Chapter 3
3
The four of them stepped out on the vast, and still weirdly empty, Flight Deck. It was dark except for the edge-of-deck lights meant to keep you from falling five stories into the ocean. The planets and the first of the stars shone in the deep blue sky. Too far from shore to spot land, the lights of a distant ship slid along the far horizon.
At the same moment, the big mid-ships elevator engaged and lifted a helo and her two crew chiefs up from the Hangar Deck. Fin had crossed half the way to it before she noticed something strange about the silhouette.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Not a thing,” Kara informed her.
She could hear Fence laughing at her, but couldn’t look away from the odd shape.
“What?” Her voice came out sharper than she’d intended.
“I guess there’s things even you don’t know about the 5D.” Fence never took offense when her temper barked, which always cooled her right back down to normal. Almost always. When she really stepped in it and couldn’t find her way back out, he’d comment about what a fine Irish temper she had. She’d forgotten about his ability to always forge her an out when she felt snippy, something she’d always had to strain to do for herself. It had made him easy to be around.
Tom Schaw. There were a lot of good memories wrapped up around that man. Long ago and half a world away, but so very good. Their final night together, the best of them all. They’d danced close, laughed a lot, and finished the night as close as two bodies could get in his daddy’s hay barn.
Well, she wouldn’t rise to the bait this time, but there was definitely something wrong with this helo. It was…
“Mother Mary and Joseph,” she felt as breathless as Fence had sounded on spotting her.
Five years. She’d flown five years for the Night Stalkers and never seen one. Oh, it was no secret they existed but to see one in the flesh, or rather in the carbon fiber, was a whole new experience. As she approached and could see it more clearly in the low light, it just kept getting better.
“I get to fly a Stealth Hawk?”
“The only kind of Hawk the Night Stalkers keep on this ship,” Fence assured her.
She looked down at the deck, but she hadn’t paid enough attention when passing upward along the stairs. Four or five birds, hidden by shadows below…all stealth? She’d targeted the 5D because they were one of the best. Now she’d have to consider what that wish had gotten her into. She rose slightly on her toes and clicked her boot heels together three times but the ship didn’t whirl up into the sky and take her away. The Stealth Hawk continued to squat solidly before her.
This was real.
The distant SAR bird with its four crew and this beautiful bird were all that were in view on the night-shrouded deck. A glance aloft showed the dim red lights in the control tower atop the island, but no other signs of life on the ship.
Angular joints connected panels with odd curves that must scatter radar in very strange ways. When she reached out to touch the surface, it was more like the rubber of a car tire. Not the usual slick aluminum carapace textured only by the use of the matte-black paint she was used to.
The crew chiefs had already pre-flighted the bird, but they led her and Fence on a quick tour including modified engine intake and exhaust ports to mask their heat signature, large fairings over the main and tail rotor hubs to cut noise, and even a fine gold layer in the flat windscreens to avoid detection of any electronic noise from the cockpit’s instruments.
“Take it up and wring her out a bit. She’s a right noble steed.” Then Major Cowboy turned serious. “Stay south of the ship, maximum ten klicks out, assuming you want to avoid live fire.”
“Incoming or outbound?” Just how active a warship was this. No, in its own way, the Peleliu was as stealth as the helicopter. Depending far more on being quiet than brandishing any swords.
Kara’s glance to the north said they were far too close to the Yemen coast for any airspace in that direction to be the least bit friendly.
Justin and Kara then headed back toward the Peleliu’s command island. Probably going straight to the most secure space on the ship, Air Plot. It’s where all the ship’s security would be monitored, from the spinning radar atop the mast to underwater sonar. So, for her flight, they were going to go play Big Brother and Sister…well, Wife—watching their every move. Fine.
“You up for this, Fence?” She was always careful not to show her nerves, but around him it felt okay to let them out a little.
“Do we have a choice?”
“Not if we want to fly with the 5D.”
He tipped his head in that way he had as if to say, Then why are we still standing here?
So, she climbed aboard into the right-hand pilot’s seat.
“Haven’t sat left seat in a while,” Fence remarked after he’d circled around the nose and climbed into the copilot’s position. “But don’t worry, I know I’m no Night Stalker.”
“Step One: get rid of your helmet. Your head looks close enough to Stick’s size to use his.”
“Why?” he clutched his helmet like a boy not wanting to give up his favorite toy.
“Way more capabilities built into our headgear. You make a habit of this, and we’ll have to get you a custom-fit, but that takes a bit of doing.”
He reluctantly handed his own helmet off to the crew chiefs seated behind them and, thankfully, Stick’s helmet proved to be a decent match. Plugging in the umbilical to link him to the helo’s systems, a few steps to focus the projections on the inside of the visor, and he was good to go.
Despite the helmet, he was still no Night Stalker—and she’d have to keep that in mind. But the cockpit was familiar to both of them and they soon settled into the engine start and pre-departure checklists.
For the next forty-five minutes, she followed Major Justin Roberts’ instructions and wrung her out a bit. It wasn’t that the Stealth Hawk was less responsive than a Black Hawk, it was more that it was differently responsive. Also, even through her helmet, the sounds were strange, though that feeling faded fast enough. Climb, descend, sideslip, auto-rotate, twist on the axis of her main rotor, rolls, emergency landings onto the deck (both soft and hard), and everything else she could think of.
She was also putting Fence through his paces. At first, it was simple tasks like seamlessly passing control back and forth. Then performing the same tasks under extreme circumstances, as if she was hit and taken out of action during an emergency landing or an attack run.
This was a transport Hawk, not the Direct-Action Penetrator gunship, but it still had far more advanced electronics than a Navy Seahawk. But he soon mastered most of that as well as Stick ever had. What he lacked in training, he made up for with instinct. As the flight progressed, she had to explain less and less until they were flying as close to silence as she ever did.
For the final ten minutes, she had him do one of the hardest tricks for a pilot. She dialed up the opacity on his helmet visor—on-demand blackout was a new feature. “Now, you have to trust the readouts inside your visor completely. No outside view. No console view.”
“What the hell, Fin?”
“Someone pings us with a laser, you don’t want them finding your eyes.”
And for ten minutes, he struggled against instinct to settle into the strange world of pure heads-up instrument flying.
By the time they were ghosting back down onto the deck, she was wondering why he’d never been picked out by the 160th’s recruiters. Sure he was Navy but…
“Well done, Fence.”
“Kee-rist, Fin. Where did they teach you to do that kind of flying?”
“Did you already forget what I said about flying Army?”
He wiped his forehead after removing his helmet. “I’ve been watching these guys?—”
“And gals.”
“—and gals fly for the last six months. Never caught a tenth of what they were up to.”
“You did better than I expected, even with the major’s recommendation. We’ll see what happens when we hit land or if the situation goes south.” The surprise that she wouldn’t be sharing with Fence anytime soon, was how effortless he was to fly with. As if their past had given them a shared shorthand and understanding. A sympatico she hadn’t known she was missing until she flew with him.
“You do this every day, Finella?”
“Not every day.”
Instead of groaning, he looked intrigued. How little did the Navy use someone with his skills?