Kevin Miller - Declared Hostile

That was fine with Wilson, but he remained skeptical. Why bring the ship way down here, except to placate the State Department? Or the general in SOUTHCOM who wants some toys to play with so he can pretend to be a big time theater commander? Whatever the real reason, there were worse places to operate. Maybe, on the way home, they would get a port visit to Fort Lauderdale as a reward.

When Admiral Meyerkopf rose to leave, the room popped to attention. With the Captain and CAG in trail, he waited until he was almost outside before he released them with a terse “Seats.”

Annie gave Weed a smile. “Well, you gonna fly with us?”

Gesturing to Wilson, Weed answered. “If Kemosabe here will have me! Actually, we have about eight of us from OPTEVFOR on this test program. Seriously, can I bring one of my pilots to join the Firebird ready room? We’ll pay for the gas we use, and you’ll get extra sorties to pad your total. What a deal!”

Wilson smiled and nodded. “Sure, but who is the pilot? Not Chainsaw ?”

Just then an imposing lieutenant commander in a flight suit walked toward the group. Well over six feet tall, he held Wilson’s gaze with his unsmiling, cold dark eyes as he approached. Weed introduced them.

“Flip, Annie, this is Keith Meadows, one of our flight test pilots. Mongo , this is Skipper Wilson and XO Schofield.”

Mongo, tight-lipped and businesslike, threw in a curt sir and ma’am as he shook hands with the two commanders. Having his hand squeezed like a vise did not leave a favorable impression on Wilson. He’d seen this air of condescending superiority and evil-eye gaze before in the overachieving population of fighter pilots he part of, but it was rare. There were many, many more gregarious Weeds than taciturn Mongos .

“Mongo comes to us from the West Coast where he just finished his department head tour.”

“Oh, yeah?” Annie asked. “What ship?’

“ Nimitz ,” he answered. Offering the minimum response possible, the pilot effectively brought to the conversation to a halt, and Mongo excused himself with a pained smile.

“Are all your guys so affable?” Wilson asked Weed.

“Okay, he’s no Regis Philbin, but he’s a Jedi Knight when it comes to the Hornet and sensor fusion. My best tester. And, in his spare time, he paints with watercolors and arranges flowers. Yeah, okay… he’s a geek.”

Annie smiled. “Does he need to bunk with our JOs?”

“Nah, we’re good. The ship found a bunkroom for my guys.”

“Can he fly?” Wilson asked.

“Yeah, he can fly. He has that ability — like you guys — to use his head to analyze the airborne situation and transfer that into stick and rudder skills. He’s solid around the ship. Seriously, you won’t have to worry about him.”

Wilson nodded. “Okay, welcome to the Firebirds . We’ll get Stretch to put you guys on the day/night qual schedule — for tomorrow .”

“Stretch Armstrong is your Ops Officer? Terrific. And, hey, no rush for the night stuff. In a few weeks, when the moon is fuller, I’ll be ready to go!”

Wilson smiled. Same old happy-go-lucky Weed . He was pleased to have his old roommate back in the squadron with him. He looked forward to a fun at-sea period.

Shane Duncan had never been so nervous.

With sweaty palms she sat next to Macho and Jumpin in the last row of high-backed chairs in Ready Room 5. The folder on her lap consisted of “Order of Battle” information on drug cartel go-fast boats and the Colombian Air Force. After Skipper Wilson finished talking she expected to be next, and while she wanted to listen and absorb his every word, her mind wandered. In five minutes, she would be giving her first presentation, ever, in front of real pilots in this fleet Hornet squadron on an aircraft carrier at sea. This was the big leagues, for sure.

Mercifully, she wasn’t seasick; she detected no motion at all even though she could see by the closed circuit TV image of the flight deck that they surely were moving across the water.

How beautiful St. Thomas was! And by the looks of it, the day outside was gorgeous. She couldn’t wait to go outside to smell the salt air from the flight deck, to see the blue Caribbean. And later in the day, the pilots were going to fly! So exciting! I can’t wait to watch that!

Everyone in the ready room — except for Shane — wore green flight suit. Like a real sailor, she wore a wash khaki shirt and slacks, another first. She admonished herself for not concentrating on the CO, and once again gave him her attention.

Wilson wrapped up his comments about the upcoming exercise and how he wanted his squadron pilots to behave.

“Remember, our job is to support both the ship’s drills and tasking from SOUTHCOM. We’ve got a nice exercise for us to get some training and have fun, and we’ll hear more about that in a minute. If you are called off an exercise intercept, do it without backtalk and investigate what they want you to look at. If the ship can’t schedule our hops when we want them, too bad, we’ll fly when available. Also during this time we’ll have testers from OPTEVFOR flying with us, like Commander Hopper and Lieutenant Commander Meadows here. They’ll be helping test some Fire Scout UAVs from the small boy Max Leslie , and that ship could be anywhere. So, it’s going to be a fun and diverse three or four weeks in this new and beautiful part of the world for many of you: both exercise and real-world operations, lots of gas from big wing tankers, and flying , which is always a good deal.

“So, we’ve got day and night ops today after a nice week off in port. Now we need to refocus on routine carrier operations. Flight leaders, we need solid preflight briefings, and because the jets have sat for a week, they’ll have some bugs to work out. So don’t press it. Fly smart and fly the brief. Okay, enough motherhood. Stretch, what’s next?”

“Sir, we have the spy next,” answered “Stretch” Armstrong

Wilson gestured to the back of the room. “Okay, new guy, Ensign Duncan, come on up here.”

With heart pounding, Shane gathered her folder and slid out to the aisle and strode forward. Wilson motioned her to stand next to him.

“All right, we’ve got our new guy spy, Shane Duncan, who comes to us from the University of Idaho via a little stop at intel school. Shane, it’s good to have you in the squadron as we’ve been without an intel officer for some time. We need your analysis and knowledge of the local situation, and we look forward to your brief. Firebirds , let’s welcome Ensign Duncan.”

“HELLO, FUNG!” the pilots boomed.

Shane flinched from the blast. “Thank you, sir!” She said smiling, feeling the blush of embarrassment that covered her face. For a moment after Wilson took his seat and the floor was hers, she froze. Knowing that all eyes were on her, she took a deep breath, picked up the projector remote, and brought up her first slide.

Three rows back, Trench and his sidekick Coach indeed had their eyes on Ensign Duncan, now known throughout the wing as Wonder Woman .

As Shane delivered her briefing and pointed to various positions on the chart of the western Caribbean, her figure a distraction even in her regulation khaki uniform. The two pilots were watching, but weren’t listening, to her presentation.

“ Mmm-mmm ” Trench sighed as Shane pointed high to show a divert field in Jamaica.

“Roger that,” Coach responded in a tone only Trench could hear. As she continued with the exercise slides, Shane briefed the ready room with increased confidence.