by Dale Brown
“If it’s over the border, we’re not helping them,” said Danny. He didn’t add that they might not help in any event; the UAVs were now the Marines’ top priority as well as his.
“Captain Deris says he knows. They’re going to deal with it themselves, if they have to.”
“Can they handle coms with the Marines?”
“Captain Deris can talk well enough to get a target nailed down. Thing is, Colonel, the Marines may not be able to support them at all, even if the target is approved,” added Turk. “Colonel Greenstreet is out with the flu, and so are Rogers and Haydem.”
“I knew about Rogers,” said Danny, “but not the others.”
“Both of the guys were throwing up like crazy in the air. Only Cowboy’s good to go.”
“So the Malaysians have to go without air.”
“If necessary,” said Turk.
Danny suspected that Turk was hinting that he should go, but he didn’t rise to the bait; he wasn’t sure whether he wanted him to or not. “Can the Marines get other pilots in from the assault ship?”
“They’re heavily committed at the eastern part of the island. Big assault under way. I had an idea,” Turk added. His voice dropped a few decibels; Danny had to lean closer to hear. “I was thinking I’d volunteer to fly with them.”
“I don’t know, Turk. The colonel wasn’t crazy about you flying earlier. He’s kind of proprietary.”
“Is that a new word for a jerk?”
“Even so—”
“Cowboy’s all for it. And it makes a lot of sense—if the UAVs come back, we’ll be able to shoot them down.”
“In the Tigershark, not an F-35B.”
“I could shoot them down in a Fokker triplane,” said Turk.
Danny was no pilot, but he recognized the aircraft as a WWI fighter. He also recognized Turk’s statement as typical fighter jock bluster—rare in Turk, though not in the breed.
“I’d prefer to wait until the Tigershark gets here,” said Danny. “And I have the rest of the team in place.”
“What happens if the UAVs come back?”
“We’ll take that as it comes.”
Turk rose without saying a word.
“Get some sleep, Captain,” said Danny sharply as the pilot sulked away. “That’s an order.”
TURK STALKED OUT of the mess tent, angry with himself as well as Danny. He’d gone about asking to fly on the mission all wrong, dancing around the subject until the very end, and then blurting rather than calmly laying out all the reasons he should.
The hell with it.
Cowboy met him a few yards from the tent.
“What’s he say?” asked the Marine.
“That I should go to bed.”
“No shit.” Cowboy laughed.
“We have more assets coming so the operation is in a holding pattern,” Turk said, trying to calm down. “And the colonel’s worried about the border.”
“We aren’t going over the border. I can guarantee that.”
“Whatever.”
“Maybe I should talk to him,” said Cowboy. “I’m definitely doing that mission. Greenstreet’s OK’d it. And I need a wingman.”
“Good luck.”
“What are you going to do?”
Turk shrugged and stalked off.
If he’d been in any other place in the world, Turk probably would have hit a bar. He thought of calling Li but decided not to. He’d have to explain why he was mad and would probably end up sounding like a cranky baby. And besides, talking to her would only make him miss her more.
Frustrated and bored, he headed back to his room in the trailer, where he took out his e-reader to read a book on World War II.
He fell asleep within five minutes.
“THE THING IS, Colonel, I don’t one hundred percent know that I’d survive another encounter with the UAVs,” Cowboy told Danny. “I do know I wouldn’t have made it out of that last one without Turk telling me what to do.”
“I agree Turk is a great pilot,” said Danny. “It’s a question of priorities.”
“The priority is getting information on the UAV, right? You’re not going to be able to do that if it shoots me down.”
“I’m sure that would give us plenty of information,” said Danny sarcastically.
“Maybe.” Cowboy smiled. “That was a bad example. I’m just saying, we need another pilot, there’s another pilot here. It would be great if we could use him.”
“What’d Greenstreet say about it?”
“Haven’t asked him yet. Figured there be no use dealing with him unless you were good with it.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” said Danny. “When I know about the Malaysian plans. And when your squadron commander says he’s good with it.”
“Great!” Cowboy jumped up from the table. “Thanks, Colonel.”
Why do I think I’ve just been had? wondered Danny.
14
Offshore the Sembuni Reefs
THE SECURITY ENCRYPTION and procedures Kallipolis employed imposed a significant performance penalty on real-time communications; it split the video and audio streams, and so there was always a slight delay between the video and the sound during the best of times, and at sea the additional security and network overhead made it even worse. It was so bad tonight that Lloyd Braxton had to look away as Church Michaels spoke; the audio was nearly a full second ahead of the visual.
“You shouldn’t have launched the attack,” continued Michaels. “We aren’t prepared.”
“I have four bases. I have a dozen aircraft. I have ships, I have submersibles. We’re making more UAVs and weapons. I need the structures for the distributed intelligence units. When do I wait for? The next millennium?”
“The involvement of the Dreamland people makes things much more . . . difficult,” said Michaels. “They’re not going to back down. It’s a vast escalation.”
“On the contrary. The fact that they’re involved means there will be no escalation,” said Braxton. “And besides—they are the ones who have the computing technology. This is the best way to get it. And we need it. Or else we have to hire an army and become a government. Which none of us want.”
“I don’t see them backing down.”
“You’re in the Ukraine. I doubt you have much to worry about.”
“The bribes are killing me.”
Braxton snorted. Michaels had sold his carbon-fiber fabrication business to General Electric for roughly $3 billion worth of GE stock. He had numerous other investments, and had bankrolled at least one black hat hacker operation specializing in credit card theft. He could certainly afford whatever trivial amount the authorities were holding him up for; it was cheaper than legitimate taxes.
“You have all these high-minded ideals,” countered Michaels, obviously wounded by Braxton’s response, “but how much of this is because you had the hots for Jennifer Gleason and she dissed you?”
“She never dissed me. Ever. Bastian did. Him and Rubeo. Rubeo was the real problem, the sexless prick.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Michaels, calling a quick truce. “Rubeo was always decent to me.”
“You met him twice.”
“Do you really think you can control 30 May? They’re Stone Age crazoids. They don’t just believe in God, they think He talks to them through the Koran. Give me a break.”
“They’re useful. For the moment. As I say—we either get the technology that allows the machines to work together or we hire an army. Which do you want?”
The arrangement with the rebels was based solely on mutual convenience, and Braxton put no trust in them. True, when they started, he had hoped to carve out a refuge here in Malaysia, a place Kallipolis could use as its physical base. But after a few months it had become obvious that neither the rebels nor Malaysia would be suitable in the long term. Even if the locals could be dealt with, the Chinese were too active. Apparently aware of some of the technology Braxton was exploiting, they’d tried to i
nfiltrate the rebel network and even reached out through intermediaries to make a deal. Braxton would have nothing to do with them; they were even worse than the Americans.
“What are you going to do if the U.S. sends more than a few Marines?” asked Michaels.
“What we’re doing now. We bloody them, and we do it publicly. The President will back off. Her approval rating is sinking. She has all sorts of problems. Don’t fret, Christopher. As soon as I have one of the Sabres, I’m gone and on to the next phase. As planned.”
“I say, get the ships, get everything the hell out of there. That’s the best bet. We don’t need this fight. We have all the freedom money can buy. That’s what we need.”
“What?”
“You heard me. We don’t need this. This—it’s a pipe dream.”
“What happened to your ideals?” asked Braxton, truly shocked. Michaels had been one of his most fervent backers from the beginning.
“I still have them.” Michaels’s mouth moved for a moment, finishing the sentence. His eyes were intense, but something had changed.
“You’re getting married,” said Braxton. “You’ve decided.”
“We’re not going to a government, or a church,” said Michaels. There was the faint hint of a smile on his face. “But we are making a commitment. To each other.”
“That’s very nice.”
“Thank you.” Michaels didn’t pick up on the sarcasm.
“I’m going ahead as planned. I’ll see you in Kazakhstan in six weeks. We can discuss your future involvement then.”
Braxton knew there would be none, but it made no sense to declare that now.
“I can’t talk you out of this?” asked Michaels.
Braxton frowned, and hit the kill switch, ending the conversation.
Love, he thought bitterly to himself. It was a worse opiate than religion.
15
Malaysia
FINALLY GIVING IN to the demands of his body, Danny hit his cot around 1000 hours, planning to sleep for two hours. But he slept until close to 6:00 P.M., when Turk Mako was shaking his shoulder.
“Colonel, you need to check this out,” said Turk. “We have hot video—there’s a column of rebels coming up from the south. It has to be a couple of hundred guys.”
“Wh-What?” stuttered Danny, still half-buried in sleep.
“Come on over to the command post and have a look,” said Turk.
Danny folded himself out of bed. His body was stiff, his muscles complaining that the humid air didn’t agree with them.
“You OK, Colonel?” asked Turk.
“Yeah.” He stretched. “Any coffee over there?”
“Plenty, and it’s stronger than the liquid scat the mechanics brew at Dreamland.”
“Good.”
Danny pulled on his boots and grabbed his tablet on the way out. The Marines were already suiting up for battle, their Ospreys warming on the airstrip.
“Looks like we got their attention,” said Captain Thomas. “We’re going to hit them when they come through the valley. Both sides.”
The Marines would land near the route the rebels were taking. Splitting in half, they would attack from the north and the west, hammering them from two sides. The Malaysians would accompany them.
“We need air support and protection when the UAVs come,” said Captain Thomas. “The squadron is down to one pilot, which means one plane. I’m asking for more coverage from the assault ship, but they’re way overstretched and it’s quite a haul. I don’t think they can make it in time.”
Danny glanced at Turk. The pilot studiously avoided his gaze.
“Turk may be able to take one of the slots,” Danny said. “I’ll discuss it with Greenstreet.”
“Great. Thanks,” added Thomas. “What about you, Colonel? Where do you want to be?”
“I’m going to sit this battle out,” added Danny. “I need to coordinate with Washington on our next move.”
“Understood.”
“With regret,” added Danny, resisting an urge to change his mind and go. There was just too much to do before his people got there, and if the UAVs appeared, he would be in a better spot here to monitor them.
CONTRARY TO WHAT he expected, Greenstreet told Danny he had no problem with Turk flying. He didn’t necessarily seem pleased, but he was certainly professional.
“If my ground commander wants another plane for more support, he’ll have it,” said the colonel.
“With Turk flying,” added Danny, just to be sure.
“He’s a competent pilot.”
A lot more than that, thought Danny, but he saw no reason to poke the bear.
“Very good, Colonel. I appreciate your cooperation. He’ll get a full update on the UAVs and brief you preflight.”
Greenstreet nodded.
“You don’t have a problem with Turk, do you?” Danny asked.
“He’s a hotshot,” said Greenstreet, a tiny bit of his professional mask slipping. “But we’ll live with it.”
TURK TIGHTENED HIS face as Breanna came on the screen to brief him on the UAVs. He was going to be professional, and only professional.
Her frown told him he didn’t quite succeed.
“Turk, I hope you’re feeling well,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“We’ve been able to analyze the encounter and we have a great deal of information for you. The aircraft looked to be modeled after the Gen 4 Flighthawk, though prior to the improvements we made for the New Mexico range.”
“Right,” said Turk tightly.
“Are you familiar with that project?”
“Somewhat,” said Turk. “It was before my time.”
“Their onboard maneuver library is exactly the same as Gen 3.”
“I recognize that.”
“John Rosen will go through it with you if you need him to,” she said, referring to one of the analysts on the program who had been brought over to Whiplash to help. Rosen worked for one of Rubeo’s companies. “We still have no firm data on the weapons. It’s most likely a 25mm cannon based on the tactics and the visual. Fred McCarthy is going to run down the probable capabilities.”
McCarthy’s face flashed on the screen. A retired Navy intelligence specialist, he had spent several years working for the CIA and was now on loan to Special Projects. McCarthy knew as much about weapons as any engineer—or database, for that matter.
“This is what we think they’re firing,” he said, holding up what looked like a thick metal needle. “Depleted uranium. High mass, very small volume. Consider it roughly the equivalent of a 25mm round in an M-242—yes, I prefer the Army weapon as an analogue for the following reasons . . .”
While McCarthy certainly knew his stuff, there was a downside to his store of knowledge—he tended to unleash vast amounts of it when explaining even the simplest concept or finding.
The M-242, he said, was used in the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the Marine Corps LAV-25 personnel carrier; the 25mm gun had itself used depleted uranium rounds, though they were not standard equipment. The material’s density gave the DU BBs—as McCarthy called them—an inherent advantage over conventional slugs; a smaller size bullet could carry as much momentum as a larger round, giving it more kinetic energy and thus more penetrating power. But the metal’s qualities went beyond that; McCarthy theorized that the rounds were engineered so the rear portion spread as the nose hit, creating a wider “wound” in its target.
The weapon would have an effective range of just over 1,500 meters, about the same as a 20mm cannon. That would account for the tactics the UAVs employed; it had to be relatively close to fire. The weapon would have a fairly good recoil, which in the small aircraft would have a significant impact on its flight energy. It would be fired in very short bursts, perhaps as low as three at a time, and in any event would not carry much ammunition.
The weapon assumptions were being made based on thin data, and so Turk took them with a grain of salt. The Sabres had bee
n fitted with a similar weapon at one point in their trials. But the uranium slugs had proven to be overkill—you didn’t need to make big holes in an aircraft to shoot it down—and have a weight penalty as well. The Sabres now used conventional bullets.
McCarthy moved on to tactics, where he and Turk were mostly in agreement. It seemed likely the enemy UAVs were programmed to fly to a certain area, then used a combination of passive sensors to home in on their targets—a simple electronics detector would get them close, where an infrared sensor could take over for the final targeting. The simplicity gave them certain advantages: the aircraft could be small and therefore hard to detect and highly maneuverable. But it also extracted a price. They were surely vulnerable at long range, and they seemed to have to make a rear-quarter attack to guarantee a kill. Cowboy’s encounter appeared to prove all of that, and also implied that Turk’s suggestion for him to attack at long range had been sound.
As McCarthy continued, the camera pulled back to show the others sitting near him in the situation room. Rubeo was there, and Reid, and a dozen other specialists.
And Breanna, right in the middle, standing, arms folded, lips pressed tightly together, clearly worried.
Is that how you looked when you ordered them to kill me? Turk wondered. Does your conscience bother you now? How would you have gotten this mission done if they’d succeeded?
Hate welled inside him. Then he felt guilty, sad even—he had admired Breanna and her husband Zen greatly. Both were heroes, and at the same time unpretentious, just regular people, at least to the extent possible in Washington, given their jobs.
But Breanna had let him down. She stood revealed as someone who could not be trusted.
Zen was different. Turk still admired the former pilot, who had done so much to make combat UAVs successful and become the first Flighthawk ace. To have come back from a crippling injury, especially at a time when people looked at disabilities as if they were contagious diseases and a mark of bad character, had taken a tremendous amount of courage, courage that Turk himself wasn’t sure he possessed. It wasn’t just bravery under fire—which Turk certainly did possess—it was the ability to take a long-range view of the battle and to put up with the constant setbacks, large and small, that were inevitable. Perseverance under fire was a different kind of courage, a quality that someone who was impatient, as Turk was, couldn’t count on.
