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3
“892. See you at ten,”crackled in over the radio.
Mini Boss Lieutenant Commander Falisha Johnson merely nodded, careful to hide her relief from the others in PriFly.
PriFly, or Primary Flight, was the air traffic control tower for the aircraft carrier run by the Air Boss and a Mini Boss like her. It sat at the highest level of theBig Stick’sIsland, the only superstructure to reach above the deck. Its windows were angled out at the top to offer the best view of both the air and the deck below.
Lieutenant Commander Gabriel “Angel” Brown, flying his F-35C Lightning II stealth fighter Number 892, had a visual sighting of their carrier from ten nautical miles out. His flight of four was returning with the rising sun to CVN-71 USSTheodore Roosevelt—theBig Stickas their boat was commonly known. He and his flight were back from an extended nighttime patrol over the South China Sea.
The sky was clear and the newly risen sun was off the starboard beam on a smooth sea. Ideal conditions.
TheBig Stickwasn’t here to be confrontational.
Yeah, sure. You go on and keep telling yourself that, Falisha.Since when was a ship three football fields long and most of two wide, with eighty of the US military’s elite aircraft aboard, evernotconfrontational? America’s aircraft carrier fleetexistedto strike fear into the hearts of others.
The truth was that the South China Sea was one-point-three million kilometers of big fucking mess that could explode in the worst of ways at any moment. Not even theBig Stickwould have much chance of controlling the situation if it all came apart. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t try.
Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines had long claimed various portions of the SCS, some claims overlapping and some not. Then the Chinese had taken over several islands in the middle of the sea and dredged up whole reef systems to build artificial islands. Four fighter-capable PRC military bases now dotted the SCS, as well as numerous radar, missile, and heli-bases.
Then they’d declared the entire SCS was theirs exclusively, not only for military and shipping, but also all of the fishing and mineral rights. The rights of the other five countries that surrounded three of the four sides of the South China Sea were blithely ignored.
Every now and then the People’s Republic needed to be reminded that they didnotcontrol the world’s oceans by some supreme self-declared right.
And it was theBig Stick’sturn to do that. They were presently steaming two hundred nautical miles due east of Nha Trang, Vietnam, and the same distance northwest of the PRC-claimed Spratly Islands and the three major military airbases they’d built there in 2015 and 2016.
The Air Marshall responded to Gabe, “892, update state, go Tower.”
The last part was the handoff to her. The Air Marshall handled flights from fifty to five nautical miles out. His task was to vector aircraft in an orderly flow for her to pick up.
“892, low state two.” Two thousands pounds of fuel remaining, which was low but not dangerously so. That was the twenty-four minutes of fuel Gabe should have after landing, not on arrival in the pattern. But the other extreme, landing an aircraft still heavy with fuel, was significantly more dangerous. Slamming down hard with eight tons of fuel still in the jet’s wing tanks could collapse the landing gear with the least error.
Gabe’s next report should be when his flight reached five miles out. At his approach speed of four hundred knots, that was still forty-five seconds away.
She was glad she’d come on shift in time for his landing. The other Mini Air Boss headed below after making sure the handoff to Falisha was clean. The off-shift Air Boss remained for now, watching the show. Which meanttwoAir Bosses were watching her, but that had happened enough to not bother her—much.
Falisha kept an eye out the window of PriFly for Gabe as he headed toward the Stack—the five-mile-wide circle of the holding pattern, two thousand feet above the carrier’s deck.
On the deck itself, Commander Phil Emerson, the Air Boss, had three aircraft in the launch queue, a landing bird that had snagged the number one wire—earning himself a crappy rating of two of a possible five from the landing officer—and another in-bound, already in the pattern for final approach. So she would keep Gabe’s flight out of his way and circling in the Stack for the moment.
Gabe never earned less than a four for his landings, snagging the third wire of the four on theBig Stickand doing it dead clean every time. A five was reserved for when he nailed his landings in harsh storms or at night. LSOs weren’t big on giving out fives, but Gabe always earned them when conditions warranted.
It was a precision she enjoyed greatly in her personal life as well. Mom had warned her off fighter jocks—and Dad had done nothing to disprove her warnings. His affairs and lies had created a disaster area of her childhood worse than even the South China Sea. But she finally understood why Mom had married him in the first place. Falisha was completelygoneonAngelBrown, who was bound to be anything but.
The twenty-four hours she’d asked for after Gabe proposed last night—to try and wrestle her common sense to the forefront—had failed utterly. Even knowing what the future would hold, tonight she was going to say yes.
She checked for the inbounds. Gabe, with the three other birds of his flight trailing close behind, was sliding into the top of the Stack. Exactly on cue, he called it in.
“Tower, 892, overhead, angels two, low state two.” And she’d bet that he was within ten feet ofangels two,precisely two thousand feet above her deck.
“892, Tower. Roger.” Dead smooth. Pure professional.
That’s how she’d play it.
She wanted her Navy career as badly as he did. So, she’d solve thecreating a family issueby not having one. And when they were sick of each other in two years or five, they could both walk away clean. Maybe after that she’d be ready for a man to settle down with for the long haul. The final crash landing from life with Gabriel “Angel” Brown would be hell, but it would also be hella-awesome while it lasted.
“Flight of four entering the Stack,” she warned the Air Boss.
He didn’t waste time nodding, offering only a low grunt of acknowledgment. Six more staff worked behind them, double-checking that there were no surprises and that Emerson’s orders were carried out in the most efficient way. Jostling eighty aircraft around on a ship eleven hundred feet long ranked right up there with rocket science.
