by Dale Brown
With the cruiser in the rearview mirror, Starship put the pedal to the metal and sped over the waves. About three miles from the GPS point he’d been given as the fliers’ location, he began rising to get a better view for his radar and other sensors.
The first thing he saw on the synthesized radar screen was a Chinese destroyer, six miles to the east. Dreamland Wisconsin was eight or nine miles north of the destroyer.
So he had the neighborhood, at least.
Starship slowed his speed to eighty knots and did a quick scan of the area around him; he couldn’t see anything in the water. He instructed the computer to set up a search pattern; when the grid came up on the screen, he chose the segment closest to the Chinese destroyer as a starting point and told the computer to go.
The Werewolf hadn’t actually reached the point when he spotted a pair of rafts and several swimmers three miles to the west. He took back control and turned toward them.
“Werewolf to Tac,” he said. “I have our subjects in view. Counting—four—no, five men—two in the raft, others in the water. Stand by for GPS coordinates.”
Northern Arabian Sea
0825
THE NOISE REMINDED MACK SMITH OF HIS BROTHER’S whiny two-stroke weed whacker—assuming it had a blanket thrown on it.
The water to the east seemed to bubble up into a moving volcano.
“Chopper,” said Tommy. “Ours or theirs?”
They were too far away to see it clearly, but the sound gave it away.
“That’s a Werewolf,” said Dish.
“Yeah,” said Mack. “Has to be from the Abner Read.”
The robot aircraft banked southward, moving away.
“Yo, Werewolf—where are you going?” grunted Mack. The mouthpiece for his survival radio was integrated with the collar of his Dreamland-designed flight suit, but the radio was in a sleep mode to conserve battery power and had to be manually turned on. Mack reached down to the vest and did so, then repeated the hail, this time with more formality.
Dog, not the Werewolf, answered.
“Mack, that’s the Abner Read’s aircraft,” said Dog. “He’s scouting your position.”
“Wisconsin, can you connect me with the pilot? He’s flying to the south.”
A transmission from the Werewolf overrode the reply. Neither were intelligible.
“Mack Smith to Werewolf. Yo, you just flew south of us.”
“Just getting the lay of the land, Mack,” responded Starship.
“Hey, Junior, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re flying over the sea.”
“Oh, that’s what that blue stuff is. I thought I was upside down.”
“You’re a joke a minute, kid. How long before you get that tin can you’re in up here?”
“Abner Read will pick you up in about an hour and a half.”
Mack glanced over at Cantor. He was out of it.
“Give me a vector and we’ll meet it halfway,” said Mack.
“Major—”
“Give me a vector, kid. We’re not hanging here all day.”
Aboard the Wisconsin,
over the northern Arabian Sea
0835
DOG PULLED BACK ON THE STICK, COAXING THE MEGAFORTRESS into a gentle climb. With the Abner Read on its way and the Werewolf close enough to talk directly with the downed airmen, there was nothing more for him to do here.
He got Catsman on the Dreamland Command frequency and through her spoke to the KC-10 tanker that had been tasked to Dreamland for the operation. They arranged a rendezvous about an hour’s flying time south of his present position.
When Dog finished making the arrangements, he turned back to look for the Chinese frigate. Not spotting it right away, a shiver of panic flew through him. He’d blundered too close, he thought, and was now in range of another missile.
Then he saw the frigate in the distance. It had given up chasing him and was once more sailing back in the direction of Mack and the others.
Northern Arabian Sea
0850
THE WEREWOLF PICKED UP EVERYONE’S MORALE, BUT MACK soon realized that could be too much of a good thing. For while they kicked ferociously for a few minutes, pushing the raft in the direction of the approaching American ship, they quickly ran out of energy. And with the Abner Read still far in the distance, they had to conserve their strength.
“All right, new plan,” Mack told the others, and felt his teeth chatter as he spoke. “One guy kicks at a time. Two guys, one on each side, rest. Other two stay in the raft. Jazz, how’s your leg?”
“Much better.”
“Great,” said Mack, though he knew the lieutenant was lying. “All right. I’ll kick and steer. Idea here is that we’re saving our strength. All right? We’re all about endurance right now.”
“I’ll swap with Dish,” said Jazz.
“Nah, it’s OK,” said Mack.
“Dish looks cold.”
“I’m OK,” said Dish.
Jazz slipped into the water next to him. Mack watched his shock as the water hit him. Then Dish pulled himself into the raft, Mack could see he was both reluctant and grateful.
Mack leaned over toward Jazz. “You hanging in there, kid?”
“I’m with ya, Major.”
“Kick slow if you have to, to stay warm.”
“Staying warm.”
Mack kicked slowly himself, pushing the raft almost imperceptibly. He told himself he was in a survival tank bank at Nellis Air Base, just having a grand ol’ time with the instructors, one of whom had been Sports Illustrated model material.
Luscious, that.
Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm.
In the raft, Dish shifted around to get closer to him.
“Hey, Major,” he said in a barely audible voice. “That Chinese ship. I can see it on the horizon, getting bigger.”
Damn, thought Mack, doing his best not to turn around.
Aboard the Abner Read,
northern Arabian Sea
0855
THE RADAR DETECTOR ABOARD THE WEREWOLF BLEEPED TO let Starship know that the Chinese frigate was looking for it. The ship had changed course and was now making a beeline for the life raft.
“Tac, I need you to take a look at this,” Starship said. In an instant, Eyes appeared at his side.
“The frigate is heading in their direction. You think it knows they’re there?”
Eyes squatted and looked at the Werewolf control screen, which displayed a situational representation of the area. The sitrep provided a bird’s-eye view, augmented with information about the contacts, their speed and bearings. The control computer could gather and synthesize the information from a variety of sources, but in this case it was working primarily with the Werewolf ’s regular and infrared radar. The destroyer was about four miles from the men.
“They’re too far to know exactly where they are,” decided Eyes. “But I’d say they definitely know they’re in the vicinity.”
“How long before they actually see the raft?”
“Hard to tell. It’s too small and low on the water to be detected by any radar the Chinese have.” Eyes straightened. “That leaves human lookouts. Good glasses, good lookouts…”
Eyes didn’t finish the sentence. Starship knew that his own Mark 1 eyeballs were capable of picking out a silver speck in a bright sky at four or five miles, no sweat. Here, the lookouts would have a nice orange target on a field of deep blue.
“We have to figure out a way to get them out of there,” said Starship.
“That, or get the frigate out of there.”
Aboard the Wisconsin,
over the northern Arabian Sea
0900
THE SUN POURED THROUGH THE HATCHWAY ABOVE THE copilot’s seat as Dog turned toward the Chinese ship. Wind surged through the cockpit, grabbing at the folds of his flight suit. He could barely hear his breath in the face mask, which was just as well—he’d started to hyperventilate, too revved on adrenaline.
“Wisconsin
to Werewolf. Starship, can you go over to the Dreamland Command channel?” he asked over the emergency frequency.
“Werewolf. Affirmative, Colonel.”
“Do it.” Dog guessed that the Chinese were monitoring the emergency frequency and didn’t want them listening in.
“I’m on, Colonel.”
“The Chinese frigate is heading toward Mack and the others. How close is the Abner Read?”
“Roughly an hour and a half,” said Starship.
“Are you armed?”
“Only with. 50 caliber bullets.”
The bullets were fired from machine guns in the Werewolf ’s skids. The weapon wouldn’t do much against the frigate, and to use it Starship would have to fly well within range of the Chinese ship’s missiles.
“Wisconsin, he’s activated targeting radars,” warned Starship.
“Yeah, roger that,” said Dog. He took a hard turn, hoping to “beam” the radar, flying in the direction of the waves, where it was more difficult to be detected.
“Still targeting you.”
“Just tell me if he fires.”
“Werewolf,” said Starship, acknowledging.
Dog began a bank, aiming to circle in front of the destroyer and make himself a more inviting target.
It was hopeless, wasn’t it? Sooner or later the captain of the frigate was going to figure out what he was up to, if he hadn’t already. And by now he’d have realized that the Megafortress was unarmed and impotent.
Well, he was weaponless, but was he impotent?
An hour and a half before, he’d been willing to give his life to keep the Chinese from launching a nuclear weapon and involving the world in a nuclear war.
He could do that now, he thought. If he hit the frigate right, he’d sink it.
He’d have to stay at the stick to do it.
Dog hesitated, then pushed the stick back toward the frigate. He reached for the throttle glide, ready to put the engines to the wall.
“Missile launch!” screamed Starship. And as he did, Dog saw two thick bursts of white foam erupt from the forward section of the Chinese ship.
Northern Arabian Sea
0908
MACK SAW THE MISSILES STREAK FROM THE CHINESE destroyer but couldn’t tell what they were firing at. The Wisconsin, he guessed, though he couldn’t see it in the sky.
The Werewolf was skittering around two miles to the east.
Cantor groaned.
“Maybe the chopper can take him back to the ship,” said Dish.
“Maybe,” said Mack, though he knew that the small helicopter wasn’t normally equipped with rescue equipment. “Hey, kid, you still up there? Werewolf?”
“Werewolf.”
“We got an injured airman here. It’s Jazz—you think we can rig a stretcher up or something?”
“Uh, negative, Major. I have a line running down from the bird and there’s a collar attached, but I don’t know about hooking up a stretcher. It’s a long way back, and he’d have to hold on. I don’t think he could make it.”
“That’s it, kid. You just gave me a great idea. Get overhead right now,” he added, as two more missiles flew from the destroyer.
Aboard the Wisconsin,
over the northern Arabian Sea
0908
ONE HAND ON THE POWER CONTROLS AND THE OTHER ON the stick, Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian goaded the Wisconsin to the southeast, urging her away from the missiles. The weapons were smaller and faster than the Megafortress, and didn’t have to worry about dealing with holes in their fuselage. On the other hand, the Megafortress had a five-mile head start and a human pilot guiding her.
Dog pushed the Megafortress toward the waves, trying to get as low as possible without turning his plane into a submarine. The radar in the Chinese destroyer, originally intended for tracking targets tens of thousands of feet higher, lost the aircraft at about a hundred feet, leaving both missiles to use their onboard infrared detectors to find the target.
The first missile, either incorrectly believing it was near the Megafortress or simply deciding it had had enough of the chase, imploded a good mile from the Wisconsin, harmlessly showering the sea with shrapnel.
The second missile continued in the right direction. The launch trajectory had sent it climbing over the Megafortress by a few thousand feet. As it corrected, Dog pushed hard to the south, taking his juicy heat signature away from the missile’s sensor. The radar on the frigate picked up the plane as it turned, then lost it again, though not before its fitful guidance beam sent the missile into a half loop back toward the target.
Dog didn’t know what was going on behind him; he only knew that the farther he flew, the better the odds of survival. He’d been chased by countless missiles, some radar guided, some infrared, a few like this one—a combination of the two. Even with countermeasures, it was always a question of outrunning the thing—“getting where the missile ain’t,” as an instructor had taught him a million years ago. Jink, thrash the pedals, lean on the throttle—just go.
Drenched in sweat, Dog felt the water rolling down his arms, saturating the palms of his hands. He slid his left hand farther down the stick, worried that his fingers would slip right off.
As he did, there was a low clunk behind him and the plane jerked forward, its tail threatening to rise. He used both his hands to keep control, but even as he did, he felt a surge of relief—the shock had undoubtedly come from the warhead’s explosion, and while it must have been close enough to shake the plane, he could tell it hadn’t done serious damage.
Leveling out, Dog took a moment to wipe the sweat from the palms of his hands, then pulled back to climb. He glanced over his left shoulder, looking for the frigate in the distance.
He didn’t see the ship. But he did see a silvery baseball bat, headed straight for him.
It was another HQ-7 antiair missile, and it was gaining fast.
Northern Arabian Sea
0912
THOUGH IT WAS SMALL, THE WEREWOLF KICKED UP A PRETTY good amount of wind from its props and engines. Mack had trouble keeping his eyes clear as the robo-helo edged in, its rope and sling swinging below.
What Starship had called a collar looked like a limp rubber band—a wet, slimy one that packed the wallop of a wrecking ball. As Mack reached for it, a swell pushed him forward faster than he expected and he was whacked in the neck. He grabbed for the rope but couldn’t quite reach it.
“Get that mother!” he yelled.
He put his left hand on the raft and lurched forward, jumping across the tiny boat for the collar. He managed to spear his arm through it and immediately began to spin to the right. T-Bone jumped at the same time and also grabbed part of the collar. Dish reached but missed, grabbing T-Bone instead. The three men crashed together, none of them daring to let go. The tied-together rafts twirled beneath them, one of them nearly swamping.
“I got it, I got it!” yelled Mack. He hung on as the rope bucked back and forth. “Just grab me. Grab onto me and hold onto the rafts. Stabilize them!”
Starship was trying to tell him something, but Mack couldn’t hear. He felt the helicopter pulling him upward and tried locking his grip by grabbing his flight suit, so that the sling was tucked under his arm. His right leg tangled in the line they’d used to lash the two rafts together, and he felt as if he was being pulled apart at the groin.
“Hold me and the raft! Hold me and the raft!” he shouted, though by now his voice was hoarse.
They were moving, though he had no idea in what direction. It wasn’t exactly what he’d in mind, but it was something.
Aboard the Abner Read,
northern Arabian Sea
0916
STARSHIP DIDN’T KNOW FOR SURE WHETHER THE MEN IN the raft had snagged the line until he had to struggle to correct for a shift in the wind. He nudged the Werewolf forward and the rafts came with her, pulling through the water at about four knots.
The frigate was still coming toward them.
Mack’s response, if there was one, was drowned out by the roar of the Werewolf ’s blades directly overhead. The engineers who had advertised the chopper as “whisper quiet” obviously had a unique notion of how loud a whisper was.
Starship notched the speed up gently, moving to six knots and then eight. He knew it had to feel fast to the men on the rafts, but it was less than half the frigate’s speed, and the ship continued to close. While the helo was too low to the water for an antiair missile, it was only a matter of time before the frigate’s conventional weapons could be brought to bear.
“Come to ten knots,” he told the computer, deciding to use the more precise voice command instead of the throttle.
As the computer acknowledged, a warning panel opened on the main screen—the frigate’s gun-control radar had just locked onto the helicopter.
Aboard the Wisconsin,
over the northern Arabian Sea
0916
DOG DROVE THE MEGAFORTRESS DOWN TOWARD THE waves, hoping he could get low enough to avoid the radar guiding the missile toward him. He hung on as the Wisconsin shook violently, the aerodynamic stresses so severe that he thought for a moment the missile had already caught up. He kept his eyes on the ocean as he slammed downward; when he thought it was time to pull up, he waited five long seconds more before doing so.
By then it was almost too late. The controls felt as if they were stuck in cement. He put his feet against the bulkhead below the control panel and levered his entire weight backward. The plane reluctantly raised her nose, and was able to level off at just over fifty feet, so close he worried that he was scooping the waves into the engines.