Wild Fire

Chapter 1-3

From less than a hundred feet away, he looked straight into the face of a beautiful helicopter pilot.

If there were moments he was never going to forget, the next three seconds were clogged with them.

The pilot sat almost fully exposed by the curved windshield of the helicopter. Gorgeous. Her straight black hair fell past her shoulders. Her skin was the color of mid-roast coffee with just that perfect amount of cream. Her dark glasses and pilot’s helmet with mic boom added to the image. Hot professional female pilot.

The next impression was how huge the approaching helicopter was—and because it was so close, it seemed twice its normal size. Instead of the vicious sleekness of a Black Hawk, it had a bulbous nose and was brilliant orange like the Muppet Beaker, who always looked as alarmed as Gordon was starting to feel.

The last impression, more memorable than anything else—except perhaps that knockout pilot now looking almost directly down at him—was the long white boom that the Aircrane was slicing through the water.

Straight toward him!

There wasn’t time to react. Hell, there wasn’t even time to blink.

Gordon braced himself to be chopped in two.

There wasn’t time to even swing aside.

Ripley did the only thing she could think of. She rammed the cyclic forward and heaved up on the collective, dumping every bit of nearly ten thousand horsepower into the massive rotor. The result was like doing a forward wheelie on a motorcycle by slamming on just the front brake.

Her helicopter nosed down hard and lifted its behind high in the air. Hopefully lifting the snorkel up and out of the water with it.

Brad squawked in surprise as he was slammed forward against his safety harness.

Ripley held the attitude for as long as she dared, then yanked back on the cyclic, pulling the joystick between her knees all the way into her lap. The nose of the helo splashed against the lake water. It wasn’t rated for water landings—meaning it would sink like a stone if she tried—but that wasn’t what she was worried about.

Her main rotor was seventy feet across and reached well ahead of the helicopter. If it even touched the water, the blades were going to shatter. They’d crash into the water and utterly destroy forty million dollars’ worth of helicopter and probably kill them all as well—a surefire way to upset Randy back at Erickson.

The Aircrane answered her brutal control maneuvers and she managed to tip the blades back up while they were still inches from the water. The downdraft blew a wall of spray across her windshield, completely blinding her until Brad hit the wipers. Pulling up, then plunging the rear boom deep back into the water. She could feel the drag, but yanking up the collective turned out to be enough to compensate—just barely.

“Did I miss him?”

“Miss who?” Brad managed to squeak out.

It had all happened in slow motion for Gordon.

The big white boom heading straight for him, slicing a bow wake to either side.

Then, as the helicopter passed directly over him, it nosed down. The boom lifted from the water. At the bottom, the broad white wedge of a yard-across hydrofoil wing rose out of the water as well. It sailed over his chest with inches to spare, inundating him with spilled water and tumbling him with the wake it had created before rising out of the water.

When he had stopped floundering about and could see again, the helicopter was splashing its nose into the reservoir and the massive flying wedge of the snorkel’s boom drove back into the water not a dozen yards past him.

It was only after the huge Aircrane helicopter recovered enough to not crash into the water that he tried to breathe again.

That nearly choked him, as if he needed another near-death experience today, when he inhaled all of the water that must have gotten into his mouth as it hung open in shock.

He was dizzy and barely still afloat before he managed to get his lungs clear enough to think.

By the time he did, the world was a wall of noise. The massive helicopter was hovering directly over him, once again beating him with downdraft and spray. This time he had the common sense to keep his mouth closed. The twin turboshaft engines were screaming with a brain-piercing shriek just a few meters over his head. The rear wheels were actually submerged into the lake to either side of him.

The construction-orange helo, that he could now see in intimate but more casual detail, was an Erickson Aircrane—the tractor trailer combination of the skies. Its “tractor” looked like some normal, large helicopter that had been sawed off right behind the cockpit. Behind that, the open-space “trailer” beneath which he floated, was defined by a thin spine that supported the two engines trying to deafen him, a massive six-bladed rotor trying to blow him back under the water, and two arching legs to support the rear wheels. In the big open space between legs and spine hung the twenty-foot long, ten-foot high, angular water tank used for firefighting.

A rear access door to the cockpit swung open and a brunette was waving him forward. He managed to swim over until he could hang onto the ladder.

“He’s alive,” the woman called out toward the pilot.

“You sure?” Gordon asked because he couldn’t tell.

“I’m sure. Now crawl on up here.”

Since he was certified as being alive, he did. The metal rungs were little more than thick rebar welded to the back of the cockpit’s hull, but being once more inside a helicopter was worth the effort.

At least he was fairly sure it was…it took all he had to climb those few rungs and drag himself through the door. He lay panting on the floor.

“Well,” he said to no one in particular, “that was a hell of a thing.”

“What kind of an i***t are you to be floating in the middle of a lake during a firefight?” The pilot was facing forward but sounded some kind of pissed.

Clearly no sense of humor to pick up on his Galaxy Quest joke. Too bad. Gorgeous pilots in massive helicopters were supposed to have a great sense of humor as well.

He decided that lack was okay with him as long as the helicopter kept climbing farther away from the water. The brunette who’d helped him aboard waved toward the only open bit of deck, which he was already sprawled on. The cockpit was tall, but otherwise not much bigger than his MD—his former MD, now sunk at the bottom of the lake.

There were the two forward pilot seats with the broad console in front of them, which came partway back between the seats. Hard against the back of the pilot’s seat was the aft-facing seat of the woman who had helped him aboard. He sat up, facing sideways on the steel deck behind the copilot with his feet in the small stairwell for the door at the back of the cockpit. Leaning back against the sidewall, he looked straight across at the cute brunette in the observer seat.

She handed him a headset. He dragged it on and sighed with relief from the noise abatement. By looking up, he could see the pilot in profile.

“Well?” The pilot sounded just as pissed over the headset. Gordon took a moment to appreciate the sight. If the pilot had been pretty, seen straight on as he’d floated in the water and she’d been on the verge of cutting him in two, she was a stunner in profile.

“I’m a pilot type person,” he finally found his voice and managed to resist the need to cough out more lake water.

“Were you flying the goddamn drone?”

Gordon had to think about that for a moment. Either he was in shock, or the pilot’s looks were distracting him. She struck him as the sort of woman who would be very likely to distract him—badly. Maybe it was a combination of both.

“No,” he managed. “I’m the type of pilot who was hit by the goddamn drone.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Now it was his turn to be amused.

“You okay?”

“Well,” Gordon tried to figure that out but his mind wouldn’t quite connect to flexing and bending to check for injuries. “Someone said I was alive, so I guess so.”

“Janet, check him out.”

“He’s already checking you out,” Janet quipped.

Great! Exactly what Ripley didn’t need. She hit the transmit key as she climbed back aloft.

“ICA, as I was saying before, this is Erickson Aircrane Diana Prince. I’d like to report that we are heavy by one pilot.” She clicked off the mic switch. “What’s your name?”

There was a long pause before he said, “Diana Prince?”

She glanced back at him to see if he was shocky and needed immediate medical, knowing that Brad would continue her climb. But he was looking at her clear-eyed. Kneeling beside him, Janet shrugged—no obvious injuries.

“That’s my aircraft. Erickson Aircranes all have names,” she did her best to remain calm, but her nerves were still shaking after how close she’d come to killing him then downing her entire crew. He was average build, blond, and nice looking without being the overly handsome jerk-type she usually fell for.

“I get that,” he had a good voice too. “Just thinking about that maneuver you used to save my life. Haven’t met a whole lot of pilots who could do that. Pretty sure I couldn’t have. Wonder Woman isn’t just the name of your aircraft.”

He actually knew that Diana Prince was Wonder Woman’s secret identity name. Ripley had always liked flying with a secret identity of Wonder Woman. She tried not to be too pleased…and failed. Then she tried to not let it show, and expected that she failed at that as well. The guy had a great smile. She faced forward once more.

“Your name?”

“Gordon. Gordon Finchley.”

She keyed the mic again. “Diana Prince to ICA. You looking for a Gordon Gordon Finchley?”

She heard Gordon’s half laugh over the intercom. More proof that he wasn’t being shocky.

“You found him? What’s his status?”

“Well, he’d dripping water all over my cockpit, but otherwise appears to be intact.”

“Gordon,” the ICA’s voice sounded a little strained. “Don’t do that again.”

Ripley keyed the mic and nodded toward Gordon without turning.

“Didn’t know that crashing was against the rules, Mark. But I promise to never do it again now that you’ve told me. I swear, Mr. Henderson, sir.” She could practically hear Gordon saluting. “By the way, your helo, though there’s not much left of her after the drone and then battering her way through the trees, is in about thirty feet of water off the easternmost curve of the shore.”

“Glad you’re in one piece. Diana Prince, once you have water, I could use you on the west end of the line. Steve was able to track the hobby drone pilot with our legal drone and you were right, he was a solo i***t. Started yelling at the fireman who found him for destroying his drone and wanting someone to pay for it. Sheriff is taking care of that. Just wait until he gets the insurance company’s bill.” The ICA delivered it in two breaths, and if there was any emotion behind his pilot being alive, he managed to hide it well.

“You good?” Ripley called back to Gordon over the intercom.

“I’ve had my bath for the week, even got my clothes washed in the bargain. So, yeah, I’m good.”

“Roger,” she keyed the mic and called in, mimicking Gordon’s tone to hide her own laugh. “Diana Prince is on the way, Mr. Henderson, sir.”

And then the desire to laugh whooshed out of her as if it had never been.

Gordon had said the ICA was Mark…Henderson. She’d heard that Major Mark Henderson of the Night Stalkers had retired to fight fires and that his wife Major Emily Beale had gone with him. Could there be two Mark Hendersons?

“Hey, Gordon,” she called over the on-board intercom. “You have a pilot name of Emily in your outfit?”

“Emily Beale? Sure. Our chief pilot and trainer. Never seen anything like her. She’s about the only other one that could have pulled off that maneuver you did back there. I think she and Mark were in the military somewhere.” The sound of worship was clear in his voice.

That was one of the problems: everyone who talked about them spoke that way. Ripley didn’t generally doubt her own skills, but Henderson and Beale were spoken of as the top two helicopter pilots in the history of the US Army’s 160th SOAR. The Night Stalkers, as they called themselves, were the very best helo pilots in any Army. Or Navy. She’d considered trying to cross over, but they required a minimum of five years flying before applying and she’d been headed out of the military by then.