Page 43 of Confessions of an Apache Pilot

“Archer flight, what’s your status? Are you or the ground forces being engaged? Send a Situation Report.”

Rolling my eyes, I grumbled under my breath. That was Ross’s voice talking too much on the radio. I didn’t need him playing Twenty Questions, and my response showed it. “Situation is launch team two right now. I’ll brief them en route. I’ll brief you later. Tell them to launch now!” Gritting my teeth, I tried to hold back my anger. It never failed to piss me off when people not in the fight wanted updates while we were busy trying to keep everyone alive.

There was a brief pause before Ross responded. “Team two is launching. I still need…”

I turned that radio off. The only thing I needed was for the second team to launch and get here before we ran out of ammo. I also knew that Ross would hound me endlessly for updates that he didn’t need yet while I was busy shooting. So, I muted him and continued scanning for targets.

After the initial barrage, a cat and mouse game started. The individual buildings all butted up against each other, effectively making structures that ranged from fifty meters long to nearly five-hundred. Muzzle flashes would light up a window only to disappear as the shit stains ran off into another building and fired again. While this was happening the Beards were trying to clear the buildings that their target was supposed to be in.

It was fast becoming a nightmare for all of us. We couldn’t see into the buildings, and they couldn’t clear them fast enough to keep their targets from moving to another location. What started off as a quick “snatch and grab” turned into seizing and controlling a whole village.

Artie laid down suppressive fire along the courtyard and windows that the insurgents were firing from. We couldn’t risk putting rounds into the buildings, not yet. Intel had told us that there were no civilians here. But they’d also told us that the landing zone was safe, that there were less than a half dozen total people here, and that the village was otherwise abandoned. They were wrong about the landing zone, wrong about the six people, they could be wrong about civilians, too.

“Brady, keep your fire along their escape route, keep the targets pinned down so that Jaguar and his team can move in on them. We’ll keep the others pinned on this side of the village.”

Hissing out a frustrated breath, I tried to hold everything together as our nightmare continued. The constant vigilance was making my head throb. We were split up, and although we were still in visual distance, we were focused on two separate objectives. It was making it difficult to keep up with what was happening.

I wanted to authorize Artie to start dropping missiles into the buildings, to clear out all the sniper fire. But the risk of civilian casualties was too high. We needed to confirm that there were only hostiles in the village. For now, the best we could do was keep everyone pinned down and let the Green Berets complete their mission and hope no one got hurt.

CHAPTER 24

Mark

Finally, team two arrived on scene. We passed on the current situation and moved out of their way. We were low on ammo and fuel, forcing us to head back to the base. It made my gut roil to leave before a dangerous mission was finished, but I had zero choice. I always preferred to finish what I started. Thankfully, I knew the other crew's abilities. We were leaving the Beards in good hands.

I turned the Ops radio back on and called to update the Battle Captain. Ross was pissed that I’d been ignoring him, but that was his problem. He’d never understand that the safety of my guys on the ground and in the air would come before his stupid reports. Unless he was in the battle he wasn’t in the ‘need to know’ loop until after the excitement died down. That wasn’t the way he’d see it, but it didn’t fucking matter. He didn’t matter.

We pulled into the refueling area and our guys jumped into action. They were loading ammunition and preparing the fuel hoses to refill us. I turned the air battle net frequency back on so that I could listen to the fight and start to figure out what our next move would be once we got back out there.

It sounded like they had the battle isolated to the western quadrant of the village now. The targets were trying to make a run to the hills, but team two was ruining that idea. My smile was sharp and wicked as I listened to Cochran, team two’s commander, give his gunner the order to fire.

The Beards had the insurgents cut off from using the buildings to move to the east, so now all they had to do was clear building to building. And then the nine-line came in. One of the Green Berets was injured.

My heart sank and my gut twisted. Not only for the man who was injured, but because that meant Jen and her crew were being called and I wasn’t there.

Fuck that.

They were nearly done with refueling. I looked across the ramp and saw Jen and her team loading into their helicopter. They moved at an impressive speed and now I could understand how they managed to get to our locations so quickly. They ran like a well-oiled machine. Appreciation for that level of ability filled me. They didn’t fuck around. They took their jobs and the lives of others seriously.

Fuck, it just makes her so much hotter.

“Brady, we have to go. Now,” I called over the radio. There was no way I was letting Jen and her team go into the battle without being there to cover her. As much as I trusted our secondary Apache team, Jen belonged to me. I was going to be the one watching over her. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with that job.

“We’re about done. What’s the rush?”

“Nine-line just dropped. MED is running up. We don’t want them getting there before we’re in place.” Jen wasn’t about to wait on us to get there. That wasn’t the kind of pilot, or soldier, she was. I didn’t say why we needed to be there before them, or why I was worried that they would beat us there. Just knowing that our second team was going to be low on ammo was enough to light a fire under my ass. It was my job to relay that urgency to my crew.

I didn’t have to. They knew that my concern for Jen was…more than professional. Add to that, if team two ran out of ammo before we were set, the Beards would be left without air support. Everyone would be in deep shit then. I’d do everything in my power to make sure that didn’t happen. Santos and his crew rushed around, finishing up so we could fire up our helos.

Santos met my gaze, giving me a thumbs up. I’d owe him later. He’d worked his team double time to make sure we were out of there in the shortest amount of time possible. The fuelers cleared the hoses and we took off, pulling max power all the way back to the fight. I didn’t give a shit if it used more fuel. We needed the head start, the MED unit was too fast for us to keep pace, so the only option was to take off early and haul ass. Jen would only be a few minutes behind us.

“Perfect timing,” Cochran remarked, as we flew into the area.

“Good work,” I replied, after I got his update on what was happening below us. “We’ve got it for now.”

“Happy hunting,” Cochran responded, “We’ll refuel and head back this way, though hopefully you’ll have the chance to clear this rat’s nest out before then.”

I watched as he and his wingman turned their aircraft back toward the base. The fighting had paused while the Green Berets tended to their wounded man and the hostiles waited to see what they would do. We took up our orbit above the site and waited as well.

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