Deep Survival - Survival or Death?

Author: Lawrence Gonzalez (USA)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: "Beware, Ray Charles is here!" If you could observe the surge of adrenaline, you would see a greasy green river. Tonight, at the San Diego port beach in the southwestern United States, the green river began to surge, flowing 100 miles away, connecting to the tail of a ship—the pilot's called it "the ship," though it has a displacement of 95,000 tons and a standard crew of no less than 6,000 people, and its length is as long as the Empire State Building. At this moment, I stood on an eight-foot-square landing pilot platform. I squeezed in with six or seven sweating guys. The big ship steered directly into the trade winds, maintaining a speed of "around 30 knots" (exact speed is a military secret). The platform was 70 feet high, and I tried to stand as far inside as possible to avoid accidentally falling into the sea. Looking up, the steel propellers sliced the belly of the sea into a single line; under the moonlight, the waves, like intestines, shone brilliantly, rippling out from the stern. The landing signal officer, Mike Yankovich, stood to my left, wearing goggles and a helmet, maintaining an angle of about 150 degrees, intently staring at the sea level above, his left ear pressed close to the receiver of a clumsy handheld radio. His right hand held the "pickle remote"—a device made of phenolic plastic, resembling a large and long real pickle, with a silver-white ring around the black trigger. Yankovich separated his thumb and index finger, placing them on the two switches, ready to press the signal light switch or the no-landing switch at any moment if a command was needed to speed up the plane or delay landing. At this moment, an F-18 Hornet fighter jet approached us at a speed of 150 miles per hour. Unintentionally, those guys pushed me to the edge of the platform. They were too curious, eager to get a glimpse. In the night, a mile away, the fighter jet was not conspicuous, like a black dart. In the night sky, the stars hummed in unison. As far as I know, the giant engines produced by General Electric Company consume an astonishing amount of fuel, even more than a German V-2 rocket, though the sound is not yet audible. In the distance, the fighter jet was only the size of an insect, silent, like a folded paper plane, slowly unfurling its wings—as if a pitch-black bat, wandering in a pitch-black night sky. I glanced around at the faces, only to see each person eating a "Dudu" brand lollipop, their cheeks puffed up. Just a few minutes ago, a Marine officer had given each of them one. They stared blankly with their white eyes. The black dart grew larger, devouring the stars one by one. However, although they were all watching the plane, they were different from me. They were like a group of children, lined up waiting to ride a slide. The fighter jet in front of me was 56 feet long and had a wingspan of 40 feet, approaching us directly. I thought: Everyone is doomed! We stood near the end of the runway, only a few feet away from the landing point of the giant beast. The white edge line of the runway shone brilliantly, standing out against the black non-slip deck (meaning: once crossed, it means certain death). The runway was built on the deck, slanted at an angle to the hull, and the distance was very short, extending to the bow. Four gray, oil-stained, and twisted braking cables stretched to the starboard. The landing method for carrier-based aircraft is: the pilot adjusts the angle, aligns with the center of the runway, and hooks the tail hook onto one of the four braking cables. The deck around the runway was in a hurry. Ground crew members in yellow or purple uniforms, wearing goggles, helmets, and protective gloves, kept waving their arms, giving commands in sign language. A-6 attack jets, F-18 fighters, and the charmingly old "Tomcat" fighters were crammed together, like a group of slow-moving animals, queuing for refueling, repositioning, and catapult takeoff. Amid the flashing lights on the deck and the harsh metallic symphony, the entire scene was like an ancient ritual, with participants showing totemic reverence in the face of the powerful flames. I turned around and caught sight of a ground crew member responsible for catapult takeoff. He stood at the edge of the deck, straining to watch through his goggles. The lights around him glowed with an eerie sulfuric hue. Another one was launched—click— crackle— whoosh, followed by a shower of metal shrapnel and terrifying screams, as if tearing open a rift to hell. The bat-like fighter jet began to climb, spewing a stream of smoke, and then disappeared into the night. The twin afterburners spewed flames like two angry eyes, hanging motionless in the sky. Through the earphones in my helmet, I heard Yankovich calling over the radio. I turned around and stared at the approaching F-18 fighter jet. The pilot answered in a trembling voice: "314 Hornet calling, visibility 3,2." "Roger. Deck wind speed 20." The plane was only a quarter of a mile away. The pilot was like a child hiding in a glass dome, traveling alone in the dark. The yellow signal lights on the deck grew dimmer, and the cold wind swept up clouds of smoke, passing over the waning moon. Each wing of the plane was equipped with a giant jet engine, leaving a thunderous tsunami-like trail as it dove towards the turbulent sea. Finally, the deck beneath my feet began to tremble. With a roar, the thick and heavy double cables, like musical instruments with soft tones, suddenly buzzed, colliding face-to-face with the sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar and the "Terminator." The plane caught the cables, sliding out 200 feet like a giant whale. The fuselage shook violently, and Dale Rio (whose name was printed on the cockpit wall) hung on the safety belt. Due to the sudden weightlessness, he fainted for a moment, then struggled to move a 40-pound lever to shift the throttle to neutral. At this moment, the ground crew members in yellow uniforms waved at him, signaling him to move closer to the refueling truck, where the ground crew in purple uniforms would refuel the plane.