“Understood, Boss.”
She knew that her rescue swimmers were good. She had conducted plenty of SAR training with them in the past. Enlisted aircrewmen were a unique breed of crazy. But when the game was on the line, there were no better men to be with. Navy helicopter aircrewmen prided themselves on being some of the best in the world at search-and-rescue operations. And her boys were no exception.
Victoria could see the signal smoke now. She repositioned herself in her seat, hunching forward and placing her left hand over the collective, right hand on the cyclic, and the balls of her feet on the pedals.
“My controls.”
“You have the controls.”
“I have the controls,” Victoria replied. “Coming down to fifty feet. Smoke is at twelve o’clock.”
Her copilot said, “Boss, we just crossed the one forty-four line.”
“Copy.”
The P-8 pilot said, “Cutlass, Mad Fox is at your three o’clock high. We’ll be staying to the east of the line.”
“Roger, Mad Fox.”
“Boss, can you give us a fifteen and zero?” her aircrewman said.
“Fifteen and zero, roger. Survivor is at twelve o’clock, about one mile. Coming down to fifteen feet, zero knots.”
Victoria pulled aft on the cyclic with her right hand and lowered the collective lever with her left. The nose of the aircraft pitched up slightly as they descended and decelerated. Her eyes rapidly scanned outside and inside the helicopter, back and forth.
“Winds are out of the southwest, Boss.”
“Roger, I’m using the smoke. I’ll make my approach into the winds.”
Continuously updating her situational awareness. Feeding into her decision loop. Altitude, two hundred feet. Vertical speed indicator, five-hundred-foot-per-minute descent. The wisp of white smoke ahead of her began drifting to the left in her sight picture, so she moved the cyclic right for a beat to adjust her course. The aircraft responded by banking right. Then she leveled the nose to steady on her new heading and reevaluated her drift.
Now the survivor was visible. A floating white object under the smoke. No longer drifting, just growing larger in her windscreen. She checked the chop of the waves.
“Fifty feet,” said her copilot. “Radalt off?”
“Yes, please.”
He reached over and pressed the button. “Radalt is off. Setting the pipper for ten feet.”
“Roger.”
“We’re all set back here, Boss.”
“Roger.”
The survivor was just in front of the helicopter now. He wore what looked like some type of white space suit, with a futuristic-looking helmet. It must have been watertight and pressurized, because it looked inflated. An orange-and-white parachute dragged in the water behind the guy, eight-foot waves lifting him up and down every few seconds.
“Twenty-five feet. Seas are a little rough.”
“Roger.” Victoria began pulling in more power, slowing their descent. A vortex of white sea spray circled into the air around them as the rotor wash hit the ocean’s surface.
“Fifteen feet.”
Another smidgen of collective. Her head was turning left and right, scanning the horizon, then rechecking her instruments. The sea spray coated the cockpit windscreen now.
“Wipers on.”
Her copilot’s gloved hand shot up and flipped the switch that powered on the windshield wipers.
Victoria leaned her head to the right, looking out her side window and through the chin bubble at her feet. The survivor was just ahead of them, and with the waves, this was as low as she wanted to get. “Fetternut, how’s this look?”
“Looks good, Boss.”
“Roger, Jump. Jump. Jump.”
In the rear of the aircraft, AWR1 Fetternut signaled the rescue swimmer that they were ready.
Wearing a black wet suit, gloves, mask and snorkel, the rescue swimmer shimmied his butt along the gray cabin deck of the helicopter, adrenaline pumping as he kept his legs forward and pulled himself towards the edge of the door. He tried not to think about the size of the waves as they crested mere feet below the wheels of the helicopter. The survivor was at his two o’clock position, floating face-up, arms and legs extended outward, his astronaut-style helmet closed.
Two hard taps on his back, and AWR2 Jones pushed himself over the edge. He dropped towards the blue-and-white ocean surface, flexing his legs together, holding his fins pointed straight down, arms across his chest.
The drop was deceptively far. He must have fallen a full twenty-five feet by the time he hit the water. The loud engines and rotor noise disappeared into dark silence as he went under. Greenish blue light above. Then his head bobbed above the waterline and the noise came back. Jones quickly threw his mask on. An imaginary timer ticked along in his head as he kicked his powerful legs and swam towards the pilot.
When he reached the survivor, Jones began to worry that the guy wasn’t alive. The helmet visor was reflective, and Jones couldn’t see his face. But then the man gave a slight movement with one of his hands.
A wave washed over them, causing momentary disorientation. When Jones regained his position aside the survivor, he saw Fetternut signaling him from the cabin of the helicopter and pointing at his watch. Hurry up.
Fighting the spray from the helicopter and the rolls of the waves, Jones used a sidestroke to pull the downed pilot towards the helicopter’s hovering position. Fetternut was already sending the large metal rescue basket down the rescue hoist. Jones quickly but carefully placed the survivor in it and gave a thumbs-up. He stabilized the basket as Fetternut reeled it up. A moment later, the rescue hoist came down again, sans basket. The powerful rotor wash kicked up sea spray all around them, like a hurricane, the waves sending him up and down towards the aircraft. Finally, Jones hooked himself to the hoist and was reeled up.
The second he was in the bird, he saw Fetternut yelling something into his helmet microphone and felt the aircraft nose forward.
The man in the space suit was sitting upright, helmet off now. Fetternut was tending to him. The pilot was older. Probably at least fifty, by the look of him, Jones thought. What the hell was that old guy doing out here?
Victoria had just washed up and put on a clean flight suit when the phone in her stateroom rang.
“Airboss.”
“Ma’am, the captain requests your presence in Medical.”
“I’m on my way.”
Victoria walked through officer’s country and through the wardroom. Dinner was being served. The sounds of plates being scraped bare and loud conversation. An old action movie playing on the TV in the corner of the room.
“Boss, you gonna join us?”
“I have to see the captain.”
“Jones said he wants a medal. He hasn’t stopped talking about his rescue. Thinks he saved an astronaut and won the war.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Victoria couldn’t help smiling. “Astronaut, huh? Well, tell him to put that in the write-up.”
One of the cooks asked, “Airboss, you want us to save you a plate?”
“That would be great, CS2.”
“What do you want?”
“Anything is fine. I could eat a horse.”
One of her pilots whispered, “Good, that’s what they made.”
She left and walked down the p-way and then down the ladder, heading towards the ship’s medical compartment. There was a master-at-arms standing outside the door, an M-9 holstered on his hip.
“Ma’am.”
“Guard duty, huh?”
“XO’s orders, ma’am.”
She spotted the captain through the open doorway. “Please come in, Victoria.”