Free Night Flight by Lindsay McKenna Page B

properly? When he dropped in, I thought he’d come in too high. And when he hit—” Lauren ruefully rubbed the back of her neck “—I felt like I’d been in an auto accident. I think I got whiplash out of the deal.”
    Sam nodded sympathetically. “I watched the landing. He brought the nose up too high and stalled it. When you come in for a carrier landing, it’s a controlled crash situation. You have full flaps and slats down and locked, the nose is up, but just this side of stall position. Stang went over the stall limit, and the bird fell.”
    Using his hands, Holt showed her what he meant. “If the nose is pitched up at the correct angle, you get a last moment cushion of air that helps to take the brunt of the landing jolt.”
    “And the gear assembly doesn’t take half the punishment as a result. Right?”
    “You got it.” And then he smiled. “It’s all in the attitude of the nose.”
    Grumbling, Lauren went back to study the figures on the monitor. “That chauvinist bastard crashed my bird and crippled it. Probably handles his women the same way—he figures a little abuse is good for them.”
    Chuckling, Sam watched Lauren work for several minutes. Flight engineers frequently adopted the plane they worked with as their own; their baby, so to speak. Lauren’s chestnut hair gleamed with a few red highlights, reminding him of Megan Roberts. By military regs, her hair barely brushed the back of her collar. There was nothing for him to do until eight o’clock, when the second F-15, tail number 71291, would be prepared for the flight. He’d take the jet up and run it through a series of landing tests and try to hit the magic fifteen-hundred-foot limit—without cracking the landing gear. So far, no one had been able to because of a number of reasons. It was the flight and design engineers’ headache to figure out why, and then fix the situation so they could.
    “Met a gorgeous redheaded lady Saturday out at the balloon rally,” Holt confided. He saw Lauren’s mouth curve into a doubtful smile. She was a feminist of the first order, and Sam respected her for it. “Now, don’t go getting that look, Port. It’s not what you think.”
    “Usually you tell me about the gorgeous blonde, brunette, or raven-haired beauty you’ve met over at the O Club on the weekend.”
    “Well…”
    “Red’s your favorite color.”
    He brightened. “Yeah. And she’s got the spirit of a redhead.”
    “I know—you like your women hot, like the jets you fly.”
    “Now, Port.”
    Lauren gave him a one-eyebrow-raised look. “Sam, what you do in your free time’s your business. I just don’t like hearing about you guys chasing down these poor teenage groupies who don’t know any better. That’s like letting a fox into the chicken coop, and you guys aren’t the chickens.”
    Smiling, Holt nodded. “Touché, Major. No, this lady’s different.”
    “Sure.”
    “Honest, Port, she is. Listen to this….” He filled her in on Megan Roberts from beginning to end. Sam saw interest in Lauren’s eyes when he was done with his story.
    “A schoolteacher? That’s really blasé compared to what you normally like. I mean, a month ago, it was that black-haired sprint car driver from L.A. Two months ago, it was a blond-haired mountain climber from Europe. Isn’t Megan a bit pedestrian for your tastes?”
    Raising his hands, Holt protested, “No way! She’s a fighter, and I like that.”
    “It doesn’t sound like she’s too crazy about you.”
    “Give her time. I rub off on people.”
    “Don’t I know it.”
    With a smile, Sam straightened, going for his second cup of coffee for the day. “Port, I’m your favorite pilot, and I know it.”
    With a chuckle, Lauren wrote down a set of figures on her test flight form. “I know, Holt—nobody needs to tell test pilots how great they are. They’ll tell you themselves.”
    The door opened. Holt barely turned his head and saw that it was Stang. He had a bunch of