Dreamland: Piranha

by Dale Brown

  Danny, embarrassed—he had in fact forgotten—let go of his pants and dropped to the floor to retrieve his underwear.

  “How do you manage without me?” said his wife, laughing and shaking her head.

  Dreamland

  2000

  “The political situation in both India and China is complicated, as you’d imagine,” continued Jed Barclay.

  “Just a summary, Jed,” said Dog, trying to keep the NSC deputy on line. Barclay was a genius and a strong advocate for Whiplash and Dreamland, but his dissertations on international politics tended to sprawl.

  “Yes, sir. Basically, the extremists in India are trying to improve their position in the upcoming elections. They calculate that China is a weak and easy mark due to the conflict with us and Taiwan—well, you’re all familiar with the so-called Fatal Terrain event.”

  The dozen top officers gathered in the secure briefing room nodded. Though the details were still highly classified, most knew how Brad Elliott had chosen to give his life to help prevent an apocalyptic war—their interpretation, not the media’s.

  “Of course, the Islamic Alliance and the connection with China plays right into this, yada, yada, yada, because now hitting the Chinese is the same as hitting Muslims as far as most Hindus are concerned. Those who care anyway,” continued Barclay. “And we’ve—uh, I better skip some of the political wrangling.”

  He glanced at Dog, who nodded.

  “On the other side of the equation, the Chinese, domestically, needed something to show they’re in power, that they’re not slipping. Because now, right, they look weak. As we saw with the incident in Tibet …”

  “Which incident was that?” asked Rubeo.

  From anyone else, it would have been an innocent question—in fact, Dog himself wasn’t sure what Barclay was referring to, but Rubeo took a perverse pleasure in watching other squirm. An ever-so-subtle look of satisfaction flickered across the scientist’s face as Jed stuttered, the train of his thoughts bunching and crashing down a siding he hadn’t seen coming.

  “Don’t worry about Tibet, Pakistan, Taiwan, or any of that bullshit,” said Stoner. It was the first time the CIA official had spoken since he arrived. “The action’s out in the South China Sea. India and China are fighting a war out there, sinking each other’s merchant ships. They’ve been rattling sabers and now they’re using them. everything else is just bullshit.”

  “Please,” said Rubeo, in a way that implied many things other than courtesy or respect.

  “I think we can get a full rundown on Tibet later, along with any other geopolitical matters anyone has an interest in,” said Dog. “Let’s move to our assignment.”

  Anyone else would have interpreted this as a mild reprimand. Rubeo, however, saw it somehow as a vindication, and slipped back into his seat with a barely concealed gloat. Before Jed could continue, the door alarm buzzed; the doors slid back and Danny Freah appeared.

  “Sorry I’m late,” said Freah.

  “We’re just getting to the good part, Danny,” said Dog. “We’re being asked to mount a surveillance mission in the South China Sea, observing a new weapon the Indians have.”

  “It’s not limited just to that,” said Jed. “Information on everything going in—that’s what Whiplash covers.”

  “The new technology is a prime concern,” said Stoner.

  “Um, everything’s of interest,” said Jed. “The order covers the entire situation; the Chinese as well as the Indians. This is a twenty-four/seven operation, completely covert and not coordinated with Pacific Command or any other command.”

  “Why not?” asked Major Merce Alou, who had taken over command of the Megafortress development project when Major Cheshire left to head the operational wing.

  “Security,” said Stoner.

  “Uh, well, uh, there are several concerns,” said Jed. “We’re absolutely not attempting to provoke anything, or increase tensions, which putting ships out there would do. Pacific Fleet’s resources are already concentrated in the Indian Ocean and around Taiwan. The threat of an invasion remains viable.”

  “That’s a bullshit estimate,” said Stoner.

  “I agree, but it’s not my call,” said Jed. “Also, the Director, um, the National Security Director, would prefer not tipping off the Indians that we know, uh, about Kali. Moving Naval assets would, at least arguably, tip them or the Russians off. Which would be the same thing.”

  “Kali?” asked Zen.

  “It’s halfway between a sub-launched Harpoon and a Tomahawk missile,” said Stoner. “It’s underwater-launched, like a torpedo. We think it can travel four or five miles underwater before it surfaces, which makes the launching sub that much harder to detect. It pops up, skims along the surface of the water, and hits its target. It seems to be able to correct toward its target close in; we believe it has an active radar phase, but we still need to gather data. That’s your mission.”

  “At least for now,” added Jed. “There’s a debate—”

  “Let’s deal with what we’re assigned to do, not maybes,” Colonel Bastian said. Jed had told him earlier the NSC had debated asking Whiplash to protect all shipping in the area—a tall order, and one possibly beyond their abilities. NSC had held off doing so—largely, according to Jed, because doing so would have stepped on the Navy’s toes.

  “Piranha,” said Rubeo. “It’s obvious choice.”

  “Not ready for a mission like this,” said Dog.

  “Piranha is what?” said Stoner.

  “Underwater surveillance probe and weapon,” Dog told him. “I don’t think you need to know the details.”

  “We can clean up the computer issues in a few days,” said Rubeo.

  “The mission has to start right away,” said Jed. “We were thinking Elint Megafortresses.”

  “I concur,” said Dog. “Merce?”

  “We’ll use Raven and Quicksilver,” said Alou, referring to the EB-52’s optimized for electronic intelligence-gathering. “We deploy a mini-KH for optical surveillance at the same time.”

  “Negative on the tactical satellites,” Dog told him. “We dong have any launch chassis.”

  “We do have satellite coverage of the area,” said Jed. “It’ll be available through the Dreamland network.”

  “If we’re looking for really close views of something while it’s traveling, we can take Flighthawks,” said Zen. “Straightforward.”

  “What do we do if these weapons are used?” asked Alou.

  “At the moment, just observe them,” said Jed.

  “Wait—they’re firing at civilian targets or military targets?” asked Zen. “I think I missed something here.”

  “What difference does it make?” asked Stoner.

  “It makes a shitload of difference,” said Zen.

  “There are military ships in the region that could be targets,” said Jed. “Until now, all of the ships that have been sunk were civilian.”

  “Damn.”

  “The vessel sunk by the Kali was a merchant freighter owned by the Chinese government smuggling weapons to Islamic extremists,” said Stoner. “The same ship delivered explosives used to blow up a government building in New Delhi six months ago. Still worried about civilians?”

  “Yeah. I am,” said Zen.

  “We’ll need a force briefing before we deploy.” Dog told Jed.

  “Do we operate out of Guam?” asked Major Alou, referring to the air base on the island. “Anderson?”

  “We’d prefer not to, due to the nature of the mission,” said Jed. “We’d prefer a sanitized site not connected to USPACCOM or any present operation.”

  “Deniable,” added Stoner.

  “I’ve already checked into possible sites for a secure forward base,” continued Jed. “We have a site in the Philippines away from, uh, away from the population centers and sea lanes. It’s actually an old airstrip, pretty long. Just needs to be, um, tidied up a little. Remembering what you did in Turkey, I thought—”

&n
bsp; “You want us to blow up another mountain?” Danny asked with a laugh.

  “That won’t be necessary this time.”

  “I want to drive one of the bulldozers,” said Breanna.

  Half of the room laughed.

  The other half said, “Me too.”

  “I want to be in one of the Megafortresses,” said Breanna as the laughterdied.

  “You have a heavy schedule with the UMB,” Dog said, surprised that she had volunteered.

  “There’s only one flight test planned over the next seven or eight days,” said Bree.

  “This could easily last longer,” said Jed. “I’d be thinking in, uh, the time frame of two or three months, at least until tensions die down.”

  “That’s the case, you really need me. You won’t have enough trained Megafortress pilots unless you rotate in and out,” said Breanna, looking at Alou.

  “She’s right, Colonel. We could work around her schedule. Actually, if this lasts any length of time, we’ll have to work around a lot of schedules.”

  “All right. Map out plans for a deployment,” said Dog. “I want planes over the area twenty-four hours from now, and I want them landing at that Philippines base when their shift is done.”

  Chapter 3

  Ghosts in the Jungle

  Aboard Quicksilver, above the South China Sea

  August 23, 1997, 1100 local (August 22, 1997, 2000 Dreamland

  Until you actually did it, patrolling the ocean sounded like the sort of easygoing assignment a pilot and crew could do with their eyes closed. Especially a crew like the one aboard Quicksilver. Breanna Stockard had flown the Megafortress platform for so long, the plane and its complicated systems seemed to have grafted themselves onto her body, and vice versa. Chris Ferris, her copilot, had been with the program nearly as long, and had worked with Breanna through all of Whiplash’s important deployments. The newcomer on the crew, Torbin Dolk, had proved his worth in Iran, and even he seemed tied into the crew’s shared ESP. they took turns sleeping on the long flight to South Asia, and while they couldn’t quite be called bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, they were nonetheless ready when they finally began their surveillance track.

  Thirty minutes later, they were bored stiff, butts dragging lower than the troughs in the waves. Even Breanna had to fight to keep her attention focused on the mission and the plane she was flying.

  All of the Dreamland Megafortresses were hand-built from older B-52’s. All had their own personalities as well as configurations, but they could be broken down into three main categories.

  The general-purpose Megafortresses were essentially highly efficient bombers with the capability of acting as mother ships for up to four Flighthawks. IOwa was the leader of this class, intended to be configured for roles such as attack and long-range patrol.

  The second category of Megafortress added a powerful onboard radar to the EB-52 skeleton, giving it nearly the ability of an advanced AWACS, but able to operate in an extremely hazardous environment. To accommodate the radar dome, these craft, around the forward wing area, had a prominent bulge. Though it was nowhere near as immense as the massive saucers that say atop a standard E-3 Sentry, Galatica or “Gal” belonged to this category. Her powerful radar altered the flight characteristics of the aircraft as it revolved, necessitating changes in the control computer to compensate.

  The third category of Megafortress added electronic interception and eavesdropping equipment, along with a suite of ECMs that could turn a Spark Vark green with envy. These planes included Raven and Quicksilver. Their automated telemetry gathering skills were on call here.

  They would record all electronic transmission from and to the Indian weapon, augmenting the data gathered by the EB-52’s powerful radar suite and the visual data from the Flighthawks. They weren’t just spy planes, however; armed with Tacit-Plus anti-radiation missiles, they could do the job of two or three different planes, protecting an attack package as effectively as a coordinated group of Wild Weasels, Spark Varks, and Compass Call aircraft.

  There were other possibilities for the type. The Army was very interested in adapting the plane for the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System or JSTARS role, another mission currently filled by aircraft of the 707 type.

  JSTARS E-8As, which had made their debut during the Gulf War, used Army and Air Force technology to track ground warfare units and targets; they could do for ground-attack forces what AWACS did for fighters. In theory, a Megafortress could accomplish the same thing while getting even closer to the action and delivering weapons itself. In fact, a good portion of the JSTARS technology had originally come from the Air Force’s Pave Mover and related programs, which were already incorporated in the development base of the “standard” EB-52.

  Various other improvements for the Megafortress were in the works, including new engine configurations, but the program itself was now fairly “mature.” With production models ready to go, it had a certain set character to it—and, of course, it already had its own project manager, Major Alou.

  The B-5 Unmanned Bomber Platform was wide-open, a vast cloud of potential waiting to be shaped, like the Megafortress had been when Bree joined the program. It was also the sort of program a captain could ride to a colonelcy and beyond.

  Was that important? Was that what she was worried about?

  No way. She wanted to be promoted.

  Even though it would strain her marriage.

  Zen was due for promotion soon, and with his record no one was going to stand in his way. That would almost certainly mean going to Washington. He hadn’t served in the Pentagon, and for someone like Zen the Pentagon was a necessary and expected ticket to be punched. He’d be there already if it hadn’t been for his accident.

  What did that have to do with anything? She’d be at Dreamland and he’d in D.C., one way or the other.

  Give up the B-5? Why? Because it wasn’t a “real” plane?

  Maybe she was worried about something else. Maybe there wasn’t room to have a two-career family.

  So she’d do what? Quit? Play Suzy Homemaker?

  Bullshit. She was to Suzy Homemaker as Zen was to …

  A Pentagon paper-pusher. He’d never last a week there, even in a wheelchair.

  “Coming up to Cathay,” said Chris Ferris. His voice had a cackle to it, accented by the interphone circuit shared throughout the airplane. He’d spent considerable time coming up with an elaborate list of code words for the various coordinates on their mission chart and, for some reason, thought they were amusing as hell. “Cathay” was the release area for the Flighthawks. “Byzantium” was the southernmost point of their patrol orbit; “Confucius” was the northern point.

  It could have been worse. Bree had put her foot down on a list of kung-fu heroes.

  “Ten minutes to launch area,” she told Zen, who was below on the Flighthawk deck.

  “Ready to begin fueling, Quicksilver,” he told her.

  “All right. Chris?”

  “As Li Po would say, ‘The sun rises with anticipation.’ ”

  “Li Po would be a Chinese philosopher?” Bree asked innocently.

  “My barber,” he answered, guffawing.

  Zen watched the countdown impatiently, waiting for the Megafortress to being the alpha maneuver that would increase the separation forces and helped propel the Flighthawk off the wing of the big plane. The vortices thrown off by the Megafortress were a complicated series of mini-tornadoes, but the computer and untold practice sessions made the launch almost routine. As the Megafortress dipped and then lifted away, Zen dropped downward with the Flighthawk, hurtling toward the sparkling ocean; the plane’s engine rippled with acceleration. He pulled back on the stick, rocketing ahead of the Megafortress. No amount of practice, no amount of routine, could change the thrill he felt, the electricity that sparked from his fingers and up through his skull as gravity grappled for the plane, losing—temporarily at least—the age-old battle of primitive forces.

  And y
et, he was sitting in an aircraft more than three, now four miles away, flying level and true at 350 knots.

  “Launch procedure on Hawk Two at your convenience, Hawk Leader,” said Bree.

  “Ready when you are, Quicksilver.”

  They launched the second Flighthawk, then worked into their search pattern, a 250-mile narrow oval or “race-track” over the ocean. The earlier spin around the surveillance area had shown there were a half-dozen merchant vessels in the sea lanes but no military vessels. Likewise, the sky was clear.

  “We have a PS-5 at seventy-five miles,” said Chris, reading off the coordinates for a Chinese patrol plane coming south from the area above Vietnam. Known to the West as the PS-5, the flying boat was designated a Harbin “Shuishang Hongzhaji,” or “marine bomber,” SH-5 by the Chinese; the SH-5 had limited antiship and antisubmarine capabilities. With a boat-shaped hull and floats beyond the turboprops at the ends of its wings, the PS-5 belonged to an early generation of waterborne aircraft.