Chapter 8
Worry only about what you control. The rest is war. – Matthew J. Hefti
1100L, 13 April 2002, Coronado Island
"Damn you, goddamn you to hell." Percy accepted the words, just as he accepted the open-handed blows striking his chest. He said nothing. "Damn you, damn you, damn…" Zoe's voice trailed off. The soft side of her face rested against his chest. He could feel the rise and fall of her chest against him. "Goddamn you." Only now did he wrap his arms around her. He brought her closer to him.
"Yeah," was all he could manage while he looked down upon the set of orders on their kitchen table. In thirty days, he reported to CDR Bjorn Svenson. CDR Svenson commanded VFA-137, the Kestrels. In November, they would deploy on the U.S.S. Constitution's final deployment. He would be gone for a minimum of six months.
0900L, 28 April 2002, NAS Lemoore
NAS Lemoore hosted the Navy's Strike Fighter Wing Pacific. As such a quartet of dual engine Hornets roared overhead as Percy approached the main gate. He craned his Ray-ban covered eyes toward the sound. To his ears, its beauty matched that of a Mozart symphony. Statistics ran through his mind as he drove toward the headquarters building of his new squadron. Five carrier air wings considered NAS Lemoore their home. Top Gun may have called the old NAS Miramar "Fighter Town USA," but the fifteen squadrons of fighter and strike fighter aircraft stationed at the central California Naval Air Station seemed to counter that point.
Percy knocked on the doorframe outside CDR Svenson's office. There was a delay of just a few seconds and a voice beckoned him enter. The crystalline blue eyes studied the tall officer entering. His first instinct was that the file before him did not do the man justice. The long hair and beard from the photograph were gone, displaying a strong jaw line and Mediterranean complexion he suspected to be as much natural as it was sun-induced. Opaline eyes met his before snapping toward the wall as the lieutenant commander came to attention in front of him. His uniform was neat, not the starched khaki one would expect from a surface officer, but not the mess associated with submariners. Unlike most O-4s in the Navy, Jackson did not wear his full set of ribbons. Only three were displayed under his gold wings. Svenson studied those three for half a second. Goddamn, he thought. From left to right were the red, white, and blue ribbon of a Silver Star; the deep red and blue of the Bronze Star with a combat V in bronze; and a field of purple with white edges adorned with two silver stars. Three times wounded in action.
"Take a seat." Svenson motioned to the wooden chairs before his desk. "Percy? Right?" The dark-haired junior officer nodded. Svenson decided to cut through the bullshit early. "I've got a problem, Percy. On one hand, you're perhaps the most experienced pilot in the goddamn Navy, maybe the whole U.S. military. On the other, you just came out of the shit and I'm supposed to deploy this squadron in November."
"And if you had a third hand, you'd have to mention that because of my reputation it's unfortunately likely that the kids are going to look to me for leadership." The follow on of "instead of you and your XO" did not need to be stated.
"I really hoped I wasn't going to like you." Svenson said with a laugh and awkwardly opened and reached into one of his desk drawers. He brought out two diner style coffee mugs and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Percy took the preferred mug.
"It's a curse." The CO laughed.
"My ego can take it, it's my XO I worry about." Percy watched the man stand and realized that a full leg cast encased his left leg. "And he's going to have to. I had a skiing accident, snapped fibula and tibia, cracked my femur. I ain't deploying with you. We're writing you in as the maintenance department head now, you'll take over as XO once the deployment starts. But first, we need to get your check rides in."
The man extended his hand and Percy took it. "Welcome to the Kestrels, Demon."
0655L, 14 June 2002, NAS Lemoore
"All players, all players, this is Hawkeye Three. Today's flight restrictions are dirt to Jesus." The controller from the back of a Northrup Grumman E-2C Hawkeye spoke slowly and clearly. While his terms were very much not standard protocol the result was the same. The flyers could operate from the ground to as high as their planes would fly. Percy listened closely. Today's exercise pitted four F/A-18C Hornets of the Kestrels against four newly qualified pilots flying F/A-18F Super Hornets of VFA-41, the Black Aces. Percy knew that LT Ramirez-Arellano commanded the four-ship of Super Hornets.
The Super Hornet held the same designator F/A-18 as the McDonnell Douglas legacy Hornet. This was lip service to sell the idea to Congress in the early 90s. The Super Hornets, which carried an E/F specifier as opposed to the Hornet's C/D, weighed over 7,000 pounds more. With an overall size advantage of twenty percent, the airframe possessed a lower radar cross section. Its General Electric F414 engines produced over 35% more thrust than the F404's powering the older variant. The aircraft was known as the Rhino to distinguish it from the older C/D models. During mission planning his comment to the other three pilots with him had been that "They have more speed and a great beyond visible range capability, and their lead knows me. So, she'll try and prepare some tricks."
"So how do we win?" one of the young pilots asked. Percy was pleased they had asked the right questions.
"Just because she knows me, doesn't mean she thinks like me." It had caused the youngster to smile and thinking about it, Percy did the same as he checked his altimeter. Seventy-five feet above ground level. Too high, he thought and nudged the stick forward. As he descended to fifty feet, he watched the aircraft next to him match the movement. Only thirty feet separated their wingtips. LTjg Kinzie MacAndrews had balls; he would give her that.
"All flyers, all flyers, fight's on." The Hawkeye's controller spoke the words with the complete detachment that only came from having experienced combat and knowing that what was to occur today represented only a practice. On que, the two Hornet drivers currently circling at 36,000 feet activated their Hughes APG-73 radars. They detected four Super Hornets and shut down the radars. The four targets transmitted over data connections to the two Hornets skimming along the central California terrain. Percy made a grease pencil mark on his kneeboard map. He looked to his right and used his thumb to motion up and then held up two fingers. Seventy-four feet away Amazon nudged her throttle forward and the new pilots increased their speed to 750 knots.
Simultaneously, the Raytheon AN/ALR-67(v)3 radar warning receivers within the Super Hornets began to sound. The furthest east of Reyna's four planes reported two search radars operating sixty-three miles south-west of their position. Based off the bearings, the pilot suggested that they were the north facing aircraft of two pairs of fighters orbiting. Against anyone else, Reyna would have targeted on the two aircraft. But this was Percy, that motherfucker did not how to play by the standard operating procedures…and he had the eleven and a half kills to prove it. I won't fall for that shit.
1730L, 14 June 2002, NAS Lemoore
"Well, it was a good fucking try."
"Fuck you," but she accepted the bottle of beer he extended over his back toward her. He had not turned toward her, and her eyes could see the golden oak leaves upon his shoulders. His hair was not far removed from its cut when he served as the commanding officer, except for the gray, that was new. Around them, dozens of aviators downed gallons of alcohol.
"If I was single," she could see the creases on the side of his face as his face curled into a smile.
"That doesn't matter, you've already fucked me with that stunt." She drained a third of the beer with a single pull. She walked forward and turned her back to the bar with her elbows resting on it. Only now did Percy notice that she had continued her habit from their time in the same squadron. Her flight suit was unzipped far deeper than anyone else and it was clear that she still did not wear a bra. "I'm just shocked you'll talk to me, my backseater is hiding in the fucking corner." Percy turned slowly, the 5g turn from earlier in the day having put undue pressure on some of his wounds. The damaged bones of his left side in particular had suffered as he strove for victory. She watched him kill a bottle of Budweiser before ripping a shot of something amber in front of him.
"Bring her over here." Reyna motioned to Bianca to join them. She watched him reach into his pocket and produce a tin of dip. Another shot of what she assumed was Jack Daniels later he was tucking a large pinch of the tobacco into his lip and raising the empty beer bottle to his mouth. A spit later, the residue of saliva and tobacco began to fill the bottle as the bartender brought another three glasses of amber. The junior aviator had reached them, and Reyna watched Percy reach out with a shot for each. "Before we talk, sláinte." He killed off the drink and as it burned Reyna's throat, she discovered her Jack Daniels prediction was correct. Now his intense green eyes turned to the black-haired Bianca di Angelo. He extended another glass of whiskey to her. "Talk me through it, talk me through everything."
It took her nearly twenty minutes. There had been breaks for more Jack Daniels and the two times she had nearly broken down. With prodding from Percy, she had continued past the errant drop and spoke through the second attack that struck the Taliban positions. They moved to a patio so that Percy and Reyna could light cigarettes. With a shaking hand, Bianca accepted one. She watched in apprehension as Percy took a deep drag on the Camel and released the smoke high into the California air.
"I flew attack planes before I drove Hornets. Close air is the worst mission to fly. Seconds matter and lives depend on it. Friendly fire is a threat that will always be there." He took another drag on the cigarette. "This was the first time I had been on the other side. And as terrifying as it is in the air, it's a million fucking times worse. Do you know what you described to me, Bianca?"
"My fuck up," she whispered in response.
"No," he said simply, taking a deep drag that killed the cigarette. "You described a young officer doing her absolute damnedest to support boots on the ground getting shot at. You described an intense situation that was bound to result in casualties regardless of what happened." He extended the pack of cigarettes to her, and she took one with less hesitancy than before. "Bianca, you did everything you could. We are a profession that is never without the threat of death. I've lost more people to training accidents than combat. Every time we go up, or one of those guys goes outside the wire, someone might die. They accept it and we accept it. And then we keep doing it." Half the cigarette disappeared with a long drag. "We're all fucking crazy, but I'd like to think we're using it in a good way."
"But I kill…" she was cut off.
"No, kid. War killed them. I think McCarthy said it best. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. Every rifle shot, every bomb dropped, or every howitzer fired, in the end, war kills whoever that ordnance hits. War's the enemy Bianca, not you or me. We're just the practitioners."
1800L, 26 October 2002, NAS Lemoore
"Percy," Zoe extended her hand toward him. In it was clutched a white plastic stick nearly six inches in length.
"Holy fucking shit," he muttered before bringing her tight to his chest. Zoe allowed herself to untense. He would leave in six days to join the carrier and deploy. And again I'll be alone and pregnant. She wished she could hate him for it. But this was him, if he stopped the deployments and being the one who went, he would stop being himself. And I could never love someone who isn't who he is.
0730L, 1 December 2002, U.S.S. Constellation, Persian Gulf
"Gentlemen," it was clear this Commander Air Group gave zero shits that women now flew, "you have now entered in a new operation. Southern Watch is out. This is now Operation Southern Focus." Percy felt a shift in the room. "This operation was authorized in June. This is the framing of a ground war in Iraq. In October, Congress granted the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq. This is the shaping for that. We will bomb the ever-loving shit out air defense so that when the grunts punch across the line the way is open. Strike your targets, be prepared for the big one."
"Goddamn," a young pilot near Percy muttered. "Can you believe it?" she whispered. Beside him, Percy laughed, and the younger woman looked at him. It was Kinzie, recently christened Amazon due to the accidentally revealed contents of her last order.
"Kid, it ain't the first time we've bombed the shit out of them." Despite her normal bravado, she accepted how he addressed her. But only from him. After all, he was the "Old Fucking Man" to all other junior officers. She would turn twenty-six next month and put on lieutenant the next May. He had turned 35 the last July. Though it did not hurt that he owned more air-to-air kills than everyone else in the squadron combined considering he possessed eleven and a half and the rest of the squadron owned none. Only three active pilots owned a kill. One flew for VFA-41, LT Ramirez-Arellano, the other for VFA-115 who was currently flying off of the Abraham Lincoln, LT Annabeth Chase. Combined those two still trailed her wingman.
0510L, 20 March 2003, 205 Miles South of Baghdad, 31,000 feet
They flew in radio silence. The mission called for exact timing. The Hornets would be overtop Baghdad at exactly 0538 local. The F-117 Nighthawks would strike air defense targets at 0534L. Percy looked down at his Citizen, laughing slightly at the similarity in his watch's model name, his targeting pod, and the Air Force jets nickname. He checked the tactical display for weapons status. The wingtip mounted AIM-9 Sidewinders shown green, so did the three GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bombs. The nose mounted laser seeker and guidance fins had transformed the Mk82 "dumb" bomb into one of greater intelligence. The attachments took the circular error probability, the weapons precision measurement, from ninety-four meters to just one-point-one. He checked his watch, 0521L. Thirteen minutes until I bomb Iraq, once a-fucking-gain.
He closed his eyes and visualized a photo. Purposely, it remained in his locker on the Constellation. It showed two infants and their mother. Zoe held one hand over her stomach protectively. The other attempted to wrangle children. They were shocked she was pregnant again. The doctors that had clearance enough to know what had happened to her on her last mission in Iraq had been unanimous in their opinion that she would be unable to ever have children. Well three is pretty much the fucking opposite of none, he thought. Zoe would be nearly five months along now. And he was here. He looked back to his watch and forced his family from his mind. Distractions get you fucking killed. His eyes caught flashes ahead. He checked the time again, 0534L. The Middle Eastern sun was nearly up. Those explosions were the signal to break radio silence.
"Falcon flight, Zero-1. Activate targeting." The flight of eight Hornets activated their AN/AAS-38 Nite Hawks. The targeting pods immediately began to search for their assigned designators. Special forces teams inserted into Iraq by land and air had also been assigned specific targets and laser designators had been placed throughout the city. Percy's Nite Hawk gave a tone as it identified its assigned laser frequencies. The pod locked onto three separate fuel tanks with the tank farm that fueled the Republican Guard armored units within the region. He checked the time on his watch and compared it to the display on his tactical computer. They were identical. 0537L.
"Falcon Zero-1, weapons away." Welcome to war number three, he thought.
"Falcon flight, Falcon flight. Big Eye." The long-range radio transmission came from one of the Air Force's E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS. That radio channel had been set to receive only. Percy changed his settings and keyed out.
"This is Zero-1, send traffic."
"Zero-1, we have unidentified aircraft closing on your location. Profile suggests Iraqi fighters. Recommend vectoring aircraft for defense." Percy was almost angry at the wolfish smile that began to cross his face, almost.
"Big Eye, Falcon Zero-1, send vector."
