He couldn’t help thinking that the jet had spent decades in development and had been run through the wringer by test pilots at every phase. But, to his knowledge, nothing like this had ever happened before. If an experienced pilot like him had struggled to regain control, what would happen to a brand-new nugget pilot?
“What did you see out there? There’s some strange rumors,” Smitty said.
Colt cocked his head to the side. “What rumors?”
Was the entire air wing already talking about the TOPGUN pilot who CAG had kicked off the ship and recommended to a FNAEB? Was his reputation already so damaged that even if he managed to keep his wings and come back to the fleet, he’d be nothing more than a punch line? Reputation was everything in this business.
Smitty looked over both shoulders, but they were alone in the forward part of the wardroom. Their table was next to a large stainless steel contraption aviators lovingly referred to as the “dog machine,” and it hummed a low harmonic that drowned out the surrounding noise. Satisfied he wouldn’t be overheard, Smitty leaned even closer. “What did you
Colt leaned back in his chair as it dawned on him. Smitty wasn’t talking about Colt’s insubordination, alleged flat-hatting, and subsequent exile from the carrier. He wasn’t talking about almost crashing into a warship and dying. He was talking about those glowing orbs that had been harassing the
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly.
“Some of the Hawkeye guys said there were drones or something?”
Colt had to hand it to him. He was trying every angle he could think of to get the tight-lipped pilot to spill his guts. But as much as he wanted to validate or disprove whatever theory Smitty had concocted in his head, he didn’t have much to go on.
“I just saw lights, man.”
“Lights?”
“Yeah. Just lights. Like ten or so swirling around the ship.” Colt let go of his plastic cup and circled his hands around it like it was a tin can full of sailors instead of a chalice for his root beer. “I don’t know what they were, but then they…”
The memory of the terrifying moments flooded back to the forefront of his thoughts and froze him.
“They what?”
Did the orbs disappear after he’d regained control of his jet? Was it just a coincidence? Though his body still vibrated from the raw fear that had gripped him in those moments, he couldn’t be certain his memory was accurate. Maybe he had the timing wrong. Maybe it didn’t even matter.
He looked up at Smitty. “They just disappeared.”
The Marine pilot furrowed his brow, clearly not satisfied with the eyewitness testimony. “What did they look like?”
Colt picked up his root beer and took another sip. Though he thought it likely his jet’s strange behavior was linked to the orbs in some way, he knew he needed somebody to listen to his concerns. And not how CAG had listened with open skepticism, but with earnestness. “Listen, forget the lights.”
“Were they UFOs?”
Colt shook his head. “Forget the lights. There’s something more important you need to know.”
“What?” Smitty’s dubious look disappeared, and he leaned in again, waiting for Colt to drop a bombshell on him.
“I think there’s something wrong with the jet’s software. Something happened tonight, and I lost total control.”
Smitty’s eyes grew wide, but he remained silent.
“The jet rolled in on a perfect thirty-degree dive targeting the cruiser. It wouldn’t respond to any of my control inputs, and I almost crashed right into the ship. At the last minute, I regained control and almost blacked out trying to recover. I have no idea what could have caused it, but I need to figure it out before it happens again.”
“Does maintenance know?”
Colt nodded. “I wrote it up, and they ran it through a bunch of checks, but the skipper said they didn’t find anything. They’re going to sign off the MAF and send it up again.”
“Could not duplicate on deck,” Smitty said.
“Could not duplicate on deck,” Colt echoed, parroting the skipper’s own words. To aviators, it was a cop-out. It was maintenance control’s way of saying they investigated the pilot’s concern but found nothing to corroborate the gripe. It would be their way of dismissing his experience and signing it off safe-for-flight, believing as CAG did that the guest pilot had lost his mind.
“Why not get the raw data?” Smitty asked.
Colt opened his mouth to answer but snapped it shut. If he had the raw maintenance data, he could get it to somebody at Lockheed who understood the engineering of how the jet worked, somebody far smarter than a political science major from West Texas.
“Colt?”
But he would need more than just his jet’s data so they could compare his with one that hadn’t been possessed. Without another word, Colt got up from the table.
