Jack the Ripper and his Mystical Flying Cat

[Sa'an Akay]

Language Warning: There's a lot of swearing in here.



My heart was beating through my chest; I swear I could hear it trying to break through my ribcage and grab the controls itself. The steady ring of the missile warning blared like some sort of demented spirit in my ears. My mind was racing at a million miles a second, sharp as surgical steel. My RIO was yelling something incoherent in the back seat, babbling to me or himself or to God; I was unable to care about it.

-----

I stood in front of my designated machine. It was a beautiful, freshly repainted and polished F-14D. As is customary, all of the pilots in my squadron nicknamed our birds-of-prey; I chose Kitty, after my mother Katherine. Every day I put her through the paces with my radar intercept officer, Kevin Lang.

He hated the way I flew in the sense that he could never comprehend how I could make an aircraft could stay in the sky. To me, flying wasn’t mathematical or calculated like most of the other pilots. They would try to make their plane fly for them, to be a master to a machine; I couldn’t blame them. At speeds represented by Mach numbers, anxiety was certain. One false move could rip a wing right off the airframe or throw you into a flat spin.

Flying, though, was much more of an art to me. It was like a ballet, where you carefully danced on the controls with your aircraft as your partner. My loops and turns were tighter, my rolls were graceful and flowing. I swore to the deck officers that I could put Kitty on the deck with a perfect three-point landing without using the arrestor cables; they never let me try.

I was in tune with my aircraft; I knew her inside and out, all her quirks, misgivings and limits. I could have married her.

-----

“PULL THE FUCK UP! BREAK NOW!!”

The voice of my wingman broke through the unbearable screeching, and I almost ripped the flightstick out of place. I felt the intense G-forces pull the blood out of my head and squeezed everything. Time seemed to stop as I forced my head back, looking out of the top of my canopy. Just a few yards behind me, a Soviet missile exploded into a deadly spray of shrapnel that had barely missed me.

I felt everything at once; my heart pumping, my lungs forcing air in and out, and the terrible vibrations in my seat. Kitty didn’t like this one bit, being the prey instead of the predator. She groaned and screamed and yelled and growled, like a thing right out of the jungle. I felt her fear and her anger, and most of all I felt her desire. Who the hell has the balls to fuck with a cat? The only answer is, someone that wants to die.

As I held the stick to my chest, rolling my aircraft over, I stared into the cockpit of the son of a bitch Soviet who fired on me. I punched the throttle to max and kicked the afterburners on. Kitty growled an unfamiliar sound that spoke to me, ”He’s fucking dead.”

-----

In 1993 we heard word from the states, Russia was moving troops, lots of them. Talks in the late 80’s had gone south, Reagan was assassinated trying to convince the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to bring down the Berlin Wall and end the nuclear arms race. Some Socialist sympathizer from Florida named Tom or Ted or whoever put a bullet in his brain and then blew his brains out over the crowd. Relations were strained, but the ruskies weren’t to blame.

Tension kept growing for a few years until some Slavic terrorist group blew up part of San Francisco with a dirty-bomb in ‘94. Politicians threw nasty words around, and then Congress declared all out war. It was a slow start, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

-----

I pushed the stick back to level off, and flipped Kitty over the right way. I sped past Ivan going nine hundred miles an hour above him, the familiar shock-cone ripping the air apart all around me. He was in a Mig-29, a crappier copy of my beautiful F-14, and we were going to tear it apart and eat it.

“Jesus Jack, stop flying like an asshole!” Lang practically screamed at me. He was right to be furious, I had his life in my hands.

“Listen, dicknose, you’re alive. Take it or leave it. How many?”

“Just two, both Fulcrum. A click under us and splitting hard. Texan is Six out and above us, same heading.”

The one thing I loved about Lang, and the reason I’d never let him leave me for another flyboy, was his calmness. He absolutely hated the way I flew, but God damn if he didn’t know how to read the battle while I did. We were a team, and he knew it as well as I did that teams that can’t work together will die together.

“Tex, copy,” I spoke into the mic. We needed to coordinate and watch each other’s back.

“Copy Rip. Your ass alright?”

“Yea, I’m good. Nice call on the break. Let’s hit them up, give them the old up-and-down, over.”

“Gotcha,” came Texan’s reply. He pulled over and gained altitude, putting himself above the Migs. I rolled Kitty around gently, still accelerating, and pointed the nose at the Mig that shot. By the time we were head on, I was going Mach 2.

-----

“Lieutenant Commander Jackson Moral?”

I turned in the mess hall line to see a short little shit, maybe a year younger than me, staring up at me with a look equally made up of hope and despair.

“It’s pronounced More-ole.”

“Of course sir, sorry sir. I’m your new RIO, Kevin Lang. Just boarded.”

I looked Kevin over with a trained eye. The war had just started, and my former RIO was dismissed for attempting suicide after a pretty routine bombing mission over some supply lines. It was a shame, really.

“Good. I hope you like flying.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t sir.” I wasn’t really sure how to feel. I was twenty eight, and the man I considered my best friend was caught trying to blow his brains out. I couldn’t rationalize why I hated this kid I’d just been handed, and figured I had no choice in the matter anyway. The next day we’d gone up in our bird, and I wanted to see just how much he liked to fly.

He was a damn liar.

-----

Kitty’s engines screamed out power as we tore through the sky. The Mig’s had split off, turning in opposite directions. My target jinked up as we closed the distance, and I could hear the beep-beep-beep of the radar lock warning. His wingman was on my tail and lining up a shot while he baited me in. It was perfect.

Texan dove in as if Zeus had thrown him from Mount Olympus, a mighty thunderbolt tearing through the atmosphere. His guns blazed for just a second, and I turned my head around just in time to watch my pursuer erupt into a ball of flame and broken metal. I wondered for a second if the pilot inside had survived, but decided I didn’t care enough. It was too much of a distraction.

“Your six is clear Ripper, over.” Tex’s Mississippian accent came through the radio like smooth, half-melted butter. I could hear his RIO in the background hollering about how amazing it was, and smiled wide like a predator about to pounce.

-----

“We’ll be cutting the recon groups to two-craft flights instead of four. You’ll be armed for full combat still, but we need to be able to cover a larger area with more sorties.”

The word had come down from the brass. Four-craft squadrons were too costly for the kind of missions they had been running lately, and the logic was sound. Most of the pilots shuffled quietly. Having fewer birds in the sky meant that your combat capabilities were more limited, and reinforcements would take longer to arrive.

“Sir, are flight leads picking wingmen, or is it lottery style?”

“Flight leaders will be allowed to request a wingman, but the final decision comes from me.”

“Understood, sir.” I looked cautiously around the room full of officers until I met eyes with Jason Washburn, a soft-spoken rookie from central Mississippi. He was smarter than most everyone on the ship, and was one of the only pilots I really respected and connected with.

There was nothing to talk about between myself and the southern boy who had inappropriately been nicknamed Tex in flight school. Some washout from California thought it would be funny, I guess. It was the only standout thing he did before flunking out during the most basic part of our course.

-----

“Copy that. Fly cover, I want this one. Over.”

“Copy Ripper. Tell Kitty her dinner is flying heading one niner two, over.”

Tex knew I wasn’t going to respond. My head was on a swivel as I pulled the stick to the right and pulled back, executing as tight a roll-turn as you could at over fifteen hundred miles per hour. There he was, maybe ten miles out, running for home.

There’s nowhere to run that I won’t catch you.

The Mig rolled to the side and put its nose towards the ground, diving hard and leveling out in the opposite direction. I felt a distinct sense of hatred growing in me, a fire burning bright, threatening to burn me from the inside-out. I could hear Lang groaning again, but I blocked him out.

I followed the Mig in the turn. He pulled into an upward helix turn, and I took it wide. There was a lower, gentler beep slowing gaining in frequency. Kitty’s radar was trying to lock on, begging for it, pleading with whatever God to let her have the kill. I was right there with her, begging some invisible force to let me have it, to let me blow this fucker out of the sky.

“LANG!” I yelled into the mic, shutting him up. He knew what I wanted.

“Fuck off Jack, I won’t!”

“Do it goddamnit!”

I want to hear him die.

Lang muted his radio and finally did what I asked. Those two or three seconds felt more like entire lifetimes as I pushed and pulled Kitty through turns and loops. Just as the mig pilot tried to climb vertical as a last ditch effort, Lang found the frequency.

Time was merely an illusion now, it felt neither faster nor slower than it should be; it felt perfect. the enemy pilot was incoherent in the mic, yelling, crying, praying to live, praying for forgiveness. He must have apologized a hundred times before the gentle humming of the radar lock transitioned into the odd hissing sound of a fired missile.

I watched as the Mig finally stalled out. The missile was already on the way at supersonic speed, there was nothing to do. I rolled my aircraft carefully, manipulating every control surface carefully as to not stall out, go into a spin, or run into what would eventually be a cloud of debris.

I watched as my missile chased down the Soviet plane. Just before the fireworks, the Mig’s canopy exploded off the plane, and an ejector seat roared into life, and saved one. I watched the pilot as he shot out of his soon to be wrecked jet. I could feel his icy stare in my eyes and felt…

Nothing. I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t remorseful. I had gotten my kill. I would add another hammer and sickle to Kitty’s paint, my fifteenth. My anger died when another man’s plane did, forgotten with the kill.

-----

“Well, she’s pretty banged up sir. I’m surprised she landed.”

Jackson “Ripper” Moroal and his F-14D had barely made it back to the ship. Despite his claims to the contrary, the first missile fired by enemy forces had hit the starboard engine. His wingman refuses to give a statement regarding the damage, but backs up his flight lead’s claim that the aircraft maintained perfect combat functionality.

The damage to the right engine caused no immediately noticeable damage during flight, but upon returning to the carrier, the engine failed completely. Several blades from the compressor assembly were thrown through the aircraft, causing moderate structural damage, and a break in the linkage that controlled the starboard elevator.

-----

“I don’t care what you have to do to fix her, I want this plane fully repaired and operational within a week. Understood?”

“Fully, Lieutenant Commander. Congratulations on your third ace, sir.”

I walked away from the repair bay on the ship, nearly in tears. Everyone on this ship knew exactly how I felt about Kitty. She wasn’t just any F-14 Super Tomcat, she was the one with fifteen hammer and sickle decals on it, the one that claimed the skies with her pilot, and the one that Russian newspapers were shutdown for mentioning.

If brass thought the repair would take too long or be too costly, they’d write her off. The admiral had the last say in whether or not Kitty would be sent stateside to be rebuilt as a new plane, or kept aboard and nursed back to heal. I held my head in my quarters, restlessly tapping my heel on the metallic floor. In an hour everyone on deck would be staring at me, and I hadn’t even showered yet.

-----

The deck had been cleared of all aircraft that wouldn’t be leaving within an hour. Everyone who was sleeping had been woken up, and everyone on duty was given a short ceremony break.

“Lieutenant Commander Jackson Moroal,” the admiral belted out to the crowd of seamen. “It is my great honor to present to you the Distinguished Flying Cross.”

The admiral carefully pinned the medal to Jack’s chest, before giving him a wink.

“And it is the honor of every member of the carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan to congratulate you on your third ace.”

Every member of the crew saluted Jack, save for the admiral. “Thank you sir, it is an honor to receive these awards. I can only hope to continue at my best, sir.”

The admiral began walking away, the ceremony concluded. As the crew began packing back into the ship, he turned and looked straight into Jack’s eyes with a smile on his face. “Of course son. I hope to see you and Kitty back in the air soon. Take a break, Moroal.”

[Sa'an Akay]

Terms and Abbreviations:
- RIO: Radar Intercept Officer; person in charge of watching the radar in a 2-seater plane, usually in the back seat.
- F-14D: F-14 Tomcat, D Variant. A U.S. Navy fighter jet with 2 seats, armed with missiles and a gun.
- Mig-29: Russian fighter jet, armed with missiles and a gun. NATO codename: Fulcrum.
- Arrestor Cables: Wires on an aircraft carrier’s deck that stops a jet on landing. Typically required due to the high speed of the aircraft and the short landing distance.