Lions of the Sky

by Paco Chierici

  Numbers, numbers, and more numbers. Her world was reduced to flying like a robot, trying to replicate the pattern as exactly as possible over and over. Her mind drifted back to the dogfights that she loved. Aerial wrestling matches in bright daylight. Each merge a new problem to solve at a thousand miles per hour. This was as opposite as possible. Every cell in her body was striving to replicate the perfect pass, carving a deeper rut into her muscle memory with each iteration.

  She rolled wings level, right on center-line, ball glued in the middle, on speed. She keyed her radio and transmitted, “Silvers, Rhino ball, six point five.”

  Slammer’s voice crackled in response, “Roger ball.” She knew he was scrutinizing every movement of her plane from the ground, listening to the whine of the engines as she added and removed power. Watching the wag of her wings and the bob of her nose as she worked to keep the Rhino funneling down the orange beam of light that narrowed from nearly thirty feet at the start, to just the width of her head as her wheels crunched down. Like an umpire in baseball, he was using his years of experience, the many thousands of approaches he’d witnessed, to judge her pass. That special category of instructors who taught and graded Carrier Landings were referred to as Landing Signal Officers or LSOs. In the Gladiators, Slammer was the Head LSO. No pressure.

  Her butt felt an updraft push against the bottom of her plane. Instinctively she corrected, pulling a smidge of throttle and bunting the nose over before there was an opportunity for the ball to rise. Her breathing accelerated as she got closer to the ground, her focus narrowing to a rapid-fire scan reduced to a mantra: meatball, line-up, angle-of-attack. Meatball, line-up, angle-of-attack. Meatball…wham! The landing gear smashed onto the asphalt at 700 feet-per-minute snapping her head forward with the force. She grunted and jammed the throttles full forward, and the Rhino settled momentarily on the runway, perfectly straddling the centerline lights before leaping back into the night sky with a thunderous roar.

  “Nice one,” Dingle passed from the back. “Should be a couple more then we’re done for tonight”.

  “Rog. How’re you doing back there?”

  “Doing great. Don’t even have to look at the guages anymore, I could just close my eyes and fake it.” He sounded bored. There was nothing to challenge the WSO on these flights. He didn’t get to play with the radar or any of the other amazing boxes in the back. He just sat in the dark, instrument lights turned so low he could barely make them out so as not to interfere with her night vision.

  “Sorry buddy. I’ll try and make it more exciting for you,” she answered as they climbed back up to pattern altitude 600 feet above the remote airfield. There were few houses and even fewer cars near this isolated landing strip. The runway lights were completely off but for the tiny simulated carrier box in the landing area. And the ball of course, always the ball.

  “No, I’m good. Keep doing what you’re doing.” He stifled a yawn. She looked around for her interval; Moto was in the Rhino ahead of her in the chain of five working the pattern tonight. She spotted him and started her turn as he passed, a mile away off her left shoulder heading the opposite direction. She was back in the racetrack pattern for another identical approach. Wash, rinse, repeat.

  Slammer and Truck stood adjacent to the runway, side by side in the warm Virginia night. Just as they would be on the carrier, they were out in the open less than twenty feet from the landing area, almost close enough to touch the wing tips as they flashed by. Every thirty seconds a Rhino rolled into the groove and he would grade the pass, dictating the notes to Truck as the fighter climbed away to take its place in the rotation again. “OK pass. Little high start, little too much power on the come-down, little high-fast at the ramp.” Somehow in the lexicon of the LSOs, an ‘OK’ pass came to mean above-average; a 4.0. An average pass was called a Fair and was worth 3. It was a difficult community to impress. The best grade possible was an OK with an underline, OK, like a muted cheer, worth 5 points.

  “That was Moto,” Truck informed him.

  “Rog. He’s looking pretty smooth. I’m sending him home.” Truck nodded.

  Slammer keyed the radio, “Moto, Paddles.” He identified himself with the universal call sign for all LSOs, a carryover from the days before the meatball when LSOs communicated to the pilots in an almost comic pantomime using actual oversized paddles. You’re complete. Gear up, contact approach.”

  “Moto copies.” He watched Moto for a few moments as the plane climbed out of the pattern into the night sky toward Oceana just a dozen miles away.

  “In fact…” He keyed the mic again and broadcast on the pattern frequency, “Last passes for everyone. Gear up on upwind and contact approach.” He turned to Truck. “What do you think?”

  “No turds. They all look pretty dialed in.” He turned to watch Moto’s lights receding. “Couple of ’em look really good.”

  “They ready?” he asked.

  Truck nodded. “Ready as they’re gonna get.”

  Chapter 17

  02 July

  Virginia Beach, Virginia

  Slammer wound his way through his crowded kitchen to the living room with a beer in hand stopping every few feet to chat, leaning in close to be heard over the music. It was finally the Friday before the 4th of July weekend and his house was jammed. He was famous for his pre-Boat parties and many a Fleet aircrew, instructor, and student mingled with girlfriends, wives, and others.

  He looked out to the mass of bodies swaying and grinding to the electronic beat in the low flickering light. In one corner a student worked a DJ table with the deftness of his radar screen, fingers racing across vinyl, knobs, and buttons. Everybody wants to be someone else, he thought, even fighter pilots. He spotted Quick in the middle of the floor, surrounded by guys looking for an opening. He watched her dance, having fun, then turned away before he imagined anything more dangerous. He scanned the floor again and spotted Dusty grooving in a separate press. And beyond her, JT leaning near the door to the back deck looking as pissy as a sullen teenager.

  He worked his way around the perimeter between the dancers and the furniture shoved against the wall. “What’s up brother?”

  JT nodded a vague hello. “Not much. Just enjoying the party.” He took a sip from the bottle in his hand. JT was clearly in a foul mood and Slammer was just buzzed enough to poke the bear.

  He leaned on the wall, shoulder to shoulder with his buddy, dipping his head in close. “She’s pretty hot.”

  JT turned to scrutinize him. “When’d you start drinking?”

  “A while ago.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just a couple beers while I was setting up,” he lied. He looked over at Dusty again. “That’s a fine piece of ass, man,” he said, pressing the point.

  JT followed his gaze over to Dusty. She was wearing tight jeans and a gauzy white shirt over a black tank-top. Five guys surrounded her, each competing to catch her attention. But she danced with abandon, ignoring them.

  “What do you want, Slammer?”

  “You know how many times we should have died out there, you and me?” He watched the jaw muscles work on JT’s face.

  “Cut to the chase, Sammy.”

  “Eagle won’t even be in the same room with her. And when she flies with other guys, her plane mysteriously breaks half the time. But whenever she flies with you, she does just fine.”

  JT toasted himself. “Guess I’m instructor-of-the-year material.”

  He turned back to the dance floor. He saw that Dusty had noticed the two of them glancing in her direction as they talked and now she stood stock still in the midst of the bouncing bodies, watching them. He felt JT push himself from the wall and he reached an arm to stop him. “You don’t get to fly with her in the Fleet buddy. Somebody else does. You alright with that? Putting her out there for someone else to deal with?”

  JT stared at him. “You’re so full of bullshit I can barely look at you.”

  “What are you talking about?�
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  “Look at Miss Quick over there. You think being such a hard-ass fools anybody but her?”

  From out of nowhere Slammer’s anger surged. “Buddy, my conscience is clean. But I believe you got worked.” He nodded over to Dusty, ignoring the fact she was staring angry holes through him. “I mean, look at her. She’s way the fuck out of your league, amigo.” He wanted to snatch the words back as soon as they burst from his lips.

  Too late. Direct hit. And he could tell from the sting on JT’s face that his friend agreed on some level.

  “Fuck you.” JT knocked his arm away. “I’m out. Nice party, asshole.” But then he stopped, turned back, and pressed in nose to nose. “She was my friend, too.”

  Slammer felt like he’d been kneed in the groin. “Who?” He knew who.

  “Robin. She was my friend. Maybe not as much as yours, but she was.”

  He wasn’t sure where JT was heading, but sure as hell he didn’t want to go there with him. “JT, stop. It’s not the…”

  JT cut him off. “You carry her death around like an incurable disease, man. Let it go, for all our sakes.”

  He watched his WSO and best friend shove through the crowd and out the front door. Well crap, he thought, that did not go as planned. He turned toward the back deck, suddenly not in the mood to be around people. HOB had commandeered the beer keg and was coercing eager revelers into keg-stands with the gusto of a carnival barker. “Step right up, little lady. Let’s test your skills.”

  His escape was blocked as a pretty girl braced her arms against the sides of the keg and kicked her legs into the air. Two of her friends held her while HOB placed the spigot in her mouth. He led the chanting count while she gulped inverted. “One, two, three…” Finally she spat out the spigot and flipped back to her feet while the crowd cheered.

  “Holy shit!” HOB spurted, dropping to one knee. “You want to get married?”

  Any other time Slammer would have laughed at HOB’s reaction. At that moment he just didn’t have it in him.

  The pretty girl laughed. “Sure!”

  “I’m serious. What’s your name?”

  She blushed. “Lisa.”

  HOB stuck out his hand and Lisa shook it. “I’m Matt. Please let me be your life coach and training partner. Slammer!” HOB called out as his instructor made his way around them toward the back door. “Meet Lisa. I’m going to marry this girl.”

  Slammer gave her a halfhearted wave. “Awesome. Send me an invite.” He kept moving toward the steps. “Be right back. Gotta get more ice.”

  One of the new classes had slicked his picnic table with a layer of beer and the knuckleheads were busy practicing the party version of Carrier Landings. While one took a running leap at the table, two others held a towel strung across the middle. The rest cheered if he snagged the towel or jeered if he missed, sliding off the deck into the bushes below.

  He ducked into the shadows around the corner and leaned against the house, feeling the thrum of the bass on his back through the shingles.

  Quick spotted Slammer move off the deck and disappear around the corner as she stepped outside to cool off. Something in the way his shoulders were hunched made her want to follow. She turned the corner just as he disappeared into the darkness. “Hey, Slammer?” No answer. The light from the deck was in her eyes so she craned her neck, moving cautiously from the lighted area across the sharp line into darkness. He was right there in front of her, watching her. She squinted to see his face, barely making it out as her eyes adjusted. “Everything alright?”

  He waved her off then heaved himself away from the house, stumbling, whether from drink or uneven footing she wasn’t sure. She reached out a hand to steady him, pushing him gently back against his house. He looked down at her hand, fingers splayed, palm on his chest and he covered it with his own. Neither moved for a few moments. She could feel the warmth of his body and the strong beat of his heart. She closed her eyes, listening to the pulse of the music and feeling the synchronous thumps under her palm. She felt adrift, in a good way. Almost weightless. Tethered to reality only by her arm.

  “Do you mind if I ask you something?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer for a long moment. “Probably.”

  “Simple question,” she said, looking him in the face. “Why don’t you want us here, Dusty and me? Are we really that bad?”

  He sighed. “My opinion has no bearing. I do what the Navy pays me to do. I’ve been nothing but fair.”

  “Don’t play me,” she said shaking her head. Her tone was conversational. “I know you’ll be fair. I just want to know what you believe.” She felt cocooned by the music and the darkness. He had made no effort to move from under her arm. She thought about when they had first met, driving like maniacs through the back roads. Then to the words he had said in the hallway, not knowing she and Dusty could overhear. Now, with a few drinks to loosen her up, she wanted to know which one was the real Slammer. She thought she knew.

  They would be done soon, Slammer reasoned. He’d get to cherry-pick his next squadron and he wouldn’t have to deal with any women in the Ready Room for a long time, if ever. “Just between us?” What an absurd question. He scanned her face. Always earnest, intense. She nodded eagerly.

  There was no benefit to telling her the things he told no one else, but he was a little drunk, and a little pissed. And there was something about her that made him want to tell. This was probably not going to end well. But fuck it. She asked.

  “My Navy was shaped by a hundred years of Darwinism. A century of work to craft the best flying force the world has ever seen. Hard motherfuckers who passed through the gates of Hell just to get where you are. And then suddenly, because someone thought it was a nice idea, they signed a piece of paper allowing women into combat squadrons, completely bypassing Darwin. Based on what?”

  “I can fly,” she said defiantly. She tried to pull her arm away but he held it in place.

  “It’s not about flying. It’s about dying. Or killing.”

  “So you’re saying I wouldn’t be willing to die? Are you calling me a coward?” she said, an edge to her voice.

  “No, it’s not that. I’m sure you’d gladly throw yourself on a grenade for your boys. But you asked, so you want to let me explain?”

  She snapped her mouth shut and nodded.

  “It’s about grace under pressure, which is different from bravery. Grace under pressure is,” he paused, searching for a way to define a vague notion. “It’s the ability to remove yourself from the moment. Bravery is all hot emotion, grace under pressure is cool.”

  She opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off. “Since the first landing on a carrier the Navy’s bred five generations of warriors. Guys who would rather die than fail.” Her eyes narrow a bit at that last statement. “But again, it’s not about dying, that’s easy. It’s how and why you die that makes all the difference. We’ve a system here, a whole matrix designed to get us that guy. Not overtly. Nobody talked about it. It just evolved.”

  He leaned into her. “What kind of girls does this new system make? No one really knows. Can you tell me?”

  “There’s been combat since the integration,” she said, eyes blazing back at him.

  “Not yet. I’m talking about the real shit. Dropping bombs from the clouds on guys with machine guns doesn’t count. That’s just a video game anyone can play. I’m talking about aerial combat and Air-to-Air missiles. No one’s done that for a generation.”

  “Except for you,” she flashed.

  “Except for me. And my dead wingman. Is that what you’re getting at? It’s not what you think. Not like what the medal commendation letter said.” He could feel himself getting fired up. The heat boiled up from a place deep within, a storage locker where dark things were rudely shoved, jumbled on top of each other to be sifted through at some later date, if ever. But the door was now open, briefly, and the memories tripped over each other rushing to get out. Quick leaned away from him as if she could feel th
e blast but he held fast to her arm.

  “To answer your question, I’ve got nothing against you and Dusty, directly. As far as I can see, you’re both fine pilots. But that’s not what we breed here. We breed warriors. What that means is tough to define. It’s not technical proficiency or bravery, or tactical knowledge. It’s all that plus grace under pressure. And the truth of it is, Quick, I don’t believe that’s something you can create with the stroke of a pen.”

  She looked as if she were about to yank her arm free and slug him in the head, but he continued. “If you make it through me and get to the Fleet, someone you know is going to die. Maybe you. Fact. Think about this, play it in your head, what are you going to do if you’re heading to the merge with no-shit bandits and your lead evaporates? Are you going to press on because you convinced yourself there’s no fucking way you’re next? Because you fooled yourself into believing you’re too good, or too lucky to get tagged? Cuz right or wrong, that’s the warrior culture and that’s what the guys have done for over a hundred years. Or are you going to freeze up?” He thought about Robin at that moment. About the fireball. About the finality of it all. And his mouth filled with a sour taste. He pushed her arm away. He could tell he had hurt her but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything right now.

  “I’m tired of having to always defend myself,” Quick spat.

  She turned and took two steps away then spun around. “Is this because of Robbie Bateman?” she said. “Your whole fucked up attitude toward female pilots? Bateman was on your wing, wasn’t she? When you got your two mighty MiG kills? She died. Isn’t that warrior enough for you?”

  “Yeah, she died,” he said, almost in a whisper. “But she died and failed. She fucked up. And she took her WSO with her.” Slammer was pissed now, too, but he felt himself choking up. He had never said those words aloud before.