Wild Fire

by M. L. Buchman

  On the second pass, two American F-18 Super Hornets crowded each Chengdu J-20, forcing the Chengdus to use their higher speed to get clear. The J-20s were fast, but they weren’t agile. The F-18s were so maneuverable that they could keep the Chinese aircraft inside easy firing range on anything except a full-power straightaway escape.

  On the third, she, like everyone else aboard, sat riveted to channel 14TV as the American pilots crowded so close to the Chengdus that the J-20s’ only option was to swing wide of the carrier.

  The fourth test came at night. The feed showed in night-vision green with an overlaid tactical display. The Chinese were chased away out at the twenty-mile marker by a brilliantly bright stream of 20mm tracer fire—warning shots from all four of the escorting F-18s’ M61 Vulcan rotary cannons, simultaneously.

  The Chinese were apparently wise enough to know that on the fifth attempt they’d lose one or both of their newest aircraft to missiles fired by twenty-year-old aircraft of the US military. There was only so far that patience could be pushed.

  In response, the USS John C. Stennis did what only an American aircraft supercarrier could do. Ten thousand miles from home, they sent sixteen fully armed jets flying over the Chinese airfield on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands. They did it at twenty feet above the runway, moving one-and-a-half times the speed of sound in four-jet formations tighter than the two Chinese jets had managed.

  The message was clear, “If you touch us, we can destroy you. Even out here in the South China Sea.”

  Everyone aboard had cheered at that video sent back by a ScanEagle drone positioned to circle high above. They knew that the world press, the Chinese media spin doctors, and the United Nations would be wrangling this out for weeks or until the next big news story, whichever came first. But the victory had already gone to the Americans and the Chinese damn well knew it.

  Minutes later, Mount Hood Aviation was called to the Flight Deck.

  Rear Admiral Parker stepped into the ready room while jets were recovered from operations and MHA waited for their helicopters to be brought back on deck and reassembled. At his signal, Ripley joined him out in the hall.

  “How are the nerves, Vaughan?”

  Ripley didn’t like the question. As if she’d lost some edge since leaving the Navy. Maybe she had, but she’d be damned if she’d show it.

  “Good.”

  She hoped that it was her determination and not her doubts that he could see.

  Gordon stepped over as well, though Mark didn’t. He appeared to be so deep in conversation with Vern and Mickey that he didn’t notice…but Ripley had already learned that Mark noticed everything. For some reason, he was leaving this to her and Gordon.

  “Slight change of plan: we’re pushing north to the Paracel Islands, another site where the Chinese have built up islands by dredging onto reefs and installing military bases. Closest we can get you to land is going to be at your fuel limit to Nha Trang. They know you’re coming. With the recent lifting of the US arms export embargo to Vietnam, they are now full allies.”

  “Which,” Gordon nodded, “has got to be pissing off the Chinese.”

  “Exactly. So the Chinese are bringing pressure to bear in any way they can, like that stupid-ass demonstration with their J-20s. We flew heavy surveillance birds during their forays. We know far more about the J-20’s capabilities now than we ever did: radar capability, acceleration, maneuvering, communications. All of it. We now know how to jam their onboard systems and could drop them into the ocean without a single shot.”

  Ripley glanced at Gordon. She’d have to make sure he understood quite how unusual it was that civilians were being told this information. Unusual? Strange as hell was more like it. But she didn’t have time to make sense of it.

  “I don’t want to be running my full Strike Group into Vietnamese territorial waters. It would just tick the Chinese off even more and I don’t want to be adding that pressure to Vietnam. However, a US firefighting team is a nice, friendly glove for the hand to be inside of.”

  “That’s our only assignment?” Ripley wondered just how high the political maneuvering went. At least that explained why the aircraft carrier had been so willing to take them for a quick ride.

  “You’re all civilians, Vaughan. It is not the policy of the US military to place civilians in harm’s way. You’ll have a fighter escort most of the way to the beach to be sure that you remain safe. You are here to fight a forest fire that is chewing up one of our newest and most strategically located military ally’s World Heritage Sites. That’s the media report that has already gone out. End of story.”

  “Got it, sir.”

  Gordon nodded in easy agreement as well.

  “However,” Parker leaned in, “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t keep your eyes open and be smart about it.” He nodded to each of them, then walked away down the hall, various crewmembers snapping to attention and saluting as he walked by.

  “What was that about?” Gordon asked her softly.

  She’d thought that Gordon had simply accepted Admiral Parker’s statement.

  As for herself, she’d been momentarily overwhelmed at being singled out by the Rear Admiral. Now she wasn’t so sure of herself.

  “Maybe he wants us to trust him for some reason,” Ripley gazed after the admiral. But before she could pursue the thought further, yellow-vested handlers came in and began gathering up the MHA crews.

  In the sudden exodus, Gordon only had a moment to brush a hand over her shoulder and down her arm before they separated. Touching had never been a standard part of her relationships. Yet with Gordon it was rare for them to be together and not be in some form of contact.

  And she was liking it, which was also a surprise.

  “It must be a plot,” she told Janet as soon as they were safely back inside the Diana Prince.

  “What?”

  “Gordon. He’s always wanting to hold my hand or something. It’s like he’s trying to undermine my natural defense mechanisms.”

  “Is it working?”

  She sighed. It was.

  “I think,” Janet spoke up enough to be easily heard over the noise of the engines now at full roar. “It’s like one of those entries in the Nice Guy’s Secret Handbook to Making Women Melt.”

  “Is that true, Brad?”

  Her copilot wisely kept his thoughts to himself, but offered her a shrug and smile. He too was always holding Janet’s hand.

  The “blues” cleared the chocks and chains, the “whites” inspected that everything was clear, and a “green” (who wasn’t Weasel) waved them aloft when the Air Boss called them clear.

  She lifted into the darkness and watched as the others climbed aloft with her. Rigged for night operations, the aircraft carrier was outlined by only a few running lights. The soft glow of the deck lights, bright enough for deck crew safety but dim enough to not interfere with a pilot’s night vision, rapidly faded from view.

  A crucial part of her life was rapidly falling astern and all that lay ahead past the last circling destroyer was three hundred kilometers of darkness.

  Ripley tried to fathom how long this contract would last. How long she and Gordon could possibly remain together. But that wasn’t how the firefighting world worked. The contract would be up and she’d move on. And for the first time in her life, she hated that thought.

  Exit quietly stage left, but for the first time since forever, she really wanted to see what Act Three had in store for her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Cam Ranh Naval Base in Nha Trang was a quiet regional strip which had only a single terminal building with two Jetways. There were four passenger jets on a parking apron that could accommodate twenty. But the people who rushed out to greet them, though it was barely dawn, were so excited that Gordon could hardly credit it.

  “I am Minh. You come to fight the fire?” One of the men asked in quite passable English.

  “I’m Gordon. Uh, yes.” Gordon glanced around. Perhaps
it was because he climbed out of the plane first that they decided he was in charge. The fire? Singular? Must be one hell of a fire.

  Others were rushing to fuel the helicopters. It looked as if every truck on the base had come over…there was one for every helicopter.

  “Have you had breakfast, Gordon?”

  “No, I—” Before he could say more, a string of Vietnamese was shouted out and several people hustled away.

  “We don’t want to delay you from fire. We bring you a very nice breakfast, then they wait for you in Da Nang. Your biggest helicopter, we are told, can only fly four hundred kilometers. Da Nang will be good. From there Dong Ha then to Dong Hoi and the fire.”

  Gordon nodded his head and tried to remember the names, but the sounds were so unfamiliar. He’d never seen such a cohesive people. He was far taller than any of them and the men and women were all fine-boned, fair-featured, with straight black hair.

  When Ripley and Denise walked up together, the statuesque black and the pregnant blonde, all of the Vietnamese’s attention shifted sideways. The two women appeared unaware of the sensation they were creating.

  The juxtaposition was creating a sensation for him as well. For just a moment he pictured Denise’s pregnancy on Ripley and his legs almost went out from under him. He’d always wanted family. But until this moment he hadn’t really connected the possibility of it being with Wonder Woman Ripley Vaughan. It was ludicrous, a mere mirage, but one that he couldn’t shake out of his head though he tried.

  “What’s with the wet dog act?” Mark asked from close beside him.

  “Picturing her,” he nodded toward Ripley, “looking like that,” he nodded toward the pregnant Denise and the circle of people who wanted to touch her waist-length blond hair.

  “Just wait until it really happens,” Mark said softly. “That’s the day you know why you were put on this planet to begin with.” There was no questioning the sincerity—it ran soul-deep in Mark’s voice.

  Several bicycles pulled up with small foot carts in tow.

  “Xoi cha. Very good. Very good,” Minh the interpreter repeated as he led Gordon first of all to the cart. Again, apparently he was the leader. Others were practicing snatches of English on the members of MHA with varying success.

  In moments he was served a pristine white dinner plate piled high with sticky rice, fried meat rolls cut into bite-size pieces, and a small bowl of sweet dipping sauce. He nodded his thanks many times and tried not to wince at the sight of chopsticks.

  Ripley was soon served and came to stand beside him. She was eating easily.

  “How can you do that?” he asked her quietly.

  “I’m from Oklahoma, not the moon.”

  “I’m from Wyoming. I think we have three Chinese restaurants in the whole state.”

  “Wimp,” she kept eating and his stomach growled loudly.

  The interpreter noticed and with little fuss managed to find one of those porcelain soup spoons and hand it over with an indulgent smile. Gordon felt like a heathen for the rest of the meal…which was good, even if it was lightly flavored with the odor of the kerosene in the Jet-A fuel being pumped into their helicopters.

  The interpreter was back. “When are you and your wife to have your child?”

  Gordon looked at Ripley and then back at Minh.

  Ripley snorted out a laugh.

  “She isn’t my wife.”

  “He means you and Denise,” Ripley was still laughing. “Our two token blonds now that Emily isn’t with us.”

  “Oh,” Gordon looked over at Denise and Vern. “They,” he pointed with his soup spoon, “are expecting their first child in three months.”

  The interpreter looked at Denise in surprise and then back at Gordon, his gaze traveling briefly to Gordon’s hair.

  “No,” Gordon pointed his spoon at Ripley, “this is my—” And he stopped unsure of his next noun.

  Minh looked very surprised, but not half as surprised as Ripley.

  “You did not just go there,” her voice was low and stern.

  Minh, with the tact of a good interpreter and the wisdom of a smart man, abandoned him.

  “Gordon Finchley! You had better tell me now that you didn’t just go there.”

  He opened his mouth, but couldn’t find the denial she was after. He had gone there. And he had rather liked the way the thought, however premature, was sitting.

  “Gor…don…”

  He raised his soup spoon, “My name is George Washington and I cannot tell a lie.”

  “Your name is Gordon Finchley and you had better be lying about this. Don’t you ever lie to me about something like that.”

  The logic of that one defeated him, so he kept his spoon raised, “My name is George Washington and I cannot tell a lie.”

  “Gor. Don!”

  “I went there,” he admitted, then scooped up some more rice with his spoon like the heathen he was and smiled at Ripley as he ate it.

  “Not no,” Ripley stated carefully. “More like never!”

  “Never?” He made it a joke.

  “Never.” Her tone made it clear that she wasn’t joking.

  He used his fingers to pick up a meat roll and dip it into the sweet sauce.

  “And I refuse to launch into a Gilbert and Sullivan skit here.”

  He puzzled at the reference while he chewed the spicy meat and decided that maybe he should learn to use chopsticks because this food was really good. Ripley was dipping little clumps of sticky rice into the sauce, but he’d tried that and it didn’t work very well with the spoon.

  “It’s from the operetta H.M.S. Pinafore,” she explained as if that meant something to him. “The sailing ship’s captain protests that he ‘never’ does various bad things and the crew responds with ‘What, never?’ and he…” she groaned in frustration. “Never mind.”

  “What, never?”

  She aimed the points of her chopsticks at his nose and he took a judicious step back.

  “Okay, why never?”

  “Just…” Ripley fumed down at her innocent rice for a long moment. “Just trust me on that. Sex, sure. But the rest of that isn’t going to happen, so get over it.”

  Gordon went for another piece of meat roll. “That’s really too bad.”

  “Tough.”

  “No, I mean the part about you thinking never.”

  “Oh? And why is that too bad?”

  “Because I didn’t think there was a single thing that I’d ever change about you. Now I’m just going to have to convince you of ever.” He stuffed the entire piece of meat roll into his mouth, dribbling sauce down his chin and ending his side of the conversation.

  She opened her mouth to continue her side of the argument, but he’d anticipated that.

  He quickly dipped another piece of meat roll and stuffed it into her open mouth.

  Ripley grunted a protest around the blockade.

  He left a sticky kiss on her nose and went to check up on the refueling.

  The flight to Da Nang passed in a blur.

  Ripley didn’t need this. She didn’t want this.

  Sure, Gordon was the best lover she’d ever had. He made her want to melt into a little puddle of Ripley every time he touched her. That’s what someone who was the best lover ever should be able to do.

  She liked him too, which was a major bonus.

  But permanent men were not a part of her life. Not in any manner, shape, or form.

  For the first time, she wished she had someone to discuss it with but didn’t want to have Brad be a part of that. Wanted to discuss what was going on with Gordon, but also didn’t. Because that would make him even more important than he already was.

  Both Denise and Janet already had the “happily married” bias. That wouldn’t be any help. And Vanessa and Brenna were so self-involved at the moment that she almost didn’t recognize them. The shy Vanessa now talked almost as much as Brenna did, at least when she was talking to Brenna. Was that what she looked like when she w
as with Gordon, head over heels goofy? She sure as hell hoped not.

  “China Beach,” Brad announced over the intercom.

  “What?” Ripley couldn’t comprehend what those two words could possibly have to do with the turmoil that was going on in her head.

  “China Beach,” he pointed at the coastline they were flying over. “Dad used to tell me about it. It was like the R&R spot for the entire US military during the Vietnam War. Awesome surfing. Food. USO and other entertainments. It was a place for the guys to renormalize after they were out in the jungle for too long. He said the TV show was actually pretty good, other than being so cleaned up.”

  “The TV show?”

  “China Beach.”

  “Oh.”

  “You okay, Ripley?”

  So not. “I’m fine.” Sure she was. She was flying over China Beach in Vietnam on her way to fight a forest fire with her lover. “Just fine,” she was protesting too much but couldn’t stop herself. “Seriously, I’m good. No need to worry about me.”

  “Uh-huh,” Janet chimed in. “Now we are worried.”

  “Don’t be. Let’s just watch the beach go by in happy peace and silence.” And she tried to do just that. China Beach was a thirty-mile-long curve of pristine sand. Headlands to the north and south focused the waves, and the early morning light showed that the waves rolling in were good sized. It probably was good surfing, not that she knew a thing about that. Maybe she and Gordon could try—

  No. Erase that thought. Crap! Couldn’t he leave well enough alone. Awesome sex and call it good? Maybe she was glad to have a short-term contract after all.

  “What’s up, Rip?”

  “Nothing, Brad.”

  “Seriously,” Janet made it a demand.

  “Dammit, Janet!” Ripley felt as if she nailed the intonation; just the way it sounded in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It should have been enough to distract Brad and Janet into singing the song from the movie.

  “Nuh-uh. Try again, sister.”

  Dammit! Apparently not.

  She managed to concentrate on the beach housing and occasional massive seaside resort until they reached the sprawl of Da Nang. Gordon pulled ahead in the King Air and led them into the airfield.