Smoke entered the passageway and went forward, and Wilson followed, thinking, What’s this about? Over his shoulder, Smoke gave him a clue. “We have to go see Psycho,” he said, continuing forward toward the stateroom Psycho shared with Olive on the O-2 level.
“What about her?” Wilson asked. “Why doesn’t she contact me herself?” Smoke stopped and turned. “She asked me to bring you to her room. You can hear it directly from her, sir.”
“Hear what?” Wilson asked, and wondered why Smoke was sir-ing him so much. As Smoke left Wilson’s question hanging in the air and continued forward, a feeling of dread came over the VFA-64 Operations Officer. Oh shit, Wilson thought.
When they arrived at her stateroom, Smoke knocked twice. “Come in,” Psycho responded.
Lieutenant Melanie Hinton sat on her bunk in her flight suit, dabbing at her puffy eyes. She came to her feet as Wilson stepped inside. Smoke closed the door behind them.
“Please, be seated,” Wilson said to Psycho. “What’s goin’ on?”
Psycho drew in a breath. “I’m pregnant.”
Wilson looked at her and let it sink in. Turning his head to Smoke, he lifted an eyebrow.
“Yes… sir,” Smoke nodded.
Wilson took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose.
“I didn’t know until today! This morning. I had my flight physical yesterday, and Doc Laskopf called me back in this morning to tell me.”
“Who else knows?” Wilson asked.
“Just us,” Psycho answered, taking a seat on her bunk.
Wilson needed more. “Who exactly?”
“Us and Doc Laskopf,” Psycho answered. “I just found out an hour ago!” she added, exasperated and looking away.
Wilson continued to pull the string. “Doc, or the corpsman who did the test? They haven’t told anyone?”
“Sir, I pleaded with Doc not to tell, to let me handle it inside the squadron first. He said he would. I know we are planning to hit Iran tomorrow night, and I want to be a part of it. And you’ll need me as a pilot for the flight schedule.”
“Why didn’t you keep quiet then?”
“Because Zach… Smoke… said I needed to tell you to schedule me in the best manner. But I feel fine! I’m ready to go tomorrow night.”
“Morning sickness?”
“No, not counting when I threw up after Doc told me.”
Wilson smiled, and then thought for a moment. Pregnancy was a grounding condition. Psycho could not fly anything while pregnant, and the news was a serious blow to his ability to schedule pilots for the upcoming operation. “Smoke is right. You did need to tell me, and you need to tell the Skipper.”
“No!” Psycho exploded. Looking at Smoke with fire in her eyes, she added, “See, I told you this would happen! I could have flown these hops…!”
Wilson cut her off. “Psycho, it’s his squadron. He makes the call. That’s why he’s paid the big bucks.”
“He’s gonna shit when he finds out, and he’s going to shit on me… and Zach.” Psycho was shaking her head. She began to tremble.
“Psycho…”
Seething with rage, Psycho lashed out. “You don’t know what it’s like!” she cried. “I’m a Hornet pilot with combat experience, but to the rest of this ship I’m just a piece of ass! Half the guys in the air wing have tried to get in my pants: JOs, chiefs, even officers senior to you. I’m doing my job and doing it well, but I have to deal with this crap all the time. Zach protects me from you guys, and if we’ve fallen in love and gone too far, then guilty. We can handle it!”
Smoke, horrified, watched as his department head absorbed the outburst from the petulant junior officer. Wilson glared at Psycho, his blood boiling. The look on her face indicated that she knew she had crossed the line.
Rubbing his hands together in an effort to control himself, Wilson began. “I would tend to accept what you’ve just told me better if you put a ‘sir’ on the end of that, Lieutenant, and I resent being lumped in as ‘you guys.’”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, her eyes downcast.
He’s going to rip her spine out, Smoke thought to himself, his heart pounding.
“And I would add that, yes, I do know what it is like to be judged by appearance, and I do know the resentment that can bring. And I know that I must outperform white officers in every aspect of my job.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry.”
“What separates us, Lieutenant Hinton, is that instead of feeling sorry for myself, because I cannot control the color of my skin or what people may think any more than you can control your sex, I channel any resentment I may have into building qualifications and learning more about the airplane and displaying the best officer-like behavior I can for my people. And I’ve found, over the years, that that behavior leads to success for any officer — no matter the skin color, whether male or female. Yes, I must work a bit harder. But I can hack it, and I take great satisfaction in that. And I’ve been richly rewarded by the great meritocracy of naval aviation.”
Psycho, eyes still downcast, answered, “I have to outperform 90 percent of the pilots in the air wing to be taken seriously.”
“At this point I’d say a 100 percent! You aren’t going to win this, Psycho,” Wilson replied. Again on the verge of losing his temper, he let his words hang for effect. “In the air and with your ground job, you can outperform all the aviators in the Navy, but if you don’t stop the valley girl act in the wardroom — and if you don’t stop treating this whole cruise as a high school musical — you won’t be taken seriously, ever. You are a beautiful woman, a talented aviator, and you, as you say, have half the players in the air wing after you. From what I see, any other woman on this ship, any of them, would love to be you for a day. But the difference is most all of them would eliminate 90 percent of the unwanted attention up front by carrying themselves as adults. But here you are expecting me to deal with this for you when you are closer to 30 than 20, face combat tomorrow, and are pregnant with child. Time to grow up!” Wilson saw Psycho’s lip quiver.
“Where’s your roommate?” Wilson asked, referring to Olive.
“Down in CVIC, strike planning,” Psycho replied, eyes still down. She was barely able to keep her composure.
“That’s right, where the three of us should be right now, instead of dealing with this. What I need, and what the skipper needs, is for you, both of you, to be on your game because, for the next 72 hours, we need every ounce of ability from everyone in the squadron.” Motioning to Psycho he added, “You represent a significant portion of the combat power of this squadron. Are you ready to go? Can you compartmentalize?”
Springing to her feet she responded, “Yes, sir!”
“Don’t bullshit me, Psycho! A few minutes ago you were whining to me about your lot in life!”
“Yes, sir, whatever you need me to do. I can do it. I can, sir.” Their eyes locked, and Wilson knew she meant it. He turned to Smoke.
“And you?”
“Yessir,” Smoke answered, jaw set.