“We’ll glide for now. I want to touch down with as much in the tanks as possible.”
“Affirmative.”
“I mark external atmospheric pressure readings of ten psf,” Simon again, “four hundred eighty pascals; confirm automatic disengagement of reaction control system roll thrusters.”
“Confirmed. Primary responsibility shifting to aero-control surfaces.”
That didn’t mean terribly much at this point. The RCS—tiny rockets located at strategic points about the hull and wing structure of the plane—allowed her to maneuver in a vacuum. In atmosphere, those responsibilities reverted to the traditional, mechanical elements—in this specific case, the main wing elevons. Nicole swung her yoke, mounted on the left arm of her chair, fractionally from side to side. The display indicated movement in the control surfaces but there was no response from the vehicle itself. That would change in fairly short order.
There was a stir to her right and she saw Ch’ghan’s reflection turn slightly towards her. He had as little play as she, thanks to his own restraints, and the snug-fitting crash helmets only made matters worse.
“You anticipate a need for the additional propellant, Shea-Pilot?” he asked in his raspy voice; it had the timbre of an old back-lot pulp movie thug, slum sidekick to the likes of Humphrey Bogart or Jimmy Cagney. Raqella, by contrast, was more cultured and European. Her favorite Hal voice, however, belonged to her favorite Hal, Kymri, Sharvin’s second-in-command and her oldest friend among their delegation to Earth. His was an almost Highland burr, as raw and rich and resonant as a malt whiskey.
“We’ll know that when it happens,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I’d just rather not be caught short, is all.”
“Understood.”
“Maximum heating, Nicole.”
“So I see, Simon.” Through the canopy in fact, with narrowed eyes against the white-hot glow leaching around the sleek boundary curve of the Swiftstar’s nose.
“Within tolerance specs at fourteen hundred seventy-nine degrees Centigrade. Altitude a quarter mil, velocity fifteen thousand.”
“Eighteen minutes to landing.” That was from Ch’ghan.
“External pressure now at twenty psf,” Simon, calling out the pounds per square foot, “nine hundred fifty-eight pascals. RCS pitch thrusters deactivated.”
“Confirmed,” said Nicole.
They emerged from the Shadow at two hundred thousand feet, a little higher than normal, their speed cut in half to eight thousand miles per hour. They were five hundred miles west of the coast, with a dozen minutes left before landing.
The approach ended as it began, smooth as silk. Everyone did their job, just as they’d all rehearsed more times than any of them—save, of course, Hana, who was fitting in with an ease that didn’t surprise Nicole at all—cared to remember, and the Swiftstar responded like an old campaigner, as though she were a proven design, and this a run she made often.
The sun was well clear of the horizon as Nicole turned their back on it and lined up the Swift for an east-west approach to Rogers Dry Lake. Ahead stretched mile after mile of hardpan, as firm and dependable a surface—except on the rare occasions when it rained—as the concrete runway beyond. Hash-marks had been etched into the surface of the ancient lake bed, giving her the necessary reference points to properly line up her approach. They weren’t using the autoland system, that would violate the operational parameters of the test. The idea was to duplicate—as much as feasible—the conditions of an out-world descent, where none of the usual landing aids would be available. Which meant that Nicole was making the touchdown manually.
She flared at threshold, as the Swift flashed over the first set of marks, letting the plane settle naturally towards the ground, holding her steady through the ground effect created by the aircraft’s own bulk compressing the air beneath it, waiting for the bite of the main gear as rubber struck dirt. In quick succession, Ch’ghan deployed the speed brakes while Nicole did the same with the thrust reversers—the brakes themselves would be used only in the final stages—slowing the space-plane in a matter of heartbeats from better than two hundred miles per hour to a brisk walking pace.
“Edwards Tower,” she called, and then gave them her call sign, “Sundowner flight, down and dirty.”
“Looking good, Sundowner.” Nicole raised her eyebrows as she recognized the voice: Brigadier General Michael Sallinger, Commander of the flight test center. “Textbook approach.”
“Pity, sir, that’s only half the battle won.”
“Acknowledged. Switch over to Ground, Sundowner, they’ll direct you to the evaluations bay we’ve set up for you. Figure an hour there, two tops, to flush your telemetry, and you’ll be cleared for launch.”
Nicole was about to reply when she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Raqella, reaching forward from his seat, but as she caught his eye in the mirror he indicated that it was Hana who wanted her. Hana had her helmet off and motioned for Nicole to do the same.
“What’s up?” she asked when she’d done so, loosening her straps as well so she could turn in her seat.
“I’m monitoring a Guard transmission,” Hana said quietly, referring to the Air Defense Command alert frequency. “Lots of chatter, all of a sudden. Seems they’ve tagged a ghost in the high atmosphere.”
“Details?”
“Nobody’s sure, they can’t get an accurate skin trace on the bogie.”
“Stealth configuration?”
“Good bet. Or it could simply be a glitch in the system. Hardware error, software error, operator error.”
“Christ, why don’t they simply dump the esoteric hardware and open their damn eyes? From orbit, they’ve got height on the bastards, find them with enhanced optics.”
“The contact was so fleeting it almost went unnoticed, and in orbital opposition to Sutherland. Nobody’s placed properly for a visual search. I think that’s the reason they haven’t called us, nobody’s certain.”
“Sutherland’s overhead, yes?”
“Yes. Beyond the Edwards horizon in seven minutes.”
There was a tiny bump as Ch’ghan guided the spaceplane over the boundary between the dry lake bed and the concrete taxiways of the base proper. He turned the nose towards the hangar facility, a couple of miles distant at the South Field Complex, but Nicole laid her hand lightly on his arm, holding him back from the throttles, keeping the plane where it was.
“Main HUD, please, Hana,” she said, and the heads-up display burst to life across the canopy in front of her, far larger and more intrusively than it would be under normal circumstances. The image stretched across the width of the flight panel, a glittering, magical lattice of multicolored light.
“Orbital schematic, God’s-eye perspective,” was Nicole’s follow-up command, and an image appeared of a Mercator projection of the globe. Hana had anticipated Nicole’s next request. There was a flashing blip next to the dot that indicated Edwards, and two more better than halfway around the world behind them.
“Those aren’t hard contacts on the bogies,” Hana said, “simply my extrapolations from the initial tag.”
“You’re assuming a standard suborbital loop?”
“Only for the sake of argument. I’m tapped into the Guard network; they get any data updates, I’ll hear, and believe me they’re trying. There’s a consensus growing that this ghost is nothing more than it appears.”
“You buy that?”
“Can’t say, I didn’t catch the initial contact. But even our best stealth fighters aren’t invisible, not to the level of scans they’re flashing upstairs.”
“If they are hostile and we go park ourselves, we’ll be an awfully big target.”
“You think they’d try to take us out on the ground.”
“Lot easier than an airborne intercept. It’s what I’d try in their shoes. Don’t even need to come in close, just lob some over the horizon smart munitions in our general direction and let the targeting computers do the rest.”
“Sundowner, Edwards Ground,” interrupted the Tower, “we have you at Alpha Intersection. Make a left turn, please, and proceed to docking facilities via taxiway Golf. Do you copy?”
Ch’ghan acknowledged the transmission, but when he looked to Nicole for clearance, she shook her head, fingers steepled before her face, as she absently chewed on the tips of her thumbs and wondered if the prickling she felt had the same meaning for her as for Macbeth’s witches.
“Shea-Pilot?”
It was Raqella, who’d slipped loose of his restraints and stepped into the space between Nicole’s and Ch’ghan’s seats, for a better view of the display. He’d removed his own helmet as well.
“Would it be possible to see any recording of the initial contact?” he asked with a deference that surprised all three who heard.
Hana opened a secondary window in the display and gave them what she’d secured from the Guard net.
Raqella snagged his lower lip between his fangs, a disconcertingly human gesture, and asked to see it again.
“I am not totally familiar with your scanning systems, Shea-Pilot,” he said, “would they be effective at detecting Hal configurations?”
“Ch’ghan?”
The burly Hal shrugged, a learned human response adopted by many of the Hal during their duty tours on Earth, and shook his head.
“In deep space, certainly; as you and Hana did when you first detected our StarShip Range Guide... ”
He broke off because Nicole was shaking her head.
“What about purely combat vehicles, designed for close atmosphere work?”
“Possibilities, perhaps... ”
“You have another opinion?” she demanded of Raqella.
“Only possibilities, like Ch’ghan. Similarities to some Hal equipment I have flown.”
“Not even close, youngblood,” growled Ch’ghan. “I know what you’re saying, but it is almost totally unsupported by the data.”
“With respect,” and Nicole looked at him sharply to hear the determination in his voice. The boy was on a steep and slippery slope and knew it but was committed to standing his ground regardless. “This vehicle is a hybrid of Hal and human technology. Could not someone else do much the same?”
“Sundowner, Edwards Ground, is there a reason for your hold? Do you require assistance, over?”
“You,” Nicole snapped, pivoting the spaceplane towards the main runway and pushing the throttles forward to move the Swiftstar into place on the end stripes, “take Ch’ghan’s place. Ch’ghan, you’re my RIO”—Radar Intercept Officer—“Hana, light up his board and tie it into the gunpod.”
She reached out to the main console and tapped a sequence of numbers into the command keypad. Off to the side was a row of newly installed candy-striped guarded switches; one after the other, she flipped up the covers and threw the toggles.
“Combat security systems on-line,” Hana acknowledged. “Weapons systems on-line.”
“Edwards Tower, Sundowner” Nicole called, but didn’t give them time to answer. She was already cycling the engines to full power, holding the huge aircraft in place with both feet pressing hard on the brake pedals. It was no easy effort and she indicated to Raqella to do the same as he hurriedly fastened his restraints and reconnected his pressure suit’s umbilicals.
“I am declaring a pilot’s emergency and going for an immediate turnaround.”
“Negative, Sundowner, that decision is not authorized. You are to power down and taxi to the test facility. Over.”
“My authority as Vehicle Commander, Tower. My responsibility.”
“Nicole,” a different voice, General Sallinger, replacing the controller. “Explanation.”
“Call it a hunch, General. I don’t think those ‘ghost’ contacts are phantoms. And I don’t intend sticking around to find out the hard way.”
“Cleared to launch, Sundowner.” And she thought, Bless you, boss! “I hope you’re wrong.”
When they’d left Sutherland, and begun their descent into the atmosphere, all had been supernally, unnervingly silent. Just the whine and hiss and beep of on-board servos and monitor cues to herald the occasion; not the slightest hint, save for a shudder in the airframe and some lively action on the appropriate displays, of the awesome power being unleashed behind them.
This was different.
A terrible roar echoed across the desert hardpan, filling the sky like a palpable, physical force, so raw and powerful that it wasn’t so much heard as felt. The air hammered against the skin of those who watched, leaving them a little at a loss for breath as the engines spat speed cones of blue flame out their exhausts.
Nicole pushed the throttles to their stops and that little space beyond that marked the—crucial—difference between full power and full military power. A hundred percent of rated thrust and more. Only then did she and Raqella release the brakes.
There was no gradual acceleration, as there’d been during their initial takeoff a couple of days earlier for the ferry flight up to Sutherland. This had more in common with a catapult launch off a carrier’s flight deck. Their speed seemed to increase at an exponential rate, the force of the acceleration pressing them deep into their chairs, prompting the G-bladders of their pressure suits to fill in response so they wouldn’t black out from the strain.
In a matter of seconds they reached and passed their commit speeds. The plane wanted to fly but Nicole held her on the ground a little longer, letting more and more velocity build up until, when she finally pulled back on the yoke and cried “Rotate,” they literally shot into the sky.
As soon as they were off the ground, Raqella—without being told—raised the landing gear, and then he held on to the arms of his chair as Nicole set a climb angle more reminiscent of a vertical gantry launch.
“Talk to me, Ch’ghan,” Nicole grunted, the G-forces she was subjecting them all to making it an effort to speak.
“Nothing to report, Shea-Pilot. My screens are lit and scanning, and empty to the horizon.”
Shit, she thought, but it was really no more than she’d expected. “Can you search on Hal bandwidths?”
“Your equipment lacks the necessary refinements.”
“Well that’s of precious little use. Make a note, patch it into the Mission Control telemetry stream.”
“Easier said than done, Nicole,” Hana reported. “Someone’s walking all over my signal paths in seven-league boots. We have no external contact, voice or data.”
“Naturally occurring phenomenon?” Nicole asked rhetorically, trying to make a joke of it and getting the response she deserved.
“If anyone wants my opinion,” Hana said, “not that there’s any point since nobody ever listens to me anyway, I say bingo back to the deck. Whatever’s out there may be cloaked but we sure as Hell aren’t. We drop back into the five-figure regime”—that is, flight levels below one hundred thousand feet, within the operational parameters of frontline Air Force interceptors—“at least we can count on some backup.”
“A logical suggestion, Shea-Pilot,” Ch’ghan echoed formally, “I concur.”
“Shea-Pilot,” this from Raqella, a thread of concern in his voice, “we are well beyond the point for turnaround. If we continue along this trajectory, we will achieve orbit in total opposition to Sutherland’s track and at too great a velocity to achieve rendezvous.”
“Same rules of physics apply to whoever’s coming for us, is that it?” Hana asked. “Create so extreme a rate of closure that he won’t have a decent shot.”
“In part,” Nicole agreed, eyes scanning from panel to canopy to her infuriatingly clean HUD. “If they’re playing this smart, I’d say we’re facing a minimum of three bogies, descending in a long echelon. When the first emerges from Shadow, his partner’ll still be inside, with the third waiting up-top as high cover. We’ll have a decent chance of dodging the first pair. Number three’s the trick, and the problem.”
Dan Fahey came on-line. “We’re nearing the upper limit of
the Scrams’ effectiveness, boss,” he told her. “We’ll need to light off the mains, especially if you want to maintain this rate of climb.”
“What’s the worry, Dan?”
“You’re pushing awful hard, Nicole. It won’t take much to drain us dry.”
“They must be having fits on Sutherland,” Hana noted idly.
Suddenly a shrill warbling filled Nicole’s headphones, followed by a frantic cry from Ch’ghan.
“Tone! I have a tone!” They’d been acquired by the interceptor’s targeting radar.
“Screw that,” Nicole bellowed, “tell me what’s coming and from where!”
“Missiles,” was the quick reply. “Three. Twelve o’clock high”—straight ahead that meant, and above them—“range twenty kilometers.”
“Burn ’em, Hana. Full Spectrum ECM!”
“Electronic CounterMeasures systems active,” Hana acknowledged. “Little buggers seem to be well and truly hardened. No change in their approach; no joy, Ace.”
“Hang on then, everybody.”
There were cries of alarm and protest from everyone save Hana, who merely smiled grimly and locked her gloved hands around the ends of her armrests, as Nicole slammed her yoke to the side, the Swiftstar responding as violently as any classic hardwired airframe. By rights, the maneuver should have been impossible; inhibitors built into the flight dynamics software were designed to prevent the pilot from engaging in any maneuvers that took the vehicle beyond its established operational characteristics. Which was why Hana had spent—at Nicole’s request and with Sallinger’s grudging approval—the better part of six months crafting a subroutine to disengage it. Nicole could do anything she wanted with the plane, including fly it into the ground.
They rolled left, to right angles of their original heading, the cabin bucking and shaking from the tremendous stresses. For a few seconds, the G-forces went to the top of the scale, and Nicole heard a basso grunt erupt from deep within her, of real pain, as her suit bladders swelled so tight she thought they’d crush her bones. Her lips peeled back from her teeth, to such an extent she thought they’d tear free, and her vision turned into fog, shot through with splotches of red and purple. Even in a centrifuge, she’d never felt anything so awful; it was beyond endurance. But the moment that despairing thought surfaced in her head, her last she assumed, her gamble gone for naught, the pressure eased.
Sundowner Page 7
