Mason Morano

Ms. Mann

English II

October 26th, 2017

Ace Breaker

Naval Aviator Lieutenant Commander Jake Kennedy glanced at his watch. 1:32 A.M.

How could I still be up? The lamp on his desk softly illuminated his quarters, a cramped ten by

twelve foot space almost entirely made up by steel. Kennedy stared at his personal mirror, a

grizzled, unshaven man with silver hair and a cut jawline stared back at him. He had become

accustomed to the floating city of metal that was the USS George H.W. Bush. He sat and stared

at his pinned photos of his family and then brought his eyes over to his bunk, a six foot, thin

mattress held up by a frame of navy blue steel. A green glow emanated from the alarm clock he

had next to it, a light that comforted him while he slept, and helped him fall back asleep

whenever he would wake up in the middle of the night. After almost 36 hours of constant stress

and no sleep due to the upcoming operation and his wife having problems at her office back in

Pensacola, he decided he would try and sleep. Kennedy turned off the lamp, the green glow

giving him a bit of visibility so that he could find his tiny mattress.

Kennedy jolted out of his mattress, startled by the sound of the alarm clock he swore he

could have forgotten earlier that night. The alarm clock read 3 A.M. Kennedy was surprised he

had only gotten in his bunk an hour and a half before that, as he felt much more rested than

normal. Or, maybe, it was the jarring noise of the alarm clock that made him feel so awake. He

turned on his light and began to freshen up for the day. Once he had finished preparing, Kennedy

put on his watch, which he also could have sworn he didnt take off an hour and a half before.
 Kennedy headed for the squadron room. His NFO, or Naval Flight Officer, Lieutenant

Junior Grade Joseph Reed was already in one of the leather seats. Kennedy and Reed, along with

the rest of VFA-119, their squadron, designated the Black Lances, listened intently to the

instructions of the admiral, who told them this was to be a routine training flight flown alone by

each pair. Training in which a pilot and his NFO were to fly alone was a rare occurrence, but it

had to be done for the sake of Operation Bold Alligator. Bold Alligator was an annual

multinational training exercise meant to maintain the effectiveness of the mobilization of

amphibious forces to waters and coastlines around the world. When Kennedy and Reed were

finished being briefed, they headed to gear up. They put on their oxygen rigs and their flight suits

and headed topside.

On the flight deck, there sat 3 Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornets. Lights on the landing strip

brightly shone and pulsed in a very uniform pattern. The pavement glowed with dotted and

insanely bright white dots, with red lights, blue lights, and green lights scattered and

rhythmically flashed and faded in and out. Aside from the lights on the strip, it was pitch black

outside, the water looking as black as the sky consumed by darkness. The moon was not bright

as well, and it was a chilly morning for October. One of the deck crew mentioned that it was 33

degrees. Certainly felt like it, Kennedy noted. The crew led Kennedy and Reed to their Super

Hornet, dubbed Ace Breaker by the rest of the squadron.

Ace Breakers cockpit had a forward and a backward seat with ladders connecting to the

port side of the jet. It was a magnificent beast of a machine, a beautiful, sleek navy grey

absolutely stunning piece of military technology. The lifted glass reflected the soft pulsing of the

flight deck lights, turning it into a dazzling mix of color. Ace Breakers silhouette of was that of

complete elegance, almost as if it was embodying the angel of death itself. AIM-9L Air-to Air
missiles on each wingtip were looking as menacing as ever, their destructive potential sealed

within. A concealed M61 Vulcan rotary gun was concealed in the nose of Ace Breaker. The M61

Vulcan was a chaingun that would kill you before you even heard it being fired, a nightmare.

You would never even hear it coming.

Kennedy and Reed were helped in by the deck crew. Ace Breaker was already alive and

raring to go. Its heads-up display and various screens came to life and brilliantly lit the cockpit

with an intricate display of green numbers, maps, readouts of various different statistics

necessary to function the plane properly. They both put on their helmets and started talking to

men in the flight tower trying to clear their takeoff for the exercise.

Kennedys eyes shot to the speedometer on his heads-up display.

268 MPH.

He looked away. He did a double take so fast he almost hurt his neck. A malfunction like

that could have a serious impact on the functioning of the plane, and it was absolutely imperative

that each part worked correctly or else something catastrophic might happen.

Kennedy decided that it was nothing. It was too severe of a malfunction to actually occur

in a real jet, not like a glitch in the programming of an expensive simulator. He came to the

conclusion that it was his eyes playing tricks on him, the night was still black and the reflection

of a green light on the strip may have made it look like something was there. The flight crew

began allowing Kennedy to taxi Ace Breaker onto the strip.and lock it in for takeoff.

Ace Breaker had been cleared.

The towbar was attached to the front of the nose landing gear. Kennedy heard the go

from the tower, and full throttled the General Electric F414 Turbofan engine. It was the sound

Kennedy loved to hear. The F414 roared and sounded like a train passing by your face going full
speed. Kennedy was pressed to the back of his seat as he eased the stick left and towards his

body and the towbar catapulted Ace Breaker off of the runway at hundreds of miles an hour. The

jet lifted up and away from the carrier. They were now flying over the waters of the Atlantic.

Alone.

Kennedy blinked.

In the night sky, Ace Breaker performed a bank going the fastest it could possibly go.

Kennedy glanced at the speedometer.

0 MPH.

The instruments shut off. The green lights and readouts disappeared. The heads-up

display had flickered off and on. The jet had come onto the turn too fast because of the false

readouts, and the engine failed.

Ace Breaker had broken.

Reed, over the commlink, shouted the word eject three times. The three words only

heard in a pilots nightmares. Maybe thats all this was, Kennedy thought. A nightmare. He

armed the ejection and heard Reed eject behind him. Kennedy began to pass out. The violent

spinning of Ace Breaker put immense stress on his body. He had slipped into the void. His eyes

shut. Ace Breaker was going to be consumed by the depths of the Atlantic.

Kennedy awoke, dazed and confused. He must have shot up so ridiculously fast from his

bed that he was sitting up when he realized he was awake.. His eyes were blurry. He began to see

clearer in the pitch black space. He began to see the green glow of his alarm clock that kept him

comforted. He reached over to grab it to look closer.

It was the green glow of his heads-up display, the light shimmering as it refracted against

the cockpit glass and the water around it.