Stephen Coonts - Combat

“Ah, roger, Hawk. We read you. Standing by.”

She was back to the common freq. “Hawk Three from Twelve. Yao, do you read me?”

Something rapid and garbled came from the two-seater now less than two thousand yards ahead of Twelve. Liz waited clarification, got none, and called again. “Yao, this is Vespa. I am a mile in trail, overtaking you to port.” She could see the stricken jet was streaming something, fuel or hydraulic fluid. Or both. The plane was in level flight, slowly turning northerly, toward Williams.

Yao’s gentle turn allowed Vespa to close more easily. She slid up on his left wing and surveyed the damage. Small holes were hemorrhaging vital fluids from the wings and empennage. The Skyhawk’s “wet wing” held three thousand pounds of fuel, and most of it was venting through holes in the bottom. It occurred to Liz that this sight had been familiar to aviators of Hook Peters’s generation: a battle-damaged A-4 trying to reach home before it bled to death.

She remembered to speak slowly, modulating her voice. “Yao, this is Vespa. Can you transmit? Over.”

She saw the student’s head turn toward her briefly, a faceless entity beneath the oxygen mask and sun visor. He tapped the side of his helmet, then he nodded vigorously. Placing his left hand on his mask, he shook his head left and right. He can receive but not transmit. She rocked her wings. “All right, Yao. Keep this heading.” She paused. “Break-break. Four, do you copy?”

“Yes, Miss Vespa. Copy.”

“Wang, I want you to safe your bomb and drop it on the nearest bull’s-eye. Then join Deng and return to base. Clear each other for hung ordnance before landing. Acknowledge.”

Wang replied, then Liz was back to Yao. “Three, this is Vespa again. Let’s do a systems check. Show me a thumb’s-up, thumb’s-down, or thumb’s-level for a declining state.” She allowed him to absorb the procedure, then began.

“Hydraulics.” Thumb down.

“Utility.” Thumb level. Damn, he’s losing his controls .

“Fuel.” Thumb level. He’s bleeding fuel and hydraulics . Vespa was frustrated, uncertain how long Yao could stay in the air.

“Electric.” Thumb up.

“Yao, I can clear you for a straight-in approach or you can eject in a safe area.” Yao motioned toward the north, nodding for emphasis. “You can maintain control long enough for a landing?”

Yao nodded again, less vigorously.

“All right. I’m calling the tower to declare an emergency.”

Assured that the fire trucks were rolling, Liz took stock. Fifteen miles out, it was still possible for Yao to eject into the row crops south of Williams, or she could talk him down.

The steps came to her like multiplication tables. “Yao, get ready. To compensate for hydraulic loss, you’ll have to pull the T-handle. First, be sure you’re below two hundred knots.” Liz glanced at her own airspeed indicator: 210.

She saw him lean down in the cockpit, then straighten. He nodded. “All right, Yao. You’re flying by cable now. The stick forces will be very high — especially the ailerons — but you can compensate somewhat with electric trim.”

The abused J52 began spitting intermittent smoke. Liz noted that the white mist in the slipstream was nearly gone. He’s about to run out of fuel . “Yao, listen. You need to switch to the fuselage fuel tank. Do it now.”

Yao nodded, then flashed a thumbs-up. Vespa asked, “Fuel flow steady?” Another nod, followed by a thumb level. Liz assumed problems with the fuel pump, but at fifty pounds per minute the fifteen hundred pounds in the fuselage tank would get the wounded Skyhawk home.

Vespa’s mind raced, trying to stay ahead of the airborne crisis proceeding at three and a half miles per minute.

He’s getting pretty low; he’s going to drag it in . “Yao, you’re losing altitude. Can you add power and hold what you got?”

Hawk Three seemed to respond, then visibly decelerated. Liz glanced at her altimeter: barely two thousand feet above the ground. It’s gonna be awful close .

“Yao, listen. I think you’re having fuel feed problems. Switch to manual fuel control.” A brisk nod acknowledged the order. “Okay, good. Now slowly advance your throttle to eighty-eight percent. Let me know how that works.”

Long moments dragged by before Yao gave a thumb’s-up.

“All right, Mr. Yao. You’re doing fine. Listen, we’re going to make a low cautionary approach. I want you to maintain 160 knots indicated, okay?” The two jets jockeyed in relation to one another, speed stabilizing at 165 by Vespa’s airspeed indicator.

“Now, one more thing, Yao. I need you to put 110 mils on your gunsight. Understand? At the end of the runway, you will aim for the thousand-foot marker and fly onto the runway. Okay?”

Yao reached up and put the setting on his sight. He looked at Vespa and displayed his left thumb again.

Liz waited a few more moments, trying to gauge Yao’s rate of descent against the remaining distance. Damn it! I need to talk to him . She waited several seconds more, then regretted the time she spent pondering. “Yao, this is Hawk Lead.” She sought to reassert her authority. “You need to decide right away if you can land or if you should eject.” She emphasized each syllable for clarity. Yao squirmed on his seat as if trying to make a decision. Following several rapid pulses, he pointed straight ahead.

There’s the runway! Vespa could see the perimeter fence and the two-mile-long concrete strip running into the midday mirage. She knew that Yao could stand some good news. “Three, this is Vespa. I have the runway in sight. Come left about fifteen degrees.” Slowly, the TA-4 complied, steadying up on the runway heading. Barely two miles now.

Then Yao depressed the landing-gear knob and pulled the emergency gear extension handle. The nosewheel and both mains fell forward, locking under their own weight, incurring horrible drag. Liz Vespa’s heart sank. There was no retracting them. “Yao! You’re settling too fast! Power, power, power!”

The abused J52-P8 had no more power to give. As the last of the engine oil siphoned overboard, bearings and blades exceeded design limits and the jet began shaking itself apart in its mounts. At best, Liz saw that Hawk Three would impact between the fence and the gravel overrun at the threshold. The extra drag coupled with the straining engine and ponderous controls conspired with gravity to defeat lift. The “zero-zero” specifications of the IG-3 ejection seat flashed on her mental screen: wings level with no rate of descent. But there’s no time! “Yao, eject, eject, eject!”

The TA-4 shuddered, wavered for a long ephemeral moment, and the airspeed dropped through 110 knots. The canopy shot upward and away from the airframe as Yao began the ejection sequence — two seconds too late. Hawk Three fell to earth and exploded with a low, rolling carrumph.

Scooter Vespa landed through the smoke of Yao’s pyre.

Terry Peters was first up the boarding ladder of Hawk Twelve. He ensured the seat was safe, then waved the line crew away.

Liz pulled off her helmet and fumbled for the bag. Peters took the blue-and-white hardhat with the ATA logo and Scooter in gold script across the back. “Oh, Terry,” she croaked. “It was awful …” She choked down a sob and rubbed her watery eyes with a gloved hand. He stretched his right arm between her neck and the headrest and awkwardly hugged her, allowing his forehead to touch hers. “I know, babe. I know.”

Slowly she unstrapped and followed him down the yellow ladder. They stood by the nose gear, smelling the smoke and hearing the mindless wailing of the sirens. Peters decided against any preliminary questions. There would be plenty of those, but he felt that Mr. Wei, the program manager, undoubtedly would declare a regrettable loss wholly to pilot error. In this case, the PRC officer would be right.