Chapter 11: Year Two: Day Fifty-Seven: Monday

The remainder of the weekend seemed to zip by. Almost before I could enjoy it I found that Kari was shaking me awake at 1:30 AM. Still groggy and with my ass dragging I somehow made my way to the operations area for the brief where I downed my second cup of coffee. The flight we briefed was typical of the responsibilities we placed on our very young pilots. Norma Harrison, not quite 19 years old, had developed into a crack pilot with over 250 hours in the A-10 Warthog. Because of her experience she would be flying the lead aircraft in our two plane flight.

The Aviation Brigade was now composed of two types of pilots. The majority of our pilots were generalists who moved from one aircraft type to another based upon the needs of the moment. Some, such as Norma, were cleared to specialize in a specific aircraft. Those few pilots were expected to become experts and leaders in those types of aircraft. Eventually as the number of pilots increased there would be more pilots who would become specialists but for the moment there were only six.

Norma's specialization in the Warthog was more like a love affair. She was the first specialist because of the natural affinity she seemed to have for this ugly aircraft. This was to the consternation of Mike Eagan Jr., her fiancé. Mike, another member of the aviation brigade, visibly flinched every time Norma made a strafing run at high subsonic speeds. He was just old fashioned enough to want his prospective bride flying safely in large multi-engined cargo or passenger aircraft. Mike knew Norma well enough not to make demands or rehash his feelings too loudly or too often.

Three A.M. saw our two-aircraft flight accelerate past the outer marker of the runway. Almost as soon as our wheels were in the well we each began preparing sensors and data links for a test run. Both aircraft carried specially modified FLIR pods that we would test in a high level pass over Tallahassee. Operations knew precisely where everyone was located in that sparsely occupied city and our hopes were that the pods containing our infrared sensors would send back data that verified those locations.

The FLIR, an acronym for Forward Looking Infrared, was older technology that we had reinvented for this purpose. It had to be reinvented as the old technology mapped locations using GPS signals which were now non-existent. Our reinvented FLIR was limited to working off of coordinates supplied by our aircraft's inertial gyro and magnetic compass in place of those GPS signals. No longer having GPS had made all of the pre-collapse FLIR pods with their racks of printed circuit cards so much scrap. The readings from our reinvented FLIR were only a little less accurate in the end but did require occasional in-flight adjustments. At least that is what the science team had promised us.

These FLIR pods were expected to not only help us precisely locate the renegades and possible survivors in Jacksonville but would in the future allow us to search for survivors at a much higher and thus safer altitude. We envisioned future searches being conducted at night, rendering our search aircraft almost invisible to any hostile forces on the ground below. Another advantage would be that the higher altitude would allow more ground to be covered in a single pass which hopefully would translate into faster searches using less flight time and fuel. This was another example of continuing scientific progress, even if it did necessitate our reinventing or modifying a technology that the pre-collapse world took for granted.

Norma was unusually quiet at the briefing and during the first part of our flight. Hell, during that time we were so busy that we had little time to strike up any meaningful conversation. After a pass over Tallahassee verified the accuracy of the FLIR pods we set up for our planned high-level passes over Lake City and then Jacksonville. Kari had mapped out a precise flight plan that would allow us to completely sweep Jacksonville in just three passes. If all worked as planned we would be able to land for an early lunch and refueling at Blanding and then head home for the evening.

Our flight to Lake City seemed to go by quickly, although I did catch Norma, who was used to flying solo, occasionally glancing back at my trailing aircraft. Soon we were disengaging our autopilots as we began to maneuver both aircraft towards the correct vector and altitude for the prescribed pattern over Lake City. That data was recorded and transmitted back to those waiting at Whiting Field. Our data link technology was simple but effective as we had no need for the tight secure beam earlier military technology required. That was good because without a working GPS a tight data beam would have been almost impossible to achieve.

We received word that there were a few heat signatures showing in the vicinity of Lake City but nothing that was unusual. We flew on towards our rendezvous with the beginning of the search pattern near Jacksonville. That meant that both of our aircraft made a sweeping curve to the south so we could line up with those precise vectors for our first pass. Norma was doing a fantastic job following the precise route that was laid out on our flight charts. All I had to do is maintain correct spacing on her aircraft. I found myself falling back into my role as instructor as I checked and rechecked our navigation. I clipped on my mask as we both again went on oxygen before we ascended to altitude. The Warthog was designed as a low-level assault aircraft but planners had included a very sophisticated OBOGS (On Board Oxygen Generating System) that concentrated the atmospheric gases at altitude and then used a series of scrubbers to remove nitrogen and carbon dioxide. To me it was amazing that all of that was contained in a container no larger than a five gallon mop pail.

We worked silently for the next hour making the three prescribed passes that were necessary to complete our mission. Whiting let us know that the data was good and we circled for a landing at Camp Blanding. I knew we were both looking forward to a home cooked lunch.

Our lunch at Camp Blanding found us alone in the nice cafeteria that the ladies had set up. It was quite late and I appreciated the fact that several of the ladies at Camp Blanding had prepared us a special meal. While we were eating I caught Norma nervously stealing quick glances at me. She didn't say anything but I knew from long experience with hundreds of flight students that she had a question poised on the tip of her tongue. Long ago one of my instructors had told me that the only stupid question was one the student fails to ask. I had repeated that mantra to all of my students even after hearing hundreds of really stupid questions. Looking around and seeing that there was no one within hearing I broke the ice by asking, "What's the problem? I know I used deodorant this morning. I can't smell that bad."

Without acknowledging my humor Norma nervously looked up from her mashed potatoes and asked, "Mind if I ask you a really personal question?"

Wondering if I was going to have to try to satisfy one more person's curiosity about my multiple-partner marriage I answered, "Sure you can. Of course I will then decide whether to answer it."

Then alluding to the number one question about my personal life I added another caveat, "Of course if it pertains to what happens behind closed doors with my wives you'll get more information from them."

Norma smiled and said, "No, Kari, Laura and Lana keep us all up to speed on everything that happens there."

I tried to appear shocked but just ended up laughing.

Norma got serious as she caught my eyes and asked, "You know me and Mike are engaged, right?"

I nodded my agreement as she continued, "Has Mike said anything to you or Kari about my flying status?"

I was quick to answer, "No, but I think everyone knows how he feels."

Norma looked off past me as she responded, "Steve, I feel like he's trying to smother me some times. I know our families are conservative and have always believed that the man should be the head of the household and all. Hell, I used to accept that myself, but what happened at that ... that place ... I can't call it a church anymore. Well, after that I told myself that I would never let a man force a decision on me again. I love Mike but I just feel..."

Glancing over at Norma I saw her still staring straight ahead, unseeing, as if she was fixated on some far away object. After her hesitation lengthened and I realized she wasn't going to continue, I spoke. "Norma, it's proper for a husband or a wife to worry about each other especially when they have a job that is inherently dangerous. That being said I have never tried to limit the flying of any of my wives. That didn't stop me from blaming myself when Julie..."

Norma looked over at me at the mention of that name. I wiped my eye and continued. "I'm trying to tread lightly here because our family may not work the way your family will. I'm just saying that neither Kari nor I will make a decision on what you fly or if you fly based upon Mike's wishes ... you should know that. Now if Dr. Walling grounds you for whatever reason, then you will be grounded until he says you're fit to return to flight status. I expect most of my wives will have to face that in the near future. I hope that's the answer you expected."

Norma swallowed and answered, "Yes, that's what I thought. Steve, will you help me convince Mike? I love him and I don't want to lose him but if he keeps up trying to pressure me towards a safer aircraft or a desk job I'm pretty sure we won't be together much longer. I feel so free in the air and so in touch with myself when I'm flying my hog. I can't explain it other than to say that I know it's what I was meant to do."

Her eyes locked on mine and her voice took on almost a mystical quality as she whispered, "That old plane has become so familiar that it feels almost like an extension of my body."

I smiled as the feeling of déjà-vu washed over me. I remembered that same feeling in my first assignment after flight school. I knew at that point that no amount of pleading or cajoling from Mike would convince Norma to take a desk job. I smiled as I said, "I'll talk to him when we get back. I think he'll understand."

Later that evening, upon our return to Whiting, we discussed the results of our mornings work with David LeBlanc and other members of the development team. David had been Major LeBlanc, an Electronics Project Officer stationed at Eglin AFB, immediately before the collapse. He headed the team that developed the FLIR pod that we used.

As soon as we were all seated around the circular conference table David came right to the point. "There are four concentrations of heat signatures. Three are in Jacksonville proper and one is in or near Mayport."

I whistled which caused David to look up at me and raise his bushy eyebrows.

Looking at the large map spread out on the table that detailed the location of the heat signatures I explained, "I was just thinking that if we hadn't turned back when we discovered the survivors around Camp Blanding we would undoubtedly have run headlong into one or more of these groups as we moved through Jacksonville towards Mayport."

David who seemed a bit annoyed at my statement of the obvious quipped, "I know, I read the op report."

Shrugging I asked, "Do you have exact numbers of these groups?"

David frowned and said, "For the most part."

He then began to explain the number and threat assessment of each group. David stated that only one of the three groups in Jacksonville was considered a threat. As soon as he made that statement Kari asked, "I know FLIR picks up heat and residual heat of things that give off heat, including people, but wouldn't the heat given off by an enemy and a friend be the same?"

Kari must have pushed the right buttons because David smiled at her as he answered, "Our technology is quite advanced. This FLIR is the latest technology that our military used before the collapse. The changes we made had to do with location and coordination because of the lack of GPS. We have a sophisticated computer program that was highly classified before the collapse. This program identifies each heat signature with a high probability of accuracy. Not only can it tell a man from a dog, it can tell a man from a woman or a child. It can also discern the difference between a motorcycle engine and a generator or a car engine. Of course that's provided they are not shielded by heavy metal or underground. In the case of metal, say a tank, we would know it's a tank by the way the metal of the tank..."

Suddenly this became very interesting. Impatiently I interrupted, asking, "David, explain why one this one group is labeled a threat and the others aren't."

David used a pointer and indicated an area just on the southern edge of Jacksonville, in an area known Mandarin. I remembered this area as an affluent section of town primarily comprised of luxury homes and apartments. David began pointing out places where the heat signatures analyzed by the computer revealed clusters of warm motorcycle engines. In the same area the computer revealed numerous groupings of five to nine women in close proximity to one or two men. There are a few groups of four or five women in a group together with no man. He then smiled as he quipped, "It looks like they have a large number of leaders, doesn't it?"

I groaned at the inference and everyone else laughed. Then David got serious and detailed the exact points that the team interpreting the computer data had used to determine that this was a renegade grouping. Pointing out the details on an enlarged map of one subdivision he stated, "Each of these groupings is in a home in this subdivision. Here we have heat signatures of large generators powering the homes. Here are the still warm bikes in the driveways."

Moving to another detailed enlargement he continued, "Here you can see what must be a grocery store near the subdivision. You can see that the heat signatures indicated the compressors in back of the building putting out heat, while the freezers and refrigerated cases have the store much cooler than the surrounding night time air. Near by you can see several large generators that provide the electricity to that store and possibly others in the area. The computer counted the heat signatures of approximately 55 males and 220 females in this area. There was residual heat coming off of the engines of about 65 bikes and only four or five cars. The computer interpreted the weak signatures of most of the bikes to mean that they were last run three to four hours before you made your pass over the area. Five bike engines had strong heat signatures and riders."

Norma spoke up and said, "Isn't all of this circumstantial? Seventy bikes and only 55 men mean that some of the women are riding too. Are we sure this group is a threat?"

Kari looked tired as she answered, "That's about the percentage that we found in other groups, including the group in Tallahassee. Sure there is a small chance this group might be peaceful. The man to women ratio in most of these houses argues against that though. I know that our family isn't unique but I doubt you'd find a large group where almost every family is like ours. It's most likely that most of these women didn't choose to live like that; besides, there were no children in that group."

David continued on with his report. "This Mandarin Group is much larger than the other two groups in Jacksonville proper. The second group of about 35 people is concentrated here, in a condominium near the intercoastal waterway. The computer showed that there were 12 men in this group, 14 women and nine children. On this blowup you can see heat signatures of large generators running the electricity and air handlers outside the condos. There were also several automobile and small boat engines that were barely warm nearby. There were two automobiles near the condos that each had two men inside; probably some sort of guards for security.

"The third group is here near the airport to the north. It's larger than the second group, about sixty-five people total. There are approximately 22 men, 26 women and 17 children. As you can see from the detailed maps, the group's location is in an upscale subdivision west of the airport. They seem to be in pretty good shape as they have generators for the homes. There were no other heat signatures in this area from automobiles or other vehicles. This may mean that they have no patrols and so may not have run into trouble in the past. In addition to this, there are about 15 other places where we've located either single individuals or small groups of two or three individuals around town. Each of these appears unconnected but some could possibly be scouts for any of the other three groups."

I found it hard to believe the detail. I said so. "David, I'm impressed. This should save us a lot of grunt work."

Looking in turn at each of the other people at the table my eyes locked onto Bill Jenkins who was busy conferring with Terry Cooper. They were two of the three military detachment people at the table. I cleared my throat and asked, "Bill, what do you and Terry think of all this?"

Bill spoke quickly, "I think we need to move on that large group while we know where they are. I don't see that it's much different than what we faced in Tallahassee except that they are spread out at night with all those women who may just be captives. Probably better to put a few scouts on the ground to do what Jan did for us there and catch the bikers when they're away from their base."

Terry spoke up as soon as Bill had stopped. He said, "Of course that all depends on what David tells us about Mayport. Are they hostiles or friendlies?"

David shrugged as he answered, "The best thing I can say is that we're not sure. One of the limitations of infrared technology is that metal absorbs and releases heat and in some ways acts like a shield after a while. I'll tell you what we do know. There is a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, which we believe is the USS Eisenhower, docked at NS Mayport. We know that there are people aboard because we registered a few individual heat signatures through the relatively thin metal of the superstructure. The flight deck and hull of the ship are each several inches of steel plating. There is no way to register body heat through that. We know one of the two nuclear reactors is completely active while the second reactor seems to be damped down. We also have heat from vents indicating the electrical generators are operating at a reduced capacity. From what we know the generators would be needed to generate shipboard electricity from the reactors. We have also registered some other hot spots. We're still trying to make sense of all of them. We've identified the evaporators used to make fresh water. From the fairly even distribution of heat along the hull we think the hangar doors have been closed for quite a while as well."

Terry immediately asked, "If the hull plating is a problem, how can you be sure what machinery is operating inside the ship?"

David quickly replied, "We're not completely sure. Whiting's library had a multitude of detailed plans of Nimitz class carriers. Even with the best technology you can't completely bottle up heat like that. There are specific vents for specific systems. The heat signatures from those vents let us know whether those particular major systems are operational."

Bill said, "I'll be damned."

I looked around the table and Bill's comment seemed to be the consensus of most everyone's opinion about the whole idea of an operational carrier. Kari was writing a note on a pad. She quickly pushed it over in front of me. The pad had one word underlined on it. 'AIRCRAFT?'

While everyone was jacking their jaws I passed the pad over to David. He looked up and shrugged. I cleared my throat and began, "I know that some of you already know this but bear with me. I think it's important to take a chance on restating the obvious. No matter how large and impressive it seems to be, the aircraft carrier docked at Mayport is not a threat to us unless there are aircraft on board and it has some capability to get underway and launch those aircraft.

"Here's why I say that. The Nimitz class carriers accommodate in excess of 6,000 people on board when fully operational. Usually about 3,900 of those sailors are ship's company. Those sailors are needed to move the ship from point A to point B and to operate the ships equipment, including the catapults, arresting gear and defensive weapons systems. There is almost no possibility that there are that many people onboard. The reason that ship carries so many people is that aircraft carriers are extremely labor intensive. Plans I have seen would allow the ship to get underway and operate in a limited capacity with one-third of those sailors. That's still 1,300 people just to operate the ship.

"Now on the other hand you could probably operate basic utilities such as power, lights, air conditioning and water for a relatively short period of time with as few as 40 to 50 people. To do that you would only need one reactor active. I'm not sure how safe that would be as the reactor and certain other systems require constant monitoring and maintenance. More than likely this is a safe haven for a group of people. With the stores onboard a small group of people could live comfortably on such a ship for ... well you figure out the math."

Norma asked the one question I wasn't 100% sure of the answer to. "Boss, how can you be sure that there aren't aircraft aboard if they have the hangar doors closed?"

"Good question. The answer is that I'm not absolutely sure. What I am sure of is that they can't launch any of the more advanced aircraft from pier-side. They need to launch aircraft into the wind and they have to get underway to do that. If they do have aircraft they are probably parked on the runway at Mayport. The other clue is that there were no heat signatures coming from the steam catapults on the flight deck. It would take several days to get those systems up and running from a cold start. If they had active aircraft onboard then they would keep those systems operational.

"I think from what we've seen our primary target is the large group in Jacksonville. After we deal with that group we can contact the other groups, including those onboard the Ike, and offer our assistance. I will be interested in how close to operational the Ike is, but I doubt that we can ever use it for more than a static base because of the manpower requirement."

Taking out the renegades in Mandarin was a relatively pain free operation, at least for us. It turned out they had a sweet set up with an average of four female slaves for each actual renegade. This group had the same fatal habit as the group in Tallahassee. Each morning our scouts reported most of the renegades assembled on the streets of the subdivision with engines roaring. At a signal from the leader, at about eight o'clock, they would form up in pairs and ride off towards Jacksonville proper. Every so often, at what must have been prearranged points, a pair would drop off and drive through another subdivisions or main streets. By ten o'clock the group would begin to return and regroup. Ambushing them almost didn't seem fair but we did it anyway. As soon as they heard the start of the ambush those we had assigned to rescue the slaves began their work. Unfortunately as soon as those former slaves saw that their guards were helpless they exacted their own measure of revenge. In comparison our bullets were much more merciful.