Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars Ch. 02

II

His eyes were red, his mouth tasted like old fish and bug-juice, and now this. Someone, somewhere in Washington, had gotten a bug up his ass and wanted a bunch of Iraqi Migs hit before they could, conceivably, get airborne -- and thereby be instantly shot down by some U.S. Air Force pukes loitering above Ali Air Base. There remained an outside chance, however small, that these Migs could break out and go after one of the carriers in the Gulf, and that just would not do.

The problem, as he saw it, was that his squadron had just bombed the living daylights out of just that airfield, including bombs that had cratered the runway beyond any further possible use. The other problem? Someone in the NRO had just gone over the latest satellite imagery and one runway was, somehow and against all odds, operational. And then, under cover of darkness and against all odds, the Migs had arrived.

No, that would just not do...not one little bit.

Ali Air Base was the closest operational base to Kuwait City, and, therefore, to the Gulf, and had been, literally, plastered two days before, when Operation Desert Shield rolled over into Desert Storm. And, he had flown at least six sorties there over the last two days. His Intruder had taken several hits from small arms fire this morning, driving home the point that, as hapless as the Iraqis seemed to be, a 'Gomer' with a flintlock could always get off a lucky shot off -- and thereby ruin your whole day.

The squad XO had rousted him from a nice, warm dream less than a half hour ago, given him enough time to grab a shower and drop by the air wing's dining room for a bologna sandwich and some bug-juice, otherwise known as Kool-Aid, as he walked to the briefing room; he began to regret the sandwich as soon as he finished it -- and wished he'd tossed down two more Dixie-cups of the red stuff -- on top of the four he'd tossed down -- but already his bladder was aching...and that just wouldn't do...

The Wing's intel weenies had set up an overhead projector in the little compartment, but as only three Intruders were being detailed to this strike the room had kind of an intimate, less formal feel going down just then, until the CO walked in and that vibe disappeared -- in an instant. Commander Dan Green walked up the lectern and looked at his team, then shook his head.

"No use going over the how or the why," Green began, "but Gomer has moved some assets on the ground at Ali that weren't there four hours ago, and that can only mean one thing. Somehow, someway, we didn't get the runways as good as we thought. Also, there are eight Mig-23s on the ground there, and ten Frogfoots just landed, maybe an hour ago. They're loaded with ordnance, or so I'm told, and we got Marines on the beach, if you get my drift...

"Jim, you're taking 5-0-9."

"5-0-9, sir?"

"We've apparently got two of those new AGM-84E missiles onboard, and 5-0-9 is the only bird we've got that can handle them. You're also the only man in the squad with any training on the dash-84, and someone on the E-ring wants it used -- tonight. Here's your attack profile," Green added, handing over a hastily mimeographed piece of paper -- full of charts and graphs. "You'll launch and arc in from the west. The missiles' tracks are programmed to hit the fuel bladders, again, and the OPS building, which we, somehow, missed today. Satellite imagery has their pilots in-barracks right now, but they're fueling the Migs as we speak, so odds are they'll try to take-off before the sun comes up. With that many aircraft up, the thinking is one or two might get through, and we're not going to let that happen."

"So, I launch, shoot and boogie back?" he asked.

"Not quite. Your load-out includes two cluster bombs. Look on page three. You launch, impact should be within two minutes. The XO and I will come in from the south and east a minute later, then you come in from the west about a minute after that, drop on anything that moves."

"Okay."

"One other thing. See the note page five...you'll meet up with a Raven at those coordinates. He'll lead the strike, jamming for the most part, but he'll be carrying anti-radiation heads, too. He launches first, then you. Got it?"

He looked over the attack profile and shook his head. "Why so low over the border?" he asked. "I thought their radar were down across the board?"

"A Saudi E-3 is picking up emissions in the area."

"Oh, swell."

"Yeah. Good news all over. Word is someone picked up Buk transmissions late last night, and some Air Force A-10s picked up some SA-7 fire when they tried to hit a road about ten clicks north of there..."

"You're full of good news, aren't you?"

"Yeah, well, if it was easy..."

"Yeah, yeah...I hear you, skipper."

"5-0-9 is gonna shoot from cat one, and she's on the elevator right now, ready to go. Cartwright ought to have the coordinates loaded by now, all but the rendezvous with that EF-111. Try not to bust 300 AGL inbound, okay?"

"Yup."

"Seeya."

"Yup. Good hunting, skip."

"You too. Better get a move on."

He picked up the rest of his gear and made it to the flight deck as the Roosevelt turned into the wind, and he did a quick walk-around the Intruder as an S-3 applied full power next to his catapult, checking his ordnance was racked correctly and all pins removed. He climbed up into his cockpit just as the Viking launched, and the cockpit filled with JP-9 fumes.

His BN, Jerry Cartwright, was still entering waypoints into DIANe when he clambered into the left seat, then his crew chief helped hook up an O2 line to his face-mask; they both straightened out his harness before the chief pulled the safeties on the ejection seat, showing him the pins before he disappeared into the darkness below. He took a deep breath and looked around -- but all he saw outside the Intruder was pure black...not even a flicker of moonlight on the sea...

He applied power and taxied from the elevator, watched the deck come alive as he lined up on the rail, then he closed the canopy and ran up power, waiting for the wand. A minor swarm walked away from the Intruder a moment later, all the last minute checks complete, and he then 'Pri-fly' came over the net right on cue.

"Tiger 5-0-9, clear."

"5-0-9."

"You got her spun up? We ready to roll?" he asked Cartwright as he checked power and rechecked the wing.

"I'm nominal."

"Okay. Let's go do this shit." He turned to the wands down in the dark and adjusted his head a little, pushing his body back in the seat a little more, then he turned his head a little and saluted into the night...

...And the Intruder roared down the deck...slamming him into the seat...

In the enveloping darkness the transition to flight was subtle...just the slightest dip as 5-0-9's wings bit into the thick air as she cleared the deck...and, as was his habit, he shook his head and worked his jaw as he raised the gear and cleaned the wing, keeping one eye on the altimeter, the other on his airspeed, scanning the engine tapes until he was at 1500AGL and everything was still working the way it was supposed to.

"Come left to three one zero," Cartwright said. "You got the Raven's coordinates?"

"Entered."

"Okay...why don't you do some of that pilot shit and wake me when we get back."

"Yup, you take a nap. Just remember to wake me somewhere over Kansas, okay?"

"Yup."

"Tiger 5-0-9, Big Stick."

"Five by five, Stick."

"Tiger Lead is airborne. Start your hack in five, four, three, two, one -- mark."

"Got it," he said as he reset the chronometer and punched the go button.

"509, contact Turnout on 244.3, and good hunting."

"Forty-four three, and thanks."

He trimmed the Intruder into a shallow dive and slipped the HUD into terrain mode, looked at the sea's surface one more time before he turned all his attention to his cockpit instruments. He would for the rest of this first segment, anyway.

"5-0-9, Turnout," he heard a few minutes later.

"5-0-9, go."

"Come to 3-2-0, get down in the weeds now."

"3-2-0."

"Uh, 5-0-9, we're picking up emissions inside Al-Wafrah, profile looks like SA-11."

"Got it."

"Turnout, Weasel 3-0-9, expedite."

"3-0-9."

"Uh, 5-0-9, make that 3-3-0. Someone just went active."

"Jerry?"

"I'm looking..." his BN said as the Intruder's threat receivers started warbling...then..."I gotta launch! One airborne. Now two...! High-PRM, headed south! Get down in the weeds, man!"

He sighed, felt his sphincters relax a little as he pulled up on the stick a little. Five twenty knots and one ten over the waves meant one wrong twitch and Tiger 5-0-9 would become a smeary patch of oil in the waters off Kuwait...then he saw the beach a mile ahead, and a few campfires down on the sand as they roared over seconds later.

"5-0-9, feet dry."

"5-0-9, come left to 3-1-0 and climb to at least 200 AGL, buddy, or I just can't see you."

"Three ten and two."

"How long?" Cartwright asked.

"To?"

"The Raven."

"Call it ten minutes. Maybe nine minutes forty seconds."

"Wish there was some moon."

"Not me. Too many b-b-guns down there."

"Hear anything from Barbara?"

"Nope. She went back home, I think. To her parents for a while."

"5-0-9, got an outbound strike headed to the Stick, two miles north, 300AGL."

"Okay."

"5-0-9, come left to 2-2-0 NOW!"

He hit the stick hard, reefed the Intruder into a steep left turn, his eyes focused on the altimeter as he came off the power a little, then the threat receiver came on again.

"What the fuck!"

"Looks like heat-seekers. SA-7s, my guess," Cartwright croaked, the G-forces making it hard to talk now.

"Every Gomer with a flintlock," he groaned -- as he straightened out on 2-2-0.

"5-0-9, you guys still with me?"

"Roger that. Looked like SA-7s."

"5-0-9, concur, your traffic is now two zero miles, come right to 3-4-0."

"Got it."

"Okay, come up to 7000AGL, then start your attack profile after you hook up."

"Seven, yeah, got it."

Moments later the EF-111 appeared high and to their left, coming out of Saudi Arabia, and he reefed the Intruder into a gently arcing turn and slipped into the Raven's four o'clock.

"Magpie, 5-0-9. You ready?"

"Affirmative."

"Follow me."

He looked around once, finally realized the night was clear and it looked like there were a billion stars out, then he focused on the -111 and followed this Magpie into a steep dive, letting his speed build up to almost five hundred and ninety knots -- as fast as the Intruder dared go at this density altitude, and with this payload.

"Magpie, 5-0-9, I've got two transmitters targeted, launching in three-two-one..."

He had his visor down in an instant, and he squinted ahead just enough to see his instruments -- yet even so the intense bloom from the Raven's anti-radiation missiles almost blinded him.

"Fuck!" Cartwright shouted. "God damn, I'm fuckin' blind!"

"Magpie, 5-0-9, launching in three-two-one..."

He clinched his eyes tightly this time, and still he saw the bloom -- only it was deep red this time -- leaving the jangled impression of blood vessels on his retinae. He shook his head, looked at the attack cue on his HUD and armed both his missiles.

"Launch in fifteen seconds," Cartwright sighed, flipping the final safeties to OFF. "Ten seconds. Magpie, launching ONE in five, four, three, two and one...launching TWO in five, four, three, two, one..."

His eyes almost wilted under the sustained fire that burst forth from his wings.

"Magpie, Turnout, two impacts, high probability detonations on target. Come left to zero-two-zero, start jamming off axis."

"Magpie, 0-2-0."

"509, SLAM ONE has detonated. I've lost your second...no...wait one. SLAM TWO detonation, both appear to be on target. Tiger 500 and 5-0-2 are starting their runs. Come to zero-eight-two degrees and 500AGL, 300 K-T-S."

"509, 500 and three."

"509, start your run your discretion."

He looked at the chronometer on the panel...call it fifteen seconds...as he trimmed out of his dive and went to full power. "Going now," he said to the controller in the E-2C, then, to Cartwright: "Pickle's hot?"

"Your bombs," his BN added, unnecessarily.

Even from thirty miles out the fires were visible, yet he couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like down there. At least ten thousand pounds of high explosives had just hit the Iraqi airfield -- everything from fuel storage bladders to the control tower had taken hits, and now he was coming in to literally drop bombs on anything, or anyone, left standing.

Then...the threat receiver screamed at him...

...As five SAMs lit off and arced off into the night -- chasing the skipper and the XO...

"Turnout? Got a vector to the launcher?"

"500, 509, negative. Hit the airfield again, got that! Repeat, stay on target!"

"509, roger."

"509, Turnout, radar contact, we got three aircraft taxiing for the runway, looks like the Sukhoi-25s."

"Vector?"

"Call it zero-eight-one."

"Show me four-zero seconds out. Gotta drop from at least eight hundred."

"509, no active emissions from the SAMs...looks like they shut down...probably putting more on the rails."

"Yup. Runway in sight...confirm...looks like three Frogfoots and a Flogger..."

The threat receiver began howling again...just as he pickled his bombs on the Sukhois...and seconds later he saw the SAM arcing in from the left. Flares and chaff, push the stick down, turn into the missiles flight path, try to confuse their radar seekers, more chaff, stick up, jink right and push down...

One missile exploded harmlessly in his wake...

The second missed, but only by a few meters, then it exploded a hundred meters behind his Intruder...

And fire alarms went off, then hydraulic pressure alarms. Electric buses went next, then he looked over, saw Cartwright's head was -- gone -- low geysers of raw arterial blood pumping from the stump...then he felt the pain in his right leg. Shooting up from his ankle all the way to his thigh...

"Uh, 509, I'm going down -- fast."

"509, say again?"

"509, I'm hit, my BN is gone, engines out, losing pressures...uh...okay, fire on the wing...punching out now..."

He didn't hang around for a reply, and the next thing he knew he was hanging from his parachute harness, drifting down towards a black hole in the desert...

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He was sitting on the swim platform, Altair still just visible -- low on the southwest horizon. He could hear Ted describing Altair's systems to Tracy, trying his best to impress the girl, and no doubt failing miserably despite his reassuringly authoritative choice of words. In his experience girls just didn't give a damn about electronics and all such 'stuff,' though they often tried to appear interested. If they were, well, interested in the boy talking, that is. Only he wasn't sure who or what this girl was interested in -- yet -- and that bothered him.

The whole license thing bothered him, too.

Like she didn't appreciate the gravity of his passport explanation and so had decided to play him. To call him on it, in other words...and in his world eighteen-year-old girls just didn't do that. No, he wondered who she really was, and what her angle was.

And just then he wished Ted had checked his testosterone back in Boston, but that was a done deal now. He'd have to deal with it as best he could.

He sighed, took a deep breath as he rubbed the scar on his right shin, the he looked aft and saw he could still see Vancouver's lights in their wake, and while the sun was just beginning to lighten the eastern sky it was still quite dark out.

"Just like me," he said softly. "Groping around in the dark again. Trying to make sense of the senseless..."

+++++

He could see Tiger 509 cartwheeling after it slammed into the earth, spraying jet fuel in wide arcs as it tumbled -- and suddenly vast swathes of grass lit off. Following the prevailing wind, the flames marched to the north, but then the thought struck him...

The flames were bright, and he looked up, saw his olive colored parachute as plain as day -- which meant any Gomer within ten miles could see him, too.

And now, hanging up here in the sky, he noticed his leg really hurt.

At least, he said to no one in particular, he felt somewhat intact. Not like...

No, I'm not going there, he thought. I'm alive, he isn't and I'm sorry, but I'll worry about all that later. He reached for his SART radio and turned it on, but left it attached to his harness...

"509, how do you read, over?"

He fumbled for the transmit button and pressed it. "509, still in my chute."

"Confirm, you are down?"

"I will be, in about thirty seconds. The aircraft is about a half mile east of my position."

"Are you injured?"

"Affirmative. Some metal sticking out of my legs, but that's about all I can see from here."

"Call when you get set."

"Yup," he said, but the ground was rushing up now, and he knew what was coming next...

He tumbled for what felt like forever, his chute full of the southerly breeze and dragging his body through what had to be acres of marshy reed and prickly grass...then the silk got tangled in some sort of stunted tree and he rolled to a stop. He lay still for a moment, listening to his heart beat in his temples, then he tried to slow his breathing down but realized he was just too disoriented for that. He felt pain all over now and pulled out his K-Bar, cut parachute cords, cutting himself free of the fluttering parachute.

He rolled over, tried to see the wound but it was still too dark and he didn't dare use his flashlight out here in the open so he leaned up and took a look around. He was in the coastal marsh, he could hear the sea beyond -- and a small city perhaps ten miles away...probably Abādān...and he knew troops were there...that's where the SAMs had come from...

He turned again and he hurt all over, felt light-headed for a moment and he steadied himself on a rock...until he heard movement in the marshy grass a few meters away...

Then he remembered...there were supposedly crocodiles in these marshlands and he pushed himself up, gathered the remains of the parachute and walked directly away from the marsh as quietly as he could...

He came upon a low escarpment of rocky scree and he strung up the remains of the parachute between a few stumpy trees, making a shelter of sorts as he knew the sun would be brutal in just a few hours, and only then did he unclip the light from his harness and look at his leg...

He saw one piece of metal jutting from the top of his left thigh, and it looked thin -- and sharp -- then he shined the light on his right shin and saw a much more ragged piece -- of something -- had gone all the way through this leg, and this wound was bleeding -- badly. He felt for the little first aid kit in his right breast pocket and pulled it out, felt for the powder he was supposed to pour on wounds like this to control the bleeding and found it. He gently opened the pack and poured a little on both wounds, then leaned back and took a deep breath...

'The radio!' he thought... 'Got to get on the radio, turn on the beacon...'

He found the beacon and flipped it on, then turned on the radio and called in: "509, on the air."

He paused, heard nothing, then called again.

"509, checking in, how do you read?"

"509, we have your beacon, some bad guys in the area looking for you right now, so keep your head down. Call in at 0500 hours, earlier if compromised."

"Got it." He turned the radio to standby -- to conserve power -- then he bunched up some extra parachute material into a pillow and leaned back -- and the light-headedness returned...this time with a vengeance. He reached out to steady himself but he was falling again, falling through cool clouds, falling to the earth, and into the night...

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