Kathryn felt like a coward sneaking out of Casey’s room. She thought she’d made a clean escape when she heard behind her, “Hi, Captain Hardesty.”
She turned to see a young lieutenant she had flown with last week. “Hi, Lieutenant Rogers. What are you doing today?”
“Emergency procedures sim, ma’am,” he said as he rushed off toward the simulator building.
What the hell was I thinking? This is madness. I’m going to get us both court-martialed and kicked out of the Air Force. And what must Casey think of me now? That I treated her like a quick fuck? Shit!
Kathryn continued to beat herself up as she drove back to her office, then she went back to the maintenance hangar. She had a feeling this near crash was the result of some very bad decisions, but she had to find proof before she could say anything. She would get to the bottom of this no matter how many heads rolled.
“Captain Hardesty, I’m glad you’re back. I’ve got some interesting documents to show you,” Master Sergeant Gutierrez said. “First, look at this gearbox shaft.”
Kathryn examined the heavy metal pieces he handed to her. “It broke as we were removing it from the jet. This thing had maybe a few minutes left before it broke apart in the air.” It had the classic seashell look of extensive metal fatigue over ninety percent of the surface with a fracture zone on the last ten percent. How long had we been flying this jet in this condition? This shaft failure would have caused catastrophic engine and gearbox damage.
“When was the last time this component was inspected, Sergeant?”
“Almost two years ago, ma’am. Here are the maintenance history records.” He handed her a thick folder with tabs for each major aircraft system and orange Post-it Notes in two places.
As she studied the marked sections, she noticed that prior to two years ago, this gearbox shaft had been inspected and documented every year. “Was an inspection missed?”
“Look at the other marked section, ma’am. The inspection schedule protocol was changed from annual to biannual a little over two years ago as a cost saving measure.”
“Who was the idiot who did that? Some headquarters bean counter?”
“No, ma’am, it was a local maintenance decision by the deputy chief of maintenance based on a recommendation from some captain in the base budget office. He estimated that we could save one hundred and twenty man-hours per year by extending the inspections to every other year.”
“Save one hundred and twenty maintenance man hours? That comes out to maybe six thousand dollars, and this part costs at least three times that much to replace. That was complete stupidity to change that inspection schedule, and why in the world did the budget office recommend an aircraft maintenance change?”
“More like four times the cost savings to replace this part, ma’am, not to mention the expense of the damage to the rest of the engine. Right now, we’re looking at over one hundred grand to repair this jet.”
“Thanks, Sergeant. Keep me informed if you find anything else.” Kathryn would get to the bottom of this disastrous decision and make sure the higher-ups knew exactly who was responsible.
“Captain Hardesty, I went through the computer, and we have thirty-two other T-38s that have gone over a year without the gearbox shaft being inspected. I’ve told my guys to put everything else on hold and start inspecting those other jets as soon as possible.”
“We’re going to have to ground all those jets until we’re sure they are safe to fly. The T-38 squadron commander and the wing commander are going to shit bricks when they hear I’m grounding half the fleet. Get me the tail numbers of the jets that need inspections, and I’ll write up the temporary tech order to ground them. Let me know what you find with those other jets. Thanks, Sergeant.” Kathryn rushed out of the maintenance hangar to go tell the wing commander, then inform the flight safety office at the Air Training Command headquarters. This was not going to go over well.
*****
Casey stood outside the wing commander’s office looking at the plaques on the wood-paneled walls. Willie had a long and distinguished history, and it was all displayed here in this imposing-looking office.
“Colonel Johnson will see you now,” Mrs. Rogers informed Casey.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Casey stood up to her full height as she walked into Colonel Johnson’s office. His wood desk was enormous with his official flags behind his giant chair and his personal airplane models and awards decorating the walls. She stopped in front of his desk standing at attention. When he turned to look at her, she saluted. “Captain Tompkins reporting as ordered, sir.”
“At ease, Captain. Please take a seat.” He seemed cordial, friendly, and not angry. Casey was suspicious and nervous. A junior officer’s goal in life was for the wing commander not to even know who she was. It was certainly not in her plans to be sitting in his office having to explain her actions in an aircraft emergency.
“I understand you had some excitement on your solo flight today. I just wanted to talk to you about this.” Is this a trick? Why is he being nice?
“Can you tell me what happened today?”
“Yes, sir. I lost my right generator with no crossover and had to do a no flap, full stop landing.”
“Can you tell me why you demanded immediate landing clearance from the tower?”
“I felt a vibration on the right side of the plane where the gearbox is located, and I thought I needed to get on the ground as soon as possible in case there was any further damage to my jet. Was I incorrect, sir?”
“No, Casey, you weren’t. As a matter of fact, your instinct to land immediately was exactly the right thing to do. I’ve been informed by aircraft maintenance that the gearbox was on the verge of disintegrating and you would have been in a much more dangerous situation if you’d kept flying. Your decision to land the jet was absolutely correct and you landed that jet like an experienced IP. I wanted to meet you and tell you that you did a great job today. You keep up the good work in training, and I’ll be keeping my eye on you.” Stunned, Casey stood up and shook his hand.
“One last question, Casey. I heard you on the radio during your emergency and you didn’t sound nervous or scared at all. Were you?”
“No, sir, I wasn’t. I just kept hearing my IP’s voice in my head, ‘Fly the jet, fly the jet.’ So I guess I was just focused on that.”
“Is that Major Prewitt you’re referring to?”
“No, sir. I was hearing Captain Hardesty’s voice.”
“I see. Well, good job, again, Casey. I’m proud of you. You’re dismissed.”
She saluted, did an about-face, and walked out of his office hardly believing what she had just heard—the commander of the entire flying wing was proud of her.
She was practically floating as she left the wing headquarters building when she rounded the corner and ran right into Kathryn.
“Casey! Are you okay? What did Colonel Johnson say to you?”
“He said I did a good job today and that he would be keeping his eye on me. I can’t believe it.” She wanted to pull Kathryn into a big hug, but other people were standing around. She could only look and smile at Kathryn.
“Casey, that’s great. Colonel Johnson is a good guy, and if he called you in to tell you that you did a good job, well, that really means something.”
“Can you come back over to my room? Or could we go to your house?”
Kathryn felt guilty as hell. “I’m sorry, Casey. I have to brief the wing commander right now. I’ll call you later. I’ve got to go.”
For the second time today, Kathryn made her feel devastated.
*****
Casey showed up at her flight room the next morning to see half the big schedule board crossed out in red grease pencil. The flight commander explained to everyone about the emergency maintenance inspections on the entire T-38 fleet and said they would be flying a lot of sims until the planes were fixed. Thankfully, he didn’t elaborate on Casey’s emergency from yesterday except to say she’d done a good job. That was the highest praise any student pilot would ever hear.
She had a feeling there would be a lot of questions from guys in the squadron she didn’t even know about her emergency. She asked the scheduler if she could be the flight room phone person today so she could study for her instrument flight rules exam. Several of the guys in her flight asked her some questions about her emergency and she didn’t mind talking to them. After telling them her story, she sensed some increased respect from the guys.
Kathryn was front and center in her mind today. She had called her late last night and they only talked for a few minutes. When Casey asked her about when they could see each other again, Kathryn sounded evasive and made excuses about being too busy with her safety investigation. Casey didn’t push it even though she didn’t understand. She was torn between letting her mind create amazing fantasies with Kathryn and studying for her instrument exam. She wanted to let her mind wander to thoughts of Kathryn’s luscious body, but how Kathryn felt about her was the big unknown.
*****
Kathryn was buried in paperwork as she worked on the safety investigation of Casey’s mishap. Thirty-two T-38s were past due for inspections of the gearbox shafts, and maintenance was working twenty-four hours a day to inspect them as fast as they could. So far, they’d only found three with severe metal fatigue and they had been repaired already. Seven more jets had evidence of damage, but they should be fixed fairly soon.
The more troubling aspect of this investigation was the detective work to find out who instigated this disastrous inspection change. For some reason, she was finding gaps in the records of the maintenance tech order changes, which was very unusual.
Everyone in aircraft maintenance, and especially in Air Training Command, was meticulous about documenting anything having to do with the jets. She’d stayed at her office until two a.m. the night before digging through the paperwork with no luck. When she’d finally gotten home, she’d had a hard time sleeping. Thoughts of Casey kept stirring in her mind. She kept seeing the image of Casey’s jet hurtling down the runway then finally stopping with smoke pouring off the wheels. Then the image of Casey’s amazing body came into her mind. She’d been so desperate and frantic with her that it could hardly be called lovemaking. It was more like animalistic coupling to affirm for each other that they were still alive. Her feelings about Casey were becoming a huge problem.
Just then, Casey’s IP, Bulldog Prewitt, came stomping into her office. “I’ve got something you need to see, Kath,” he said as he pulled a computer disk from his pocket.
“What’s this?”
“I keep copies of everything related to tech order changes since I’m a wing test pilot. They hammered this into us at Edwards when I was in Flight Test School. When I heard about Casey’s jet and that change to the inspection schedule, I went through my old files and guess what I found?”
“What, Bulldog? You’re killing me.”
“There’re some maintenance records that have been deleted off the main computer system. And they’ve been deleted just recently, to boot. This floppy disk has a copy of my records from before her mishap. You need to check this with what’s in the maintenance computer system now. Very interesting reading.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what you found out?”
“Because that ain’t my job. I’m just cooperating with the records request as part of the safety investigation.” He turned and stomped out of her office.
Kathryn inserted the floppy disk into her computer terminal, opened the files, and saw a name she recognized, Captain Bailey Grant. Why the hell is his name here and why were these erased from the base main computer?
Kathryn reached for the phone and dialed the base computer information officer.
“Major Hendricks, I need your help in tracing some computer files and documents related to my safety investigation. Can I come over and show these to you now? Great, I’ll be there in ten minutes.” This could be just the break she needed to solve this puzzle.
The visit with Major Hendricks was enlightening. He was able to identify the computer that erased the suspect documents to a terminal in the wing standardization and evaluation branch. Specifically, the computer terminal on the desk of the chief of stan / eval. The files were erased from the computer at 2200 hours the night of Casey’s mishap, and Kathryn found out that the chief was out of town at a conference that day. Someone used his computer terminal to cover their tracks. This was no longer just a mistake or negligence; this was now a deliberate cover-up, and Kathryn knew that Bailey Grant was right in the middle of it.
She was so enraged, she wanted to go home, get her twelve-gauge shotgun, go over to his house, and blow his ugly face off. She had to calm herself while she formulated a plan to catch this bastard red-handed. She would have to wait until tonight to get the evidence she needed to nail his ass.
It was 1800 hours when she heard a knock at her office door. She looked up and saw Casey standing in front of her looking gorgeous and a little apprehensive.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure, Casey, please sit down.”
“I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I have to talk to you and I waited until everyone else went home.”
Kathryn was dreading what Casey would say next. “Okay, go ahead.”
“I have to know where we’re going. I’m thinking about you constantly and it’s driving me crazy. I’m having trouble concentrating on pilot training. I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I really need to know how you feel about me.” There it was—the million dollar question.
Kathryn looked into Casey’s beautiful, piercing, blue eyes, took a deep breath, closed her door for some privacy, and pulled up the chair next to Casey. She reached out to hold Casey’s warm, strong hand.
“I’m not sure how I feel about you, Casey. I care about you very much, but I’m not sure if I’m capable of a relationship with you, or with anyone else, for that matter. I’m not sure I can give you what you want. I do know this for sure—I want you to succeed in pilot training and earn your wings. That is more important to me than anything.”
Casey looked at her silently for a long moment. “I understand that we can’t be seen together because I’m a student pilot. But that doesn’t mean we can’t see each other at someplace off base, like my friend’s house, or we could even meet up somewhere out of town. I just want to know if there is something real here, or was I just a quick fuck for you?”
Casey’s words were a slap in her face. “You certainly were not just a ‘quick fuck’ for me. You mean a lot more than that to me.” Kathryn could no longer avoid telling Casey the real reason for her reluctance.
“I have to tell you something so you’ll understand. I had a partner, Marie, and we met nine years ago when we were both student pilots together. She got washed out, went to navigator school, and got sent to Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane. I requested to fly the KC-135 tanker so we could be stationed together. I was completely in love with her, then she was killed in a midair collision. I’ve been grieving her death for five years and I can’t get over it. I don’t know if I can ever give myself to another person. I’m damaged goods, Casey. I don’t think you’d want to be with me if you knew what I was really like.”
Casey was stunned at this information and also felt sadness in her heart for Kathryn’s pain. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. Kathryn, but I’m not Marie. I can’t promise you I’ll never die in a plane crash, but I can promise you that I will do everything in my power to stay safe. I may be just a student pilot right now, but I’ve also been a lesbian my whole life. I know what I want, and I want you. I will graduate and earn my wings in four months and nothing, or no one, will prevent me from doing that. You’re not ‘damaged goods’ to me and I would like to give us a chance. You know where to find me if you change your mind.” With that finality, Casey stood up, walked to the door, and left Kathryn’s office without another word.