Carnifex

BdL Dos Lindas, Mar Furioso, 3/22/467

The seas were calm and the waves were light, the ship barely taking notice of them.

Montoya took his meal standing in the crowded wardroom. There were seats, a few of them, available, but he'd discovered he really enjoyed watching the maintenance crews in the hangar deck at work. There was a euphony to it, a symmetry. Of course, the irregular pounding from the engine repair shop next to the wardroom was anything but euphonious.

Working in harmony together or not, the crew was frazzled; there was no better word. Montoya had flown three training missions yesterday and two already today. This was bad enough on him; on the ordnance, fuel, maintenance and deck crews it was simply exhausting. And that bastard Fosa showed no indication so far that he intended to let up for an instant.

Is he going to push us until half of us are dead? Already, half a dozen pilots and twice that in deck crew had perished under the relentless drilling.

From the speakers Montoya heard played six notes of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, then, "Battle stations; battle stations. Pilots . . . . "

Seems he is.

Montoya's plate was dropped and he was out the door before the speaker had a chance to finish, " . . . man your aircraft. RPV pilots to your stations. Cazadors to the assembly area on the hangar deck."

A few weeks ago there'd have been a mad dash for the hatch and a human traffic jam both there and at the ladders leading topside. The sailors and pilots moved just as briskly now, but they'd learned the techniques of transforming themselves from a mob to a mass. Montoya waited his turn at the hatch, then again at the ladder, before easing himself into the only kind of river that flowed uphill.

* * *

Topside, Montoya saw what he'd expected to see. Three Crickets were parked in a shallow upside down V just forward of the carrier's Island. Well behind those were half a dozen Turbo-Finch Avengers in two Vs. On the port side the men of the alert company of the Cazador demi-cohort struggled to organize themselves before boarding the eight Yakamov helicopters lined up along the angled deck.

At the top of the ladder Montoya turned half right, which is to say toward the stern and the Finches, and began to trot to where a staff officer of the air group was sorting pilots to planes.

"Montoya!" the staff weenie shouted to be heard over the growing roar of engines and the loudspeakers on the island playing Ride of the Valkyries. "Number four spot. Your load is rocket and gun pods. Tribune Castillo is Air Mission Commander. Orders will be radioed just prior to take off. Go, son!"

* * *

The crew chief for the plane gave Montoya a leg up onto the wing. Standing, he threw one foot over onto the aircraft's seat, then pulled in the other. To save half a second he'd developed the technique of simply tossing his legs out from under and letting his ass slam into the seat. As his ass hit, his hands were reaching for the helmet. Only when it was on, and a commo check made, did he begin to strap himself in.

The radio crackled. "Boys, this is Castillo. Target is a small boat about seventy five miles from here on a heading of Three One Two, I say again, Three One Two. Just FYI, the skipper informed me that the target boat is small, fast and under radio control so it is going to be a bitch to put down. There'll be a control boat about two miles to the north of the target. DON'T go after the control. It's painted white while the target is sea green so even you blind bastards ought to be able to stay away from it. Now let's wait for the Crickets to get out of the way and we'll take off in standard order, One through Six."

"Any questions?"