A Time to Die

by Mark Wandrey

  Just like before they watched from 4,500 feet, endurance under one hour, as the C-17 lined up on the nose of the George Washington and slowly approached.

  The wind was now almost seventeen knots, and the pilot had a better feel for what his craft could do. He crossed the bow of the Carl Vinson with a relative speed of 112 knots and at a much better angle. His wheels touched down only thirty feet aft of the bow, and almost dead on the quickly painted center mark.

  “Bingo!” Andrew said as the Globemaster’s engines roared into reverse. This pilot also used more brakes, riding the ragged edge and making smoke curl from them as he shot down the entire 1,092-foot length in just over seven seconds. When he jumped the five-foot gap at the fan tail he’d slowed to 50 knots and it was looking brilliant. Unfortunately, that didn’t hold up.

  The much reduced speed meant the wings had little lift. The plane didn’t fly over the gap, it nosedived. The front landing gear crumpled underneath as the rest of the plane came down. The much heavier main gear absorbed the impact and the plane did a sort of nose down bunny hop leaving crumpled metal and rubber behind. When the jump started, they were 150 feet from the fantail.

  The hop was just a little one, a bit shy of 155 feet. Just enough for the nose to completely clear the crash barricade, but not the outboard starboard engine. The arresting system retarded and pulled, yawing the still relatively fast moving plane and pulling it hard to the starboard until the engine, as it was designed to do, sheered from its mounting before the wing could be compromised. It was either good or bad that the fuselage was coming down the way it did, two other arresting cables were likewise collected by the main landing gear.

  “Oh crap,” was all Andrew got out as the plane skewed sideways, tilting wildly and the port wing effecting a scraping, showery arc along the flight deck. The arresting cables that had the landing gear maxed out their travel arcs and one failed. Then the nose of the C-17 hit the coning tower of the Carl Vinson a few feet forward of its aft side at 42 miles per hour.

  The entire structure shuddered with the thunderous impact as the nose of the C-17 crumpled in a most spectacular fashion, and 140 tons of transport plane came to a dramatic stop. They all watched as the 100,000 ton ship actually rocked in the water from the hammer blow, its flags on the tower whipping back and forth. Andrew tried to imagine how that felt up in the flight operations booth where the Air Boss sat. Then he wondered if the pilot survived.

  The starboard wing was on fire and crews began rushing out. One to control the fire while others began evacuating crew and passengers. Even if Andrew had maintained second thoughts of his coming landing attempt there, the crash just put paid to that idea. No other planes would be landing down there anytime soon. He noticed the force was sufficient that half the mooring lines holding the Carl Vinson to the George Washington had snapped, and he could swear the tower had a slight tilt to it.

  “Commander Martinez, are you there?” Andrew called over the radio.

  “This is Commander Montgomery, air boss of the George Washington,” the radio replied. “The Carl Vinson is coms down, Lieutenant, and they’re fighting the fire.” Below the wing of the C-17, apparently having suffered structural damage, was bursting into spectacular flames. Jet fuel was pouring out like napalm and running across the deck. Fire crews were likewise pouring out and foam was beginning to be deployed. “You better head for your rendezvous, and God speed.”

  “Good luck, Commander,” Andrew said, “and thanks to you for your work. I don’t think any of us would have survived if we’d had to land on the ground.” As the crews fought the blaze below, Andrew turnednorth as the sun dipped below the western horizon. A dozen Marine Sea Stallion and Super Stallion carriers were just lifting off the Essex and Makin Island and turning to follow.

  * * *

  “Forty minutes of flight time,” Wade announced.

  “This is getting to be a habit,” Andrew grumbled as he searched the blackening sea below. The sky showed a few clouds to the west, and just as Captain Gilchrist had said there was more wind from the west the further north they went. Unlike where they’d just left the sea was more turbulent and he could see white tops.

  “Help me spot those damned ships,” Andrew said to Chris, “we’re losing the light.” Chris grabbed a pair of binoculars off a shelf down by his right thigh and started scanning the horizon.

  “There’s a ship,” he said a minute later and pointed. Andrew followed his arm and saw it as well. A line of white from a wake ended at a little black pencil shape. One of the guided missile cruisers.

  “Got it,” he said, and adjusted course. Ten minutes later they spotted the carrier. “Gerald Ford, Gerald Ford, this is 44 Foxtrot, we have you in sight.”

  “Acknowledged 44 Foxtrot,” the reply came immediately, a rather nice sounding female radio operator. “The captain informs you we are turning into the wind and give us a few minutes.” Andrew glanced at Wade who flashed him three fingers then a zero.

  “Roger that, Ford, we have 30, that is three-zero minutes of flight time.”

  “Acknowledged,” the women replied.

  “Whoa,” Chris said, “check this out,” and passed the binoculars.

  Andrew took them and caught the carrier. The Gerald Ford was the first of her class, a new generation of supercarriers. The first since the old Nimitz had been built back in 1975. She was undergoing her final sea trials when the world fell apart. Though not activated, she was fit out and crewed. And as he watched, she was performing a high speed turn to the west. She tilted at least fifteen degrees as she heeled over, her stern skewing around from the power of her four massive propellers.

  “That is amazing,” Andrew said.

  “So let me get this right,” Wade said, “we just watched two planes just like ours land on twice the runway, and one crashed badly. And we’re going to land on that?” Chris looked at his pilot just as dubiously.

  “I’m curious too,” General Rose said.

  “The captain was pretty confident in his ship,” Andrew replied.

  “Then why didn’t we do this with all three?” the General asked.

  “Because it’s probably only good once.” Andrew began his descent, taking them down to 2,000 feet and over the Gerald Ford. They were doing a leisurely 250 knots as the large bulk of the newest supercarrier passed below them. It looked tiny and unmoving by comparison. Oh shit, Andrew thought. As an Air Force pilot, he’d always believe that naval aviators had a screw loose to start with. And here he was…

  “44 Foxtrot,” the female radio operator said, “call the ball.”

  I must be crazy, Andrew thought. Fucking crazy. “I got the ball,” he said over the radio. He began his descent and a long looping bank around to the carrier’s rear once again. As he turned he could see the crew setting up for him. His heart was pounding in his ears as he turned on the intercom.

  “Okay everyone, sorry to not keep you up on current events. The first two C-17s made their landings on carriers as I described. The second quite a bit rougher than the first. Still, I understand there were no loss of life.” He could hear some cheering from aft and below. “Now it’s our turn. Our primary landing option is gone, so we’re going to land on the carrier Gerald Ford. I don’t anticipate any big problem, but everyone needs to be as ready as possible. We’ve been passing out straps for the last hour and hopefully everyone has tied into the lock points on the floor. Grab a hold, stand on the floor, hang on and hang onto someone near you if possible. We’ll be on the ground… I mean deck, in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Or we’ll be swimming in sixteen,” Wade said, luckily after the intercom cut off.

  They finished their wide turn and lined up on the carrier, about five miles ahead of them. Andrew continued to lose altitude until he was down to under 1,000 feet, deploying all the plane’s massive flaps and speed brakes for a little bit. They were skimming along at 700 feet, going 160 knots.

  “Restart number three,” he told Wade. “We’re going to
need the power to stop.”

  “What if it over heats?” Wade asked.

  “It won’t overheat if we overshoot and land in the Pacific.”

  “Good point. Restarting.”

  “Gerald Ford, we’re five miles out on final.”

  * * *

  On the conning bridge of the Gerald Ford the operations crew were watching the captain with wide eyes and concern. They’d all listened to the landings on the Carl Vinson and George Washington. The success, both complete and partial. And those two carriers were active ships with very experienced crews. Almost half the crew of the Ford was new, or on their first deployment. They’d done all kinds of launches and recoveries with the usual array of carrier based craft. But this? This to them was pure insanity. The captain glanced around at them. Gilchrist looked at his executive officer who looked back. The two men exchanged nods.

  “Give me ship-wide,” he ordered and an ensign handed him the microphone. It still smelled like new plastic. “Attention Gerald Ford. You all know what is about to happen. And you all know why. It is likely that most of our countrymen are lost to us, victims of this inconceivable plague. But that plane coming towards us is full of civilians. Many are military dependents. There is nowhere else for them to go. If they ditch in the ocean, hundreds will die. If they try to set down on the shore, they will be overrun by the infected.

  “What I’m asking you to do is not easy. I know the Ford isn’t tested. Many of you are not. Follow the lead of your chiefs, and do what must be done. Metal can break. Glass can shatter. But nothing can break the spirit of the United States Navy. Today, we’ll show them what we’re made of. Today, the Gerald Ford stands tall!”

  Even fifty feet above the deck and through a half-inch of glass they could hear the cheers. Gilchrist nodded and turned to the rating at the helm.

  “General quarters. Helm, all ahead emergency flank. Punch it, son.”

  “Emergency flank, aye-aye Sir!”

  “Give me the reactor chief,” the captain said. The squawk box gave off the customary chirp of a connection and he put the set to his head. “Bradly, what’s the status?”

  “Both reactors at 85%, sir.”

  “I need 120%, Bradly.”

  “Sir, we haven’t finished shaking out these new A1Bs,” he said, referring to the new generation nuclear reactors.

  “I know that. We have 700 souls coming down in fifteen minutes in a 140-ton plane going at least 130 knots. Every damned knot we can squeeze out of this girl is one less he has to lose when he hits the deck.”

  “I understand sir, but the strain on the system could have long term implications.”

  “I’m more worried about the long term implications for the human race. You have your orders, Mr. Bradley.”

  “Aye-aye, sir. You’ll have 120% in two minutes.”

  Deep inside the ship, dampening rods were retracted past the normal stops and megawatts of power flowed into the ship’s system. Unlike the Nimitz, the Ford was all electric. It didn’t take minutes for the increased output of the reactors to be fed through steam feeds into the engines. The reactor room channeled power directly to the engines, the sheer output quickly passing tested maximum scale and rose to truly titanic. Electric motors the size of small houses thrummed and the entire ship shook. Men in the shaft-ways who monitored bearings jerked in surprise as those bearings began to heat, and the 26” solid cast steel shafts began to make hitherto unheard noises.

  * * *

  “Four miles out,” Andrew said as he began to bleed of speed and altitude. He brushed the stall line and gave the plane a little more nose up, now almost eight degrees! The Globemaster didn’t like it one bit, and the plane bucked against the slow speed. He checked the airspeed against ground speed. Ground speed 112, air speed 138. Coming north to the southern edge of the storm the Gerald Ford had passed through had gained him a 26 knot headwind. Below the carrier was somewhat in twilight, but its running lights blazed and there was still quite a bit of light. Enough for the few more minute they needed.

  “Fuel looks good,” Wade said, “that engine is overheated by a hundred and ten degrees but holding.”

  “I can see that meatball thing,” Chris said and pointed at the carrier’s fantail.

  “Got it,” Andrew said as well. “Will you look at that? The damned carrier has a rooster tail!”

  The Gerald Ford was hauling ass. Behind it the cavitation of the powerful screws created vortexes that rose to the surface and threw water up in the air. They looked almost half as tall as the back of the ship!

  “How fast do you think they’re going?” Chris asked.

  * * *

  “Not fast enough,” Captain Gilchrist grumbled, then louder. “We’re not going fast enough!”

  “We’re at 39 knots,” the helmsman said. “40 knots, 41, 42, 43 knots and steady, sir.”

  “More,” the captain said.

  “Sir,” his XO spoke up, “we’re at the limits of the electrical safeties on the power plant. Chief Ringo in the power room reports he has a heat warning already.”

  “How much of the reactor power is he using?” the captain asked. The XO consulted one of the computer operators for the answer.

  “Sir, eighty-two percent.”

  “Insufficient. Max it the fuck out.”

  “Sir? Chief Reactor Tech Ringo is concerned…”

  “You heard me,” he turned and bellowed. “I don’t care if Mr. Ringo has to jam a crowbar into the main bus, I want every God damn amp of power to the engines! Shut down all non-essential systems. Kill the catapults as well. Only approach radar.”

  “Sir?” the chief navigator said.

  “So help me, by God’s chin whiskers, if I lose that bird in the drink because we’re a couple knots short, every one of you will follow it in!”

  Below deck, extremely well-trained personnel stared at the squawk box in consternation. They’d spent months learning how to keep the multi-million-dollar drive systems from exceeding parameters and damaging themselves. Now they’d been ordered to toss all that out the window and do whatever had to be done to circumvent those safeties.

  Electrical engineers’ mates and chiefs tore open panels with huge yellow and black warning labels of ‘Do Not Open When Energized’. Inside they removed safety covers, and did unthinkable things with thousands of live volts flowing within inches of their fingers.

  On the bridge, the pitometer once again began to climb.

  * * *

  “One and a half miles out,” Andrew called on the radio.

  “This is Air Boss,” a new voice replied, “your glide path is flat, and you’re too low.”

  “I can’t come in at a high angle, Air Boss,” Andrew said. “I need rubber on the deck as early as possible.”

  “If you’re low only half that bird is coming in. I will wave you off, Lieutenant.”

  “Sir, I have less than ten minutes of fuel on board. With all due respect, if I get a wave off, I am going to ignore it. You damned well better clear the decks, because I’m landing.”

  * * *

  “Come on!” Captain Gilchrist urged his ship. “Move, you pig, move!”

  “49 knots,” the helmsman said. There was a gradually increasing shudder from the ship that was becoming profound, and the helm was becoming a little loose. “We have 50 knots sir!”

  “Engine room reports they’re on the red line, sir!” The XO almost squawked. “Shaft monitors say they have smoke from Shaft Three Bearing One, and Shaft Two Bearing Two. All are giving off heat warnings.”

  “Spit on it for five minutes,” Gilchrist snarled. He walked over to the sliding door and jerked it open. He’d been on carriers for almost thirty years, and never had he ever felt this kind of slipstream before if they weren’t sailing into a gale. Looking aft, the tops of a twin set of rooster tails were intermittently splashing above the fantail. Gods, he hoped it was a zombie apocalypse or the Joint Chiefs would have him keel hauled for what he was doing to a $17 billion ship that
had yet to fire a shot in anger.

  Looking up a little above the fantail and there was the C-17, almost hovering above the deck and only a thousand yards out.

  “Jesus Christ on a crutch,” he hissed. The plane was beyond big. It looked like a huge crouching dragon coming in to land on a postage stamp. “Sound crash alarm,” he said, “Clear the decks!”

  * * *

  “One thousand yards,” Andrew said and flicked the PA on. “Everyone brace for impact!”

  “44 Foxtrot,” the carrier Air Boss called, “we got her up to 50 knots, I don’t know how long we can hold her there before something goes. Headwind is gusted to 29 knots. We did the best we can. God speed, lieutenant.”

  “Thanks,” Andrew said and bored down on the approaching ship with all his attention.

  He’d watched two other pilots do this with mixed results. And always from nearly a mile above them. This was a very different thing to be the one racing at the deck.

  “79 knots,” he said and glanced at his ground speed, as calculated by a radar bouncing off the water. It read 141 knots. He would hit the deck with 62 knots to kill in under 1,000 feet. We’re going to die, he thought. His knuckles were white on the control handles so he purposely loosened them.

  “I just wanted you to know, we’re all counting on you,” General Rose behind him said in a strange accent.

  “Huh?”

  “That movie, Airplane?” the general prompted. “Remember the guy kept saying that?”

  Andrew had to use a bit of his brain to remember, then laughed and shook his head.

  “Yeah, I remember now. Leslie Nielsen. Funny.” It seemed like a stupid thing for the general to say at that moment, but he’d seen the way Andrew was hunched over the control like a big hunk of electrocuted meat. The joke worked, and he relaxed somewhat. He was a highly trained pilot. He could do this.

  The deck of the carrier bobbed and weaved a little. In the final twenty seconds of approach Andrew worked with it, getting a feeling for the rhythm of the motions. He remembered hearing that snipers had learned to predict those motions to shoot people. His mind was racing as the deck came up.