Lyndy & Jackson

Chapter 10-19

Lyndy & Jackson
Chapter 10-19 / by: Mike Hurley
Amy was Ty's strength.....

Amy was soaring over a palate of blue; everywhere she looked was water. She was amazed how responsive her parachute controls were. The Navy Seal parachute had been developed by the Wolverine Chute Co., and NASA. It was a delight to fly. By closing all the navigational panels, she could hit the right wind and literally sail through the air for hours, utterly silent, and with advanced dye polymers in the fabric; almost invisible. As much fun as Amy was having, she realized mastering a SEAL parachute was one thing, but actually being a SEAL was way off the radar of almost all of society. She kept her eyes on the helo deck of the Sioux City, occasionally checking distance to target and glide slope with her military binoculars. She looked over her right shoulder; Aggie was right there. Aggie had learned to sky dive when he was a smoke jumper, that elite group were some of the best sky divers on the planet. Anyone jumping into a forest fire, is either crazy or a professional.

The Sioux City was simulating a Navy Seal landing on their ship. Amy and Aggie would play the role of the Seals.

Amy considered Aggie to be the best teacher she ever had. He methodically whittled away a students fear and built courage and confidence into them in very subtle ways. She was amazed at how quiet her pulse and respiration rate was; Amy was totally focused on what she was doing but had zero fear. A week ago if someone told her she would jump onto a moving warship in Lake Michigan, she would have laughed!! Amy thought of herself as just a typical young Canadian woman. Aggie found her to be exceptionally talented. Two other men who had the exact same opinion of Amy was Jack, and of course Ty. Multiple times, Ty had seen Amy quietly and effectively deal with a stressful situation. It was one of the many things that attracted Ty to Amy. .........She was smart and beautiful!!

At about 7000' a north wind started taking Amy away from the Sioux City, as in the opposite direction. She had memorized her wind speeds by elevation, a few minutes before she jumped. Amy turned on her mic, and said to Aggie; dropping to 4000 feet to catch a southbound wind. She pulled on 4 of the 9 control strings simultaneously, and seemingly dropped out of the sky. She watched her WDD, and exactly at 4000 feet, closed them, waited 5 seconds and began to feather the panels. Giving her a perfect glide slope; ........the correct rate of forward trajectory and decent. Aggie replied; right behind you.

As she continued to drop, her perception of the ships changed as she saw just how big they were. She was close enough to hear the Maple Leaf Flag of her country flying high over the Algonquin, flapping in the wind. She was coming in a bit too hot, meaning she was flying southbound faster than the Sioux City was traveling. She was about to reduce her forward speed when the navigator aboard the Sioux City said;

'Seals maintain trajectory.....engine room, we are receiving SEALS, increase speed to full for mark....12 seconds then resume slow'. She watched the Freedom Class ship rise slightly and surge forward dramatically. She was close enough to hear its turbines whine and water jets shoot enough water out to fill an Olympic size swimming pool in 1 second. She watched as a midshipman pulled a rope and hoisted a white flag up with the insignia of the Seals.

Amy flew past two sailers who ran after her and grabbed her harness to keep A Random wind from shooting the parachute back up. About 15 feet from center of the helo pad, Amy pulled all the panels open and her feet touched the deck. The sailers were quite strong and wind or no wind, they kept her safefully on the warship. She saw two other sailors grab hers and Aggies parachutes, they each gave a thumbs up and both sky divers pulled a release lever to dump their chutes. Amy and Aggie were officially on board a US Navy vessel.

The First Officer ran up to Amy, saluted her and the Canadian flag on her shoulder, and said; Welcome aboard the Sioux City Major!!
He smiled and asked if she had a nice flight??
Amy laughed and said; ;the pretzels were stale'!! Aggie came over and saluted the First Officer. He thanked the sailors for helping them land on the deck.