As no protest was forthcoming, he nodded to his partner and turned back to the viewing slots, taking a pair of darkened goggles from his pocket and slipping them over his eyes. Doctor James Brewer moved a little further to the left and stood at a small console, moving his hands across the switches there as he worked his ‘magic’ on the instruments mounted there.
“Lieutenant Roberts: sound the test warning if you please…” he called loudly, happy with the brace of green lights that lit up across the panel before him as he drew out his own pair of goggles and copied Markowicz in snugging them down over his face. “Two minute warning…!”
Outside, a loud klaxon began to sound a final warning, the screech piercing the air for many miles around and sending nearby birdlife fluttering desperately into the sky in sudden fear. Rays of light were stretching out across the landscape from east as the sun continued to rise, and they could all now pick out the glint of sunlight against the bare metal of the distant tower, or could have at least, had they not all been wearing protective eyewear.
Waiting for the moment of truth, excitement in mind and his heart in his mouth, Markowicz recalled his history lessons after the war… reading of the supposed ambivalence J. Robert Oppenheimer had felt upon witnessing the incredible results of the first Trinity bomb test near Alamogordo, New Mexico in 1945. He also recalled the words that great physicist had uttered following that test… words quoted from an ancient Hindu holy text.
At that moment, the lightening sky seemed to fill with fire. Five kilometres away atop that tall tower, six kilograms of plutonium-239 was imploded by conventional explosives that had been painstakingly formed by hand into a perfect sphere. The effect produced critical mass in a microsecond, resulting in an explosion of nuclear fission with a force that would be later calculated to have been very close to the expected yield of fifteen kilotons – a blast equivalent to fifteen thousand tons of TNT.
The initial fireball expanded to a radius of almost 600 feet, instantly vaporising most of the tower upon which the device had been placed. It had not touched the ground – the reason for the tower’s overall height – and as such the test would produce almost no fallout whatsoever. Every living thing however within a radius of almost a mile was instantly subjected to lethal doses of radiation in the 500-rem range, a level sufficient to ensure a 50-90% mortality rate.
Death would be slow and agonisingly painful, but in this case would at least be suffered only by the relatively small variety of land animals and birdlife caught within the immediate vicinity of the blast. Great effort had been made to ensure that there had been no chance of any human casualties, with high fences surrounding the entire test site at a distance of ten miles and regular sweeps by land and air to make sure none of the local indigenous population were inadvertently left within the danger zone.
Supersonic winds roared away from ground zero, collecting clouds of dust and debris and buffeting the faces of the watching scientists and military personal alike through the open viewing slots. Almost immediately however, the direction of those winds reversed as the detonation collapsed in on itself and the fireball began to rise lazily upward into the clear sky, dragging with it all that same dust and debris to form a huge, unmistakeable mushroom cloud.
“I think, James, that we shall start work immediately on fitting new cores into the devices we have waiting,” Hal Markowicz suggested as the rest of his team stood about, staring at the hell-furnace of nuclear fire in slack-jawed disbelief.
He sighed softly, a faint chill rippling up his spine at the reality of it all. Britain and Australia had just jointly become the second world powers to possess nuclear weapons, and like Oppenheimer before him, Hal suddenly felt compelled to quote that single, ominous line from the Bhagavad Gita. Unlike the American however, a dark, malevolent smile had spread across his face as Markowicz whispered softly to himself:
“I am become Death – the destroyer of worlds...”
1st Aircraft Research and Development Unit
Tocumwal, New South Wales
Thorne and had awoken rested and refreshed, and buoyed with the wonderful news that the planned atomic test at Maralinga had gone completely as planned, he’d headed across to the officer’s mess that morning feeling better about the world than he had in quite a while. Eileen had met him at breakfast and they’d shared a light meal in comfortable silence, discussing little save for the news of the successful test. That being said, they’d continued to hold hands for most of that time – other than during moments where actual eating precluded it – and each was feeling an inner warmth while in the presence of the other that neither had experienced for many years.
That it was considered inappropriate for fellow officers to fraternise on duty was something for which neither cared at all, and the driver of the Land Rover taking them from the mess hall to the other side of the base after breakfast that morning smiled knowingly to himself as he occasionally glanced at the obvious couple in his rear view mirror, as well aware of the identities of both as anyone else who’d spend some time at the Tocumwal airbase.
The airfield’s Runway 05/31 was the longest of the base’s four landing strips: 10,000 feet of tarmac laid down over hardened concrete that began close to the main buildings and continued out across the open fields toward the north-east, intersected by two of the smaller asphalt runways at oblique angles at various points along its length. At the far end lay the huge hangars and workshops of 1ARDU – the First Aircraft Research and Development Unit. Nominally an Australian military unit, in reality it was a joint facility generally involved with aeronautical developments that were of a top secret nature and were therefore kept well away from the prying eyes of civilians and even other personnel on base, American, British and Australian.
Most of the personnel were Australian, however a number of officers and technicians were of British background, evacuated from the UK in the desperate days prior to the German invasion of September, 1940. Allied funding from all over the Commonwealth also provided the 1ARDU with the majority of its financial backing, while basically all of its technical research came from the extensive databases of Thorne’s Hindsight Unit. The rewards reaped from the research carried out there benefitted every nation involved and also provided much added hard currency in licencing agreements with the United States. Control of the facility therefore resided completely with the British High Command in exile, operating out of Melbourne and answerable directly to Prime Minister Trumbull and the King himself.
There were no corporate logos emblazoned across any of the huge hangars standing there as the Land Rover approached, and in any case, the huge bulk of the KC-10A Extender refuelling aircraft and even larger C-5M Super Galaxy transport would have made any kind of corporate advertising irrelevant. The only acknowledgement to identification to be found was a large, colourful representation of the unit’s squadron crest mounted dead-centre above the doors of the largest, central hangar. Capped by a crown and encircled by the name of the unit itself, the central motif was a pair of knight’s armoured hands holding a golden ruler, superimposed above a blue triangle. The motto was inscribed beneath and simply read: PROVE TO ACCOMPLISH.
“What d’you suppose Alec has for us?” Eileen mused, clearly intrigued as the vehicle drew near the towering tail of the C-5M.
“Probably a new main wheel bogie for the bloody Mustang,” Thorne snorted with a chuckle, staring out at the passing landscape. “You know how excited the bloody man gets when he’s finished a new toy… it’s probably not going to be anything exciting: a new set of cannon or something…”
“Speak for yourself,” Eileen shot back with a grin of her own, playfully nudging him with her shoulder. “I happen to find automatic cannon dead sexy…!”
“Well, it sounds hot when you say it,” he countered with a wink, nudging her back and squeezing her hand as both rested in her lap, fingers entwined. She poked the tip of her tongue out at him momentarily before turning to stare out her own window, finding barely enough
time to get lost in her own thoughts before the 4WD came to a halt outside the main admin buildings – a set of semi-circular Nissen huts standing in the shadow of the huge hangars.
“There we are, sir… ma’am…” The driver announced cheerfully. “Let base reception know when you want to be collected: I’m only ten minutes away when you need me.”
“Thanks, corp,” Thorne replied with a nod, electing not to salute as neither of them were wearing their headgear. “I’ll give you a ‘hoy’ when where done.”
The nearest of the smaller huts carried a large sign beside the door declaring it as ‘ADMIN’, and directly in front of it and off to one side, mounted on a four-foot wooden stake driven deep into the hard earth, a diamond-shaped metal placard carried a second, ‘mock unit-crest’ that mimicked the original ARDU design but substituted the central design for something else entirely.
It was an image Thorne remembered well from his own youth: a stylised, cartoonlike chicken’s body supplanted by a man’s head in a form that was instantly recognisable as part of an animated sketch from the Monty Python’s Flying Circus TV series of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. In this case, the head was also adorned with a painted handkerchief ‘hat’ that was clearly knotted at the corners, and below the artwork, a similarly altered motto declared ‘meum cerebrum nocet…’.
Knowing Python as he did and remembering a little Latin from his university days, Thorne suspected the words translated into something along the lines of ‘my brain hurts’, which he also remembered from another Flying Circus sketch. It was well known that Alec Trumbull had developed an almost obsessive interest in television and motion pictures since Hindsight’s arrival, and had spent many hours watching a variety of different programs stored both in Hindsight’s generic libraries and from Thorne’s own personal collection of favourites. It wasn’t much of a cognitive leap to work out who was behind the parodied design.
“Glad to see you’re both on schedule,” Alec Trumbull observed with a cheery smile, stepping through the door of the huts dressed in a snug-fitting, black flight suit and boots, a white-painted flying helmet under one arm.
“You should’ve told us it was fancy dress,” Thorne sniped quickly, never one to miss an opportunity. “I’ve have brought my gorilla suit.”
“Oh… I’m sorry, I thought you had,” Trumbull shot back without missing a beat, drawing an “Ouch!” from Eileen and a nod of almost-approval from a suitably deflated Thorne.
“Max thinks you’ve got some new cannon or a wheel bogie to show us,” Donelson suggested, expecting that remark to draw a suitably indignant response.
“Oh, on the contrary,” Alec replied evenly, not rising to the bait. “…I’ve got some things to show you both that will really get your attention. Shall we…?”
“Lay on, MacDuff…” Thorne grinned, deciding to quote Shakespeare correctly for a change as he extended an inviting arm toward the nearest of the main hangars.
“You’ve heard from Hal?” Trumbull inquired as they strolled across the concrete.
“Good as gold,” Thorne replied with a smile, the answer drawing some relief from Alec also. “Test went perfectly just after dawn this morning. He reckons we’ll have cores for the two existing devices by the end of the month – all they needed was a live test to confirm the quality of the product.”
“Well, that’s something to be thankful for if the Japs come knocking,” Trumbull muttered as they drew closer to the hangar’s main entrance. The huge sliding doors were cracked open a yard or so, but the lack of lighting within compared to that outside meant that the interior appeared completely dark.
“Well…” Alec continued, pausing for a moment and grinning widely. “Don’t forget to wipe your feet…”
The first thing that caught Thorne’s eye as they stepped through was the sleek lines of his own Lockheed-Martin F-35E Lightning II. The 5th Generation attack aircraft was one he’d flown regularly, although Trumbull had gained more recent experience, particularly over North Africa during the last month when his timely arrival in that very aircraft had undoubtedly saved all their lives, and not for the first time. Capable of STOVL operation (Short take-off/vertical landing), the two-seat E-model had been a prototype development requested by several of Lockheed’s potential customers that had been commandeered by Hindsight for the mission they were now on.
“Think I’ve seen this one, mate…” Thorne quipped lightly, still waiting for his eyes to properly adjust to the change in lighting.
“Why you persist in attempts to elicit responses of profanity from me is a constant source of wonder, Max,” Trumbull sighed, shaking his head and refusing to allow any annoyance to creep into his tone. “Would you care to look beyond the Lightning for a moment?”
“Oh, Alec…!” Eileen breathed, catching sight of exactly what he was referring to. “They’re just gorgeous…!”
“Oooh… actually I do have to agree with the captain, there…” Thorne conceded, deciding to act sensibly for a change. “Very nice indeed…!”
A trio of large and clearly powerful helicopter gunships stood silently in the middle of the hangar floor, their temperate camouflage paint schemes muted by the gloom of diffused lighting filtering down through nowhere near enough skylights, high above. Long and bulky, their twin, tandem cockpits gave an almost insect-like appearance while a pair of remarkably wide ‘stub’ wings with an equally noticeable anhedral droop were fitted directly behind the sliding access doors on either side of the fuselage.
“Well, I knew you were working on getting a Hind off the drawing board,” Max continued, referring to the Soviet-era Mi-24D heavy gunship the design before him had clearly been drawn from, “but I had no idea you guys were so far along.”
“They’re the only production units we’ve received so far from Fisherman’s Bend, but there’s also a production line starting up in New York State with Bell. Tentative designation is the AH-21 at the moment; we’re calling her ‘Crocodile’ while the Americans– naturally – have gone with ‘Alligator’ instead.”
“What’s she packing?” Donelson queried, always serious when technology was involved.
“Chin turret as you can see, remotely controlled from the forward gunner’s position,” Trumbull answered with no small amount of pride in his voice. “Standard fitting will be a fifteen millimetre rotary gun and a forty-mil grenade launcher, with either selectable for individual fire. If you take a look around to the right here, you’ll also notice we’ve made a modification of our own off the original Mil plans…” he continued, walking around in that direction with his fingers already pointing. “There’s also a twenty-five millimetre rotary mounted in the lower fuselage here identical to the weapon used on the Lightning, which as you know is basically becoming an Allied standard in any case. The stub wings also carry three hardpoints apiece for over three thousand pounds of external stores: rocket pods, gun pods, free fall bombs… even extra fuel…”
“Okay, Cinderella, okay…” Thorne cut in, chuckling but clearly impressed all the same. “You had me at ‘chin turret’…! They’re brilliant – you did great…!”
“Why thank you, Max, but this isn’t what I brought you over to see…” Trumbull replied, now barely able to contain his own excitement despite all his years of stanch, British training in emotional control. “These are just the entrée… we’ve got the pièce de résistance in the big hangar, next door…”
“Dude, you’re really learning how to build the suspense here,” Thorne laughed out loud for the first time. “I could hazard a guess, but there were so many projects you buggers were starting when I left for America last year that it could be one of a dozen or more different aircraft types… come on…” he added, clapping his hand on Alec’s shoulder. “I can see you’re bloody dying to show us… let’s get on with it.”
“Come out through the rear… through here…” Trumbull suggested quickly, pointing toward a man-sized access door at the opposite end of the hangar.
“I
f we must…” Thorne replied, still grinning and well aware that his friend was up to something.
“Five pounds it’s a fighter project,” Eileen whispered softly in his ear as they followed on behind. “You know how turned on he gets over fast-movers.”
“I’m going to go with the SAM-system we were exchanging letters about a few months back,” Thorne shot back in an equally-hushed voice. “And don’t go saying ‘turned on’ like that… it’s not fair to be throwing sexual references about when it’s the middle of the day and there’s others about… it’s driving me nuts…!”
“I know exactly what drives them…!” Eileen pointed out with a cheeky grin, pinching him lightly on the arm. She’d not forgotten the remark he’d made on their arrival at Essendon airport a few weeks earlier and had been making the most of every possible opportunity to playfully tease him about it.
“Oh, you are so going to pay for that…!” He hissed, barely suppressing a scandalised chuckle of his own as they stepped through the open doorway and taking the opportunity to pinch her on the backside in return, hard enough to elicit a soft yelp of surprise.
“On the contrary,” Eileen declared the moment they’d emerged out into the blazing sunlight once more. “I do believe it’ll be you who’s paying… five pounds, I believe…”
On a large, open expanse of concrete at the rear of the hangars, a pair of sleek, new jets indeed waited silently, their long, plexiglass canopies raised and glinting in the sun. With thin, swept wings and a huge, gaping intake directly under each bulbous, black-painted nose cone, they looked every inch the part as a fast and lethal fighter aircraft.
“Son of a bitch…!” Thorne smiled, conceding defeat and making a show of patting his obviously empty pockets. “I seem to have left my wallet in my other uniform…”
The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3) Page 34
