Shadow Command

by Dale Brown

  After the Meteor container was away, Boomer and Frenchy continued their powered descent. The atmosphere made the spaceplane slow down much more quickly, and soon the LPDRS engines were throttling back to maintain the maximum 3-G deceleration. “Hull temperatures well within the green,” Moulain reported. “I sure like these powered descents.”

  Boomer fought off the G-forces, reached out, and patted the top of the instrument panel. “Good spaceship, nice spaceship,” he cooed lovingly. “She likes these powered descents too—all that heat on the belly is not nice, is it, sweetie? Did I tell you, Frenchy, that those ‘leopards’ engines were my idea?”

  “Only about a million times, Captain.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Air pressure on the surface is up to green…computers are securing the reaction control system,” Moulain reported. “Mission-adaptive control surfaces are in test mode…tests complete, MAW system responding to computer commands.” The MAW, or Mission Adaptive Wing, system was a series of tiny actuators on the fuselage that in essence turned the entire body of the spaceplane into a lift or drag device—computers shaped the skin as needed to maneuver, climb or descend, make the craft slipperier, or slow down quickly. Even flying backward, the MAW system allowed complete control over the spaceplane. With the atmospheric controls active, Boomer took control of the Black Stallion himself, turned so they were flying forward like a normal aircraft, then hand-flew the ship through a series of steep, high angle-of-attack turns to help bleed off more speed while keeping the descent rate and hull temperatures under control.

  At the same time, he was maneuvering to get into position for landing. This landing was going to be a bit trickier than most, because their landing spot was in southeast Turkey at a joint Turkey-NATO military base at a city named Batman. Batman Air Base was a Special Operations Joint Task Force base during the 1991 Gulf War, with American Army Special Forces and Air Force pararescue troops running clandestine missions throughout Iraq. It was returned to Turkish civil control after the war. In a bid for greater cooperation and better relations with its fellow Muslim nations in the Middle East, Turkey forbade NATO offensive military operations to be staged from Batman, but America had convinced the Turks to allow reconnaissance and some strike aircraft to fly from Batman to hunt down and destroy insurgents in Iran. It was now one of the most vital forward air bases for American and NATO forces in the Middle East, eastern Europe, and central Asia.

  “Passing sixty thousand feet, atmospheric pressure in the green, ready to secure the ‘leopards,’” Moulain said. Boomer chuckled—securing the “leopards” and transitioning to air-breathing turbojet mode was done automatically, as were most operations on the spaceplane, but Moulain always tried to pre-guess when the computer would initiate the procedure. Cute, yes—but she was generally correct, too. Sure enough, the computer notified him that the LPDRS engines were secure. “We’re still in ‘manual’ mode, Captain,” Moulain reminded him. “The system won’t restart the engines automatically.”

  “You’re really on top of this stuff, aren’t you, Frenchy?” Boomer quipped.

  “That’s my job, Captain.”

  “You’re never going to call me ‘Boomer,’ are you?”

  “Unlikely, Captain.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing, Frenchy.”

  “I’ll survive. Ready for restart.”

  Part of her allure was definitely the chase. Maybe she was all businesslike in bed too—but that was going to have to wait for a time when they weren’t seated in tandem. “Unspiking the engines, turbojets coming alive.” They had enough oxygen in the atmosphere now to stop using hydrogen peroxide to burn jet fuel, so Boomer reopened the movable spikes in the engine inlets and initiated the engine start sequence. In moments the turbojets were idling and ready to fly. Their route of flight was taking them over central Europe and Ukraine, and now they were over the Black Sea, heading southeast toward Turkey. Along with keeping hull temperatures low, the powered descent procedures allowed them to descend out of orbit much quicker—they could come down from two hundred miles’ altitude into initial approach position, called the “high gate,” in less than a thousand miles, where a normal aerobraking descent might take almost five thousand miles.

  Below sixty thousand feet they were in Class A positive control airspace, so now they had to follow all normal air traffic control procedures. The computer had already entered the proper frequency in the number one UHF radio: “Ankara Center, this is Stud Seven, due regard, one hundred twenty miles northwest of Ankara, passing flight level five-four-zero, requesting activation of our flight plan. We will be MARSA with Chevron Four-One.”

  “Stud Seven, Ankara Center, remain outside Turkish Air Defense Identification Zone until radar identified, squawk one-four-one-seven normal.” Boomer read back all the instructions.

  At that moment, on their secondary encrypted radio, they heard: “Stud Seven, Chevron Four-One on Blue Two.”

  Boomer had Frenchy monitor the air traffic control frequency, then switched to the secondary radio: “Four-One, this is Stud Seven.” They performed a challenge-and-response code exchange to verify each other’s identity, even though they were on an encrypted channel. “We launched out of Batman because we heard from Ankara ATC that they are not letting any aircraft cross their ADIZ, even ones with established flight plans. We don’t know what’s going on, but usually it’s because an unidentified aircraft or vessel drifted into their airspace or waters, or some Kurds fired some mortars across the border, and they shut everything down until they sort it out. We’re coming up on rendezvous point ‘Fishtail.’ Suggest we do a point-parallel there, then head out to MK.”

  “Thank you for staying heads-up, Four-One,” Boomer said, the relief obvious in his voice. Using the powered descent profile grossly depleted their fuel reserves—they were almost bingo fuel right now, and by the time they reached the initial approach fix at Batman Air Base they’d be in an emergency fuel status, and they would have no fuel to go anywhere else. Their closest alternate landing site was Mi-hail Kogălniceanu Airport near Constanţa, Romania, or simply “MK” for short, the first U.S. military base established in a former Warsaw Pact country.

  With the two aircraft linked via the secure transceiver, their multi-function displays showed them each other’s position, the track they had to follow to rendezvous, and the turnpoints they’d need to get into position. The Black Stallion reached the Air Refueling Initial Point fifteen minutes early, four hundred knots too fast, and thirty thousand feet too high, so Boomer started a series of high-bank turns to bleed off the excess airspeed. “I love it—boring holes in the sky, flying around in the fastest manned aircraft on the planet.”

  “Odin to Stud Seven,” Boomer heard on his encrypted satellite transceiver.

  “It’s God on GUARD,” he quipped. “Go ahead, Odin.”

  “You’re cleared to proceed to MK,” Patrick McLanahan said from Armstrong Space Station. He was monitoring the spaceplane’s progress from the command module. “Crews are standing by to secure the Black Stallion.”

  “Do I have to have someone back home looking over my shoulder from now on?” he asked.

  “That’s affirmative, Boomer,” Patrick responded. “Get used to it.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Any idea why Ankara wasn’t letting anyone in, sir?”

  “This is Genesis. Still negative,” David Luger chimed in. “We’re still checking.”

  Eventually the Black Stallion was able to slow down and descend to get into proper position, five hundred feet below and a half mile behind the tanker. “Stud Seven is established, checklist complete, got you in sight, ready,” Boomer reported.

  “Roger, Seven, this is Chevron Four-One,” the boom operator in the tanker’s tail pod responded. “I read you loud and clear, how me.”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “Roger that. I have a visual on you too.” On intercom, he said, “Boom’s lowering to contact position, crew,”
and he motored the refueling book into position, its own steerable fly-by-wire wings stabilizing it in the big tanker’s slipstream. Back on the radio: “Seven is cleared to precontact position, Four-One is ready.”

  “Seven’s moving up,” Boomer said. He opened the slipway doors atop the fuselage behind the cockpit, then smoothly maneuvered the spaceplane to the precontact position: aligned with the tanker’s centerline, the top of the windscreen on the center seam of the director light panel. The immense belly of the converted Boeing 777 filled the windscreen. “Seven’s in precontact position, stabilized and ready, JP-7 only this time,” he said.

  “Copy precontact and ready, JP-7 only, cleared to contact position, Four-One ready,” the boom operator said. He extended the nozzle and set the “maneuver” light blinking, the signal for the receiver to move into position. Boomer barely had to move the controls because the plane was so light—almost as if just by thought, he carefully maneuvered the Black Stallion forward and up. When the maneuver light turned steady, Boomer held his position, again as if by thought only, and the boom operator slid the nozzle into the receptacle. “Contact, Four-One.”

  “Seven has contact and shows fuel flow,” Boomer acknowledged. “You’re a very welcome sight, boys.”

  “We’re a Cabernet crew, sir,” the tanker pilot said.

  It took the KC-77 ten minutes to transfer thirty thousand pounds of jet fuel to the Black Stallion. “Let’s start heading west, Four-One,” Boomer said. “We’re starting to get too close to Krasnodar.” Krasnodar on the east coast of the Black Sea was the location of a major Russian air base, and although they were well outside theirs or anyone else’s airspace, it was best not to fly around such areas unannounced. Along with their big air defense radar and numerous long-range surface-to-air missile batteries, Krasnodar was one of the largest fighter bases in the entire world, with no less than three full air defense fighter wings based there, including one with the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 “Fulcrum,” considered one of the best interceptors in the world.

  Even four years after the American retaliatory attacks in Russia, nerves were still frayed throughout the entire region, and operators were on a hair trigger to scramble fighters and activate air defense systems. Luckily, there were no signs of any air defense activity behind them. “Right turn is best.”

  “Coming right to two-seven-zero,” the tanker’s pilot said. Boomer expertly banked behind the modified Boeing 777 aircraft as they started to turn south, maintaining contact in the turn.

  They had just rolled out on the new heading when the tanker’s boom operator said, “Well well, folks, looks like we have a visitor. Seven, your three o’clock, real damned close.”

  “What is it, Frenchy?” Boomer asked, concentrating on staying in the refueling envelope.

  “Oh shit…it’s a Russian MiG-29,” Moulain said nervously, “three o’clock, less than a half mile, right on our wingtip.”

  “See if he has a wingman,” Boomer said. “Russkies don’t fly around single-ship too often.”

  Moulain scanned the sky, trying to stay calm, straining to look as far back as she could. “Got him,” she said moments later. “Seven o’clock, about a mile.” The one at three o’clock slid closer, riveting her attention. In her fifteen-year Navy career she had never seen a MiG-29 except the ones in service in Germany, and that was on a static display, not inflight. It could’ve been a fixed-wing clone of the F-14 Tomcat Navy carrier fighter, with broad wings, beefy fuselage, and a large nose for its big fire control radar. This one was in green, light blue, and gray camouflage stripes, with the big white, blue, and red flag of Russia on the vertical stabilizer—and she could clearly see one long-range and two short-range air-to-air missiles hanging off the MiG’s left wing. “He’s loaded for bear, that’s for sure,” she said nervously. “What are we going to do?”

  “I’m going to finish getting my gas,” Boomer said, “and then we’re going to proceed to landing at MK. This is international airspace; sightseeing is allowed. Let Genesis and Odin know what’s out there.”

  Boomer could hear Frenchy on the number two radio talking to someone, but she stopped a moment later: “That prick at three o’clock’s moving closer,” she said nervously.

  “How are we doing on gas?”

  “Three-quarters full.”

  “We got enough to get to MK with reserves?”

  “Plenty.”

  “I want to top ’em off just in case. How close is the MiG now?”

  “He’s right on our right wingtip,” Frenchy said. “You going to do a disconnect, Captain?”

  “Nah. I’m showing him how it’s done. No doubt he wants a glimpse of the future too.” But the little game wasn’t over. The MiG-29 kept on coming closer until shortly Boomer could hear his engine roar and vibration outside his cockpit canopy. “Okay, now he’s starting to piss me off. How are we on gas?”

  “Almost full.”

  “Where’s the wingman?”

  Moulain began to shift in her seat so she could turn all the way around to her left again…but soon found she didn’t have to, because the second MiG had zoomed forward and was now sitting right off the tanker pilot’s left cockpit window, close enough for his engine exhaust and jet wash to shake the tanker’s left wing, barely noticeably at first but soon more violently as the MiG slid closer.

  “Seven, this is Four-One. It’s getting hard to keep it under control. What do you say?”

  “Bastard,” Boomer muttered. “Time to call it quits.” On the radio he responded, “Four-One, let’s do a disconnect and—”

  But at that moment the second MiG to the left of the tanker’s cockpit stroked its afterburners, its exhausts just yards away from the tanker’s left wing’s leading edge, causing the wing to shove first violently downward, then upward, causing the tanker to roll right. “Breakaway, breakaway, breakaway!” the boom operator shouted on the radio. Boomer immediately chopped the throttles, hit the voice command button, and spoke, “Speed brakes seventy!” The Mission Adaptive Wing system immediately commanded a maximum drag setting, creating thousands of little speed brakes all over the spaceplane’s surface and allowing it to sink quickly…

  …and it wasn’t a moment too soon, because the tanker pilot, struggling with his plane’s controls and at the same time jamming on full military power and a thirty-degree climb angle when he heard the “breakaway” call, had overcorrected and was now violently rolling to his left, in the grip of a full power-on stall and on the verge of a tail-low spin. Boomer could swear he was going to be face-to-face with the boom operator as he saw the tanker’s tail swing lower and lower toward him. “C’mon, Chevron, recover, dammit, recover…!”

  The KC-77 tanker seemed to be doing a pirouette on the tip of the still-extended refueling boom, rolling left and right as if clawing the sky for a handhold, its wings fluttering like a giant osprey in a climb, except the tanker wasn’t climbing but was getting ready to roll over and spin out of control at any second. Just when Boomer thought it was going to roll over on its back and dive uncontrollably into the Black Sea, it stopped its death’s oscillations, the left wing stayed down, and the nose started to creep toward the horizon. As the nose dipped below the horizon, the right wing slowly, agonizingly started to come down. When the tanker disappeared from view, it was almost wings-level, steeply nose-low but quickly regaining its lost airspeed.

  “Chevron, you guys okay?” Boomer radioed.

  A few moments later he heard a high, squeaky, hoarse male voice say, “I got it, I got it, holy shit, I got it…Seven, this is Four-One, we’re okay. Man oh man, I thought we were goners. We’re at twelve thousand feet. We’re okay. One engine flamed out, but we’re restarting now.”

  Boomer scanned the sky and saw the two MiG-29s joined up far above him, heading east. He could almost hear them laughing over their radios on the little scare they put into the Americans. “You motherfuckers!” he shouted into his oxygen visor, and he shoved the throttles forward to max afterburner.
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  “Noble! What are you doing?” Moulain shouted when she had gotten her breath back after the sudden G-force shove to her chest. But it was soon obvious what he was doing—he was flying right for the middle of the MiG formation. By the time she could cry out, they had blasted past the two MiGs, passing less than a hundred yards above them, traveling more than seven hundred miles an hour! “Jesus, Noble, are you insane?”

  Boomer pitched the Black Stallion into a steep sixty-degree climb, still accelerating. “We’re going to see if they like scrapping with the other alley cats or if they just pick on the big fat tabbies,” he said. The threat warning receiver blared—the MiGs had been running radar-silent until now, which is how they were able to sneak up on their formation so easily, but now they had their big N-019 radar on and searching. Boomer leveled off at forty thousand feet, pulled the throttles back to military power, and switched his multifunction display to the threat depiction, which gave him his best picture of the situation. “Keep an eye on my fuel and let me know when we’re getting close to bingo fuel on MK, Frenchy.”

  “Stud, this is Odin,” Patrick McLanahan radioed from Armstrong Space Station. “We just picked up the threat warning. You’ve got two MiGs behind you! Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to drag these guys east as much as possible so they’ll stay away from the tanker,” Boomer said, “and I’m going to teach them a lesson about screwing with a Black Stallion and especially its tanker.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing, Boomer?” Patrick asked.

  “I’m hoping these guys will take a shot at me, General,” Boomer said, “and then I’m really going to water their eyes. Any other questions, sir?”

  There was a slight pause, during which time Moulain was positive the general would be swearing a blue streak and literally bouncing off the ceiling of the command module in pure anger at Noble’s adolescent stunt. To her shock, she heard McLanahan reply: “Negative, Boomer. Just try not to scratch the paint.”