Spectre jumped in the water. Ox thrashed and kicked, having no idea what was happening. Spectre tried to calm him and wrapped his right arm around the large man’s chest. He convinced the man to let go of the mooring and began swimming. Spectre was relieved that they were in salt water and despite his mass, the man was mostly fat. The buoyancy helped.
Grabbing onto the ropes and crossbeams of the dock as he swam along, Spectre guided them the requisite twenty feet to the ladder. Once there, he faced his second challenge – getting the large man up the ladder. He sized up the situation, realizing that the bottom rung was only at chest level for him. It would have been easy for a sober man, but nearly impossible to get the overweight drunk up without assistance. Or a large crane.
He coached the large man into grabbing the ladder. Once on, Spectre pulled himself up and positioned his right thigh to create a makeshift step. In his condition, the man had very little upper body strength, but Spectre was sure he could at least push up with his legs.
He was right, and the man slowly began climbing as more people began to show up to help from the dock. Spectre heard another splash as another drunken Gator jumped in to help. Great. This guy was nearly falling off the boat on the ride back, and now he too was trying to save the large Gator. Excellent. The newcomer hero tried to take over the situation, attempting to push Spectre out of the way and force the large Gator up the ladder himself. Since the large Gator was almost up the ladder, Spectre swam back a bit to get out of the way, until he heard a thump and yet another splash.
Another Gator had made his way into the water. This time, it was another Good Samaritan Gator who had been helping above but had lost his balance in his drunken state. He had fallen backward off the dock and into the water while hitting his head on the boat behind him. Spectre’s eyes grew big as he heard the splash and saw nothing emerge from the water. He raced to the Gator’s last known position, finding only an arm of the flailing man and pulling it to the surface.
The man’s head finally reached the surface as he gasped for air. “I’m ok!” he said with a laugh. “I just fell in.” Spectre helped the man reach the ladder with less assistance than the first. This guy was in much better shape and a little more coherent. By the time all the victims had made it up the ladder, the newcomer hero still remained. He was convinced that Spectre had also fallen in, and was not going to go anywhere until Spectre went first. Spectre refused and insisted that the newcomer hero go first. He finally agreed and stumbled his way up the ladder, where everyone thanked him for saving the two distressed Gators. Spectre followed the man up the ladder with everyone now safely out of the water.
Upon seeing that Spectre was ok, Chloe rushed over to him with a towel. “I’m so glad you’re ok, when I couldn’t see or hear you, I thought they had dragged you under or something,” she said as she gave him a hug. He kissed her on the cheek and accepted the towel.
“I told you not to worry about me,” he winked.
As the Gators congratulated the newcomer hero for his bravery, one of the senior Gators approached Spectre laughing. “Did you fall in too?”
Spectre planted his forehead firmly in the palm of his right hand. “I can’t win with these idiots,” he mumbled.
After driving a few of the Gators home, Chloe and Spectre finally made it back home.
“I had a great time tonight, even though it was with the Gators, thanks for inviting me,” Spectre said as he started to head toward the master bedroom.
She stopped him before he could turn around and kissed him. It was the first time he had any physical contact with her since the breakup, and it was as if a spark had been sent up his spine. His heart was now racing.
“The night’s still young," she said seductively, kissing his neck.
“You’re drunk,” he said stopping her. As badly as he wanted her, he didn’t want it to be like that. Not after all they’d been through in the previous weeks and her drunk. She’d reached the drunken stage of horniness she called “Stage 2.” It had been good for him so many times before.
“So?”
“So,” he said pushing her away, “I want you so bad right now, but this is not right. Not with everything we’ve been through.”
“Ugh. Fine. Good night.” She was pissed, but he knew she wouldn’t last much longer. She had maybe two or three minutes left before she would pass out on her bed. He wanted to take advantage of the situation so badly, but he really loved her, and he wanted it to be right. He didn’t want her to only want him when she was drunk. He wanted the old spark back.
At least that’s what he told himself as he banged his head against the door after she’d stumbled back to her bedroom.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Warning Area 465
100 miles Southeast of Homestead, FL
2058 Local
“Swamp Three-One, check,” the female voice crisply said over the radio.
“Two,” he responded sharply. Lt Col Jeff “Pistol” Pitre had been flying the F-16 for fifteen years. He had seen it evolve from a day, clear weather fighter to a day or night all weather fighter with some of the most amazing technology. A seasoned flight lead, Pistol was an airline guy – a traditional Reservist. He did the requisite six flights per month in the F-16 only to turn around and fly the masses around in his company’s Airbus A320. Not a bad side job for an old guy, he thought.
Pistol maneuvered his F-16 into a tactical formation behind his flight lead. Despite his thousands of hours, tonight he was flying off Eve’s wing, the newest flight lead in the squadron. It was only her second time leading at night after her upgrade, and Pistol had been assigned to fly with her as her “seeing eye wingman.” He would try to keep her out of trouble. For now, she would only be flying with more experienced pilots.
She had cleared him to fly wedge, a fluid position varying from a one to three miles and thirty to seventy degrees swept aft. Through the monochrome green Night Vision Goggles, he could easily see her covert strobe flashing at three miles as if they were right next to each other. Although NVGs didn’t turn night into day, it was pretty damned close.
Despite the advantages NVGs gave, Pistol was still gun shy about flying with them. In the last five years, he had been one of three Gators to eject out of an aircraft, and his was perhaps the scariest.
He had been flying as a simulated aggressor - red air - just as they were tasked tonight. His job had been to simulate the enemy aircraft as a training aid for the other four-ship. They simulated enemy weapons, tactics, and maneuvers. But while executing those tactics over the Gulf of Mexico three years ago, he lost his orientation with the horizon. With no discernible references outside and a dimly lit cockpit, he couldn’t tell which way was up or down. He entered a graveyard spiral, eventually realizing he was in an unrecoverable situation and ejecting just moments before the F-16 impacted the water. The whole night was a blur, but he was so thankful the seat had worked as advertised, and that his wingman was able to find him and direct the rescue helicopter to his position.
Beyond his goggles, the sky was completely dark. The moonrise wasn’t anticipated for another three hours, and over the water, there was no cultural lighting whatsoever. Not that it would have mattered. There was a thick undercast deck of clouds at five thousand feet. Due to the weather and illumination, they were operating under strict training rules to prevent the loss of another aircraft.
In front of him, Pistol had two multifunction displays. On his left, he had his radar displayed, showing him where the blue four ship was, and on his right, he had his datalink with blue circles denoting where each member of the flight was. Since tonight he was only number two of a two ship, there was only one other circle shown just a few miles in front of the fixed aircraft that represented his ownship position.
His radio crackled to life. “Swamp Three-One, Gator Two-One, fights on, fights on.” The voice was the gruff old voice of “Magic” Manny who was leading the blue air. They were over fifty miles apart, at separate predesignated p
oints of the training airspace. The call signified that it was time to point at each other and begin the exercise.
“Swamp Three-One, copies fight’s on,” Eve replied coolly. As the wingman, Pistol had no speaking role. His job was to just be in position, shut up, and say “Two” when appropriate.
Over his secondary radio, Eve directed, “Swamp flight, Action.” It was her command for them to execute the maneuver she had briefed beforehand. He was to turn forty-five degrees away from the blue four-ship for thirty seconds and then turn back toward them, while she would roll one hundred thirty-five degrees nearly inverted and pull, executing a sliceback. It was the maneuver that made him most nervous, since it was doing exactly that only a few years ago that tumbled his head so much that he could no longer control his aircraft. At the end of the flight brief, he warned her to just be careful. They couldn’t afford to lose another jet or worse yet, a pilot.
Pistol executed his check away as he watched the datalink circle representing Eve’s aircraft make the one hundred eighty degree heading change and descend. His focus turned to his radar as he attempted to lock up the blue players to simulate launching missiles at them.
After a few seconds of driving forward, the blue players called a kill at his bullseye position. Pistol acknowledge with a “Copy, kill,” and turned back toward their starting point. It was then that he realized that he never heard Eve call her turn inbound.
As he rolled out south toward their starting point, he looked down at his datalink display. To his horror, only his ownship position was displayed.
“One, two, aux,” he said, indicating he was talking on their auxiliary frequency.
There was nothing but silence.
“Swamp, Gator Two-One, Picture.” It was the blue flight lead making the standard call to ask for the position of any hostile aircraft in the area.
There was still silence. It was the red flight lead’s job to respond. Eve had dropped out of communication.
Pistols face became hot as he considered what might have happened. Dear God no. Not again. Not to her.
“One, two, aux.” His voice was shaking. He was growing more nervous.
Silence. There was no reply. He hoped her radios had just failed or something simple. He scanned the horizon in his goggles looking for her flashing beacon. There was nothing. With the solid undercast deck, she would’ve been easily recognizable several miles out.
“Knock it off, knock it off,” he screamed on the radio. This was not good.
“Gator Two-One, knock it off,” the blue flight lead replied.
“Gator Two-Two knock it off.”
“Gator Two-Three knock it off.”
“Gator Two-Four knock it off.”
“Swamp Three-One, Gator Two-One, say reason for knock it off,” the blue fighter queried.
Pistol stopped for a second to compose himself. He was shaking. He didn’t know what could’ve happened to her, but he suspected the worst, and he had to act on the worst.
“Gator Two-One, this is Swamp Three-Two, we’ve got a possible aircraft down. Last contact during maneuvering. Swamp Three-One is no longer on the link, and I am negative contact.”
“Gator Two-One copies, we’ll relay to Miami Center, confirm you’re not hearing a beacon?”
His heart sank. She wouldn’t just fly off without trying to rejoin and give him night flashlight signals if she simply lost her radios. If she ejected, her seat’s emergency beacon would be transmitting on the UHF frequency 243.0, the universal emergency frequency.
He frantically switched his radio to 243.0. Complete silence.
“Gator, Swamp Four-Two, negative. There’s no beacon.”
CHAPTER NINE
Haditha, Iraq
2009
The steady click of the exhale valve on his mask was almost hypnotic as Spectre stared listlessly out the canopy at the barren desert. He was only on the third hour of his four-hour airborne reconnaissance mission, and he had already depleted his supply of Rip-It energy drinks and Power Bars.
Equipped with a canoe shaped Theater Airborne Reconnaissance pod strapped to the underbelly of his F-16, it was amazing to Spectre how much things had changed since Vietnam. Gone were the days of the F-4 screaming over treetops avoiding flak and small arms fire while taking pictures at nearly 500 knots. In Iraq, it was all about the autopilot and flying point to point at medium altitude while the computer did all the work. Bummer.
That serenity was suddenly interrupted by the shrill sound of a female voice saying “Warning! Warning!” over his headset. Named for the authoritatively nagging, yet attractive, female voice of the onboard Voice Warning System, Bitching Betty was the result of an early human factors analysis. In it, scientists determined pilots were more likely to pick out female voices in stressful situations in a flurry of radio chatter. As time progressed and women took more of a role in aviation and air traffic control, this reasoning became less valid, but the name stuck.
With no loss of thrust noted, the audible warning forced his eyes to the “eyebrow lights” on the top of the dash. It was here that Spectre’s heart sank. The HYD/OIL light glowed an ominous red. He was either dealing with a hydraulic failure of some sort or low oil pressure. In the middle of bad guy land with no suitable airfield within at least thirty miles, he prayed for the former.
His eyes shifted to the engine gauge cluster below the eyebrow lights. Starting with the oil pressure, his fears were confirmed. The gauge was fluctuating between 10 and 15 psi - well below normal operating limits. As he worked his way down, all other instruments seemed normal. His Front Turbine Inlet Temperature, RPM, and hydraulic pressures were all in the green. It was definitely an oil system problem.
While not a critical action procedure in which regulations dictated the steps had to be memorized, oil system malfunctions in the F-16 were one of those things pilots just had to know. There was no time to dig through the checklist and read all the notes, warnings, and cautions. It was expected that the pilot would know that the decision tree depended on the current oil pressure – above 10 psi and you were using everything the motor could give you to make it to the nearest field; below and you were minimizing throttle movement hoping the current power setting would be enough to get you home without seizing the engine.
In as much as a person with engine trouble over a country with people determined to cut your throat could be lucky, Spectre was lucky that his oil pressure was sitting just above 10 psi. His training immediately kicked in. All of the emergency procedure simulators and quizzes he had undergone through training would be put to the test.
As Spectre selected afterburner and started climbing, he hit the LIST button and pressed seven on his Upfront Control Panel. This gave him the nearest suitable airport within a 50 mile radius on his display. He was east of Haditha, 40 miles from Joint Base Balad. The math on the F-16 was easy: technically, it was capable of 7 miles for every 5,000 feet of altitude, but the pilot math was a 1:1. At 40 miles, he needed 40,000 feet of altitude to safely glide to land with room for error.
Spectre turned east and continued climbing through 20,000 feet. At 40,000 feet, if the engine were to quit, he wouldn’t have enough hydrazine to power the Emergency Power Unit through the descent. Without the EPU, there would be no power to the completely electric fly-by-wire flight control system. He needed a little tailwind and a lot of luck.
Dubbed the “OG’s doorbell,” the Stores Jettison button was aptly named because the doorbell-like button would immediately result in a visit from the Operations Group Commander once on the ground. Without hesitation, Spectre used his left index finger to press the button labeled EMERGENCY JETTISON and held it. The wing rock and subtle thunk from the jet indicated that the two 370 gallon external fuel tanks and two 500 pound bombs had been jettisoned from the aircraft. Once gone, Spectre released the button and hit the MARK button on his Upfront Control Panel. If he made it home, the bosses would want to know where he’d dropped his stores.
With his wings c
ompletely clean except for the lone air-to-air missiles on his wingtips, the rate of climb increased slightly as Spectre desperately tried to make it home. The canoe on his centerline, however, was still firmly attached, having not been carted by charges to separate it from the jet. His jet was as slick as it was going to get.
“Thunder Three-Two, Three-One on Aux,” Spectre said keying his auxiliary radio. He had cleared his wingman off for his own separate reconnaissance tasking after the last tanker. The datalink now showed they were 90 miles apart. There was nothing he could do to support except start heading toward him in case he had to jump out.
“Go ahead for Two,” his wingman replied. It was First Lieutenant Danny Stewart, a brand new wingman fresh out of the upgrade program.
“I’ve got a HYD/OIL light, I just punched off my stores and I’m RTB, you’re cleared to rejoin if you can,” he said. There was no panic or rise in his voice. Despite the prospect of being minutes from swinging in the chute, his radio transmissions portrayed ice-cold professionalism.
“Confirm you’ve run the checklist?”
“Affirm,” Spectre pulled the checklist out of his helmet bag. He would look at it if he had a moment, but right now, he knew he had run everything.
As Spectre climbed through 25,000 feet, the situation went from bad to worse. The swinging oil pressure gauge caught his eye as it fluctuated between zero and ten. He knew the normally reliable GE engine only had minutes left in its life.
“Looks like the oil pressure’s about to dump, can you mark my location?” He was instructing his wingman to use the datalink and moving map to get a geographical fix on his position.
“I think so,” the wingman replied. There was doubt in his voice.
With the oil pressure now below 10 psi, Spectre instinctively moved through the next step on the checklist. He found the EPU switch beneath the throttle, flipped up the red guard, and pushed it forward. The green EPU ON indicator light illuminated as the EPU whirred to life. The light showed AIR, indicating the EPU was running off engine bleed air. As long as the engine stayed running, the EPU wouldn’t deplete his limited supply of hydrazine.
Spectre Rising Page 6
