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send suicide planes to attack his task force. But he’d never doubted for an instant that this majestic vessel and her men could fend off any nation or force daring to take them on. In war ga^es, facing hypothetical and equal Soviet adversaries, Felix still believed the crews under his command could win, no matter what the circumstances. The enemy might speak a different language and fight under a foreign flag, but he was still human, and no human battallions could outgun the United States armed forces. We might not always win, Felix had thought, but we’ll always live to fight another day.
    The Visitors were not human. Their weapons were not variations of our weapons. And try as he might, Captain Felix couldn’t banish his own uncertainties. He just hoped it didn’t show.
    “Hawkeye’s ready to fly, Cap’n,” said Jensen, holding the intercom phone in his hand.
    Felix gave himself a mental shake. Daydreaming on the bridge was no way to conceal his doubts. “Okay, Rollie. Cleared for takeoff. Have the other flight crews power up.”
    Jensen’s expression clouded. “Sir?”
    “I just have this feeling. We’ve turned southwest, closer to Visitor territory. I think if they’re going to hit us, it’s going to be soon.”
    “Aye, aye, Cap’n.”
    As his exec relayed his instruction, Captain Felix started to chuckle. Helmsman Reinhold gave him a sidelong glance. So did several other crewmen on the bridge. Finally, Jensen put the phone back in its cradle.
    “Beggin’ the Cap’n’s pardon, but what’s so funny, sir?”
    Felix took a breath to regain his composure. “Well, I was just thinking about how much the world needs this oil we’re escorting, and how nice it is that the Nimitz is nuclear and we don’t have to worry about such mundane matters as refueling. But then I remembered that our nuclear fuel was supposed to be good for thirteen years and she was launched twelve years ago-”
    Jensen nodded. “So we got one year til! the needle points to E.”
    “Yeah,” said Felix, “and I just conjured up this image of pulling her into a filling station on Main Street back home and saying to the kid at the pump, ‘Fill ’er up, son.’”
    The hangar and flight decks ignited with activity after the call from the bridge. The strategy worked out by Felix and planners from the remnants of the Defense Department had the fastest jets, the F-14 Tomcats, go up first. At their top speed of over 1,400 miles per hour, they could join the F-15s already in the air and fan out to cover great distances. If they met any Visitors approaching, they could engage the enemy far enough away to create a buffer zone around the ships. The slower attack aircraft—the A-7 Corsairs—would then go aloft to fill that buffer.
    Some deck crews moved other planes out of the way, making room for the full complement of Tomcats to be lined up at the runways, one of which ran from one end of the ship to the other. The second angled out from the port side.
    Watching from the bridge, Felix saw the first Tomcat being readied, rolled to the flight line, and hooked to the catapult shuttle protruding from the deck in its slot, which ran the length of the runway. All around, jet engines fired up, blowing billows of exhaust out over the great ship’s sides. Hot fumes shimmered in the pink light of sunrise. Deck crews wearing heavy “Mickey Mouse” ear-protecting headpieces scurried around and under the Tomcats, the planes’ distinctive doublefinned tails wavering like mirages in the heat from their own (win engines.
    In green jerseys and goggles, the men of the holdback crew squirmed under the F-14’s belly and attached a cable tying the craft to the deck until launch time. Ear-splitting noise prevented verbal communication on a carrier’s flight deck. Experienced hands waved signals with the sort of certainty gained from long practice. One man held the cable steady while a second lay on his back directly under the plane to slip the tension