by Dale Brown
Hey, babe, he thought. Sorry. I am so sorry.
“Captain Stockard. Stand down,” he said flatly.
“Shoot us down! There’s a nuke on the Flighthawk! Shoot us down!” said Breanna. She started to say something else, but the transmission was abruptly killed.
“Yes! I have them!” said Jennifer. She fed the coordinates up to the bridge.
“I have a lock! Five miles!” announced McAden. “Colonel?”
Shoot us down.
“Colonel?”
“Fire missiles,” said Dog. For maybe the first time in his life, for certainly the first time since joining the Air Force, a tear slid down his cheek.
Aboard Gal
8 March, 0832
As MADRONE REENTERED THETA, HE SAW THE LAUNCH warning. He felt the computer tracking the missiles as they approached, winced as one slipped out of the noise and headed clean for their hull.
Another ducked downward, confused, not a threat.
Tinsel, jammers, cut left, cut right, you’re too high, easy pickings.
Accelerate, accelerate. Left, right, left, left again, fool the sticky bastard.
Dreamland lay just ahead. No one ever will go through this again. Never.
The Scorpion stuttered in the air, a half mile from the fuselage. It had him nailed, but staying on its target had exhausted its fuel. Kevin lurched to the right as it tried one last burst of speed and then exploded.
The shock wave nearly threw Hawk Three into a spin.
It was then that the other missile picked itself off the deck and nailed Gal’s extreme starboard engine.
MINERVA FELT THE SHOCK AS THE AMERICAN MISSILE tore into the power plant on the right side of the wing. She spun around, nearly pirouetting out of the seat even though her restraints were snugged.
The plane stuttered in the air, but kept climbing. They passed through ten thousand feet, the Megafortress fighting off a yaw.
Gravity punched against her chest as the plane finally lurched into an invert and then began to fall from the sky. They would die now. She’d had the seats sabotaged and there was no escape.
She hadn’t wanted to escape, not really. There had been hours to persuade Madrone, or even betray him, to simply call the Americans and surrender. But she hadn’t.
Minerva felt a twinge of regret, a small wish that her fate had followed a different path. Then her body slammed back against the seat so abruptly that she nearly lost consciousness.
This is what death feels like, she thought to herself.
Then the Megafortress rolled level, and blood began returning to her brain.
Aboard M-6
8 March, 0838
“THEY’RE BEYOND US!” YELLED MCADEN. “EAST, AT two, no, call it one o’clock. Three miles.”
“Radio the position to Nellis air defense and the rest of the net,” said Dog, calmly throwing the Megafortress into the tightest bank he could manage to pursue Galatica. “Sidewinders up. Dr. Geraldo, if you want to take your shot, do it now.”
Aboard Gal
8 March, 0840
MADRONE SAW THE MEGAFORTRESS’S EMERGENCY panel in part of his brain. The Scorpion had taken the power plant completely off, but had done only light damage to the wing itself. One of the fuel tanks had been hit by shrapnel, but the bladder material had quickly self-sealed. As potent as the Scorpion was, the EB-52’s venerable airframe had survived considerably worse.
Madrone didn’t care much for history. He dropped into Hawk Three and plunged out of Galatica’s shadow. Dreamland lay thirty miles away.
Two F-15’s approached on a direct intercept, along with four F-5’s.
The Eagles were merely a nuisance. The F-5’s weren’t even that.
He accelerated toward his target.
“Kevin,” said a familiar voice in his earphones. “You have to give up. You’re sick. It’s ANTARES.”
Geraldo.
He killed the radio.
Aboard Sharkishki
8 March, 0848
MACK TRIED TO TELL THE NELLIS COWBOYS IN THEIR F-15’s that they were getting the sucker play, but the idiots wouldn’t listen. They charged at the Megafortress and the Flighthawk that suddenly leaped from its shadow like they were running down a piece-of-shit Chinese F-7/MiG-21 impostor.
A piece-of-shit F-7 wouldn’t have jumped from 250 knots to Mach 1.2 in less time than it took for the lead Eagle pilot to curse.
Stinking Madrone. He flew straight out of Zen’s book, no damn creativity at all. Though burdened by something that was increasing its radar signal for the F-15’s, the U/MF blew past the Eagles, made a feint for the F-5’s, which threw them in a tizzy, then ducked into the ground fuzz where no one could see him.
Mack waited for the U/MF to rise up behind the F-15’s. When it didn’t, he took a guess why—the larger return was being generated by a missile or bomb.
He had his passive sensors goosed to the max, but couldn’t find the little bastard. He tucked Sharkishki lower, nudging back in the direction of Dreamland.
Guy comes this far, in this direction, has to be thinking of nailing Dreamland.
That or Vegas. Maybe they’d cleaned Monkey Boy out at the blackjack tables and he wanted revenge.
Mack might take a piece of that himself. He zipped over Interstate 15 at five hundred miles an hour. Trucks and cars veered every which way, the drivers obviously freaking.
Wimps. He had plenty of clearance, at least a good eighteen inches. Maybe even twenty.
Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0853
BREANNA PUSHED AT THE STICK, THE PLANE SWIMMING sideways in the air.
Why weren’t they dead? Had Minerva been bluffing? What could be so magical about ten thousand feet if there wasn’t a bomb in the plane.
Maybe hitting that altitude simply armed it.
Shit.
There was no time to curse herself. She’d lost an engine, maybe part of a control surface. She didn’t trust the flight computer and had no copilot. Breanna would have to do everything herself.
Assuming she didn’t blow up. And assuming Minerva didn’t take out her knife and slit her throat.
Aboard Gal
8 March, 0855
JEFF LAY ON HIS BACK, HIS HEAD FLOATING SOMEWHERE in a black ball of fur that filled the Megafortress’s lower deck. He heard Madrone grunting above him, working the Flight-hawk toward its target. He tried to push up, but pain shot through him. His chest and upper spine felt as if they had caught fire. He flopped back, overcome by the fear that not just his legs but every inch of him was paralyzed.
No, he told himself, I’m not giving up. Fight! Fight!
But no part of him moved.
THE TARGETING SCREEN TOOK OVER MADRONE’S MIND. Numbers drained off the right side, slipping into the hole where the rest of his life had already washed away.
He had to hit the second air shaft on the target, and he had to hit it just right. But that was the beauty of the Brazilian missile. It could be steered very precisely.
The bomb would only destroy the top portion of the lab. A second reinforced layer protected the computer itself. But they’d never get around the radiation. They’d wait a hundred years, maybe more.
The numbers drained away. The Flighthawk’s pipper began to pulse, and the targeting bar went to yellow, ready.
He was now thirty seconds from his target. Time to unsafe the bomb, allowing the trigger to be activated as soon as the missile’s engine ignited.
As he started to give the command, something told him to watch his back.
ZEN’S RIGHT BOOT LAY AGAINST THE CORD THAT connected to the helmet. If he could kick it, he could knock it loose, knock if off Kevin’s head.
His leg stayed motionless.
Of course. Useless damn legs. Useless damn body. He’d taken his best shot and now he was truly impotent.
“No!” he screamed, smashing his arm against the base of the control seat so violently his whole body jerked away.
The cord caught on the tip of the lower fl
ap hook on his pants. But it had been tied to the panel—putting pressure on it had no effect on the plug. Jeff cursed and tried to sit up, pushing away the pain, telling his body he’d ignored much worse. He had gotten his elbow below him and begun to lever around when Gal lurched hard to the right and downward. Jeff’s efforts were vastly multiplied by the plane’s sudden momentum; his body flew backward, tugging the wire and sending the ANTARES helmet flying across the cabin.
Aboard Sharkishki
8 March, 0855
MACK PUNCHED HIS THROTTLE AND JERKED THE STICK back, riding the massive thrust of the MiG’s tweaked turbofans upward as he saw the Flighthawk cross above him.
Little bastard was fast and still off his screen. Mack had the Scorpion thumbed up, locked.
Go, baby, go.
The missile clunked off its rail. He lost a second in locking and firing the other missile.
They were going to miss.
Son of a bitch. Chaff. Zigging and breaking down.
That damn Madrone. Zen had taught him well.
Sidewinders up.
Too far.
Mack jammed the throttles all the way to max afterburner. As the MiG shot ahead on its fiery ride, the Sidewinder growled. He launched right away.
Aboard Gal
8 March, 0658
MADRONE’S MIND FLEW INTO A THOUSAND PIECES.
He tried to give the command anyway, tell the Flighthawk to launch.
Minerva. The dark woman of death.
Kevin opened his mouth, but the only word that came to his lips was “Christina.”
As he said it a second time, he realized the connection with ANTARES had been lost.
Aboard M-6
8 March, 0900
“FLIGHTHAWK IS DOWN! FLIGHTHAWK IS DOWN!” SAID McAden. “Who got him? Shit! MiG bearing—it’s got to be Smith!”
“The bomb,” said Dog. “Was it on the U/MF or not?”
His eyes were pasted on the windscreen. Las Vegas sat peacefully in the distance.
“I’m tracking fragments,” said the copilot. “Big hunk of something.”
Dog waited. If the Flighthawk had had the weapon aboard, it might still detonate when it hit the ground.
If it didn’t have it aboard, he had to take out Galatica.
He might still have to.
The city’s neons seemed to flicker.
Crazy imagination.
No, a reflection from Galatica, passing ahead.
“Lost it. Bomb would have gone off by now,” said McAden. “Galatica, two miles dead ahead. Low, erratic.”
“See if they’ll answer a hail.”
Aboard Gal
8 March, 0906
LANZAS SEEMED DAZED NEXT TO HER. BREANNA decided it was time to get her weapon. She slipped the restraints, then jerked the stick forward, sending the plane nose down.
Pushing away her com headset, Rap dove for Minerva, wrestling for the big knife Minerva had tucked in the other side of her belt. But the Brazilian she-wolf didn’t try to fight her off. Breanna pulled the blade free, then pointed it at Lanzas.
“It’s no use,” said the Brazilian. “You can kill me if you want. The bomb will get us when we land.”
“Kevin’s bomb?”
“That’s on the Flighthawk.”
“We’re booby-trapped,” said Breanna. “Where is it? Where’s the bomb. Is it on a timer? Or an altimeter? When does it go off?”
Lanzas said nothing more.
“Jeff, are you down there? Jeff, are you all right?”
He didn’t answer. She tried the interphone circuit again, but got nothing.
“Kevin?” she said tentatively.
Madrone didn’t answer.
The Megafortress accepted her commands without interference. Something had happened below—it might well be that both Jeff and Kevin were dead.
Breanna reauthorized the computer pilot, reasoning that Madrone had been able to take over the plane even when the computer pilot was off. The computer snapped in, almost eager; it blew through its self-diagnostics, reporting itself fit and trim. Rap glanced at Lanzas as she told the computer to hold the present course, then locked the controls with her voice command.
The Brazilian made no effort to stop her. She seemed to be in a trance.
Breanna stood, twisting her headphones off. But as she started to get up to go below, she heard a voice over the headset.
Still staring at Lanzas, Bree put the headset on.
“Bree.”
“Jeff? Are you okay?”
“We landing?”
“I think we’re rigged to explode. I’m not sure how, though—whether it’s a timer or some sort of altimeter bomb.”
“You sure?”
“I don’t know if Lanzas is lying or not. But she was awfully worried about going over ten thousand feet.”
“We did that already.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“I want you to eject.”
“What about you?”
“Just do it.”
“Don’t be stupid, Jeff. Besides, she probably sabotaged the seats. The ones below were monkeyed with.”
He didn’t answer. She could hear him groaning and shoving his body around; he sounded like he did in the morning when he pulled himself from bed and went to the bathroom by crawling across the floor.
“How much fuel do we have?” he said finally.
“About twenty minutes worth. Maybe a little less. We’re on three engines,” she added. “A Scorpion took one off.”
“That ought to stretch things a bit, no?” he asked.
His voice was so deadpan, she wasn’t entirely sure he was trying to make a joke.
Aboard M-68 March, 0915
“GALATICA, THIS IS DREAMLAND M-6. Do YOU READ ME? Galatica, can you hear me? Please acknowledge.”
Dog listened as both McAden and Geraldo took turns trying to hail the plane. They were about ten minutes out of Dreamland.
His fatigue was starting to set in. Fatigue and worry, mostly about his daughter.
“Dreamland M-6, this is Galatica,” said Breanna. “I’m in control here. Repeat, I am in control.”
“Bree,” said Dog.
“Hey, Daddy. What the hell are you doing in a Megafortress?”
“I’m flying it,” he said. “Bree—the nuke.”
“On the Flighthawk.”
“Mack Smith splashed it,” said Bastian.
“Mack?”
“Insubordinate snot disobeyed orders, thank God,” said Dog. “Now listen, little girl, you stayed out past your bedtime and I’ve come to bring you home. Set up for Runway One.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that. We have a bit of a situation here.”
Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0925
IN JEFF’S OPINION, MINERVA WAS BLUFFING.
On the other hand, nothing she’d done until now had been a bluff.
“Altimeter or timer?” Bree asked.
“Timer,” said Jeff.
“Then we should land right now.”
“Unless it’s an altimeter. What’s the lowest we’ve been?”
“Hold.”
Jeff listened as Rap paged back through the logs.
“Three hundred feet. But if it wasn’t armed until ten thousand, it could be anywhere below 4,500, I think. Minerva’s still catatonic. What about Kevin?”
“I knocked him out. He wouldn’t know anyway. She used him.”
“So what’s your call?” Bree asked, her voice as breezy as if she were asking about a basketball bet. “Altimeter or timer?”
“Have to be a radar altimeter.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise you could defeat it by landing someplace high. Lanzas would have thought about that, and suggested it as a way out. Do you know where it is?”
“If I knew where it was, don’t you think I’d run back and find it?”
“I didn’t realize you had a blowtorch handy,” said Zen sarcastically. “Must
be in the tail, where they repaired the plane. Maybe we can spoof the beacon.”
“Jeff, even if you were right and you could find a way to do that, it wouldn’t eliminate a timer.”
“Well, let’s take a shot at finding it. Check the course that Kevin programmed in. See how low he was going to go before making the attack.”
“That was the three hundred feet.”
“Probably below that triggers it.”
“Well, great, that’s an easy jump.”
If it did have a radar altimeter, there probably would be a way to spoof it, Jeff decided. He could use a Flighthawk to detect it, or maybe examine the hull for a hot spot.
Except that he didn’t have a Flighthawk. But Jennifer Gleason did.
“It’s in native mode, orbiting above Dreamland,” Jennifer told him. “I can unlock it. Can you fly it?”
“Not a problem.”
As he waited, Jeff glanced over at Kevin, slumped in his seat. Zen had grabbed and punched him hard as he leaned over him; blood curled from his nose and ear. But for some reason Jeff thought it was more than the blow that had knocked his friend senseless. The fatigue of these past days, the drugs, fear, and maybe the realization of what he’d done—they must be at least as responsible for knocking him out as Jeff’s fist.
Zen’s wrist had swollen, either from the punch or the fall. He winced, but still managed a smooth handoff of the Flight-hawk. He took the U/MF from its orbit and swung up toward the EB-52.
Odd to fly the plane from the panels without his flight helmet, almost as if he were working by remote control. Which, of course, he was. All the time.
“Blew that engine clean off,” said Zen.
“B-52’s don’t go down,” said Bree. “I can tell you stories. Major Cheshire has a whole gallery of damaged BUFFs that landed in Vietnam with half the plane shot away.”
Jeff tried infrared as he closed in, focusing on the tail section. Maybe there was a little part of the right stabilizer that wasn’t as hot as the rest, maybe not. The repair threw everything off anyway.
