Wild Fire

by M. L. Buchman

  No kidding.

  At five hundred kilometers an hour, Cooktown was only twenty minutes away. But even in that short time Gordon could appreciate why this was such an exceptional spotter plane for firefighting. It had great visibility out the window. With a stall speed of only a hundred and forty kilometers an hour, he could practically hover over a fire. At five hundred, he could outrace any helicopter, match any smokejumper plane, and even act as a guide for air tanker jets when the heavy armor had to be called in. As long as someone else was picking up the tab, he was glad to learn to fly it.

  The week since the pizza gathering had been spent flying to bushfires all across the northeastern peninsula that was Far North Queensland. Most of the fires were too small to justify the might of Mount Hood Aviation, but they flew anyway. When there was no fire, they flew training scenarios, putting in long days in remote areas. Mark never touched the controls…not even the radios.

  He left it to Gordon to learn to handle all of the air-to-air and air-to-ground traffic. Then he layered in resource management of aircraft and fuel times, drop capacities, and fire tactics. The last Gordon had thought he knew, but he’d been right—the ICA had a very different worldview high up over the firefight.

  At night, he’d curl up with Ripley. They’d practically set up housekeeping together. There were days he was too exhausted to do more than hold her as he fell asleep and she took that in stride. Thankfully there were other days.

  She didn’t push or demand. They were in a comfortably neutral state. He had the most Wonderful Woman in his bed and for the low price of remembering to tell her that often, they were simply enjoying each other.

  “You know what’s happening, don’t you?” Ripley asked him one night when he’d managed to stay awake long enough to enjoy dinner out on the hotel’s verandah overlooking the ocean. The Great Barrier Reef, which lay less than twenty kilometers offshore, moderated the waves into easy ripples against the pristine beach. Beautiful as they were, the beaches were closed to swimming due to the deadly box jellyfish that surrounded northern Australia for half the year.

  Gordon couldn’t imagine. He was barely able to handle each day. In a week he’d added over eighty hours to his pilot’s log book. Multi-engine certification had been a quick flight to Cairns for a flight check ride with a Civil Aviation Safety Authority tester. He watched the light shift as it set over the escarpment to the west.

  Ripley’s skin no longer surprised him as much, but he was still fascinated with how she changed with the light. It was as if the night accepted and welcomed her, hiding and protecting her from view far sooner than himself. Yet the sunrise was equally kind, revealing the wonder of her dark eyes and shining smile like a new gift each day.

  “Mark is grooming you.”

  “He is?” Then Gordon jolted and sat up. Actually, that explained a lot of his past week. “He is. But why and for what?”

  Ripley’s shrug almost distracted him. Even the simplicity of the shifting curve of her shoulder to neckline in the summer-weight blouse nearly sent his thoughts spiraling off in a new direction.

  “But I can’t…” Lead? Where did Incident Commander-Airs come from? They weren’t born that way. Mark had years of military service behind him. Gordon had…years of flying to fire in helicopters. Could he be? No. It didn’t make sense.

  Ripley rested a soothing hand on his arm. “You understood my Diana Prince and what she could do while you were still in shock after crashing, didn’t you?”

  “I’ve watched you a lot since, too.” He tried to put some suave tone on it because he wasn’t comfortable with this whole conversation. And he’d certainly enjoyed watching her unravel in sexual climax any number of times this week…an event that was always new and astonishing.

  “Be yourself, Gordon.”

  He nodded, it was good advice.

  Before she could think of something else to say to make his head hurt, Gordon decided to follow that advice. He stood, scooped her into his arms, and carried her through the balcony doorway to make love to her on the bed washed with cool evening air by the whispering fan.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Pack it up. We’re gone. Ten minutes out front.”

  Ripley stared at the phone in her hand as Mark’s voice was replaced by the blaring hyperactive-cricket dial tone of Australian phone systems.

  She reached over to tease Gordon awake, but she was the only one in the bed. She pulled on a long-tailed shirt and stumbled about. His packed bag sat close beside the door—how had he done that without waking her? Gordon himself…she finally found on the balcony.

  He was slouched in the same chair he had been last night, except now it was coming up dawn.

  “Mark said ten minutes. More like eight or nine now.”

  He nodded without looking at her. But his hand reached out to slide up the back of her leg and up under her loose shirt. “You feel incredible in the morning.”

  “Not incredible enough to wake up next to?” She teased him.

  “But I did wake up next to you and that, Ripley, is an amazing gift.”

  Girly was not something she ever did, had ever done. But with his hand absentmindedly stroking up and down the curve of her behind, some part of her wanted to gush. To be so comfortable, him with her and her with him, was an amazing gift.

  She almost teased with, “Be careful. Do more of what you’re doing and I just might keep you.” But caught herself in time. She’d just be setting herself up for some Shakespearean tragedy. Star-crossed lovers, dead in the fire’s flames. One thing she’d learned was that she wasn’t the settling down type. Restless as a kid, the same in the Navy, and now a fire gypsy. She’d take the man now, sharing what they did, and leave it at that. Time to cast off the Shakespearian drama with all of its ever-after or unto-death plots, and replace it with…the frivolous cotton candy of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.

  Ripley leaned down, took a long kiss that did more to wake her up than any phone call, then went in to pack. She walked away with a swinging sashay of her hips—another thing she never did—just to make Gordon crazy. But a last-second glance as she stepped inside revealed that he hadn’t noticed. He’d returned to his sullen study of the distant horizon.

  It was ridiculous to feel piqued, but she did anyway.

  Seven minutes later when he held the front door open for her, she didn’t offer him a hip sashay. Not even a little one. And he didn’t appear to notice that either.

  Gordon watched silently as the Australian coast slipped away beneath the Beech King Air. Another five minutes and his first-ever glimpse of the Great Barrier Reef was slipping by as well.

  Someday he’d have to come back here, because the image of Ripley diving in a clinging neoprene wetsuit was one he wanted to take from fantasy to reality as soon as possible. The small arced slices of sand that rose shining white above the turquoise water made him consider the advantages of taking her snorkeling in a bikini as well. He’d never swum in anything bigger than a water tank, but with her…

  He glanced again to check on “his” flight—Mark hadn’t touched the King Air’s controls once since their arrival Down Under. Three Firehawks, Mickey in his 212, Vanessa’s MD 530, and Ripley lumbering along in her Aircrane like the friendly giant—slow but so powerful. He stayed high and a little behind so that he could see them all easily.

  Beyond them lay nothing but blank horizon. They passed over the last island and entered a uniquely dangerous world of flight. A helicopter was often called “ten thousand parts that just happen to be flying in formation.” The smallest failure of any one of those parts could down the aircraft…and there was no way to land any of these aircraft gracefully on the water. None of these were an old Coast Guard HH-3 Pelican especially rigged so that they could float. And his Beech was the worst of all. A high-wing aircraft might have some chance to land and bleed speed before catching a wing tip in the long, rolling waves, but the Beech was a low-wing. The first thing to catch would be a wing tip. First his
aircraft would tumble and shatter…then it would sink. With both pilots aboard.

  “What are we doing out here, Mark?”

  “Maintain your bearing.”

  An hour later, Gordon could feel the whole flight sort of hesitating. They didn’t slow or change course, yet still they…hesitated. Vanessa started flying a little higher. Vern veered slightly as he and Mickey probably exchanged silent looks.

  “We’re reaching the point of no return for several of the aircraft,” Gordon found it hard to speak into Mark’s waiting silence.

  Mark opened his mouth and Gordon cut him off.

  “Yeah, I know: maintain heading.”

  Mark nodded.

  Gordon keyed the mic for the first time since calling clear of Cooktown airspace. “Keep it sharp, people. Don’t want anyone getting their feet wet.”

  “Okay if I pee my pants?” Mickey earned a round of laughs, mostly silent ones shown by the rocking of helicopter rotors side to side.

  Fifteen minutes later they crossed the point of no return for the Erickson Aircrane to return to Australia. In another five minutes, they were beyond any ability to reach even a Great Barrier Reef island. Vanessa’s MD 530 tripped over that fateful limitation only moments later.

  “Mark?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “So where…” and then Gordon figured it out, “…is this aircraft carrier we’re headed for?” Nothing else would be big enough to receive their entire flight. “Wait a minute! Don’t you need special training to land on one of those?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Gordon was gonna pop him a good one in the “Uh-huh.” Mark must have figured that out.

  “This,” he patted the King Air’s console, “is the aircraft they train in before they get to land in a jet.”

  “You’re not expecting me to learn how to—”

  But Mark was shaking his head no. “They made me go through special retraining a couple weeks ago. They’d never trust a civilian to not mess up one of their precious aircraft carriers.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Good thing it’s such nice weather, or they wouldn’t let me or our helo pilots try it. Then we’d have to come up with a different solution because you can’t delay a full carrier group on the move. We need to arrive relatively quietly—which puts the Antonovs out of the question—in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as quickly as possible. They’ve got a brutal fire and aren’t at all prepared to fight it.”

  That wasn’t the itch that had woken Gordon in the night. He’d like to say that it was some sort of pre-cognitive knowledge that their training sojourn in Australia was done. But that wasn’t it.

  It had been nerves. Nerves he couldn’t get past.

  He and Ripley had made love last night. Not sex, not amazing sex, not even “made love.” They’d made love.

  Some part of him had packed his bags before he caught himself. The part that said, “This is scary as shit!” He’d gotten control of himself with the hand on the door knob. He wasn’t a guy who ran away, but he’d rather crash a helicopter upside down into a lake any day. Refusing to leave, but unable to stay in the room, he’d opted for the balcony and watched the Southern Cross constellation kiss the ocean to the south and then climb back up into the eastern sky.

  For hours he’d sat there above the Coral Sea, listening to the soft surf, the winging sounds of the occasional fruit bat, and the echoing silence of the night. Had Mickey been afraid when he met Robin? Hard to imagine. Vern and Denise? Maybe, though Vern was generally so laid back that it would be hard to tell.

  “Did Emily scare the shit out of you before you two got together?” The question slid out and landed like a dead fish in the cockpit. Gordon couldn’t think of how to pick it back up or nudge it out the door with the toe of his boot.

  “Emily?” Mark scoffed.

  Once again, Gordon should have kept his mouth shut.

  “You’ve got no idea at all how scary as hell that woman was back then. And since then. Hell, still is.”

  Gordon had never seen Mark flustered. “But you two get along, don’t you? Sure looks like you do.”

  “Sure. She’s the queen of confidence, and I’m quaking in mortal terror most days.”

  Gordon laughed. That was an image that just wouldn’t stick. Especially not with the way Mark was smiling as he looked northeast, as if he could see her across the Pacific.

  “Seriously. First I thought she was dating the President…had to get halfway around the world to figure out what was up with that. Then she made it clear she was dumping my ass. By the time she said yes I don’t know which of us was more surprised.”

  Gordon eyed the empty ocean and the woman flying down and to his left. He could just make her out through the broad curving windshield of the Aircrane. “Yeah, the surprised part I get.”

  And the way he’d greeted her this morning. Without thought, without hesitation, his hand had trailed up her leg and under her shirt with such easy familiarity as if there’d never been a question.

  “I guess it’s too bad about the blind panic part of it,” Gordon managed a fairly good Mr. Avatar tone.

  “You get over that, if she’s the right one.”

  Gordon’s spin to face Mark actually twitched the flight controls hard enough for Mark to reach for them.

  “What?” He asked after Gordon had regained control.

  “The ‘right one’? Don’t know if I’m ready to be thinking about that.” Actually there was no question in Gordon’s mind—he wasn’t ready for that.

  “Buddy, if you aren’t, then you’re a lot dumber than I think you are.”

  “That I have no trouble at all believing.”

  Mark’s laugh was cut off when a radio that had remained silent until this moment squawked to life. “Flight presently one-five-oh kilometers east of Cooktown, Australia, identify.” The voice brooked no nonsense.

  In moments Mark was chatting back and forth with them like it was old home week. They’d just crossed the hundred-mile perimeter to the aircraft carrier. Inside that line you were either a friendly or an immediate missile target.

  Ripley didn’t need to see the massive white “74” painted on the side of the USS John C. Stennis Nimitz-class supercarrier’s conning tower to know that she’d turn around right now if she had enough fuel to reach shore.

  “Someone up there hates me.” Maybe she’d turn around anyway.

  “Who?” Janet asked.

  A glance up and she could see the Beech King Air cruising a thousand or so feet above her. “Got some candidates.”

  “I thought Gordon dug you?” Janet’s slang was a wildly unpredictable commodity ranging back and forth across decades.

  “Yeah, babe,” Ripley did her best to respond in kind. “He digs me, if you know what I mean.”

  “If you get where I’m at,” Janet corrected.

  “Doesn’t mean he’s innocent,” Ripley gave it up just as she usually did.

  “If he’s innocent around a hot number like you, then he’s a total doofus.”

  She recalled just how amazing he’d been in bed last night. He’d hadn’t sought new heights. Instead, he’d been so impossibly gentle while making love. He’d been…tender, not something she typically engendered in a man who’d gotten her out of her clothes. She’d felt heavenly, then appreciated, and ultimately cherished. He’d spent more time tracing the shape of her face than he had the curves of her breasts.

  Even the memory of it had her pulse racing.

  Or maybe that was the fast approaching carrier.

  “This is Petty Officer Second Class Jones to Erickson Aircrane,” the call came in on the short range radio they’d been using with the ground crews. The signal wouldn’t carry more than a few dozen kilometers from the carrier group.

  “Hey, Jones. Ripley Vaughan here.”

  “Rip!” He sounded genuinely pleased to hear from her. “You traitor!”

  So much for pleased, though his tone remained merry. She’d left the
Navy…and now her old shipmates were going to make her pay for it.

  “You know the tricks. Show the rest of your flight how it’s done. Heli-pad three.”

  “Roger.”

  Jones still gave her turn by turn directions. The Mini Boss up in Pri-Fly—Primary Flight perched high atop the conning tower, which was the airport control tower for an aircraft carrier—would be watching her like a hawk. It made her terribly self-conscious as she was years out of practice on carrier landing. Thankfully, the Air Boss himself would be too busy with the jets launching off the catapult to maintain the group’s over-the-horizon security.

  “Vaughan,” the Mini Boss came on, she knew Jim Harding’s voice. “Don’t you be messing up my deck.”

  “Yes, sir.” Operations must be slow if he had the leisure to give her crap.

  “Did I hear you giving me the finger in that salute?”

  “No, sir. If only because it takes two hands to fly a helicopter.”

  It earned her a chuckle as she lined up on the “green”—the green-vested airman in charge of giving her landing directions with his two red wands. In a carrier landing, you never watched the deck, only the Landing Signals Enlisted crewman. He guided her down…closer, closer…

  Her wheels slammed into the deck, hard enough to earn her the sharp clang of a shock absorber hitting its end stop.

  All around this end of the deck, people spun around to see what had gone wrong and if something was on its way to kill them. When they saw what it was, most turned away.

  What had gone wrong was that the deck was several feet closer than the “green” had indicated. Then she focused on who it was—Petty Officer First Class Weasel Williams! If she still wore her sidearm, she’d shoot him right through the windshield and damn the consequences.

  A glance at the Landing Signals Officer revealed him holding up two fingers, a score of gross but still safe deviations from a best possible five points for her landing.

  She recognized him and held up one finger.

  She could see him laugh, then he flipped up a third finger before turning back to other duties. She hadn’t earned only a three since her third-ever landing on a carrier, which had been another rip-off due to the tropical storm they were steaming through at the time.