Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Rude Awakening
After eight years in the Navy, you would think I would be used to the sight of endless water beneath my feet, but every day it takes my breath away a little bit. The sun was setting on another hot day and the sky was alight in vast color. Taking one last drag of my cigarette, I closed my eyes and just basked in the waves washing against the side of the ship before turning away toward the hanger bay.
As always the work was never done here. Flights still flew long into the night, wrenches turned, training was taking place, and watches were being stood. The people who say New York City is the city that never sleeps haven’t spent time on an Aircraft Carrier. It is truly a place outside of the restraints of time.
I swiped my forehead with my sleeve as I headed to the chow line to dinner. The mess hall was loud and rowdy as always. Men and women getting off work weren’t subdued by the day's hard tasks, and people going to work were bright-eyed for the night ahead. As I grabbed anything edible I could see, I sat down with a huff and began digging in. I hadn’t even realized I was as hungry as I was. A sharp whistle to my right drew my attention and I saw my best friend Richard Santiago, A.K.A Santi, come up with his tray to sit next to me. Soon behind him came the rest of the Airframe Mechanic shop from my squadron.
“Hey, Hopkins. I heard you got chewed out by Chief today. What was that about?” Santi asked me as he proceeded to smother his food in hot sauce.
I scoffed slightly. “Oh you know, an Engine Mechanic just thinking he knows shit more about radar than an actual Avionics Tech. Tried to tell me I wasn’t troubleshooting bird 602 correctly. Wanted to try and take the duplexer from 601 to switch them out when obviously the problem was the transmitter. Fucking hate that shit. So I told him off. He wasn’t happy about it. But I at least got the job done.”
There were snickers around the table. The ones who have been in long enough and had enough experience with their job knew exactly what I was talking about. They’ve all been through it at one point or another. Conversations filtered throughout the table as some people left, and others from our squadron took their place. This was what I loved about this job. The comradery we had with each other. It’s bound to happen when you work pretty much 24/7 with someone and sleep in close quarters together.
Santi clapped me on the back and brought me in for a side hug. “Alright Grace, I’m heading to bed. See you tomorrow.” He said as he grabbed his trash and walked away. I stayed at the table a while longer talking to the new rookie Airmen, and making sure they were doing okay with their first deployment.
An hour later, I found myself showered clean from sweat, dirt, and grease and rolling into my rack. The ship's lights turned red to help conceal us with the darkness outside and the gentle rocking I felt from the waves helped me drift to sleep pretty quickly.
Of course that never lasts. A shake jolted me awake, a hand on my shoulder.
“What the fuck.” I grumbled and pulled aside the curtain from my rack. If there was one thing I hated the most, it was being woken up from sleep. I glared out into the red-tinted darkness at one of the new Airmen in my squadron, an Avionics Tech like me, wide-eyed and tripping over their tongue as they tried to get out words that weren’t making sense to my brain.
“Hold on. Stop. What the hell is going on? Start at the beginning.” I said and I tried to focus and get the sleep out of my eyes.
“Oh, uh, well. They are kind of calling all the Second Classes in to help with moving the planes around.” She said sheepishly. She bit at her lip and looked super uncomfortable to be telling me this, and honestly, I didn’t blame her. I was not a fun person to wake up in the middle of the night.
My brows furrowed in confusion. “What the fuck for? Don’t you have enough people for that in the Line Shack?” I asked as I fumbled for my clock to tell me what time it was. 0237. Way too early. Late. Whatever.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry AT2, but we need the extra help I guess?”
I groaned outwardly and hopped out of my rack. “Yeah, fine. Just tell them I’ll be there in ten.”
She shuffled away and I grumbled, trying to wipe the sleep away from my eyes. “Why me?”
After pulling on my flight deck uniform and boots I stomped my way through the red-lit ship toward my shop. As I stepped in I was greeted by AT1 Garcia, he looked just about as irritated as I was. I gave him an incredulous look, “What is going on? Why do we gotta move all the planes right now?” Honestly, it was pretty odd. Normally my squadron only had 4 E2-Cs. 3 on the flight deck, and 1 in the hanger bay for maintenance.
“I don’t know. Nobody seems to know. This is coming from the ship's Skipper.”
My face turned up in confusion. “Okay, so, what? Where are we moving them? We already have them staged for tomorrow's flights.”
“The flight schedule has been canceled for tomorrow.”
I choked slightly in surprise. “I’m sorry. What?! What the hell happened? Did someone important die or something?”
Garcia sighed heavily. “I have no idea dude. Just get your gear and go up top to help.”
I felt a headache coming on from all of this. None of this made any sense. Canceling the entire flight schedule for tomorrow? I get we’re not technically at war or anything but we always still fly as a show of power, to keep an eye on things. Grabbing my float coat and blue flashlight I headed up to the deck. Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting when I got up there, but the sheer amount of people running around and the number of aircraft being moved all at once was shocking. It was almost like watching an intricate chaotic ballet of people, jets, helicopters, and hawkeyes.
After some searching, I found a group from my squadron and headed toward them. I saw some people from the day shift there, thank god it wasn’t just me that got pulled from sleep. “Ok. So what’s up y’all?”
Everyone just seemed to shrug at me. There was so much going on and no organization whatsoever. After about an hour or so we moved our last aircraft and that was when I noticed something. We have moved all the planes and gear to the aft and bow of the ship, leaving a huge space in the middle. Once everything was said and done you could see the sun start to peak over the horizon and I mourned the good night's sleep that never was.
I helped the Line Shack tie down our last hawkeye when the 1MC piped up into the still morning light. “Attention on the flight deck. All personnel stay clear of the landing area and centerline of the deck. I repeat. All personnel stay clear of the landing area and centerline of the deck. Medical on standby on the flight deck. Medical on standby on the flight deck.”
I saw Santi come around the plane toward me with the same confused look that I’m sure I had.
“Wanna stay up here to see what’s up?” He asked me. I checked my watch and saw I technically had an hour before I had to be at work.
“Sure.” I leaned against the side of the plane and sighed. “Tonight was stupid as hell. Whatever this is better be good.”
“They want Medics on standby. Who do you think is hurt?”
“I have no idea. Has to be someone important enough to be able to change around a whole flight deck for them.”
“Well, where are we anyway?”
“When I checked the radar yesterday we were in the Gulf of Aden. By Djibouti and Yemen and such.”
With the rising sun came the heat as well as humidity. The air felt like it stuck to my skin and breathing felt like trying to breathe soup. It was the worst part about deployments in this part of the world. At least in the desert, it was dry, but being surrounded by all this water the air became very sticky. The sound of the steam from the catapults hissed out signaling the start of what was supposed to be our flight schedule.
After a few minutes, I heard a distinct sound coming toward the ship. A steady and telling Thump, thump, thump. Walking around the plane me and Santi spotted something coming up toward us.
“That’s a big ass helicopter” His voice sounded thrown into confusion. I squinted into the sunlight to see it. Definitely big. Two separate rotors, which is odd. The ones we had on the ship only had one set of rotors on top.
“Well,” I spoke up. “Guess that’s why we needed to clear the space.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never seen this. That’s like an Army Helo. What the hell is it doing landing on an Aircraft Carrier?”
I shrugged at him and braced my footing as it came in for a landing in the middle of the deck. The wind from the rotors whipped around us since we were so close to its landing. Small pieces of sand and dirt flew around drilling into my face as I squinted to keep an eye on the Chinook that just settled on our deck. Medics came running toward it with a stretcher and the door opened to them. I couldn’t see anything distinctive inside until they hauled someone out and onto the stretcher. My eyes widened at the uniform he wore. Or lack thereof. It wasn’t uniformed military. The man had on a pair of cargo pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and what looked like a bulletproof vest. What the hell? The rotors began slowing down to a stop as the medics took the man and the stretcher away. Out of the Helo stepped two other men. A man with a full beard, bucket hat, and a giant ass gun that had my eyes popping out of my head. But next to him was a very large man. Easily over 6 feet, rifle over his shoulder, and dressed down like the guy on the stretcher. The difference though was that his face was covered in a white skull mask. I could see him looking at the medics wheeling the guy away until he must have sensed my stare because all of a sudden his eyes were right on me. Darkness surrounded them, but the eyes themselves were light, and heavily looking at me. Like he could read my mind and pick me apart with just a stare. Santi nudged me and broke my eyes away. I looked at him and his eyes were alight with some akin to wonder.
“What?” I asked him.
“Do you think they’re like, Special Ops or something?” He said almost giddy. I rolled my eyes and his sudden excitement.
“Maybe. I mean, it would explain some things. But why here?”
“Why indeed. Can’t wait to find out.”
I snorted a laugh at him. “Yeah. Good luck with that.” And my eyes followed the large masked man until he went under the deck and out of sight.
A/N: Any and all feedback is appreciated.