Wraith

by James R. Hannibal

  “Then who is?”

  Eddie finally looked up from his work. He grinned. “Can’t tell ya. But hang out for a while, kid. I ’spect he’ll show himself ’fore this mission’s done.”

  Chapter 31

  “Mother Ship, Talon One is in position,” Nick reported over the secure radio.

  “Mother copies. Break, break . . . all players check in,” said Drake, transmitting from the cockpit of the stealth bomber.

  “Talon’s up.”

  “Hazard’s up,” said Danny, seated at the monitoring station behind Drake.

  “Lighthouse is up.” Colonel Walker finished the check-in from the ground station. “Make me proud, gentlemen.”

  Nick had settled into a chase position just behind the B-2. He didn’t want to move too far away from it; even with night-vision goggles, the black jet was difficult to see.

  “Okay, Talon,” said Drake, “let’s get started. Go to observation one. Hazard, you’re cleared to begin the deployment sequence.”

  “Roger,” Danny replied mechanically. Nick could hear the extreme nervous tension in his voice. He wasn’t sure about the wisdom of putting ground personnel in flight positions. He hoped the intelligence officer would make it through the test without passing out.

  “Talon is moving to observation one.” Nick fell back to a position aft of the B-2 at its high center and then dropped below, staying well clear of the wingtip vortices on either side that could easily send his T-38 out of control. He flipped on his HUD camera and pushed Millie in close, finding the sweet spot just behind and below the bomber’s tail. “Talon is ready. Camera’s rolling.”

  Danny began the sequence. “Release in ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

  Nick steeled himself for the turbulence that the opening bomb bay doors would cause. He tensed his arms and prepared to fight the controls, but when the doors swung open, Millie handled the rough air admirably. Nick soon became used to the control adjustments and shifted his focus to observing the test.

  An infrared spotlight attached to one of the B-2’s doors illuminated the bomb bay for Nick’s NVGs. Compared to all the other structures in the bay, Dream Catcher was an apparition. Where the rest of the compartment reflected the infrared light brilliantly, Dream Catcher’s high-tech surface hardly reflected it at all.

  “. . . three . . . two . . . one . . . release,” Danny finished.

  Dream Catcher dropped quickly past Nick and he nosed the T-38 down to keep pace. He never saw the heat signature from the drone’s low-emission engine, but he knew it must have started because the craft soon leveled out of its descent. “Baby is away clean,” he reported.

  “Roger, systems communication is ninety-five percent,” replied Danny, noting that the direct data link between the B-2 and Dream Catcher was functioning.

  Walker pushed the test along. “All right, people, it’s time to get down to business. Talon, get in tight and monitor Baby’s performance while Hazard calls out the maneuvers.”

  “Copy that, Lighthouse.” Nick brought the T-38 into close formation, settling in with less than three feet separating his wingtip from the drone. “Talon’s in position and ready.”

  “The first test will be altitude changes and maintenance,” said Danny. “Talon, check your altitude at one seven thousand even.”

  The nerves had settled out of the intelligence officer’s voice. Maybe he would survive as aircrew after all. “Affirmative, Hazard, seventeen on the nose,” Nick replied.

  “Roger. I’m sending Baby up to two zero thousand; check the climb rate.”

  Nick glanced at his vertical speed indicator. “We’re climbing at one thousand feet per minute.”

  Dream Catcher performed flawlessly through several flight control tests, and soon the team moved on to testing the drone’s sensor suite, monitoring cell phone transmissions and radio communications from Romeo Seven. When they came to the infrared test, Walker had a special task for Nick. “Talon, this is Lighthouse. We need to test Baby’s forward sensors. I want you to fly a vertical box pattern . . . Let’s make it fifty feet in front of her, with fifty-foot sides.”

  “I’m sorry, Lighthouse, could you repeat your last?” Nick understood the command, but he didn’t like it. Walker wanted him to descend below the drone’s flight path, cross underneath, climb, and then cross over the top again. As a fighter pilot he did this all the time with his wingmen, checking for damage after bomb runs, but always behind the other jet. No one ever flew this maneuver in front of another aircraft, even in broad daylight. It was considered far too dangerous. And now Walker wanted him to do it using night vision goggles that restricted his field of vision, in front of an untested drone.

  “You heard me. Make a box fifty feet in front of Baby. What’s wrong, Talon, can’t handle the job?”

  “Uh . . . negative, Lighthouse, no problem. I just wanted to make sure I heard you right.” Nick sighed and pushed his throttles up, driving ahead of Dream Catcher and giving the little craft a wide berth. “Well, this should be interesting,” he muttered.

  He would have to fly the entire maneuver looking over his shoulder, which was even more uncomfortable when wearing NVGs. To make matters worse, he would lose sight of the drone when he crossed above it, because his own wings and fuselage would block his view. He could only pray that Dream Catcher wouldn’t pick that moment to go haywire and run into him. Then another solution dawned on him.

  “This is Hazard,” said Danny. “I have Talon with Baby’s forward eyes. He’s below her flight path. I’m getting heat signatures off his wings and cockpit. The detail is incredible. I can see every button and switch on his instrument panel. The picture looks good.” Danny’s voice was smooth and calm, but an instant later, the anxiety he had shown at the beginning of the evening returned in force. “Wait . . . wait a second. Something’s wrong with the display processors. Talon is crossing over the top now, but I’m still getting cockpit returns; I shouldn’t be seeing this stuff. I should be seeing the bottom of his jet.”

  Nick strained as he looked down through the top of his canopy at the drone. He felt the blood rushing to his head and knew that he couldn’t continue to fly upside down much longer.

  “I can’t tell what’s happening,” said Danny. “We need to abort.”

  “Easy, Hazard,” said Nick, righting his aircraft and taking up a position behind Dream Catcher again. “Baby’s eyes are just fine and her flight path is stable. I had to fly the top portion of that pattern inverted so that I could keep her in sight throughout the maneuver.”

  “Show-off,” Drake transmitted.

  Walker broke in. “Okay, gentlemen. That’s enough fun for today. Let’s call it a night before Talon runs out of gas.”

  “Copy, Lighthouse,” said Drake. “All players, listen up. The recovery belongs to Mother. We are stable at two two zero. Talon, set up back at observation one. Hazard, prepare to bring Baby in. Report when ready.”

  “Talon’s ready.”

  “Hazard’s ready.”

  “Mother copies. Begin sequence.”

  Nick focused on Dream Catcher, a few thousand feet below him and a few hundred feet in front of the bomber. Suddenly she accelerated and climbed until she was almost level with him, and then she slowly eased backward.

  “Standby doors,” Danny warned. “Doors opening in three . . . two . . . one . . . now.”

  The doors cracked open just as Dream Catcher passed beneath the stealth bomber’s nose. Nick adjusted for the turbulence and watched as the little craft steadied itself just below the bay. On the rack above, the catches snapped open, preparing for capture. Then Dream Catcher inched upward, its laser range finders searching for the edges of the bay. At first its slow climb was as steady as a rock. Then something changed.

  As it passed the bottom of the doors, Dream Catcher began to pitch and bank. The movements were not gross, but the drone
was certainly not steady enough to make the recovery. Every hair on the back of Nick’s neck stood up. “Something’s wrong,” he said over the radio.

  “Say again, Talon?” asked Lighthouse.

  “Something’s wrong with Baby. It’s hard to explain, but she just doesn’t look steady anymore.”

  “Talon is right,” interrupted Danny. “It appears that Baby is having trouble keeping up with the changes in the airflow under the bay. She won’t commit to the recovery.”

  “Are you telling me that you can’t dock the drone?”

  “Exactly!”

  While Danny and Walker argued, Nick watched as Dream Catcher began to pitch and roll with increasing violence. The flexible skin at her edges rippled at a furious pace as the embedded flight controls fought to keep up. Nick became impatient with the others’ radio chatter. “Break, break! This is Talon. Baby is bouncing all over the place. She’s getting worse. If we don’t do something soon she’s going to impact the side of the bay!”

  “Hazard concurs. Baby’s reactions are increasing exponentially. We have to abort now!”

  “I don’t care what you have to do,” said Walker. “You bring that drone back in one piece!”

  Dream Catcher still bucked and rocked beneath the bay, but Nick saw that the upper portion of each oscillation was carrying her higher into the bay. She was beginning to clear the doors. “Do you trust me, Drake?” he asked, forgetting to use his friend’s call sign.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Wait. I don’t trust you,” said Danny. “I don’t trust either of you.”

  Nick backed the T-38 away from the bomber. “Mother, on my mark, you close the doors. Hazard, when I say ‘now,’ I want you to cut Baby’s engine. Does everyone understand?”

  Just then, Dream Catcher clipped the side of the bomb bay. A piece of black structure flew toward Nick. He shoved his nose down and banked right to avoid the projectile, but the maneuver wasn’t enough. He winced as he heard it glance off Millie’s vertical stabilizer. Instinctively he pressed the CAPTURE button on his GPS keypad, digitally marking the coordinates, airspeed, altitude, and heading where the piece was lost. Someone would have to recover that little chunk of top secret later. He keyed his transmitter and shouted into the radio. “Anytime now, boys! It’s getting ugly down here!”

  “Hazard’s ready when you are.”

  “Mother’s ready, too. Let’s do this.”

  Nick had been gauging the rhythm of Dream Catcher’s oscillations. The impact with the bomber hadn’t changed the pattern much. He counted through the wave of motion twice more, making sure he had the timing right. “Here we go, Mother,” he said finally. “Three . . . two . . . one . . . mark!”

  Nick watched as the doors obscured the drone, waiting until the last bit of light from the bay evaporated. “Now, Hazard! Cut it now!”

  The sound of the impact was so loud that Nick could hear it in his own cockpit. It was a rending, stomach-turning sound like nothing he had ever heard.

  Chapter 32

  Nick cringed as his T-38 bounced down Romeo Seven’s decrepit runway. How would the crippled bomber handle this rough surface? During the forced capture, Dream Catcher had severed some of the hydraulic lines that ran through the B-2’s bay. That meant both flight control and brake problems for the bomber. Drake had suggested that Nick land first. If the bomber crashed on landing and blocked the runway, he would have nowhere to go.

  As soon as Eddie hung the crew ladder on the side of Nick’s cockpit, he clambered down and raced outside with his NVGs. Looking south, he could see a trail of vapor forming in the bomber’s wake. In the green illumination of the goggles, the B-2 became a shimmering dragon, weaving a serpentine path across the sky. “They’re dumping gas to reduce their landing weight. That’s not a good sign.”

  He watched through the NVGs until the bomber touched down. The landing looked good. Drake had it right on the runway’s centerline, but then the B-2 veered left. Nick waited for him to correct toward the center but the big jet just kept inching closer to the edge, and it wasn’t slowing down. “Something’s wrong. They’ve lost steering and maybe their brakes, too. If they hit the dirt at the edge of the runway, the gear will collapse. They could cartwheel.”

  “Agreed,” said Eddie. “Wish there was somethin’ we could do for them.”

  Nick shoved the goggles into Eddie’s chest. “Maybe there is.” He grabbed both sets of chocks out from under the T-38’s tires and began a full sprint to intercept the B-2.

  The stealth bomber still hung dangerously close to the edge of the runway. If the left gear went into the dirt, she would cartwheel, with deadly consequences for the crew. Nick could think of only one thing to do to help his friends. Even though it was a long shot, he had to try.

  He carried the chocks by their ropes. The heavy rubber blocks beat mercilessly at his shins and knees as he ran, but he ignored the pain. He had to get to the pavement before the bomber passed by. You’ve only got one shot at this, Nick, he thought. You’d better make it count.

  The bomber was outpacing him. Nick made a final push, demanding every ounce of speed from his burning muscles. He reached the edge of the runway just ahead of the B-2 and lunged, slinging the chocks in front of the right main gear and then tucking into a roll as he hit the pavement. The huge left tires passed behind him, missing his body by just inches.

  * * *

  Inside the cockpit, Drake saw Nick approach from the side and then disappear under his wing. “What the . . .” Then he felt the B-2 veer away from the runway’s edge, back toward the centerline. “I think we’re dragging something with the right gear,” he said to Danny.

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Good . . . ish.” Drake winced. “That something might be Nick.”

  Danny’s eyes went wide. “What?”

  “Just get on the brakes with me!”

  The end of the runway came up fast. Both men bore down on the brake pedals, each letting loose a tribal “Aaaaahh!” as if screaming might somehow prevent them from crashing. The bomber continued to veer right, passing the centerline again, but it slowed. Finally, just as the concrete under the nose gave way to dirt, the big jet inched to a stop.

  Chapter 33

  “All right, spill it!” Walker fumed, storming into the conference room with a cup of coffee in each hand.

  Danny felt the need to shrink into his chair. He’d never been involved in an accident of this magnitude before. He looked at Scott for help but the engineer had taken a sudden, deep interest in his notes. It was obvious whose head would be first on the chopping block.

  “Well?”

  “Sir, we’re going to need some time to figure this out,” Danny said cautiously. “It’s going to take a while for us to look over the data and figure out exactly what went wrong. Dr. Stone and I will—”

  The colonel wasn’t buying it. “Don’t give me the engineer runaround, Sharp. I’ve seen it before!” His withering scowl panned across the faces of the contractors. “We wouldn’t have to pay you guys so much if you couldn’t look at a situation and figure out what was going on. Now tell me what happened out there!”

  Danny looked to Scott, who was still hiding in his notes. He kicked the engineer in the shin.

  Scott’s head jerked up. “Ahem . . . ah, with a cursory look at the events on flight test one,” he began in an academic tone, “it appears that our computer modeling did not adequately anticipate the dynamic environment created by the airflow in the B-2’s weapons bay, a problem compounded by LORA’s own engine exhaust. Unfortunately, her flight control reactions, even at the lightning calculation speeds of the onboard computers, were just that—reactions. Each change in the air flowing over the drone dictated new flight control movements, but by the time the movements happened there was a new problem to react to. LORA’s deviations from the recovery point became exponentially l
arger until she finally glanced off the side of the bay.”

  “Fortunately, Lieutenant Baron had the presence of mind to digitally capture the location where we lost the chunk of the drone,” Danny added. “Without his quick thinking the recovery team would have had a devil of a time finding it.”

  Walker looked around as if he’d lost something, like his wallet or his keys. “Where is Baron, anyway?”

  “He’s in the infirmary, sir,” said Drake. “He got a bit scratched up saving our necks.”

  “Right. Remind me to give him kudos for that one. Now, getting back to the task at hand, I didn’t understand a word Dr. Stone just said. Sharp, rephrase it for me.”

  Danny attempted to translate. “The problem, sir, is that Dream Catcher’s recovery positioning system can’t keep up with the unstable air in the bay. In a normal flow of air, a reactionary system is sufficient, but in the very turbulent environment of the bomb bay it’s not. In order to remain steady enough for capture, Dream Catcher would have to go beyond reactions and learn to anticipate the currents and flows around her.”

  “So what you’re telling me is we have an unsolvable problem?”

  “Not necessarily. While the airflow in the bay will be slightly different each time, there will always be a pattern. If we had a flight control computer with the programming to learn the pattern in the first few milliseconds, it could anticipate each cycle and make a successful recovery.”

  “Great, how long will it take you to reprogram Dream Catcher?”

  “It’s more complicated than that, sir,” cautioned Scott.

  Walker turned the full weight of his scowl on the engineer. “And you are certainly not going to make it any simpler, so keep quiet. Sharp, what is the egghead talking about?”

  Danny spoke slowly, though he tried not to speak so slowly that the colonel would be insulted. “To make Dream Catcher do what I’ve described would require more than just new programming. It would require several more laser range finders and a host of tactile sensors that could literally feel the air around her. Dream Catcher’s current computers can’t take that kind of input.”