Sky Masters

by Dale Brown

  to take military action or impose severe economic embargos, your action

  would postpone any serious consequences. "In addition, if you agree to

  assist us militarily in defending our right to remain in the

  Philippines, the Republic of China will propose a similar lease

  agreement to the Republic of Vietnam for the western group of the

  islands known as the Crescent Group in the Xinsha Islands archipelago."

  The offer was astounding. China was in effect offering the Vietnamese a

  controlling position to the entire South China Sea in exchange for

  cooperation in its operation in the Philippines. In terms of value and

  strategic importance, it was not an equitable trade-the Philippines was

  by far a much brighter gem than the Spratlys or the Paracels-but by

  establishing offshore bases, Vietnam would once again be able to build a

  blue-water navy and exert its will in Southeast Asia. It could finally

  be able to counter the growing democraticoligarchic influence of the

  Moslem nations of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei by being

  able to effectively operate naval and merchant fleets far from home

  ports. "I do not see how such an action can be construed as anything

  else than conspiracy and duplicity, " Ambassador Leing said. Premier

  Cheung's face was impassive, but Leing measured the government's

  reaction in General Chin's face-it was obvious the warlord didn't enjoy

  taking any lip from a Vietnamese politician. "But the return of our

  territorial islands of Dao Quan Mueng Bang and Dao Phran-Binh would be

  of immense pleasure and gratification to my government. The ploy worked.

  Instead of calling the contested islands by their Chinese names, Leing

  used the ancestral Vietnamese names-Dao Quan Mueng Bang for the

  Spratlys, Dao PhranBinh for the Paracels-and those names infuriated

  General Chin, who launched into a furious tirade, first at Leing and

  then at Premier Cheung. "He says that this is a crazy idea, that it will

  never be, that Vietnam cannot be allowed to take.. ." his interpreter

  quickly responded. "He is now telling me to be silent or he will cut

  off my... my penis, and stuff it in my... General Chin is very angry,

  Comrade Ambassador. Perhaps we should leave. "No, " Leing said in

  Vietnamese in a low voice. "There is obviously a power struggle going

  on here. We must be witness to it before we can take this proposal to

  Hanoi."

  "We will take nothing if we are dead!" "Keep your comments to yourself

  and tell me what they are saying, " Leing hissed. "The Premier is

  telling Chin to be silent... Chin is saying to the Foreign Minister

  that he will not agree to release the Spratlys to Vietnam . . . the

  Premier repeats his order for silence." The last order seemed to stick;

  General Chin stopped his bellowing and was content for the moment to

  shift his weight impatiently from foot to foot and glare at Leing. The

  Premier spoke up. "Please deliver this request to your government with

  all speed and confidentiality. We await your reply." ANDERSEN AFB, GUAM

  THURSDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 1994, 1334 HOURS LOCAL (28 SEPTEMBER, 0034 HOURS

  WASHINGTON TIME) cc an-living in Arkansas, I thought I knew what

  humidMity~e~t~i~e, "~on~asters~a~sai~. "GuamhasBlytheville beat six

  ways to none." Those were Masters' first words when he stepped off his

  converted DC-I 0 airliner onto the tarmac at Andersen Air Force Base in

  Guam. Everything he touched felt clammy-the railing on the portable

  stairs, the concrete parking apron, everything. Breathing became a

  conscious activity, and things like long pants and underwear became

  serious personal liabilities. General Brad Elliott had to agree.

  Although he had spent some months in Guam during the Vietnam War, flying

  B-52D and -G bombers from Guam over twenty-five hundred miles one-way on

  bombing missions, he never got accustomed to the oppressive humidity on

  the tiny tropical island, which felt like 100 percent every hour of

  every day. The daily three P.M. thunderstorms did nothing to improve

  conditions-in fact, it felt even worse, as if one were drowning in

  oceans one could not see, only feel. Guam had been the linchpin of

  American military presence in the Pacific since the Spanish-American War

  of 1898. The Japanese invaded Guam on December 7, 1941, at the same

  time that Pearl Harbor was being bombed, but they were ousted in 1944

  after days of heavy American bombing, and the militarization of Guam

  began. Of the three B-29, B-36, and B-47 bomber bases built on Guam from

  1944 to 1950, the largest, Andersen Air Force Base-first known simply as

  North Field-remained. Andersen Air Force Base was a vast, stark

  facility on Guam's northern shore that, although reduced to a small

  fraction of its recent size and relatively quiet, still echoed with the

  ghosts of missions past. Dominating the base were Andersen's twin

  twomile-long runways. Surrounding the runways, including the "infield"

  between the parallel runways, were concrete parking stubs big enough for

  B-52s. During the height of the Vietnam War, during Operation Bullet

  Shot in 1972, over one hundred and fifty bombers were parked here. The

  B-52s participated in the massive Arc Light, Young Tiger, and Linebacker

  bombing missions between 1965 and 1973. By 1990 the Air Force had

  removed all the permanently assigned B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers

  from Andersen, and the base transitioned to caretaker status of the

  633rd Air Base Wing of the Pacific Air Forces. But Elliott and Masters

  knew it would become an important base of operations again. Masters had

  already launched two ALARM boosters while still over the United States.

  The young scientist and engineer couldn't believe his N1RTSats were

  being used in an actual operation that was part of America's response to

  a nuclear explosion. What better endorsement could Sky Masters, Inc.,

  ask for than from the U.S. government in a crisis situation?

  Unfortunately, his other Sky Masters colleagues had been less than

  enthusiastic. After General Curtis of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had

  given the go-ahead, the government presented Masters with a request for

  six satellites and two boosters ASAP-a contract worth $300 million. It

  was all on a handshake and letter of intent, and Helen Kaddiri, as a

  board member, was especially vocal about taking satellites contracted

  for by other buyers and selling them to the government. Masters check

  to see if all pages have been scanned. They had had to do some hard

  lobbying, but the board-even Kaddiri-finally agreed. Still, it put the

  ALARM booster program to its most grueling test, but it was the process

  that Jon Masters had originally devised the system to accomplish: twelve

  hours from the goahead, two space boosters were launched that inserted

  two completely different satellite constellations into low Earth

  orbit-not just single satellites, but multiple, interconnected strings

  of small, highly sophisticated satellites. Thankfully, both launches

  went off perfectly, all the satellites' buses were inserted into the

  proper orbit, and one by one the skies were "seeded" with tiny Sky

  Masters, Inc., spacec
raft. By the time Masters had landed his DC-10

  back at his base in Arkansas, loaded the plane with the equipment he

  needed for the SAC STRATFOR team, and then flown on to Guam, all of his

  NIRTSats were in their proper orbits and reporting fully functional. The

  recon satellites were in nearly circular 415nautical-mile equatorial

  orbits; the communications satellites were in lower 200-mile orbits

  inclined 40 degrees to the equator so they could download their data

  directly to continental U.S. ground stations as well as to facilities on

  Guam. Masters was betting everything on this mission-and he was also

  betting that while he was away Helen Kaddiri would probably try to

  position herself for a corporate coup d'etat. He'd been expecting it

  for some time. He shrugged, realizing he'd have to deal with that

  later. Masters' DC-I 0, with its distinctive red, white, and blue SKY

  MASTERS emblem on the sides, was parked just outside the hangar next to

  the north apron, which was perched atop the five-hundred-foot cliff on

  Guam's north shore. Masters and General Brad Elliott, who'd flown in

  with Masters on the DC-10, met newly appointed SAC STRATFOR commander

  Major General Rat Stone, his aide, Colonel Michael Krieg, and Colonel

  Anthony Fusco, who was the commander of the 633rd Air Base Wing. Elliott

  was there to observe Masters' gear in action, in person. If they were

  going to be using it at HAWC, he wanted to see it up close.

  Introductions were made all around, and after everyone mentioned the

  humidity, they were taken by military van-in a sudden downpour no

  less-to the MAC terminal, where a Guamanian customs officer, assisted by

  a MAC security guard in full combat rig and carrying an M-16 rifle,

  checked their customs declaration forms and inspected their hand-carried

  items. After that, General Stone turned to Masters. "What I'd like is

  to get your gear in place as soon as possible, " Stone said. "I've got

  an EC- 135 communications plane and the recon planes available, so 1 can

  use DSCS to collect reconnaissance data, but I don't like sending those

  planes so far over water unless we get a better idea on what the

  situation is over there. The sooner we can get your system working, the

  better." The Defense Satellite Communications System, or DSCS, was the

  current global voice and data communications system in operation; the

  system's drawback was that it could relay signals only from ground

  station to ground station and could not link aircraft. An EC-135

  communications plane could act as a pseudoground station and could relay

  signals from another aircraft via DSCS to a ground station, but that

  meant orbiting the EC- 135 near the first aircraft-which meant sending

  another important aircraft thousands of miles offshore and exposing it

  to possible enemy action, which in turn meant assigning additional

  fighters and tankers to support it. "That's what I'm here for, General,

  " Jon Masters said. "With the NIRTSats in place, we can talk with your

  AWACS and reconnaissance planes directly. When my computer complex is

  set up, we can get their radar pictures and they'll be able to receive

  our PACER SKY pictures." Jon grinned. "It's gonna be awesome. Once we

  get the rest of the birds tied in, you'll have dozens of planes tied

  together and linked to Andersen. You'll hear a guy on some B-52 sneeze

  three thousand miles away just as clearly as if he were sitting right

  beside you, and you can say 'gesundheit' a second later-and while he's

  wiping his nose, you can lay his crosshairs on a target for him. Too

  much!" Stone turned and smiled at Elliott, who returned his amused grin.

  The officers and the young scientist piled into the heavy

  air-conditioned blue Air Force van, and they headed back out on

  Perimeter Road. Jon asked, "I understand your first reconnaissance

  sortie will take off in a few hours?" Stone nodded. "It's about four

  hours' flying time from here to the Philippines for the RC-135 and AWACS

  planes; about three hours for the EC- 135. They arrive on station in

  the Celebes Sea about midnight. They stay on station for four hours,

  then head on back. They RTB about eight A.M."

  "So my crew can have the plane about nine A.M.?"

  "That's right. You said installing your PACER SKY gear will take less

  than five hours, which is good because maintenance needs to get the

  aircraft ready to go at four P.M. That gives you a little leeway, but

  not much."

  "It'll be plenty, " Masters assured him. "Great." Stone turned to Fusco

  and said, "Take a swing past the south apron and let's see what's going

  on, Tony." They drove south along the flight line road, past an E-3C

  AWACS radar plane with its distinctive thirty-foot-rotodome atop its

  fuselage; another camouflaged Boeing 707 aircraft with no distinctive

  marking except for two canoe-shaped fairings on the underside of the

  fuselage behind the nose gear and rows of antennae atop the fuselage;

  and another Boeing 707 aircraft painted white over gray, with a

  refueling boom on the tail and a large, complex antenna array on the top

  of the fuselage. There were also two McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 aircraft

  modified as aerial refueling tankers in dark green and white camouflage

  nearby, and another two Boeing 707s also modified as tankers in standard

  light gray livery. Crates and crew members from Sky Masters, Inc., were

  already congregating around the planes, talking with Air Force

  maintenance crews. "Quite a collection of planes out here, " Masters

  exclaimed. "I recognize the AWACS plane and the KC-10 and KC-135

  tankers, but what are the other 707s?"

  "The dark gray one is an RC-135X radar reconnaissance plane, " Stone

  explained. "The fairings you see house the multimode radars with the

  inverse synthetic aperture and pulseDoppler systems, which we'll use to

  map out ship and troop locations; it can also slave its radar to

  radiation-detection sensors to map out locations of search, acquisition,

  fire control, and missile uplink transmitters, and in an emergency we

  can arm it with antiradar missiles. I believe you'll be installing a

  PACER SKY set and your communications complex on him so he can receive

  your PACER SKY data and transmit his data directly here. "The other is

  one of SAC's EC-135L radio relay aircraft. We'll be using him on the

  first few missions to make sure we get a good feed from the recon

  planes." He paused for a moment, then said, "This is a good way of

  conducting strategic reconnaissance. Lots of planes, lots of crew dogs,

  not much sleep. Frankly... I still trust this method. No offense,

  Doctor Masters."

  "None taken, " Jon said. "I'm sure the crews will enjoy the tropical

  weather, because they won't be doing much flying. My NIRTSats'll work

  just fine." The commander of the Strategic Air Command STRATFOR gave the

  young scientist an amused nod. This guy's got confidence, Stone had to

  admit. He wasn't afraid to place his trust in this high-tech crap,

  although none of it had ever been tested in fast-changing, demanding

  combat conditions. Unfortunately, it was cockiness like this that

  usually go
t such operations in big trouble. "What exactly is the plan

  for these recon flights?" Elliott asked. "Simple, " Stone replied.

  "We're going to do the southern Philippines first; the Chinese defenses

  are weaker. RC- 135 no less than one hundred miles off the coast, well

  within radar range but nothing too provocative-I got that word loud and

  clear from JCS. AWACS close enough to monitor the Philippine coast and

  all our aircraft. Two hundred miles east, we put the EC-135. Between

  the AWACS and the carriers, we put a Navy E-2 Hawkeye radar plane to

  control escort fighters coming from the carriers. The Navy will put up

  tankers to service their fighters after takeoff; we'll have a KC-10

  nearby to service all aircraft involved in the recon operation."

  "How many fighter escorts will you have up?" "Not enough, " Stone

  replied grimly. "JCS asked for eight per aircraft; we're only getting

  two. Apparently the White House thought eight fighters per looked too

  much like an invasion force."

  "So if there's any trouble . . ." Elliott said. "We run like hell, "

  Stone answered. "The fighters cover the withdrawal; they don't engage.

  But we're not expecting any trouble. We'll be far enough offshore that

  we won't seem like a threat. The Chinese should lay off." The sight

  across the road from the south apron commanded instant attention; it was

  a huge black B-52, with a tall, pointed tail, glistening polished steel

  skin, and racks of bombs hanging from hardpoints under each wing.

  Masters asked, "What's that? Some sort of memorial?"

  "The Arc Light Memorial, " Colonel Fusco replied. "Dedicated to the men

  who flew the heavy bombing missions over Vietnam. That was one of the

  B-52s that made the last bomb run over North Vietnam in 1972-Old 100, '

  the one-hundredth B-52, built in 1955. We keep her in tiptop shape-in

  fact, it's still considered an operational aircraft. The memorial was

  dedicated on the first anniversary of the return of the POWs from

  Vietnam."

  "I've crawled all over a B-2, " Masters said, "and I know the avionics

  system on the Space Shuttle like the back of my hand, but you know, I've

  never seen a B-52 this close before. Weird, huh? That thing is just