by Dale Brown
Storm wondered if he should relieve Eyes. He couldn’t have someone with a negative attitude as his number two.
No, he thought. His exec was just tired. He hadn’t been to sleep for a day and a half, at least.
“Go get yourself some rest, Eyes,” Storm told him. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard.”
“I feel fine, Captain.”
“That was an order, mister.”
Eyes stared at him for a moment. “Aye aye, Captain,” he said finally. “Aye aye.”
Aboard the Bennett, near the Pakistan-India border
0400
“Colonel, if I can make a suggestion?”
“Absolutely, Mike,” Dog told Englehardt.
“If I drop the Megafortress to five hundred feet and walk her as slow she’ll go, the low-light video camera in the nose will get us an excellent picture.”
Ordinarily, Dog would have readily agreed — the jagged terrain was making it hard for the radar to “see” what was on the ground. But they had spotted a Pakistani ground unit to the north just as he came back from his brief nap.
“How close are the Pakistanis?” Dog asked.
“Two miles almost directly north,” replied the pilot. “They’re on that east-west road just over the rise, right on their side of the border. We can get down and then away before they even know what’s going on.
“There are just two deuce-and-a-half troop trucks,” he added, using the American slang for a multipurpose six-by-six troop truck. “Worst they’re going to have is a shoulder-launched missile. It’s not going to be much of a threat.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Dog said. “I don’t want them coming over to see what we’re interested in. Or radioing for help.”
“Wouldn’t their radios have been fried by the T-Rays?” the copilot, Kevin Sullivan, asked. “We haven’t heard any transmissions.”
“Maybe, maybe not. The EEMWB that knocked out the missile was detonated farther south,” said Dog, who had helped design and implement the detonation plan. “They may have driven into the area afterward. We can’t count on them having been affected.”
“We can take them out with the Harpoons,” said Sullivan. “Not going to be a problem.”
“Firing on them is a last resort,” Dog told him.
“Let’s fake them out,” said Englehardt. “Make it look like we’re interested in them, buzz them, then look for the warhead on the way out.”
“Maybe.”
Dog examined the ground radar plot on Sergeant Daly’s screen. The two trucks were in the middle of the road. It occurred to Dog that the vehicles themselves might have been disabled by the T-Rays. Even if that weren’t the case, they might have strict orders not to go over the border — though the line was marked here only on maps, not on the ground.
What would he do if they made a move to get the missile?
The admiral had made it clear that he could use whatever force he needed to protect his people, and to recover a warhead once it was spotted, but as usual, the orders couldn’t cover everything. It seemed clear that he wasn’t permitted to fire on them in this case, before the warhead had been identified and at a moment when they posed little threat. But what if they moved toward it? Could he fire then, even though he hadn’t ID’d the missile?
“Colonel, what do you want to do?” asked Englehardt.
“Take another nap,” laughed Dog. Then he got serious. “Hold this orbit and continue to monitor the Indians. I’ll talk to Danny and the Marines. When they’re close enough to come for the warhead — if it is in fact a warhead — we’ll make our move.”
“That may be an hour at least, Colonel.”
“By my calculations, your coffee will hold out for at least another six,” said Dog. “We can wait until then.”
“Careful on that coffee, sir,” said Sullivan. “That’s our backup fuel supply.”
Indian Ocean, off the Indian coast
Time unknown
It started to lighten. Dawn approached, stalking over the ocean behind a cover of clouds.
Voices echoed in Zen’s head, murmurs and echoes that he couldn’t quite decipher. He thought he heard birds, then a cow, then a dog barking. Finally he was sure that someone was calling to him. But the island — more an oversized rock with a pebble and sand beach punctuated by black hunks of igneous stone — remained empty.
Breanna was alive. That he was sure of. What he didn’t know, and couldn’t, was how badly she was injured. She was unconscious, her breathing shallow. From what he could tell, she wasn’t bleeding anywhere, and her bones seemed to be intact. He assumed she was in shock, and maybe suffering from hypothermia.
He could do almost nothing for her. He propped her head up, took off the survival vest and the rest of her gear. Her flight suit was sopping wet, but he thought she’d be warmer in it.
Zen was cold and wet himself. He decided that when the sun finally rose, he’d strip to his underwear and lay his clothes out on the rocks to dry.
He had his personal Beretta and two sets of small “pencil” flares. He had four candy bars and four granola “energy” bars, which were basically cereal pressed together with fruit and sugar. He had a survival knife. He had fishing line and a small poncho.
His matches and lighter were gone. So were the extra bullets for his gun. And his med kit.
Breanna’s radio was in her vest, along with her med kit, which had a small Bic-style lighter in it. He left her weapon strapped in its holster, but took her extra clip.
Zen turned on the survival radio and monitored the rescue frequency or “Guard band” for a few minutes, trying to see if anyone was around. The “spins”—times when he was supposed to broadcast — had been set at five and thirty-five minutes past the hour. But the routine was useless without a working watch.
Breanna had one. He leaned over her, then slipped it gently from her wrist. It was four minutes past the hour.
Close enough.
He switched the dial on the radio to voice and broadcast, nearly choking over the phlegm in his throat.
“Zen Stockard to any nearby aircraft. Zen Stockard to any American aircraft — can you hear me?”
There was no reply. He tried a few more times, then put the radio down.
Zen looked down at his wife. He slid his thumb over to her wrist, feeling for her pulse, and began counting the heartbeats, but stopped after ten.
What the hell was he going to do if it was beating slow? Or fast? What the hell was he going to do, period?
He was going to get someone on the Guard band and get the hell out of here, that’s what.
The clouds had passed to the east, but there seemed to be more coming from the west. He needed a shelter to keep Breanna dry if it rained again.
He could turn the poncho into a tent. There weren’t any sticks handy, but he could rig something by piling the rocks on either side. There were certainly enough of them.
It was something to do, at least. He patted his wife gently, then began crawling toward the nearest loose stones.
Aboard the Bennett, near the Pakistan-India border
0540
Dog didn’t know where exactly to put himself. He felt like he should be in the pilot’s seat, running the show, but he was far too tired to be at the stick. The jumpseat at the back of the flight deck was too far from the action to see what was going on. And sitting at either of the auxiliary radar operator seats made him feel as if he was looking over the operators’ shoulders.
So he ended up more or less pacing around the flight deck, in effect looking over everyone’s shoulders and making them all uncomfortable.
His body, meanwhile, felt as if it was tearing itself in two. He’d had so much of the high octane coffee Sullivan brewed that his stomach was boiling. Fortunately, the Megafortress upgrades included an almost comfortable lavatory, because he was visiting it often.
“Incoming from Captain Freah,” reported Sullivan.
“Great,” said Dog.<
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Sergeant Daly stiffened as he sat down next to him at the auxiliary ground radar station. Dog plugged in his headset and flipped into the Dreamland channel.
“Bastian.”
“Hi, Colonel. Good to talk to you again, sir.”
“It’s good to talk to you too, Danny. What’s your status?”
“We’re twenty minutes from our target area, P-1. What’s going on?”
“There’s a Pakistani army unit, two trucks, about two miles north of the possible warhead marked as P-3 on the Dreamland map,” Dog told him. “They haven’t moved, but they’re close enough to get over there in a hurry. We haven’t gotten low enough to verify that there is a warhead there.”
Dog explained that he wanted to check the site, and if it was a warhead, have Danny land there first.
“I got you,” said Danny. “You think they don’t know it’s there at all.”
“Exactly. The only way we can check it is by getting very low, and they’re likely to realize something’s going on. If they call for reinforcements, they might have a pretty good-sized force up here in a few hours.”
“Stand by.”
Dog furled his arms and leaned back in the seat, brushing against Daly as he did.
Dreamland’s present configuration scheme rarely called for all four stations to be occupied, but when the Megafortress went into service with regular Air Force units, all the stations would be filled. It occurred to Dog that another six or eight inches of space between the two stations would make things much more comfortable for the operators. There was room too, though it would call for a few modifications to the galley.
A small thing, maybe, but important to the guys on the mission.
“Colonel, this is Danny.”
“Go ahead, Captain.”
“We’re going to change course. We’re maybe thirty minutes from point P-3.”
“We’ll scout it and give you a go, no-go, when you’re ten minutes away,” Dog told him. “What do your rules of engagement say about deadly force?”
“To defend ourselves and the weapon.”
“Good. If they make a move toward you, we’re going to use our Harpoons. Bastian out.”
Dog switched over to the interphone, sharing Danny’s information with the rest of the crew.
“I can get us over the warhead exactly thirty seconds before they hit their mark,” Englehardt promised.
“Excellent,” said Dog.
“No action from the Pakistanis,” said Daly. “They don’t seem to know we’re here.”
“They will,” said Dog.
Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, the Arabian Sea
0600
Feeling disoriented, Starship followed his guide through the bowels of the aircraft carrier to the squadron ready room. He had heard carriers described as miniature cities floating on water, but the Lincoln seemed more like the underbelly of a massive football stadium. It smelled like one too, ten times worse than the locker room in Dreamland’s gym.
He thought he was somewhere in the maze of rooms below the flight deck and hangar — the playing field, to follow his metaphor — but how far down and where exactly, he had no idea. He’d gone down three flights of stairs — known to the Navy as a ladder, for some inexplicable reason — and through several hatchways — actually doors, though they looked like hatches to him. He had also learned the meaning of “knee knockers”—the metalwork at the base of watertight openings.
“Ensign Watson reporting with Lieutenant Andrews,” said his guide as they entered a cabin about half the size of the closet in Starship’s Dreamland apartment.
“Lieutenant Bradley,” said the balding man on the cot.
“Friends call me Brad.” He rose and shifted his coffee cup to shake Starship’s hand.
“People call me Starship.”
“Starship?” Bradley laughed. “You Air Force guys have the weirdest nicknames and call signs. You got a Buck in your outfit, I bet.”
“Uh, no Buck. A Dork.”
Bradley began to howl with laughter. But something about his smile made the laugh inoffensive.
“So, I hear you need the fastest sled ride to Diego Garcia that you can find,” said Bradley.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve come to the right place. Come on, let’s get you some coffee and gear, then go preflight.”
Starship wasn’t sure why a passenger would need to take part in a briefing, but figured that Bradley was just being accommodating for a visitor. His confusion grew as Bradley mentioned he’d need to know his hat size for the trip, meaning they were going to find him a helmet.
“Jeez, I didn’t think you guys took Osprey flights so seriously,” said Starship finally.
“Osprey?”
“We’re flying down on a V-22, right?” said Starship.
“Hell, no. You wanted to get there fast, right?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“Admiral Woods arranged for you to backseat my Super Hornet, Lieutenant,” said Bradley.
“What’s a Super Hornet?”
“A toy you can’t have.” Bradley laughed. “The admiral says you need to be there fast. This is the fastest thing we can spare. Don’t worry. Just keep your hands inside the car at all times and you’ll be fine.”
* * *
The Super Hornet — officially, an F/A-18F — wasn’t your run-of-the-mill swamp boat. An upsized version of the all-purpose F/A-18, this Super Hornet was one of three being tested by the Navy before the aircraft entered full production.
Designed to replace the Navy’s heavy metal, the Grumman F-14, the new Hornet shared very little components with its look-alike predecessor and namesake. From the engines to the wings to the tail surfaces, the designers had reworked the aircraft, making it bigger, faster, and stronger. Close in size to an Air Force F-15C, it incorporated a number of low-radar section strategies, making it less noticeable to enemies at long range. It could carry about a third more munitions half again as far as the standard F/A-18s lining the Lincoln’s side.
As Starship buckled himself into his seat, Bradley gave him a quick rundown of the instruments and multifunction displays. Then the Navy pilot hopped into the front seat and got ready to rumble.
Engines up, the Super Hornet’s computer tested the control surfaces, recording the status of the aircraft equipment on the multifunction display.
“You ready for this, Starship?” asked Bradley.
“Good to go.”
Even though he had braced himself, the shot off the carrier deck jolted Starship. He felt like a baseball that had been whacked toward the bleachers. It took a good four or five seconds before he could breathe and relax; by then the Hornet had her nose pointed nearly straight up.
They climbed rapidly through the sparse cloud cover, the newly risen sun a giant orb below. Bradley turned away from the carrier’s airspace and began rocketing south.
“What do you think of the view?” asked Bradley.
“Very nice,” said Starship. Like the F-15, the backseater — technically an RIO, or radar intercept officer, in the Navy — sat in a clear bubble cockpit with a good view to the sides.
“So, you think you could handle this baby?” asked Bradley.
“Could I?”
“That’s my question.”
Starship scrambled to find the volume button to turn down the sound of Bradley’s laugh.
“I think I can handle it,” said Starship. He’d told Bradley earlier that he had flown F-15s.
“Take a shot,” the Navy aviator told him, and he gave the stick a little waggle.
Starship treated the aircraft as if it were a baby carriage, holding it gently level and perfectly on course.
For about five seconds.
Then he gave the stick more input and snapped into a right aileron roll. He came back quickly — the Super Hornet seemed to snicker as she pushed herself neutral, as if asking, Is that the best you can do?
The aircraft was very precise, and while the
stick required a bit more input than the Flighthawk’s, it felt sweet.
“So do you have your hand on the stick yet, or what?” asked Bradley.
Starship did a full roll, then another. He nudged himself into an invert — a little tentative, he knew — and flew upside down for a few miles before coming back right side up.
“So you do know where the stick is,” said Bradley, laughing.
“Can I go to afterburners?”
“Knock yourself out.”
Starship lit up the power plants. The dash through the sound barrier was gentler than he expected; he did a half-stick 360 aileron roll, then recovered, starting to feel his oats.
“Better ease off on the dinosaurs or we may end up walking to the tanker,” suggested Bradley.
“Sorry.”
“It’s all right. I know exactly how you feel. Nice plane, huh?”
“I could get used to it.”
“Beats flying robots, I bet.”
“They have their moments,” said Starship, pushing his stick left and taking about four g’s as he got on course. “But there’s a lot to be said for sitting in the cockpit yourself.”
Aboard the Bennett, near the Pakistan-India border
0600
She was like a thoroughbred released from the chute, f licking her mane back as she bared her teeth and charged down the track. She put her head down and galloped, hard and proud, determined to hit her marks.
The Megafortress charged 150 feet over the Pakistani trucks at about 500 knots, loud and low. Looking like startled spectators at a horse race after a thoroughbred jumped the fence, the half-dozen Pakistani troops dove for cover.
“P-3 object dead ahead, one mile,” said Englehardt as the Megafortress continued toward their target.
“No offensive action from the ground troops,” said Sullivan, watching the rear-facing optical video. “Look more startled than anything.”
Dog stared at the screen in front of him, which was projecting the forward video camera view. The desert rose up then fell off into a slope. In real time, the ground was a blur; Dog had trouble separating the rocks from the shadows.
Englehardt pushed the nose of the aircraft down to get closer to the terrain, then counted off his turn, beginning a wide, almost leisurely bank to the east.