Tailspin: A Top Gun Love Story

Chapter 17

Tom is in the air in less than five minutes and Jester is screaming for him to launch a missile at the rogue jet the moment he's airborne. Slider inspects the radarscope, locating the blip that is Maverick's plane.

"I've got him," Tom hears Slider's morose tone in his earpiece.

Slider knows whose plane it is – he saw Goose's face when they were running their checks before take-off. It said, Please don't kill my friend. But Tom feels the need to spell it out anyway. "It's Maverick," he says levelly.

"Yeah," Slider's voice crackles over the radio. "I know."

Tom breathes out steadily. "We can't shoot down Maverick."

"Yeah," Slider repeats. "I know."

"Slider," Jester's voice cuts through their conversation. "Do you have him on radar lock?"

Tom closes his eyes for a split second.

"Target is beyond visual range," Slider responds.

Tom's hand constricts around the throttle.

"No shit," Jester responds. "He had a five-minute head start. Do you have him or not?"

"We have him," Slider says reluctantly.

There's a brief pause during which Tom's breathing accelerates. Then, Jester speaks. "Permission to fire, Lieutenant," he says.

Tom glances up at his rear-view mirror and shakes his head at Slider.

Slider stalls. "Sir, we can't shoot him down over a civilian airport."

"That was an order, Lieutenant," Jester's voice peaks in their earpieces.

Slider squints up at the back of Tom's helmet. The missile launch would have to be executed by him because he's the one who's got Maverick on his scope at long range. But his hand just won't budge. "Ice," Slider croaks. "I can't do it."

Tom is silent for a moment, but Slider can still hear his ragged breathing over the radio.

"Lieutenant, is there a problem?" the tower's frequency interrupts their exchange.

Tom's grip on the stick is so tight that his hand starts to go numb. He blinks the sweat out of his eyes but they're still stinging. "Hold on, Slider," he says, and before Slider can properly brace himself, Tom peels to the right with such force that Slider feels his neck cracking as he tries to bring his head back to avoid slamming face-first into the radarscope.

Slider holds a hand up to his helmet. "Well, that was excessive," he says wryly.

"Iceman, why are you veering off course?" Jester yells in his earpiece.

Tom pulls the plane around, pushing on the throttle so that it shoots forward, propelling them through a cottony cloud to cut off the second jet headed after Maverick.

"I see we've picked a side," Slider notes, his sarcasm palpable even via the comm.

"What is going on, Lieutenant?" Jester screams.

Tom lets out a sharp breath. "He's not a threat, sir," he says.

Slider looks up at him from the backseat.

"Come again, Lieutenant?" Jester barks aggressively.

"He's not a threat, sir," Tom repeats loudly.

"How do you know this?"

"Because," Tom replies. "I know where he's going. And I know why."

...

You're staring blankly out the small, porthole window at the ground crews waving their paddles on the tarmac. It's sunny and there's a glare reflecting off a nearby airplane as the one you're in starts to move.