Kevin Miller - Declared Hostile

The launch was about to begin and the yellow shirt motioned Macho ahead. She released the parking brake and, against her better judgment, looked up. Shane smiled proudly down upon her and clapped her open palms together as if she were watching a small child in a school play. One of the smug Raiders also waved with his fingers, as if to say “Bye-bye!” Compartmentalize! Compartmentalize! Macho scolded herself. She kept her eyes locked on the director, refusing to look at Vultures’ Row.

The E-2 and tanker aircraft ahead of Macho were shot into the moist tropical air to take their places overhead, and a director led her to the catapult. On signal, she spread her wings and locked them in place. Once over the shuttle, she lifted her hands above the canopy rail while the ordnancemen “armed” the captive Sidewinder practice missile on Station 9. Unable to resist, she slowly turned her visor-covered eyes to the right, moving her head as little as possible, and caught a glimpse of Shane. With the two Raiders still by her side, Shane’s attention appeared to be elsewhere on the flight deck. She nodded as one of the men pointed at something on the bow. Just my luck, Macho thought, to get “ Miss Idaho ” as a roommate.

Macho was led forward and the catapult petty officer directed her to “take tension.” Shoving both throttles to military power, she felt the airplane tense up underneath her. She then “wiped out the cockpit” by moving the stick to the four corners of travel and pushed the rudder pedals to their full extent. Ready, she popped a sharp salute to the catapult officer. When he returned it, she placed her head back in the headrest and grabbed the canopy bow “towel rack” and locked both arms in place.

From the island catwalk, a thrilled Shane watched the scene. That’s my roommate in that big and powerful airplane! She squealed with delight as Macho suddenly roared down the track and went airborne with a boom as the catapult shuttle slammed into the water brake. Shane watched Macho fly away until she could follow her no longer. She was thrilled.

I am so proud, so amazed, and so fortunate to be here!

Mongo was shot off the bow a moment later and sucked the gear and flaps up. Leveling at 500 feet, he then energized his radar and Forward Looking Infrared sensor, or FLIR.

Like the other aircraft, he began to climb at seven miles ahead of the ship. Unlike the others, he set out to the west, on his own.

Mongo climbed at a shallow angle, the blue surface slowly falling away as he concentrated on setting up his cockpit up for the mission. He soon passed 20,000 feet — and had almost another 20,000 feet to go.

Passing 30,000 feet, he was well above the white buildup columns that cast shadows on the surface below. To his right, and about 50 miles north, a storm with an anvil-topped cloud sat over an open patch of ocean. Far to the south, at a distance he guessed was over the South American landmass, he saw other towering cumulus thunderstorms with more anvil-tops. His radar detected contacts on the surface, four total, and he commanded his FLIR sensor to lock on them one at a time. The binocular power of the sensor helped him identify them as merchants: two containerships, a tanker, and one car carrier that resembled a floating rectangular box. Mongo guessed the car carrier to be coming up from the Panama Canal.

He still had over 100 miles to go.

At 36,000 feet, Mongo leveled off but stayed underneath the contrail altitude of an airliner about 15 miles ahead of his nose. He glanced over his shoulder to see if he was “marking” himself and, as he had planned, saw no contrail behind him. Good , he thought and watched the airliner on his FLIR. The silhouette looked like a Boeing widebody, and the closest he got to the aircraft was three miles as it crossed right-to-left in front of him.

Mongo wasn’t worried about being detected by the airliner, and out here in international airspace, it was unlikely anyone was watching either one of them. Big sky, little airplane. The white contrails the aircraft engines generated were long, and with nothing better to do, Mongo wondered where the flight had originated. He guessed Dallas, as good a guess as any. As the airliner gradually receded to the south, Mongo figured it to be a 767, and, by the paint job, he could identify the U.S. flag airline.

While Commander Wilson and his wingman Macho were returning home to Mother after their training flight, Mongo was just beginning his. After 30 minutes airborne and over 200 miles from the carrier, Mongo retarded the throttles and entered into a shallow descent. Fuel management around the ship — and especially in an FA-18—was critical, and Mongo would need to refuel in-flight before he recovered in two hours. But this was risky. He had to complete his mission with just enough reserve fuel to find the big wing Air Force tanker near Mother, someplace 200 miles behind him. He could then get a drink before the engines flamed out.

Risky. Mongo was not given to worry. He was doing his job, and, if the ship weenies did theirs, this mission would be successful. If he ran out of gas and had to punch out, fine. If he died on this flight, fine. He had no one waiting for him in the states, and while he was in the service of something bigger than himself, the United States Government , he was drawn to the challenge: to manage every aspect of this mission, perfectly , and only he would know exactly how perfectly, leaving nothing to chance. And if the weak links in the chain broke, he would save their bacon. He even hoped they would drop the ball so he could pick it up.

Enjoying an unobstructed 360-degree view, he basked in his solitude as he descended in a lazy turn to the right. He knew he wasn’t, and at five minutes past the hour, the MIDS display showed a message:

READY FOR MISSION 45B AS FRAGGED?

Mongo selected his response:

WILCO

He wasn’t sure of the location of the controller he was communicating with. On the “small boy” guided missile destroyer? In an AWACS or E-2? Nevada? It didn’t matter, and Mongo wasn’t going to waste brain power speculating. This controller had come up on the right frequency at the right time with the right mission number. The controller answered him:

ROGER TAKE STATION AS BRIEFED PACKAGE ON SCHEDULE

COI BULLSEYE 315/35 TRACKING NW 330 40 KTS

REPORT PLAYTIME

Mongo called up his bullseye waypoint and calculated a course to the contact of interest about 30 miles away. Cruising at 20,000 feet, Mongo scanned the surface of the ocean. On the other side of a column of puffy cumulous, he saw it: a go-fast with a big wake. Taking care not to lock on the boat with his radar — for fear of setting off any RF detection equipment it may have — he overbanked the jet to put his nose on the smuggler. Viewing it through the FLIR, he bumped the castle switch to “grab” the IR contrast. Picking his nose back up, he leveled off, sauntering toward the boat from a position behind it. He maneuvered to conceal himself in the sun. In no hurry, he energized the video recorder.

CAPTURED he signaled to the nameless, faceless controller. He then used his data link to send a picture of the contact. The reply was swift:

VERIFIED HOSTILE

COMMENCE LIMA IN 1 MIKE

Mongo punched his timer and scanned the surface as he performed lazy S-turns to stay behind the go-fast and to stay in the sun. He saw the gray Fire Scout UAV, the package , three miles below him, heading for the same “skunk.” He scanned the water out to 20 miles around them — nothing — and felt satisfied. No witnesses… and no rescue.