Chapter 19 - Flight to HickamFor five hours, the heavy C-130 plowed through the air at twenty thousand feet. Without the complex electronic flight management systems of modern jets, flying the Hercules was physical, brutal labor. Every gust of air required manual correction on the yoke and rudders.
My arms were numb, my shoulders burned, but inside my chest, a cold, clear fire was burning.
“How’s the fuel?” I asked, squinting through the glare of the afternoon sun against the ocean horizon.
“We’re stable,” Daniel said, sitting back in the co-pilot seat after checking the mechanical sight-glass gauges in the wing wells. “We’ve got enough to reach Oahu with thirty minutes of reserve.”
He opened his flight bag and pulled out his father’s old silver dog tags, holding them in his palm.
“When he died,” Daniel said softly, “the Air Force sent my mother a folded flag and a letter signed by Vance saying Ethan was careless. That he panicked in bad weather.”
“Ethan never panicked a day in his life,” I said gently. “He was the best wingman I ever had. When my flight computer failed over Alaska in ’12, he flew fifty feet off my wing and guided me down through a zero-visibility fog bank by visual sight alone.”
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“I know,” Daniel smiled faintly. “He talked about you in every letter he wrote home, Sarah. He called you 'The Anchor.' Said as long as Night Fury was in the air, nobody on his squad was going down.”
I looked out the window at the endless blue sky. “We’re bringing him home today, Daniel. Every bit of him.”
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