by Anthology
"I don't think there's any need for that," a voice interrupted. A man in greased-stained coveralls appeared behind the duo. "I heard about your little run-in over McNeil Island. Your reputation precedes you, Ms. Cruise."
"Not as much as yours does, Johnny," I replied as I took his outstretched hand in mine. Johnny Come Sooner had achieved something of a legendary status amongst riggers in the Seattle Metroplex. Long before even I had started running the shadows, Johnny had been jamming t-birds over the Continental Divide smuggling contraband from Seattle to Denver and back again.
"Actually, I'm glad you're here," said Johnny, as his face assumed a grave look. "Can you fly a t-bird? I lost my wingman on the way down here, and I need someone to fly the Silver Bullet tonight." He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder at the dinged-up t-bird behind him.
"It's been a while, but yeah. Terms?" I wore my best poker face. Business was on.
"Fifteen percent of the cut on arrival at Denver."
I let out a small laugh. "If you pay third-stringer rates, no wonder you lose wingmen. Twenty-five percent."
Johnny's face didn't register at all. "Twenty percent."
"Done."
"Thanks. Between Ghostwalker and this Salish war, it hasn't been safe to fly the Rockies solo." Johnny's face broke out in relief as he gestured to the ork. "This is Phil. He'll be your gunner and will be providing magical overwatch for us."
"Pleased t'meetcha." The ork rumbled. He extended his hand, but at the last moment balled it into a fist and swung a slow punch. Tuned to the game he was playing, I deftly blocked the punch with one hand, sidestepped, and gave a light elbow tap with the other arm. Caught off balance, the ork fell forward, and a cloud of dust arose as he hit the dirt. He chuckled quietly as I pulled him up. "Not bad. You just might work out after all."
"This is Clio. She's our navigator and my gunner." Johnny gestured to the woman on the right. She said nothing but simply nodded curtly. Ice queen personality, so it would seem.
I jerked my thumb back towards Angelfire. "When do you want me to start loading up the cargo?"
"Soon. We take off at dusk."
* * *
"Hey! Jo-girl!" shouted Phil from inside the Banshee. "You finished with that pre-flight check? Clio's screaming at me over the radio!"
"OK! OK! I'll be there as soon as I finish checking the sensor dome," I hollered back. Once I closed the inspection hatch over the dome, I walked to one side and climbed the handholds leading up to the pilot's hatch.
As I was strapping on the flight helmet, the engines of Johnny's Banshee purred to life as he began warming up his t-bird. Thanks to the built-in hearing protection, however, what would normally be the Banshee's deafening signature scream came across as merely a muffled whine.
I swung my legs down the hatch and lowered myself into the pilot's seat. It was a very tight squeeze, as I contorted my body around the various instrument panels and control banks. I pulled the hatch above closed tight, entombing myself deep in the belly of the bird.
Engulfed in near-total darkness with illumination from only a few monitors, I connected the datacord from the flight helmet into the primary control panel at my right hand. A myriad of colors washed over the cabin, as the simsense module activated and ran through its startup routine. The darkness of the cabin dissolved into a panoramic view of the quarry outside. A number of virtual controls appeared at my fingertips, floating in midair above my lap. I keyed the communications "panel" and brought up the internal intercom. "Phil, JC here. How do you read me?"
"Gotcha Lima Charlie, Jo-girl," replied a disembodied voice; Phil's flight lingo told me he heard me loud and clear. I keyed the panel again and selected radio comms. "Speedy Delivery, this is Angelfire," I said, using my own callsign. "Commo check, over."
Johnny's voice crackled in my head. "Lima Charlie, Angelfire. You take off first and provide overwatch, over."
"Wilco, out," I replied in compliance. I concentrated and visualized a red sphere before me. The sphere expanded rapidly until it consumed my view. A few moments later, the field of red dissolved into a panoramic display of the outside environment, as the full simsense interface came on line.
Currently my virtual body was crouched on the ground. I imagined myself crawling away from Johnny's Banshee on my hands and knees, and in the distance I could feel a slight nudge as the t-bird responded in real time. Once I was halfway around the rim of the quarry, I turned to face the center and looked up, to make a final check for aerial observers before taking off. I saw nothing except a hazy red and green glow to the northwest, residual emissions coming from the Metroplex in the distance.
With a sudden burst of motion, I launched forward, like a sprinter out of the blocks at the crack of the starter pistol. I sprinted at breakneck speed, the ground passing rapidly beneath the t-bird. As the opposite edge of the quarry loomed before me, I took a tremendous leap upwards, and the t-bird pulled up, while the walls of the quarry fell away.
Spreading my arms to my sides, I twisted upward, and the t-bird climbed higher and banked right in a slow and lazy arc. I watched below as Johnny's Banshee made its takeoff from the quarry. As the Banshee rose level with me in the sky, Clio's dispassionate voice came over the radio. "Angelfire, this is Starchild. Set your autonav to waypoint one at this time."
"Wilco, Starchild. Angelfire out." With the glimmer of a thought I relayed Clio's order to the t-bird's autonavigation system. In the darkness to the south, a single green dot flashed in my sight, indicating the point we were flying to. A series of numbers and hatch marks floated above my eyes, indicating the azimuth and heading. I watched Johnny's Banshee bank right towards the dot, before turning myself to fall in behind and to the left of Johnny, as we sped quickly into the evening twlight.
* * *
We reached our first waypoint, Mt. Rainier, about an hour later. I sprinted ahead of Johnny to clear the way, then swung in a lazy circle around the volcano. The mountain, dormant until Howling Coyote conjured his Great Ghost Dance some forty-odd years ago, glowed burgundy red on the thermographic overlay; however, radar and low-light scanning indicated nothing else out of the ordinary.
I continued my lazy swing around Rainier as Johnny approached the waypoint. As I spread the arms of my virtual body slightly, the throttle of the t-bird eased, allowing me to complete the circle and fall back in position on Johnny's wing. Our t-birds banked in synchronicity around the same curve I had traced previously. As we passed the arc's southern crest, Johnny and I slingshot eastwards, flying headlong like a discus leaving its thrower's hands.
From the corner of my eye I thought I saw something moving behind us. As I turned my head to look back, the visual scanners panned accordingly, until I was watching Mt. Rainier fade into the night. My vision was awash in color, as the orange haze of my own jetwash mixed with the umber glow of the mountain, but I nevertheless spotted what my intuition had caught: a heat signature rising from the mountain's base and settling into the trail directly behind us.
"Hey, Phil, heads up," I warned on the intercom. "We got company. He's using background heat from the mountain to mask his presence from us."
"Yeah, I see it." Phil's disembodied voice fell momentarily silent. "It's not magical, whatever it is. I just did an astral scan."
"Gotcha." I mentally keyed the radio. "Speedy Delivery, this is Angelfire. I've got an unknown behind us, Johnny. Bearing two-six-four, on a direct intercept from behind. Over."
"Roger, Josie, I see him," replied Johnny. "Let's see if we can-"
"Break, break, break," interrupted Phil into our conversation. "Ghost Rider here. We got another two contacts, flying behind the first in V-formation. They're flanking by a couple hundred of meters, looks like. Over."
Two more contacts? I broke my attention and took another look back. I couldn't see anything at first, so I cranked up the Low-Light amplification on the video. As the night sky brightened into an artificial green, I saw three specks in the distance where there used to b
e one. White boxes began to form over them, as the sensor's target recognition software began processing the telemetry for tracking.
"This is Angelfire, that's an affirmative on the new contacts," I reported. "Signature analysis indicates the lead bogey to be an Aztechnology Liebre pursuit UAV. The other two look like Wandjina combat drones. Wait… " I zoomed the visual display, until I could get a good look at all three. "… Visual confirmation on a set of ATGMs on each Wandjina. My guess is Outlaw Block IIs. Looks like they're t-bird hunting, Johnny."
"Copy, Josie. Those drones don't have good range, so let's try to outrun-" A high-pitched whine interrupted Johnny's broadcast, as the SWR screamed bloody murder. "Drek! We got painted! Break off, Angelfire, and splash those three bandits."
"Wilco, Speedy Delivery, out." I closed the communications window and mentally rearranged the simsense display for combat configuration. "Hang tight, Phil, time to go to work."
Doing a backwards somersault with my virtual body, I commanded the t-bird's thrusters to kick into reverse. The aircraft jerked suddenly and momentarily lost altitude as the jets worked to halt the craft's forward motion. Within a few seconds, the t-bird was hurtling at full speed in reverse. Meanwhile the three drones, apparently intent on bagging Johnny's Banshee, continued flying forward and passed straight over me.
"Phil, you get the Liebre with the gun. It's probably a spotter for the two tank hunters," I instructed over the intercom. "I'll take care of the wing drones."
"Gotcha, Jo-Girl," replied Phil. A half second later, a loud noise exploded above my head, as tracer rounds buzzed like psychotic fireflies toward the lead drone.
At the same time, I balled both of my virtual hands into fists, activating the missile fire control system and arming two Vogeljager air-to-air missiles. Concentrating on the Wandjina to the right, a green diamond materialized into view and zigzagged around until it centered on the drone. When the diamond came to rest, a continuous tone squealed in my ear, indicating target lock. I swung one arm forward, my hand opening as it tossed an invisible softball. In the real world, one of the two AAMs launched from the internal missile tubes and hissed as it spiraled ahead.
Once the first missile was under way, I focused my concentration on the second drone, and the green diamond moved from right to left. When the lock tone sounded again, I swung forward the other arm, and a second Vogeljager launched and spiraled leftwards.
No sooner was the second missile under way when a fiery orange blossom erupted, as one of the tracer rounds from Phil's autocannon ripped through the Liebre's fuel tanks. A few seconds later, the first Vogeljager connected, as the missile spiraled below the underbelly of the right Wandjina. The missile exploded, sending hot shards through the unmanned craft's underbelly. Several shards penetrated the fuel tanks, causing the drone to vanish in a ball of fire.
But as I turned to watch the other missile take down the last drone, the SWR trilled, warning of radar lock. Without seeing who was painting us, I instinctively twisted into a swan dive.
"Hey!" shouted Phil with a curse. "Wadjatink yer doin', Jo-girl?"
"We got another bandit, Phil, just showed up outta nowhere and painted us with his sensor," I shouted back through the intercom. Looking around to see where the other guy was, I located him when the missile he launched showed up behind our tail.
"Phil! Seeker at six!" I shouted. Immediately the auto-defense systems ejected a chaff bundle of aluminum strips to confuse the missile's radar seeker, while Phil swung the turret around in an attempt to down it. As I mentally switched on the Electronic Countermeasure systems to jam the missile, I simultaneously cut engine power. I could almost feel my stomach jump into my throat, as the thunderbird plummeted several thousand meters, stabilizing only a hair's length above the ground.
Hugging close to the ground, I zigzagged around several hills. By doing this I momentarily broke sensor lock, indicative by the irregular stopping and starting of the alarm. Coupled with ECM, this confused the missile long enough to lose lock, and it wandered off into the night.
"Where is he?" asked Phil. "Didja see who it was?"
"It was another Banshee, Phil," I replied. "I managed to get a visual ID as he got that off."
"Drek!" cursed Phil. "Another Banshee? Our Vogeljagers ain't going to be effective against its armor."
"Yeah," I muttered. "And with his Outlaw antitank missiles, he can snipe at us all day while staying out of range of our autocannon. Hang on!"
I made a sudden dive, directing the t-bird into a valley. The low hills clustered in this area provided a lot of dead zones that would hide us from the other t-bird's sensors. This would force him to come in searching after us.
"Keep your eyes peeled for him, Phil," I warned. "It's going to take all of my concentration to keep us from flying into the hillside."
"Gotcha, Jo-girl," complied Phil. I maneuvered the t-bird over the center of the valley and followed the winding course of the river burbling through it, heading approximately east to northeast.
I switched off the ECM and switched on the electronic deception module. ECM is only an electronic smokescreen, and anyone can figure there's someone present, somewhere in the digital haze. Electronic deception, or ED, was more insidious, manipulating signals through waveform interference. It wouldn't make us invisible, but it could fool the other Banshee to thinking we were heading north instead of south, or flying fast instead of slow.
Turning to clear a hillside spur, I suddenly found myself facing the enemy Banshee. Apparently he was as surprised to see me as I was of him, because he veered left to avoid crashing into us. The alarm blared briefly as I reflexively swerved the other way, but the snap shot he got off was wildly inaccurate and veered off-target. I turned and climbed further to the right to leap over the crest of the ridge line.
As we passed over the top, I pulled back hard on the throttle, cutting power once again. The other side dropped off steeply, and so did the t-bird. I adjusted the jets down and forward, effectively halting forward motion. Only the ground effect from the turbine fans kept us from crashing to the ground so dangerously close underneath. I flipped on the intercom. "Okay, Phil, get ready. Swing the turret forward and angle up."
Just as I spoke the other t-bird passed overhead as it crested the ridge. But instead of dropping down and hugging the terrain like we did, the enemy Banshee maintained its altitude and stayed high, to get a better field of view.
"Bad move, chummer. Sic 'im, Phil!" Immediately Phil opened up with the autocannon, raking a full stream of cannon shells along the other t-bird's underbelly. A small explosion popped from one side as a shell hit a critical system. Shuddering out of control and belching black smoke, the enemy t-bird careened headlong into a small hill. A ball of orange flame lit up the night sky, which on the Low-Light vision made the valley brighter than the noonday sun.
Adjusting the jets back, I started our own Banshee moving forward again. Shades of red crept into my green-tinted Low-Light vision, as the burning wreckage started igniting the woods around. I turned to get back on course, flying low and slow to make sure no one else was trailing us. After a few minutes of seeing nobody, I loosened up on the throttle, allowing the t-bird to pick up speed and rise over the hills.
I flipped on the virtual intercom. "Think we're in the clear now, Phil."
"Whew. That's a relief," said Phil. "That other Banshee almost had our number good."
"Yeah," I nodded. "I think he may have been waiting for us."
"How do ya figure?"
"You know how he surprised us after we made the turn? I figure he must have been using Mt. Rainier as a cover." I reasoned. "As we were coming in from the northwest side, he was hiding on the southwest. As we turned, he turned to keep the mountain between us, until he was behind us when we straightened out. Clever bastard."
"Sneaky," admitted Phil. "Ya know, something's been bothering me about this trip."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Well, I dunno," Phil hesitated. "You
know that Gonzales, the guy you replaced, got waxed on our way to Seattle, right?"
"Yeah." I don't think I was going to like what he would say next.
"Well, we were just crossing through Tsimshian when Johnny got tagged before, almost the same as now," Phil said. "Gonzales and me dropped back to take care of the bandit, when we got bushwhacked by an anti-aircraft track. They hit us with a zapper missile, which fried Gonzales' brain. I've got backup controls up here, but they're manual, and the only reason I got away was dumb luck."
"You saying you were set up?" I asked suspiciously.
"I dunno. It seems weird this happening the same way twice." A long silence ensued before Phil changed the subject. "We better hurry up and catch up wit' Johnny. He must be a hundred or so kilos ahead of us."
"Roger that, Phil." I cut loose on the throttle, and the Banshee roared ahead into the early evening horizon.
* * *
I eased back on the throttle as the t-bird crested the last hill, the final obstacle between us and the rough banks of the Snake River. In the grainy green vision of the Banshee's night-vision sensors, however, it appeared like a wide black ribbon directly in front and below, an irregular liquid blacktop highway belonging to Mother Nature. The remote location of our rendezvous, sixty kilometers away from curious eyes of Richland in the Salish-Shidhe, was uneven and broken, so the only flat stretch available to land for several kilometers was the Snake River itself.
I brought my arms in and leaned slightly to the left in a gentle glide. In response to my virtual body movements, the t-bird's vehicle control rig eased back on the port jets and angled the starboard jets outward. This caused the t-bird to yaw leftwards, until our flight path angled about 20 to 30 degrees to the right of the river's course.
I spread the arms of my simsense body out and straightened my virtual legs below me. The t-bird responded by extending the rear canard flaps and lowering its landing gear. As the nose passed over the water, I cut all power to the maneuvering jets and redirected them into the vertical jets. A giant fan of steam and spray blossomed behind the t-bird like a peacock's plumage at the height of mating season. As speed drained from the bird, the wheels on the landing gear briefly caressed the water's surface, and the aircraft bounced upward, a 30-ton stone skipping across the river's surface.