“Next, you wanna put Grease 2 on and paint our nails and braid each other’s hair?” I ask in a girl voice.
The waitress chooses that moment to drop off our dinner and Sean thinks it’s hilarious that she caught me acting like an idiot, but I couldn’t care less. The only woman I give a shit about is Mack, and she’d think it was hilarious.
We sit back and shoot the shit for the rest of the basketball game. New York loses again. Afterward, I go home and I feel infinitely better. Tomorrow will be a new day, another day of the same old, same old.
Chapter Fourteen
MacKenzie
On mission
Free. There’s only one way to describe the way I feel hurtling through the air in an eighty-million-dollar pile of metal and glass, and it’s free.
As strange as it sounds, there are no pressures, no expectations that weigh heavily on me. Sure, I have a lot riding on the mission, on my squadron, and even me and my skills as a seasoned pilot. People depend on me—pilots, mechanics, marines, even the local people who we try to keep as safe as possible. We’re a team, and every one of the moving parts come together to make the whole successful, and in this case, it means keeping this air base and the area around it safe from the insurgents who want to take it over.
This air base is just a small piece of the whole pie of this war. Our job is to keep it all safe until the next group comes in to take up the watch. Until then, the responsibility falls on each and every one of us.
“It looks good, Wood,” I say as I look over the clipboard and sign it. Woody is my favorite of the mechanics at the squadron. He’s about my age and married with two kids at home. He’s kind of quiet until you get to know him and then you realize that he’s funny as hell. There’s also no other mechanic who knows these planes like he does. He decides whether it flies or not, not God.
“Have a safe flight,” he says to me, tapping the flat of his palm on the side of my plane before he moves along.
“I always do,” I reply.
I climb up into my plane, hook up my helmet to the lines, and lock in. I spend the next thirty minutes checking gauges and moving toggles around on the touch screen. That and the information in the helmet visor are some of my favorite parts of the state-of-the-art aircraft. I feel a little like Captain Marvel flying a super spaceship. My little girl warrior heart recognizes just how badass it is and I always take a moment to be thankful for all the blessings in my life because there is so much to be thankful for. My badass job, my family and friends, and Kyle too.
When everything checks out, I get the flag to pull onto the runway.
“S-2-Lone Star to Tower,” I patch into my radio.
“Copy S-2-Lone Star, this is Tower.”
“S-2-Lone Star requesting permission to take off,” I say.
“Tower to S-2-Lone Star, permission to take off is granted.”
The F-35 is an interesting airplane. It’s one of very few that can pull both a conventional takeoff and landing and a vertical takeoff and landing. The avionics are cutting edge, and the skin panels and quiet engines keep it from being picked up by radar. It’s actually perfect for the surveillance missions we’re running today.
I push the thrusters and push on the throttle, and my aircraft lifts. Unlike other aircraft, the Lightning has a two-stick cockpit. Not many pilots like the change, but I love it. I take a deep breath, and like Icarus, I fly as close to the sun as I can. I can’t help myself. The sky calls to me.
Today, we’re going to fly past a small mountain range just past the barrier that we protect and see what we can see. Cinco, Hoots, and I are going to be a three-man three-aircraft team to run surveillance and patrol along the mountain range.
“S-2-Hooter to Tower, requesting permission to take off.”
“Tower to S-2-Hooter, permission to take off is granted.”
Hooter takes off and follows me to the mountains.
“S-2-Cinco, requesting permission to take off,” I hear Cinco say over the radio. Having these two at my back is always a good day. There’s no one else I would rather run a mission with. We flow seamlessly, can assess each other, and anticipate each other's moves.
We take the flight path we plotted out the other day. There’s rumored to be an insurgent stronghold just past the mountain range, and we’re going to try to see what we can from the air.
“So how’s the boyfriend?” Cinco asks over the coms, and I wish he hadn’t, because I will never hear the end of this once we land. It may seem like it’s just the three of us out here today, but there’s also a whole team on the ground and in the tower that are currently listening to everything we say.
“He’s fine,” I answer before changing the subject. “What do you think about the location at twenty-two twenty, north by northeast?”
“Noting the location at twenty-two twenty, north by northeast,” Hoots replies. “Do you need the talk?”
“Are you shitting me right now?” I gripe.
