by Dale Brown
An atoll off the Indian coast
Time and date unknown
They moved together in a dance, their bodies so close together they seemed to be welded, his leg between hers, her back nestled against his stomach. They rolled on the bed in a timeless trance, restless but peaceful in sleep, so used to the other’s movements that even their breaths were in sync.
Then something gripped him and he began sliding away, pulled back by a force greater than gravity, yet slower, more painful. He tried to cling to her but could not, found himself twisting in hot wind. An intense heat enveloped his head. His throat became parched, then burned. He was alone and felt empty, thirsty, for water and for her.
Alone.
Zen pushed himself away, rising on his chest in the darkness before twilight. He was sure that Breanna was gone.
But she wasn’t. He heard her breathing before he saw her, saw her before he felt her. He let himself slip back against her, trying to reassure himself that what he had felt was just a misshapen remnant of a bad dream induced by thirst and nothing else.
He was very thirsty but they had to conserve their water.
Perhaps this was what had caused his nightmare.
Thirst.
Zen wrapped his arm gently around his wife, cupping her breast. He tried to remember the first time he’d done that, concentrating not on the day or the time but the sensation, the way it had felt the first time to be in love. That was what he wanted to remember. He slid closer to Breanna, pressing his body on hers, huddling against the pain until the faint memory of falling in love lulled him to sleep.
Northern India, near the Chinese border
0220
The water was as clear as a pool. Liu moved his wrist light around, playing it in front of him as he slid downward. The large rocks at the bottom were smooth and shiny white, as if they’d been polished.
A piece of jagged metal lay on the floor of the lake to his left. He paddled to it slowly, still getting his bearings. The water wasn’t quite as cold as he’d thought it would be, but it was far from warm. The scuba gear stored on the Osprey was standard Navy gear, without the heating circuits that were part of the Dreamland equipment.
The metal twisted into a C, the curved end pointing toward a shallow ravine twenty feet away. Liu swam toward it, guided by the light from Captain Freah’s wrist as well as his own. The captain pushed ahead of him, then moved to his right. As Liu began to follow, a shadow emerged from the rocky bottom.
The baby. Not breathing.
It wasn’t the baby. Liu knew it wasn’t, but he had a hard time clearing the notion from his mind. He forced himself to look away, but the idea persisted, as if the ghost had managed to get inside his skull.
Danny Freah was waving at him. He’d found the warhead.
Liu pushed up to the surface, grateful to get away.
“Here!” he yelled to the others. “Here!”
* * *
Jennifer watched from the shoreline as the Osprey settled over the spot where Liu and Danny had surfaced. A metal chain and strap dangled from its belly; the strap would be connected to a hastily rigged harness that Danny and the sergeant had put on the warhead.
The noise from the Osprey was so loud that Jennifer almost didn’t hear Danny’s smart helmet beeping with an incoming communication. She put the helmet on, cleared the transmission, and found herself talking to Dog.
He stared at her for a moment, clearly taken off guard. Jennifer felt an overwhelming urge to kiss him — but of course she couldn’t.
“There’s a fresh wave of Chinese fighters on their way,” said Dog. “Two other aircraft as well. May be transports with paratroops; they’re a little too far away right now. What’s your situation?”
“We’ve located the warhead in the water. They’re rigging the Osprey to pull it out now.”
“How long before you get it out of there?”
“It’ll take a couple of hours at least. Safing it is an hour-long procedure.”
“Move it along as quickly as you can,” Dog said.
“Tecumseh, I know you’re mad, but I only did—”
“This isn’t the time. Bastian out.”
Aboard Dreamland Cheli, over northwest India
0235
Nailing the Sukhois was as easy as pressing a button.
Or should have been. The targeting system was having trouble locking.
“I can’t lock number three, Brad,” said Steve Micelli, the Cheli’s copilot. “It just won’t lock.”
“Yeah, keep trying,” snapped Sparks. The pilot put his hand on the throttle glide, urging more power from the turbos.
“Targets are at 160 miles,” said the airborne radar operator, Tom “Cheech” Long.
“Yeah yeah, Cheech, I know,” said Sparks. “Come on, Stevie. Get the missiles locked and away.”
“Targeting Bandit Three,” said the copilot finally. “Locked. Firing missile.”
The Anaconda whipped away, sailing out from under the Megafortress’s nose. Two more followed in quick succession.
Then more problems.
“Lost Bandit Six entirely,” said Micelli.
“Steve, I’m going to get up and slap you on the side of the head if you don’t stop screwing around,” said Sparks. “And I’m only half joking here, dude.”
“I’m trying, Brad. I’m trying.”
Sparks glanced at his sitrep plot, which showed his position and that of the other aircraft in the sky. The Sukhois were moving at him from the northwest; he was nose-on with their leader, Bandit One, at 150 miles.
“Missile launch from Bandit One. Missile launch from Bandit Two,” warned the radar man.
“Steve?”
“Yeah — got it. ECMs.”
“Stand by for evasive maneuvers.”
As soon as the Anaconda missile was under way, Sparks threw the Megafortress into a hard turn south.
“Missiles are tracking us,” said Cheech. “Must be passive homers, just like Colonel Bastian said.”
“The ol’ Dog knows his stuff,” said Sparks, starting another turn, this one to the west. “Kill ECMs.”
“Moving at 2,000 knots,” said Cheech. “Coming for us. Both of them.”
“I only want to hear good news from you, Cheech.”
Sparks had turned the aircraft around so the missiles were now following him; he hoped to outrun them. The problem was, he didn’t know if it was possible, since he had no data on the missiles’ range. They were moving roughly 33 miles a minute to his ten.
“Hey, Flighthawk leader — you staying with me or what?” Sparks asked.
“With you,” said Lieutenant Josh “Cowboy” Plank. “We running away from these assholes?”
“Bite your tongue, Cowboy,” said Sparks. “This is merely a strategic retreat.”
Unlike the Bennett, the Cheli was only escorted by one Flighthawk; Cowboy didn’t have enough experience yet to handle two at a time, and there was no second Flighthawk pilot available.
“Missile one — bull’s-eye!” said Micelli. “Nailed him! Missile two — hit.”
Sparks listened with satisfaction as the copilot tallied the score — five Sukhois down.
“What happened to Bandit Four?” said Sparks.
“Still there. Missile is off the screen.”
Sparks had other things to worry about at the moment — the two missiles that had been launched at him were now just thirty miles from his tail. He began a series of hard jinks, pushing the Megafortress sharply left and right in the sky, hoping the trailing missiles would have a difficult time following.
“Stinger air mines,” he told Micelli. “Get ready.”
“Ten miles,” warned Cheech.
The air mines had a very limited range, and to make it easier for his copilot, Sparks had to hold the plane as steady as possible. Unfortunately, that would also make it easy for the missiles.
“Five miles. Stinger ready.”
“Well, shoot the bastards down!”
>
A chit-chit-chit sound erupted from the back as the air mines were launched. Sparks put his hand on the throttle, urging the power plants to give him a few more knots.
Sixty seconds later he realized they’d made it.
“Missile is off the scope,” said Cheech. “Gone.”
“I shot it down! I got it!” yelled Micelli. “I got them both. Yeah! Yeah!”
Sparks turned the Megafortress back in the direction of the Sukhoi and the two larger aircraft. They had altered their courses slightly, but were still moving toward the area where the warhead was being recovered.
“Computer is IDing those two aircraft as Fokker F27 airliners,” said Cheech.
“Go away,” said Micelli. The encounter had given him a serious adrenaline rush, Sparks thought, as if he could fly home without the airplane.
“No shit, that’s what it says,” said Cheech. “Two Airbus airliners.”
“You queried them?” asked Micelli.
“Computer did and it confirmed.”
“Bullshit. Try it again.”
“We’re too far right now. You think it’s going to be different?”
“All right boys, settle down,” said Sparks. “Flighthawk leader — yo, Cowboy, I want you to rustle on over there and scout those aircraft out. We’ll take the Suck-hoi.”
“Roger that, Cheli.”
Northern India, near the Chinese border
0250
The Osprey’s heavy rotor wash pushed Danny Freah downward as he waited for the aircraft to get close enough so he could attach the lifting chain. Liu treaded water near him, pushed the spray from his face while rubbing his face so hard Danny thought he was going to poke his eyeballs out.
Unlike their Whiplash-issue diving gear, the borrowed Navy sets didn’t have radios. A spotter stood on the shoreline, radioing to the pilot of the Osprey, who was also relying on two crewmen in the rear to help guide him.
His first attempt was way off, the chain closer to the shore than to them. As the Osprey moved sideways, the chain began to swing like a pendulum. Danny made a swipe, only to have the heavy strap at the bottom smack the back of his hand so hard he thought for a moment he’d broken a bone.
Liu lunged at it, grabbing the loop and wrapping his body around it. The Osprey’s momentum pushed him several feet through the water. Danny seized him as he began to twirl around, pulling him to a stop.
“This is almost funny!” yelled Danny.
The roar of the V-22’s engines overhead made it impossible to hear if Liu replied. Danny let go of him and, his hand still hurting, plunged beneath the water and retrieved the harness lead from the warhead a few feet below. They hooked the lines together, then swam backward to get out of the way.
As they did, Liu disappeared beneath the roiling surface of the lake. Danny glanced to his right, getting his bearings, then looked back, expecting to see Liu. But he wasn’t there.
He stared, waiting for his sergeant to reappear. Three or four seconds passed, then ten, then twenty.
Where was he?
* * *
If it was god’s will that the baby and her family die, thought Liu, what is His will now? If I just let myself sink beneath the waves, will He let me drown?
Pushed under by the rotor wash, Liu let his body drift down, toward the smooth rocks and shadows he’d seen before, toward the ghost that he knew waited here.
How easy it was to just let go, to just give up and die.
He took his breather away from his face. Almost immediately his lungs began to scream for water.
Liu drifted, expecting the baby to appear. He closed his eyes, then opened them. There were shapes in the water, strange shapes, but he recognized them all — the warhead being lifted, Captain Freah’s feet in the distance, some of the metal casing to the missile that they’d discarded earlier.
No ghosts. No easy way out.
If he stayed underwater until his lungs burst, then he would never know why it had happened. He would never know if it was part of another plan, if it was meant to push him toward something or if God had merely extracted some awful toll and wanted him as a witness to His power.
Did he really want to know?
Yes, answered Liu, pushing back to the surface.
* * *
Jennifer started to trot toward the warhead as the Marine Osprey set it down on the beach.
“The Chinese are coming,” she told Danny, explaining what Dog had told her.
“All right. We’ll pack it into the Osprey and take it back to Base Camp One.”
“We have to make it safe first,” she said.
“That’ll take far too long. There’s a plane full of Chinese paratroopers on the way,” said Danny. “No. I’ll do it in the Osprey.”
“You’re crazy.”
“We have to get out of here.”
“I’ll safe it,” said Jennifer.
“In the Osprey,” said Danny, kicking off his flippers.
Not having an alternative, Jennifer nodded.
Aboard Dreamland Bennett, over northwest India
0303
According to colonel Bastian’s sitrep display, the three aircraft approaching the warhead recovery area included one Sukhoi fighter and two Xian Y-14 transports. The Y-14s were Chinese versions of the Russian An-24 “Curl,” military transport aircraft that he guessed were carrying paratroopers.
The screen also showed that the Cheli had moved far west during the encounter. Though it was hard to criticize the results of the air battle — five aircraft shot down — Sparks and his crew had put the Cheli in a poor position to deal with the other aircraft.
But that’s why the Bennett was backing him up.
“Cheli, what’s your situation?” Dog asked.
“Hey, Colonel. We have one bandit, two bogies heading in.”
“What do you mean bogies?” Dog said, cutting him off. The slang term meant that the aircraft were unidentified;
“bandits” were airplanes that were ID’d as bad guys, as these should have been. “Those are Xian Y-14 transports.”
“Computer is disagreeing with you there, Colonel. We’re showing them as Fokker F27s. Cowboy is on his way to check it out. I’m going to handle the other Sukhoi.”
Experience alone told Dog that the IDs were wrong; civilian transports did not travel in twos, much less behind a fighter escort.
“You’re not in position to make an intercept on that Sukhoi, let alone the transports.”
“We will be in five minutes.”
“Too long. I’ve got them,” said Dog. “Swing back toward the recovery area.”
“Colonel—”
“Swing back toward the recovery area.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
Starship pulled up the view from the underside camera of Hawk One as the aircraft swung around the recovery area, watching the Osprey straining to pull the warhead from the water. The V-22 seemed to stand dead still, a bodybuilder hunched over a barbell. The aircraft started up slowly, moving toward the northern end of the mountain lake as it went. Starship could see a ripple of waves on the water, but the warhead itself hadn’t appeared as the Flighthawk passed by.
“Flighthawk leader, I need you to intercept those two Chinese transports,” said Dog over the interphone. “You see them?”
“On it, Colonel.”
Starship checked the sitrep, discovering that the airplanes were less than seventy miles away. He pulled back on his stick, automatically taking Hawk One from the computer’s control.
“The Cheli’s radar system is claiming that the aircraft are Fokker airliners,” added Dog. “We have them as Y-14s. Verify them visually.”
Starship touched the talk button for his mike, allowing him to give a voice command to the computer. “Trail one,” he said, ordering the computer to fly Hawk Two behind the other Flighthawk.
“What do you want to do with that Sukhoi?” Starship asked.
“That’s mine. You concentrate on the tr
ansports.”
“Roger that.”
Aboard Dreamland Cheli, over northwest India
0324
“We just shot down like five airplanes — five! — and Bastian’s mad at us?” said Micelli.
“I wouldn’t call him mad,” Sparks told him. “Just not happy.”
“It’s Cheech’s fault,” retorted the copilot. “We have bullshit IDs on those transports. Everybody knows they’re not civvies.”
“Hey, screw you, Micelli,” said the airborne radar operator. “The radar says what the radar says. They’re not identing,” he added, using slang for using the automated identification gear. “What can I tell you?”
“Relax, guys,” said Sparks sharply. “We went too far west getting out of the way of the Chinese missiles. Just play it the way it lays.”
Sparks pushed the Megafortress south toward the warhead recovery area.
“You with us, Flighthawks?” he asked.
“Roger that,” said Cowboy. “Got your six, big mother.”
Aboard Dreamland Bennett, over northwest India
0330
“Missile launch!” shouted Sullivan, the Bennett’s copilot. “Two — FD-60s. Pen Lung Dragon Bolts.”
“ECMs.”
The FD-60 was a medium range semiactive radar homing missile similar to the Italian Aspide, which by some reports had been reverse-engineered to create it. Unlike the missile they had dealt with earlier, Dog had considerable experience with the Dragon Bolt, and was confident the electronic countermeasures would sufficiently confuse it.
“Range is forty miles,” said Sullivan. “Sukhoi is changing course.”
As soon as it fired its missiles, the Chinese plane swung eastward. Dog held his own course steady, figuring the Sukhoi was looping around to get closer to the transports.
“He may be running away,” said Sullivan as the Sukhoi continued to the east.
“No, he’s going to swing back and protect the transports. Where are those missiles?”
“Missile one is tracking. Missile two is off the scope.”
“Keep hitting the ECMs.”
“We’re playing every song the orchestra knows, Colonel.”
* * *
The lead transport was a small gray blip in the simulated heads-up display screen at the center of Starship’s station. According to the computer, the aircraft had turboprop engines, was moving at 320 knots, and was definitely a Xian Y-14. But Starship knew he couldn’t trust the computer’s ID; he had to close in and get visual confirmation.
