“I’m so scared,” she cried. “My stomach... I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Lindsey...” He waited a few moments while she retched in her bag again; her trembling fingers dropped the bag somewhere on the center console. She was so rattled that she couldn’t refasten her oxygen mask. “Lindsey, listen to me—”

“Warning! airborne search radar in acquisition three o’clocky forty-seven miles, MiG-25” the threat computer reported.

“I... I can’t do this,” Lindsey sobbed. “I’m sorry, I can’t—”

“Listen to me, Lindsey—listen to me!” Franken shouted. “If we turn around, the Libyans will chase us all the way across the Mediterranean Sea. When we run out of missiles, they’ll shoot us down. We might make it out—but our guys on the ground probably won’t. We have to keep going. Do you understand?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You have to!” Franken said. “There are three guys on the ground who won’t stand a chance unless we help. But I can’t do this alone, not even with the computers.” He grasped her shoulder tightly and shook it. “You’ve got to hang in there, Linds. Just think of this as a simulator ride— a very, very intense simulator ride. Okay?”

It didn’t look good at all. Lindsey’s head lolled back and forth, slowly at first, then faster, as if she was looking for something. She started to pull off her left flying glove. “Here,” Franken said. “Go to town—and then let’s get to work.” He pulled off his right glove and passed it to her. She barely got it up to her face before the torrent quickly filled the black Nomex glove. Franken couldn’t believe that tiny little stomach of hers still had anything left in it to regurgitate.

Reeves was hunched down, her head almost between her knees, her hands holding on to the eyebrow panel for support, as if she was going to puke right on the deck— Franken thought she might pass out. But to his relief, Lindsey pulled her oxygen mask up to her face, fumbled and finally snapped the bayonet clip in place, then took several deep breaths of pure oxygen. Her right hand disappeared onto the right console, and soon her supercockpit display started dancing as the displays changed with ever- increasing speed.

“Scorpions are ready,” Lindsey reported weakly.

“How about you, kiddo?”

“I’m hungry,” she said. “Let’s do our thing so we can go home and get a couple burgers.”

“Warning, airborne search radar tracking, three o’clock, thirty miles, MiG-25,” the computer reported.