We would have one thing going for us. On this first pass, the enemy planes would concentrate on the bombers and would ignore us as much as possible. We were about to experience a head-on pass with a combined closing speed over eight hundred miles an hour. The time available for a shot on target would barely be seconds against a thin head-on profile. We didn't have enough fighters to take them all on, and even if our marksmanship and luck were perfect, half of those nasty things were going to rip through the formation of bombers.
The only good thing to say about the situation was the B-17 is a pretty tough airplane, too, and the fast pass would not allow the Germans much shooting time. If we could force them to weave, we might spoil their aims. After that, we would have to see what the Germans would do for a second pass. They might circle back around for another head-on pass where the guns of the Forts were weakest, but that took a lot of time. Or they might use their speed to climb and loop back over from the top, facing only the top guns of the bombers. We had to be ready for either tactic.
“Hey, Gramps,” Preacher asked, “how close do you want us to our Big Friends? They make me nervous. Sometimes they shoot at anything small.”
“Hey, squirt, we can tell the difference between a fat wolf and a skinny little pony. You got nothing to worry about unless some skinny little Messerschmitts show up.”
“There's your answer, Rascals. Stay close enough to do the job and far enough away to do it in time,” Gramps advised.
“Rascals, this is Rosie. If I may be so bold, we're not exactly defenseless. When you're between us and the enemy and closer than about a mile, try to keep our shooting lanes clear. Sometimes we feel kinda helpless when we can't shoot for fear of hitting our guys.”
“Roger, Big Friends. We're a team. Rascals, time to drop external tanks.”
As I switched to the internal wing tanks and reached for the release, I had time to remember an irony of the war. Compared to the Germans, the Allies were wallowing in fuel. The Mustang had one tank in the fuselage, tanks in both wings, and typically carried drop tanks. You used the fuselage tank first, because it made the plane tail heavy and foul handling in a fight. That meant there was generally plenty of extra fuel in the drop tanks when they were discarded. And it was good stuff, high-octane gasoline, not the crappy synthetic potato squeezings the Germans were forced to use by this time in the war. I wondered what the psychological effect must be on the German pilots, watching a swarm of Mustangs dropping so much precious fuel in one coordinated move. We could fly for hours and still be fat with fuel, but, even on short flights, they had to conserve every drop.
We were setting up for the first pass when Preacher announced, “Stay sharp. There's another wave about thirty miles behind these.”
As I dove on the incoming fighters, I pictured the location of the bombers behind us and selected a pair of Focke-Wulfs I could rake without crossing the line of fire of the Forts. I let loose two quick bursts and saw hits on both. One began trailing smoke, but kept going. I think I hit the other in the windscreen, because his thick glass armor seemed to suddenly go cloudy. With luck, he would have difficulty aiming. The pass done, I pulled back and put my plane into climb, intent on looping back to stay close to the bombers, simultaneously keeping an eye on the enemy fighters and conserving energy for whatever would come next.
The smoker was done for the day. He lost altitude and quit after one ineffective pass. The one with the damaged windscreen fired blindly and pulled up to pass over the Forts. Caught in a crossfire of several top turrets and waist guns, his plane was torn to pieces. He bailed out of the wreckage. Two other enemy planes were destroyed on the first pass. I could see that the Forts were taking some damage, but it was difficult to judge the extent. Of the remainder of the enemy fighters, about half began to circle around for another pass from the front, while the other half pulled up for a looping attack over the top. Either way, they had to overcome the forward movement of the bombers, and so were playing catch-up. Advantage, us. Green flight went after the high ones, and yellow flight maneuvered to catch the low ones.
As the Focke-Wulfscame over the top, still intent on the bombers, I picked one of the close ones and drove home an attack, admiring their courage for ignoring us. He presented me an irresistible belly shot, and I took full advantage of it, riddling his belly with half-inch holes. His engine spewed black smoke as he bailed out of the useless craft. I rolled on to the six of a nearby fighter and peppered him until he broke off the attack, but did not pursue him. Instead, I picked one of his comrades, trusting the last one would assume I would stay on his tail and would thus not take advantage of my change of target to latch on to my six. It worked. I got hits on my next victim as well, hopefully damaging him enough that he would have to withdraw from the fight.
I had a few seconds of breathing room to assess the situation. Between the Rascals, the gunners on the Forts, and me, the first wave of fighters had been reduced in strength by about two-thirds, an excellent account. But the second wave was almost on us.
“Yellow flight, take the next wave,” Gramps ordered. “Green flight, back on top and take these guys on their next pass.”
I looked over at his element. The Focke-Wulf I had let go was sneaking up behind them. “Gramps, Chat, one on your tails.”
“Break right,” Gramps ordered, and the two planes started a defensive ballet, giving me time to dive in and finish the job. I started to count my kills so far and stopped at three. This was neither the time nor the place.
Things were a blur for the next few minutes, planes every which way, smoke, fire, and tracers crisscrossing the sky. I got a couple more, and the Rascals and bombers definitely did their part because the end result was that the Germans broke off and ran for home without crippling any bombers. It seemed too easy, until the first big black puffs of flak started to explode around us. The job of the fighters ended when the big 88mm guns on the ground took over.
“See you guys on the other side,” Rosie declared. “We're over our IP, and you can't help with this stuff.”
We formed up and watched as the bombers headed straight and true, navigating off of their initial point, straight toward their target, through the innocent-looking puffs that we knew spewed fragments of deadly steel. Those brave crews just had to hang on and take it, allowing their bombardiers to line up on their target and release their own lethal cargo.
“Where's Booger?” Preacher asked as we formed up. “Anybody see Booger?”
“He went down,” Crazy Joe answered. “I didn't see a chute.”
And in the silent moment that followed, we watched in horror as a Fort exploded over the target. From the looks of it, they caught flak in their open bomb bay. We saw no sign of survivors from that plane, either.
I was starting to get sick of this, when Preacher spotted another wave of fighters. “Messerschmitts, closing from four o'clock, fifty miles.”
The bombers released their load, and I stole a few glances between my scans of the sky to watch the sticks of bombs fall interminably through miles of air, to finally strike their target. “Precision bombing” was what they called it. Precision was considered hitting within maybe half a mile of the target, in this case a small underground synthetic fuel plant. None of the explosions seemed to produce fireballs, and I hoped the result was worth the price. Today, we would send in an unmanned fighter, or a missile, and take out the target with a single dead-on shot. After releasing their loads, the bombers turned and began evasive maneuvers to avoid the persistent flak, until they could join up with us for the trip back to safer air.
As the new wave of Bf 109s closed with us, I hoped these would be the suspected inexperienced flight we had spotted earlier. When I saw the markings on their planes, I knew otherwise. JG 52 were the terrors of the eastern front, with some ten thousand kills. Late in the war, several Staffeln were withdrawn for service in the West. I'd tangled with these guys before, and they were pros. “Look sharp, Rascals. These guys are trouble.”
&nbs
p; The rules had changed now that the bombers were done with their target. The Germans were no longer so fixated on the big planes. They wanted all of us dead. A furious dogfight ensued. Like it or not, I was Booger's replacement, and Crazy Joe was my wingman. Or, to be more accurate, I was his, since he was the less experienced pilot and needed my watchful eye to keep him out of trouble. The point became moot when he made a serious mistake and tried to snap his plane over too aggressively to go after a Bf 109. The Mustang is agile, but it does not like snap rolls, and that goes double for a heavy fully-armored warbird. His horizontal stabilizer snapped off, and his plane spun out of control. I watched him struggle to open the canopy and bail out. He made it out, but I thought I might have seen the tail hit him as he escaped. His chute opened and he drifted down to an uncertain fate.
It was then that I started to experience something I had never before felt in a simulation. I was angry. Hell, I was enraged. I had just lost somebody I was supposed to protect and was helpless to prevent it. I was sick of the whole situation, and I just wanted all of our tormentors dead. I went after them with a single-minded intensity I can't remember feeling before. In short order, I demolished two more, and was closing in on a third, when I noticed something amiss about my opponent. His performance suddenly fell off, and then I noticed his propeller was wind-milling. I was perplexed, because his plane looked undamaged. An engine failure? More likely, he was out of fuel. I felt no pity, and squeezed off a murderous burst intended to make sure he never bothered an Allied pilot again.
As I did, my plane began making a noise like a steel trash can being beat with a tire iron. A couple of holes appeared in my canopy, and something hit the back of my seat like a sledgehammer. Realizing I had stopped checking my six, I initiated a defensive roll. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the racket stopped. I looked over my shoulder to see a Bf 109 trailing smoke and flames off to my left. The plane rolled inverted, and the pilot fell free. Gramps and Chatterbox were close behind me.
“You're welcome, Hellfire.”
I looked around. The bombers had made their getaway toward safer skies in France, and the remaining Messerschmitts had turned for home, no doubt critically low on fuel. We had the sky to ourselves. I counted. Six planes remained of the original nine. Spud was missing, and nobody remembered seeing it happen. Considering the damage we had done to the other guys, I supposed I should have been glad the casualties were so light.
They sure didn't feel light.
Flying back toward the coast, we maintained radio silence. All of the joking and bragging were gone. I had time to reflect that my timely warning had made it possible for the Rascals to lose only three instead of all just vanishing, and, as a result, we had saved all of the bombers but the one that was destroyed by flak. Fifty-five lives ... how many people would that affect by my lifetime?
But, really, that had not happened. As real as it felt, this was a simulation. I had not traveled back in time to save these brave men. I had simply created them again, to satisfy my own morbid curiosity about their fate. They had volunteered to face a level of danger I could hardly imagine, knowing they risked losing their lives and wonderful futures because they felt a duty to their country and the need to stop a genocidal dictator. They thought that was what they were doing in the hell I had just put them through. In fact, they were flying for my amusement. Worse, I knew I had wanted to show off my flying skills, gained by a technology none of that generation possessed, to my ancestor. And before long, I was going to tell Wendy to end the simulation, and these wonderful ghosts would fade back into synth-space, as dead as they had been for over a century and a half.
It struck me then that I had brought them back to life just to kill them again.
England became visible in the distant haze.
“Almost home, Hellfire,” Gramps announced. “I know a nice little pub in town. Think you can get permission to join us for the evening? You look pretty shot up, and I think this is an emergency.”
“Man, that was a brand-new airplane this morning,” Chatterbox added. “The emergency is gonna be when your crew chief sees what you did to it. You better land with us and put in for a transfer.”
“I wish I could,” I answered with more regret than they could possibly know. “I really wish I could. I've got to get back.”
“Angels twelve,” Preacher announced. “Okay to get these lousy masks off.”
I confirmed our altitude was now below twelve thousand feet and reached up to un-strap my oxygen mask, letting it dangle to one side. I turned to look at Gramps, who up to now I had seen only as a pair of eyes wearing a leather helmet, goggles, and mask. I kept picturing him as the face I had seen in a few black and white photos, but here was the same boyish face in color, alive, breathing, so close, just out of reach. I wanted to give him a hug and buy him a beer, even a warm beer.
“Damn, Hellfire, how old are you?”
“I don't know, how old do I look?”
“Forty maybe. Even fifty. Did you train in Spads?”
I was tempted to say I owned one, but I preferred my Sopwith Pup, and was older than he had guessed. “I feel a lot older than that, right now.”
“Well, I'll tell you what, old man, you sure fight like a wild man. If you want to transfer down to us, I'll sure as hell take you. How many did you get today, anyway?
I shook my head. “Who's keeping score? Does it matter?”
“Well, at least tell me your name, so I can look you up.”
“Hellfire. Just Hellfire. But it has been a privilege to fly with you, Captain Vincent Doyle.”
And with that, I gave him a salute and peeled off in the general direction of Leiston.
As they faded into the distance, Wendy broke in. “The time is rapidly approaching. They're getting too close to home, and they're going to start recognizing something is wrong.”
“Just a few more minutes,” I pleaded.
“Two maybe, tops.”
“Two, then. Don't ask again, just do it.”
And two minutes later, the world began to dissolve.
* * * *
When the hatch to the simulator room opened, I was sitting in the cockpit, tears streaming down my cheeks, sobbing like a kid who had just lost his best friend. Wendy gave me a few minutes. When it looked like I had the worst of it out of my system, she walked over and stuck a finger through one of the holes in my canopy.
“I thought you promised you were not going to get too close. How the hell did this happen?”
I looked at the holes, and then thought about the impact behind the seat. At least the shock distracted me momentarily from my grief and I stopped my childish bawling. I un-strapped and climbed out, then pulled the flashlight from my pocket and examined the area behind my seat. I built the simulator from as many cast-off parts as were handy. Since virtually all civilian Mustangs had their armor plating removed to save weight and improve handling, I had plenty of it available from my stash of stuff. It had come in handy for mounting the cockpit components. The seat-back armor, a steel plate half an inch thick, had a huge dent in it, right at the small of my back.
“When this happened, I doubt I was within two hundred yards of any of the Rascals.”
“A yard? What's that, the length of the king's pinky finger?”
“A yard is about a meter. Two hundred meters, probably considerably more.”
She looked confused and cocked her head to think for a moment. “We'll play it back. I'll bet you were between two elements. The complexity of interaction between nanos is hard to predict. I'll bet they created a region of high fidelity between them. I warned you, nobody has ever run a simulation like this before.”
“Yeah, and if wisdom prevails, nobody ever will again. Gramps and Chat were behind me, after the one that got me. The one I was after was heading for Preacher and Reb.” I paused to remember. “It may have been more widespread than that. I saw things happen in there that I've never seen before. I think it was more real for the other characters to
o. I know damned well it was way too real for me. Rostov was right."
“They're not gone, you know.” She handed me a tissue. “S'okay, I was getting kinda teary there at the end too. I saved the sim. But I'll need to erase it from the unit before you relinquish it.”
“Let me talk to your business manager. I'll buy it or enter a long-term lease. Something. Although I don't know why. I can never give them their lives back. The world they knew, the world they thought they were fighting for today, is long gone. The best I could do is maybe give them a really nice night in their favorite pub.”
“I doubt we could fake that well enough.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I owe them an explanation. Maybe they need to understand this. But that would just compound the sin, wouldn't it?”
Wendy looked around the hangar. “Maybe you could bring them back, here and now. Turn this place into a museum. They could work in it.”
I paused to consider it. The ethical implications were huge. “I need to think,” I said. “I need to think.”
Copyright © 2009 Tom Ligon
* * * *
The author would like to thank Bill Gleason for allowing the use of his synth-space nanoticle simulator technology and its inventor, Dr. Rostov.
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Reader's Department: IN TIMES TO COME
Our June issue has a couple of linked, unusual, and immediately obvious traits: the cover illustrates a piece of writing by the artist himself, and that piece is a fact article, not a story. Michael Carroll, well known and regarded as both artist and writer, recently got an inside look at NASA's plans for a project to build an actual settlement on the Moon in the relatively near future, and shares that vision with us here.
As usual, the fiction covers quite a bit of ground, including an alternate history in which Galileo Galilei is psychoanalyzed and “helped” by a chap with a suspicious resemblance to Sigmund Freud—told, not surprisingly, by Harry Turtledove. Donald Moffitt also ventures into the past with a time-traveling art dealer who hopes to get in on the ground floor with one of the Old Dutch Masters. And we'll have a broad spectrum of stories by Stephen L. Burns, Howard V. Hendrix, Richard A. Lovett, and whoever else we can fit in, all enjoyable and thought-provoking.
Analog SFF, May 2009 Page 11