Chapter Ten
Lieutenant Colonel Gaz spotted Montes lying in the snow, not far from the ejection seat, half covered by the drogue chute. He'd unbuckled, crawled a few meters in the snow, and collapsed. He wasn't moving.
Now she wouldn't just fly over, trying to figure out if he was alive or dead. As she wouldn't tell Igloo Base what he was doing. With the Irken craft still not far off, they would never authorize such an action. They had just ordered her back to refuel and rearm.
Of course she would comply, eventually, but she couldn't live with herself of she abandoned Jake. She'd rather take the risk, which was, damn it, risking everything. And God help her, she set down in the snow, landed the multimillion dollar bird, leaving her entirely vulnerable to air attack.
It took her another minute to detach herself from the cockpit, remove her helmet, and finally get down to the snow.
The icy wind stung her cheek, and it looked as though a storm was coming.
"Jake!" She jogged toward him, the top layer of snow breaking into glistening puzzle pieces that rose to her ankles.
She reached him, slowly rolled him over, and worked on getting his helmet off. Finally, it gave. His nose had been bleeding and left cheek was beginning to swell.
"Jake, can you hear me? It's Gaz."
His eyes flickered open. "I want to puke."
"It's good to see you too."
He swallowed. "I'm so embarrassed. I don't know what happened. It was like a dream... They fired rockets!"
"I know, Jake."
"Wait a minute. What the hell? You landed?" He suddenly sat up, looked at her plane, the engine still humming.
"Jesus, Colonel!"
The ejection seat had a built in survival kit that was now connected to his chute. Ignoring him, she fetched it, brought it back over.
"Can you move?"
"I'm just banged up. I don't think anything's broken."
"Think you can fly?"
"What the hell you talking about?"
"I want you to take her back. Rescue helo is already on the way. I'll catch it."
"Gaz, you're not thinking right. You don't just put an injured pilot back in the cockpit."
She looked at him, thought about how wired to panic she was, how full of rage, the tremors still working into her hands.
"Okay, yeah. You'll be all right?"
"I'm okay." He glanced over to the still burning wreckage of his fighter. "My flying career just went up in flames, but I'm okay..."
"You're not done yet. Not if I have anything to say about it. Just hang tight." She pulled out her personal defense weapon/ rifle (PDW-R), a small, compact weapon that fired 5.56mm rounds. And handed it to him.
"Now you've got two."
"If they come back, this won't matter."
She knew that, too, but pushed it back in his hand, forcing him to take the weapon. "Rescue will be here soon."
She started back toward her fighter. And once she was strapped in and lifting off, the news that came from Igloo base took her breath away.
The USRAN (United States Royal Air Navy) Olympia's radio room, immediately aft, starboard side of the Aeries Class Battle Cruisers command, control, communications, and intelligence (C31) space, made it easy for the radioman on watch to stick his head into the passageway and announce, "ELF traffic," Even as Commander John Andreas watched the extremely low frequency (ELF) call light start to blink incessantly on his Q-70 display console, accompanied by a steady beeping.
"Finally," Andreas said through a deep sigh. He pressed the acknowledge button, stopping both beep and flash, then stepped across to the port side of C31 and placed his hand on the sonar operator's shoulder.
"Give me a careful three hundred and sixty degree listening sweep."
Catching the officer on the decks eye, he continued.
"If we're all clear, open the shutters on the main window."
"Aye, aye, sir," Responded the OOD.
Andreas had done as he and the XO had discussed. They had sprinted out of the immediate area, pinged the satellites transponder- and had received no response for their effort. And that left Andreas standing there in the control room wanting to pummel someone.
In the time it took them to complete the acoustic sweep, open the main shutters, and extend their main view screen optical zoom to confirm no contacts in the immediate vicinity, the second character of the ELF message had arrived on board. It matched the second of the Olympia's three assigned ELF call letters.
"Captain, there's still no operational traffic from that satellite," Said the Senior Chief radio man. "GPS is coming through okay. The clincher for me, sir, is that the ELF data rate. That's about the speed of the old Michigan ELF transmitter. Their big bird in the sky is dead. I'll stake a promotion to Master Chief Petty Officer on that, sir."
"Roger that, Senior Chief. XO, round up all the Iridium satellite phones and make sure they're fully charged. We're going to execute my last plan, the one I didn't tell you about."
"Sir, are you serious? We're going to call on the satellite phones?"
"Well, it ain't pretty, but it's all I got. It's time to phone home."
Andreas stepped aft to the Radio Room, poked his head inside and said, "Senior Chief, I'll bet you a shiny new set of silver eagles off my collar that you'll continue to get ELF transmissions until we figure out how to talk to COMPACFLT."
Admiral Dylan Stinson glanced up as his aide appeared in the little window on his computer screen. "Admiral Harrison for you, sir."
Stinson accepted the call, and the window switched to Harrison in his office. "Chuck, what have you got?"
"Well, even though Michigan's up, Andreas will be extremely curious about breaking radio silence. It goes against everything he's been taught. But when that silence becomes deafening, as it is now, he'll run through his options."
"We put the same four line text message on every satellite phone on board."
"And Andreas' wife assures me he'll understand the message."
"All right. He just needs to receive it. Thanks, Chuck. We've run it up the flagpole, let's see who wants to salute it. All we can do is wait."
Back on the bridge of the Olympia, Andreas reminded his XO that they needed enough speed to maintain their altitude but no more. They didn't want the engines to create a visible wake by leaving a fuel trail like commercial jets did in the skies.
Andreas turned and regarded his communications officer. "Dan, you take two sat phones, and I'll carry two. We turn all four on just before we open the hatch in the ceiling, then we head up to get a signal. We're looking for a text message- that's all. We aren't ready to transmit anything. Got it?"
"Yes, sir."
Andreas looked intently at the young Lieutenant. "Do you remember what else I told you?"
"Yes, sir. Whatever I see on the display, write it down."
"Good man, lets go."
Nine minutes later, the Olympia was completely below radar again, banked starboard around a mountain, prepared to level off at five hundred and thirty eight feet, and coming to course one six zero.
All four cell phone text messages read the same: URGENT-CALL COMPACFLT/8085553956/3672
Any Air Navy crew member home ported at Arcadia would recognize the 808 prefix as the Honolulu area code. The COMPACFLT acronym didn't read any explanation.
"But sir, how do we verify?" Asked the XO.
"Oh, the message is authentic," Replied Andreas. "See those last four digits? Only my wife and the Honolulu National Bank know my PIN number. Good thing she picked that and not our anniversary date."
"I hear that, Skipper."
Andreas' expression and tone grew more serious. "Now, XO, lets raise our altitude again and make the call."
"Aye aye, sir."
(End chapter)