Wild Fire

by M. L. Buchman

  He buried his nose in her hair and breathed in.

  There was no question that he was referring to her.

  “The best smell in the world.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  They all had accommodations close enough together that the Navy assigned a bathroom for their dedicated use. It wasn’t much: three toilets, two showers, and a couple sinks, but it was theirs. And as the compartments were four- and six-up with narrow bunk beds in which it was physically impossible for two people to sleep together…or do much of anything even if the other occupants were decent enough to leave the room, other locations had to be found for more than the most basic cuddling.

  Gordon would have thought that was a trivial task on a ship a thousand feet long, two-fifty wide, and a dozen or so stories tall. But with six thousand people and over ninety jets and helicopters, it was a wonder the MHA team and aircraft fit aboard at all.

  With space for privacy being such an issue, by the third day it went out the window between the members of MHA. The old Navy joke that two people could shower twice as long together was a paltry one, extending two minutes of water to four: wet down, soap up (without water running), rinse off. Of course, without the water running, there was no real time limit on the soaping up portion of a shared shower.

  Ripley had ruined the effect by giggling nearly hysterically the entire time.

  “I keep thinking someone’s going to catch me and kick me out of the Navy.”

  Others had better luck. And it had become accepted that there were times when loud humming or singing was appropriate while shaving or performing other bathroom tasks.

  However, Gordon didn’t know what to think when he was washing his hands and happened to look up in the mirror as Brenna and Vanessa came out of a shower stall together. The two of them were…glowing. Happy and laughing as they walked by behind him, their wet hair slicked back and holding hands.

  He stood there staring blankly at the mirror long after their reflections followed them out of the room.

  “What the hell?”

  Ripley came up to wash her face. “ ‘What the hell’ what?”

  “What the hell Brenna and Vanessa?”

  “They make a cute couple: Asian and Italian.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Hello!” Ripley turned to face him. “Black and white,” she pointed back and forth between them. “You don’t have an issue with that.”

  “But I do,” he leaned in to nuzzle her neck. “Can’t seem to get enough of it.”

  “Cut it out, you two,” Henderson called out from the doorway.

  “Go away,” Ripley called without turning. “My man is about to kiss me in a Navy bathroom that smells of soap and steam.”

  “You’re both with me. Come on.” And Henderson held the door.

  “Your man?” Gordon couldn’t help but whisper. Now he was the one who was going to laugh hysterically. Over the last few days they’d switched from not talking about the past to talking about little else. Childhoods, love affairs, flying, they delved into it all. Oddly, it had meant that they didn’t talk at all about the present.

  “You bet your cute ass,” and Ripley slapped it as Henderson rolled his eyes.

  “What?” Gordon asked him. “You never slap Emily’s ass?”

  “Are you kidding me? If you were married to Major Emily Beale, would you try it?”

  Gordon considered…not a chance, and kept his mouth shut.

  They climbed ladderway upon ladderway. It took Gordon a moment to realize that they must be above the height of the hangar and the flight deck, and still they were climbing an interior stairway. He glanced down a corridor that had a longline of closed doors and an armed guard at the far end watching him carefully. The nearest door stated Communications and the one beside it Fire Control.

  “Do they really have that many fires?” He kept his voice to a whisper.

  “Fire control as in firing defensive missiles,” Mark and Ripley answered almost in unison.

  “Oh, okay,” as if he needed another excuse to feel completely out of his depth.

  Three more stories of narrow hallways and closed doors went by.

  “How high are we going?”

  “This high,” Mark turned out of the stairwell.

  Ripley stumbled to a halt; Gordon ran into her back and had to grab her shoulders to keep them both upright. He followed her gaze but didn’t see anything usual, except that the steel decking was covered in blue flooring tiles with stars on them.

  “What?”

  She pointed down. “Blue is officer country. The star is admiral country.”

  Ripley began tugging at her clothes, not that there was all that much to tug at. She wore a t-shirt, jeans, and boots, just as he did.

  “Do you have any boot polish?” Her voice came out as something of a squeak.

  “Ripley. Civilian now,” he gave her a little shake by the shoulder.

  “You don’t get it. Just because you’re a civilian, if you were meeting someone like the Vice President on his home turf, wouldn’t you dress up for it?”

  “Actually,” Mark was waiting patiently, looking amused by the whole situation. “President Peter Matthews’ home turf might be Washington, D.C., but Zack’s is Colorado. He’s an Air Force Academy brat, but leans toward cowboy boots and jeans himself.”

  “You’re on first name terms with the Vice President turned President-elect as well?” Gordon didn’t know why he was surprised.

  “Sure,” Mark shrugged as if it was no big thing. “But not Rear Admiral James Parker. I don’t think even Emily enjoys that privilege. Come on. We’re keeping him waiting.”

  When Ripley didn’t move to follow, Gordon gave her a little push. Finally he gave her a bigger one and she stumbled into action.

  “So these are the two you were telling me about,” the admiral asked Mark even as he shook their hands.

  Ripley had never been on the Flag Bridge before. From here the admiral could command the entire Strike Group without interfering with the Captain’s operation of the aircraft carrier from the bridge one deck higher. He in turn was generally isolated from Pri-Fly on the top deck of the ship’s superstructure, so that they could stay focused on the flight operations.

  The view was astonishing. Glass windows provided a sweeping view of everywhere except dead astern by simply swiveling the massive armchair that commanded the space. Astern was visible on any of a half dozen screens as were local and distant ships.

  “You,” he pointed at her as he sat back into his big chair and left them all standing.

  Mark leaned against a console, but Ripley went for parade rest, even though it felt wrong while wearing civvies.

  “I should court-martial you for abandoning your post and leaving the Navy. Speaking of courts-martial, I have recommended that Petty Officer First Class Williams be tried under Sections 909 and 933 of the Uniform Code. Section 908, willful intent to damage government property, wouldn’t stick as neither you nor that peculiar machine that you call a helicopter are technically government property, however 909 non-military property definitely applies. Also, 933 active dereliction of duties as a safety officer is conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentlemen. I’m recommending a Bad Conduct Discharge.”

  She gasped at the scale of the hammer landing on Weasel Williams’ head for a single act of malice. “That seems a bit harsh, sir.”

  “Why the hell are you defending him?” Gordon burst out.

  “Watch your language, Gordon,” she hissed at him as softly as she could.

  “The problem isn’t his language, Ms. Vaughan. The problem, as he points out, is why are you defending a man who placed you and your crew in danger?”

  She didn’t have a good answer, so she didn’t try to provide one.

  “His service record indicates a history of marginal conduct, never enough to remove him—until now—but there is a reason he has been passed over for promotion three times. Now let it go.”

  Ripley no
dded and resisted the urge to kiss his feet. There was some sort of freedom that permeated through her. Unwilling to reveal quite how thoroughly she was touched, she turned to watch a pair of fighters launching off the catapults. The massive thunder of the jet engines was no more than a muted background through the thick windows of the Flag Bridge.

  “Now, you,” the admiral’s attention swung to Gordon. “Mark said that he sees something in you. When the best commander outside the Navy—not officer,” he turned on Mark, “she married you, though god alone knows why—but the best commander.” He swung back to Gordon before Mark could respond. “Well, I figured I needed to meet that man.”

  “In that case, sir,” Gordon answered with impressive composure, “I would say that Mark has been feeding you a bunch of hooey.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Admiral Parker somehow grinned as he glared at Mark. “If you think I don’t know what went on aboard my own ship six years ago, you’d best think again, mister.”

  Mark grimaced, but the admiral had already looked away in that roving attention he appeared to have.

  “For a short while, Ms. Vaughan, your esteemed leader couldn’t land a helicopter on a clear day aboard my carrier without bouncing it a dozen feet back into the air. Never saw a man so frustrated by a woman.” Then the admiral was back to Gordon, but his finger remained aimed at Ripley. “This woman frustrating the hell out of you, Mr. Finchley?”

  Gordon grinned at her, “Frustrate me? No. Scare the shit out of me? Absolutely, sir.”

  The admiral nodded. “Good man. Then you already understand a woman’s role in your life.” Again that attention back to her. “Keep it up, Vaughan. I’m hearing good things about you, despite abandoning the service. ‘Weasel’ Williams,” he barked out a laugh. “Saw that in the safety officer’s report. Good one. Now get off my bridge. We’re headed into the Spratly Islands in the next few hours—going to scare the crap out of the Chinese who built them. We’ll be getting shut of you sometime tonight under cover of darkness.” He signaled over an aide who had just arrived.

  The three of them were halfway out through the door when the rear admiral called out once more without looking up from the information the aide had handed him.

  “Going to be an interesting view on Vultures Row here in about ten or twelve minutes,” then he turned away, clearly done with them this time.

  She led the way down the hall, doing her best to step lightly on the stars in the blue floor tiles.

  “Do you have anything in your pockets?”

  Gordon checked. And then held out what he found: wallet, phone, keys. Then he looked at the keys. One for his MD 530 helicopter that they’d recovered but would never fly again, a second for his pickup truck, blown to shreds halfway up a mountain in the Oregon wilderness, and a third for his door in the bunkhouse that had burned to the ground.

  He tossed the keys in a handy trashcan. That was so two weeks ago.

  As was not having Ripley in his life. He’d count that as a major trade up.

  At Ripley’s nod, he stuffed the wallet and phone back in his pockets. She handed him a set of ear plugs as well as hearing protection ear muffs.

  “Why is it called Vultures Row?” The door well down the hall from the Admiral’s Flag Bridge, past the end of the blue tile, was labeled with several large warning signs. “And what’s all this?”

  FOD Free Zone.

  Remove Covers.

  No Flash Photography.

  Hazardous Noise.

  “You’ll see. FOD is foreign object debris. That’s why I had you check your pockets. A bolt sucked up by a jet engine—”

  “Been there. Done that.” Gordon could still hear the grinding as his helicopter’s engine had inhaled that drone. “Once is enough. But I don’t have a cover, I’m not a book.”

  “Navy for hat,” Mark told him as he donned his own hearing protection. “They’re a strange lot; seem to need a special word for everything.”

  Then he pulled aside a heavy steel door and they were outside. Outside and a half dozen stories above the Flight Deck. A narrow walkway ran along most of the side of the island and there were a half dozen other people leaning on the railing and watching the operations going on below. Following Ripley’s pointed finger, he leaned out and could see that Vultures Row was actually three rows, but the vulture was accurate. He wondered how many hours crewmembers spent here watching the spectacular chess game going on below them.

  Even as he watched, a jet landed, slamming to a halt as it caught a wire at the same moment another was being fired off the catapult. Both were operating within narrow corridors between jets and helicopters parked to either side. Here, if you didn’t land on the centerline, you’d go careening into a half dozen other aircraft. Space was the true premium on this floating world.

  The more he watched, the more bewildering it became. A hundred or more men and women, each in their specifically-colored vests, performed a complex choreography that he expected had even more order and purpose than he could see.

  Hand signals flashed back and forth, everyone always seemed to be looking at the right person at the right moment…but they’d have to be. Hearing anything would be impossible. Despite the heavy doubled hearing protection, the roar of the next jet launching off the catapult pounded into his chest and ears. Watching Top Gun a half dozen times had done nothing to prepare him for the raw impact of the full Sensurround, live experience.

  Ripley tapped his arm and pointed into the sky off the stern. Two tiny black dots against the blue sky. More jets coming in to land.

  Then an air-shattering alarm, painful despite the hearing protection, sounded throughout the ship. Oddly, no one on the deck stopped their elaborate dance.

  And the people along Vultures Row were all pulling out their cameras or cell phones.

  Gordon copied them, though he wasn’t sure why.

  He went to video instead of photos.

  Ripley indicated that he should be sure to grip the phone tightly. He glanced down at the steel deck fifty feet below and decided that was good advice.

  Gordon started recording.

  The dots grew rapidly, but there was something odd. They appeared to be side by side rather than in a line. And Gordon had seen enough landings already to know that they usually came in higher up, then descended to land—one at a time.

  These two aircraft were coming straight in and low to the water.

  He glanced at Mark and Ripley. Both had knuckle white clenches on the railing. A glance below showed that all motion on the deck had stopped.

  The dots were growing very fast, though he couldn’t hear them.

  They resolved to have wings, then engines.

  Two other jets moved in close behind them, but they had different configurations.

  Straight in.

  Straight in.

  Just shy of the carrier’s stern, one of the pair of jets peeled off to pass on the other side of the superstructure. The ones he could see were so close it felt as if he could reach out and touch them.

  Then the slap of a sonic boom slammed him back against the steel hull. It was a good thing Ripley had warned him to clutch the phone tightly or he’d have lost it.

  He couldn’t have just seen… It had been too fast to be sure.

  Gordon stopped the video and scrolled back until he had a clear image of the aircraft that had flown directly over the aircraft carrier’s deck, actually below his position on Vultures Row. The Chinese red star was clear on its twin tailfins. The nose of an American jet could be seen flying close behind its tail, probably ready to shoot down the Chinese at a moment’s notice.

  He turned it so that Ripley and Mark could see.

  “Chengdu J-20 Black Eagle,” Mark shouted loud enough to be heard through their hearing protection. “Those aren’t even supposed to be operational yet.”

  “Is that bad?” Gordon yelled back.

  One look at Mark’s and Ripley’s faces told him that it wasn’t merely bad, it was very
bad.

  As he watched the two Chinese jets peel away with the pair of American jets hard on their tails, Gordon considered the situation: loaded on Antonovs at what had seemed a moment’s notice, a very odd week of training in the remote wilderness of the Australian Outback, a civilian firefighting team traveling on an aircraft carrier, and a meeting with a rear admiral in charge of an entire carrier strike group.

  Gordon didn’t know what it added up to, but he didn’t need to be a genius to add in the Chinese jets and Mark and Ripley’s reaction to them.

  The carrier deck operations were slowly restarting, but they were still quiet and subdued.

  “Well,” he shouted to his two teammates standing with him on Vultures Row. “Thank god we’re only here to fight forest fires.”

  Mark looked at him like he was an idiot, but Ripley’s laugh showed that she understood the absolute absurdity of the situation.

  Her laugh always made him feel better, smarter, stronger…even sexier, which was never an adjective he’d thought of attaching to himself.

  He could really get used to having that in his life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was four a.m. before the MHA flight was cleared off the deck. The Chinese had made three more passes, or tried to.

  And with each one, Ripley had felt smaller and more afraid. She knew it wasn’t unusual for foreign militaries to test themselves against American forces. She’d seen Iran and Russia both run jets close by American destroyers in the Persian Gulf. But three years out of the service, she’d lost that sense of assumed superiority that others around her showed. And the Chinese weren’t playing chicken with a destroyer, they were harassing an aircraft carrier, a ship so well protected that it never traveled anywhere without an entire destroyer group and air wing escort.

  She held tight onto Gordon’s hand the entire time that they sat below decks watching the video feeds. She noticed the others crowding tightly together and didn’t begrudge Vanessa arranging it so that she was sandwiched between Gordon and Brenna as they all watched the unfolding events.