7
“Contact at thirty miles, bearing two-three-five.” Lola Maloney’s call over the radio broke the drudgery of the transit flight over water.
Trisha was always amazed at how long such flights felt. Especially since that was most of what a pilot did. Long patrols, transport through safe areas, flying from a safe base to the mission’s target zone, and keeping alert while flying back as the mission’s adrenal-high cooled in her blood. Especially tough because the flight home always seemed to last forever.
Battle exercises were usually more intense than the real thing because they were designed to use every minute possible for training. And prior to Iraq and Afghanistan, there was always more training than missions. She wondered how that would be changing with the troop drawdowns.
Shuttling
