“The EA-6B Prowler is the oldest jet in the fleet. It’s falling apart. The systems are outdated. No one makes spare parts. The manufacturer isn’t even in business anymore. It’s not safe. It’s slow. It’s got no weapons. Its old, inefficient engines are ear-piercingly loud.”
“Did you say it’s loud?” First Lieutenant Vinyl Scratch asked.
The flight school instructor sighed and closed his eyes. His young student was very concerned about very unconventional attributes of airplanes. “Look, if you really want to sign up for it-”
“Totally!”
“-then I’m not going to stop you. In fact, you’ll probably get exactly what you want, because no one else wants to fly it.”
That was not a problem for Vinyl. The sooner she got her hands on the hardware, the better.
The EA-6B Prowler was an ungainly aircraft that looked like a cross between a drumstick and a tadpole. Its nose was blunt, its tail was svelte, and it had an unnatural rod sticking out the front for airborne refueling. It had its roots in a design from the 1950’s and was built like a tank. Tanks are not known for their flying prowess.
But it was an electronic warfare airplane, it was especially loud, and that was really all Vinyl cared about. She liked electronics. The louder the better. And when they had to fly at a few hundred miles per hour just to turn windmill generators to power them, well, just how awesome was that? Having super loud engines was just a bonus.
So, when she and her class graduated military flight school and got to pick what they wanted to fly for a career, Vinyl was the only one who willingly chose Prowlers.
Admittedly, going from being a DJ to flying for the Marine Corps was a big career move, but Vinyl was not exactly standard, subtle, or squeamish.
After flight school where she learned basic flying, Vinyl was assigned to the Prowler training squadron where she would learn to fly the jet she had been lusting after. After that, she would join an operational squadron. All Marine Prowlers were based at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, which meant she would probably spend most if not all her career there.
In North Carolina.
That didn’t deter Vinyl as much as one might think. Wilmington was cool. There was a gay club in Aiken, South Carolina that probably needed appropriate unce unce. And...well, the internet. Lots of places to play.
At least, once she finished training and found the time.
Vinyl showed up for her first day in the training squadron, fresh wings of gold on her flight suit and the same attitude that had carried her so far already. Most of the group learning to fly the Prowler were new like her, though some were transitioning from other aircraft.
One dark-haired woman stood out immediately. There was no humor in her eye. The other was covered with a patch. This was Captain Octavia Melody.
Despite her advanced rank, the Flight Officer wings on Octavia’s flight suit looked brand new. A FO was not the same as a pilot. They were typically copilots, the Goose to a pilot’s Maverick.
“What’s up with you?” Vinyl asked.
The question appeared to take Octavia by surprise, based on the limited expression that made it past her eyepatch. She also didn’t appear to be someone who was used to being flustered, so after a moment, she answered the question. “I used to fly attack helicopters until I was shot down. I don’t have any depth perception anymore, so I agreed to come to Prowlers and work the systems instead of piloting.”
“Wait, what systems?” Vinyl asked.
Octavia’s eye narrowed. “The electronic warfare systems. You know, the part that jams signals and makes electronic noise?”
“Wait, what?” said Vinyl. “Then what does the pilot do?”
“You fly.” Octavia stared at her. “Didn’t you know what you were getting into?”
“But I wanted to work the systems,” said Vinyl. “The pilot can’t?”
“Not in a Prowler. I think the EA-18G Growlers the Navy replaced their Prowlers with have multifuntion cockpits that let the pilot use the systems, but the Prowler doesn’t have anything of the kind. That’s part of why the Navy gave the Marines all their old jets.”
“Is...is it too late to take the other option?”
“Yes.”
Vinyl covered her sunglasses with her hands. “I’ve made a huge mistake!”
Octavia said nothing. But she agreed.
“Do...do you want to switch?” Vinyl asked.
“I’m not allowed to be a pilot anymore,” Octavia replied. “And if I was, I wouldn’t be flying Prowlers.”
“Can I at least give you my mixtape and you can play it?”
“Are you serious?” Octavia put her hands on her hips and stared.
“Yes. Do you like dubstep, or house?”
“I don’t.”
The relationship was off to a rather muted start.
Learning to fly the Prowler was a lot less fun since Vinyl found out that she had accidentally become a pilot when she really wanted to be a backseater.
Moaning about it only served to piss off Octavia. To her consternation, they were assigned to work together to inspect a jet before flight.
The two of them walked out to the parking area with checklists. A Prowler sat there, dripping into a puddle of hydraulic oil.
“That isn’t supposed to happen, right?” said Vinyl.
“No. But if it’s still dripping, that means the reservoir isn’t empty.”
“That’s what I love about you, Tavi, you’re such an optimist.”
Octavia glared at Vinyl, who didn’t notice because she was looking at the jet.
From the best the 1950’s could produce for bombing missions, the A-6 Intruder had been lengthened into the EA-6B Prowler. It had two cockpits sitting two people each side by side. The windshield gave it a bug-eyed look. Its nose was rounded instead of pointed. Its turbojet engines had little bypass and were old, small, weak, and wasteful, yet incredibly noisy. It had wide, straight wings and odd protrusions and bulges everywhere. The fuselage skin and rivets on the frame seemed crude and rough. The refueling probe stuck up in front of the cockpit before taking a kink forward. Bizarrely, it was also cranked slightly to the right. The three electronic jamming pods under the wings each had small propellers on the front.
“It’s so weird-looking,” said Vinyl.
After a moment, Octavia nodded in agreement.
“It’s beautiful!”
Octavia stared at her, and then shook her head. “Let’s just do the checklist.”
They unfolded the ladder from the side and climbed up to the forward cockpit. The pilot sat on the left. The copilot sat slightly below and behind, performing navigation and running the systems. The rear cockpit held seats for two more people to run systems.
The two of them checked everything, though at this stage of their training that was mostly limited to confirming that it was there rather than a detailed analysis. Octavia had to keep pushing Vinyl back towards her side of the cockpit.
Also, “Stop that music! This is serious business!”
Vinyl paused to take out one earbud. “Music is serious business.”
“Not that kind of music.” Octavia turned up her nose at the beats coming out of the earpiece.
“Oh? And just what kind of music do you like?”
“Contemporary orchestral.”
Vinyl stared at her and then cracked up laughing. She laughed so hard that she lost her balance and started to fall out of the cockpit. Octavia jumped forward and grabbed her by the collar, hauling her back inside. She then lost her balance and the two of them ended up draped across the forward cockpit, Vinyl on top.
Vinyl brushed her hair out of her face. “Um. You know, we’re the only two here and the back seat’s open…”
Octavia punched her in the stomach. “Get off me!”
Vinyl doubled over but managed to grunt, “I was kidding!”
“That’s why I didn’t throw you back out of the cockpit!”
“We’re both chicks, so it’s not even really a cockpit. More like a...box office.”
Octavia glared at her.
And so it went. Over the next few weeks, the two of them spent time in the classroom learning about their jobs, time with the jets learning about their function, and time with instructors learning what to do. As the two of them progressed in the training squadron, they ended up assigned together a lot. Mostly because everyone else thought it was funny.
When it came time for both of them to make their first actual flight in the Prowler, an instructor was supposed to go with them. He didn’t show up, though.
Vinyl and Octavia had already geared up in helmets and g-suits and were waiting inside the jet with the canopy up as the minutes ticked by. Dark clouds had built up to the west and rain was in the forecast. If the flight didn’t begin soon, the weather would get bad.
Vinyl reached into her gear bag and pulled out a sandwich.
“You can’t eat in the jet,” said Octavia.
“It’s a forty-year-old plane,” Vinyl pointed out, gesturing to the inside of the cockpit. A slice of tomato slipped out of the sandwich and fell to the floor. Vinyl picked it up, brushed it off, and put it back in the sandwich.
Octavia’s lip curled. “Were you raised by wolves?”
“Daft Punk, actually.”
Octavia shook her head.
As Vinyl enjoyed her sandwich, she said, “So how long are we supposed to wait? I mean, both of us are qualified. They wouldn’t let us do this flight if we weren’t. We’ve both flown the computer simulator. If we don’t get going soon, the tower will start calling to see why we aren’t moving.”
“Are you suggesting we take off on our own?”
Vinyl gestured to the bulkhead behind her that separated the two cockpits. “I mean, we can’t see into the back seat. We could say that we thought the instructor was there.”
Octavia was not convinced. Vinyl prodded, “Come on. We know what we’re doing. Heck, you probably know better than I do. And neither one of us want to have the jobs that we have. If we get canned, we can try again somewhere else.”
Octavia stared at her for a long moment, and then reached back and buckled her seatbelt. “Begin the engine startup checklist.”
They went through the steps. Sure enough, the tower called to see why they weren’t rolling. Octavia radioed, “Requesting expedited clearance.”
The tower granted it and they got moving. The tower gave them a runway to use. They went through a few more checklists before reaching the one for takeoff.
Vinyl lined up on the runway and pushed the throttles forward. It took a long run, but the Prowler gained speed and eventually lifted off. Vinyl steered east, out over the ocean.
Octavia looked out the window. It was good to be airborne again, even if it wasn’t exactly on her terms. She’d missed the feeling.
Vinyl shoved a tape at her. “Play this.”
Octavia looked at it suspiciously. It was a data magnetic tape, the kind the Prowler used for mission information. “What is it?”
Vinyl just grinned.
“No.”
“Come on, I’ll show you how to transfer your MP3’s to the secret computers to load onto the data tapes so you can do it too.”
“I don’t have any digital music.”
“Hey, old school media is probably even easier.”
“I mean that I play for myself. Cello.”
Vinyl looked at her curiously. “You mean you actually play music?”
“Is that so hard to for a DJ to believe? That some people actually know how an instrument works?”
“I mean, it’s not my thing, but I can respect that. I could probably find a mic somewhere and I have an acoustic-paneled room at my place.”
Octavia considered it, and put the tape in the receiver. Vinyl grinned. “I’ve checked around. There’s a dead spot in local FM radio stations at ninety four megahertz. We could make our own little station whenever we’re flying.”
“That would be broadcasting illegally, without FCC approval.”
“What are they going to do? Just how are they supposed to track it back to us? We can play all the music we want and anyone with a radio can tune in.”
“So other people would hear the music?” Octavia considered it, and nodded.
With the controls in front of her, she set up the Prowler’s systems to broadcast. The electronic pods hanging under the wings could transmit on a variety of frequencies, including FM. They were supposed to be for jamming enemy radar or communications, but perhaps they could be used for a jamming of a different kind.
The pods were quite powerful, requiring generators powered by the propellers on the front. The workload of managing them was rather high for Octavia, doing the job that three people were usually assigned to, but for the task of simply playing a broadcast, she was more than up to the job.
She tuned in briefly to listen and wished she hadn’t.
Vinyl, meanwhile, was headbanging in the pilot’s seat. Octavia glanced up, looking out the window to see the forecasted thunderstorms drawing closer. “Vinyl, we should head back.”
Vinyl looked to where she was pointing. She lifted her purple glasses as the sun was blotted out. “Yeah...okay.”
They turned back for base. The wind got rougher and rain began to pelt the windows. Octavia called up the tower to request landing clearance.
Apparently, nobody had yet noticed they’d taken the jet. The conversation with the tower was routine. Octavia glanced down to read some information off her kneeboard card when there was a tremendous crack and flash of light.
“I’m blind!” Vinyl shouted. She sat rigid in the seat, unwilling to move lest she upset the plane.
Octavia looked up. “Was that a lightning strike?” She glanced at Vinyl, who was blinking rapidly. She had removed her trademark sunglasses when they flew into the dark storm.
“You have to help me out here,” said Vinyl. “I think I’m getting better, but right now I can’t see anything but spots.”
Octavia peered out through the front of the canopy. “The fuel probe’s blackened. I think that was what got struck.” She glanced down at the instruments. “We don’t have any warning lights. Wait, the fuel level is dropping.”
“Oh, um, that must have been what I touched.”
Octavia saw the fuel dump switch was on and promptly reached over to Vinyl’s side of the cockpit and turned it off.
“Sorry.”
“These things happen,” Octavia said, more calmly than she felt. Vinyl apparently couldn’t see that the fuel level had dropped so low that they only had perhaps ten minutes of flying left. “Let’s get get back to base.”
“Maybe my eyesight will come back in a few minutes,” said Vinyl.
Octavia didn’t want to tell her, but she needed to know. “We don’t have the fuel to wait.”
Vinyl paused. “Well, I guess you’ll have to get us back, then.”
“Come left to two-seven-zero,” Octavia responded automatically.
“Well, I can come left, but I don’t know where two-seven-zero is.”
“I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Octavia continued giving directions, also calling in a mayday. The tower cleared the runways for them.
It was tough flying a plane by voice, as Octavia discovered. Vinyl had a tendency to overdo things, and that also translated to her flying.
But they were eventually lined up with the runway. Octavia coached Vinyl in. “Steady up. Ease off the power. Runway’s coming up-”
Even with her direction, the plane hit the pavement hard. It was a good thing that the airframe had originally been designed for landing on aircraft carriers.
Vinyl jammed on the brakes and they came to a stop. Emergency services surrounded the jet as Octavia helped her shut down the engines.
Octavia opened the canopy and one of the first responders climbed the ladder. He glanced back and did a double-take. “Aren’t there supposed to be four of you?”
“Don’t need any backseat drivers,” said Vinyl. “The two of us can do anything.”
As it turned out, that was exactly the wrong thing to say when someone eventually asked why they went flying without their instructor.
With their misadventure in the training squadron, and subsequently handling an emergency like professionals, Vinyl and Octavia had demonstrated enough proficiency that they were allowed to keep their positions. Both of them had requested to get new jobs, but were denied.
The pair had obtained a bit of a reputation for themselves by the time they graduated from the training squadron and it came time to join a combat squadron. Not only among their fellow Prowler crew members, but among radio listeners up and down the coast. The unauthorized dubstep/cello station wasn’t for everyone, for those who did listen were devoted fans.
They were brand new in their new squadron and made for an odd couple, but Vinyl was too chill to insult and Octavia was a grizzled combat veteran that nobody dared to.
Merely learning to fly and operate the jet was one thing. Learning to fight with it was another. Before the squadron could deploy to a combat zone, everyone had to learn combat tactics.
Granted, pretty much the only weapon the Prowler could carry was a radar-seeking missile. It only worked if an enemy had a radar. Most terrorists didn’t.
So they had to fall back to electronic warfare, jamming badguy communications. With the Prowler’s old systems, it required some help. Vinyl and Octavia had to learn to fly with others, whoever they could get to round out the crew of four. Someone had to listen to which frequencies were being used. Someone had to then train the jet’s jammers to those freqs. Maybe another person could navigate or communicate with the outside world.
While jamming, however, most of the Prowler’s radios didn’t work. So, without anyone outside the jet to talk to, Vinyl had hacked an aux jack into the plane’s intercom.
The Prowlers, old as the airframes were, broke a lot. But it was remarkably sturdy when one was trying to break it. Grumman Aircraft had been known as “the ironworks” after all. Marines weren’t known for gentleness or subtlety, but landing on a nice soft runway instead of an aircraft carrier extended the life of components significantly.
Vinyl, however, lamented that since they weren’t in the Navy, there were fewer people in need of unce unce music.
Finally, once all preparations and training were complete, it came time to deploy.
Octavia entered the squadron ready room where Vinyl was spinning her turntables. They both wore Nomex jackets over their flight suits with various patches. The Grumman Iron Works patch stylized to look like the Harley Davidson logo, “been there, done that” tokens, squadron insignia, and others. Octavia’s jacket was rather more reserved than Vinyl’s.
“I have the orders here,” said Octavia.
“Cool. Where are we going? Europe?”
“No.”
“...Asia?”
“No.”
Vinyl sighed. “We’re going to the Middle East, aren’t we?”
“I’m as disappointed as you are,” said Octavia, dryly but genuinely.
Still, duty called, so they went. The squadron ended up at an Air Force base in Al Udeid, Qatar. Living with the Air Force aside, both Vinyl and Octavia found groups of people who liked unce unce and/or orchestral. Highbrow homosexuals: the Air Force in a nutshell.
Still, they both hankered for more. Simply bumping the bass was an insult to Vinyl’s talent. Playing at a military base in the middle of the desert was a pittance compared to Octavia’s aspirations.
Meanwhile, their regular jobs sucked. A couple Prowlers per day would truck into Iraq and Syria to fight terrorists. Octavia seethed in quiet consternation that she could do no more than throw electromagnetic waves at them. Vinyl bemoaned the six hours of flying, flanked before and after with hours of mission briefing and debriefing that took away time she could be using for mixing.
A small relief was one weekend of R&R the two of them were granted in Dubai. Or it would have been, had all leave not been canceled due to a very important mission coming down from high command.
Vinyl and Octavia had planned their weekend carefully. Both of them had gigs booked. It would be nice to play for a paying crowd for once. But before they could leave the base, they received an urgent call to come back to the squadron.
There was a mission afoot to take out the head bad guy who had been causing trouble. It required everyone to be ready, just in case. Not just Prowlers, but allied forces across the theater of operations had been called up.
So, they’d come back, strapped on their g-suits, sidearms, and flight gear, and sat down to wait.
In the ready room, Vinyl groaned. “Why didn’t we leave earlier? Then we could have been one of the lucky ones already on vacation before they called us back.”
“We’re barely going to have enough people to crew all the jets,” said Octavia. She looked at the list. “In fact, we don’t have enough. The two of us don’t have any backseaters.”
“What’s the big deal? We’ve flown that way before.”
“But this is a highly important mission, and if we can’t operate at maximum effectiveness, we’ll just get in the way,” lectured Octavia. “We need two more people.”
Vinyl considered it. “I have an idea.” She picked up the phone.
At any other time, the crowd in Oslo, Norway might have been confused by the sight of two Marine officers in their dress uniforms. But tonight, all of those assembled for the event knew who they were and why they were there.
Octavia was reserved as always. Vinyl was grinning and fidgeting as always. This was not at all what either of them had hoped to achieve with their careers, but certainly not a bad thing either.
The presenter stepped up to the microphone. “The Nobel Peace Prize goes to Vinyl Scratch, Octavia Melody, and Daft Punk for an electronic/orchestral fusion so good it ended war in the Middle East.”
Vinyl pumped her fist. Octavia stood with her hands behind her back, but couldn’t keep a smile off her face. Daft Punk waved modestly.
The posh sort of crowd that attended Nobel Prize sort of ceremonies applauded and whistled. They’d heard the song.
Vinyl grinned and nudged Octavia. “And the Grammys are next month.”