Nuke Zone

“Yes, sir, I had the watch, I was TAO, and I’m the one that made the call–I let that aircraft sucker-punch us, wiped out a whole ship. Pretty impressive, huh?”

“Boy, that’s-“

“Don’t call me boy.” Skeeter’s voice lashed over the ICS like a snapped arresting line. “Goddamn it, XO, don’t you ever call me that again.”

“I’m sorry–it’s just an expression I use with some of the younger pilots. But you’re right–I can see how it would sound patronizing.”

“Anyone ever call you boy, XO? You hear any of the white pilots called boy?” Skeeter demanded.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.” The XO’s voice turned frosty. “But for the record, I won’t make that mistake again. Anything else on your mind?”

“No, sir.”

A tight band settled around Skeeter’s throat, ratcheting a notch tighter. Jesus, he wasn’t going to–he felt the hot wetness well in his eyes. He choked back a sob, turning it into a muffled throat-clearing.

“Skeeter, let’s talk for a minute,” the XO persisted. “This is no way to get started with the squadron. And I didn’t know you were on watch on La Salle during the attack. Tell me what happened.”

Skeeter cleared his throat noisily. With his hopes for a career in Naval aviation raining down in flames around him, the last thing he wanted to do was talk about La Salle. The very last thing. “I was on watch, I made a mistake. That’s pretty much the whole sum of it, XO.”

But it wasn’t, one part of his mind insisted. There’d been other factors at work, things he could hardly explain to the XO. Not now, not under these circumstances. How proud he’d felt, selected to stand a flag watch position. How determined he’d been to appear self-confident and at ease, all the while still desperately trying to remember what each of the buttons on his TAO console did. How he’d wanted to get along with everyone, been confused by his first prolonged exposure to the enlisted men and women, uncertain as to how familiar, how friendly or how distant, to be with them. In the end, when the operations specialist had tried to focus his attention, he’d failed.

“So you were on watch by yourself,” the XO persisted.

“There was an enlisted man there as well. He was running the radio circuits, for the most part.”

Suddenly, the story started to pour out of his mouth. Skeeter listened to himself in amazement, tried to stem the growing tide of words and couldn’t. All of the pent-up rage, the hurt, the anger and frustration and disappointment came pouring out.

“He told me, you see, sir. He tried to get me to do something–but I didn’t. I thought it was another routine flight. I didn’t ask for CAP, didn’t request that the ship maneuver to open weapons armament, didn’t do any of that. I blew it. Completely, without a doubt, and through no fault of anybody’s but my own–I blew it.”

Skeeter felt surprisingly calm as he finished his recitation of his own failures. It felt like that moment when a Tomcat reached the highest point of an Immelman and you hung suspended in the ejection harness, free of gravity and floating more than sitting in the cockpit. It was a feeling of lightness, of an unbearable diffusion of self until the boundaries between you and your aircraft disappeared, until you were one with the hydraulics, the engine, the leading and trailing edges of the wings.

“So that’s what that was about,” the XO said finally.

“You mean my screw-ups? Yes, XO–I guess it was. By the time I got to the carrier, I wasn’t even thinking straight. Not really.”

“No, not that at all. I mean what Admiral Magruder said about you–he saw me before you checked in, you know. It was his first stop when he came on board.”

Skeeter’s head jerked up from his automatic instrument scan. “Admiral Magruder? Why? I only met him for just a minute. Flew over with him on the helo, but that hardly counts.”

“There’s more that counts than you know,” the XO continued. “I take it you met Admiral Magruder as soon as he came aboard La Salle, right?”

“Yes, sir. Sixth Fleet sent me out to greet him.”

“You didn’t feel a little naked out there, like a Christian in the arena with lions roaming around?”

Skeeter was confused. “No, XO. They just told me to go out and escort the admiral. Besides, I figured he’d come looking for me eventually, since I’m the one who screwed up his ship. I thought it might be better to get it over right away.”

“Oh, that’s not the half of it,” the XO mused. “Not the half of it at all. Sixth Fleet sent you out there figuring that Tombstone would have you drawn and quartered right there on the flight deck. From what Admiral Magruder said, the Sixth Fleet Chief of Staff was along as well, to make sure it happened. Didn’t you notice that?”

“I thought it was just standard procedure.”

“Hardly. Sixth Fleet intended to sacrifice you to preserve his own ambitions.”

The XO’s voice was grim. “That’s a nasty thing to do to a lieutenant–make him take the fall for your mistake.”

Skeeter’s confusion deepened. “His mistake? But the admiral wasn’t even in TFCC when we were attacked.”

“Exactly. It was as irresponsible an act as I’ve ever seen from an officer to leave you alone in that flag plot, Skeeter. You had no right to be on watch there alone–none at all. Now, I’m not saying that you’re not a good aviator–I can see from the way you handle this Tomcat that you’ve got the moves, the reflexes. If you’ve got the brains to go with your nervous system, you’re going to do just fine. But a couple of months out of the RAG, standing watch in a flag officer’s TFCC? I don’t think so. Someone was too lazy–or even worse, just didn’t care–to put experienced officers on that watch bill. You may have been the actual officer on watch, but the rot in Sixth Fleet went a lot deeper than that.”

Skeeter felt a new humility seep into his innermost self. He knew, at some level, that what the XO said was true. He’d wanted to believe himself that he was competent, capable–a bloodied and salty Naval aviator taking on responsibility early, just like in the commercials. But in truth, he’d never felt entirely comfortable with standing TAO watches there. Sure, he’d done it–and to even be asked was entirely flattering. But had he really been qualified to do so?

“I should have said no, shouldn’t I?” he asked the XO slowly. “I just didn’t think I could.”

“There are ways of saying no, and there are ways of saying no. You’ll learn’em as you get some more time under your belt. But as far as the VF95 Vipers are concerned, the only mark on your record is the stunt you pulled on the flight deck. And under the circumstances, I can almost see why that happened. That soon after the attack, you should have at least been medically cleared–mentally, I mean–before you went wandering around a flight deck for the first time on your own.”

Another surprise. “Admiral Magruder was right,” Skeeter said quietly. “He warned me before I stepped out on the flight deck, told me to keep my head on a swivel. I started to follow him off of the helo, but I got bumped back to the back of the line by the other senior officers. Something else I didn’t know.”

The XO chuckled. “I heard about that–Bird Dog’s an old shipmate of mine. He came crowing in to me about setting our newest nugget straight. But I think what Admiral Magruder had in mind was for you to follow him across the flight deck. I don’t know, Skeeter, I wasn’t there, but I’d bet on it. Stoney’s that kind of man. He’s got a sixth sense about when an aviator needs a little looking after.”

“Stoney?”

“Tombstone–he got that call sign from his face. Don’t you ever think about playing poker with the man, Skeeter. He can outbluff anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Another silence settled over the cockpit, one considerably more comfortable than the one that had preceded it. Skeeter felt relieved, purged. The sense of lightness, of freedom, was growing. He put the ICS back on and ventured, “XO?”