The captain of one of the trawlers had seen the American Megafortresses drop an unknown type of buoy into the water. Photos of the buoy did not match any of the ASW types the Americans typically used. Interestingly, the trawler—equipped with an array of high-tech snooping gear that worked both under and above the water—had been unable to pick up any transmissions to or from that buoy, or a second one dropped sometime later, at least not at the distance he had been ordered to stay from any American asset. The captain wanted permission to investigate, and perhaps retrieve one of the buoys if the opportunity presented itself.
Chen weighed the matter. Despite being allies, the Americans were hardly forthcoming when it came to sharing new technology. The appearance of the EB-52’s—which had not been used in marine patrol or ASW roles before—surely meant they were using some new device. Whatever it was—a passive sonar system perhaps?—would be of great value in dealing with the Communists.
He would not, and could not, provoke an incident with the Americans. But surely this was worth studying. What if he snatched the device, then claimed to have thought it was a Mainland weapon?
In the confusion of battle, such an explanation would be accepted, if only reluctantly. In such a case, the asset would be returned—after it was examined, of course.
Chen took a pen and wrote his orders to the captain, telling his to proceed. He handed the message back to the courier, who immediately retreated for the radio room.
“Ready, Commander,” said Professor AI, who’d been waiting.
“Then begin.”
Fann turned toward the crane as the taro was taken off the small aircraft. The large hook, very old and heavy, swung freely above, making him slightly apprehensive; its weight could easily damage the robot. The crew was well trained and practiced, however. Two men grabbed the hook as it came toward them, then fit it into the harness. One of them climbed up above the Dragon and onto the chain. It must seem like the greatest job in the world, riding on the hoist as it swung out, waiting as the four men in the water carefully undid the sling, then riding back to the deck.
For Chen, the elation would come later, much later—he hoped to see one of the carriers in flames before the end of the day.
Professor Ai looked at him, and Fann realized the scientist was waiting for his order to begin. Fann nodded. The scientist smiled broadly, then turned and waved to the crane operator, who stood a short distance away with a wired remote. The man pushed one of the levers and the motor on the crane whirled.
There was a loud grinding noise. Someone shouted. Smoke appeared from the crane house. Professor Ai leaped toward the robot cursing.
Fann stood impassively, watching.
Who was riding the donkey now? Which way did Fortune blow?
“It’s a problem with the crane,” said the scientist a few minutes later.
“Yes.”
“We have to use the backup.”
“Do so.”
“It will take time.”
“Do it as quickly as you can,” said Chen. He turned and went back to his cabin.
Philippines
1346
Dog took a last check of the situation at the Whiplash trailer, touching base with Dreamland Command before leaving. Major Alou and Raven were on station, Alou being extra careful to stay outside the patrol area the Chinese fighters had established. Piranha sat about tem miles away from the Chinese submarine. The sub had taken up an almost stationary position to the southwest of the carrier task force. A U.S. sub had already found the other Chinese submarine on the eastern side of the Chinese fleet. Within the next twelve hours, a second SSN should be on Piranha’s target as well. Whiplash could close up shop.
The fate of the Indian sub remained a mystery. Though the profile wasn’t a good match, the contact Piranha had seen was discounted as American SSN, which had indeed been in the vicinity. Intercepts of Chinese Mainland transmissions by the NSA showed the Chinese believe the submarine had been sunk, but the analysts weren’t completely sure. There was no hard evidence it had gone down, and it clearly had the capability to stay submerged for several days. It could still be shadowing the Chinese fleet, or it could have set sail south to return to India.
Whiplash had accomplished its mission. The data they had gathered would provide a hundred analysts useful employment for the next year or more. Just as importantly, they demonstrated they value of Piranha and its technology.
Yet Colonel Bastian felt as if he’d failed. Because he’d lost a man? Or because he’d had his tail whacked by Woods?
Definitely the tail-whacking. He’d lost men before—good men, friends. It was the cost of freedom, as corny and trite as that sounded. The sorrow of their deaths was as much part of his job as the speed-suit he donned to fly. But getting treated like—like what, exactly? A lieutenant colonel?
He missed General Magnus now. The three-star general would have insulated him from this BS. He had in Turkey, when Central Command tried to get its fingers in.
Problem was, at the time he’d thought Magnus was a bit of pain as well. So the real problem was his ego.
“Something up, Colonel?” asked Jack “Pretty Boy” Floyd, who was at the communication desk.
“Just getting ready to hit the road, Sergeant,” he told him.
“Yes, sir. Coffee’s better over at the Navy tent,” he added. “Liu’s the only one on the team who can make a decent pot.”
“Better pray he gets out of the hospital soon then, huh?” said Dog.
“Yes, sir,” said Floyd, who didn’t quite take it as lightly as it was intended.
“He’ll be okay, Sergeant,” Dog added. “You hang in there.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Outside, the air was heavy with humidity; another storm was approaching. Sweat began to leak from his pores as he headed toward the Navy C-9B waiting to take him to Manila, where he’d hop a civilian flight to L.A.
The schedule was tight. Unlike the Navy plane, the civilian 747 wasn’t going to wait, but midway to his plane Dog took a detour, deciding he really had to say goodbye to one more member of his command.
Jennifer Gleason stood on the hard-packed dirt near Iowa, hands on hips. Several access panels directly behind the crew area of the plane were open; a portable platform was set up below the EB-52’s belly. Three or four techies hunched over the equipment on a nearby pallet, flashing screwdrivers; a sailor carried a disk array the size of a pizza box up the plane’s access ramp. Gleason was shaking her head in obvious disgust.
“Hey, Gleason, what’s up?” said Dog.
“These guys handle the computers like they’re crystal,” she complained. “They’re designed to take over twelve Gs for cryin’ out loud. We won’t be ready for hours.”
“You look pretty when you’re fretting.” Dog allowed himself a light touch on her shoulder. “You don’t want them to throw the gear up there, do you?”
“Be faster.”
God, she was beautiful.
“I have to go home,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” She flicked her hair back behind her ear. “I’m okay here.”
“I know that,” said Dog.
Something near the plane caught her eye and she turned back. “Excuse me, Colonel.” She started to trot toward the plane. “Hey! Hey!”
Dog watched the sway of her hips in the fatigue pants, then abruptly started for the Navy plane. If he didn’t get aboard now …
Aboard Quicksilver, above the South China Sea
1636
Guiding the Piranha probe was considerably easier than flying the Flighthawk. Fentress ran through some simple maneuvers and flipped back and forth between the views as Delaford watched from aboard the other Megafortress. They had made a few adjustments in the simulated 3-D screen since he had sat in on the development sessions, but it wasn’t difficult at all to get comfortable. He even remembered, without prompting, how to split the screen so he could see a forward and a sitrep view at the same time.
The probe was within th
irteen miles of the Chinese submarine, which was moving at three knots south. Another fifteen miles away was the lead Chinese aircraft carrier. The Piranha communications buoy had been dropped thirty-five miles further west, allowing the EB-52 to stay outside of carrier CAP.
Delaford had launched this probe a few hours before to replace the first, whose fuel had lasted slightly longer than they’d originally calculated. It was now moving southwest in low-power mode, and would be picked up by the Dreamland Osprey in a few hours, if the weather held. A new storm system was approaching rather quickly.
“You look like you’re on top of it,” said Delaford. “See you down the line.”
“I’ll be here.” The line snapped clear; he was on his own.
Upstairs on the flight deck, Breanna reviewed her fuel situation and went through a quick instrument check. With everything in the green, she turned the plane over to Chris and eased out of the driver’s seat, intending to take a short break. Among Quicksilver’s custom touches was a small refrigerator located at the back end of the flight deck. Breanna had often joked that, with missions sometimes stretching over twelve hours, a full gallery ought to be provided, and one of the engineers had suggested adding a microwave.
She’d have a full gallery when she flew the UMB. Even better, a full bathroom.
Hell, one of the geeks said she could fly if from her bedroom via laptop—now wouldn’t that be a trip?
Breanna checked on Freddy and Torbin, both hard at work parsing their data from the Chinese and Indian forces. Freddy fed most of his communications intercepts directly back to Dreamland, where a team of language experts were monitoring the transmission. Given that both sides realized they were being listened to, there was a surprising amount of traffic.
Breanna squatted in front of the refrigerator and took out a diet cola. She opened it and took a sip, then leaned against the bulkhead and looked at her crew.
Did she want to leave this behind?
Maybe. This was fairly routine. Almost boring.
Not that the business the other day had been.
It made sense from a career angle, certainly. It’d be easier on her back, which was crinked from the cot she’d slept on last night. She’d see Zen more. Not that she didn’t see him all the time now.
The thoughts came to her in a sarcastic tone, almost as if someone else had said it. She was mad at her husband, though she wasn’t exactly sure why.
Because he was working with Jennifer?
Whom she hated. But Zen was always working with Jenn-i-fer; it wasn’t that big a deal.
Was it?
“Hey,” said a voice behind her. It startled her so badly she nearly lost her balance.
Stoner, the CIA officer aboard to act as general intelligence consultant and Fentress’s gofer.
“Mr. Stoner. We would prefer it if you kept your seat,” she told him.
“You’re up.”
“What can I do for you?” she said frostily.
“I was wondering if I could listen in on some of the com intercepts from the trawler, if they’re in the clear.”
“You speak Chinese?”
“A bit.”
“I doubt they’re in the clear,” she told him. “But we may be able to pipe them through. G back to your station and I’ll see.”
“Can I view them?”
Civilians just didn’t get it sometimes.
“We’re too far from the actual position of the ships on the surface to seem them. We have radar indications, that’s all.”
“If you get close to them, I’d like to take a look. I might be able to tell you what kind of equipment they have. I’d be very interested.”
He had a handsome face, deep blue eyes that seemed out of place with his dark hair.
“We’ll try. Use the interphone from now on,” she told him. “Downstairs.”
He stared at her a while longer, then nodded.
“Kind of a jerk,” she said as she sat back in her seat.
“Who?” said Chris.
“Stoner.”
“Yeah? Seemed okay to me. First CIA guy I ever met.”
“Give him a sitrep screen, all right? Show him where everything is.”
Breanna checked with Collins about the intercepts. They’d only isolated one or two from the spy ships, and they were all heavily encoded. “Give Mr. Stoner a lowdown, would you?”
“Not a problem.”
Restraints snugged, Breanna checked their position as well as that of the other players. The Chinese and Indian fleets were moving slowly toward each other. Two Sukhois had begun shadowing the Megafortress in a long oval track three miles to the east. Same old, same old.
“Trawler’s heading off south,” Chris pointed out, referring to the Taiwanese spy ship. “Wimping out?”
“Just getting out of the way for the showdown” said Breanna.
Stoner folded his arms in front of his chest, staring at the video screen. Both the Chinese and the Indians had their chessmen in place; they could start duking it out in an hour.
So what were the Taiwanese up to anyway? Egging the Indians on? Usually, they took a more laid-back approach, but they had spy ships all over the place, including one so close it was going to catch shrapnel when the fighting started.
Stoner stared at the fifteen-inch display screen where the sitrep view was displayed. It was a simple thing, a plot of positions against longitude and latitude, yet cobbling it together was not exactly child’s play. To get all these different inputs, process them, out them on the screen so that even an untrained operator like himself could see what was going on—Dreamland indeed.
“Say, uh, Captain Ferris. Chris. This is Stoner. What’s the green triangle on my screen?”
“On the sitrep? That’s the marker for the Piranha buoy. It’s tied into the tactical system so it comes on the display. Sorry if it’s confusing.”
“That Taiwanese trawler is going to run right over our buoy if they stay on that course. Is he tracking it?”
“No way,” said Ferris.
“Well, he’s going to run over it anyway.”
Breanna pushed the plane down through the leading edge of the fast-moving cloud front, trying to get low enough for a visual on the players—and the trawler that was on a collision course for their buoy. “Stoner’s right—they’re aimed almost perfectly for it,” said Chris as they broke through the clouds into the gray stillness above the water. The spy ship looked like a child’s boat in a bathtub. “Should I try hailing them?”
“What are you going to tell them?” asked Bree. “That they’re about to run over a top-secret communications system for a high-tech weapon?”
“I probably wouldn’t want to say that,” said Chris contritely.
If the trawler hit the buoy, they would most likely lose their connection—and Piranha. It occurred to Breanna the ocean was awful big and the buoy awfully small—and yet the ship was uncannily on course for the device.
“Could they track the transmission, you think?”
“Well, the Navy couldn’t,” said Chris. “But in theory, it’s possible. That ship had been around—they might have seen the buoy launched.”
“Fentress’s—how’s your connection with Piranha?” Bree asked.
“As far as I can tell, Captain, they’re not interfering.”
“Going through two thousand feet to nineteen hundred, eighteen hundred,” said the copilot, belatedly calling out their altitude. “We’re getting low.”
“Is there enough time to auto-sink this buoy and launch another?” Bree asked Chris and Fentress as she leveled off.
“Sinking procedure takes a hundred and eighty seconds,” said Fentress. “I have the screen up.”
“We have to get the new one in the water first,” said Chris.
“Pick a spot about five miles away. Make it ten.”
“Hang on.” He worked on his screens, plotting a course. “Five minutes total. If they’re watching and they’re interested, there’s no guaran
tee they won’t see us, Bree. They’ll know what we’re doing and get at least a rough idea of where we launch. The Chinese may too.”
“I don’t know that we have any other choice. Give me the course. Kevin, be ready with the self-destruct.”
“I can’t get that panel once we’re trying to reconnect,” he told her. “What I mean is, it’ll take a few more seconds.”
“They’re just about alongside,” said Chris.
If Zen were here, she’d have him send the Flighthawks to buzz the spy ship.
So where the hell was he when she needed him?
“Think they’ll back off if we buzz them?” she asked Chris.
“Don’t know,” said the copilot. “Sure get them talking about us, though.”
Breanna slid the Megafortress onto her left wing, pirouetting back toward the trawler and kicking up her speed. ‘They may be armed,” said Stoner over the interphone.
“Don’t be so optimistic,” said Breanna. She pushed the EB-52 to just three hundred feet over the white-capped waves, the plane a black finger wagging at the trawler not to be naughty. They could see the people on the deck duck as they roared over.
“One more time,” she said, picking up the plane’s nose and then pedaling into a tight bank. “And this time, we’re going to one hundred feet.”
“We can snap their aerial if you want,” offered Chris.
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Two hundred fifty feet,” said the copilot. As he continued to read the descending numbers, a bit of a tremble entered his voice. They cleared the upper mast by maybe ten feet.
“They stop?” Breanna asked.
“Not sure. They’re on the deck.”
“One more pass. Prepare to deploy buoy,” said Breanna.
This time they cleared the mast by inches rather than feet, but the trawler had continued moving and was no practically alongside the buoy. Two or three crew members were leaning over the rail there.
“Getting static here,” said Fentress as they cleared the shop.
“Activate the targeting radar for the air mines,” said Breanna.
“Captain?” said Ferris.
“We’ll get their attention, launch another probe while we’re firing, sink the first, launch a third further away, then sink the second,” said Breanna. “Calculate it so we come close, but don’t hit them with the shrapnel.”
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