The glow of the dim cabin lights came back on. It felt as if the plane were flying sideways instead of forward.
The sensation got worse, as if the jet were upside down.
“Brad, are we flying okay? If feels like we’re slipping sideways. Now it seems like we’re upside down.”
“It happens, sir. After a while being tossed around like this, your inner ears get confused. Down becomes up, left feels like right. If it’ll help I’ll bring up an artificial horizon on your display aft.”
The display came up, the ball in the center of the screen representing the horizon, the superimposed wings of their own plane showing the craft diving slightly. A gust of turbulence hit the plane, tossing Pacino into the side of the cockpit. The horizon dipped to the left, the right wing turning toward the earth. Shearson brought the wings level again. Seeing the instrument seemed to help a little.
“How far to the carrier?”
“About fifteen minutes, sir. We’re descending now.
But I’m telling you, I can’t do this on instruments. If we have no visibility lower than a thousand feet, we’re scrubbing the landing.”
“No we’re not. I mean it, Shearson. I don’t care if you smash this thing on the deck, you get me to the Reagan.”
Comdr. Toshumi Tanaka watched as the linehandlers cast off the lines from the Curtain of Flames and let the heavy manila ropes sink into the sea. The cleats on the deck of the Curtain of Flames had automatically released the lines now that they were at the mouth of Tokyo Bay and into the deeper waters of the Pacific. The Curtain of Flames barely had enough sense to put its rudder over to port to pull slowly away from Winged Serpent without smashing its stern into Tanaka’s ship. Tanaka watched as the Curtain of Flames steamed off to the southwest, on its way to intercept the closest American aircraft carrier battle group. Once again, the Three-class computer ship got the choicest mission, while Winged Serpent was to take station in the Sea of Japan to make sure the Russian shipping to supply the Home Islands was not interrupted.
Tanaka boiled with frustration. The Sea of Japan was the last place he would put the Winged Serpent. Such a capable, well-trained crew aboard a magnificent submarine of the Maritime SDF should not be wasted on such a ridiculous mission. But he could let none of this attitude show on his face or in his manner.
Besides, he would be too busy to think about it in a matter of minutes. They were at the dive point, time to get the ship submerged.
The F-14 bounced all the way down into its descent.
Pacino looked back at the wings, both of them snapping so hard that he was sure they would break off at any minute.
The altitude on the display board kept unwinding, now at 10,000 feet. The artificial horizon swirled and jogged as the wind tossed the aircraft. Pacino kept his eyes outside, trying to find the lights of the carrier.
Shearson was on the radio to the Reagan, trying to put the plane down on the deck of the ship, which would be tossing on the high seas.
The rain seemed to get worse as they passed below 5000 feet, the blasting noise of it louder than the jets.
The altimeter continued to unwind, the artificial horizon still swirling. They were running on vapors, with fuel enough for one, maybe two passes.
Pacino strained his eyes for lights and found nothing but the driving rain reflected in Shearson’s landing lights.
The plane took a dramatic bump upward, Pacino’s stomach left in the footwells, then an equally impressive dive.
Shearson’s nose pulled right, then left, then right again, then another bump up and a slam down. The jets outside were whining, then screaming as Shearson powered up, then whispering again as he throttled back. It occurred to Pacino then that he was going to die, and he had absolutely no control over the situation. This was entirely different from being shot at by a torpedo. At least then he had a submarine under his command, a horse beneath him, but now all he could do was ride, crash and drown.
He glanced at the altimeter and saw that they were at 900 feet, lower than the requisite 1000 to see the carrier, and there was nothing ahead of them but rain shimmering in the landing lights. He looked ahead, straining to see the lights of the carrier. He tried to ignore the onset of vertigo as the plane took another thrashing, bouncing sideways and then up and down and up again.
The odd feeling of flying with one wing down came, then became worse as it felt like he was hanging from his harness upside down in the plane. He kept trying to ignore the feeling, pounding on his helmet to see if that would help his inner ears, but it did nothing.
They were too low and there was no sign of the carrier — he saw lights. “Brad! There! The carrier!”
“I don’t—”
“Fifteen degrees right!” “Roger,” Shearson said, turning the plane.
