Dawn Flight Read online

  Dawn Flight

  a Night Stalkers CSAR romance story

  by M. L. Buchman

  1

  “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding you?”

  Captain Jack Slater looked down at the slip of a woman wearing full flight gear but no rank insignia. According to the orders tucked in his pocket, she had the unlikely name of Lois Lang-Clark. Damned cute despite the flight gear that overwhelmed her sleek frame, and the fact that one of her feet was mechanical. Cute despite the Terminator foot wasn’t a factor though, as she had a ring. Whether it was real or merely to ward off unwanted attention because she was a pretty woman in the man’s world of U.S. Army heli-aviation didn’t matter. Answer was clearly “no” to all comers, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave it totally alone.

  “Your husband named Kent?” Maybe this was all some kind of Superman joke? An initiation gag, not that Army orders were big on gags. He looked around the pristine training hangar, but they were the only occupants. No line of guys waiting to laugh when he fell for whatever the newbie game was.

  Fresh from two years of Night Stalker school, he’d been on a red-eye flight out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, landing in the predawn darkness at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. He’d stepped out into the cool October morning with first light just cracking the horizon and checked his watch. His orders had sent him straight here in his first hour as a new member of the 160th’s 5th Battalion.

  But this was a training center.

  A line of three flight simulators stood on tall hydraulic pistons that could simulate harsh flight conditions. Each set of pistons supported a white block of metal that looked like nothing so much as a ten-foot-wide white egg on steroids from the outside. He knew from vast experience that the insides looked like very realistic helicopter cockpits, complete with a projection system that could convince you that a crash into downtown Kabul was truly imminent.

  After two years he was supposed to be done with this shit.

  “Kent Clark?” he nudged when she didn’t respond. “Superman in disguise,” he prompted and still got back nothing.

  With a loud rattle and hiss, the rightmost of the simulators, the one for the MH-47G Chinook heavy lift helo, bucked and slewed hard left. By the sustained nose down attitude, he could tell that its pilot was not having a good day. The left hand one for the MH-6 Little Bird was in a slow, steady climb. The one in the middle, the one for his baby, the MH-60M Black Hawk, stood quietly at rest. Waiting.

  “My husband’s name is Kendall,” the slim woman informed him in a tone as warm as an iceberg. “Kendall Clark.”

  He laughed, he couldn’t help himself. A crazy name, a ring, and a false foot. What the hell? Could she even fly with that thing?

  Her silence was more deafening than the two simulators, now both protesting loudly as they jerked and twisted.

  “I’m already FMQ. Fully Mission Qualified,” Jack explained and had the sudden feeling that he was being more rather than less of an idiot with each passing moment. He rubbed at his face trying for a reset. “Look I need some sleep. Can you point me in the right direction and we’ll play out your little game later?”

  “You signed up for Combat Search and Rescue?”

  “Damn straight!” Bringing out the wounded from a hot battle zone was the kind of serious-as-shit job he’d always dreamed of. One he’d been gunning for since the moment he’d learned it existed. He liked the idea of rescuing people who really needed it. It fit something right in his brain.

  “If you haven’t been signed off by me, then you aren’t Fully Mission Qualified for CSAR activities with the 5th Battalion. Period.”

  Jack thought of several short sharp comebacks. But there was something in her tone that gave him pause.

  One of the simulators slammed to a halt, tipped at a hard angle against the stops. Then, with a groan, it eased and lowered into the reset position.

  At that moment, two other people joined them.

  One climbed down from the Black Hawk simulator, a grizzled, gray-hair with faded Master Sergeant stripes on his uniform—those took a long time to fade. He came to a parade rest close behind Superman’s wife. That said that just maybe she was for real and it was time he started listening.

  The second was a tall brunette who’d come in the same hangar door he had. Even had a big duffle, worn pack-fashion over nice strong shoulders. Now that was his idea of a woman. Eyes as dark as her hair, a fine face wearing an easy smile, and almost as tall as he was.

  “Excuse me.” Voice smooth and low. Unlike Mrs. Superman, her flight gear didn’t overwhelm her frame.

  “Yes?” he replied before Superwoman could speak.

  The new arrival looked him up and down, “I’m guessing you’re not Major Lois Lang-Clark unless your parents hated you when they named you.”

  There might have been a twitch of a smile; or there might have been a roast-in-hell-macho-asshole look. Jack was too tired to tell. Major Lang-Clark? He’d forgotten that from his orders. He’d just been dumb enough to be harassing a major? Bad start for first day in a new battalion.

  “You want Mrs. Superman, here,” he pointed to the slender figure still glaring up at him.

  The new arrival turned and saluted sharply, “Captain Diana Price reporting.”

  Again, the laugh burst from him. He just couldn’t stop it though he knew he was only digging his grave deeper.

  The Master Sergeant and the two women turned to look at him.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack did his best to sober at their bland expressions. “Mrs. Superman Lois Lang-Clark meets Diana Price. You probably don’t know, no sane person would, but Diana Prince was the secret identity of Wonder Woman. It’s just too damned funny.”

  The tall brunette turned so that he could see the helmet dangling off the other side of her duffle bag. On the side was painted a wide golden triangle with a red star at the center, curved like the heroine’s headband. Below that was the stylized “WW” that arced across the breasts of Wonder Woman’s comic book uniform.

  The petite instructor held out the helmet she had tucked under her arm. On it was emblazoned the Superman logo.

  He held up both his hands in hopeless resignation.

  The women didn’t look amused and he almost kept it in.

  But then he caught the merry twinkle in the gray-haired Master Sergeant’s eye and Jack totally lost it.

  2

  Some men did not deserve to live and Diana had just met a prime example. Big, handsome, and a total jerk. Of course, after a decade as an Army aviator and Black Hawk pilot, she should be used to dealing with that by now.

  It was the great laugh that was throwing her. Macho jerks weren’t supposed to have laughs that made you want to smile right along with them.

  But it wasn’t that hard to resist, especially looking at Major Lang-Clark’s serious expression.

  “Why are you flying CSAR?” the Major ignored the buffoon’s attempts to recover.

  How many times had she been asked that? Always by men who were testing, pushing, looking for that weakness that would say she was the wrong person for the role. It wasn’t sexual bias, at least not all of the time. Many of the examiners were equally stringent about men applying for CSAR, because this wasn’t the Gulf War Army of her mother’s day.

  Still, it was the first time a woman had ever asked her the question. Diana would prefer not to answer in front of Mr. Jerk, but she’d been asked, so she’d reply, with something other than the “Want to serve and save people” line.

  “My father died in Kuwait during Desert Storm. Before they knew about the Golden Hour
or had the systems in place to take advantage of it.”

  Modern CSAR was now all about recovering casualties and getting them into a hospital within one hour—with faster being much better. For severe bleeding, sixty minutes was the line of near hundred percent fatality. Thirty minutes marked a fifty percent survival rate, and all but the very worst cases could be kept alive for fifteen minutes.

  A CSAR pilot’s job was to deliver the medics within that quarter hour if possible, and get the casualty to the hospital inside the hour no matter what hell was breaking loose.

  Her father had hung on for two-and-a-half hours in the Kuwaiti Desert, but there hadn’t been the assets in place to get to him sooner. Medical help other than his squad mates’ first-aid had arrived too late. That her mother had been an unmarried and, she’d soon discovered, pregnant supply sergeant, had denied her both her own military benefits and her sworn fiancé’s death benefits.

  “If I can save one person who is somebody’s father, I want to be the one doing it,” Diana’s voice had gone harsh. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she swallowed hard, it hurt.

  A comforting hand rested on her shoulder. To her surprise, when she opened her eyes it belonged to the laughing jerk—except now his expression was sober and sympathetic. Maybe there was a person inside there…though she wasn’t willing to bet on it.

  3

  Jack was pointed to the copilot’s seat. Well, he supposed that he’d earned that, though it rankled.

  Diana the Wonder Woman had been sent to their simulator’s right-side pilot-in-command seat.

  The Major sat in a jump seat close behind them. Master Sergeant Hamlin had settled in the chair that would control the simulator experience.

  Jack settled himself in for a couple hours of boredom. Start-up, take-off, basic flight… After five years with the 10th Mountain’s Combat Aviation Brigade and two more years of Night Stalker training, you’d think he could skip all this basic crap. But nooo.

  Shit.

  However, knowing he had ground to make up with the Major, he settled in to do what he did best, fly.

  Captain Diana Price started out with an attitude of sharp competence. She adjusted the seat and safety harness with the motions of long familiarity. He’d never flown with a woman, but she showed the signs of a skilled pilot, so he’d give her the benefit of the doubt until she had a chance to prove herself.

  And there was no doubt about her commitment—not by how her voice and face had shifted. No matter how much of a showpiece she might look on the outside, she cared deeply about CSAR on the inside, and with good reason. He wished his reasons were so clear. They were just as strong, somehow, but he’d never been able to sort them out into words. Another point in Wonder Woman’s favor.

  “Ready?” Major Lang-Clark asked over the simulator’s intercom.

  Jack made one last visual inspection. The side-by-side pilots seats were separated by a wide bank of radio and navigation gear. That swept up into a broad, sideways dashboard that crossed in front of them and ended about chest high. On the console were six large glass screens, each the size of a tablet computer. The simulator was rigged just like the latest glass-cockpit standard which was nice—once he’d gotten used to the digital cockpit, going back to the old analog dials and gauges was always frustrating.

  A couple arm’s lengths beyond the outside of the windshield was the blank screen on which would be projected their “view” during the simulated flight. Additional viewports to the Earth below were down under the console beside where his feet rested on the rudder pedals.

  Collective under his left hand to control lift, and cyclic joystick rising between his legs for his right hand to control direction and speed of flight. Both controls were studded with a dozen buttons and switches. He brushed his fingers over them, now so familiar with practice that he knew them as well as he did where his nose was on his face.

  He saw Diana doing the same, confirming that the unfamiliar simulator was indeed familiar. Their matching sets of controls meant that between them, they’d always have control of the aircraft, even if one or the other had to reach out to adjust something on the dash or radios.

  He pulled down his helmet’s semi-transparent visor and double-checked that the head’s up display calibration was properly projected across the inside surface.

  “Ready,” he and Diane spoke in almost perfect unison.

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  The goddamn simulator exploded.

  4

  Diana’s instincts took over before she could make sense of the transition.

  One moment she’d been preparing to show the Major that she did indeed have the basics down solid—she’d had to prove herself so many times over the last decade that the rote routines were almost comforting with their familiarity.

  The next moment, she was diving left as the audio warning system squealed in her right ear identifying an incoming attack of small caliber rifle fire from that side.

  Before she could call out to Jack the Jerk, he’d nudged the cyclic just enough to shift the aim of the weapons mounted on the outside of the helo. He launched a pair of Hydra 70 rockets; their simulated streaks raced right down onto the origin point of the ground fire.

  He was back off the cyclic an instant later.

  Jack had integrated into the simulation so fast that he must have known what was coming. Maybe he was another trainer, had to be with the way he’d been sparring with the Major. “Mrs. Superman” indeed; as if Superwoman didn’t deserve her own name.

  A battle raged overhead…and they weren’t really a part of it. Three Black Hawks and a pair of Little Birds were dodging and diving over a convoy at the far end of the narrow valley.

  “CSAR 01. Two wounded, grid thirty-nine,” the Major’s voice informed her with the dispassion of a mission commander sitting in some distant command bunker.

  A blink to shift her focus from inside her visor to glance down at the electronic map on the console. Grid thirty-nine was right at the heart of the battle.

  “Do it!” Captain Jack Slater snarled.

  “Roger that!” Diana yanked up the collective and shoved the cyclic forward. She dove hard and fast down into the throat of the valley. A dozen targets presented themselves.

  She started to turn for one, when the Major shouted, “Someone else’s problem. Get the wounded. That’s always your priority.”

  Gritting her teeth, Diana flew through a rain of small fire, bullets too light to penetrate the Black Hawk’s armor…hopefully.

  She swooped and settled into Grid 39.

  “Medics away,” the Master Sergeant reported.

  She sat interminably—the mission clock counted ten, twenty, thirty seconds—wincing every time a round pinged off her windshield with a bright Thwack!

  “Ten,” Sergeant Hamlin called out.

  Instinct had her looking to the side port to watch for the medics only ten seconds out. All she could see was the swirling brownout that would have been caused by her own helo’s rotors stirring up the dust and dirt…if this was real.

  “Raising to hover,” Jack eased up on the copilot controls and hers moved with him.

  Damn it. She should have thought of that. It would save them several seconds in getting the hell out of here if they were at a ground-hugging hover by the time the medics boarded.

  “Four aboard,” Sergeant Hamlin announced.

  And just as she was about to lift he called out again.

  “Still missing a medic.”

  “We’re what?”

  In answer, a wounded soldier hobbled out of the brownout, moving slowly toward her. Assisting him was a young woman dressed like a CSAR medic.

  And a dozen meters to their left a battered pickup swung into view through the dust cloud. The “technical” had an out-sized machine gun mounted on the truck bed.

  Its fi
rst salvo star-cracked her windscreen.

  This wasn’t the small rifle fire of before; this was .50 cal machine gun fire that would chew them apart in seconds.

  Time to go. Now!

  She couldn’t leave the two injured.

  Her helo wouldn’t survive if she hesitated.

  But she did.

  The last sound she was aware of was a soft but heart-felt, “Holy shit!” from Jack Slater.

  5

  Then the simulation ended like a switch thrown and Jack slammed forward against his safety harness into the sudden void left by the end of the projection. He eased back into his seat and flexed his fingers trying to get his hands to stop shaking. He blinked out the helo’s windows, now the bland light gray of an empty projection screen wrapped around the simulator’s cabin.

  No sign of the shattered windscreen.

  Or the bad guys.

  Or the wounded.

  The silence was deafening.

  With fumbling fingers he managed to find the chin strap of his helmet and pull it free.

  He looked over at Diana, but she looked little better off. Sweat streamed down her face and her eyes were wide with shock.

  “We were in the simulation for…” he couldn’t even finish the question his throat was so dry.

  “Sixty seconds. Maybe.”

  He rubbed at his face, “Felt like a goddamn week.”

  “It did,” she sighed and slumped in her seat.

  There was a strange, asymmetrical clumping that sounded like someone with two different...

  Major Lang-Clark stepped into view outside the window, between the simulator’s cabin and the projection screen. Right, the woman had one real foot and one artificial one. Clearly not a factor. She was a pure hard-ass about Combat Search and Rescue and nothing else mattered. He was sure he’d have no trouble remembering that detail in the future.

  “CSAR Training,” she said as she looked in at the two of them. “Begins tomorrow at 0700. Get some sleep.”