He rammed the throttle forward and felt the bomber’s jet engine howl and surge suddenly, straining, making the whole plane tremble like a hunting dog begging to be released from its leash.
“Three . . . two . . . one . . . GO!”
His head slammed back and his whole body seemed to flatten against itself, pressed into the seat as the A-7 leaped off the carrier’s deck and into the misty air. The deep rolling swells of the blue-green water whipped by and then receded as he pulled the control column back slightly and the swept-wing plane angled up into the sullen, low-hanging clouds. Without even thinking consciously of it, he reached back and pushed the head knocker up into its locked position. Now he could fire the ejection seat if he had to.
In a moment the Sun broke through and sparkled off the mirrors arrayed around the curve of the canopy. Bob saw the five other planes of his flight and formed up on the left end of their V. The queasiness was gone now. He felt strong and good in the sunshine.
He looked up and saw the pale shadow of a half moon grinning lopsidedly at him. Bill’s up there, he thought. Can you see me, Bill? Can you hear me calling you?
Then he looked away. A dark slice of land lay on the horizon, slim and silent as a dagger. Vietnam.
“Contact. All lights on. Engine stop. We’re down.” Bill heard Dave McDonald’s laconic voice announce their landing on the moon.
“We copy, Yorktown. Good job. Fantastic.” Shannon sounded excited. He was due to fly the next mission. “Saratoga, do you read?”
Bill was surprised that he had to swallow twice before his voice would work. “Copy. Yorktown in port. Good going, guys.”
It was an all-Navy crew, so they had named their modules in honored Navy tradition. The lunar lander became Yorktown. Bill rode alone in the command module, Saratoga. The old men with gold braid on their sleeves and silver in their hair loved that. Good old Annapolis spirit.
“You are go for excursion,” said Shannon, lapsing back into technical jargon.
“Roger.” McDonald’s voice was starting to fade out.
“We’ll take a little walk soon’s we wiggle into the suits.”
And I’ll sit here by myself. Bill thought. What would Shannon and the rest of those clowns at Houston do if I screwed my helmet on and took a walk on my own?
The fucking oxygen mask never fit right. It pressed across the bridge of Bob’s nose and cut into his cheeks. And the stuff was almost too cold to breathe; it made his teeth ache. Bob felt his ears pop slightly as the formation of six attack bombers dove to treetop height and then streaked across the mottled green forest.
This was the part of the mission that he liked best, racing balls-out close enough to the goddamned trees to suck a monkey into your air intake. Everything a green blur outside the cockpit. Six hundred knots and the altimeter needle flopping around zero. The plane took it as smooth as a new Cadillac tooling up to the country club. Not a shake or a rattle in her. She merely rocked slightly in the invisible air currents bubbling up from the forest.
Christ, any lower and we’ll come back smeared green. He laughed aloud.
Bob flew the bomb-laden plane with mere touches of his thumb against the button on the control column that moved the trim tabs. The A-7 responded like a thoroughbred, jumping smoothly over an upjutting tree, turning gracefully in formation with the five others.
Why don’t we just fly like this forever? Bob wondered. Just keep going and never, never stop.
But up ahead the land was rising, ridge after ridge of densely wooded hills. In a valley between one particular pair of ridges was an NVA ammunition dump, according to their preflight briefing. By the time they got there, Bob guessed, the North Vietnamese would have moved their ammo to someplace else. We’ll wind up bombing the fucking empty jungle again.
But their antiaircraft guns will be there. Oh yes indeed, the little brown bastards’ll have everything from slingshots to radar-directed artillery to throw at us. They always do.
There was a whole checklist of chores for Bill to do as he waited alone in the command module. Photographic mapping. Heat sensors. Housekeeping checks on the life-support systems.
Busywork, Bill grumbled silently. He went through the checklist mechanically, doing even the tiniest task with the numb efficiency of a machine. Just a lot of crap to make me feel like I’m doing something. To make them feel like there’s something for me to do.
The radio voices of Peters and McDonald were fading fast now. The command module was swinging around in its orbit toward the far side of the moon. Bill listened to Wally and Dave yahooing and joking with each other as they bounced and jogged on the Moon’s surface, stirring up dust that had waited four billion years for them to arrive.
“Wish you could be here, buddy!” sang Wally.
“Yeah, Bill. You’d love the scenery,” Dave agreed happily.
Bill said into his radio microphone, “Thanks a lot, you guys.” So what if they heard him in Houston. What more could they do to him?
“Saratoga, you are approaching radio cutoff,” Shannon reminded him needlessly.
“Radio cutoff,” Bill repeated to Houston. Then he counted silently, one thousand, two thousand, three . . .
“See you on the other side,” said Shannon, his radio voice finally crossing the distance between them.
“That’s a rog,” Bill said.
The far side of the Moon. Totally alone, separated from the entire human race by a quarter million miles of distance and two thousand miles of solid rock.
Bill stole one final glance at the Earth as the spaceship swung around in its orbit. It was blue and mottled with white swirling clouds, glowing like a solitary candle on a darkened altar. He could not see Vietnam. He did not even try to find it.
“Check guns.” The flight leader’s voice in his helmet earphones almost startled Bob.
The easy part of the flight was finished. The work was beginning. He thumbed the firing button on his control column, just the slightest tap. Below his feet he could feel a brief buzz, almost like a small vacuum cleaner or an electric shaver. Just for an instant.
“Corsair Six, guns clear.” His microphone was built into the oxygen mask.
