by Dale Brown
“Switch back to the virtual image.” Daren did it in an instant. “Look at the target box. Got it?”
“Yep.”
“Designate it as a target.”
“How do I…?” But again, as soon as he thought about doing it, the crosshairs blinked three times, and then a red triangle appeared superimposed on the box. “Aha! Got it.”
“You’ve got a FlightHawk airborne with mini-Mavericks on board,” Patrick told him. “Attack that target.” This time it was simple: He thought about attacking the target, and a voice in his head announced, “Attack ground target, stop attack.”
“Why did it say ‘stop attack’?”
“That’s the command you’d issue to stop the attack,” McLanahan explained. He turned to a computer terminal beside him and verified that the original problem still existed — and sure enough, it did. “But here’s where the problem comes in: The satellite datalink is messed up. The FlightHawk is either not receiving the command or receiving it but not executing it. We had the same problem with an operational test a few weeks ago. We couldn’t get it to respond until we established a direct UCAV-to-aircraft link.”
“Very cool — commanding a FlightHawk from guys on the ground using this virtual mind-link thing,” Daren commented. “It’s a pretty sophisticated routine — lots of data shooting back and forth over very long distances.”
“But you did it with Global Hawk all the time, right?”
“Well… we don’t actually fly a Global Hawk unmanned recon plane from the ground, sir,” Daren pointed out. “It has to have a flight plan loaded in memory first. We can make lots of changes to that flight plan, but it has to have the flight plan first.”
“I want to be able to fly the UCAV, Daren,” Patrick said. “I understand what you’re saying about Global Hawk, but the ability to keep the man in the loop is important to any attack mission. Besides, we still have to be able to manually control the plane for certain phases of flight.”
“Which phases, sir? Certainly not flying straight and level?”
“How about a rendezvous with another aircraft?”
“As in refuel a FlightHawk from a tanker?”
“How about fly one right up inside the bomb bay of a B-1 bomber?”
“A B-1 bomber!” Daren exclaimed. His eyes widened in surprise, but then he shrugged. “Why not? I think you have the technology to do that right now. A computer the size of my wristwatch can fly a B-1 better than any pilot I’ve ever known.” He paused for a moment, then said, “We can do it one better, sir.”
“How?”
“Why don’t you fly both the FlightHawk and the B-1 bomber—right from the VC.”
“Make the carrier aircraft and the attack aircraft unmanned?”
“Why not?” Daren Mace asked. “I know you can already monitor and control most every system aboard the B-1 from the virtual cockpit. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to make the Vampire fly itself.”
“But why are we interested in making the carrier aircraft unmanned?” Patrick asked. He already had some answers himself, but he wanted to hear Daren’s reasoning.
“I have a feeling I’m preaching to the choir, sir, but here goes,” Daren said. “First: cost savings. Conventional wisdom holds that the cost to train and keep crew members in an aircraft like the B-1 bomber exceeds the cost of the aircraft by a factor of ten over its service life. Make the planes unmanned, run by computers, and now you don’t need rated officers to fly them anymore — technicians can monitor the computer systems, and technicians and intelligence experts can pick targets to attack.
“Second: Removing the human-necessary systems in the plane would really create huge savings in weight, system complexity, performance, electrical load, and dozens of other areas,” Mace went on. “The weight of an ejection seat with all its associated systems and plumbing is five times the weight of the guy that sits in the seat. We wouldn’t need to sap bleed air from the engines for pressurizing the cockpit — that would boost available engine power by at least twenty percent, maybe more. We’d have enough surplus electrical power on board to install newer, faster computers just by not having to illuminate the crew compartment.
“Third: Missions wouldn’t be restricted by the humans,” Daren concluded. “Even with backup crews on board, you can’t simply keep refueling a plane and keep it aloft for days and days — eventually the crew has to land the plane and get out. You can keep a robot plane on station for days, even weeks. You do away with crew rest requirements, you don’t waste flight time by doing crew-proficiency tasks, and you don’t need to provide for flight crews on mobility or deployment. And obviously we’re not risking any human crew members in high-risk missions.”
“We just have to make it work, then sell the gear and those arguments to the Pentagon.”
“I worked at SECDEF’s office for over a year, sir,” Daren said with exasperation in his voice. “I saw perfectly outstanding projects killed on nothing more than a whim: The contractor was from the wrong state and wouldn’t relocate or open up an office in a certain congressional district. A three-hundred-page proposal was missing a few pages. Or some staffer didn’t get a luxury suite when he or she visited a base or plant. You can bust your butt and develop a great program, and they may still cancel it for reasons as stupid as they don’t like the color you painted it.
“Defense procurement is bullshit, sir. The best programs get killed all the time while the crummy ones get funded. Then, years later, the good program gets the green light, even though it costs twice as much as it did the first time.” Daren nodded toward McLanahan’s son sleeping on the ground just a few feet away. “If you pardon me for saying so, sir, there is no project I’ve seen in all my years in the Air Force that’s worth putting a child in a sleeping bag on the ground in the middle of winter so you can keep on working on it. Do you think anyone outside this base cares if you’re successful or not? I can tell you honestly, sir — no one does. It wouldn’t be worth a young boy getting even one sniffle.”
At that moment Daren saw something ignite in McLanahan’s eyes. Whoops, he thought, I just pissed the guy off.
Then McLanahan smiled a deadly-looking smile if Daren ever saw one. “You’re wrong, Colonel — and you’re right,” he said. “You’re wrong because I believe this project is that important. I can’t do anything about what the Pentagon thinks or if Congress will fund it or if the president will deploy it — all I can do is make it work, and that’s what I’m going to do. You’re right that this project is not worth having my son or any child get hurt by it. That’s why you’re going to make it work. Do you think we can get the system tweaked down enough to do complex maneuvers like air refueling?”
“Excuse me, sir, but we’re both navigators,” Daren pointed out. “We know damn well the Air Force can train chimpanzees to fly a B-1 bomber.”
Patrick laughed — and his laughter instantly seemed to brighten the dim, stifling, noisy interior of the little trailer. “You’ve given me a lot more to hope for in five minutes than anything I’ve heard in the past week, Colonel. Can you help me with this?”
“I’ll be glad to give it a try, sir.”
“Good.” He motioned to the fifth console, where the technician was struggling with a debugging program. “Take a look at this, Daren. We’ve been fighting with this routine all night.”
Daren took a quick look, narrowing his eyes as he scanned the readouts. “What program is this, sir? Where did you get it?”
“My guys at Dreamland wrote it several years ago.”
“With all due respect, sir, I think you’ve been hanging out at Dreamland too long,” Daren said. “That program is not only several years old — it’s a generation too old. I guess part of the problem of working at a supersecret research facility is that you never hear when a really good tool is fabricated in the field. My guys at Beale wrote a satellite datalink routine trace-and-synchronization setup program for Global Hawk that’ll knock your socks off. I’m sure we can adap
t it for the FlightHawks and eventually the B-1.”
Patrick McLanahan clasped Daren Mace on the shoulder and said, “Outstanding, Daren. Get on it first thing in the morning.” He looked at his watch and added, “I mean, later on this morning. I know that John Long, the ops group commander, has a pretty tight checkout schedule drawn up for you. I’ll get you out of it as much as I can.”
“No problem, sir. There doesn’t seem to be a hell of a lot else to do around here.”
“Not even at Donatella’s?”
Daren smiled and felt himself blushing.
“We keep pretty close tabs on all our troops out here, Daren.”
“It was an interesting visit, sir, but I don’t think I’ll be back anytime soon,” Daren said. “I’ll call the Pentagon and put in official requests for the software to be transmitted to us. It’ll be refused, of course, but then I’ll make a few more phone calls to my boys and girls in the computer labs at Beale, Palmdale, and Wright-Pat, and I’ll have the latest version of the software up and running here by noon. We’ll let the software set up a conversation between your ground station and the aircraft. It’ll tell us where the glitches are and what we need to do to fix them, and soon, in a day or two, we should either be up and running or begging for more money for parts and equipment. But from what I’ve seen in here tonight, you have all the basic stuff already in place — we just need to sort out and correct the bugs. I’ll get right on it.”
“Outstanding,” Patrick said. He motioned to the door and led Daren outside. “And I,” he went on, “will take my boy home with me, and I think we’ll both have a good night’s rest for a change.”
“It’s gotta be tough,” Daren said, “being a two-star general on active duty and a single dad.”
“I’ve got plenty of support — friends, family, nanny — but I never knew it could be so tough,” Patrick said. “But it’s even tougher to hear your own sisters and your mother arguing that it would be in Bradley’s best interest to let him stay with them. It tears me apart, and I work even harder to solve a problem to free up more time to be with him — and what I end up doing is only digging a deeper hole for myself.” He looked at Daren earnestly and said, “I wish I’d brought you in on this project the moment I set foot on base, Daren. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I knew your background with the Global Hawks — that was the reason I asked for you in the first place — but then I let Furness and Long schedule the usual wing-orientation stuff with you. I’ve been spinning my wheels out here for weeks.”
“I’m not guaranteeing results, sir,” Daren said, “but we’ll start looking at all the conversations between your systems and your aircraft, track down the breaks, and see what happens. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“I feel lucky already,” Patrick said, and he held out his hand. Daren shook it. “Let’s meet tomorrow afternoon, and you can bring me up to speed on your progress. And if you want anything, buzz me. You’ll get whatever you need.”
“Yes, sir.” Daren watched as Patrick McLanahan went inside the tent and a few moments later emerged with his son clasped tightly to his chest, still snuggled down in his sleeping bag. The big armored android McLanahan named Wilde appeared with the big rifle — did McLanahan call it an “electromagnetic rail gun”?—slung on his shoulder and offered to carry the boy for the general, but Patrick waved him off with a smile on his face.
This damned Air Force had its really shitty moments, Daren thought as he headed back to his pickup truck, but right now he felt like the happiest man in the entire U.S. military. For the first time in many, many years, he finally felt like a part of something special.
He couldn’t wait to get started. He seriously doubted that he was going to get much sleep that night. At first he thought he was going to be dreaming about Amber and what he once had with Rebecca Furness. Now maybe it was going to be about flying robot warplanes.
Two
OUTSIDE THE CITY OF KERKI, WESTERN TURKMENISTAN
That same time
Well, here they were again, just like two days ago: almost out of food, water, fuel — and getting pretty desperate.
A few things had changed. Wakil Mohammad Zarazi now called himself “General,” and Jalaluddin Turabi now called himself “Colonel.” They had a much larger force traveling with them, well over a full company and a half, and perhaps close to a full battalion. The T-72 tank was still going strong, and they still had plenty of ammunition for its machine gun, although they still hadn’t procured any rounds for the main gun — not that it mattered, since no one in the company knew exactly how to aim and fire the thing anyway. But it looked like a real fighting force now.
His force was battle-tested now as well. Zarazi’s little band had been attacked yesterday morning by a Turkmen patrol about thirty-two kilometers south of Kerki. It was an ill-conceived raid — obviously the young Turkmen lieutenant in charge thought the mere sight of a few tanks and a few platoons of regular-army soldiers would be enough to frighten him off. In less than an hour, Zarazi had procured three T-55 tanks, a number of armored personnel carriers, upgraded and far more reliable infantry weapons, thousands of rounds of ammo, a few more loyal fighters, and, best of all, a victory.
But now the real challenge was about to begin. Zarazi and his regiment were on the Qarshi-Andkhvoy highway that connected Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan, a few kilometers outside the city of Kizyl-arvat and sixteen kilometers from their objective, the Turkmen army air base at Kerki. Scouts had reported a buildup of regular Turkmen army forces at the bridge across the Amu Darya River and at the port facility there. It looked as if the Turkmen army was going to make a stand at Kizyl-arvat.
Military helicopters had been flying nearby all day, probing Zarazi’s forces. Zarazi had ordered his men to attack one helicopter that strayed too close, and his troops shot an SA-7 shoulder-fired missile at it but missed. Since then the Turkmen helicopters stayed just outside range. They weren’t attacking, probably only taking pictures, gathering intelligence, but it was making everyone nervous. He had to do something, or else his fragile military unit might start disintegrating.
Zarazi and Turabi formulated a plan. They loaded two ZSU-23/2 [twenty-three millimeter] antiaircraft guns onto the backs of flatbed trucks, covered them with tarps braced with lumber, then covered the tarps with sand and dirt. From the air they looked — the two men hoped — like big piles of dirt or garbage. They drove them along with a couple of pickup trucks full of soldiers westbound down the Kizyl-arvat — Kerki highway on the south side of the Amu Darya River.
It wasn’t long before a lone Mi-8 helicopter of the Turkmenistan army intercepted them, about seven kilometers east of Kerki. At first the helicopter stayed two kilometers away, scanning the convoy visually; Zarazi could see a door gunner with a 12.3-millimeter machine gun, but no rockets or other heavy attack weapons. Zarazi’s men carried rifles, but no other weapons were visible. Still cautious, the Mi-8 touched down a bit less than four kilometers away and dropped off about a dozen infantrymen up ahead, apparently to set up a roadblock. After a few more passes, the helicopter started to move in for a closer look, the port-side-door gunner at the ready.
Zarazi could tell when they were in range, because the Turkmen door gunner cocked his own weapon and steadied up on the lead truck. “Now!” Zarazi shouted. “Attack!”
A rope connected to a pickup truck trailing behind each flatbed truck pulled the tarps off, immediately revealing the antiaircraft guns. Before the helicopter pilot could react, they opened fire. Both ZSUs jammed after just a few seconds, but firing at a rate of one hundred rounds a second per barrel, it was enough. The helicopter’s engine section exploded, and it nosed over and dove straight into the desert. The crew and ten infantrymen died in the explosion and fire that followed seconds later.
Half the Turkmen soldiers on the roadblock up ahead, mostly the conscripts and officers, ran when they saw the smoke and fire rising from the desert at the crash site; the rest, mostly the young profes
sional soldiers, stayed to fight. Zarazi parked his armored personnel carrier about a kilometer down the highway from the roadblock, stood on top of the vehicle so they could see him and also see that he wasn’t afraid of snipers, and spoke into the APC’s loudspeaker: “This is General Wakil Mohammad Zarazi, servant of God and commander of the eastern division of the soldiers of Hezbollah. I am addressing the brave soldiers of the Islamic Republic of Turkmenistan who did as you were ordered to do — stay at your posts and defend your homeland like soldiers and like men. The others of you who turned and ran away are cowardly dogs, and you deserve to die like dogs.
“To those of you who stayed, I tell you this: If you are true believers, if you want to serve God and protect your homes and your families above all else, I will not harm you. You have proven your valor and courage today. I give you a choice: You may withdraw now and return to your unit, and you can suffer whatever fate your cowardly superiors offer you. You may stay and fight and be destroyed. Or you may stay, swear allegiance to me and to Hezbollah, and join my army. You will be made welcome and allowed to fight the oppressors and cowards who dared to call you subordinates.
“My mission is simple: to serve God by carving a home for his dedicated soldiers out of the desert where we may train and prepare for jihad. The Crusaders, the unbelievers, the infidels, and the traitors destroyed our previous camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But God has ordered me to take my army and build for him a new mosque and a new training center, and this is what I will do.
“Many of you are worried about your families. I say this unto you: If you join me, I will protect your families from retribution. And if I cannot save them, I will avenge them. If the cowards touch the families of a true servant of God, the families of the righteous shall be taken into heaven, and the cowards shall be cast into the fire. I promise this will be so, as God is my witness. So choose. I will give you five minutes, and then I will remove your roadblock. May Allah protect you.”
