"Two down!" Buck shouted.
"Can you get the others?" Wilma asked, just realizing that Buck might yet extricate them from what seemed to be certain death.
"Hell, no. I want them chasing us. Pump up that g-suit as tight as it will get, Wilma!"
The Skua hurtled downward at nearly four times the speed of sound. Buck's maneuvers had brought him high above the huge nuclear-powered aircraft. It grew swiftly in the heads-up display.
"Buck, they're flooding us with that gamma ray emission!" Wilma called out.
"We won't be here long enough to worry," he answered. He aimed directly ahead and slightly to the right of the other aircraft. In rapid-fire succession, four stingers flashed away, rushing ahead of and to the right of the Mongol plane.
"Instinct is a wonderful thing," Buck sang out. "Watch those slant-eyes twitch, because I just pulled their string. They'll turn
A Life in the Future
as hard as they can to the left now because they think my aim stinks with those stingers going to their right."
Exactly as he had expected, the huge swept-wing machine bent into a steep turn to the left. Buck dove wildly toward the airplane, curving just off its left wing. "Now!" he shouted. "Hang on, baby!"
The Skua dove perilously close to the Mongol ship's left wing. As they passed the wingtip, Buck pulled the tightest zoom climb he could with the controls. Even the Skua's powerful structure groaned in protest. Just as grayness rushed into Buck's peripheral vision, the beginning of a blackout, he had a glimpse of the Mongol plane close to their right as the Skua shot skyward.
The two remaining Mongol missiles had followed him in his madcap dive. From his last vestige of peripheral vision as gray was followed by black, he saw the missiles following the Skua.
"Barney! Valmar here. What in the world is happening up there? Our tracking is muddled. We're getting a powerful transponder signal, and then the scope tracker says the sky is filled with all sorts of. . . well, pieces of metal. Are you in touch with Rogers or Deering?"
Barney shook his head. He didn't know what was happening far above their heads. Everyone in tracking and monitoring had heard that maniacal laughter from Buck as he maneuvered like a man possessed. The Skua's seats were equipped with noninvasive medical monitoring, so they had a telemetered readout of the physical condition of the two pilots. Wilma's pulse was going right through the roof, and her blood pressure was going up and down like a yo-yo. The amazing reports from Buck showed his pulse up, but only slightly, and his blood pressure rose and fell in concert both with his changing g-loads and his shouting.
"Captain," Barney said as calmly as he could, "Buck took out the first two missiles and—"
"What about those two closing in on him from the front?"
"Captain, I don't know. It's crazy, but Buck maneuvered to have those missiles fired at him head-on, and that reduces his
Buck Rogers
maneuvering room and time and—"
"Hold it, Barney! Our scanners are picking up another explosion—really big blast this time. The radiation counters are going off scale. . . . Damn! We've got a target coming almost straight down, spinning and burning. . . . That's the radiation source! It's the Mongol plane. But we haven't any track on the Skua!"
Barney felt his blood chill. His first thought was that Buck had placed the safety of the great submarine above all else. The Mongol plane bristled with powerful armament. Maybe that gamma radiation could be concentrated in an intense beam so that even a few seconds direct exposure would start shutting down Buck's and Wilma's vital life processes. Maybe, maybe, maybe ... It was driving him crazy—
Wait a moment . . . he's got a separate code in his transponder. . . .
"Ardala! Switch to transponder squawk 1776. Hurry! See what you get."
Within seconds, she was reporting back. "I don't understand this, Barney," Ardala said. "We're getting a clean signal on that frequency. It's climbing rapidly, and it's past ninety thousand feet, slowing down. What's going on?"
Barney broke out in peals of laughter. He tried to talk, but realization of what Buck must have done and relief at hearing the signal almost choked him. He spluttered and coughed as he tried to speak clearly but failed.
"Damn it, Barney, stay where you are. I'm coming right there," Valmar ordered.
Barney collapsed in a chair, wiping perspiration from his face. He switched his own tracking scopes. Sure enough, on the 1776 squawk signal showing on his scope, there it was ... a bright dot. It was the Skua, now at 93,000 feet and no longer climbing. As Barney watched, he saw the dot moving slowly but accelerating as it began losing altitude.
Then Barney knew what must have happened up there. "I'll be damned," he said quietly to himself
Valmar burst into his tracking room. Barney held up both hands. "They're alive. The Skua is still in one piece, but I think they're out of fuel, coming down with a dead stick. Buck got the Mongol. If you're tracking with your radar, you'll see it spinning like a top as it comes down."
A Life in the Future
"No power in the Skua. He can't ditch that thing in the water; it's too fast, and besides, it can't float. I'll do anj^hing to get those people back." She gestured to his tracking scope. "Is there anything else up there? A second Mongol plane?"
"Just the Skua. Everything else is clear."
"All right, Barney. We're going to break all the rules. I know what my orders are, but my crew will never be worth a hoot if they don't trust me to do anything to recover my people when things fall apart. Now, here's what we're going to do. You keep tracking the Skua; we'll do the same. I want to know when it's low enough for them to use their belts.
"And hang on, Barney. We're coming out of the water like a whale breaching."
Barney grinned, knowing what was coming. He held up a thumb. "Let's get 'em, Ardala!"
Ardala Valmar moved quickly back to combat command. She spoke in rapid, quiet, assured tones, what her crew recognized as no-nonsense, no-question time. "Cortez, I want timed-release explosive charges for every Chilean boat you can detect out there. Circling maneuver, figure eights, then random pattern. They're to release a charge every forty-five seconds to keep those boats worried and waiting for something heavier. Commence firing now!
"Markham! Double those heavy torpedoes into the cliffs. Bring down the whole lot. Keep firing one extra demolition torp every two minutes. I want the water boiling with mud and muck in every direction. Schwartz! Hedgehog pattern every sixty seconds, random detonation in the vicinity of the enemy boats." She turned and stabbed a finger at another firing officer. "Draper, send out the drummers. Random pattern, maximum noise, laser signals and smoke in the water. Every third launch is with high-intensity flares, low over the bottom. The closer you get to any targets, the better.
"All hands, listen up," she addressed her firing crew. "If we get any hits on those boats and the crew takes to the escape systems, release the biosensor sharks. Set their homers to go after anything moving in the water, I don't care if it's fish or people.
Buck Rogers
they all get chewed up. Set their receivers so that we can disable the attack mode and bring them back for recovery. Launch in sixty seconds, a bracket often."
Markham looked at Cortez with raised brows. "I don't know what's going on," he said quietly, "but with those robosharks out there going after anything that moves, there's going to be an awful lot of blood in this ocean."
Sally Cortez grinned, her hand poised on her firing console. "You'd better believe it, fella!" Her hand went down, and a bracket of explosive homers rushed away from lo.
"Admiral Barney! Valmar here."
"I'm on, Captain."
"Did you copy my orders?"
"Right on, Valmar. Brilliant."
"Keep me informed on the Skua."
"Will do. They're down to forty thousand feet now, still descending."
He turned back to his communicator. "Colonel Rogers, come in, come in. Deering, if you receive me, ple
ase reply. I repeat, please reply."
He heard only static. Buck Rogers had timed ever5^hing with split-second accuracy. Wilma still found it difficult to believe he had deliberately drawn the enemy missiles toward the Skua and then, in the most amazing exhibition of flying she had ever seen, had outwitted the electronic homing systems of the missiles. Those violent rolls and corkscrewing maneuvers were aerobatics with which she was completely unfamiliar. Atmospheric flight, she now realized, demanded levels of skill and knowledge that she had never realized.
And how he drew the missiles in behind them was nothing short of amazing.
She almost screamed at Buck for them to dive away from the Mongol bomber. They could never stay in close enough to use the laser disintegrator. That demanded a precise, steady flying maneuver of at least ten seconds for the laser to agitate the molecular structure of the big aircraft, after which the laser would punch through to send searing heat into the fuselage.
But ten seconds with a powerfully defended bomber was more than a lifetime. Holding a steady, straight-line course for that length of time was a death sentence! It also made them a
A Life in the Future
sitting duck for the gamma ray beam. Nothing was more frustrating than the next blast of bad news—that their own stinger missiles could be rendered useless by defensive systems, and that even the explosive charges might never have a chance to break through the heavy armor plating of the Mongol plane. It had so much power from its nuclear power system that it weighed at least three times as much as normal, and all the extra mass was in the form of battleship-like armor.
But the defensive missiles fired by the Mongols were much more powerful than their own stingers. Buck had maneuvered wildly, had performed the most incredible reversal in position and direction. His bruising dive toward the big plane had to be timed with exquisite precision; his own missiles brought the enemy pilots to veer to the left. This meant the aircraft had to bank sharply, left wing down, and it was at this instant that Buck dived scant feet by the wingtip, passed the bomber, and then pulled the most violent upward maneuver he had ever flown in his life. Behind and below them, the bomber banked again to the right—a perfect homing target for its own two missiles.
Now the electronic homing devices performed precisely as they were designed—before them was a target, and they smashed into the wing of the Mongol plane and exploded.
Even as Buck and Wilma rocketed skyward from the force of their violent pullup and lapsed into blackness from the g-forces that drained blood from their eyes and brains, the huge wing folded in two, collapsing sideways back over the fuselage and cockpit. The Mongol plane whipped instantly into a violent spin, whirling around its right wing like a seed pod falling from a tree. Within that hapless machine, the nuclear reactor cracked open, and the thick fuel lines and coolant and pressure chambers came apart at the seams. Lines and tubes whipped about like striking cobras. Intense radiation flooded the interior of the aircraft. The crew was trapped, unable to use their escape devices to eject the capsule into which they were crowded. But even had they done so, they were doomed by the fierce radiation ripping through their bodies. Had they ejected successfully, they would all have been dead within the hour.
They were not given that hour. The bomber, shedding pieces, was in a death spin that would continue all the way to the ocean below. . . .
Buck Rogers
Slowly Buck and Wilma recovered consciousness, groggy from the rush of blood and oxygen back into their brains. Within seconds, the darkness was gone, but still they saw through a filmy haze. Finally Wilma was able to make out her instruments.
"B-Buck," she called in a voice that quavered from shock and physical punishment, "do you hear me? Please . . . please answer me. . . ."
Buck sucked oxygen deeply, his head clearing rapidly. He heard Wilma's voice, but at the moment he was paying full attention to the data readings on the heads-up display before him. The Skua was in a steep spiral, its engine dead, but still accelerating due to its weight. Buck concentrated on two instruments, the altimeter and the rate of descent. They were going down at four thousand feet a minute and passing the twenty thousand foot level. He answered Wilma's call in the best way possible, by pulling the Skua out of its death spiral, righting the wings, and bringing up the nose. Moments later he was in a controlled, powerless descent.
"Wilma, are you with me?"
"Y-Yes ... I think so. My head feels like its been beaten with a hammer."
"Worry about that later. This thing glides like a brick. There's no way we can make a water landing and just waltz away in a dog paddle."
"We won't have to. Buck." He heard strength returning to her voice. "The seat cushion . . . and the backrest. Buck. They have pull tabs on them. Try to reach them."
His hands groped until he felt the backrest tabs. Moments later he located the seat tabs.
"There's only a little time left. Buck. Do exactly as I say."
"Go ahead. That ocean is coming up pretty fast."
"In that pack is a sheet of Inertron. You saw how it worked with Hoffman after he left his fighter plane. It reduces your weight to about five pounds. We'll drift down slowly, but we've got to be out of the ship no lower than three thousand feet so we can decelerate. The Inertron is set to a maximum fall of about ten miles an hour, but that's only when you're a short distance above the surface. Fasten those tabs, Buck. Do it now. They won't
A Life in the Future
activate until we're out of the Skua."
"That's fine and dandy, but this thing doesn't have any ejection seats, and we're moving at a pretty good cHp."
"There's an Inertron package in each wing. It's good for about twenty seconds. When I activate the system, it has the same reverse gravity effect as our personal packs. It will slow us down to about forty miles an hour and stop the rate of descent. But we have only those twenty seconds to clear the ship."
"You'd better do it right now. We're running out of everything fast."
"All right. In three seconds, I'll hit the switch. Ready?"
"Ready!"
The Skua slowed in midair as if it were floating beneath a huge parachute, but without the shock of an opening canopy. Thirteen seconds after Wilma activated the antigrav unit, they were down to about thirty or forty miles an hour, a mild breeze compared to their former speed. Their descent rate could hardly be detected.
"Release the canopy! Now!" Wilma shouted.
He hit the switch. Clamps flew back, and small pyrotechnic charges blew, hurling the canopy above and well behind them. "Now, Buck! Get out!"
He stood on the wing, one leg still in the cockpit, one hand bracing himself against the wind rushing by.
The seconds flashed away. Wilma was screaming at him now. "Jump! For God's sake. Buck, get off the ship! Your pack won't activate until we're clear!"
Still he hesitated, looking down at the ocean several thousand feet below. Buck had jumped from aircraft before. He'd gone through survival training, had earned his extra set of wings as a member of rescue teams, and he'd gone skydiving just for the fun of it. Seventy-four jumps in all.
But I had two parachutes then . . . one big one to let me down nice and easy, and a reserve canopy just in case something went wrong. All I've got now is this skinny Boy Scout pack . . . and I'm supposed to jump?
''Jump!" Wilma shrieked, her voice deafening in his headset. He looked behind him just as Wilma leaped from the wing. She's not in the right body position ... no balance. She'll tumble . . .
Buck Rogers
Oh, hell, here goes nothing. . . .
He dived off the wing, immediately arching his back, his arms outstretched, knees bent, assuming the proper balancing position for a stabilized sky dive. Wind noises increased as his falling speed swiftly increased to 140 miles an hour. He dreaded looking for Wilma. She had to be falling out of control by now.
He hurtled past Wilma, who looked up at the astonished face of Buck as he whizzed by. She was drifting gently dow
nward, almost as if seated on an invisible chair. Again her voice came painfully through his headset.
"You idiot!" she laughed. Even as her peal of laughter banged against his ears, he felt the deceleration as the Inertron antigrav system activated. The howling wind was gone. It was like floating down beneath a huge parachute— only there wasn't any chute.
"This is incredible!" he whooped. The air felt like a giant marshmallow beneath him. He was a leaf riding gently earthward, sliding along a downward-sloped invisible mountain of cotton. He saw Wilma above him, waving. He waved back, his faith restored—or just discovered—in an energy system he couldn't see, feel, or even understand.
The ocean was less than five hundred feet below him now. He felt the first deceleration, his descent slowing steadily until he slipped toward the water at less than ten miles an hour.
Then he became aware of deep booming sounds. Water rose from the ocean less than a thousand feet away as huge blasts of foam erupted. It looked just like the depth charges they'd dropped against submarines. The sound grew in intensity as he dropped lower. The ocean boiled furiously from unseen forces.
Then there was another sound, as if the ocean were being ripped like a huge sheet of canvas. "They're here!" Wilma called out.
Buck turned to look. To his left, the ocean swelled. A huge mound of water, perfectly rounded, kept rising from the surface, the lower part of the mound dark green, becoming nearly white with boiling foam near the crest. An immense dark shape burst from the dome, a huge rounded bow thrusting from the water like some gigantic, impossible whale leaping into the air. The entire, immense structure of 7o appeared,
A Life in the Future
magically, impossibly, wonderfully, water streaming from its rounded flanks like a giant waterfall pouring over a high mountaintop. Then the great submarine rested level, its hatches sprang open, and swift, flexible motor launches raced toward where Buck and Wilma would alight.
Buck Rogers- A Life in the Future Page 20