Firstborn

“No.” Jason studied her face, which was now dead serious. As nice as Ms. Dazen had been upon first meeting, she was all business now. Turning, he hurried back across the hangar toward the locker room.

A short while later, Annie stood beside the bird as her crew prepared it for takeoff. She looked up at the light blue sky, which was filling with cumulus clouds, and surmised that a storm could result around 1600. Sweat trickled down her rib cage and she turned to see Trayhern trotting out of the hangar.

She was pleased to see that he took her request that they fly now seriously. There was a guarded look on his face and that was fine with her. Colonel Dugan had said to test him immediately on his flight capabilities. The colonel wanted to know just how good—or bad—Jason Trayhern was behind the stick of a helo. And so did she.

As he came up, Annie introduced him to her three-person flight crew. To her relief, he shook hands and murmured words of greeting to each. At least he had some sense of civility.

When he moved to where she stood near the step on the side of the Apache fuselage, Annie pulled on her fire-retardant flight gloves. “You get the lower cockpit.” Since she was pilot in charge, she could choose to sit in either spot. She preferred the upper cockpit because it gave her more visibility.

“I need the upper one,” he replied. “I fly better in that position.”

Hearing the steel in his tone, she smiled crookedly. “Do you always get what you want, Mr. Trayhern?” He was trying to intimidate her. On purpose? Or was it just his warrior attitude?

“Usually.” He saw the challenging glint in her eyes as they narrowed speculatively upon him. Annie was three inches shorter, but with her proud carriage and bearing, he could swear she was his height. Maybe it was her cocky Apache pilot stance. No one flew this combat bird who wasn’t an aggressive type A personality, someone who lived for confrontation.

“Not today, Mr. Trayhern. Now, climb up.” As she motioned to the dark green metal shield that covered one of the wheels of the helo, she saw him frown. This was the first test: would he take orders from a woman? Standing relaxed, she watched what looked like anger move across his face. Did Trayhern know how easy he was to read? He put the helmet on his head and fastened the strap beneath his square chin. She saw a couple of small scars on his smoothly shaved jaw. Had someone picked a fight with this guy? More than likely.

She watched as he put one black flight boot onto the first rung and hoisted himself upward. The cockpit Plexiglas opened on one side only. Just above it, less than a foot away, were the four blades of the bird. She watched as he expertly slid in and squeezed himself into the narrow confines of the front, lower cockpit. Spec 2 Bobby Warner, one of the mechanics on her crew, climbed up and knelt beside him, quickly helping Trayhern with the array of harnesses that had to be put on and locked securely into place. Once Warner was done, he turned and grinned down at her.

“Ready for you, ma’am.” Then he stood up and moved to the end of the skirt so she could ascend.

“Excellent, Warner. Thanks.” Annie threw her helmet to him and then quickly climbed into the upper cockpit. This was home to her. She slid down onto the seat, the two HUDs—heads-up displays—in front of her. Each cockpit had the exact same equipment, so if one pilot was incapacitated the other could take over flying and get them home safely.

Warner handed her the helmet.

“Thanks,” Annie murmured. Within moments, she was strapped in and ready to go. Plugging the cord from her helmet into the radio receptacle, she switched to intercabin intercom.

“You read me, Mr. Trayhern? Over.”

“Read you loud and clear, Ms. Dazen.”

“Good.” Annie looked over and gave Warner a thumbs-up. Below, standing near the nose of the helo, where Annie could see her, was her crew chief. Kat stood with a pair of earphones on, the phone jack plugged into a side panel of the Apache. She would be responsible for starting of the bird.

“Okay, Kat, let’s get this show on the road,” Annie murmured. She nodded to Warner and gave him the signal to shut and lock each of the cockpits. Excitement thrummed through her. Flying was like breathing to Annie. Her adrenaline surged as soon as she felt the whine of the twin engines. Below, she saw her crew scurrying about efficiently. Kat gave a thumbs-up and Annie pressed the mike close to her lips.

“Okay, Mr. Trayhern, this flight is all yours. Power up.”

Annie pulled a clipboard from a side pocket of the cockpit and placed it across her knees. Before she had been assigned with the 101st, she’d been a flight trainer. The clipboard held a list of all the maneuvers she was going to put him through and grade him on. He didn’t know, of course, that she’d been an inspector pilot. Annie wanted him to be as relaxed as possible on this flight. There wasn’t a pilot alive that didn’t tense up and screw up when an IP was in the cockpit, grading him or her. Annie wanted to give Trayhern a chance.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled to herself. Trayhern had clearly dropped the anger she had seen in him on the tarmac, and was all business now. That was good. She heard him communicate with Kat Lakey on the ground. The blessed flow of air-conditioning began just then and Annie sighed in relief, because the cockpit was like a sauna until the cool air got turned on. Sweat dribbled down her left temple and she swiped it away.

When the Apache’s first engine started, the familiar high, shrieking whine began. The second engine came on next, and Annie saw Kat pull out the intercom cord and lock the panel down. Then the crew chief backed off and lifted her arm straight up, twirling her fingers, which was a signal for Trayhern to engage the blades.

The shuddering started. Annie absorbed it like a lover. The Apache was the most feared combat helicopter in the world. To her, it was like a dinosaur, ugly as sin, but lethal. When the blades started slowly turning around and around, she felt lulled, like a child cradled by its mother. There was something comforting and soothing about the shaking that went on as the blades whirled faster and faster.

She heard Jason call into the tower at Ops for takeoff permission. Once it was granted, she saw Lakey duck beneath the carriage to remove the chocks from behind and in front of the wheels. Once the crew chief was clear, Annie heard Trayhern’s deep, unruffled voice in her headset. “Ready for liftoff, Ms. Dazen?”

“Yes, I am, Mr. Trayhern. Let’s fly….”

Annie held the pen in her right hand, the clipboard across her thighs as the Apache lifted smoothly from the ground. She talked him through the air corridors flight pattern that every helo had to follow when taking off from the base. Once they were out over the countryside, the flat plains of Kentucky changed to gentle, rolling hills, a landscape of green, as they flew across the state boundary into Tennessee. The massive Army base sprawled across the state line, part in Tennessee, but the bulk of it in Kentucky, where ninety-three thousand acres had been set aside for flight training and firing ranges.

At this time of day, flying was often rough, and Annie was jostled continuously as the helo hit air pocket after air pocket. As the summer sun beat down on the earth, thermals rising off the hills created unstable conditions that made flying a challenge.

“I remember this,” Jason said, feeling the collective and cyclic in his hands. It felt good to be flying again. They were at five thousand feet and heading to a restricted air space where they could fly maneuvers without hitting a civilian plane.

“What? The thermals?”

“Yeah,” Jason said. He’d been nervous, but the comforting shudder of the helo had taken his anxiety away. “We all went through Apache training school in Alabama. I remember I always got afternoon flights, when the humidity was at its highest. It wasn’t fun at first. My lunch was always comin’ up. Flying out of this base reminds me of afternoon flights at Fort Rucker.” Southern states in the U.S. always got high humidity coming in off the Gulf. At Fort Collins, Colorado, the air was much drier, making it easier to fly.

Chuckling, Annie looked around the sunny cockpit, then drew down the dark visor on her helmet. “Oh, yeah, bag time. How long ago did you last eat?”

He laughed shortly. “Bag time” meant throwing up during flight, into a red plastic bag that was stored in the right pocket of every cockpit. “Not to worry this time around. I learned a long time ago to eat lightly at lunch.”

“Fill a few, did you?”

“A couple. You?”

“Nah. Indians don’t get airsick.”

Smiling slightly, Jason found himself curious about her Native American background. “I see….”

“In all honesty,” Annie told him, “I had two hundred flight hours in helicopters before I came into the Army. And I was kidding about Indians not getting airsick. We’re human just like everyone else.”

“I’ve never flown with an Indian before. I guess it’s something I’ll have to get used to.” Well, that didn’t come out right, did it? He cringed over his spontaneous choice of words. It was one of his problems: foot-in-mouth disease.

“Now, should I take that comment as an insult or a compliment?”

Jason frowned, his gaze flying across the cockpit dials. “No, it’s me not thinking,” he said abruptly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain.”

“Does it happen often?”

“Pretty much. And I apologize.”

She heard him almost choking on his words. Was it because he didn’t say he was sorry very often? Or was he genuinely trying to get along with her but fumbling it? Annie chose to believe the latter, not wanting to think that he was prejudiced on top of everything else. After all, this was his first day in a new squadron with a new air commander. He had to be nervous.

“You don’t know much about Native American culture, do you?”

“No…hardly anything. You’re the first person I’ve even run into that was Indian.”

“I see….” The helo jostled and dropped a good ten feet when it hit a huge air pocket. Annie smiled as she felt Trayhern adjust and stabilize the bird.

“We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I didn’t get to know anyone too well,” he told her.