CHAPTER 1
By the time Caitlin arrived at Santini Air around nine Hawke was already there and waiting, and looking none too pleased.
"What's up with you?" she asked, wasting no time with dancing around the issue. Dom was gone on a well deserved vacation, and they were supposed to be having some fun, especially now that he was out of the hospital and on the mend.
"Nothing," he sighed.
"It never is. Now what's really wrong?"
"At my appointment yesterday the doctor 'suggested' waiting a while longer to recuperate before going back to flying. In other words, I am officially grounded."
"Not for very long though I'm sure."
"I hope not," he muttered. While Dom was gone he had been bunking at his apartment to avoid giving Caitlin the added chore of ferrying him back and forth to the cabin on a daily basis or risking getting caught without a license, but there was no denying it wasn't quite the same.
"Did he say why exactly or what you could do to regain active flight status as soon as possible?"
He shook his head dejectedly. "All things considered, I thought I was doing pretty well, but evidently not well enough. I'm not saying I'm looking for a war, but at least then they usually sent you home or patched you up and sent you back out there, not leaving you to sit around and do nothing for weeks on end."
"You sure that's all that's bothering you?" Maybe it was, but he seemed pretty down for just not being able to fly for a few days longer.
"Yeah," he replied vaguely with a half-hearted brief trace of a smile. "Everything else is fine. Hey, you feel up to some kiddy rides? There's a picnic for the children with disabilities coming up in a couple days, and Dom promised he would do all he could to have someone there. I just figured the parents might not want to have a disabled pilot flying their kids around."
"Disabled pilot? You're making yourself sound old and decrepit," Cait chided.
"Temporarily medically decommissioned then."
"I'm not sure that's an improvement."
He shrugged. "I sure feel like I might as well be."
"I'll do the rides," she agreed, "but only as long as you see if you can come and at least try to have some fun."
"I guess I can live with that. Do you think you would mind dropping me off at the cabin afterward for the weekend?"
"Sure, no problem. Getting tired of living off of crackers and coffee here at the hangar?"
"I've tried raiding Dom's fridge once or twice in that last week," he admitted, "and I don't thing I've ever seen so much meat and pasta in my life."
\A/
Ha Tinh
North Vietnam
1967
Wearily trudging along with the others, he longed for his bed at home and to see Dom again. At the moment nothing sounded better than climbing aboard that Huey his brother was supposed to be bringing in right about now though. Shear dumb luck had caused him to leave his own bird, just for a minute to retrieve another wounded soldier, but he never made it back to the Huey, there was no Huey to return to. Another one fallen prey to the destruction of the VietCong, more lives lost. He didn't regret coming - for his brother and for his country - but bootcamp and basic training was a dream compared to this hellish nightmare.
Saint John's Huey touched down ever so briefly, maybe three seconds at most, as he hauled the injured man over his shoulder and himself inside and was eagerly followed by eight others.
"String, get up here," his older brother ordered, indicating the position where his copilot had slumped limply down into the seat.
"Is he-"
"Yeah," Saint John replied tersely even as he sent them skyward.
Hefting the copilot out of the seat and pulling on the headset, he settled next to Saint John.
"Not exactly what you expected on your first time out, huh?"
"No, guess not," he admitted, "but it gets easier doesn't it?"
"What?"
"The hauling people up forever to get to the next LZ, the hundreds of people being shot down on all sides of you. I'm more tired than I've ever been in my life and can't get a minute of sleep, and some of the guys that are in charge are already more interested in getting out of here in one piece and making a bunch while doing it than doing anything for their country or family."
"Sorry String," he said, "but I don't think it gets any easier, if anything harder the more you see of it."
Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden wave of fire raining upon them and chattering along the fuselage of the copter.
Cursing under his breath, Saint John muttered, "We're going to have to take this thing down!" It bucked him all the way; turning and spinning haphazardly as the ground rushed up to meet them…
Hawke jerked awake suddenly as the Huey had landed roughly against the all too solid ground, slapping all of them into a painful reality, but in one piece.
At least that one wasn't quite so bad, he attempted to console himself. The last few days he had been reliving some of his least favorite moments of training and being shipped off to Vietnam, now things were getting started and undoubtedly he would soon relive the dreadful day had had lost his brother. At least so far they had only thought they were all going to die instead of actually being at death's doorstep.
He shoved off the covers and padded silently down the hallway to the kitchen, fixing himself a glass of water only to dump it down the drain. He paced restlessly into the living room and across it several times before stopping to turn on the TV. He dropped into the recliner and flipped through the channels, then flicked it off, staring wordlessly at the ceiling, half hoping he wouldn't fall back asleep, but then again, he didn't have anything better to do.
The blades of the fan above circled slowly like the rotor blades of the Huey as it descended toward the vine covered earth.
Saint John cut the power and came in on zero power, autorotating in and setting the big chopper down remarkably easily under the circumstances.
"One would think you had done that a time or two," he joked as soon as he could catch his breath.
"One would think," he repeated, still unbelieving that they were still in one piece. "Seriously, I had no idea if it would work, just though it might…."
