The Intruders by Stephen Coonts Page B

heartbeat, two, then the catapult fired. The acceleration was
vicious.
    Yeeeaaaahl and it was over, in about two and a half seconds. The edge
of the bow swept under the nose and the plane was over the glittering
sea.
    Jake let the trim rotate the nose to eight degrees nose up as he reached
for the gear handle. He slapped it up and swept his eyes across the
instrument panel, taking in the attitude reference on the vertical
display indicator-the VDI, the altimeter-eighty feet and going up, the
rate of climb-positive, the airspeed-150 knots and accelerating, all
warning lights out. He took in all these bits of information without
conscious thought, just noted them somewhere in his subconscious, and
put it all together as the airplane accelerated and climbed away from
the ship.
    With the gear up and locked, he raised the flaps and slats.
    Here they came. Still accelerating, he stopped the climb at five
hundred feet and ran the nose trim down. Two hundred and fifty knots,
300, 350 … still accelerating …
    To his amusement he saw that Flap Le Beau was sitting upright in his
ejection seat with his hands folded on his lap, just inches from the
alternate ejection handle between his legs.
    At 400 knots Jake eased the throttles back. Five miles coming up on the
DME … and the pilot pulled the nose up steeply and dropped the left
wing as he eased the throttles forward again. The plane leaped away
from the ocean in a climbing turn. Jake scanned the sky looking for the
plane that had preceded him on the cat by two minutes.
    He had four thousand pounds of fuel-no, only three thousand now–4o burn
off before they called him down for his first landing, in about fifteen
minutes.
    Better make it last, Jake. Don’t squander it. He pulled the throttles
back and coasted up to five thousand feet, where he leveled indicating
250 knots in a gentle turn that would allow him to orbit the ship on the
five-mile circle.
    Flap sighed audibly over the intercom, the ICS, then said, “Acceptable
launch, Grafton. Acceptable. You obviously have done this once or
twice and haven’t forgotten how.
    This pleases me. I get a warm fuzzy.”
    There the major was, almost on the other side of the ship, level at this
altitude and turning on the five-mile arc. Jake steepened his turn to
cut across above the ship and rendezvous.
    “I almost joined the Navy,” Flap confided, “but I came to my senses just
in time and joined the Corps. It’s a real fighting outfit, the best in
the world. The Navy … well , the best that can be said is that you
guys try. Most Of the time, anyway.
    He talked on as Jake got on the major’s bearing line and eased in some
left rudder to lower the nose so he could see the major out the
right-side quarter panel. Rendezvousing an A-6 with its side-by-side
seating took some finesse when coming in on the lead’s left because the
pilot of the joining aircraft could easily lose sight of the lead plane.
If he let himself go just a little high, or if he let his plane fall a
little behind the bearing line–going sucked, they called it–and
attempted to pull back to the bearing, the lead would disappear under
the wingman’s nose and he would be closing blindly. This was not good,
a situation fraught with hazard for all concerned.
    This morning Jake stayed glued to the bearing. If Flap noticed he gave
no indication. He was saying, the closest I ever came to being in the
Navy was the wife of some surface warrior I met at MCRUP-Marine Corps
Recruit Depot-“O Club on a Friday night. She rubbed her tits all over
my back and I told her she was going to give me zipper rash. She was
all hot and randy so I thought, Why not. We went over to her place .
    When he was fifty feet away from the major’s plane Jake lowered the nose
and crossed behind and under. He surfaced into parade position on the
right side, the outside of the turn. The BN gave him a thumbs-up.
    Jake’s BN talked on. I just put the ol’ cock to her … Pt After a
frequency shift