AllFreeNovel
Share Us
26
Miranda heldNumber 892 and did her best to estimate the correct approach. In the past, she would have used her tape measure. But speed was of the essence here. Not only had Susan said so, but the constant interruptions of the flight operations were very trying. She had to freeze and mentally hold her thoughts still—each time a plane arrived or departed—to not lose her place.
She walked until she was four and a half table-lengths away—ten and two-thirds carefully measured paces—and held it nineteen inches above the table’s surface. There was a permissible degree-and-a-half of variation in the approach glideslope, so that should be enough to cover any errors.
No, it wasn’t.
A standard folding table was thirty inches tall. She pulled a tape measure from its pocket in her vest and checked her estimate. Forty-five inches from the deck. Unacceptably low. She raised the plane model four inches and tucked away the tape measure.
“If your pilot was on an accurate approach, he would have been three-and-a-half degrees up at three-quarters of a nautical mile out.”
The Acting Captain spoke up, “That’s exactly where he would have been. LC Gabriel Brown wasalwaysclean in the Groove.”
“Good. That makes this easier. So…a normal approach,” she walked up to the table, slowly lowering the disproportionate plane.
She could only hope that she was doing it accurately. Portraying the relative speed properly in proportion to the reduced ratio of the models was quite complex to maintain accurately.
“Mike, we’ll need to talk to the Landing Signals Officer to see if he was erratic on this flight.”
“He was,” the Handler reported. “I talked to the LSO earlier. Five to seven seconds out, he began to drift. One second out, he fired his engine to full afterburners without saying a word why.”
“Okay, Andi, I’ll want you to verify that on the ship’s data recorder if it’s still operational.”
“Got it!”
Miranda held theaircraftclear of the edge of the table and wobbled it, though she didn’t like stopping the time-scale portion of the simulation. “We can assume this is the moment when the laser first impacted his aircraft and he began to react.”
“What—”
But Susan silenced the Acting Captain before she could interrupt. Miranda appreciated it, though the open question was quite annoying.
“Our firstconcreteevidence of the laser,” she made a guess at the question, then hurried on in case she was wrong, “is on the stern of the landing area.” She pulled a small flashlight out of her vest and shone it down upon the aircraft.
The light shone brighter than she’d anticipated, which had her looking upward. Night was falling. She’d missed that transition. She looked back down.
“It etched the decking to either side of the aircraft without interruption. Where the narrower wings passed, the deck was partly shaded from the laser. Almost no etchings appear along the centerline because the fuselage shadowed the deck from the tip to the tail during its passage. The laser was sufficiently focused that it spilled very little before or behind the plane. The laser wasn’t bathing the deck but was rather actively tracking the flight of Number 892.”
“Gives a whole new meaning to the old pick-up line:Want to come in and see my etchings?” Holly asked in her thicker Strine, indicating it was a humorous statement.
Others laughed, confirming that.
Miranda didn’t know what theoldmeaning would be, unless it was the logical juxtaposition of viewing art versus viewing the carrier’s metal decking. She still failed to see the humor in the situation.
“The wavering of the edge and the width of the beam could definitely be explained by atmospheric scattering. I need to call Jeremy regarding—”
“No calls off this ship without my specific authorization,” the captain said quickly.
“—laser scattering as—”
“Permission denied.”
“—he’s fired those and I’ve only studied them.”
“Sorry. No. Not at this time.”
Miranda pulled out a notebook and made a notation.
“What was that?”
