by Dale Brown
“We are moving as fast as we can,” Darzov said. “We are prioritizing the main components first — the radar, laser chamber, and adaptive optics. The fuel tanks and power generators will have to wait.”
“Do you have any fighters on patrol over the Caspian, General?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Are you shadowing the American B-1 bombers?”
“I have an entire squadron of MiG-29s airborne to try to keep up with them,” Darzov said. “The unmanned Vampires are much faster than a regular B-1 Lancer, so we’ve loaded a few of the fighters up with Molnija missiles adapted to work at reduced range with the MiG-29’s fire control radar. They might be able to take down their hypersonic attack missiles if they can be fired—”
“I’ve just received permission from the President of the United States for you to shoot the bombers down,” Zevitin said happily.
“The President of the United States told us to shoot down his own bombers?”
“He doesn’t consider them his bombers — to him they’re McLanahan’s bombers now, and they might as well be invading Martians,” Zevitin said. “Do it. Shoot them down…but after they launch their missiles.”
“After?” Darzov asked incredulously. “Sir, if we cannot move our equipment out in time, or if they target the main Fanar components, we could lose billions of rubles of precious equipment!”
“Do the best you can, General,” Zevitin said, “but let those missiles launch and hit the base. You do have the screening implements in place, as we discussed earlier?”
“Yes, sir, of course,” Darzov replied. “But we also have—”
“If any part of Fanar gets hit, your first priority is to get it out of there while you continue to set the stage as planned,” Zevitin went on breathlessly, “because minutes after the missiles hit, I’m going to tell the whole world about it. The world media will want to see for themselves, and it’s important that they see it right away. Do you understand me, General?”
“Yes, sir,” Darzov replied. “I will do as you ask. But I hope we are not sacrificing our most important assets for mere public relations purposes.”
“You’ll do as I tell you for whatever reason I devise, General, whether you understand it or not,” Zevitin snapped. “Just make sure when the media descends on Soltanabad — which I am going to work very hard to see happen — they see nothing but senseless ruin and destruction, or I’ll have your ass. Do I make myself clear?”
* * *
“Sir, we’re picking up a locator beacon signal!” Master Sergeant Lukas shouted from her station in the command module of Armstrong Space Station. “It’s from the passenger module.”
“My God, they made it,” Patrick said breathlessly. “Any data yet?”
“Nothing yet…yes, sir, yes, we’re receiving location and environmental readouts!” Lukas said. “It’s intact! Stabilizers have deployed and it is under computer guidance! Telemetry says the passenger module is still pressurized!”
“Good God, it’s a miracle,” Patrick said. “Moulain and Terranova must have ejected the module just before the Black Stallion was destroyed. Rebecca—”
“We’re readying two more Vampires for launch to provide air cover for the recovery,” Rebecca Furness said. “They’ll be airborne in twenty minutes.”
“Dave—”
“We’re talking to Special Operations Command right now about launching a CSAR mission from Afghanistan, Muck,” Dave Luger said. “As soon as we know where they might come down, they’ll launch. We’re hoping they’ll land in western Afghanistan. A Pave Hawk is standing by at Herat Air Base. We’re trying to get a couple Predators and Reapers retasked to fly over the area.” The MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper were unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, each configured to carry air-to-surface attack missiles; both were controlled via satellite from control stations in the United States.
“Sixty seconds to the launch point,” Dave Luger reported. “Airspeed coming back to one point two Mach.” He was by himself at the command console in the Batman, but he still lowered his voice as if not wanting anyone else to hear as he went on: “Muck, now would be a good time to turn them around.”
“Continue,” Patrick McLanahan responded.
He sounded every bit as resolute and confident as when he first made the decision to attack — that, at least, made him feel a little better. If Patrick showed the slightest hesitation in his decision, Dave vowed he would’ve turned the bombers around on his own authority to make sure the planes made it back to the refueling control point — as well as to save Patrick’s career.
In seconds, it was going to be too late…
On the command-wide net he spoke, “Roger, Odin, copy, continue. Forty-five seconds. No threats, no surveillance radar. Airspeed steady at one point two Mach. Thirty seconds…twenty…ten, doors coming open on Headbanger Two-One…missile one away…doors coming open on Two-Two…missile two away, doors coming closed…missile one away from Two-Two…missile two away, doors coming closed, the flight is secure, heading westbound to the ARIP.”
“How are the Vampires doing on fuel, Dave?” Patrick asked.
“We’ll make it — barely,” Luger responded. “If the hookups go smoothly, Two-One will be able to get on the boom, take on emergency fuel, cycle off, and Two-Two will start to take on fuel with ten minutes left to dry tanks.”
“Good going, Headbanger,” Patrick breathed with audible relief. No reply from Rebecca Furness — this was not over, not by a long shot, and he knew she was still angry about her decision being overruled.
“Thirty seconds to impact…SkySTREAK speed Mach ten point seven, all in the green…scramjet motor burnout, warhead coasting…flight controls active and responding, steering control good…twenty TG, datalink active.” They all watched as the composite millimeter-wave radar and imaging infrared picture flared to life, revealing Russian transport planes and helicopters on the runway, several lines of men handing boxes and packages from various parts of the base to waiting trucks, several large unidentifiable buildings on trailers…
…and several large tents with clearly identifiable Red Cross and Red Crescent logos on the tops. “Jesus!” Dave Luger gasped. “They look like relief worker tents!”
“Target the large trailers and portable buildings!” Patrick shouted. “Stay away from those tents!”
“We got it, Odin,” Rebecca said. She had commander’s override authority and could take over targeting from the weapons officer, but she didn’t need to — the weapons officer smoothly centered the aiming reticle over the four largest trailers. The SkySTREAK’s millimeter-wave radar was able to look through the outer steel shell of each truck, and it verified that the trailers under the aiming reticle were indeed dense and not hollow or less densely packed, like a partially empty cargo trailer might be. Otherwise, the trailers all looked the same and were being attended to by equivalent-looking numbers of workers.
“Five seconds…targeting locked…breakapart charge initiated.” The final image from the SkySTREAK missiles showed nearly direct hits on the center of each trailer…all except one, which had skittered off-target to land in a clear area somewhere beside the targeted trailer. The computer’s estimate of the area of damage, approximately fifty feet in diameter, showed nothing except some soldiers carrying rifles and boxes and perhaps one lone individual standing nearby, probably a supervisor — it didn’t hit any of the relief tents. “Looks like one missed, but it hit in a clearing beside the trailer.”
“Good shooting, Headbanger,” Patrick said. “Those trailers looked identical to the ones that attacked Stud One-One.”
“They looked like a billion other trailers around the world — there’s no way of knowing what we got, sir,” Rebecca Furness said, the exasperation obvious in her voice. “We didn’t see any radar arrays or anything that looked like laser fuel storage tanks or laser optics. We could’ve hit anything…or nothing.”
“Our first priority is to set up a rescue and recovery oper
ation for the passenger module and a search for any debris and remains of the Black Stallion and its crew,” Patrick said, ignoring Furness’s exasperated remarks. “I want a Battle Force team sent out immediately to Afghanistan, along with every support aircraft we have available. I want unmanned vehicles and NIRTSats set up for immediate deployment to search along all possible trajectories for survivors or debris. Recall every asset we have for the search. I want a progress update in one hour. Do you copy, Headbanger?”
“Stand by, Odin,” Rebecca responded, concern thick in her voice. Patrick immediately turned his attention back to the mission status monitors…and immediately saw the new threat: a swarm of missiles barreling down on the Vampire bombers. “We did a post-turn long-range LADAR sweep and spotted them,” she said. The LADAR, or laser radar, was a system of electronically agile laser emitters embedded throughout the fuselage of the Vampire bombers that instantaneously “drew” a high-resolution image of everything around the plane for a hundred miles, then compared the three-dimensional picture to a catalog of images for immediate identification. “Look at the speed of those things — they have to be traveling at greater than Mach seven!”
“Countermeasures!” Dave Luger shouted. “Knock them out of the sky!”
But it was soon clear that it was too late. Traveling at more than fourteen miles per second, the Russian missiles ate up the distance long before the Vampire bombers’ microwave emitters could activate, lock on, and disrupt their guidance systems. Three of the four hypersonic missiles scored direct hits, quickly sending both bombers spiraling into the Caspian Sea.
“Damn it,” Dave swore. “Looks like the Russians have a new toy for their MiGs. Well, I guess we won’t have to worry if the bombers will make their tanker, will we, Rebecca?”
“We just lost one-fourth of our remaining B-1 bomber inventory, Dave,” Rebecca Furness radioed from Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base. “It’s not a laughing matter. We only have two Vampires at Batman now.”
“Get ’em airborne to provide air cover for the CSAR guys out of Herat, Rebecca,” Patrick ordered. “Use active LADAR to scan for intruders. If anyone comes within a hundred miles of your planes, fry ’em.”
“With pleasure, Muck,” Rebecca said. “I’m ready for a little payback. They’ll be ready to taxi in about fifteen.” But just a few minutes later she called back: “Odin, this is Headbanger, we have a problem. Security Forces are parked in front of the hangar and preventing the Vampire from taxiing. They’re ordering us to shut down or they’ll disable the plane.”
Patrick was on the secure videoconference line in a heartbeat, but he was beaten to the punch by an incoming call: “General McLanahan, you are either deranged or suffering from some sort of mental breakdown,” Secretary of Defense Miller Turner said. “This is an order directly from the commander-in-chief: stand down all your forces immediately. You are relieved of command. Do I make myself clear?”
“Sir, one of my Black Stallion spaceplanes has been shot down by a Russian anti-satellite laser based in eastern Iran,” Patrick said. “We have indications that the passengers may have survived. I want air cover…”
“General, I’m sympathetic, but the President is pissed and he’s not listening to any arguments,” Turner said. “You hung up on him, for God’s sake! Do you expect him to listen to you now?”
“Sir, the passenger module is intact, and it’ll be on the ground in less than fifteen minutes,” Patrick said.
“What? You mean, someone ejected from the spaceplane…?”
“The passenger module is jettisonable and is designed to act as a lifeboat for the space station crewmembers,” Patrick explained. “It can withstand re-entry, fly itself to a landing spot, safely glide in for a landing, and save the crew. The module is intact, sir, and we’re hoping the crew is safe. We’re zeroing in on the possible landing zone right now, and as soon as we compute the exact landing spot we can deploy a rescue team there right away — that’s the only advantage we’ll have over the enemy. But it’ll take at least ninety minutes for a rescue team and air cover to arrive in the recovery area. We have to launch right away.”
“General, you have already disobeyed direct orders from the President,” Turner said. “You’re already on your way to prison, do you understand that? Don’t compound it by arguing anymore. For the last time: Stand down. I’m directing General Backman to take command of all of your forces. I’m telling you—”
“And I’m telling you, sir,” Patrick interrupted, “that most of the Middle East and central Asia will have seen the Black Stallion fall to Earth, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the al-Quds forces, all of the terrorists that have flooded into Iran since the military coup, and probably the Russians will be on their way to the crash site to retrieve whatever they can find. We must get every aircraft and combat search and rescue team possible airborne to find the survivors before the enemy does.”
“Central Command will coordinate that, McLanahan, not you. You are ordered to stand down. Take no further actions whatsoever. You will do or say nothing to anyone. You are relieved of your command and will be placed under arrest as soon as you can be brought off that station.”
For the second time that day, Patrick hung up on a civilian military leader. His next call was directly to General Kenneth Lepers, the four-star Army general in charge of U.S. Central Command, the major combat command overseeing all military operations in the Middle East and central Asia, to try to convince him to allow the bombers to take off.
“General McLanahan, your ass is in a really big sling right now,” Lepers’ deputy said. “The general has been directed not to speak with you, and this call will be reported to SECDEF. I advise you to straighten this thing out with SECDEF before the whole world cuts you off.” And he hung up.
Patrick’s next call was back to Rebecca Furness at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base. “I was just going to call you, sir,” Rebecca said. “I’m sorry about the Black Stallion. I wish we could’ve done more.”
“Thanks, Rebecca. I’m sorry about your Vampires.”
“Not your fault, sir.” It was, she reminded herself: if he hadn’t ordered to launch on this unauthorized mission, she’d still have her bombers. But the Vampires were unmanned, and the Black Stallion wasn’t, so she didn’t feel the need to rub salt on a wound. “We should have been scanning for bandits — I made the call to go in completely silent. I don’t know how the Russians knew we were coming or when, but they are going to get it back in spades, I guarantee that.”
“Are you still being stopped by the sky cops?”
“Affirmative. We’ve shut down as ordered and are holding our position inside the hangar.”
Patrick thought for a moment; then: “Rebecca, I tried calling General Lepers at CENTCOM to get his permission to launch the Vampires, and he’s not talking to me. I would guess if I tried to call STRATCOM I’d get the same response.”
“Cannon’s an okay guy,” Rebecca commented. “The others think you’re gunning for their jobs.” Or nuts, she silently added.
“If we don’t launch some air cover, our guys and maybe the CSAR troops will get chewed apart by the Pasdaran,” Patrick said. “I’m going to clear those Security Forces away from the hangar. I want you ready to launch as soon as they’re away.”
“But you said Lepers won’t talk to you, and you haven’t spoken to CENTAF yet, so who’s going to—?” Furness paused for a moment, then said simply, “That’s crazy. Sir.”
“The question is, Rebecca: Will you launch?”
The pause was very, very long; just when Patrick was going to repeat himself, or was wondering if Furness was dialing SECDEF’s number on another line, she said, “Get ’em out of my ships’ way, General, and I’ll launch.”
“Thank you, General.” Patrick hung up the phone, then spoke, “Odin to Genesis.”
“Go ahead, Muck,” Dave Luger responded via their subcutaneous global transceiver.
“Move those security guys away from t
he bombers.”
“They’re moved, Muck. Out.” Luger turned to his command radio: “Saber, this is Genesis.”
BATMAN AIR BASE, REPUBLIC OF TURKEY
THAT SAME TIME
“Saber copies, go ahead, Genesis,” Air Force First Lieutenant James “JD” Daniels, commander of the Battle Force ground operations team code-named “Saber,” responded. Daniels had been sent to Batman Air Base to provide security for the EB-1C Vampire bombers, but also because the base was an isolated, well-equipped place to train with new CID pilots in real-world scenarios. As a technical sergeant the thirty-year-old tall, brown-eyed, brown-haired rancher’s son from Arkansas was one of the first of the Battle Force commandos to check out as a Cybernetic Infantry Device pilot. After being injured from radiation sickness after fighting in Yakutsk Air Base in Russia following the American Holocaust, Daniels used his recovery time to get a bachelor’s degree, then attended Officer Training School and earned his commission. Now he was the senior training officer and, except for Charlie Turlock herself, the resident expert in the CID weapon system.
“I have a task for you, Saber, but you might not like it,” Dave Luger said. “Odin wants to launch the Vampire bombers.”
“Yes, sir. We were ready to go a moment ago, but the Security Forces guys showed up at the hangar, and the planes shut themselves down. The base commander ordered us to assist and protect the Security Forces from any remote-controlled actions by you regarding the aircraft. We verified the orders. Sorry, sir. What is it I won’t like?”
“One of our spaceplanes has been shot down in eastern Iran, and there are survivors. We need air cover for a rescue operation. The NCA still says no. We want to launch the Vampires anyway.”
“Why won’t the NCA approve the mission, sir?”