Lions of the Sky

by Paco Chierici

  “That’s just what they’d expect. Gotta keep ’em off balance.” He shrugged.

  She loved both these guys like the brothers they were. When they had gotten their orders two weeks ago, she’d gone to the ladies bathroom and leapt for joy knowing the three of them would be coming to Oceana together.

  “You always talk this much when you’re nervous?” Pig asked.

  “Whatever, buddy. Just stay upwind.” She made a face then turned, studying the surroundings to distract herself further. It was a standard Navy classroom—cinderblock walls painted eggshell white, blue industrial carpeted floor, acoustic ceiling tile far above. Fluorescent fixtures drowned the room with a stark light, bleaching color from the already drawn faces of the students. A whiteboard spanned the length of the front, and next to that hung models of four fighters on sticks—a miniature Rhino surrounded by a MiG-29, an Su-27 and a MiG-21, enemy jets all.

  Drilled into the thickly coated cinderblock was a raised relief map showing the eastern seaboard from D.C. to Florida. Silvers’ eyes lit up; the topo maps were her favorite features of these otherwise bland classrooms. The details of the local terrain had been painstakingly rendered onto the vertical world of the contoured plastic. Little blue streams wound through tiny beige towns, between green peaks, and flushed out into verdant farmland and finally the coast. Virginia Beach and Oceana were at eye level and the many low-level training routes wending through hill and dale, the bombing ranges and air combat working areas over the Atlantic, were all detailed with thin, color-coded tape lines. She traced a purple line with her eyes, unconsciously imagining herself flying a Rhino low and fast along the route. Her head rolled, almost imperceptibly, from side to side as the miniature Super Hornet flew through those mountains, darting around trees, rolling over the ridges, and ducking into the valleys. She held her breath as her tiny jet zipped across the last stretches of coastal lowland approaching the Dare County target area, and exhaled slowly as she pulled aggressively into a low pop, rolling over back toward the target, bombs releasing followed by hard-G evasive maneuvers. Pig elbowed her in the arm, popping her dream bubble just as she was engaging a bandit on the egress.

  “You flying in your mind again?” he smirked. She nudged him in the shin with her steel-toed boot.

  No one spoke in more than a whisper. It would have felt wrong, like talking in church. She watched the old analog clock suddenly snap to the next minute instead of easing forward with the passage of time. The rest of the base had come to life and every few minutes the muffled roar of twin afterburners would bleed through the thick walls as fighters took to the sky in pairs, and pairs of pairs.

  The clock whirred loudly as if gathering strength and thunked again to 7:58. The door swung open and a woman in a flight suit strode in, all five foot, ten inches of her broadcasting a bristling, lanky confidence. She didn’t quite strut across the front of the room, but if you squinted you could make a case. She got to the aisle and tossed her head slightly as she turned, her shoulder-length curtain of black hair fanning out. The new girl paused in front of a WSO who was unintentionally blocking the aisle, his feet splayed across the steps. He stared up at her, captivated. She flashed a quick no-nonsense smile and motioned to get past.

  Silvers stifled a laugh as the kid snapped his feet under his chair as if they were spring-loaded, sputtering “Oh hey, sorry!” As she was passing he stuck out his hand awkwardly. “Matt Rogers. WSO.” He was a tall guy, maybe six foot. He was stout, neither muscular nor fat, with a bad government-issue haircut. But he radiated good humor, even when caught off guard.

  The new girl stopped and scrutinized Rogers’ nametag, apparently oblivious she was invading the space between his knees in the cramped aisle. “I can see that,” she said with a tight smile, ignoring Matt’s hand and flashing a quick wave at the rest of the class. “Guess I missed the introductions. I’m Lexi Rhodes.”

  In the hallway just outside the Coliseum, Slammer was striding to keep up with his Commanding Officer, Captain “Jimmy Mac” MacManus. “So you’re saying it’s my choice, Skipper?”

  “Not exactly. I’m just making a crappy situation sound like a choice,” Jimmy Mac said, clapping him on the back. “I’ll make it up to you. Any squadron you want after you finish with them. Can you work with that?” The CO was a grizzled, gray-haired fighter pilot in his mid-forties, a dinosaur in this young man’s game. A pilot’s pilot, known to be fair. Though at the moment Slammer might argue against that. Jimmy Mac had just cancelled his rotation back to the Fleet so he could shepherd one more class of newbies. Nine more months in the minor leagues.

  Slammer did his best to hide the disappointment. “Absolutely, sir.”

  “Excellent. Well, let’s introduce you then.” Jimmy Mac opened the door to the classroom and Slammer followed, waiting in the wing out of sight, growing increasingly irritated by the minute. He wasn’t thrilled to lead another class, especially this class, a double dose of trouble.

  From the shadows he could make out most of the students. They jumped to their feet when Jimmy Mac walked in, puffing their chests at attention like green-clad penguins, dazzled by the CO’s eagle insignia. The Captain in front of them was closer in rank to the Almighty than to the lowly Ensigns and Lieutenant Junior Grades littering the seats in front of him.

  “At ease class,” Jimmy Mac said. The students relaxed their posture fractionally, but remained on their feet, peeking out the corners of their eyes to see what the rest of the herd was doing. The CO smiled disarmingly and gestured for them to be seated. “Sit. Relax.” As one, they thumped assertively into their seats.

  Slammer had heard this introduction twice before in the previous two years. “Good morning. I’m Captain MacManus, your CO for as long as you train here. I’d like to personally welcome you to my school and the brink of fighter aviation. This is the culmination of your years of training. Once you leave me, you are off to the Fleet and battle ready.”

  As Jimmy Mac gave his welcome, Slammer watched from the side, scanning the faces. He spotted the usual mix of enthusiasm, apprehension, and fear. He’d been in this game long enough that he could usually nail within five seconds who the Top Stick would be and who wouldn’t make it to graduation.

  “You’re all exceptional pilots and WSOs or you wouldn’t be here,” Jimmy Mac was saying. “I’m happy to have you. You’re going to love flying the Rhino; it’s the slickest thing in the sky. It’s got the latest and greatest electronics under the hood strapped to twin engines blowing forty-four thousand pounds of thrust, pushing you to one-point-eight times the speed of sound. We’re going to teach you how to fly this machine through the whole envelope, right up to the edge, where she’s at her best.”

  Jimmy Mac picked up a remote and pointed it at a projector, beaming video onto the wall behind him. The video showed clips of the Rhino shooting missiles, dogfighting, and in all forms of dynamic flight. Dramatic flash-cuts of the jets streaking low through valleys and strafing targets with the gun followed one after the other. “You’re going to learn to put this beast through its paces,” the CO said. “And when you finally feel like real pilots, we’ll put you to the final test. You’ll land the Rhino on a carrier, both day and night.”

  Slammer loved the next part. Jimmy Mac clicked the remote once more and the projector went black. The CO scanned their faces again, the avuncular grin gone. “It all builds up to the ship, kids. Your final, and frankly, most important phase in this training. You’ve got to conquer the carrier. Then, and only then, can you call yourselves Navy Fighter pilots.”

  Still hidden in the shadows, he watched them rouse from the effect of the video as if they’d been hypnotized. Their minds were clearly racing as fast as the planes. “Right now, I’d like to introduce you to your class advisor,” Jimmy Mac continued. “You guys are lucky. You got one of the best, and a MiG killer to boot, LT Sam Slammer Richardson.”

  God how Slammer hated that introduction.

  He walked slowly from the wing to the ce
nter of the room, shaking hands with Jimmy Mac as the CO departed. He knew what was coming. And sure enough, he watched as recognition hit the blonde like a bullet. He saw her face pale and her mouth form a silent involuntary, “Oh shit.” She worked quickly to erase the look of horror as his gaze swung past her. He could see the mental calculus playing across her face as she ran the odds that maybe, just maybe he wouldn’t recognize her.

  Fat chance.

  He focused himself to the task, surveying his new class. The rest of the students straightened in their seats in awe. Air-to-air kills were insanely rare in modern warfare. His scan paused on the blonde for a moment again, the barest hint of a grin on his face as she tried to become invisible. It was a little unfair. After all, once Jimmy Mac had strong-armed him into taking this last class, he’d realized he would see her here. She, on the other hand, was blindsided. He heard the pale guy next to her whisper, “What’s up?” as she slunk down in her chair. He got a sharp elbow in his biceps for his effort. “Bitch!” the pale guy hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Well, you made it,” he said, opening his arms to include the whole class. They looked at each other, sensing a trap, wondering where this was going. “All your lives, no matter how smart or fast you were, there was always someone stronger, faster, better. Not anymore. You’re it! Members of the most elite, accomplished team in aviation history. We’ve been flying fighters off carriers for over a century. No one’s ever done it better.”

  He watched them swell with pride, getting caught up in the mystique despite themselves. This, he knew they were thinking, is why we’re here. “All you’ve got to do now,” he paused, “is make it through me.” He cracked a smile, watching the bubble burst. His eyes hesitated again on the blonde. She had absorbed the initial shock of seeing him surprisingly quickly and now not a shadow of self-doubt marred the intensity on her face. “Naval aviation has been at the forefront of every conflict for the last seventy years. There’s a simple reason why nobody’s better. We can’t afford to be second best.”

  He paced the floor, warming to the task. “The Skipper talked about taking you to the edge. I’ll let you in on a little secret. To find the edge of the envelope, that razor’s margin where you and the Rhino are performing at your finest, you have to push past it. Find the corners, test yourselves, your limits, the Rhino’s limits. The trick is, don’t go too far. That’s the difference between a good fighter pilot,” he paused, “and a statistic. It’s the thinnest of lines, but it’s where we dance.

  “People would literally kill to be sitting in your seats right now. Act like you deserve it. Earn it. One thing I won’t tolerate is flat-hatting or a deliberate disregard for safety.” He stopped directly in front of the blonde, though he didn’t look at her. “This extends to all aspects of your lives. If I sense you’re taking unnecessary risks, I will show you the door. We had to let a student go a couple of months ago. He got busted going out the back gate at eighty miles an hour. Nice piece of driving but, you show poor judgment in the world, it only gets magnified in the air, and it’s my job to get rid of you before you kill my friends.”

  He noticed the guys on either side stealing glances at the blonde. K. Silvers according to her nametag. Her color was up and he was sure it was dawning on her that she hadn’t even started yet and she was already on his shit list. Not a good place to begin.

  Time to lighten it up a little. He smiled and walked toward the front row. “Now, in addition to safety, there’s something else that’s extremely important.” The class leaned forward slightly. Everyone but the Vette driver was in the palm of his hand. “I know a couple of you showed up with a call sign already. Before you’re done with the Gladiators, the rest will get one.” He yanked the nametag from the chest of one of the WSOs with the raspy sound of new Velcro giving way. “Some, such as Ensign C. Berry’s here, are obvious,” he whipped out a Sharpie, “and some will take a while to reveal themselves. Be patient. They always do.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Berry cracked an aw-shucks grin then drawled, “I been called Chuck all ma life.”

  Slammer scrawled “DINGLE” next to Berry at the bottom of the new nametag. He cupped the leather rectangle face down in his hand and slapped it back onto Berry’s chest. “That’s right, ‘Chuck.’”

  Slammer nearly laughed as the newly minted Dingle leaned over toward Silvers and winked. “Sometimes, even my momma calls me Chuck.” Slammer watched Silvers nod, biting her lip as she read the bold black print announcing Berry’s new name.

  He continued down the line, scanning nametags. The rest of the students reflexively leaned back, amused and nervous as the groan from a newly self-aware Dingle filtered through the space.

  He stopped in front of the dark-haired girl, L. Rhodes. She looked coolly back up at him with eyes as black as her hair. He nodded at her nametag, affixed just above her left breast and reached out his hand, palm up. “May I?” Rhodes looked right back at him, unmoving, a blank expression on her face.

  Finally she nodded. “Yes, sir. Be my guest.” But she made no move to tear the tag off herself, or place it in his proffered palm. It always amazed him the speed at which seemingly normal situations could escalate. In the quiet span of three even breaths, the mood in the room spiked from normal uneasy new class jitters to a standoff with dozens of implications. In the bristling silence the clock gathered strength and clunked again, seeming louder than ever.

  After a pause, he flipped his hand over and very carefully picked the top right corner of the tag, pulling it forcefully away from the flight suit. He looked into her face but her dark eyes betrayed no reaction. “Some call signs are a little more subtle.” He looked her up and down, studying her. She sat still, coolly dispassionate. This girl had some balls. She was aloof and apparently fearless. A total slayer. He scrawled “BUFFY” next to Rhodes.

  He flicked the nametag like a Vegas card dealer and it flew from his hand to stick on the Velcro at an askew angle. Rhodes looked down and removed it from her chest. She spun the nametag around, read the Sharpie scrawl, and wrinkled her face.

  “Something wrong, Ms.Rhodes?”

  Rhodes began to answer, hesitated, then continued. “Well, sir, it’s just, these can stick for life and frankly, this just isn’t me.”

  Once again he felt the currents in the class swirl from the micro drama. This was not your normal first day by any means. The students shared sideways glances and raised eyebrows, trying to participate with each other but stay out of the impending frag pattern.

  Berry’s stage whisper drifted over the room. “It’s a damn sight better’n Dingle.”

  Slammer stared at her for a long moment. “Where are you from, Ms.Rhodes?” he finally said, keeping his voice friendly.

  Her dark eyes tightened a little at the corners. For a moment he thought he noticed a flicker of doubt. Then it was gone and the steel was back. “Manhattan, sir.”

  “They couldn’t knock that Upper East Side attitude off you after two years of flight school?” He snatched the nametag from her hand, crossed out “Buffy” and scribbled DUSTY. “Well, they just weren’t trying hard enough.” He turned the tag around to show her. “This fit your pedigree a little better?”

  Her classmates craned their heads in to see. Sniggers spread across the room like ripples from a rock dropping into a pond. Dusty’s face reddened but she didn’t look away. Yup, not afraid of anything, he thought.

  Slammer strode to the front of the room and eyed his new charges feeling a little less generous than he had just two minutes ago. This damn class was double trouble alright, in more ways than he could have imagined. Shit was going to get interesting.

  “Okay,” he said, all business. “Let’s get started.”

  Chapter 4

  20 October

  Virginia Beach, Virginia

  Two days later Slammer watched his class from the big window overlooking the hangar as they trickled in on their way to the Academics Room on the first floor. They had a month of computer-bas
ed ground school to churn through before they were ready to hit the simulators. And a month again before they would be ready to strap on a real Rhino.

  Today the blonde, Silvers, arrived at seven sharp. Just as yesterday, she drove her Z06 very slowly with her roommate Moto in the passenger seat. They waited for the other one, Pig, to park his dirty truck a few minutes later, stomp out his cigarette, and then together the three made their way in, laughing and joking. He saw the morning light catch Silvers’ hair and the genuine glow of her smile and then he squashed the thing tugging inside him. He was fully conscious of what it was and he had no intention of letting it see the light of day. This girl was like one of those special scents, the ones that yanked you to a different time and place without pausing for permission. One wisp and the unaware could be whisked away to a moment stashed deep underground, bypassing all security measures. He blinked extra long, feeling the surge of the past clamoring to well up.

  “What’s up?” said a low voice near his ear, startling him.

  Slammer snapped his eyes open and turned to see JT beside him, following his gaze. He’d known JT since they were in ROTC together at the University of Virginia. JT’s parents were philosophy professors there, and they never quite approved of their son’s commitment to the Navy. Slammer had spent many a weekend in lively debate around their dining room table, needling them about Socrates being a badass warrior-philosopher who fought in three wars for Athens.

  JT blew across a thick, chipped coffee mug with his call sign under the squadron logo—a gladiator helmet and spear. WSO wings with the double anchors were embossed in gold above the logo. He was the same height as Slammer, a pinch over six foot, but runner lean with curly dark hair. He’d worn glasses in college but a surgery had fixed most of his vision issues.

  Slammer fought the annoying feeling he’d been caught doing something a little shameful. “Just watching my last class. Once they’re done, I’m gone. Back to sea.”