Everyone’s Coming Home
Antoine stood on the deck, clutching his father’s dog tags. Out past the iron deck, the waves crashed over each other and rolled past silently. The wind was howling as it usually did, and the dull roar of engines, machinery, and the ship’s own powerplant drowned out the noise of the sea as the grey ship slowly pushed forward. There were only a few times in his life he felt genuine fear, and Antoine could feel it rising in him now. What for? I’ve been training for this. I know what I need to do. His eyes searched the sea, looking for reassurance from the cold and roiling waters, ever-present and unwavering.
Behind him, the flight deck was becoming more and more active. Fifteen Minutes to Launch Position came the static call of the 1MC’s loudspeaker, booming above the dull roar of the action on the deck. Helicopters began slowly riding the fore and aft elevators up to the deck, where deck crews were hurriedly pushing them into position, unfolding the rotor blades and performing preflight checks. Not a minute after the first helo was spotted forward of the bridge, the next helo would be raised up and brought into position. The crews were working overtime, moving helicopters with tugs, dollies and even by hand to ensure they all made it up on top by Zero hour. On Crater Bay, the helicopters were becoming as dense as a forest, while Antoine looked out to the other helicopter carrier in the formation, the Atreus’ own Spearhead, and could hear the distant scream of APUs firing up in preparation to launch the close air support Z-40s on their deck. It was a two ship operation, despite the nearly dozen warships arrayed in formation around them, the Crater Bay and Spearhead would be where all the action took place. Spearhead was a few minutes early, the Harriers getting off the deck to make space for more helos in due time to allow both ship’s aircraft to form up together without wasting fuel. The Harriers would be off first and head to the jumpoff point to keep the skies clear for the helicopters as they made their way through the channel north of Ikonia.
That was all Antoine knew about the Harriers on this mission. He was a helo pilot, and a pretty good one at that. He had been flying his whole life, from sitting in his father’s lap piloting a C-7 in Zokesia, to being promoted to aircraft commander of a ZH-66R Greyhawk II antisubmarine helo. It was his life, his job, and his passion. But this flight would be different. He wasn’t going on a routine antisubmarine patrol like so many other times. His mission was given to him at the last minute, as the task force sailed from Foresti, to fly with the elite 21st Airborne, the Black Eagles, on an extraction mission to take out a very bad man. He was to fly on the wing of their sleek black Greyhawks and support the landings on Syx island, a task he had trained for but never done in real life, let alone under fire. There was antiaircraft fire expected, and the 21st needed to ensure they would have the aircraft required to extract downed crews, the target, and any other key intel figures who would need to be whisked away in the operation, so the ZH-66s of VH-4 “Black Knights” would be coming along with them. This was the source of Antoine’s fear. Pushing the pit in his stomach down, he put away his father’s dogtags and turned to see his aircraft for the mission coming up the elevator, ground crew hurriedly pushing it to the back of the ship and out of the way before moving onto the next aircraft.
He walked up to the aircraft, painted gull grey and barely reflecting what little light they had from the moonlight above. The clouds were getting in the way and it would make this night darker than normal, which was good for their chances of getting in and out alive. Walking slowly around the aircraft, Antoine put his hand on every panel, fixture, and moving surface, giving them a shimmy and inspecting them for security. Every step he took felt slower than the last, like time was crawling for him. The deck was now at an explosive level of noise, but behind the double hearing protection he wore, Antone could only here a muffled pulsation as the ZH-66 DAPs of the 21st lifted off the deck in pairs, followed by the Black Eagles. Five Minutes to Launch Position.
Most of the Black Eagles had launched by this point, the Harriers screaming out into the dark night ahead, invisible in the blackness. Antoine’s crew had loaded up the crew section of the helo with gear - fast rope, chemlights, food, emergency supplies, the standard loadout for an ASW mission. They wouldn’t have anything special for this mission besides the two extra jump seats sitting in the aft section of the crew compartment, empty and in the place of the usual ASW torpedoes. If someone had to ditch or went down over Syx, they’d need to pick them up and get them out. Everyone’s coming home, Antoine remembered from the briefing. They probably told his father the same thing, he thought. The final checks inside were done, and the deck crew with their luminescent wands began motioning for main engine startup. As he flipped the switch to begin spooling up the engines, the deck lurched and the ship began to roll as the task force began their swing west. It was the final maneuver of the task force before they would begin sailing up the slot. The helicopters would be in and out by the time they even made it near the Ikonian coastline, but the ships would be giving helicopters that much less distance to cover in the event of a fuel issue or winds turning unfavorable. It was the signal that his squadron of 10 ZH-66Rs would be launching imminently. As Crater Bay maneuvered, he spun up the main engines and went over before takeoff checklists with his copilot, before giving a thumbs up to the deck crew. The other helicopters were also turning and by this point the ground crew gave a sharp salute with his wand and ducked his head as he ran for the cover of the island. They were on their own now.
“Crater Base, this is Rhodie Flight, ready for departure.” Antoine radioed the carrier’s CATCC.
“Rhodie Flight this is Crater Base, cleared for takeoff, departure heading 300 climb and maintain 2,000.”
With that, Antoine pulled back on the collective and the Greyhawk lifted off the deck. He stabilized the ascent until his radar altimeter read 100 feet AGL, then pitched forward and began to pick up speed. They were forming up with the rest of the helo force in less than 10 minutes.