29 August 0200 Local

25 Kilometers East of Caipiriha, Brazil

1000 Meters ASL

29 August

0200 Local

The old bird was acting a bit sluggish.  The rear gear had kissed the deck at about where the Number Three Wire would have been deployed.  It would have been a textbook take-off.  The bang of the gear hitting the deck followed by the roar of the twin afterburning turbofans blasting him away from the deck was then followed by another, more distant and totally frightening sound.  It felt as though something had hit his aircraft.

Flight Lieutenant Ricoletto Adonja knew that he would have to sit down and have a very long debriefing with his crew chief and the flight crew that serviced his aircraft.  His brain spun, trying to think of what might be the problem.  His eyes flashed to the three large multifunction displays and then all of the instruments in the darkened cockpit.  He cautiously waggled the flight stick and knew that something was wrong.  It was almost as if something was stuck in one of the large elevators at the rear of his two seat Brazilian Navy F-18B.           

“Bull Base, this is Simon Two Two Three,” Adonja spoke into the oxygen mask that was affixed to his face.  Now came the part that he dreaded. 

“Simon Two Two Three, this is Bull Base, over,” came the deadpan voice of the American Naval air controller sitting in his air-conditioned workstation 10 miles away, in the heart of the mammoth USS John Adams. 

Adonja hated even the appearance of weakness or incompetence in his personal life and he, like the majority of his countrymen, positively despised it in the face of foreigners, much less American naval personnel.  He was currently participating in Operation Southern Resolve XI, a joint American, Brazilian and Argentinean air and naval exercise that had been held every spring for the past eleven years.    

Southern Resolve exercises had begun in the late 1990’s and although they weren’t even consecutively numbered until Resolve VI, they were a good chance for the Brazilian and Argentinean navies and air forces a chance to meet and greet with their neighbors to the north.  The Americans typically sent one of their newest carriers, equipped with the latest aircraft and showed off to the less advanced officers and men of Brazil and Argentina.  The exercises typically involved some war games, exchange of some officers and crew to see how the other navies performed, and some flight exercises.  Adonja was currently involved in the latter.  His flights of four F-18’s were practicing landing on the large, flat expanse of Adams’s flight deck.  The Adams was the newest American aircraft carrier, a Ford class and recently commissioned.  The Adams was the thirteenth in a line of what soon would be fourteen of the mightiest military vessels ever to see service.  Unfortunately she was now dwarfed by even larger cruise ships. Adonja was always amused that the newest cruise ships might be twice the size of the floating city that slowly diminished behind him.  The Adams was nicknamed “The Bull”, after her famous namesake.  The Adams displaced approximately 104,000 tons and with the aid of two nuclear power plants was able to perform approximately 50 knots under the right conditions. 

The Adams was the first super carrier to incorporate stealth into her design.  Her massive bulk, although identical to the other twelve Nimitz class carriers in the American fleet, was almost featureless.  She had a relatively small sloping superstructure that rose ten meters above the flight deck.  There were as few right angles on the Adams as the naval architects could manage.  The huge vessel was a study in angles and curves.  Her hull painted a faintly mottled grey color, appeared to blend into the haze, even on a moderately clear day.

“Bull Base, Simon Two Two Three, I am experiencing a bit of delay in my control surfaces.  Situation is not critical, but am calling off touch and go for this mover, requesting vector to Bravo Base,” Adonja said, hoping that the sound of his teeth grinding in embarrassment wouldn’t be heard by the air controller or anyone else on the frequency.

“Understood Simon Two Two Three, vector is one eight five, range two five kilometers.  Transmit telemetry to us on Freq Two Alpha in five. Over.”

Adonja’s fingers flew over the controls.  In an instant he has transmitted the output of his avionics and diagnostic computers to the American aircraft carrier.  He’d rather have the damn Yankee just let him head back to his own carrier, the Brazilian Navy’s Minas Gerais, which was currently steaming twenty five miles to the south.

Adonja detected movement in his peripheral vision.  His fingers reflexively tensed over the appropriate controls that would arm his aircraft’s single AIM-9T missile, and the massive 20mm Gatling gun in the nose of his old bird.  His head snapped around and he caught a glimpse of the source of the movement.  There it was – behind, a bit lower and about ten kilometers distant from him.  He immediately recognized as one of the Adams’s F-35B fighters.  Adonja quickly estimated that the approaching fighter was moving supersonic, as he was flying at about three hundred knots, and the American fighter was rapidly closing the distance.   Adonja could not help but admire the deadly beauty of the fighter that approached.  It was the successor to the F/A-18 series of fighters that had served the American navy for so long.  Stealthy and fast, the F-35 was the envy of most the world’s navies and air forces. 

“Simon Two Two Three, we are vectoring in Jolly One One to your position to visually inspect.  Our diagnostics are showing no failure in avionics or fly by wire.”

“No shit,” Adonja thought.  His own on board instruments had told him that.  “That concurs with my data, Bull Base.  I am maintaining heading, speed and altitude, have Jolly One visually.”

“See-moan Two Two,” The Yankee’s drawl was almost nauseatingly stereotypical.  Adonja had the fortune of being an exchange midshipman at the Untied States Naval Academy and had grown to both like and loathe the US Naval Aviators.  The little humility amongst the American flying class had done little to endear some of them to Adonja during his four years at Annapolis and two years of US Navy Flight training.  The Americans had built the planes he would teach Brazil’s young pilots to fly, so they were kind enough to pick up the tab of Adonja’s education.  Adonja was a brand new instructor pilot and flight leader assigned to Brazil’s largest aircraft carrier, the Minas Gerais.  He had almost three hundred carrier landings under his belt and fifteen hundred hours in the F-18 alone.  Adonja loved to fly fast fighter planes.  He loved figuring out how to shoot down other fast fighter planes even more.

The fighter that was fast approaching would be, in such an environment, a definite challenge.  He remembered as a youngster surfing the internet for pictures of the latest military aircraft that the Americans produced.  When he first saw the F-35, it was an experimental aircraft known as the X-35, and it enthralled him.  Visually similar to the larger F-22 Raptor, the F-35 was smaller and cheaper to build. It came in three versions.  A consortium of US companies were building a version for the US Air Force, a larger winged version for the US Navy, and a vertical landing version for the US Marines and British Royal Navy.  In fact the F-35 was the reason that Adonja was currently in the aircraft he was.  When the Americans switched to the F-35, they began to sell or give away their older “obsolete” aircraft.  Adonja had no illusions that the fighter he was in was still more than a match for any other aircraft in the sky.  But, at this point Adonja knew that the American approaching could swat him from the sky without so much as breathing hard. 

The US Navy fighter was then upon him.  He approached from the right rear.

“See-moan Two Two, this is Jolly One, please maintain speed and heading.  I’m going to take a quick look- see.”

“Roger that, Jolly One One.  Feels like one of the elevators may be obstructed. Going to have to let my flight crew chew me a new one for banging up their bird,” Adonja threw in the bit of American slang to appear friendlier than he actually felt.  Adonja had always hated the sometimes condescending attitude that some of his acquaintances at Annapolis and Pensacola occasionally showed foreign officers.  He did not want to have to be rescued by the Americans!

“Sea-moan Two, I think you may be off the hook with your flight crew.  Looks like you have a big fat seagull frapped in your port elevator. It does indeed look like the control surface itself might be damaged.  Probably hit it on your way out of the last touch and go you performed.  They’ll review the camera footage on Bull Base to see if they can see anything.  You might be able to go into a steep climb to see if you can clear the bird bones out of your control surfaces, but-“ 

“But, if I try that and the surface locks, I’ll go for a real expensive swim,” Adonja cut the American off, having already thought of that, and gingerly trying it a few times. 

“Simon Two Two, Jolly One One, this is Angel One.  Bravo Base is reporting problems with her arresting gear.  Bravo Base commander is requesting all Simon flight divert to Caipirinha.  Simon Two Two, you are cleared to land – immediate – Bull Base, for repairs.  Jolly One One, follow Simon Two Two in and then orbit for catch, over,” the deadpan accent-less voice of the air traffic controller on the Adams had been replaced by a vaguely female voice.  Angel One was the call sign of the orbiting E-2F Hawkeye, a veritably ancient, propeller-driven airplane, crammed full of the most expensive and advanced search, target acquisition radar and air traffic control systems known to man.  Adonja knew from the message that his own carrier, the pride of the Brazilian Navy, was hobbled by a fault in her arresting wires, the very wires that would stop a hurtling airplane and allow it to land on a moving carrier deck.  Adonja pushed his helmeted head back against the head restraint of his ejection seat, trying to relax.  He cursed his spotty luck.  Sometimes his luck was good, such as getting the posting to fly fighter planes and defend his country.  Sometimes luck ran the other way and made him have to be rescued by the Yankees.

Adonja put the F-18 into a lazy turn, and began to dump the majority of the remainder of his fuel, not wanting to tempt the fates further.  He cut back a bit on the throttle to drop his altitude and looked out and saw the enormous American carrier.  Even though Adonja had actually been on the flight deck of a Nimitz class carrier during his time working with the US Navy, he still could not quite get used to a carrier with such a small island, a comparatively tiny superstructure.  His naval mind knew the reasons for getting rid of it, stealth and greater protection that a bridge inside the hull would afford the command crew, but something in him made him miss the elegant chaos of steel and glass that was the island of a traditional aircraft carrier. 

Keeping his lazy turn and obeying the every command of Angel One, Bull Base, and Jolly One, he edged his damaged aircraft to the rear of the massive black strip that was tearing through the Atlantic a few kilometers ahead. 

“See-moan Two, do you have NAVE on that bird?”  Jolly One asked.

“Roger that Jolly.  I have NAVE 326 Key 4 on board.  Bull Base I am activating NAVE now,” Adonja said as he activated the landing assistance computer.

“Wait one, Simon, recalibrating to 326 Key 4.”  Adonja knew that the computers on the American ship were now reaching invisibly out over the waves to make contact with the slightly older computers on board his aircraft.  Naval Aviation Visual Enhancement was a recent addition to the tools available to the naval aviator.  It fused the data from a myriad of different sensors on the carrier, the aircraft in question and even the radar systems on the escort ships of the Adams’s battle group.  It allowed the officers on the carrier, in extreme circumstances, to land the aircraft without any input from a possibly injured, or unconscious, pilot.  In most instances, like now, it was used to assist the pilot of a damaged aircraft safely land.  To Adonja, he saw the flight path he was to take into the desk jump out from the back of the carrier as a red sheet of glass, suspended in mid air.  He knew that it was merely a function of the advanced Heads Up Display of his aircraft interpreting the data from the NAVE System.  He felt the throttle move up almost imperceptibly as the programming corrected for his inconsequential lack of power. 

“NAVE is up and I am running in with about five thousand pounds, I am in positive glide path and NAVE has throttle,” Adonja said, feeling adrenaline begin to run cold through the veins of his arms.

“See-moan, see you on the deck.  Bull Base, Jolly One One, he’s yours.”  Adonja saw the F-35 accelerate ahead and bank off to the right. 

“Roger that Simon, we’re into the wind and are ready to receive.  See you on the deck, you have the ball.”

With NAVE on, I don’t need the damned ball, Adonja wanted to shout.  He was angered because with the NAVE system activated his actions against the flight controls would be registered on board the hulking shape bobbing about in the blackness.  They would be able to grade his approach and landing, nitpicking his every deviation from the textbook norm that the computer calculated.  He could see that the directional lights on the fantail of the ship were where they should be and he could see the glowing wands of the Landing Signal officer clearly.  “Bull base, I have the ball, out.”

Adonja was starting to get a bit concerned.  The sluggishness of the controls was becoming more pronounced.  He knew if he kept on the NAVE flight path then he would be just fine, but realized that he now felt as though he was flying in darkness with an aircraft that was mired in a huge vat of porridge.  Any deviation in wind or direction could leave him splashed, aflame, across the fantail of a brand new aircraft carrier.

Just like the exercise, Adonja thought.  He heard “Deck!” in his headphones as the LSO informed all that the F-18B was over the flight deck.  Adonja’s training flashed his hands through a series of movements.  The old Hornet met the deck in the style of the controlled crash that carrier sailors and airmen like to call a perfectly executed three wire landing.  The Hornet dropped from two hundred knots to a dead stop in under two seconds.  The G forces pushed him forward against his harness, away from the ejection seat and then his left hand yanked the throttle back and the engine roar died down.  Adonja knew he had made a perfectly executed carrier landing in a damaged aircraft in the dead of night, on a foreign vessel in moderately rough seas.  He had felt no resistance in the throttle or control stick during the final phase of the landing.  Adonja smiled as he followed the instructions to flight deck handler waving his glowing wands.  Pride exploded in him.  He deactivated the microphone in his helmet and screamed in adulation.  Upon command he parked his aircraft and began the process of shutting it down.  He opened the canopy and the flight deck handler was already up on the ladder.  A deck chief, alien in appearance with her bulky helmet and protective goggles leaned in and shouted over the din of the wind and the flight deck.        

“Nice landing, sir!”

Adonja pulled off his helmet and skull cap, and smiled, his white teeth momentarily flaring in the white hot blast of an F-35 being flung off of the front of the carrier.  “Thanks, chief! Permission to come aboard?”

“Granted, sir!  You should see your tail!” She assisted him in deplaning.  Once on the deck, he noticed two men scuttling over to him, as he began use his small flashlight to look at his damaged aircraft.  The left tail elevator looked as though it had been hit by a rather angry giant, but there were some remains of the unlucky avian still smashed into the torn metal.  The men arrived, Adonja turned to them and executed a perfect hand salute to the two arriving officers, both of whom returned the salute. 

“Permission to come aboard, gentlemen?”  Adonja asked regally, quite pleased with himself, his blood awash in adrenaline.          

“Granted, Flight Lieutenant!   Helluva landing!  Wish my boys and girls could do that every time!  I’m Tanner, John Tanner, and I’m one of the duty officers. Let’s leave Simon Two Two in the hands of our maintenance folks and see if we don’t get below before the rain sets in.  How ‘bout a drink?”

Adonja tipped his head to the other, taller man.  A rather grave and normally sour expression was currently quite pleasant. “Only if Fleet Admiral Renos will permit me.  I am after all, on duty.” 

Renos, then in an action that almost frightened Adonja to the point of incoherence, smiled at the young pilot and extended his hand and took Adonja’s and shook it warmly.  “My boy, you have done us proud this night!”  The man said in Portuguese, his eyes alight.  Switching to lightly accented English, Fleet Admiral Ignacio Paulos Javier Renos, continued, “I suppose we can make an exception, which is if our American hosts would allow it.  They reached the door in the side of the sloped, smooth superstructure, just as an F-35 screamed in to land.  The state-of-the-art warplane snagged the two wire and screamed to a halt. 

“Not bad landing, eh, Lieutenant?”  Adonja heard in Portuguese, from Renos who was already inside the superstructure, “Not bad, but a bit sloppy, eh?”  Adonja smiled back at the commander in chief of the entire Brazilian Navy.  Adonja was afraid to respond, hoping the American officer behind him hadn’t heard the Admiral’s disrespectful comments.  He felt a tap on his shoulder.  Commander Tanner leaned into Adonja and pointed to the recently arrived aircraft. 

“That’s Jolly One One, piloted by Captain Lyle.  We’ll make our way to the wardroom, and he’ll join us in a few minutes,” Tanner said, as he pulled the bulkhead door shut and dogged it secure. 

The US Navy Staff officer led the Chief of Staff of the Brazilian Navy and one of the best carrier pilots in the history of Brazilian naval aviation into heart of one of the most powerful naval vessels on the planet. 

Captain Steven Lyle, USN, Chief, Aviation Wing of the USS John Adams, never entered a room.  He always exploded into it.  Lyle was not a small man.  In fact he just barely was able to qualify for the rigors of Naval Aviation training.  Lyle always had prided himself on his home state and decided at an early age that it would be necessary to exude pure Texas from every pore.  A bold, friendly, competitive spirit, Lyle turned heads whenever and wherever he was.  Lyle was an accomplished aviator and a competent staff officer, a blend that every naval aviator needed but did not always have.  He inspired confidence, both in his subordinates, but also in his superiors.  One knew that with Lyle on the case, you’d either have a competently completed job or one pissed off Texan ghost on your hands. 

“Good evening, gentlemen!”  Exclaimed Lyle as he, true to form, entered the Officer’s Mess.  Assembled inside were a number of officers, some on duty, and some off, all seemingly quite pleased.  Some appeared to be quite pleased to have liquor in hand.  At the center of the attention were two foreign officers, one in the process of unfastening his G-Suit and survival vest.  The other was a tall, kind of scary looking officer with a whole lot of gold and silver on his epaulets.  That one would be the Fleet Admiral, thought Lyle.  “Evenin’ Admiral Renos!  You should be quite proud of that boy!”  Lyle extended his hand.  Damn fine job of putting that bird on down!  Hell, he had a better landing than I did tonight!”

The visage on the officer split and what Lyle assumed must be what the Admiral passed as a smile appeared.  “I am quite pleased with his performance, indeed, Captain!  Also, I would like to thank your flight operations staff and yourself for not allowing a damned bird from depriving us of a serviceable airframe and one of our best pilots.  Here!”

Lyle accepted the offered white coffee mug from the Admiral.  A golden, thick liquid swirled about within it.  Lyle took an experimental swig.  Potently sweet liquor smashed into his taste buds and burned its way clear down to his stomach.

“Never experienced Cachaca before, Captain?”  The Admiral said. 

“No, Sir.  Sweet, ain’t it?”

“Product of sugar cane, similar to rum, but it has certain…”

“’Enthusiasm’ the word you’re looking for, sir?”  A new voice spoke.  Rear Admiral Gerald McCauley, Commanding Officer of the Adams battle group strode into the room, immediately followed by two aides. 

“Yes, I believe it would be that, exactly Admiral!”  Said the normally taciturn Renos, who much to Adonja’s surprise was turning into quite the life of the party.  Adonja had never met the Fleet Admiral before tonight, but had heard a myriad of tales describing those unfortunate enough to meet the wrath of Renos.  Renos was a career naval officer, before assuming his nation’s highest naval post, he had commanded both of Brazil’s aircraft carriers and had pioneered a cooperative relationship with the larger and more technologically advanced American Navy.  It was rumored that Renos was even trying to persuade the higher echelons of Brazil’s government to try to purchase one of the older Nimitz class carriers from the American Navy.  Adonja returned his attention to the rather attractive pilot who he had been speaking with.  Carol was her name, if he remembered correctly.

The rest of the evening proceeded quite amicably.  Being the last night of the exercise, the Americans were in high sprits.  The contingent of visiting Brazilian and Argentinean officers and crews came by the Officer’s Mess to pay their compliments to the Fleet Admiral and the battle group commander.  Adonja was even making some headway towards an invitation to Carol’s quarters, regaling her with tales of his days at the US Naval Academy.  He still nursed his original drink, having also downed several bottles of water from a cooler.  His rule of thumb, he quietly informed Carol and Captain Lyle, was never to drink too much in the presence of so much brass.

A crewman had come into the party about an hour later and had informed Captain Lyle that Adonja’s fighter had been repaired.  Lyle slapped Adonja on the back and claimed that he could now allow the Brazilian Navy to have him back.  Renos, laughing at something that Admiral McCauley had said, politely excused him self from the gaggle of officers and moved next to Adonja.

“Commander Sevich,” Adonja said to Carol, “I’m afraid I have to take the Flight Lieutenant home.”  Renos turned to Adonja, “Ricoletto, you’re driving.” Adonja didn’t know how the Fleet Admiral knew his name.

Adonja leveled the F-18B at about 25,000 feet, after the steep climb up and out of the Adams’s airspace.  Leaving the ship was much more uneventful than the arrival.  The young flight Lieutenant and Fleet Admiral of the Brazilian Navy had suited up, thanked their hosts, and boarded the fighter plane.  The Adams’s starboard bow catapult flung them into the air, and Adonja had, according to orders, aimed the fighter skyward and accelerated straight up.  The repaired control surface was behaving normally, and everything was just fine in Adonja’s world.  The scene outside the canopy was magical.  The stars shone brightly in their multitude.  The clouds below the sleek fighter shone with the touch of moonlight cast by the waning crescent moon.  Ahead, in the distance, the clouds glowed faintly, warmly covering the brightly lit coastal town of Caipiriha. 

“Lieutenant, can you please check in with the tower at Caipiriha, and let them know that we are diverting to Oshka Base?  I’ll input the GPS information,” Adonja replied that he would, and while speaking with the air traffic controller of Caipiriha, his brain whirled.  He had never heard of an Oshka Base.  He looked down at the MFD, and noted the coordinates as the Admiral entered them.  The coordinates appeared to be about three hundred miles inland.  Quite actually in the middle of nowhere, right on the northeast bank of the Amazon. 

“As ordered, sir.”  Adonja wanted to ask just where the hell they were headed, but thought better of it.  He adjusted the heading of the aircraft, set the throttle a bit lower and adjusted the trim, all to make the aircraft use the fuel on board most efficiently.  He heard a laugh over the interphone from the seat behind him. 

“I imagine that you are probably wondering just where the hell I am taking you and your marvelous aircraft,”

“I am curious, sir.”

“Can you please ensure that the communications system is off, that we are not transmitting any signals?”

Adonja knew that the system was not transmitting, but he quickly deactivated the radio system.  “Done, sir.”

“Lieutenant, you are going to rue the day you landed this airplane on that carrier.”

Adonja’s stomach dropped. 

“You exceeded everyone’s expectations, so now I am going to ratchet the expectations a little higher.  I am going to select you for a position that will have you doing some very difficult things.  You will, of course, continue your current duties, but over the next eighteen months you are going to spearhead a program that will pave the way to introduce F-35 fighters into the inventories of the Navy and Air Force.  In two months we will receive the first of three airframes that you are going to use to train a cadre of pilots to operate.  You will instruct these pilots in all aspects of naval aviation and work with our American brothers on how best to operate and maintain them.  Do you understand, Lieutenant?  You are going to forge a path and use the treasure the people of our nation give to us to defend them against all enemies.  This is a plum assignment.  If you decide that this assignment might be too much to handle, I will of course understand and you will return to your duties with no stain on your record.”

Adonja felt faint.  “S-sir, i-it would be my dream to, sir,” he stammered.  He had no choice.  He was a fighter pilot and wanted to fly the best and the fastest of fighters.  The fact that his country was going to invest so much precious capital on fighter planes for him, amazed him, and took him aback.  Adonja felt tears welling up.  He soaked up the tears with the back of his Nomex flight glove, hoping his movement would not be obvious to the officer sitting behind him. 

“Excellent!  I was looking for a highly competent pilot and officer to head up our F-35 program, and it appears that fate smiles on me tonight!  Our base at Oshka has the necessary documentation and a simulator that the Americans are giving to us, in the hopes that we decide to buy hundreds of them.  Before we left the Adams I contacted the Gerais and informed Admiral Willis that you would be reassigned.  One of the pilots at Oshka will ferry this fighter back out to the Gerais.  What a night!  You have done very well, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir.  I appreciate the confidence.  May I ask what your plans are once we reach the base?”  Adonja asked, trying to make conversation hoping small talk might calm the roiling nervousness in the pit of his stomach.

“Well, I plan on getting some sleep, having a hearty breakfast, and then resigning as the Chief of Staff of the Navy.  I will also be reduced in rank to Admiral and put in charge of a very special project.  You will be involved in one small facet of a much larger operation.”

He felt his heart race. The dreams of his youth were coming to fruition!  Adonja figured that he may as well jump in with both feet, “So it is true that we are going to purchase one of the Nimitz from the Americans?” Adonja asked nervously.

Renos chucked, “You could put it that way,” Adonja could hear the Admiral shifting about in the ejection seat and harness trying to be more comfortable.  “Actually, Lieutenant, within the next year, we hope to command at least three of them.”