Strike Zone

by Dale Brown

  Figuratively, of course. Which was the way he wanted it. For alas, while there were six females among the chosen, the eggheads’ bodies were no match for their brains. Even mixing and matching their best attributes would still leave the composite far short of Jennifer Gleason, Dreamland’s resident brain babe. He was in fact on his way to see her now, hoping she might be available to give his acolytes a few pointers about the value of working with the military. They really didn’t need to hear another pep talk—he had that under control himself—but it would give Mack an excuse to admire her assets—er, abilities—for a good twenty minutes or more.

  Mack had tried several times to steer her into his quarters for an up-close examination of her charms. Of late, though, he’d had to settle for watching from afar. Jennifer was seeing the base commander, and even Mack knew better than to cross the boss, especially when he required Dog’s connections and good word to help steer him toward the command he deserved. With any luck, Dog would come through and deliver him a tasty squadron post in the next week or so. The colonel’s star was rising in Washington, and surely he owed Mack a bit of largesse.

  “Halt,” said a tall, rather striking if formal woman at the rear of a three-man formation that had buzzed into the hallway.

  She had been speaking to the drones behind her, but Mack momentarily thought the command was meant for him. Taken by surprise, he stopped and gazed at the woman, realizing with his connoisseur’s eye that, if properly undressed, this frame and face might be fittingly attractive. It was tall for a woman, with shoulders that were admittedly manly. But the starched trousers sheathed long, undoubtedly athletic legs, and there was no hiding the voluptuous breasts standing guard above the slim waist.

  “Can we help you?” barked the breasts’ owner.

  “You must be from OSI,” said Mack. He extended his hand. “Mack Smith.”

  “Major.”

  The drones hovered, unsure whether their master was being greeted or attacked.

  Mack gave them nods—lieutenants, mere children—then turned toward their leader.

  “I’m available for background,” Mack told her. “I’ve been here awhile. I know where the bodies are buried.”

  “I see.”

  She looked him over. Mack pushed his shoulders back.

  “Perhaps we’ll arrange something,” said the officer, turning to go.

  “What was your name?” he asked.

  “It’s Colonel Cortend,” whispered one of the underlings.

  “First name?” said Mack.

  Cortend whirled around. “Why would you need to know my first name?”

  “For future reference,” said Mack.

  The colonel frowned in his direction, then turned and set off so quickly that her minions had difficulty keeping up.

  Mack felt his face flush. By the time he started moving again, his palms were so sweaty that he had to wipe them on his pants, and he was so obsessed with Cortend that he forgot what he’d come to see Jennifer about.

  Dreamland, Flighthawk Hangar Offices

  1300

  “NO WAY THIS is a Chinese Project,” Stoner told Zen as the briefing session broke up. “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’d know about it.”

  Zen, Rubeo, and several of the other civilian experts involved in the Flighthawk project had just finished giving Stoner a comprehensive briefing on the technologies involved in the U/MF-3. They had emphasized three areas—materials, propulsion, and communications—which until the discovery of the clone had appeared to be Dreamland monopolies.

  “I’ve dealt with the Chinese,” said Zen. “They’re pretty damn competent. I wouldn’t underestimate them.”

  “I’m not underestimating them. I just don’t think they did this. Consider their aircraft technology. Their most advanced aircraft is the Shenyang F-8IIM. It’s basically a very large MiG-21. If they were able to construct lightweight carbon fiber wings, for example, they’d be building something closer to the F-22.”

  “So who? The Russians?”

  “They’re much more capable than anyone gives them credit for,” said Stoner. “I wouldn’t rule out the Indians either. You saw their sub-launched cruise missile. That was a pretty serious weapon.”

  “The technology here is more advanced,” said Zen.

  “In some ways, certainly.” Stoner folded his arms. “What about the Japanese?”

  “The Japanese?”

  “Forget the technology a minute,” said Stoner. “Look at the way the craft was used. It wasn’t taking part in the battle. It was watching what was going on. It was a spy plane. It stayed far away from the action.”

  “That doesn’t rule China out,” said Zen.

  “Sure it does. If the Chinese had this weapon, wouldn’t they have been using it to scout the Indian forces?”

  “Maybe they did and we didn’t see it. The Flighthawks are very difficult to pick up on radar,” said Zen.

  “You think this thing flew over the Navy task force without being detected?”

  Zen shrugged. He didn’t, but he didn’t feel like admitting it to Stoner.

  “My guess is it’s a third-party player,” said Stoner. “Japan, Russia—someone interested, but not directly involved.”

  “My money’s still on China,” said Zen. “I don’t trust them.”

  “And they don’t trust us,” said Stoner. “But that’s good.”

  “Why?”

  “Makes them predictable.”

  FOR AN EGGHEAD nerd, Rubeo set a good clip, and Stoner had trouble catching up with him as he cleared through the underground maze back toward his laboratories.

  “Doc, can I talk to you?”

  “You seem to be making an effort to do so,” said Rubeo, not pausing.

  “Who really could develop this?”

  Rubeo stopped at a locked door and put in his card. The door clicked and buzzed, but didn’t open.

  “Your ID,” said Rubeo. “In the slot.”

  Stoner complied. The door opened. Rubeo stepped through and resumed his pace.

  “We can. The Japanese maybe. The Chinese. Not the Russians.”

  “That’s it?”

  The scientist stopped outside one of the lab doors. Despite his high clearance, Stoner was not allowed into the room, which contained the terminals used for work on the Flighthawk control computers, as well as a myriad of other projects. Rubeo frowned at him, then touched his earring. He seemed to be trying to figure out exactly what to tell him. Stoner wasn’t sure whether he was trying to translate complicated scientific data into layman’s terms—or if he just didn’t trust him.

  “Plenty of countries have unmanned vehicles, don’t they?” prompted Stoner.

  “Forget the mechanical aspects,” said Rubeo. He glanced down the hallway, making sure they were alone. “It’s the computers that are important. Yes, anyone can build a UMV—we could go to Radio Shack and buy a radio-controlled model that’s about ninety percent as advanced as Predator.”

  “Ninety percent?”

  “Well, eighty-five.” Rubeo smirked. “Building the aircraft is not the difficult part. The problem is to transfer data quickly enough to control the plane in aggressive flight. This craft seems to have done that. And if it’s used as a spy plane—well, then you have an enormous data flow, don’t you? Bandwidth—you understand what I’m talking about.”

  Stoner nodded. The scientists had emphasized earlier that massive amounts of data flowed back and forth very quickly between the Flighthawks and their mother ships. To be honest, Stoner didn’t completely get it—what was the big deal about some video and flying instructions? But it was enough to know that they said it was significant.

  “All of that is going to take custom-designed chips, both for the communications and for the onboard computer. Because it will have to have an onboard computer,” said Rubeo. “That’s what you have to look for. That’s the defining characteristic.”

  “Okay, so who could do that
?” said Stoner.

  Rubeo shook his head. “Weren’t you paying attention? We can. The Japanese. The Chinese. Not the Russians.”

  “No one else?”

  Rubeo fingered his earring again. “Maybe India. Some of the Europeans, possibly. There are good fab plants in Germany. They’ve done memory work there as well. The processor, though.”

  Rubeo seemed to be having a conversation with himself that Stoner couldn’t hear. He segued into contract factories or fabs that fabricated chips for custom applications. A small number of concerns could manufacture specially designed chips. They needed special clean rooms and elaborate tools, but if there was enough money, existing machinery could be adapted.

  “What if I look for those?” Stoner asked Rubeo.

  “You don’t really suppose they’re going to tell you what they’re doing, do you?”

  “I’m in the business of gathering information,” said Stoner.

  Rubeo made a noise that sounded a bit like the snort of a horse. “There are several facilities in America that could do the work. More than two dozen that I can think of off the top of my head. Any of them would be willing to design the proper chips for a foreign government if the price were right.”

  “I’ll check them first,” said Stoner. “Unless they’re already doing work for us.”

  “Why would that be a limiting factor?” said Rubeo, the cynical tone in his voice implying that greed would motivate any number of people to sell out their country.

  Dreamland Ground Range Three

  2100

  SERGEANT BEN “BOSTON” Rockland got to his feet slowly. The rest of his team lay around him, officially “dead.” Their objective—carrying a small amount of radioactive soil back from enemy lines for testing—had not been met.

  Boston—as the nickname suggested, the sergeant was a Beantown native—picked up the ruck containing the soil. The desert before him was dotted with small rubber balls with nails sticking out from them—simulated cluster bomblets, representing air-dropped antipersonnel mines with proximity fuses. The little suckers worked too—as soon as you got within five feet, an ear-piercing siren sounded, and the range monitor proclaimed you were dead.

  Not dead, actually. Just maimed. The range monitor seemed to take a perverse joy in announcing which particular body part it was that had been blown off.

  There seemed to be no way across the minefield. Yet to get to the objective—a small orange cone about a quarter mile away—he had to cross it.

  As Boston stared, he heard the roar of the returning Osprey gunship. Sergeant Liu had explained earlier that the aircraft was programmed to orbit the test range randomly. He’d also warned that the massive Gatlings were firing live ammunition.

  The Osprey swung forward in a wide arc, hunting for a target. Boston had seen from the exercises earlier that it would home in on small reflectors that the people running the exercise had planted around the field. It wasn’t clear to him whether the red disks had some circuitry inside, or if the weapons directors on the M/V-22 could actually home in on the glints of light. Whichever it was, flinging the little disks drove the gear batty, as one of the Whiplash team members had proven yesterday when morale had started to sag.

  Maybe he hadn’t flung the disk as a joke, thought Boston. Maybe he was hinting at the solution.

  Boston threw himself back down as the Osprey approached. The computers controlling the guns were programmed to avoid hitting anyone, but they didn’t miss by much. As the guns began to fire, the tilt-rotor aircraft seemed to jump upward in the sky.

  The burst lasted no more than three-quarters of a second. When it stopped, the Osprey settled back down and flew in a semicircle close to the ground.

  Eight feet off the surface.

  That wasn’t all that high.

  Boston watched as the Osprey flew toward the hangar area, still skimming low over the terrain.

  That was the solution. It had to be.

  As soon as the tilt-rotor craft had gone, he began grabbing the disks.

  CAPTAIN DANNY FREAH watched in amazement as the Osprey whirled around, hoodwinked by the flashing reflectors. It fired, then settled back down into a hover just at the edge of the minefield.

  “I think he figured out how to control it,” said Liu, who was next to Danny.

  “Or at least confuse it,” answered Danny.

  “If he uses the Osprey to blast a path through the minefield, the computer simulators won’t understand,” said Liu. “He’ll still be blown up by the proximity fuses. But you’d have to give him points for figuring it out.”

  “Sure, but that’s not what he’s doing,” said Danny as Boston began running toward the rear of the Osprey.

  “Holy shit,” said Liu.

  Boston leaped into the air and caught the rear tail of the variable-rotor aircraft. His legs pitched forward and his ruck hung off his back, but the sergeant managed to hang on.

  EVEN THOUGH THE massive rotors were locked above the aircraft, they still kicked up a hurricane around the aircraft. Boston shook like the last leaf on a maple tree in a nor’easter blizzard as the aircraft pushed ahead toward the apron area beyond the minefield.

  The trooper felt his fingers numbing as the MV-22 moved ahead. They were cold, frozen even—his right pinkie began to slip, then his ring finger, then his thumb.

  He leaned his head down, trying to see exactly where he was.

  Not even halfway across.

  Hang on, he told himself.

  The aircraft bucked upward. Boston realized he’d miscalculated about how close to the ground it flew once it cleared the minefield—from where he’d stood, it didn’t seem as if it rose at all, but now he realized it must go up at least a few feet, and a few feet were going to make a very big difference when he jumped.

  He could get it to dip again by tossing one of the reflectors. But to toss one—he had two more in his pocket—he’d have to hold on with one hand.

  Could he?

  No.

  Besides, the shock of the guns would easily throw him off.

  The Osprey began turning to the left. The shift in momentum was simply too much, and Boston lost his grip. He tried to relax his legs so he could roll when he landed, but it happened too fast; his heels hit the ground and he fell back hard. His backpack took a little of the sting out of the fall, probably just enough to prevent a concussion as it slipped upward on his back. He rolled and flipped over, then hunkered against the hard surface of the ancient lakebed, anticipating the screech and growl of the simulated mine.

  But he heard nothing. Boston raised his head. Shit, he thought, I blew my eardrums out.

  Then he heard the Osprey thumping in the distance. He saw one of the spiked balls lying about fifteen feet away—just far enough not to go off.

  Slowly, Boston pushed up to his knees. He rubbed some of the grit from his eyes, then stood, trying to get his bearings.

  The cone was ten feet away. He took a breath, and walked slowly toward it.

  I could use some water, he thought as he put the ruck containing the soil sample next to the cone.

  BY THE TIME Sergeant Liu appeared, Boston had stretched out on the ground, his body hovering just this side of consciousness.

  “Yo,” said Liu. He turned and started walking away.

  Boston rose and fell in behind, his limbs sore not just from the fall but from the last twenty-four hours. He managed to lean forward and break into a rough trot, catching up.

  “What’s next?” he asked.

  “Nothing for you,” said Liu.

  “Shit,” said Boston, but he couldn’t figure out where he had screwed up.

  The Osprey? But how else was he supposed to get across the minefield? He’d have had to leave the range, and even then, the entire cone was surrounded.

  Liu didn’t explain. A GMC Jimmy, blue light flashing, appeared in the distance, kicking up dust as it sped across the open landscape. It whipped to a stop a few feet from him. Liu pulled open the front passenger d
oor, waiting for Boston to get in.

  There was no driver. Boston was only slightly surprised to see that—as the Whiplash veterans were fond of saying, This is Dreamland. Nor was he particularly surprised when Liu didn’t climb in after him.

  As soon as the door was shut, the vehicle started up again, slowly at first, then gradually picking up speed. It drove to a small building just beyond the old bone yard—a storage area for old planes at the eastern end of the base. Boston got out; when the door was shut, the vehicle backed up and drove away.

  Captain Danny Freah was waiting inside. Like Boston, Freah was of African descent, though it was clear from his demeanor that any appeal to ethnic roots was not going to cut it.

  Maybe, Boston thought, he could appeal to his mother’s side of the family. She was Sicilian. He could hint at a mafia connection.

  Probably wouldn’t cut it either.

  “Who told you you could climb on the aircraft?” demanded Captain Freah.

  “Sir.” Boston snapped out the word, but he was too worn down at this point to play rogue warrior. “Uh, no one. I just did it.”

  “You know how much that aircraft costs?”

  Visions of living on bread and water well into his retirement suddenly filled Boston’s head. He had heard stories about the military taking the cost of high-tech gear out of soldier’s pay, but had never believed they were true. Now he suddenly realized that they might be.

  “Um, I didn’t think I’d do any harm to it.”

  “You didn’t think?” barked Freah.

  Boston winced; he had given the classic—classic!—bad answer.

  “I thought incorrectly, sir,” said the sergeant. “I was focused on the objective, to the exclusion of other factors.”

  He could practically feel the heat coming off Freah’s face. From the corner of his eye, he saw another member of the Whiplash team joining them in the building—Sergeant Liu. Behind him came the other Whiplash veterans.

  Great, thought Boston, they’re all here for the hanging.

  “You only thought of the objective?” said the captain.

  “Yes, sir, I’m afraid I did. I’m sorry.”