Title:  Struck by Lightning	
Author:  Dancer
E-Mail:  dancersgrace@mail.com
Rating:  PG
Classification:  Best Action
		     Best JAG Story, 
		     Biggest Tear-jerker.
Spoilers:  Previews of Adrift 1
Summary:  Harm and Skates caught in a thunderstorm.



*****



Struck by lightning, the plane was intact, but 
couldn't fly for long.  All the avionics were 
fried including the compass.  When Harm 
declared a Mayday!, he couldn't tell them 
where he was, only where he'd been.  

In a voice of eerie calm, she heard Harm call 
out, "Mayday, mayday, mayday.  This is 
Navy Tomcat one-four-niner declaring an 
emergency!"  She heard him give the last 
compass readings they had and reporting 
"two souls on board". He must've said 
"Mayday, mayday, mayday" four times with 
no response.

As she looked down in front of her, Skates 
could only despair.  All that fancy hardware 
she'd had to work so hard to learn was 
useless to them now.   Those compass 
readings were garbage.  They'd flown a 
couple hundred miles since then, and that 
pitch and roll when the jolt hit them could 
have put them on course for Miami instead 
of Norfolk.
She couldn't see in front of them. Harm was 
in the way, but in the distance, at her nine 
o'clock, Skates was beginning to see a vague 
array of lights through the rainy gloom.  
Were they that close to land?  

"Harm, where are we going?"   

"To put this bird down if I can."

"And if you can't?"

There was a momentary pause as Harm 
fought a sudden downdraft for control of the 
aircraft.  He kept her straight and level, but 
the hollow ache in the pit of Skates' stomach 
told her they were still losing altitude fast.  

She heard Harm muttering fitfully, but was 
surprised when his hand suddenly appeared 
along the left side of his headrest.  "Skates.  
Take this."
He'd handed her a cylinder she dimly 
recognized as a locator beacon of the type 
she knew was attached to her flotation 
collar, but why would he give her his, too?  
Then he called out to her to take something 
else from his hand

"What's this, sir?"

"I want you to give that to Mac."

"Sir?"

"Colonel MacKenzie."

"I know that, sir, but...

"In your knee pouch, Lieutenant!  That's an 
order!"

"Isn't this your class ring?"

"I want her to have it."

"Then, give it to her yourself!" Skates 
snapped defiantly, but he didn't answer. 
She could hear Harm transmitting one last 
set of references on the radio.  It sounded 
like a dead reckoning call in relation to a 
lighthouse they could see in the distance.  
The radio crackled back with some kind of 
message, but it was totally garbled.

"Get ready, Skates," he called to her. 

"For what, a ditch?"

"You're ejecting."

She watched as Harm replaced the firing pin 
on his own ejection seat.  When she began to 
protest, Harm cut her off.  "Knees and 
elbows, Lieutenant!"

"But, Sir..."

"Don't argue with me, Skates."

"But, what about you?"  He didn't answer.  
"Sir?"

"It's been an honor to serve with you, 
Lieutenant."

That last line frightened the hell out of her.  
"Harm!"

"Tell Mac I love her."

That was the last thing Skates heard before 
the wind.  

The exploding bolts on the canopy sent fiery 
dust flying at her face shield.  The rocket 
pack propelled her up and out of the path of 
the crippled jet in a heartbeat.  At the top of 
the parabolic arc, Skates felt herself hanging 
suspended in space for a moment even as 
she caught a glimpse of Harm and the plane 
banking into an unrecoverable right turn out 
away from land.  He'd done it for her. He 
had no trim controls; his stabilizer was 
frozen. He'd done it with the engines.  If he'd 
left it alone he might have kept it in the air a 
little longer, but there was the off chance 
that she might have been forced back into 
the jet wash by the gale-force winds 
buffeting her face and hands. With her chute 
deployed and the heavy jump seat fallen 
away from her, she was like a toy blown in 
crazy circles by that wind.  As she struggled 
to assert trim control over her own life-
saving canopy above her head, Skates 
watched in horrifying slow motion as the 
plane she'd just left continued its deadly, 
descent to the water below. 

It was still in that right bank attitude, but a 
visible flameout in the starboard engine 
accelerated the flight path's deterioration.  It 
was now in a roll.  With no power, there was 
no hope of a re-start.  It was going in.

With desperate eyes, Elizabeth Hawkes 
scanned the darkened sky looking for a 
companion parachute, a falling man, a flash 
of light - anything that might tell her Harm 
was not still in that thing.  But there was 
nothing.  Then the sound of a large, flat 
crash cut through the roar of the storm 
around her and Skates saw the huge F-14 
seemingly surfing the shock wave of water it 
had just created before pin-wheeling hard 
over the right wing tip which had gone into 
the churning water first.  When the nose hit 
the surf, the plane flipped over on its back 
slapping hard against the water, snapping off 
a wing.

At this distance, she couldn't see smaller 
objects in the storm-tossed sea below, but 
hoped against hope her pilot, her friend, 
might have somehow managed to free 
himself from that wreck before it hit the 
water.  If Harm could get away, if he could 
get his Mae West inflated, there was a 
chance that she wouldn't be the only one 
to...

An immense ball of fire, erupting from the 
jet, lit up the whole area with it's flaming 
light.  The very sea was on fire.  Skates was 
coming down at least a mile away, but she 
swore she could feel the heat on her face 
before it was cooled by sea spray.

All she could think of was Harm and what 
he'd done.  He had to be here somewhere.  
He had to.




The End