One more investment in the success of this mission. Having talked Samkamka into staying, he owed it to the man to successfully complete it.
Bowden took a deep, steadying breath and turned back toward the blimp. Samkamka’s death actually simplified things; now he was flying his own aircraft again, and it was just like being back in his Hornet. Except it was about two and a half times as big and about as graceful as a giant pig in a concrete hang-glider. Aside from that, it was just like flying over Somalia again—No, don’t think about Somalia. Focus on the mission.
He steadied up with his nose on the target, descended to about fifty feet, and pushed the throttles forward again as he raced toward the target. At least there weren’t any power lines here to worry about. Hell, if B-52s could fly this low, he could, too. Too bad I don’t have their terrain-following gear.
Bowden glanced at the jury-rigged armament panel, selected the other Sidewinder, then turned the master armament switch on. Not having to deal with Samkamka meant he could run the attack exactly how he wanted, and he focused on the long, enclosed gondola. A thin haze trailed behind the exhaust stack projecting to its starboard. Perfect. The dirigible’s power plant was on and operational. He wasn’t concerned with the two propellers on the midships rail; they weren’t hot enough for the improvised missile to see.
He gently tapped the thruster that functioned like the rudder in his old F/A-18 Hornet and brought the craft into alignment with the blimp. He pulled back slightly so the nose of the missile was pointed at the gondola, which—by staying low—he had highlighted on the open sky behind it. He noticed the tracers reaching up for him out of his peripheral vision, but he was too low and fast for them to hit him—he hoped—and he wasn’t going to mess up the shot by yanking the plane away from his target.
Easy…nice and easy…gotcha, bitch!
He slapped the launch button, and the Sidewinder leaped from the wing and raced toward the blimp. The airship yawed to its port, trying to follow his craft so the men inside could shoot at him—but even though the interface craft was a pig, it was far more maneuverable than a blimp, and he was away from it and turning outbound before its crew had a shot at him. Bowden chuckled. Not like you have a chance in hell of hitting me.
Still, Bowden put the craft into a right-hand 360 that took him to the other side of the J’Stull town. Whether the missile worked or not, he wasn’t going to play chicken with a craft that was as big as a football field. He was parallel to it when the missile hit.
The left rear of gondola blasted outward in a spray of planks and struts and fire leaped forward from the impact point, several of the burning flares from the warhead punching upward into the gas bag. The center of the envelope turned into a sun as the gas caught fire, and Bowden flinched away from the flash. When he looked again, the center of the blimp had crumpled, and the gondola’s weight was pulling the front and back of the airship together as it fell from the sky.
Flames roared across the lifting bag and the gondola, and several figures fell from the structure. Bowden winced but understood. Given the choice between dying from the impact at the bottom of the fall and being burned alive, Bowden reflected he would have jumped, too. Hell, for all he knew, the jump might even be survivable.
He wrapped the turn up harder to get around as quickly as possible; the way to the target was now clear. He eased the interface craft back to 200 feet and turned toward the massive dish on the other side of the town.
Bowden selected two of the Skipper stations, turned on the laser designator, then swore when the “Ready” light didn’t illuminate on the panel. Worse, the TV screen that should have shown him a view of where the laser was pointing stayed black, rather than bringing up an image. He cycled the switch again. Nothing.
Damn it! He leaned forward then looked out the window to where the laser package was mounted. He could just see the device…and several wires flapping in the wind, having come undone, just like he’d warned the SpinDogs would happen.
Whether something had hit them or they hadn’t been able to withstand the speeds at which the craft had traveled didn’t matter. The designator wasn’t fixable in flight, and his worst fear was confirmed.
He was screwed.
As screwed as screwed gets.
* * *
“Has anyone seen Dork yet?” Aliza asked as they came to the end of the crevice and crawled up to the top to look around.
“Want me to send someone back to look for him?” Cook asked when the rest of the squad replied in the negative.
Aliza shook her head. “There’s no time.” She looked out over the plain and pointed. “Look—there are several big fires. The planes have already come and gone, and the antenna is still standing.”
“And it will remain standing,” a voice from behind her said.
Aliza spun to find twenty men along the edge of the crevice—in good cover—pointing rifles at the squad.
“Put your hands up,” the man commanded, “and no one has to die. As you can see from the fireballs out there, your mission has failed.”
* * * * *
Chapter Seventy-Nine
R’Bak
Bowden did a right 180 and headed outbound while he tried to think. He took a deep breath. He wasn’t totally screwed—the mission was still salvageable if he could get a hold of the ground team. Maybe they were in position.
“Cookie, this is Hornet,” he transmitted. “You there? I say again, Cookie, this is Hornet. Come in if you can hear me. Over.”
Nothing.
He tried it again but didn’t get any response.
Well, fuck.
The bombs he was carrying were less than useless without a laser designator. The rocket motors were hard-wired to fire when they were dropped, so he couldn’t drop them as dumb bombs; they would race off in search of a laser spot. Where would they hit? There was no way to tell. Way beyond the target.
I’m not launching them just to kill another child.
The bombs were out. He didn’t have any missiles. He had to complete the mission, now. If there’d been time, he could have gone back to the base and gotten the other laser designator or reconnected the wires on the one he had. But that meant another takeoff, and he wasn’t sure the SpinDogs had any more pilots with enough in-atmosphere experience. Perhaps Burg Hrensku had survived the wreck earlier, but if not, they’d have to bring someone down from orbit.
And there wasn’t time for any of that.
A flashing light from the instrument panel caught his eye. Low fuel. He looked out the window and could see a line of holes across the wing. Fuel was wicking faintly out of them. Unfortunately, it was also probably pouring out of the matching set on the underside of the wing.
The gauge read just over one quarter full but was noticeably dropping.
He had enough for one run, maybe two, then he’d be bingo fuel.
But, he realized with a sudden, cool calm, with no way to target the bombs, there wouldn’t be any need for a second run. The only weapon he had was the interface craft itself. And crashing it would be enough to take out the suspended antenna, which would set the satraps back months, if not years.
He sighed, his mind made up. When he’d signed his commissioning papers, he’d known that one day he might have to give his life on a foreign shore. He hadn’t realized it would be one so far away from home, but if it were, so be it. It was the only way he could buy the rest of the Lost Soldiers the time they needed to set up their base. And maybe this would—in some small way—make up for Somalia. Make up for the death of that little girl.
He began a climbing turn back inbound to the target and pushed the throttles forward. Speed was better on this run—he only needed to keep the missiles away from him for a few seconds; after that, they could chase him down and add to the destruction. A fitting pyre for him and the rest of those lost on the most screwed up mission he had ever flown. Murphy’s Law, indeed.
The antenna was easy to find. He pointed the nose of the craft at it and
leveled off. His airspeed continued to build as he raced to his doom.
* * *
“Guys?” Dork called, running as fast as he could with the pack on his back. “This ain’t funny! Where’d y’all go?”
He’d about come to the conclusion that he’d gone the wrong way at the intersection when he got to the dead end. There was no way forward. The sides of the crevice were worse than sheer—they leaned inward—and they were about five meters high and too far apart to use one to climb up the other. He tried to climb it a couple of times but couldn’t find adequate hand- and foot-holds.
His stomach sank; he’d gone the wrong way, and he wouldn’t have time to catch up with the rest of the squad before the planes arrived. He could hear distant gunfire, and then—with a roar—one of the craft raced overhead with a white plume coming from its right wing. They were already here and in combat! The quick flash he’d seen of the plane had shown it still had all its bombs attached—the pilots had counted on him, and he had failed!
Slowly, he slid down the side of the crevice, tears wetting his cheeks for a moment before the heat dried them into itchy, salt-crusted lines. It was just like Vietnam all over again. He’d been separated from his squad and, when they’d needed the machinegun he’d been carrying, he’d gotten lost. He’d heard the fighting, but by the time he found the squad, they’d all been killed. A man in sunglasses had shown up, and then he’d woken up here—only to repeat the process all over again.
They were right—all of them—to call him dumb, clumsy, and stupid. He was a dork. The tears fell, and he was unable to stop them.
Sniff! Grunt!
He looked up at the unexpected noise and saw one of the whinnies looking down at him. It looked like Scout, but Dork didn’t have enough time around the creatures to know for sure. The whinnie stared down at him with its head cocked to the side, grunted again, then flipped his head in a motion that looked like, “Come on up.”
Dork held up his hands. “I’d love to come up, boy, but I can’t make it.”
The whinnie looked down the crevice, then sprang into it with him. The passage widened at the end, and there was enough room for the whinnie—barely—though he scraped Dork’s side getting into it. The whinnie then knelt and looked back over his shoulder at Dork expectantly.
“You can get us out of here?” Dork asked. He clambered up and onto the whinnie. The creature looked back at Dork as it stood, then looked at the wall of the crevice.
“Got it. You want me to hold on,” Dork said. He grabbed the neck of the big lizard, clenched his legs hard against its flanks, and the whinnie sprang forward. As it reached the end of the passageway, it sprang up and to the left, bounced once, twisting as it did so, to land on the ground above the crevice.
Dork hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, having lost his grip when the whinnie twisted, but he was out! Better yet, he’d protected the box in his pack, at the cost of some lacerations on his back and what felt like a few cracked ribs.
“Thank you!” he exclaimed as he struggled to his feet. His back was on fire and breathing hurt, but he ignored it, knowing he had only seconds left before the plane came back—if it made it back at all. He snapped out the tripod’s legs and turned the box on.
He scanned the surroundings, and his eyes widened—not only was Scout there, but it looked like the whole pack of whinnies had followed them. The group stood around as if waiting to be told what to do next.
“We’ll go find my friends in just a minute,” he said, “but first I have to do something.”
Although he could see the antenna—it was impossible to miss—he couldn’t see the control station because a series of low hills intervened. He ran up the side of one hill with the mule, and there it was! It was a long designate at about 2,500 meters, but it was within the pre-briefed range.
A quick glance to the south showed the plane was already inbound and appeared to be moving faster than what he’d thought the pilot had said he’d be doing. He only had seconds!
He dialed in the code—1555—for the control station, found it in the viewfinder, and turned on the laser, hoping—and praying—that this time he wasn’t too late.
* * * * *
Chapter Eighty
R’Bak
Tracers arced lazily into the air, but they hadn’t anticipated the interface craft’s new speed, and they fell behind him. Bowden saw movement as a missile launched parallel with his right wing, but he was in his final dive and gaining speed. There was no way the missile would catch him in time. Even if it guided on him, it was a tricky aspect angle.
His eyes returned to the transmitter facility suspended over the antenna bowl, and he smiled. His life had a purpose again. Take out the transmitter and give the rest of the Lost Soldiers the thing they needed most, time.
A flash of yellow caught his eye, and he glanced at his left panel. Laser Acquired and Code Verified were illuminated on the Skipper receiver. He’d forgotten to turn off the master arm switch, and the weapons were still armed and ready! And—even though the soldiers weren’t talking to him—the missiles were receiving a laser designate!
He was close—maybe too close to the target, but he slapped the release button, and the Skipper roared off the port wing. He glanced right in time to see the other bomb fall away, its rockets failing to ignite.
He dove for the deck and turned toward where the missile had been launched, but a flash of fire caught his eye—the second Skipper’s rockets had finally ignited. He started to cheer, but then the surface-to-air missile flashed by and detonated on the bomb. It was tumbling harmlessly when he lost sight of it.
He dipped a wing as he headed outbound, and his eyes found the target as the remaining thousand-pound bomb dove into it and detonated. The building erupted into a fireball that spewed out a rough sphere of metal hail—a million pieces-worth.
Bowden grinned as he looped around the town situated in front of the base. After several passes, it now appeared every satrap flunky who had a weapon was standing on their roofs shooting at him. The only thing he had going for him was that it had been almost ninety years since anyone down there had ever seen an aircraft going as fast as his. They had no idea how far they had to lead him.
Still, some marksman was more intuitive—or lucky—than the others: rounds spattered into the fuselage next to him, stitching upward. He reflexively ducked as the side canopy next to his head starred, but the bullets didn’t make it through. Then he was past the jumble of civilian roofs and inbound toward the target.
With only one aircraft remaining, this would be a harder run, and he quickly dialed the codes into his two remaining bombs as he pulled back the throttles.
A red light flashed on the instrument panel. Emergency—Fuel Low. The attack run would be even harder if he ran out of gas.
* * *
Cook glanced at Aliza, and she shook her head. “Don’t,” she warned. “There are too many of them.”
Cook’s shoulders slumped, but even he understood the odds weren’t in their favor.
“Place your weapons on the ground,” the J’Stull leader said, and all the soldiers—and Aliza—complied.
The radio Sublete was carrying finally came to life. “Cookie, this is Hornet. You there? I say again, Cookie this is Hornet. Come in if you can hear me. Over.”
The enemy leader motioned some of his men forward. While several collected the Lost Soldiers’ weapons, one grabbed the radio from Sublete and slammed it to the ground, then fired his rifle into it once for good measure.
The leader chuckled. “I’ll bet you thought you could just sneak in and blow up our antenna, didn’t you? We figured you might try something like that, so we’ve been watching the crevice on the chance you would. The satrap would love to talk to you and find out where your base is so we can get rid of you once and for all. We will have everything well in hand by the time our friends arrive. Some of you may even survive long enough to be questioned by them, too.”
“I’ll bet you’d
love us to talk,” Cook said. “But we ain’t.”
The man slung his rifle over his shoulder and stepped forward. “Oh, I think you will. We have plenty of ways to loosen tongues…” He ran a finger up Aliza’s side. “And other things, too.”
The soldiers bristled, but Aliza waved them down. “I can take care of myself.”
“I am sure you can,” the man said, “but—”
The building housing the antenna control station 1,000 meters away exploded in a massive fireball. Most of the men and Aliza threw themselves to the ground.
When nothing else exploded, they climbed back to their feet.
“Failed?” Cook asked. “If that’s failure, I can’t wait to see what success looks like.”
The leader walked over to Cook, drew his pistol, and placed the barrel to Cook’s forehead. “You won’t see anything because you’ll be dead.”
* * *
Dork whooped with glee and pumped his fist as the antenna control station disintegrated in a sudden blast, and the aircraft screamed past him. Whatever had been coming out of the wing had stopped, but whether that was a good thing or not, he had no idea.
The aircraft still had two bombs under its wings, though, and Dork hastened to type the new code—1666—into the designator. As he flipped the last digit, a whinnie that looked like Athena came running up from the north. It whistled at Scout, and the whinnie took hold of Dork’s sleeve and tried to pull him away from the designator.
“What?” Dork asked.
Scout and the rest of the herd ran a few steps in the direction Athena had appeared from. The way Scout looked at him reminded him of an old Lassie movie he’d seen at the drive-in right before he’d left on his fateful deployment to Vietnam.
“You want me to follow you? You know where the rest of the squad is?”
Murphy's Lawless: A Terran Republic Novel Page 69
