AUTHOR'S NOTES: And Operation Tsunami finally ends-with a bang, and not a whimper.
Incidentally, I had the idea for this story over 20 years ago. My dad and I used to come up with ideas for stories, as we did a lot of driving together to and from college. Originally, this was supposed to take place in Vietnam with a USAF F-4, and with OCs...but I'm not likely to write that story, so it takes place here. I wish my dad was here to read it, because he thought this was one of my best ideas ever. Well...finally got it done, Pops.
And yes, I'm totally ripping off some of Flash Gordon in this. What, you thought Captain Bruno's resemblance to Brian Blessed was just incidental?
Over Puget Sound
14 May 2002
8:25 AM Local
Ruby Rose cautioned herself not to be optimistic—something always went wrong in these kind of operations—but so far, Operation Tsunami seemed to be going well.
The GRIMM swarm had been parried by the Tomcat squadrons, though there had been various calls for search and rescue and she had spotted a few F-14s headed west, trying to make it to the carriers—or at least closer to them, in case they needed to bail out. Certainly none of the GRIMM had broken through to the strike force. She had heard nothing from either Pirate Flight or from Ace Flight, though she had overhead the E-2 Hawkeye crew warning Pyrrha of a small number of bandits headed east. They'll be okay, Ruby reassured herself, with Pyrrha and Yang up there, in fifth-gen fighters? Probably be a turkey shoot. Weiss and Velvet and the others should be okay too—the GRIMM won't even detect them, with the Tomcats all over them.
Merlot evidently had radars and had picked up on the Alpha strike, but that was the whole point of the mass attack from the carriers. Now the EA-6B Prowlers were starting to pick up surface-to-air missile radars, but the SAM crews were obviously inexperienced. Rather than switch their radars on and off to prevent the Prowlers from pinpointing their location, they were leaving them on. At fifty miles, the F-18s started launching their AGM-88 HARM missiles. The radio net was now filled with "Magnum!" calls as the Hornets locked on and fired. Each radar had three or four missiles headed towards it. Abruptly realizing the danger they were in, the SAM batteries started firing. Ruby felt her rear lift off the seat instinctively as the Prowlers started making SAM calls, but would follow each with "No threat to the force," which meant the SAMs were not guiding. Ruby spotted one sail over high above them; it looked like a telephone pole with fins.
"Whoa," Oscar said over the intercom. "You see that SAM just go over us?"
"Yeah," Ruby confirmed. "SA-2. Guideline. Man, that's old. They used those back in the '60s."
"It'll still kill you," Oscar warned.
Ruby nodded, though Oscar probably couldn't see her. She craned her head up and to the side as much as she could. "Tally target. Thirty miles, eleven low."
"Yeah, you can see it," Oscar said with a laugh. Ruby's silver eyes would definitely come in handy on this mission. The SAMs were being neutralized, but there was still the flak guns on the ground.
"Hawk Lead, this is Pirate. TOT five minutes." Ruby recognized Fox's voice.
"Oh, shit! They're early!" Ruby exclaimed to Oscar.
"Pirate, Hawk, roger," Bruno radioed back. "Be advised, target has not been suppressed; I say again, not been suppressed! Can you orbit east of the target?"
"Negative, Hawk; skosh fuel. We get one pass." The Tornadoes had used too much fuel going around the massive dogfight near Everett.
There was a second's pause. "Understood, Pirate. We'll do what we can. Break, break." Bruno switched to the strike. "Strike, this is Hawk—push it up. We've got to put down that flak. D-Backs, Fast Eagles, follow me." Ruby saw Bruno hit his afterburners, and soon all the Hornets were accelerating and in a shallow dive. They would approach the field from the south and peel off. "Fast Eagle 505, assume FAC to the north."
"Roger," Oscar acknowledged. He split away from the main formation and headed to the north. "Ruby, get eyes on the target!"
"On it." She reached down and pulled out her binoculars; as good as her eyes were, the binoculars would help her identify individual targets better. The two of them suddenly felt alone, racing across a forest that looked oddly planted in straight rows, betraying that this had once been a residential neighborhood. Oscar rolled back towards the target, keeping one eye on it and another on the threat display. Nothing showed: either all of Merlot's defense and guidance radars were down, or the controllers finally had the sense to switch them off. He checked his altitude—fifteen thousand feet.
"Hawk, Fast Eagle 505," Ruby radioed. "In position. You've got flak guns up and down both sides of the runway. No shooting yet." To herself, she muttered, "Because they're waiting for us." She saw some small fires, where the HARMs had found their mark. Instinctively, she did a sweep of the sky. The northern horizon was a mass of contrails and missile trails, where the dogfight between the F-14s and the GRIMM was still going on. She thought she saw something to the east, over the mountains, by Mount Rainier, which loomed over the Cascades. Ruby looked to the south, and whispered, "Wow," to herself. The southern horizon was a mass of 48 F-18s, lining up to make their runs. Her eye
"Hawk, Pirate, TOT two minutes," Fox warned.
"Roger, Pirate, beginning our runs, south to north! Strike, keep FAC in sight to the north!" Ruby detected the excitement in Bruno's voice. "D-Back 114—dive!" It wasn't the correct call to give, but Bruno was clearly caught up in the moment. Four F-18s peeled away from the main force and rolled in on the target.
The field suddenly lit up with dozens of guns firing all at once, tracers crisscrossing the sky as every gun at Boeing Field fired on the first section of Hornets. Ruby's eyes widened at the sheer amount of ground fire that came up. There was everything from heavy 85 millimeter guns that were practically artillery pieces, to smaller 57 and 23mm guns, to small arms; there were even a few smoke trails of shoulder-fired SAMs. Most of the guns lined the runway, but there were some east of Boeing Field, where a ridge sat over the remains of an interstate, and along a small river her map identified as the Duwamish Waterway. The guns were unguided by radar and most of the bullets and shells were going wide of their targets, but the sheer volume of fire meant that someone would get hit. And someone did: Ruby saw Diamondback 114 suddenly climb away from the target, trailing smoke and flames, and the other three Hornets released their Rockeye cluster bombs too early, scattering their munitions far short of the target. As the F-18s shot past and behind Oscar and Ruby, another one started trailing smoke, and Oscar jinked the aircraft as two SAMs tried to follow the escaping Diamondbacks, decoyed off by chaff.
"Diamondback 100, second wave, dive!" Bruno called, and the next group of Hornets peeled off into the fire zone. Diamondback 100 was the commander of VFA-102, and he was more experienced: his run was made at a steeper angle. The gunners fired too late, and none of the F-18s were hit this time, but they also dropped a fraction too soon, distracted by the volume of ground fire. About half their Rockeyes hit their targets, and Ruby saw what resembled a shower of sparklers as each of the 247 bomblets exploded—each with enough explosive force to penetrate the hull of a tank. Against open guns and human beings, the effect was lethal. It was enough that Diamondback 100's section escaped unscathed.
"Fast Eagle 505, BDA," Diamondback 100 called out, breathless against the pull of Gs.
Oscar came around over the ridge; now guns were firing on them, so he kept jinking. Ruby held on with one hand and used the binoculars with the other. "Diamondback 100, Fast Eagle. About 60 percent BDA."
"Fast Eagle 505, Hawk," Bruno broke in. He was now high above all of them, acting as referee. "How many guns do you think, 505?"
"Hawk, 505, I'd say about sixty guns—some on the field, some on the ridges!"
"Really?" Oscar called out over the intercom. "Quoting Star Wars?"
"Well, there are!" Ruby shot back.
"Hawk, Pirate, TOT…now," Fox interrupted.
"Strike, Hawk, repel boarders!" Bruno shouted. The Tornadoes were coming in. Oscar climbed out to the west, giving Pirate Flight plenty of room. Ruby looked for Weiss, but didn't see her; instead, Fox was leading the formation of Tornadoes. Bruno dispatched two more waves of Diamondback Hornets to come in on either side of Fox's run.
It worked perfectly. The gunners saw the Hornets diving down on them, and never noticed the Tornado coming in level at four hundred feet, Fox lining up on the old interstate to make his run. By the time the gunners realized that the F-18s were decoys of a sort, Fox was already over the runway. "Bombs gone!" shouted Devereaux.
Ruby watched as the Tornado skimmed over the runway—under the flak. Suddenly from beneath the Tornado there were small flashes that looked like strobe lights, and for a moment Ruby thought Fox was hit. Then she realized it was the JP233 scattering its munitions, leaving hundreds of bomblets in its path to bounce across the runway; some fired small rockets and buried themselves in the concrete and asphalt. Fox was away to the north before the gunners even saw him, out over Puget Sound and already on course for Comox.
Right behind him was Sage. Merlot's people did see the Italian Tornado making its run, but just as the gunners frantically twisted their weapons around to engage, the Rockeyes dropped by the F-18s hit them, killing gun crews and setting off ammunition. The confusion and carnage gave Sage an open run, and he took it. Oriana watched the dispersal drop indicator reach zero. "Bombs gone," she reported, sounding supremely bored, like she was watching a movie that turned out to be less interesting than hoped. Sage didn't stay low and level like Fox had: he slammed the throttles forward and climbed, the Tornado riding twin spears of afterburner fire as it clawed for the heavens.
Ruby snapped her head around to pick up Velvet, the last Tornado to make her run. She urged her friend on, faster; if Velvet made a clean run like Fox and Sage had, it would make the rest of the mission much easier. It was not to be, because one of Merlot's troops had actually done some thinking. They were armed with Stinger shoulder-fired missiles; the soldier in charge of the Stinger section had watched the other two Tornadoes make their runs, and correctly guessed there was a third. As Velvet lined up, the Stinger section salvoed their four launchers. "Bugger me!" Velvet screamed, and snapped the stick to the right, dumping flares in her wake and abandoning her run. The Stingers missed her, but not by much, and the Tornado raced to the east over Lake Washington.
Ruby let out an oath, and swung the binoculars to see if she could pinpoint the Stingers. Then she saw something far worse: a Rapier SAM battery she hadn't noticed before. It was still intact, and she remembered that the Rapier had a superb optical tracking system to back up its radar. Even with the radar off or knocked out, the Rapier was deadly. Ruby saw the launcher swinging around to engage Velvet. "Oscar!" she yelled. "Rapier battery, five low! It's tracking on Velvet!"
Luckily, Oscar had been looking in that direction. There was no time to call in one of the strike Hornets. He began swinging around even before he could see it himself. "505 is in, northwest to southeast!" he warned over the open channel. "Ruby, where is it?" he said over the intercom.
"Next to the white oil tank on the south end!"
"Got it!" Oscar spotted the tank and thought he saw the battery on the far end. He pushed the throttles up and came across the runway just as two more Hornets flashed underneath him, dropping their bombs. Somehow he missed them. He didn't think he had time to salvo his Rockeyes onto the battery, so he fired both HARMs ballistically towards the fuel tank, hoping that the impact would at least distract the battery. He pulled the trigger twice, sending the missiles on their way, then switched to guns to strafe the Rapier.
Neither Oscar nor Ruby believed the large fuel storage tank had anything in it; it had likely been built before Seattle had been abandoned. What neither knew that it was actually filled with jet fuel, which had been used to refuel Briar Flight earlier. When the HARMs hit it, the warheads detonated—and set off 1600 gallons of aviation fuel. The good news was that it immolated the Rapier battery a split-second before the battery operator would have fired on Velvet. The bad news was there was now a fireball directly in the path of Fast Eagle 505.
"Oh SHIT!" Ruby and Oscar screamed at the same time, but there was no way to avoid it. Their F-18 disappeared into the fireball even as Oscar grabbed the stick with both hands and hauled it into his lap, shoving the throttles to the stops before he did so. Flames surrounded them on all sides.
As it turned out, the fireball was less of a problem than the fragments of the exploding fuel tank. One piece of steel tank plating flew upwards and hit the windscreen in the fraction of a second that Oscar began his climb. The windscreen shattered, sending pieces of glass and aluminum back into Oscar's face. His visor and helmet saved his life, but his head was rammed back hard against the headrest of the ejection seat and a piece of metal hit him hard across the crown of his helmet. The last thing Oscar saw before everything went black was Ruby's silver eyes in the rearview mirrors, wide in terror.
Bruno saw the fireball and thought Oscar and Ruby were dead. The fireball climbed into the air, a shockwave spreading outwards from it, forcing the next run of Black Ace F-18s to abort. Even the ground fire slackened for a moment. He was about to radio that Fast Eagle 505 was down when he saw the Hornet suddenly climb out of the orange and black explosion, going straight up. It was trailing smoke, but looked to be under control.
"Hawk, Pirate Three, making my run." Velvet was not going to give up that easy. She had made a wide curve and was now coming in again.
Bruno decided he no longer wanted to just be a spectator. "Ah well," he sighed. "Who wants to live forever?" He laughed uproariously and dived. "Fast Eagle 400, 402, follow me. We'll cover Pirate Three. Follow me in, south to north. All other strike, hold high." Commander Simon and Hatman joined up on him, and they made a tight turn over the ridges east of the field. They leveled out half a mile in front of Velvet's Tornado. Bruno switched on his running lights and fired his HARMs at nothing in particular; Simon and Hatman had already expended their HARMs, but switched on their lights as well.
Bruno came over the field, moving the stick up and down to throw off the gunners, and dropped his Rockeyes, the other two Hornets behind and to either side. The remaining gunners opened fire on the three ship of F-18s, but the ground fire was noticeably less: between the Rockeye runs and the explosion of the fuel tank, most of the gun crews were dead or stunned. One particularly persistent machine gun position fired on Bruno, who watched the tracers spin past his left wing. He laughed again, unsure if it was from fear or just sheer exhiliration, dipped the nose, and strafed the position. Then the field was past behind them and the shoreline flashed beneath him.
A few of the remaining gunners saw Velvet, but O'Reilly was already shouting "Bombs gone!" before the tracers started curling up at her. She held the Tornado steady, feeling the JP233 thump as it ejected the bomblets into her wake. She felt something hit the Tornado, but no warning lights came on, so she ignored it as she followed Bruno out over the sound.
Even as Velvet dropped, the larger SG-357 submunitions dropped by Fox and Sage began to detonate; buried just under the surface of the runway, each one opened a crater from the inside out. Velvet's exploded a minute later. Even if Merlot's personnel had braved the hundreds of undetonated HB-876 antipersonnel ines dropped by the JP233s to fill in the craters, there were simply too many holes. The runway at Boeing Field was now unusable, and no GRIMM would be launched from there. The remaining Hornets salvoed their Rockeyes, and suddenly there was no more ground fire at all.
Bruno looped and made one last pass near Boeing Field, and saw dozens of fires and smoke blanketing the airport. He nodded and thumbed the radio switch. "Roughneck, this is Hawk. Your signal is Tidal Wave. I say again…Tidal Wave."
He turned west and left the burning target behind him, and sighed. He had probably just flown his last combat mission, but at least it had been a good one. No one had gone down over the target, but he wondered how many F-14s had been lost, and if Ace Flight had succeeded in their mission. But we protected the strike. Mission accomplished. With his signal, the Marines would now be taking off from the Saipan and the Guam—dozens of CH-46 Seaknights and MV-22 Ospreys headed for Bremerton to establish a landing zone, supported by Harriers. His job was finished for the day. He raised his hands for a gut check, and saw no tremor. Not bad, old man, not bad at all.
Then he heard over the open channel. "This is Fast Eagle 505 Bravo, declaring emergency."
Ruby had been pressed back in her seat by the Gs as the Hornet had climbed out of the fireball into blue sky. She saw warning lights come on, showing a flameout in both engines. "Oscar, level out," she said, "we gotta do a restart." The climb had put them through 25,000 feet, so there was plenty of room to try for an air restart of both engines. There was no response. "Oscar?" Ruby leaned forward as much as she could against the press of gravity, which began to lessen as the F-18 started to come out of its climb.
The windscreen was shattered, the wind howling through holes in it, though the forward part of the canopy was badly starred, it was mostly intact. Oscar's head lolled to one side. She saw blood streaming down his oxygen mask. "Oh my God," Ruby breathed.
Then the stall warning went off. Ruby tore her attention away from Oscar and grabbed the stick, pushing it forward into a shallow dive. She felt a brief wave of zero-G and saw Oscar's arms float limply upwards, but she had other problems to deal with first. She didn't know what the restart procedures were on the F-18D, but she figured that flying was flying; they couldn't be too different from an F-16. As the nose came down, she pulled both throttles back, then gently pushed them forward, even as all the lights went out on the instrument panel. The Hornet had a ram-air emergency generator, but she didn't know where the switch was. "C'mon, baby, c'mon," Ruby chanted, moving the throttles again. The F-18 was now aimed downwards; she was hoping the air being forced into the engines would be enough. If it wasn't, she would have to eject, right over the ruins of downtown Seattle. And in the position Oscar is right now, he'll die in the ejection. Ruby determined that if she couldn't get the engines started, she would just ride the Hornet down rather than abandon Oscar. Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Yang.
Then she heard the engines spooling up. Carefully, she advanced the throttles and began pulling back the stick. Ten thousand feet AGL. She won't recover at five. Then the lights came back on in the cockpit. Okay, here we go. Gently, she applied more back pressure to the stick and advanced the throttles more. The aircraft responded, and slowly the Hornet came out of its dive and climbed upwards. She let out a long breath. Ruby checked the instrument panel. There were no warning lights. Fast Eagle 505 was not so wounded after all...she hoped.
That left Oscar. Ruby balanced the stick between her legs and tried to squeeze a hand through to shake her lover, but there was no room. "Oscar?" she asked again over the intercom, then shouted at the top of her lungs. There was no response. Ruby pointed the F-18 west. Whatever she did, it couldn't be over enemy territory. "Fast Eagle 505 Bravo, declaring an emergency," she radioed. "505 Alpha is unconscious; I am egressing west."
Blake and Terri, who had ended up well north of the GRIMM-Tomcat battle with Weiss, heard the call. The fight was almost over as the last of the GRIMM were hunted down. Blake looked over towards Weiss and scrawled something on her knee board with a black marker, then held it up to the canopy. GOING AFTER RUBY. STATE?
Weiss nodded. After a pause, she held up her own board. BINGO. CANNOT COME WITH. Blake returned her nod. Weiss gave her a salute, the two friends said volumes with a single glance, the Weiss peeled away, her Typhoon headed northwest for Comox.
"We going after Ruby?" Terri asked.
"Damn right. I wish I knew what Yang's freq was," Blake said, "I'd let her know."
"Might not be a good idea. They got to be low on gas too. How's ours doing?"
Blake glanced down at the gauge. "Not great." The air battle had used a lot of fuel. "I'm going after her, Terri." Blake pushed up her own throttle. "Give me a vector."
"Wait one." Terri searched the radar screen and thought she picked out Fast Eagle 505, flying alone out towards the Admiralty Inlet. "Okay, she's at 20 miles, bearing two-eight-five, angels 20."
"Gotcha."
Blake was able to intercept Ruby fairly quickly. She spotted the two-seat F-18D flying straight and level, and saw two other F-18s coming in alongside with Black Aces markings on the tail. "Fast Eagle 505, Skull 214." She realized Ruby might not know who she was, and reverted to callsigns; it was not like there was anyone around who would care. "Ruby, Blake. Coming up on your right side." She flew up next to the F-18.
"Oh, fuck," Terri exclaimed. "They got hit." The paint was blackened and blistered from the nose back to the cockpit, and on the leading edges of the wings and tails, the windscreen broken and shattered. Blake could see Oscar hanging limply in his straps.
"Blake, Ruby. Oscar's hurt. Check me for other damage." Ruby's voice sounded brittle for once, almost on the verge of panic. It was very unlike her, but it was her fiancee in the front seat. Blake nodded and gently slid the F-14 beneath the F-18. "I don't see anything, Terri—do you?"
"They got cooked a little, but no hydraulic or oil leaks. Some shrapnel in the nose, it looks like. They're fine, other than Oscar being in deep shit."
"Yeah." Blake flew out from under the F-18 and joined back up on the right side. "Looks fine, Ruby. What's your state?"
"Joker." Ruby had enough fuel to reach the carrier. But then what? Blake wondered.
"Ruby, Hawk." Bruno was alongside her now, as was Hatman. "Can you make it back to the boat?"
"Hawk, Ruby—roger that. She's flying okay."
"Good," Bruno replied. "When you reach Roughneck, fly close to the plane guard—that's the destroyer following the carrier—and punch out. The water's good, so you should be fine—"
"Negative," Ruby answered instantly. "We punch now, and Oscar's dead. He'll snap his neck or his back if he goes out like he is now. If he wakes up, we can punch."
"Ruby, Hawk. Understood. We'll wait until we get back."
"Hawk, Hatman. I'll stay with Ruby," Hatman radioed.
"Hawk, Skull 214. So will I."
They saw Bruno nod. "Roger that. Good luck." He waggled his wings, then accelerated to rejoin the strike.
"Blake, Ruby," Ruby radioed. "I've got to keep it throttled back or we might lose the canopy. I can make the carrier, but…" Her voice trailed off.
"Roger, Ruby." Blake pulled her throttles back. "Going to be close for us, too."
"We can hit a tanker, probably." Terri sighed, looking over at Oscar, who hadn't moved during the conversation. "Blake, I hate to say this, but…he's probably dead—"
"Shut the fuck up!" Blake snarled. "He's not dead, Terri! Goddammit! Don't you even fucking think that!" She took a deep breath, got control of herself. "Sorry, Terri. That was out of line."
"It's okay. So was I." Terri put a hand on the canopy, wishing she could reach out to reassure her best friend's friend. "But I wonder if Ruby has thought of it."
Ruby kept the Hornet on course, checking her fuel and the sky around her as they left Washington behind. Below her, she saw parachutes, where members of the strike finally reached a safe bailout zone and ejected; there were already helicopters waiting for them to pluck the downed aviators from the sea, and to her surprise, she saw a submarine surface as well. She checked her navigation display and her fuel; they would have barely enough to get to the Reagan—but then what? Ruby thought. If Oscar hadn't recovered by then, she would have to eject, and then he would probably die. He hung forward in the straps. She had an idea and told Blake, then climbed. Oscar flopped back into his seat, but then he rolled to his left and his helmet hit the canopy with an audible clunk. Ruby let out a flood of obscenity that her father would be ashamed to hear, but Oscar did not move, and when Ruby dropped back down to level, he slowly slumped forward again. If I eject when he's like that, he'll snap his neck or his back. Even if we go with him flopping to the side, it might kill him. Unless he's already dead.
Ruby didn't want to think that, but she was enough of a realist to know that was a very likely possibility. If Oscar was dead, then she might as well eject. Riding the aircraft down with him was romantic, but it would do neither of them any good, and it would rob the USAF of a valuable pilot. Ruby snorted. Yeah, one that everyone hates because of that damn court-martial. Well, you really fucked this one up too, huh, Rubes? She stopped that train of thought. If they hadn't attacked the Rapier battery, then there was a good chance Velvet and her backseater would be dead. If I died with Oscar, that would be pretty hard on Dad and Yang. I can't do that. "But I'm not ejecting just yet," she said aloud, hoping Oscar would respond. "We're still rolling the dice."
She automatically checked the sky around her again, then listened to the radio. The strike was returning to the carrier and recovering. One or two were bailing out to be picked up by destroyers and helicopters. She had about thirty minutes before she had to make a decision. "Hey, Oscar," she said conversationally. "You know, that night in Algiers…I thought you had a really nice butt. You do, you know that? Just a tight ass. I didn't think I liked guys' butts until I met you. I love seeing it. You know that?" There was no response, and Ruby, suddenly startled, checked to make sure she hadn't been holding down the radio button when she had been speaking. Then she laughed. "Yeah, that would be embarrassing, huh? Let the whole Navy know how much I love to squeeze your butt when we're having sex." He still didn't respond. Ruby felt icy fear seize her with enough force that she started sobbing. "Please, Oscar. Please wake up. We're supposed to get married, you know that? I've got your ring with me—it's in my flight suit pocket. You can't leave me, Oscar. You can't leave me like Mom did. I just found you, Oscar. I love you. Please don't go." Oh God, Ruby thought to herself when there was still no movement. He is dead. He's dead. Oh God, I have to leave him because he's dead. I'll never have his kids or hear him laugh or just feel him against me-
"Ruby, Blake. What's your state?"
The voice of her friend made Ruby stop sniffling. She read off her fuel remaining in a steady voice. Fighter pilots were supposed to die with a minimum of screaming and panic. There was a certain pride at stake. With fifteen minutes to go, Ruby suddenly started singing. It was a song she had heard Oscar sing when he got dressed, the evening they had made love when she first came on the ship. "Home, boys, home, that's where I want to be," she sang over the intercom, "home, boys, home, way back in God's country. The ash and the oak and the weeping willow tree…we're strong for the Navy, but it's home we ought to be." She didn't know the rest of the song, so she just kept singing the chorus. In the distance, she saw the fleet, spread out; the carriers had turned back into the wind to recover aircraft.
Then, faintly, Ruby heard a groan. "Oscar?" There was silence, and Ruby thought she had imagined it, then Oscar mumbled something. "Oscar, wake up. Wake up, honey," Ruby begged. "C'mon, you sweet, sexy prince, you've got to wake up. We're almost home."
"Mom?" Oscar's voice was faint.
"'Fraid not," Ruby replied, grinning beneath her mask. "It's Ruby."
"Mom," Oscar said, just a whisper.
"Listen, Oscar, you've got to sit back. Tighten your straps up, okay? We're going to have to eject, and we can't if you're not in the right position." Ruby's hopes soared as Oscar suddenly straightened up and muttered something about mucking out the barn, but those hopes then crashed when he slumped over again, and no amount of yelling could get him to wake up once more.
"Ruby, Blake, is Oscar okay?" Blake had seen him sit up as well.
"Negative, Blake, he's still out. He woke up for a second, but…"
"Ruby, Hawk." Bruno's Hornet flew up next to the three aircraft. "What are your intentions?"
Ruby knew Bruno meant when she planned on ejecting, or if she did. And suddenly, she knew what she had to do. "Hawk, Ruby. Oscar is still unconscious. I'd like to try landing aboard the carrier."
There was silence on the channel for a long minute. Blake found her voice first. "Ruby, Blake, say again?"
"Request recovery instructions onboard Roughneck," Ruby radioed.
"Ruby, Hatman, Blake—this is Hawk. Switch to channel Echo." All of them made the radio change. "Ruby, Hawk. Are you out of your fucking mind?" Bruno demanded.
"Hawk, with respect. If I eject, Oscar will die. He might not wake up again in time, and he was delirious when he did. So the only option left is to try and recover aboard Roughneck. I think I can do it. The sea's not too rough, either."
"Ruby, Blake. You could also try ditching. The water might cushion the landing enough that Oscar will be okay." Blake left the alternative unspoken: the ditching might also hurt Oscar worse, and there would still be little chance Ruby could blow the canopy, get out of her seat, and then unstrap him before the aircraft sank—assuming it didn't break up on hitting the water or go down like a rock.
"Roger that, Blake—I can try that. But I would like to try to recover aboard. It's the best chance Oscar has." There was no response from Bruno now, and Ruby licked suddenly dry lips. "If that won't work, I'll try and ditch."
"Wait one, Ruby. I've got to talk with Boss Man." Ruby swallowed nervously. Bruno was talking to the captain of the Reagan. If it was me, I'd say no, Ruby thought. Even if she was in the front seat of the Hornet, landing aboard the carrier would be problematic. In the backseat it would be nearly impossible. Moreover, she was not just risking her life and Oscar's, but lives on the carrier as well. If she was too low, she would hit the stern of the Reagan; not only would that kill her and Oscar instantly, it might cause a fire that would kill other sailors. Too far left or right, and she could kill the Landing Signals Officer or hit the island itself. While the F-18 was too small to sink the Reagan, a collision and fire could definitely kill some of the crew.
After what seemed like an hour, Bruno came back up. "Ruby, Hawk. I don't believe I'm saying this, but permission granted. We'll recover all other aircraft first. What's your state?" She told him; with the reserve, she had another twenty minutes before the whole matter became academic. "Orbit to port while we recover aircraft."
"Hawk, Blake. I'll stay with her. I can walk her through the approach." Hatman was likely the better choice, since he was in a F-18 as well, but Blake had known Ruby a lot longer than Hatman had known her or Oscar. "She's going to take the barricade, right?"
"Roger, Blake."
"Okay. We'll recover aboard Rough Rider." She referred to the Theodore Roosevelt.
"Roger that. Hatman, you and I will recover first, then Ruby makes her run. You'll have one chance at this. If the LSO tells you to punch out, you eject and we'll worry about Oscar later. Understood?"
"Roger, Hawk."
"Go back to channel Delta and contact Roughneck. Good luck and God be with you, Ruby." Bruno peeled away to enter the downwind leg. Hatman didn't trust his voice. He just put a hand on the canopy. Ruby nodded in understanding, then his F-18 broke away as well.
"Ruby, Blake. Let's get started." Both aircraft began to orbit just inside the armada's defense zone. Blake told Ruby how to lower the arresting hook and landing gear—luckily, Ruby had already figured out the flaps—then gave her a crash course on how the Fresnel lens worked. Emphasis on crash, Ruby thought, her heart hammering. She thought she remembered how Blake had landed the Hornet a few days before. Blake also told her where the so-called chicken switch was—the button that dumped everything the F-18 was carrying. Ruby pressed the button and jettisoned AMRAAMs, Sidewinders, and the Rockeyes. She also dumped fuel. If she did crash aboard, not having any ordnance aside from the gun ammunition—there was no way to jettison that—and only enough fuel for one pass meant that the fire danger would be less. If she didn't get aboard on the first pass, then Ruby would try to ditch.
"Okay, Ruby, follow me down." Ruby matched Blake's speed as they swung into the downwind leg. Ruby tried to calm her racing heart and her hard breathing. She made one last effort to wake up Oscar, but it was no use. There was still the chance that he might even break his neck in just landing on the carrier, she knew, but this was his best chance. "Ruby," Blake warned. "Keep your head out of the cockpit. Watch the ball as best you can. I'll watch the drop line and make sure we're not too low." From the backseat, the nose would block the vertical drop line, but Ruby would be barely able to see the Fresnel lens. "Flaps down, hook down, wheels down. Looking good, Ruby. How're you feeling?"
Ruby let out an ironic laugh. "Never better."
"Roger that. We'll have a beer when this is all over. Just stay with me."
Ruby saw the carrier getting closer. She looked lined up. The carrier's landing deck lights were on even though it was not yet eleven in the morning, to help her see the landing area better. She stole a glance at Blake, who was flying alongside, about a thousand feet to her left, in the same configuration as Ruby.
"Fast Eagle 505, Roughneck. Say your needles."
"My what?" Ruby asked.
"Okay, Fast Eagle, disregard your needles." Good thing, Ruby thought in near-panic, since I don't know what those are. "Call the ball."
Ruby knew that, at least. She saw the white ball in the middle of two rows of green lights, leaning to one side to watch it. "Roger, Hornet ball, 140." She saw the ball dipping lower and tried to chase it.
"Fast Eagle, you are below glide path. Up some." Ruby pulled back on the stick. "Down a bit, left." She jogged the stick down and to the left. "Overcorrect, go right and up." Ruby grumbled a choice curse word and slightly moved the stick. "Power, you're slow." She moved the throttle up a bit. "Too much."
"Fuck!" Ruby snapped. The LSO didn't respond to that.
"A little more power. Down a bit. You're good, hold that."
"Blake, breaking off." Ruby sensed rather than saw the F-14 move away and climb; Blake could go no further or she might hit the carrier as well. Ruby's neck hurt from the weird position it was in, sweat soaked her back and chest, her hands felt clammy. Her heart rate was like she was running a 100-yard dash, and she was breathing so hard into the mask that it echoed in her ears.
"Up a bit, Fast Eagle. Up. Power, power!" Ruby suddenly realized she had let herself drift down and unconsciously was moving the throttle backwards. She pushed it forward and pulled back on the stick—too much on both. The carrier was now filling her vision that wasn't already blocked by the instrument panel and the nose. At the last second, she eased back on the throttle and pushed the stick forward, diving to the deck.
The Hornet hit the deck hard, collapsing the oleo struts on the landing gear to their breaking point. The hook left a shower of sparks as it skimmed across the deck, missing all three wires. The aircraft continued forward and hit the barricade—a series of heavy nylon straps attached to the deck itself. The barricade instantly collapsed and wrapped itself around the F-18, slowing it instantly. Ruby held on for dear life and heard the scream of tortured metal as the left main landing gear snapped, sending the fighter skidding sideways down the deck. She instinctively let go of the stick and throttle and grabbed the ejection handle between her legs, but the Hornet was slowly coming to a stop, two-thirds of the way down the angle deck.
And just like that, they were aboard.
Ruby was shaking like a leaf, and it was all she could do to raise the canopy. Deck crew were already swarming the aircraft: firemen in reflective suits were blasting the landing gear with foam before a fire could spark, while redshirted crew and greenshirted ones scrambled up the sides. The seats were safetied and Ruby was unstrapped by what seemed to be dozens of hands. She tried to get up, but her legs were jelly. She pulled off her mask. "I'm sorry," she said weakly, "I don't think I can walk." The Navy crewpeople pulled her free of the cockpit and gently carried her to the deck, where she sat, unable to do anything but drink in huge draughts of sea air tinged with fuel and oil smells.
Ruby watched as more hands pulled Oscar out; corpsmen now joined the deck crew. Oscar was lowered gently to a stretcher, his helmet removed. Blood made a mask of his face; the front of his flight suit and survival vest was soaked in it, and she could see that his visor had shattered. His eyes were hidden behind the blood, and Ruby wondered in horror if Oscar was blinded. "Is he alive?" she called out. She could handle it if he was blind, but not if he was dead. Not after all this.
One of the corpsmen bent over Oscar, putting his fingers on her lover's neck. He looked up and nodded. "He's alive, ma'am!" Then he was waving the crew away as they raced to the island structure.
"Oh," Ruby said with a tired smile. "Well, that's good." Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell backwards to the deck.
AUTHOR'S END NOTES: I hope that was exciting. In reality, of course, Ruby would be ordered to either try and use the F-18's automatic landing system, or would just be told to eject, and too bad, Oscar. But that wouldn't be very interesting, and I didn't want to kill Oscar, so Ruby does the near-impossible and lands on her first try aboard a carrier. I mean, she is the heroine of the story. And I say "near" impossible, because during the Korean War, a F9F Panther pilot did manage to land on a carrier despite being blinded. He recovered his sight, but will Oscar?
The attack on Boeing Field was influenced heavily by the attack of the Hawkmen tribe in Flash Gordon, hence the name of the chapter (and Bruno's callsign). I've loved that soundtrack since I was a kid, and this was finally my chance to use it. Accurate? Not really, but it was fun (I hope). For the carrier landing scene, I was listening to Finlandia over and over again, inspired by the final scene by that famous Christmas movie, Die Hard 2. Oscar acknowledges Ruby using a line from Star Wars (consciously or unconsciously on her part), but neither one points out that line was originally from the movie Dambusters...and was actually said by a member of 617 Squadron during Operation Chastise, the Dambuster Raid of May 1943. Hey, this chapter was like a George Lucas movie-try and spot all the shout-outs!
Finally, the song chorus that Ruby sings is a real one. "Home, Boys, Home" is an actual US Navy sea chanty that dates back to at least World War II; my grandfather used to sing it, and there's a great copy of it online if you want to hear the whole thing, which is actually very (darkly) humorous. Let's just say it's a good thing Ruby didn't know the last two verses, given her situation...
So Ruby and Oscar have gotten back to the Reagan, and hopefully everyone else gets back home too. But what's next? Will Merlot manage to escape...or will Rissa Arashikaze have her revenge? And why's she so obsessed with Merlot anyway?