Hard Landing Ch. 05

"What's this all about?" I asked Jo.

"Well, you're not the only target of a special op. If mine went sideways, or you walked out, he wasn't going to do this tonight." She kissed me. "Luckily, you seem to have been captured by my wiles. So, this is happening. But only Jack and I know about it."

"Know about what, Jo? What's happening? You're being weird!"

"That," she said, and pointed. Steve had come out of the back room, and had changed out his black suit coat for a tuxedo coat covered in gold sequins.

I laughed. "What the hell?"

"Just watch, you don't want to miss this."

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Steve called for attention from the mic. He repeated himself a few times until everyone grew silent. "My big sister got to serenade her girl tonight and I'm feeling left out. Sara Johns, please attend me at the microphone!"

Sara was down at the other end of the bar with Larry and Suzanne. They all looked equally as confused as I was. Sara walked up giggling and stood next to Steve.

"Thank you my dear. Jack? Hit it!" He pulled the mic out of the stand and held it as music started playing over the P.A., a simple bass drum beat. Then Steve started singing with more schwing than he'd ever shown on stage before.

It's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do.

Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you!

Is it the look in your eyes, or is it this dancing juice,

Who cares baby? I think I wanna marry you!

By the end of the first line, Sara had started screaming and jumping up and down, clapping her hands. Larry yelled at the top of his lungs "D-u-u-u-d-e!" and Suzanne started crying. I was crying. Jo was crying!

He put on some Bruno Mars dance moves, and as he spun around he pulled a ring box out of his coat with his free hand. He knelt down in front of Sara and nodded at her to open it as he sang,

Don't say no no no no no!

Just say yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!

And we'll go go go go go!

If you're ready, like I'm ready!

Sara was grinning her head off and nodding at Steve frantically. At the end of the song the whole bar exploded into shouts and applause louder than anything else that night.

"That was unbelievable!" I yelled in Jo's ear over the noise of the crowd. "What was the 'thing'?"

She turned and put her lips next to my ear. "That's our mom's wedding ring he just put on her finger. He wanted to make sure I was cool with him giving it to Johns."

Jo was barely able to push the door to my apartment closed behind us as I was busy tearing at her clothes. We'd finally gotten to my place around midnight, taking a Lyft, whose driver I'd promised a one-hundred-percent tip if he could "get us home in twenty minutes and keep your eyes out of the back seat."

I was frantically kissing her as I tugged at her shirt, simultaneously trying to take it off and use it to pull her into my bedroom. She lifted me up onto her shoulder to carry me forward and I squealed "EEP!" as she fell on top of me on my bed.

"God I've missed that sound, Blue. I need to make that sound my ringtone." She lay on top of me, the tip of her nose rubbing mine. She just looked into my eyes, the streetlight outside my window reflecting in hers.

"You came back for me," I sighed.

"I did. I'm glad you let me in when I got here. You had no reason to."

"Jo, I had every reason to. I fell for you, remember? And you fell for me. You just couldn't say it then, but now you're ready."

"I am. So, do we start saying I love you now or do we make plans to move in when I get back, or what? What do we do? You're going to have to help me here, I'm out of my element."

"Whoa!" I sat up. "Listen, Jo, you and I are definitely going to be a thing. But I'm not rushing you into something you're not ready for. You have to go tomorrow. When you get back, when, October?" she nodded, "October, we'll get together and work it out. I can come down to North Carolina and work from there for a few weeks. Months. However long you'll have me. I'll be here waiting for you when you get back. And then we'll see. But there's no rules for what we have to do now, okay?"

"So, we don't start saying 'I love you' now?"

"Jo, I know tonight was a huge step for you. I don't want to do anything until you're ready, okay?"

"Okay." She leaned in and kissed me, slow and long. Then she leaned back. "Hey Blue?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

I think I may have gasped. "Jo..."

"What? You're probably thinking I don't know what I'm talking about. I've never been in love. You might be right. I am shit at this whole thing. But my whole life, whenever I've been sad or lonely and I close my eyes, I've always seen Mom. Until the last six months. Now it's you, Blue. It's always you. Every time."

"Jo... I don't know what to say."

She grinned at me. "It's okay, you don't have to say it. I don't want to rush you into anything you aren't ready for."

"Oh, you brat!" I caught her by surprise with a pillow to the face, then started trying to tickle her. She pinned me down laughing as I struggled. Soon, her laughing quieted as it was drowned out by my panting, while she was kissing my neck, my throat. She never let go of my wrists, continuing to hold me down as I kept struggling to escape her grasp. It was working extremely well for me and she sensed it.

"You can try to get away from me, Blue. But I won't let you. You're mine now."

I made a serious effort to throw her off. Her muscles were like iron, and she held me down as I moaned my appreciation.

"Mine!" she whispered and leaned down and bit the spot on my neck. Hard. Harder than she ever had before. And I came.

Oh god, I came so hard. I could feel my body pulsing with fire, as I started quaking under her, calling out her name through ragged breaths.

I woke the next morning to look over and see sunlight streaming in and lighting up my Jo's peaceful, sleeping face. She was still wearing the velvet choker. It was all she was wearing. I lay there watching her. After a while, I had to move to scratch my nose, and she stirred, opening her eyes.

"Hi," I whispered.

"Hey Blue," she smiled and stretched. "I'm really glad you're not a dream."

"Maybe I am."

"Nope. You can't fool me, you're the realest real thing that ever was real."

We kissed for a long time.

"I never asked last night, what time is your flight?"

"I need to be at BWI at three this afternoon." She looked at the clock on my side table. "We can probably make love, oh... three more times. And go have breakfast."

I leaned up on my elbow. "Should we order in breakfast? I know all the Door Dash people."

Her eyes widened "Oh geez, I really did a number on you there last night, sorry about that!" Her fingertips gently traced something on the spot on my neck and I shivered. I looked around, found my phone and turned on the selfie camera so I could look. Oh my.

There was a clear, distinctive bite mark, right where my neck met my shoulder. She'd broken the skin. She'd marked me as hers.

I shivered again and said, "Oh god, Jo don't apologize. That's exactly what I wanted!" I rolled over and tucked into her so our faces were next to each other and lined up my camera.

"Careful how you frame that, we're both naked."

"I want it to be obvious we're both naked." I made sure there was nothing not-safe-for-work showing, then started snapping pictures. But I made extra sure the bite mark was in every frame. Soon she was giggling as I took photo after photo of us.

Later, we walked through my neighborhood. I'd tried again to get her to let me order in food.

"No, I want you to show me where you live, so when we email or talk I can imagine you here."

We walked through Adams Morgan, to my favorite coffee shop, then walked through the National Zoo, sharing a scone and holding hands. She hadn't had any other clothes other than her fancy outfit and her cammo uniform she'd travelled in, so she was wearing a pair of my pants with the waist rolled down and the cuffs turned up, one of my big cable-knit sweaters and my pea coat. It was cold and sunny, and the frosty clouds of our breath mingled with each other's every time we stopped to kiss.

I felt like I should be sad knowing we had to leave in a few hours to go to the plane that was to take her away from me. But I was elated. She'd broken through her wall. We were together. And she'd be back for me. I thought back to the Billy Joel song I'd played for her and her dad.

For we are always what our situations hand us,

It's either sadness or euphoria.

And I was euphoric.

"I'll be back for you, Blue," Jo said as we stood at the entrance to security at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. She rolled her eyes at herself. "I never thought I'd say something like that. Or want to. But I want to. I'll be back. Then we'll figure out what we're going to do." She was dressed in her camo uniform, complete with the cap that covered up the mop of hair I so loved.

"You'd better Jo. I'll look into apartments in Fayetteville."

"Uh, ok. But maybe you want me to move here?"

"I don't want you to have to give up your calling for me. You're not leaving the Army, not yet. And I can do my job from anywhere. Anywhere we are." I paused. "You know that song you sang for me last night?"

"How could I ever forget? I fell for you Blue."

"No, I mean the second song. The line that says 'if you want to, I can save you?'"

"Yeah?"

"I want you to know that I don't need for you to save me. I know that's your job, to save people. But I'm not your job, and I don't need saving. I'm your Blue Girl. And I just want you to be my Jo. Okay?"

"Okay."

She had tears in her eyes, and one rolled down her face. I stroked her cheek and wiped it away.

"I'm glad we finally broke that dam," I whispered.

She laughed, as she sniffed and wiped her sleeve across her nose.

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her until she reluctantly pulled away and looked at her watch. "I have to go, Blue."

"It's okay Jo. We've made it past the hardest part. The next nine months will be a piece of cake."

I watched her go until I couldn't see her anymore. And I was smiling.

~~ Afghanistan, Kandahar Province, April ~~

JO

"I'm riding the highs, I'm digging the lows, 'Cause at least I feel al-i-i-i-ve.

I've never f-a-a-a-c-e-d, so many emotional d-a-a-a-y-s.

But my life is good. I'm feelin' y-o-o-o-u-u-u-u."

"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that," said Eric.

"Is it because you don't like Michelle Branch or you don't like Carlos Santana? 'Cause one of those is sexist and the other is racist," Jo joked with her copilot over the intercom as she piloted their Blackhawk. She alternated between scanning the instruments and looking out her window, checking the hillsides ahead and off to their left as they made their way through a valley between several towering mountain peaks.

"The song's not the issue, Jo," Eric replied, looking out his own side of the aircraft. "Three years flying with you and never a peep. You come back from a week's leave and now I have a freaking canary sitting next to me every day. AGL fifteen hundred over the next peak."

"Copy, fifteen hundred. Them's the breaks Nguyen. My life is good. I'm feeling you, man." Eric looked over to see Jo grinning below the black visor of her helmet, her smile partially hidden behind her microphone.

He grinned himself. "At least you can land on the right pad now."

"Fuck you, dude!" She laughed.

"So, this guy has appendicitis, huh? That's an unlucky bounce out here."

"Right?" said Jo. "Better than a bullet, I suppose."

"There's the outpost," Eric said. "Ground's reporting wind is one-seven-zero at ten, circle around north, approach three-five-zero."

"Copy, three-five-zero" Jo said and started orbiting the mountain top observation outpost to the right. She clicked the thumb-stick button to connect her intercom to her crew chief. "Ehrens, three minutes out. I don't want to be on the ground more than five."

"You got it Chief," Sgt. Billy Ehrens said in her ear. "We're ready."

"You buy that intel brief about crew served weapons in the area?" Eric asked her.

"Nobody's seen the Taliban with a BFG in these parts for twelve months, they're all further south," she was craning her neck to look at every mountain top in the area as they approached. "But that doesn't mean I'm not treating it as gospel. I don't really want to be anywhere near one of 'em if I can avoid it."

"Roger that Jo. Three-five-zero, three hundred AGL. Two hundred. One hundred. Fifty. Twenty-five. Contact."

Jo slowly eased her bird down onto the rough landing pad of the observation outpost and settled its weight onto the landing gears in a swirling cloud of dust. Since they weren't hustling to dodge enemy fire, there was no need for a dramatic flare to slow down before she brought her bird in. The Afghan Army personnel at the outpost sprang into action, helping a young soldier who was holding his midsection walk to the helicopter. Sgt. Ben Jackson slid open the side door as Ehrens started throwing four large supply boxes out to the ground. Their flight medic, Specialist Liz Charles, pulled the appendicitis patient aboard and helped him strap into a jump seat. They didn't bother securing him to a stretcher for a non-injury ride.

Three minutes and twenty seconds after they had landed, Sgt. Ehrens slammed the door and called up to Jo, "Buttoned up and good to go, Chief."

"Copy that, nice work guys," Jo said into her mic. She checked her side as Eric looked out the right to make sure they were clear. She tossed a salute out the window at the Afghan soldiers watching on her side, shielding their eyes from the rotor wash. As Jo twisted the throttle and pulled up on the collective, her bird smoothly lifted off and headed back towards the pass they'd come from.

"Smooth like butter," Jo said. "Forty-five minutes RTB, fuel's seventy-five. I'm feelin' y-o-o-o-o-u-u-u-u."

"Every day should be this easy," Nguyen said a few minutes later as they flew back through the valley.

"If they were all this easy they wouldn't—" she trailed off, craning her neck to the left.

Jo saw sunlight reflecting off metal on the mountainside off to her left and flashes reaching out to her at the exact moment the heavy rounds started slamming into their aircraft. She banked hard to the right and maxed the throttle, just as the Plexiglas chin bubble under her feet shattered, along with her left ankle. She screamed, the helicopter lurched, and sparks burst out all over the cockpit as rounds impacted electronics. She heard Eric grunt loudly into the intercom. Blood started pouring out of the hole in her boot, covering the spidered glass shards beneath her feet. "Nguyen, your aircraft!" she yelled. She could hear a troubling note already spiraling up from the two turbine engines.

"My aircraft!" he shouted. They hadn't been hit again after the initial impacts, and Nguyen had them racing down the valley away from the location of the incoming. Jo was frantically pulled off her belt while looking at the gauges.

"RPMs down on Number Two, hydraulics dropping fast, temp is up, we're gonna lose it," she groaned, while tying her belt around her left thigh. "Speed coming down, one forty indicated." She knew her ankle was monumentally fucked as it dangled uselessly from her leg, but she wasn't feeling as much pain as she would later because of shock. "If there was a later," she thought. It still hurt like a motherfucker. She took one of the ubiquitous tourniquets every one carried out of her sleeve pocket and tied it around her thigh, then twisted it tight until she couldn't stand any more pressure. The bleeding slowed noticeably from her boot, and she tucked the handle of the tourniquet under her thigh to hold it in place.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday." Jo called out over the communications circuit. She was quickly talking to the regional air controller giving their coordinates, her voice eerily calm. "We have taken enemy fire, we are heavily damaged and will be putting down. Number Two Turbine is going, correction, we have lost Number Two. Engine temp is rising on Number One. Request immediate S-A-R, my location, currently heading three-three-zero, speed one-twenty."

She looked over the gauges again. "Nguyen, we gotta put down now. Nguyen. Nguyen!" she looked over just as her copilot's slumped forward, blood running out of his mouth. "Eric!" she shouted as the helicopter slewed to the left. She grabbed the controls. Force of habit made her yell "My aircraft!"

The information the gauges were feeding her and the sounds coming from overhead told her Number One turbine was going sideways fast. She looked around as she was descending. They were flying down the rough valley, with no obvious place to land. That really doesn't matter a good goddamn right now, because we're gonna be on the ground one way or the other in the next two minutes, she thought to herself. Then the Number One turbine failed and started winding down as the body of the Blackhawk rattled. "Fuck," she breathed.

Little Voice joined Jo in the cockpit.

"Auto-rotation time Collins. Feather the blades, pull up your nose a bit. Keep your up your rotor speed. Thirty-five hundred AGL, rate of descent fourteen hundred FPM. Two minutes. Dump your fuel."

She reached out and found the fuel dump switch by feel, starting the aviation gas venting from the helicopter. If she could get them down... at least there'd be less chance of a fire.

Jo started scanning the area ahead she knew she would be impacting. If she could carry just a little further she could "land" on the far side of the hill ahead. That would be better than the alternative, smacking into the upslope. Hitting the downslope would help her lessen some of the energy from the impact. She clicked her thumb-stick for the intercom.

"Billy, everyone alive back there?"

Sgt. Ehrens answered, "No one was hit, Chief. We're all strapped in. There's a fuck ton of hydraulic fluid pouring into the compartment." Jo could hear the fear in his voice and she realized it was probably the first time since he'd been flying with her that she'd used his first name.

"Copy Billy. Prep for a hard landing, we're going in."

"Copy that Chief." He hesitated, then said, "You're the best at this, Jo. You got us." He clicked off to let her concentrate.

"Fifteen hundred feet AGL, seventeen hundred FPM, less than a minute. Your rotor speed's too low. You're outside the envelope, Collins. You aren't going to have enough energy for the flare," Little Voice said.

No shit, she thought. It's a math problem, and her numbers weren't adding up. She pushed the collective further down, feathering the blades as much as possible and increasing their rate of descent, trying to get more energy back into the rotors. Thank god there were only four people in the back instead of a full platoon. Less weight meant maybe she could... She had to get more rotor speed before she flared or they were going to splatter all over the mountainside.

This is going to destroy dad, she thought. It took him years to get over mom. "Blue Girl... Blue, I..."

"Focus, Collins, we're not out of the game yet. Four hundred feet. Five seconds. Pull up... Now."

Jo started pulling up on the collective and back on the stick as hard as she could. If she made it over the crest to the downslope side of the hill, it was going to be by mere feet. Fuck, the controls were heavy! The Blackhawk groaned and shuddered as she strained to pull the nose up, grunting with the effort.