by Dale Brown
“Rock Two, clear to engage,” answered the controller calmly, authorizing the pilot to shoot down the Megafortress.
“Rock Three to support,” said the wingman, following his commander.
Dog closed his eyes.
“Break right! Break right!” shouted Rock Three. “Band—flare! God, oh, God!”
There was static.
Dog guessed that the F-15’s had just been jumped by one or both of the Flighthawks. The AWACS vectored the Navy interceptors toward the Megafortress, then announced it had lost the locator beam.
“Plot an intercept for San Francisco,” Dog told McAden softly. “Make sure it’s good.”
“Colonel, no. Stay on this course,” said Jennifer. “I have the C3 signal. They’re eighty miles dead ahead. They’re not going to San Francisco.”
Aboard Gal
8 March, 0723
MADRONE HAD TO REFUEL THE FLIGHTHAWKS. WHILE the computer told him he could make it to Dreamland from here, another encounter would push the U/MFs into their reserves, depriving him of his margin of error.
Dreamland was barely two hundred miles from here. If he squinted just right, he’d probably see Las Vegas glowing at the edge of the desert.
He reduced throttle on the Megafortress, swinging Hawk Three up toward the tail even as the automated boomer lowered the straw.
It was sneaky of Breanna to turn the beacon on; he hadn’t understood what it was until the AWACS latched on. He couldn’t blame her, though. Under other circumstances, he might have done the same thing.
It didn’t matter now, not in the least. Dreamland’s point-defense MIM-23 I-Hawk SAMs wouldn’t pick up the stealthy Megafortress until it was approximately ten miles from the base. Even with the long missile beneath it, Hawk Three ought to be able to get to within five miles before the batteries detected it. By the time they locked and launched, he would already have pickled, ending ANTARES forever.
He nuzzled the U/MF into the boom and began working through the refuel.
Aboard M-6
8 March, 0740
“THEY’RE STILL COMING,” JENNIFER TOLD BASTIAN OVER the interphone. “Distance, approximately sixty miles.”
“You ready, Devin?” the colonel asked McAden.
“I’ll turn the radar on as soon as you give the signal,” answered the copilot. “Won’t take me ten seconds to target the Scorpion after that.”
The Scorpion AMRAAM-plus air-to-air missile had a one-hundred-pound warhead and a radar that could track multiple targets, rejecting all but the tastiest. Like the stock model that had been in use for roughly five years, Dreamland’s improved version moved at over four times the speed of sound and had a range of forty nautical miles—though in actual practice against a target as slippery as the Megafortress, the missile was best launched between ten and twenty miles away, or just beyond visual range. Assuming Gal stayed on course, and assuming McAden could get a lock, that would be three minutes from now.
Targeting the Flighthawks, which were considerably smaller than the Megafortress, was far more problematic. They’d be fairly close to M-6 by the time Gal was targeted. Jennifer would try to interfere with the C3 link to keep them at bay.
It was possible, though just barely, that she might be able to succeed and they wouldn’t have to splash Gal. Dog didn’t dare hope that was the way it would play.
Flying without radar and maintaining radio silence allowed Dog to sneak closer to Gal without being detected; it was, he figured, the only way he was going to get close enough to nail them. But it was a calculated risk—the main defenses were still to the west, concentrating on protecting San Francisco. If they missed, the sky was wide open.
“Still on course,” said Jennifer. “Two minutes.”
Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0753
JEFF FLOPPED HIS HEAD BACK AGAINST THE SEAT, exasperated. Any good fighter pilot keeps a checklist in his head to cover any contingency—engine out, do this, do that, do this. Gear jammed, do that, do this, do that.
For the first time in his life, he didn’t have a checklist.
No, it was the second time. The first time was after the accident that had left him paralyzed.
There had been a solution to that. Not exactly the solution he wanted, but a solution. He’d gotten out of the aircraft and lived.
And now?
If he’d had his legs, what would he do?
Leap out of the seat, throttle Madrone, disconnect ANTARES.
He turned his head toward Kevin. Madrone sat ramrod straight, his hands moving as he flew the planes. He was conducting an orchestra, not working controls.
The sitrep played on the main U/MF monitor, overlaid over a GPS map. They were about eleven minutes from Las Vegas, with Dreamland a breath beyond that.
If he had his feet, he’d undo the restraints, leap out of the seat. He’d grab Kevin with his hand and pull.
He did have his feet. ANTARES wasn’t lying. Yes, it screwed up his head—yes, it made him paranoid. But there had to be something there. There had to be. ANTARES was a computer—it didn’t invent things, it worked with what was there.
So he could use his legs. All he had to do was trust them—trust ANTARES this one last time.
Otherwise they were all dead.
Carefully, stealthily, Jeff undid his restraints.
Aboard M-6
8 March, 0758
“SIXTY SECONDS BY MY WATCH,” BASTIAN TOLD Jennifer and the others. McAden jerked in his seat, rubbing his hands together.
Bastian had just missed combat over Vietnam, but he had flown missions in the Gulf and Bosnia; he had two probable kills and had ducked three different enemy missiles, including an SA-2 “telephone pole” that came within a meter of taking off his tail. By all rights, he was a grizzled veteran, and shouldn’t feel nervous.
He didn’t. Which bothered the hell out him.
“They’re tracking us!” yelled McAden.
M-6’s RWR drowned out anything else he said.
“ECMs,” ordered Dog calmly. “Jenny, go for it. Can you get them?”
“Attempting.”
“Go to active radar. Target the Flighthawks too,” Dog said.
“Nothing. Nothing. Nothing,” said McAden, his voice getting progressively higher.
“Just get Galatica,” Bastian ordered. “Open bay door.”
“Opening! They have their ECMs. We’re still being tracked! 1 can’t lock them up. Attempting.”
“Flighthawk approaching,” said Jennifer. “Hold this course.”
“We’re spiked!” said McAden. One of the radars hunting for them had managed to slip around the electronic noise and locked onto them.
Ordinarily, Dog would goose some chaff and zig through the air, complicating the radar’s job before it fired. But that would complicate Gleason’s job.
So would getting shot down.
“Break it,” said Dog.
“Trying.”
“Frontal attack! It’s a U/MF!” shouted McAden, but Dog had already seen the Flighthawk on his HUD. It grew from nothing to the size of a baseball, then flashed red, firing its cannon. Dog could see the tracer arching in the air toward his windscreen as he plunged M-6 toward the earth.
“Tracking! I have him,” said McAden.
“No! No!” said Jennifer. “Feedback initiated.”
“Fire the missile,” said Bastian steadily.
The Scorpion dropped off the rotating launcher in the rear bay. Dog clicked into the command frequency, giving their position and the fact that they were engaging Galatica and had already launched a radar homer.
In the twenty or so seconds it took for him to do all that, the Flighthawk had flown over the Megafortress, curled back, and dived for their tail. The Scorpion’s rocket motor ignited; the missile zipped ahead, then flipped back. But it was no match for the agile little plane with its vectored thrust and finely tuned airfoil. The Flghthawk flicked right and closed on M-6 as the AMRAAM-plus passed by.
; “Air mines,” Bastian told McAden. The copilot was half a step ahead of him, and had the Stinger tail defenses already on his screen. The air mines were a twenty-first-century version of the tail gunners who had cleared the skies behind Flying Fortresses fifty years before—they literally peppered the air with exploding mines.
There was only one problem—their range was three miles, the same as the U/MF’s cannon.
“I have the Flighthawk circuit,” Jennifer said, her voice level. “I’m applying feedback. Leave it alone. Hold our course.”
“Acquiring target!” said the copilot.
“Fucking trust me on this, Dog. If I have one I can get the other. Fuck!”
Somehow, the word “Dog” didn’t sound right coming from her mouth.
As for “fuck”…
“Colonel?” asked McAden.
“Stand by. Have you found the other Flighthawk?” he asked him.
“Negative. Gal is now locked, but the ECMs may make the missile miss from this distance. We can close.”
Before Bastian said anything else, the U/MF behind them opened fire.
Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0809
SOMETHING FOUGHT HIM, SOMETHING HE’D NEVER FELT before. Images flashed before Kevin’s eyes, strange sensations—the tower, the jungle, the jaguar, the dark woman, all being strangled.
A snake wrapped itself around his neck, squeezing.
Madrone began to fall from Theta. He conjured his metaphor, then heard Geraldo call to him.
A woman in a flowing dress with long, strawberry hair stood before him.
Jennifer Gleason.
She morphed into a massive cobra, its large mouth looming.
Then her fangs grabbed him from the side.
* * *
JEFF LAUNCHED HIMSELF BY SLAMMING HIS ARMS against the rests, screaming as he flung his body sideways out of the seat.
His legs would work. They had to.
He hung suspended in the air, balanced perfectly between thought and action, between will and reality. He thought he could do it and he would; he willed his legs whole and they were.
But Zen’s legs were irretrievably paralyzed, and whatever he had felt while under ANTARES, whatever he wanted to feel now, he couldn’t make them cooperate. The distance between the two stations was too great to jump across, even for his well-developed arms and shoulders.
Jeff Stockard crumbled in the aisle, the long scream twisting into an agonized plea to his legs, to God, to any power that could make him whole. In that instant he would have made any bargain, paid any price, for the thinnest, poorest connection between his mind and his legs.
But no bargain could be made. He crashed down against the floor, his hands flailing until they hit one of the connecting cables to Kevin’s ANTARES gear.
He hadn’t the strength or momentum to break the cable, but as he fell his weight and agony yanked it backward, pulling the ANTARES feed from its socket.
Aboard M-6
8 March, 0811
“GOT IT! GOT IT! GOT IT! “ SCREAMED GLEASON. “NATIVE mode. Okay, okay, okay. Fuck, I have them. Fuck fuck fuck. Hawk One is in native mode. It’ll circle Dreamland. Locking in. My password. She’s secure. Shit! Shit! We got it!”
“Is it carrying a missile?” Dog asked quietly.
“Hold on. No. Shit, no. Fuck. Looking for the other. Damn—what do you mean, not on the circuit?”
“Jen?”
“The other Flighthawk! Where is it?”
“Something in Galatica’s shadow,” said McAden.
“It’s in preset,” said Gleason. “It’s native because the connection broke. I can’t get feedback until C3 is back on the line because of the codes. What the hell is he doing?”
“Colonel?”
Bastian glanced at McAden.
“Shoot her down,” said Bastian.
“Let me try contacting them!” said Geraldo.
“Shoot her down,” repeated Bastian.
Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0811
BREANNA FELT SOMETHING CLUNK AND PULL BEHIND her, as if the leading-edge flaps on the wings had suddenly extended.
They had.
She grabbed hold of the stick, barely managing to take control of the plane as it did what could only be called a belly flop in the sky. Two of the engines surged, the starboard flap deployed—Gal seemed to be having a nervous breakdown.
Breanna pulled back on the stick. The altimeter ladder shot up wildly. Minerva lost hold of her knife—it clattered to the deck, tossed there by the sudden rush of g forces.
She’d blow the plane. It was the only thing to do.
9,200—9,500—9,800—
They’d die in a second. But at least Dreamland would be safe.
“No!” screamed Lanzas, lurching toward her.
Breanna shrugged her off and closed her eyes as the altimeter nudged ten thousand feet.
Dreamland
8 March, 0811
FOR THE PAST HOUR, MACK HAD SAT IN THE MiG ON the runway, listening as the searchers continued to hunt for Galatica. He had cursed when the F-15’s closed in, realizing that he wanted to be the one who nailed the plane.
And then, miracle of miracles, it had escaped.
Only to be found by Bastian, who was targeting it.
Figured. Damn bastard hogged all the glory.
Still, from the position Dog gave, Gal seemed to be relatively close and headed this way. Resolved to get into the fight, he requested clearance from Dream Tower.
Without bothering to wait for an answer, he depressed the throttle button and moved the bar to idle. Using an old Russian Istrebeitelnyi Aviatsionnaya Polk rapid-takeoff trick, he selected just the right engine on the start panel. Knife kicked on the battery and hit the start switch, sending a whoosh of compressed air into the starboard engine. The MiG rumbled to life; he waited barely a second as it spooled up. In that second he pulled his canopy down; by the time it snugged he had started forward, rushing into the air on just one engine. Only after he had cleaned the gear did he bleed air into the left power plant, jump-starting it. The MiG shot upward.
“Alert the Nellis patrols,” he told Dream Tower. “I don’t want those cowboys taking potshots at me because I look like a bad guy.”
“Uh, Sharkishki, you’re clear to take off,” answered the tower belatedly.
Aboard Gal
8 March, 0811
THE STORM WAS SO THICK AND DEEP THAT IT TOOK Madrone forever to realize that the connection to the planes had been lost.
The ANTARES helmet had been pulled half off his head. He had become another person, his physical self another robot to be controlled.
The Megafortress lurched upward. Madrone shook his head clear and lifted the visor. Zen floundered on the deck beside him, the control lead snagged around his arm. He was trying to pull it with him as he elbowed backward from the control panels like a swimmer.
More like an upside-down turtle.
Madrone quickly undid his restraints and leaned down to punch Jeff flat in the face twice as the son of a bitch struggled to roll away. But Stockard didn’t give up, somehow continuing to push himself backward, dragging the cord with him. Anger propelled Madrone to his feet. He stopped Jeff with a sharp kick to his stomach, then stomped twice on his chest, slamming his heel into Jeff’s jaw before Stockard finally stopped, his eyes rolling back in his head as he momentarily lost consciousness. Kevin braced himself for a truly awful kick—he would beat the pulp from the bastard’s brain until the floor oozed with it. But as he started to swing forward, something held him back, a voice whispering to him from far away.
Jeffrey is your friend. He tried to warn you but you didn’t listen.
“Give me the cord, Jeff.”
Stockard, his head limp to the side, said nothing. Madrone reached down and put his fingers on Jeff’s arm almost gently as he pried the cord away.
“I’m sorry, Jeff. It has to be this way now.” He gathered the ANTARES wire into his hands,
restored the plug, and wound the wire around the panel so it couldn’t be easily removed again.
Aboard M-6
8 March, 0828
THE FIRST SCORPION MISSED, SAILING ABOUT A hundred yards wide of Galatica. For a second, though, it looked like the pilots had lost control of the EB-52, and Dog thought Gal would spin into the mountains.
Somehow, she didn’t. Somehow, she began climbing again, and shook off the second and third Scorpions they had launched.
The fourth Scorpion lost its track and self-destructed.
They had two more left. The closer they got, the better their odds of nailing the plane. But McAden couldn’t get a lock to fire.
“Hang in there,” said Dog. “Jennifer, how’s that second U/MF?”
“It’s still in native mode,” she said.
“They’re zigging. Tinsel. Damn, jamming our radar again,” said McAden. “Shit—we’re blind. I just lost them. I’m guessing they’ll dive down for the ground clutter, but I don’t have a heading. Jesus, I can’t find them. Scanning. Scanning.”
“Jennifer, can you find Galatica for us? They’ve jammed our radar.”
“ECMs are off,” reported McAden.
“Working on it,” said Jennifer.
“No contacts. Shit,” said McAden.
“I’m sorry, Colonel,” said Gleason from downstairs. “Without a transmission from them we have nothing to pick up.
“Be ready,” Dog said. “They’re here somewhere.”
Was Bree flying? She was this good certainly.
Bastian held his course for Gal’s last position. He pulled up the corn screen on his right MUD and hit the Dreamland reserve frequencies, punching in a combination to broadcast on all of the channels simultaneously.
“Rap, this is Colonel Bastian. You have to surrender, kid.”
“Daddy?”
