The FAA had balked at permitting ATA jets to take off with live ordnance; there was no question of allowing anyone to return to a civilian field with a potentially armed bomb aboard, whatever the master switch position. “Roger, Zack. I’ll finish the cycle here.”

Deng’s fourth bomb was the best yet — it obscured the deformed old vehicle. As he called off and clear, Liz directed him to dog in the holding pattern until the others were finished. She wanted to lead a four-ship flight back into the break, “lookin’ good for the troops.”

Yao called “Three in” and made an aggressive move in his second pop-up. It was immediately apparent at the apex that he was too steep. Liz realized that Mr. Yao was determined to get a center hit, and the onerous Mr. Delight’s departure only encouraged the student. She thumbed the mike button. “Three, you’re too steep! Pull out!”

The TA-4J continued its plunge toward the chalky circle on the desert floor. Liz felt her cheeks flush. “Hawk Three, this is Hawk Lead. You are ordered to pull out. Now, mister!”

Yao’s Skyhawk never wavered in its dive. With her thumb still on the transmit button, Liz watched aghast. My god, he’s going right in …

She was already forming the thought “target fixation” for the postmortem when Yao released. Liz estimated he dropped at less than two thousand feet above the ground, and the lethal blast pattern extended to twenty-two hundred. His nose had barely come level when the Mark 82 detonated.

Hawk Three was obscured in the mushrooming smoke and dust of the explosion. Vespa gave a sigh of relief, surprised to see the Skyhawk recover. She realized he had been caught in the frag pattern. He must have damage . She ordered priorities in her mind.

“Knock it off, knock it off. This is Hawk Twelve to all Hawks. Safe all your master arm switches. Acknowledge.”

Wang in Hawk Four, the only one still with ordnance, chirped a response at least two octaves high. Liz had Yao’s jet padlocked in her vision as she pushed over to join him. Briefly she switched frequencies. “Gila Control from Hawk Twelve. We may have a damaged aircraft. I’m stopping operations.”