Hogs #1: Going Deep by Jim DeFelice

half-hour.”
    “Yeah. Just enough time to find some coffee,” said the other pilot, starting away.
    “Hey, A-Bomb, hold on— where are Dixon and Glenon?”
    “Up ahead, near their planes I think,” said A-Bomb,
pointing. “Say, ‘ Goose— better zip up, huh? You're a little out of uniform.”
    ***
    Mongoose found Dixon sitting beneath the wing of his Hog, next to the wheel, legs crossed
beneath him.
    “Yo Lieutenant, what the hell are you doing down here?”
    Dixon gave him a blank look, said nothing.
    “Doberman tells me his radio went out before you fired
your Mavericks. What happened?”
    Dixon continued to stare.
    “Did you lose him before or after you fired your
Mavericks?”
    “I think it was after. He didn’t break the way I thought
he would.”
    “Did you try and find him?”
    Dixon nodded.
    “Did you have trouble reading the AWACS when they first contacted you?”
    This time he shrugged.
    “Cat got your tongue?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Did you hit the tower?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Lieutenant, get the fuck out here and tell me what the hell happened.”
    The six foot-four Dixon crawled out on his hands and knees like a kindergartner.
    “ Something
wrong with you?”
    “No,” said the young pilot. His thick, close-cropped
blond hair was crusted with muddy sweat. “I need a drink of water or something. I/m thirsty.
Maybe I'm dehydrated. After I fired the Mavericks, I spun around and
went after a couple of trailers with my CBUs.”
    “They hit?”
    “No. I mean I don’t think so. I was too high .”
    “How come you didn't take any flak?”
    “I'm supposed to apologize because I didn't get shot down?”
    Mongoose, pissed that he'd nearly run dry searching for someone who didn't need to be searched
for, rubbed the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes down with his fingers. “What about the AWACS call?”
    “I acknowledged when I heard it.”
    “Why didn't you try contacting them sooner? Or me,” he added pointedly.
    “I thought I did. Maybe I selected the wrong frequency.”
    Mongoose frowned. That wasn’t unheard of, especially
when things got hairy. But it wasn’t necessarily something to hand out a medal
for. On the other hand, there’d been a lot of traffic and there were plenty of
non-screw up explanations for missing a radio call.
    “See if you can find somebody to check the radio out,
just in case,” Mongoose told him.
    Dixon nodded.
    “Hey, you okay, kid?” Mongoose asked, making his voice
as calm as possible.
    “I'm fine,” snapped Dixon. “I just need some water, that's all. When are we taking off
again?”
    ***
    “The triple-A was heavier than hell,” said Doberman. “It started before we even
got in the clouds and followed us right down. I'm not surprised he's rattled.”
    “He's more than rattled,” said Mongoose. “He couldn't give me a straight answer on why he
didn't go to SierraMax.”
    “We got separated. I think he got lost when we came out
of the bombing run.”
    “Yeah.”
    “His Mavericks hit. I went over and checked it out with
the intelligence guys,” said Doberman. He was sitting on a pile of iron bombs waiting to be loaded
beneath Mongoose's Hog. “He
probably scored with the CBUs, too. They
screwed up half his video with their equipment. Watch they don’t do the same to
yours.”
    “So why didn’t he tell me that?”
    “He ducked under the wing and took a nap or something.”
Doberman shrugged. “I think he’s just being cautious about taking credit. Kid’s
never been in the frying pan before.”
    Mongoose didn't bother answering. He'd made a mistake, picking Dixon for this mission. The
kid was too green. He saw it in his eyes.
    “You mad because he lost me?” Doberman asked. “My radio was out. Could've happened to anyone.
Check his INS— ten bucks says it gave him the wrong coordinate and he got confused. He just doesn't want to admit it.”
    “It's more than ego,” said Mongoose.
    Why the hell had he missed it back