However, it worked much better at, say, a thousand feet, than at two hundred. The props continued to spin for a moment, giving her a smidgeon of lift, then stopped and reversed. She was an expert pilot and had practiced autorotation hundreds of times. And she knew damned well there was not nearly enough rotation going to slow them as she reversed. But they were going in, no question, and any lift was better than no lift as the helicopter plunged towards the tossing sea.
“Oh, well,” her left seat said. “At least the water will be warm.”
“I’m just hoping to survive the impact,” Kacey snapped, reversing the blades at the last moment possible. There was a smidgeon of lift again and then they hit the water’s surface. Hard.
Mike came to lolling on the sea, boat engine dead. There was a new sun just dying to the northeast and in the light of it he could see a helicopter pinwheeling into the ocean to his northwest. It hit with one hell of a splash, then immediately turned over and began to sink, fast.
The engine had cut, but he managed to nurse it to life and turned the boat northwest, breathing ragged and the pain getting to be unimaginable. Spray had covered him, the salt like fire in his wounds.
As he was running northwest he glanced towards the direction of the dying fireball and, in the luminance of lightning crackling across its surface, saw one hell of a wave headed for his position. He turned into it, the boat lifting into the air again, and crashed to the water on the far side. He nearly passed out from the wave of pain and let out a shriek.
“Crap, that hurt,” he muttered. “This had better be worth it.”
The impact had been bad, but Kacey had gotten enough lift at the last moment that the water had only come up to cover the windows for a second. Then the Seahawk rolled over and started to sink. Choppers have, effectively, no buoyancy so the multiton aircraft went under like a stone.
“Everybody out!” she shouted, taking a last gulp of breath as the water in the cabin rose up to her chest level.
The water was already over the fast-sinking chopper, but she’d trained for this eventuality. She found her chest and waist and removed her harness. Then she moved her right knee to the door and used it to find the door handle. She opened the door handle, grabbed the edges of the door, and headed out into open water. Her side was down so she had to pull herself around the chopper into the open water. She had her eyes open so she could vaguely see the rotor of the chopper going past, windmilling, and it was a sight she hoped she’d never see again in her life. Assuming her life lasted more than a few seconds.
As lack of air got to her, causing a sudden panic reaction, she remembered the other thing she was supposed to be doing and reached for her Helicopter Emergency Egress Device. This was a small tank of air, generally kept on one or the other leg, that could be used for just such a situation. She yanked the HEEDs off her right leg, put it in her mouth and blew out, clearing the regulator, then sucked in a glorious lungful of air. That problem covered, she started kicking for the surface, breathing in and out as trained.
When she got there she did a quick head count. The wind was blowing like a son-of-a-bitch and it was hard to count bobbing heads. But she got a glimpse of her co and crew chief and that was all she really cared about. Her responsibility for cargo ended when she got them on the ground, or in the water as the case might be. She hit the release on her Personal Flotation Device, called a Mae West by all and sundry, and rolled up to the surface of the water.
“Hey,” her co called. “Nice landing. Any one you can walk away from… or float as it may be…”
“Oh, shut up, Tammy,” Kacey snapped.
“Form up!” Captain Talbot yelled, grabbing Private Gowey as he passed. “Get in a group! Don’t get separated!”
Gunny Hilton came crawling over dragging Sergeant Goweda, who seemed to have taken a hit on the head and was mildly incoherent. They’d managed to hang onto their Mae Wests on the exit, at least.
“Where’s Pawlick?” the Gunny said, looking around the group.
“I think we lost him, Gunny,” Sergeant Klip said. “I don’t think he made it out of the bird.”
“Fuck,” Hilton muttered. “Sir, all of the team is present and accounted for except Lance Corporal Pawlick.”
“Thank you, Gunny,” the captain said. Everybody had their Mae Wests inflated and he could see the pilots and their crew chief moving towards the group. “The good news is that we were being watched as we went down. The bad news is that our locator beacons probably took a hit from the EMP just like the chopper. So I hope they find us fast.”
“I hope they find us, period, sir,” Klip said, looking around. “There’s lots of sharks in these waters.”
“Hey,” Captain Bathlick said as she backstroked over and hooked into the group. “Sorry about that. The EMP took out all my controls.”
“Figured as much,” Captain Talbot replied.
“Anybody got any shark repellent?” Klip said. “I got followed by one of those bastards on an op and I don’t care for them at all.”
“Got it,” the crew chief said, lifting out a canister and dumping it in the water. It quickly spread and dyed the waters bright yellow. “There’s supposed to be a frigate out there somewhere. Hopefully they’ll find us soon.”
“I dunno,” Talbot said, looking towards the dwindling mushroom cloud. “We’re drifting pretty fast. And there’s going to be worries about fallout. We’d better be prepared to spend some time in the drink.”
“Great,” Bathlick said, grinning. “Know any good dirty jokes? I’ve got a million of ’em.”
“Sir,” Private Gowey said, kicking upwards. “I think I just saw a boat.” He pointed southwards and kicked up again.
“Sure is,” Gunny Hilton said. The sun was starting to rise and it was just possible to glimpse a cigarette boat inbound on a snaking course. “But I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. There’s lots of cigarette boats in these waters we don’t want to meet.”
“And whoever is driving that doesn’t look as if he knows what he’s doing,” Captain Bathlick observed.
The cigarette boat seemed to spot them and came forward, occasionally crabbing on the waves. It stopped just short of their position and started drifting to the south in the north wind.
“Gowey,” Talbot snapped. “Dump your Mae West and try like hell to catch that thing.”
Gowey slid out of his vest and down under the group, surfacing to the south and crawling fast towards the boat. He’d dropped his boots earlier and was a very strong swimmer, but by the time he got to the boat it was nearly a hundred meters away.
It was drifting away nose forward and he managed to snag the dive platform at the rear, dragging himself into the boat. The first thing he saw was a body on the floor of the cockpit, but he ignored it. There was another person, in armor, behind the wheel, slumped to one side and only held up by the four-point restraints for the driver.
He wasn’t sure if the guy was alive or dead, but he had other things on his mind. He undid the restraints, dumping the driver unceremoniously to the side, and keyed the boat to life. Then, inexpertly, he turned it towards the group.
“There’s a guy on here I think’s the agent we were supposed to reinforce,” he shouted, as he neared the gaggle of drifting Marines. “He’s in pretty bad shape.”
Chapter Fourteen