by Dale Brown
“I’m going to finish getting my gas,” Boomer said, “and then we’re going to proceed to landing at MK. This is international airspace; sightseeing is allowed. Let Genesis and Odin know what’s out there.”
Boomer could hear Frenchy on the number two radio talking to someone, but she stopped a moment later: “That prick at three o’clock’s moving closer,” she said nervously.
“How are we doing on gas?”
“Three-quarters full.”
“We got enough to get to MK with reserves?”
“Plenty.”
“I want to top ’em off just in case. How close is the MiG now?”
“He’s right on our right wingtip,” Frenchy said. “You going to do a disconnect, Captain?”
“Nah. I’m showing him how it’s done. No doubt he wants a glimpse of the future too.” But the little game wasn’t over. The MiG-29 kept on coming closer until shortly Boomer could hear his engine roar and vibration outside his cockpit canopy. “Okay, now he’s starting to piss me off. How are we on gas?”
“Almost full.”
“Where’s the wingman?”
Moulain began to shift in her seat so she could turn all the way around to her left again…but soon found she didn’t have to, because the second MiG had zoomed forward and was now sitting right off the tanker pilot’s left cockpit window, close enough for his engine exhaust and jet wash to shake the tanker’s left wing, barely noticeably at first but soon more violently as the MiG slid closer.
“Seven, this is Four-One. It’s getting hard to keep it under control. What do you say?”
“Bastard,” Boomer muttered. “Time to call it quits.” On the radio he responded, “Four-One, let’s do a disconnect and—”
But at that moment the second MiG to the left of the tanker’s cockpit stroked its afterburners, its exhausts just yards away from the tanker’s left wing’s leading edge, causing the wing to shove first violently downward, then upward, causing the tanker to roll right. “Breakaway, breakaway, breakaway!” the boom operator shouted on the radio. Boomer immediately chopped the throttles, hit the voice command button, and spoke, “Speed brakes seventy!” The Mission Adaptive Wing system immediately commanded a maximum drag setting, creating thousands of little speed brakes all over the spaceplane’s surface and allowing it to sink quickly…
…and it wasn’t a moment too soon, because the tanker pilot, struggling with his plane’s controls and at the same time jamming on full military power and a thirty-degree climb angle when he heard the “breakaway” call, had overcorrected and was now violently rolling to his left, in the grip of a full power-on stall and on the verge of a tail-low spin. Boomer could swear he was going to be face-to-face with the boom operator as he saw the tanker’s tail swing lower and lower toward him. “C’mon, Chevron, recover, dammit, recover…!”
The KC-77 tanker seemed to be doing a pirouette on the tip of the still-extended refueling boom, rolling left and right as if clawing the sky for a handhold, its wings fluttering like a giant osprey in a climb, except the tanker wasn’t climbing but was getting ready to roll over and spin out of control at any second. Just when Boomer thought it was going to roll over on its back and dive uncontrollably into the Black Sea, it stopped its death’s oscillations, the left wing stayed down, and the nose started to creep toward the horizon. As the nose dipped below the horizon, the right wing slowly, agonizingly started to come down. When the tanker disappeared from view, it was almost wings-level, steeply nose-low but quickly regaining its lost airspeed.
“Chevron, you guys okay?” Boomer radioed.
A few moments later he heard a high, squeaky, hoarse male voice say, “I got it, I got it, holy shit, I got it…Seven, this is Four-One, we’re okay. Man oh man, I thought we were goners. We’re at twelve thousand feet. We’re okay. One engine flamed out, but we’re restarting now.”
Boomer scanned the sky and saw the two MiG-29s joined up far above him, heading east. He could almost hear them laughing over their radios on the little scare they put into the Americans. “You motherfuckers!” he shouted into his oxygen visor, and he shoved the throttles forward to max afterburner.
“Noble! What are you doing?” Moulain shouted when she had gotten her breath back after the sudden G-force shove to her chest. But it was soon obvious what he was doing—he was flying right for the middle of the MiG formation. By the time she could cry out, they had blasted past the two MiGs, passing less than a hundred yards above them, traveling more than seven hundred miles an hour! “Jesus, Noble, are you insane?”
Boomer pitched the Black Stallion into a steep sixty-degree climb, still accelerating. “We’re going to see if they like scrapping with the other alley cats or if they just pick on the big fat tabbies,” he said. The threat warning receiver blared—the MiGs had been running radar-silent until now, which is how they were able to sneak up on their formation so easily, but now they had their big N-019 radar on and searching. Boomer leveled off at forty thousand feet, pulled the throttles back to military power, and switched his multifunction display to the threat depiction, which gave him his best picture of the situation. “Keep an eye on my fuel and let me know when we’re getting close to bingo fuel on MK, Frenchy.”
“Stud, this is Odin,” Patrick McLanahan radioed from Armstrong Space Station. “We just picked up the threat warning. You’ve got two MiGs behind you! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to drag these guys east as much as possible so they’ll stay away from the tanker,” Boomer said, “and I’m going to teach them a lesson about screwing with a Black Stallion and especially its tanker.”
“Do you know what you’re doing, Boomer?” Patrick asked.
“I’m hoping these guys will take a shot at me, General,” Boomer said, “and then I’m really going to water their eyes. Any other questions, sir?”
There was a slight pause, during which time Moulain was positive the general would be swearing a blue streak and literally bouncing off the ceiling of the command module in pure anger at Noble’s adolescent stunt. To her shock, she heard McLanahan reply: “Negative, Boomer. Just try not to scratch the paint.”
“Fifteen minutes to bingo fuel at this rate and course, SC,” Moulain reported. “Stop this shit and turn us around!”
“Five more minutes and we’ll do a U-turn, Frenchy,” Boomer said, then muttered, “C’mon, you chickenshits, shoot already. We’re right dead in your sights and we’re not jamming—take the—”
At that instant the two “bat-wing” symbols on the threat warning display depicting the MiG’s search radars started to blink. “Warning, warning, missile alert, six o’clock, twenty-three miles, MiG-29K…” followed moments later by: “Warning, warning, missile launch, missile launch, AA-12!”
“Here we go, Frenchy—hold on to your bloomers,” Boomer said. He jammed the throttles to max afterburner, then spoke, “Leopards online.”
“Leopards online, stop leopards…leopards activated,” the computer responded, and both crewmembers were shoved back into their seats when the full force of the Laser Pulse Detonation Rocket System engines fired up in full turbojet mode—with the throttles already in full afterburner, rather than moving them up gradually, they got almost full turbojet power in just a few seconds. The airspeed jumped from just below Mach 1 to Mach 2, then 3, then 4 in the blink of an eye. He then started a steep climb, then kept the pitch input in until they were headed straight up, passive fifty, then sixty thousand feet.
“Missiles…still…tracking,” Moulain grunted through the nearly seven Gs. “Still…closing…”
“I’m almost…done…with these bozos, Frenchy,” Boomer grunted back. He pulled the power back at Mach 4 and kept pulling on the control stick until they were inverted. He rolled upright, his nose now aimed down almost directly vertical, then glanced at the threat display. As he hoped, the two MiGs were still transmitting radar energy, searching for him—the AA-12 missile, a copy of the American AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Miss
ile, was homing in using its own on-board radar.
“Wondering where I went, boys? You’ll find out in a sec.” Boomer aimed the Black Stallion at a point in space where he thought the MiGs would be in the next heartbeat or two—at his relative speed, the MiGs appeared to be hovering in space, although the threat display said they were flying at almost twice the speed of sound. Just as he caught a glimpse of the black dots below him, he rolled left until he was knifing right between the two Russian jets. He had no idea if he had judged the turn correctly, but it was too late to worry now…
The MiGs were nothing more than imperceptible blurs as he flew directly between them, missing the closest by just fifty yards. As soon as he passed them he pulled the throttles to idle, deactivated the LPDRS engines to conserve fuel, used the MAW system to assist the spaceplane to level off without breaking itself into pieces—at their current rate of speed they would hit the Black Sea in just eight seconds without the Mission Adaptive Wing technology—and started a tight left turn just in case the AA-12 missiles were still tracking…
…but he didn’t have to worry about the missiles, because moments later they caught a glimpse of a large flash of light above them, then another. He rolled upright, let the G-forces subside, and scanned the sky. All they could see were two black clouds above them. “Payback’s a bitch, huh, comrades?” Boomer said as he headed westbound once again.
They had to chase down the tanker again and refuel because they had reached emergency fuel status in just a couple minutes with the LPDRS engines activated. The tanker crew was jubilant, but Moulain was even more quiet and businesslike than usual—she said nothing else except required call-outs. “You guys okay, Four-One?” Boomer asked.
“We got our dentures loosened big-time,” the tanker pilot said, “but it’s better than the alternative. Thanks, Stud.”
“You can thank us by giving us a little more gas so we can make it to MK.”
“As long as we have enough to make it to the nearest runway, you can have the rest,” the tanker pilot said. “And don’t even think about buying any drinks for any other gas-passer anywhere on the planet—your money’s no good with us anymore. Thanks again, Stud Seven.”
Less than an hour later the two aircraft made their approach and landing at Constanţa-Mikhail Kogălniceanu Airport in Romania. The airport was located fifteen miles from Constanţa and nine miles from the city’s famed Mamaia Beach on the Black Sea, so it was rarely affected by the freezing fog that shrouded the coastal city in winter. The U.S. Air Force had built an aircraft parking ramp, hangars, and maintenance and security facilities on the northeast side of the airfield, as well as upgraded the airport’s control tower, radar and communications facilities, and civil airport terminal. Along with NATO and European Union membership, the investments made in Romania by the United States had quickly turned this area known before only for its busy seaport and historic sites into a major international business, technology, and tourist destination.
The two aircraft were escorted to the security area by a small convoy of armored Humvees and parked together in the largest hangar. There was a lot of hugging and handshakes between the crews as they deplaned. They debriefed their mission together and then separately, with promises to meet up for dinner and drinks later in Constanţa.
Noble and Moulain’s mission debriefing took considerably longer than the tanker crew’s. It took nine grueling hours to debrief the maintenance and intelligence crews, Patrick McLanahan on Armstrong Space Station, Dave Luger at Dreamland, and get their usual post-flight physical exams. When they were finally released, they cleared Romanian customs at the civil airport, then took a shuttle bus to the Best Western Savoy Hotel in Constanţa, where the U.S. military contracted for transient lodging.
The Black Sea coast was not busy at all in winter, so except for a few airline crews from Romania, Germany, and Austria and some surprised businessmen unaccustomed to seeing much partying in Constanţa in winter, the Americans had the bar to themselves. The tanker crew had already been partying hard and was buying drinks for anyone who wore wings, especially the foreign female flight attendants. Boomer was ready as well, but to his surprise he saw Lisette heading for the elevator to her room. He extricated himself from the arms of two beautiful blond flight attendants, with promises he’d be right back, and hurried to follow her.
He barely squeezed himself past the closing elevator doors. “Hey, Frenchy, turning in so soon? The party’s just getting started, and we haven’t had dinner yet.”
“I’m beat. I’m done for the day.”
He looked at her with concern. “You haven’t said much since our little run-in with the Russkies,” he said. “I’m a little—”
Suddenly Moulain whirled toward him and smacked him across the jaw with a closed right fist. It wasn’t that hard a blow, but it was still a fist—he was smarting, but mostly from the surprise. “Hey, what’d you do that for?”
“You bastard! You prick!” she shouted. “You could’ve gotten us both killed today out there!”
Boomer rubbed his jaw, still looking at her with concern; then he nodded and said, “Yeah, I could have. But no one pushes around my tanker.” He smiled, then added, “Besides, you gotta admit, Frenchy, that it was one helluva ride.”
Moulain looked as if she was going to punch him again, and he was determined to let her do it if it made her feel better…but to his surprise, she rushed forward in the elevator, threw her arms around his neck, smothered him with a kiss, and pressed herself against him, pinning him against the wall.
“You’re damned right, Boomer, it was one helluva ride,” she breathed. “I’ve flown jets off of carriers in two wars and been shot at dozens of times, and I have never been so turned on as I was today!”
“Jeez, Moulain…”
“Frenchy. Call me Frenchy, dammit,” she ordered, then silenced him with another kiss. She didn’t let him up for air for a long time.
“You were so quiet on the way back and in debriefing, I was afraid you were going into some kind of shell-shocked fugue state, Frenchy,” Boomer said as Moulain started kissing his neck. “You sure have a funny way of showing your excitement.”
“I was so excited, so turned on, so friggin’ aroused that I was embarrassed to show it,” Moulain said in between kisses, her hands quickly finding their way south of his waist. “I mean, two fighter pilots died, but I was so jacked up I thought I was going to come in my damned flight suit!”
“Dang, Frenchy, this is one strange side of you that I never—”
“Shut up, Boomer, just shut up,” she said as the elevator slowed on their floor. She had him practically unzipped and unbuttoned by then. “Just take me to my room and fuck my brains out.”
“But what about your fiancé and your—?”
“Boomer, I said, shut the hell up and fuck me, and do not stop until it’s morning,” Moulain said as the elevator doors slid open. “I’ll explain it to…to…oh hell, whatever his name is, in the morning. Remember, Captain, I outrank you, so that’s an order, mister!” It was obvious that issuing orders was just as much of a turn-on for her as flying the hypersonic spaceplane.
CHAPTER TWO
One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.
—VIRGINIA WOOLF
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION
THE NEXT MORNING
The command module was the center of activity aboard Armstrong Space Station, and it was here that Patrick McLanahan attended the video teleconference with select members of President Gardner’s national security staff: Conrad F. Carlyle, the President’s National Security Adviser; Gerald Vista, the Director of Central Intelligence, who had remained in his post from the Martindale administration; Marine Corps General Taylor J. Bain, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Charles A. Huffman, Air Force chief of staff; and Air Force General Bradford Cannon, commander of U.S. Strategic Command and—until the details could be worked out by Congress an
d the Pentagon—the theater commander of all U.S. space operations and responsible for training, equipping, and directing all space combat missions. Hunter Noble—a little bleary-eyed after not very much sleep, both because of the time difference and because of Lisa Moulain—was linked in to the teleconference via satellite from the command post at Constanţa Air Base.
Patrick and Master Sergeant Valerie Lukas were floating in front of the wide-screen high-definition teleconference monitor, secured by Velcro sneakers to the bulkhead of the command module. Patrick kept his hair buzz-cut short, but Lukas’s longer hair floated free on either side of her headset’s crossband, giving her a weird wolverine-like appearance. “Armstrong Space Station is online and secure, sir,” Patrick announced. “This is Lieutenant General Patrick McLanahan, commander, High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, Elliott Air Force Base, Nevada. With me is U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant Valerie Lukas, noncommissioned officer in charge of this station and the sensor operator on duty at the time of the attack in Tehran. Joining us via satellite link from Constanţa, Romania, is Air Force Captain Hunter Noble, chief of manned spaceflight operations and hypersonic weapon development, High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center. He was the officer in charge of the attack mission over Tehran and the designer of the SkySTREAK missile that was used in the attack. He returned to Earth yesterday after completing a reconnaissance aircraft insertion mission over eastern Iran, which we will brief you on later.”
“Thank you, General,” General Taylor Bain said from the “Gold Room,” also known as the “Tank,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff conference center on the second floor of the Pentagon. As was the case of most officers in the post–American Holocaust United States, Bain was young for a four-star Marine Corps officer, with dark brown hair trimmed “high and tight,” a ready smile, and warm gray eyes that exuded trust and determined sincerity. “Welcome, everyone. I believe you know everyone here. Joining us from the White House is National Security Adviser Conrad Carlyle; and from Langley, the Director of Intelligence, Gerald Vista.