PART 6
“Altitude!” my copilot, Lieutenant Parker, snapped.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Not emotionally.”
The first fighter came out of the cloud behind us too fast.
He expected us to climb away from the water.
I didn’t.
I stayed low and dirty.
He had to pull up hard to avoid eating ocean.
The second fighter followed him blind through the weather and broke late.
Too late.
Their wings never touched.
But the wake turbulence did enough.
One jet rolled sharply, lost control for two terrifying seconds, then vanished into the storm trailing smoke.
Rodriguez’s voice came over the intercom, smaller now.
“Did one just go down?”
“Maybe.”
“Should I feel bad?”
“Later.”
The radar showed nine fighters now.
Then eight.
Someone out there had finally learned fear.
Viper Lead came back on.
“Cargo 72, we are four minutes out. We show bandits splitting wide. They’re trying to box you in.”
“Copy.”
“Cargo 72, advise you maintain current heading and conserve fuel.”
I looked at the fuel warning.
Then the engine fire light.
Then the tactical display.
“Negative.”
A pause.
“Negative?”
“If I fly straight, I die politely.”
“Then what are you doing?”
I smiled for the first time.
“Something impolite.”
Ahead, the storm broke around a line of towering clouds.
Between them was a narrow vertical gap.
A canyon made of vapor.
A fighter could scream through it.
A C-130 should not.
Which meant they would not expect me to try.
“Rodriguez,” I said, “secure the cargo bay.”
“Everything is already strapped.”
May you like
“Make peace with the straps.”
“Oh, I hate that sentence.”
