Grounded!

by Claremont, Chris

  Not that it was any use. Both Alex and Matai remained missing. One obvious line of investigation was the string of distractions that kept Sallinger occupied while Simone was being killed. Rachiim pursued it for all he was worth, but no link could be found between them, no common denominator. Each appeared perfectly plausible and aboveboard, both on the surface and as deep beneath as the Provost Marshal was able to dig. Until at last he had no choice but to give up.

  Beyond answering Rachiim’s questions, whenever he or his people thought of them, Nicole was strictly and specifically ordered not to get further involved. Truth to tell, she didn’t mind all that much; she was still a long way from sorting out her feelings about Alex—hell, about all three Cobris—and what had happened and wanted no part of him until she had.

  But when she saw Amy’s name on the transport request for the next available flight to the East Coast, she couldn’t resist. She was going that way herself, for her Wings Club speech and attendant festivities. No Cobri aircraft were on-station, which was the reason for the request for Air Force equipment, and a quiet word in Ray Castaneda’s ear made sure that the only wings available were Nicole’s.

  She was just finishing the preflight when smallish footsteps on concrete alerted her to her passenger’s arrival. Amy walked with her head high and back straight, striding across the ramp like she owned it—and given the state of Cobri finances compared to the fed, Nicole had to concede it probably wouldn’t be too terribly long before she did—tucked snugly into a pressure suit that was a junior version of the one Nicole herself wore. Helmet in one hand, suitcase in the other, a face in the middle trying its best to lock into an expressionless mask.

  “Good evening, Miss Cobri,” Nicole greeted her cheerily, taking the case, Amy offering a split second’s resistance before she let go—an instinctive impulse, Nicole recognized, never to give up anything that’s yours; but was it a kid’s impulse—and tucking it behind the crew seats, next to her own.

  She did shake off Nicole’s hand, refusing help up the boarding ladder, preferring to make the climb unaided, and Nicole let Ray Castaneda—who was acting as Crew Chief—couple her into her seat, while Nicole finished the “walk-around.”

  “You won’t get away with this,” Amy grumbled as Nicole climbed into the left-hand seat.

  “Put your gloves on, and your helmet, please,” Nicole replied, asking Ray to give an assist, Amy having sense enough to not give him a hard time as he did. “You read me, Amy?” she asked when he was done, checking the intercom through her headset.

  “Fine.” Determined to be the sourest voice ever.

  “Get away with what?”

  “This.” Amy waved an arm to indicate the cramped confines of the cockpit.

  Nicole’s voice was the verbal equivalent of wide-eyed innocence. “You asked for a lift.”

  “Pretty darn amazing, huh”—Amy clearly didn’t buy it in the slightest—“how all the executive transports came off the line right after.”

  “Life’s like that sometimes.” Surprise, little girl—Nicole grinned inside—you don’t have this base wired quite as tightly as you thought. “But if you’d rather, I’m sure transportation can be arranged to LAX in time for a morning flight to New York.”

  “I don’t fly commercial.”

  “Wait for one of your own, then.”

  “I can’t.”

  Nicole shrugged, and went back to her cockpit checklist, while Ray came around to her side of the aircraft and hooked her into place, securing her four-point restraints and plugging atmosphere and com lines into her suit. Then it was Nicole’s turn for gloves and, once she’d removed and stowed the headset, helmet.

  “Look on the bright side,” she told Amy, “we’ll be on the ground in time for breakfast.”

  “Can we just go, please?”

  Nicole held up her right hand, index finger extended, made a spinning motion, Ray donning a pair of headphones—nicknamed “Mouse Ears,” which covered and protected the entire ear, an absolute essential working this close to high-performance engines—and spoke through the attached mike to the rest of his crew.

  The Corsair had self-start capability, and as soon as Ray confirmed that his people were clear, Nicole flicked switches in quick sequence, cycling main power—to give life to the Internals and Avionics—and then, once the Ignition Menu was on-screen, primed her fans and kicked them to life. She heard a modest pop from aft, felt the faintest of trembles through the sleek airframe, echoed in detail on the power-plant status display, clear indications that she had turnover, and the left-hand turbofan was beginning to spin. As soon as it was up to speed, she did the same with the starboard engine, and in less than a minute had both her engines idling happily in the green. Last set of checks, including her navigational entries in both the LORAN and autopilot, confirmed by Ray, before he gave her a farewell pat on the top of the helmet and descended to the ramp, proceeding out in front of the aircraft with a pair of red-lit wands to guide her off the ramp.

  “Edwards Clearance, Corsair One-Niner,” Nicole called after she braked at the ramp entrance, “ready to go as filed to New York. Final destination: Westchester County Airport, White Plains, New York.”

  “Corsair One-Niner, Edwards Clearance. Approved as filed. Contact Ground, one-one-niner-point-seven.”

  “Having fun, so far?” Nicole asked Amy as she followed the Tower’s directions out to the active. When she heard no reply, she went on pleasantly, “Okay, there’s no movie and you can’t walk around, but the sandwiches are as gourmet as they get and we’ll be there in a couple of hours, tops. Get home fast enough, you might even have time for a decent snooze before sunrise. Is that service, or what?”

  “Only if you drop me at my door.”

  “Well, if you insist, I suppose I can always eject you as we fly over Staten Island.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  Nicole grinned, as nicely as she could, looking all the way around to make sure Amy could see as she patted the girl on the knee. “No, I wouldn’t,” she said. “But if you want, I can drop you at Newark, that’d save you a little time.”

  “No big deal. Newark, White Plains, all pretty much the same to the helicopter.”

  They reached the runway and Nicole pivoted the Corsair into position. This was a beast who was just as much a beauty, an aircraft that was as impressive to look at as it was a murderous delight to fly. Reminiscent of the old General Dynamics F-111 fighter-bomber—in that it had been designed for twin engines, side-by-side crew seating, and, most importantly, variable geometry “swing” wings—it was primarily an attack bomber that could function with surprising effectiveness as a dogfighter. With the wings rolled out to full extension, as they were now, the Corsair could fly at private aviation speeds right down to the deck, so low and slow that all it would take to land the plane would be the dropping of its landing gear and the faintest touch of flaps. Yet, those same wings faired back snug against the fuselage, creating a sleek, clean arrowhead shape, and its engines pushed to the line, it could better the speed of sound at functional altitudes that topped thirty thousand meters.

  “Edwards Tower, Corsair One-Niner, in position and holding.” Last item was to close and lock the canopy.

  “Corsair, Edwards Tower, cleared for takeoff.”

  “One-Niner. All strapped in?” she said to Amy, getting a grunt in reply. “Snug as a bug?” she asked.

  And got a look in return that said plainly, just get on with it, okay?!

  “Close your faceplate,” she told her, and did the same with her own.

  Nicole settled herself in her seat, gave a last tug on her own straps to make sure they fit, then pressed hard with both feet on the brakes, all the way to the floor, at the same time advancing the twin throttles forward on their sidestick. No tremor anymore, as the tail vanes of the huge engines cycled to intensify and focus the thrust even as more and more power was applied. The shrill banshee shriek of the turbofans dropped a seeming score of octaves into a ba
sso profundo rumble that shook the air like a barrage of massed assault cannons, the Corsair actively straining against its brakes, struggling to burst loose and fly. Still, Nicole refused to let go.

  A press of a button on the throttles kicked in the afterburners, raw fuel injecting into the combustion chambers of both engines to generate even more thrust. The airframe started to groan in protest, Amy’s helmet shifting as the head within looked back and forth, her hands making unconscious little scrabbling motions on her armrests. She didn’t quite understand the noise, only that she didn’t like it.

  At last, Nicole released the brakes. This was a modification of the production run aircraft, fitted with a new set of engines that created a thrust-to-mass ratio comparable to that of the old F-15 Eagles; in essence, they produced greater thrust—even without afterburner—than the plane had weight. Which, under these circumstances, turned it into the functional equivalent of a rocket.

  Almost before Amy could register that they were moving, they were off the ground, and then the child cried out as Nicole pulled back on her flight control sidestick and stood the Corsair on its tail. It was a stunt the Eagles made famous, being the only aircraft of their day that could take off from a standing start and go into an accelerating vertical climb without traveling any farther horizontally than the end of the runway. The Corsair had the same capability, its wings pulling back automatically to supersonic configuration, pulsed diamond cones of blue fire forming a double line against the darkness to mark its passage as Nicole sent it streaking for the heavens.

  Suit bladders compensated for the G-forces, Nicole sparing a fast glance at her HUD for a medical update on Amy, allowing a small grin when she saw the kid was coping.

  As they passed twenty kay, Nicole eased off on the throttle, and as they approached thirty, she swung the Corsair up and over onto its back, so that they were flying inverted, upside down. The same view the shuttle had from orbit. After making sure the verniers were active—this high into the stratosphere, normal control surfaces lost effective function, so this model of the Corsair was equipped with attitude control jets, same as any spacecraft, to take up the slack—she pivoted them back to normal, configuring the power plant for normal cruise (under tonight’s conditions, 1500 kilometers per hour) and engaging the autopilot. Then, with the computers running the show and the entire status board registering nominal function, she indulged in an overhead stretch, finger-tapping a drum roll on the canopy above her.

  “Pretty pleased with yourself, huh?” groused Amelia from the right seat.

  Nicole shrugged good-humoredly. “Didn’t break any records. But the old bus”—she gave the panel an appreciative pat—“didn’t do too badly.”

  “You think it’s fun, right, showing off like that.”

  “Gets the juices flowing, that’s a fact.”

  “You’re worse than boys with football.”

  “Maybe.” The Moon was a little past one o’clock, rising above their line of flight, a shade shy of full. Clouds were bulking along the western slope of the Rockies and the light transformed them into a silver still-life, broken here and there by patches of absolute shadow, where the view was clear down to the ground. And if she looked hard, amid those random voids, there were the faintest splashes of light, from towns and the very occasional small city. Sometimes, from this height, on such a night, it was surprisingly easy to convince herself she was looking up and not down, that the darkness was that of outer space and the lights, stars.

  Then, with a small sigh, she turned her eyes skyward, towards the real thing.

  “Word is, this is as close now as you’ll ever get.”

  “Yup,” Nicole said.

  “Doesn’t bother you?”

  Nicole decided that didn’t deserve a response, and busied herself with a brief systems status review.

  “Does it bother you?” she asked Amy eventually.

  The girl tried to shrug, a wasted effort inside her bulky pressure suit, strapped tight into her seat.

  “I don’t understand,” the girl said at last.

  “What?”

  “You. Him.” Meaning Alex. “Well, him,” and there was a color to those two words that told Nicole that Amy understood her big brother completely. “You, I don’t understand,” she said finally, a major concession that the girl herself seemed a trifle surprised to admit.

  And after a while, when Nicole didn’t offer a reply—because Amy was the kind of person who perceived any pause as a vacuum that had to be filled—she went on, “All you want to do is lock yourself in a box for the rest of your life, except”—the edge of a sneer slipping into her voice—“for the occasional day trip down to some rock or other, where all you’re really doing is exchanging one box for another. I mean, think about it, Nicole. Three days to reach the Moon, a whole year to fly round-trip to Pluto—that was the profile of your Wanderer mission, right? And what are you doing along the way? Basically, you’re in prison. Is that fun, or what?”

  Nicole had to smile, because the girl—especially from her perspective—had a point. More than once in training, and afterward, she found herself asking many of the same questions: Is this what she truly wanted out of life? Were the rewards, if any, worth the sacrifice? That was part of the training, encouraged—often demanded—by the teaching staff, particularly once she’d made the shift into NASA. They wanted people who wanted to be there, because no one else had even a chance of surviving.

  Amy was still talking. “You can’t go anywhere,” she said disgustedly, “can’t do much of anything. There’s no walking out for a breath of fresh air, no such thing as fresh air. No more sailing, no more flying, only the occasional visits to the home folks, until you probably become as much an alien to them as the Pussies. You’re giving up all the things that make being alive worth the effort, it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No,” Nicole said softly, her transmitter deliberately turned off, “I suppose not.”

  There was a small flash on a subordinate display, alerting her to an incoming message, and when she shifted it center screen she saw it was a SIGMET—a significant meteorological notification.

  “What’s up?” Amy asked.

  “Nothing to concern us, there’s some heavy weather brewing at the Cape,” meaning Cape Canaveral, midway down Florida’s Atlantic coast, after a century still NASA’s primary launch facility. “They’re shutting down manned ops for the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”

  “But we’ll be all right?” A new shading to her voice, the vaguest hint of anxiety.

  “This high, there’s nothing can touch us. And the approach forecast to White Plains looks to be about as good as they get. Clear sky, minimal wind, piece of cake.”

  Amy grunted.

  “You don’t sound relieved.”

  Another attempt at a shrug.

  “How was the concert?”

  “Hmnh?”

  “The one you called me about, the other week.”

  “Oh. Didn’t go.”

  “Sorry I missed it.”

  “Yeah.” Which meant, like hell, you did.

  “And the downhill? In all the confusion, I never got a chance to ask. And afterward, you weren’t around.”

  “Papa got a little hyper, wanted me to stay close to home.”

  “And the race?”

  “Bagged it.”

  “Too bad. Some other time perhaps.”

  “Like I told you, it was no big deal.”

  “Any word about Alex?”

  “Ask your pal with the badge.”

  “Colonel Rachiim?”

  “Maguire.”

  She didn’t need to see Amy’s face to guess the expression, the kid probably figured she’d just scored a major point, popping one of Nicole’s bigger secrets.

  “You don’t like Alex much.”

  “What is this, twenty questions?”

  “Wasn’t a question, statement of fact.”

  “Sibling rivalry.”

  “Hardly. T
hat contest, I think, ended the day you were born.”

  “Hey what?”

  “Rivalry indicates competition for the same goal. Hard to compete when the game’s already over.”

  “You’re spinning air.”

  “Rambling, actually. Comes pretty naturally up here. Especially in the old days, when they made the trip at half the speed and half the altitude. And then there was Lindbergh. Thirty-eight hours, was it, New York to Paris? A Scram suborbital can do it in as many minutes. I went to Sutherland and back in as long a time.”

  “Progress,” Amy said, the fidget in her voice echoing the one in her body (or at least as much of one as her restraints allowed her).

  “You said some pretty nasty things in those messages.”

  “Truth hurts. And what are you anyway, my conscience?”

  “You feel the need for one?”

  “Puh-lease! That flaw is such a poser. Such a sophisticate.” Her tone was an acid mix of amused contempt. “Use his criteria, I’m knowledgeable. Which isn’t to say he hasn’t ever done anything”—and now the contempt was leavened with a vicious mockery—“it all depends on how you define the operating terms.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve seen his toys. You couldn’t drag him in here where I’m sitting if his life depended on it. But he’s probably logged more vacuum hours than any hotshot Sky Boy at Edwards. Probably has more deep-space experience than most in NASA. Go anywhere, do anything, his little heart desires. All the thrills and chills, none of the danger. Or cost.

  “And the lady’s always satisfied.”

  “That’s enough, Amy.”

  “But I haven’t even scratched the surface!” An appreciative giggle at the taste of forbidden fruit. “In Virtual, he can do anything. And, for that matter, anyone. Gal, guy, grownup, kid, on top, on the bottom, solo, multitude, nice, nasty, animal, imaginary. He has one program for centaurs. Keyed under Fantasia. He can play any role.”