by Dale Brown
"Here," said Stoner, pressing several bills into his hand. "Get her something good."
"Should I be impressed?" Sorina Viorica asked after the waiter left.
"Impressed?"
"By your generosity. Or was it part of an act?" "It is what it is."
"Even the people who should understand, don't," said Sorina, changing her tact. "You saw the waiter's expression. Yet he is not that much different than her."
"Nor are we."
She smirked. "When the revolution comes, then we will see who's different."
"I'd keep my voice down if I were you."
"This is the student quarter. If I can't talk of revolution here, where can I?"
Sorina Viorica spent the next half hour doing just that, explaining to Stoner that all her movement wanted— originally — was equity and peace for everyone.
"That wasn't the case under Ceausescu," Stoner said.
"No. He was a dictator. A devil."
"So you want to return to that?"
She shook her head.
"There are elections now," said Stoner.
"They are a front for the old line. The hard-liners, the military — they are the ones really in control."
"Then change it by voting. Not by violence."
"Will your country let us?"
"It's not up to us. It's up to you. To Romanians."
Sorina Viorica's face grew sad. "Our movement is dead. It has been hijacked. And if by some miracle we were to win, we would be a vassal again, a slave to Russia. They are all my enemies."
Stoner waited for her to continue, but she didn't. Whatever her personal story was — and he suspected there was a great deal to it — she didn't share. The CIA files had a single reference to her, because she'd been on a Romanian government watch list. She had relatives in Arad, a city near Hungary, but apparently her parents both died when she was young.
After they ate, they walked for a while through University Square. Sorina said no more about the movement. Instead, she told Stoner some of the history of the city— the old history, each building evoking a different period— nineteenth century, eighteenth century, seventeenth, sixteenth.
"You want me to betray them," she said as they walked up the steps to the apartment.
"You said they were your enemies. And that the only ones left were misfits, and criminals."
She took the key out of her pocket.
"They want to kill you," he said. "You could get revenge."
"You don't know me very well, do you, Mr. Stoner?" she said, and closed the door behind her.
Dreamland
1156
Mickey McMichaels tucked the bell end of his stethoscope into his jacket pocket.
"I can't say you're in bad health, Breanna," said the flight surgeon. "You're in great health. But… Your knee doesn't hurt you?"
Breanna shook her head.
"Not even a twinge?"
She shrugged.
"No broken bones. Contusions are fading," he admitted. "Ribs, not even tender." "So what's the hang-up?"
"You were very dehydrated, you had a concussion, twisted knee, bruised ribs—"
"You're going to ground me for a few bruises?"
Dr. McMichaels pursed his lips. "Your knee is not back to normal. And as for that coma or whatever it was—"
"I've had two CAT scans that say I'm fine. Give me another."
"I may."
"X-ray my whole body. Do any test you want. Just give me my ticket to fly."
"You have to take it slow, Breanna. You have to give your body time to heal."
"It's healed. It's so healed it's starting to atrophy."
"I appreciate that you're bored. But you have to heal. And I have to do my job."
"Do it. Tell me what I have to do to get back in the air."
McMichaels sighed. For a second, Breanna thought she had worn him down. Then he shook his head.
"I'm not ready to say you can fly. You need more of a recovery period."
Breanna suddenly felt very angry. "I'm going to come back to you every day until you clear me."
"That's up to you."
Tears welled in her eyes. She turned and walked out of the office as quickly as she could, arms swinging, her cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment. She was sure that if she were a man, they'd let her back in the air. Mack, Zen, her father — they'd all gotten in the cockpit with injuries more severe than hers. Hell, Zen was paralyzed and he was allowed to fly.
The thing that frosted her most of all — the doctors were taking out their own ignorance, their own mistakes, on her. They all wanted to believe she'd been in a coma or had major brain trauma. Well fine, except there was zero evidence— zero — of any brain damage. Of any abnormality whatsoever.
So, because they were wrong, they were taking it out on her.
Breanna stalked down the hall and up the ramp to the entrance to the med building, trying to contain her anger. She fixed her eyes on the ground as she passed the security station, too furious even to say hello. The cold outside air bit at her face as soon as she cleared the doorway; the tears she'd been holding back let loose.
She wiped them as best she could as she started in the direction of her on-base apartment. She was almost there when she spotted a knot of people coming out of the entrance, laughing and talking; she turned abruptly, not wanting to be seen crying. Quickening her pace, she found herself walking toward the hangar area. She pushed her fingers around her eyes, rubbing out the moisture.
But she didn't want to go into the hangars or the offices beneath them either. The only thing left seemed to be to go back home to their condo in Allegro.
Once again she turned, this time in the direction of the helicopter landing pad and the parking lot at Edwards.
"Hey, Bree, how's it going?" yelled Marty Siechert as she changed direction.
Breanna briefly debated with herself whether to stop, but it was difficult for her to be impolite with anyone, and Sleek Top had been a friend for a while.
"Hi, Sleek, how are you?"
"What's up?" The former Marine-turned-civilian test pilot bent his head to the side, as if the change in angle would give him a better view of her face. "Your face looks raw."
"I've been out in the cold."
"Where you headed?"
"Probably home."
"You talk to Mack about flying the B-1s or what?"
"Yes, I did." Her lower lip started to tremble. She stopped abruptly. "You all right?"
Her emotions felt like the lava in a volcano, surging toward the top. She nodded, and bit her teeth against her lips.
"Hey, how about we go get some lunch?" suggested Sleek Top.
"I don't know."
"Off base. I know a quiet lunch place. Kind of a dump, but the food's good. Italian." "All right," she said. "Sure."
* * *
As Sleek Top had said, Mama's was a bit of a dump, but the portions were large and the marinara sauce couldn't be beat. Breanna stayed away from the wine, as did Sleek Top, who was going to fly later that night.
"I don't know why I was so upset. I acted — I was like a little girl who had her toys taken away," said Breanna.
She'd calmed considerably. While she was still deeply disappointed about not being allowed to fly, she was also disappointed in herself. Showing emotion had been unprofessional. It wasn't like her.
"You've been through a lot," said Sleek Top. "Everything that's happened to you in the last few weeks? God, Bree, we all thought you and Zen were… dead."
"But we weren't."
"Maybe you should slow down a bit," he told her. "You know. Take a couple of weeks… "
His voice trailed off as he saw her frown.
"I don't mean permanently," he said quickly. "I mean, do a few things that you like to do. Hit some shows in Vegas. Play the slots or something."
"I don't play the slots. And I don't like shows."
"You don't like shows?"
She shrugged.
"It'll take your mind off things. You have to relax. What do you and Zen do to unwind?"
"Not much," she said honestly. "I mean, we'll watch some basketball or maybe baseball."
"Then go to a Lakers game."
"Oh, watching is such a—"
"No, no, go."
"To L.A.? I don't want to go all the way there by myself." "I'll go with you. I have a season package." "Thanks, Sleek, but—"
"Up to you. But really, you have to cut loose a bit. Relax. Slow down. I remember when I first left active duty. I was like a jackrabbit, practically bouncing off the walls. And the ceiling. I didn't know what to do with myself. Finally, I gave myself an order. Relax."
"And that did it, huh?"
"Sure. One thing Marines are good at — following orders." He smiled, then reached for the check. "Whereas you Air Force zippersuits never heard an order you didn't think was an optional request, right?"
lasi Airfield,
northeastern Romania
25 January 1998
1600
The Megafortress shot forward, rolling down the concrete expanse toward a sky so perfectly blue it looked like a painting. The wind threw a gust of air under the plane's long wings, pushing her skyward with an enthusiastic rush. Flying might be a simple matter of aerodynamics, a calculation of variables and constants, but to a pilot it was always something more than just math. Imagination preceded the fact — you had to long for flight before you achieved it, and no matter how many times you gripped the stick and pulled back, gently or with a hard jerk, bracing yourself for the shock of g's against your face or simply rolling up your shirtsleeves for an afternoon's spin, there was always that moment of elation, the triumph of human spirit that set man apart from every other being. Flying was a triumph of the soul, and a pilot, however taciturn he might seem, however careful he was in planning and replanning his mission, savored that victory every time the plane's wheels left the ground.
Dog and his copilot, Lieutenant Sullivan, remained silent as they took the plane skyward. They hadn't flown together for very long, but the missions they'd been on had forged a strong bond between them. They had one thing above all others in common — both knew the Bennett as they knew their own hands and legs. The trio of men and machine worked together flawlessly, striding nose up in the sky, spi-raling toward 20,000 feet.
With all systems in the green, they set a course to the southwest, flying in the direction of Bacau.
"Flighthawk commander, are you ready for launch?" asked
Dog.
"Roger that, Bennett," replied Zen, sitting below in the Flighthawk bay. "I'm showing we have just over ten minutes to the planned release point."
"Affirmative."
"Beautiful day."
"Yes, it is," said Dog, surprised that Zen would notice, or at least take the time to mention it. Generally he was all business.
They turned the aircraft over to the computer for the separation maneuvers. Dog watched his instruments carefully as the Flighthawks dropped off the wings one at a time. The Megafortress continued to operate perfectly.
"Hawk One is at 10,000 feet, going to 5,000," said Zen. "Preparing to contact Groundhog."
Dog acknowledged. Groundhog was Danny Freah, who was introducing one of the Romanian units to the procedures required to interface with the planes. They planned on splitting their time this afternoon between two different units, going over the rudiments of working with the aircraft.
The Megafortress had two large air-to-ground missiles on its rotating bomb rack, but it was unlikely these would be used; even though they were very precise, there was too much chance of collateral damage. The Flighthawks, however, could provide close air support with their cannons if called in by the ground soldiers.
The focus of the mission was to provide intelligence: The Megafortress would use its J-STAR-like ground radar to follow troop movements or even vehicles, while the Flighthawks would provide real-time video of the area where the troops were operating. Though the Whiplash people could use their smart helmets to receive the video instantly, security concerns and numbers meant the Romanian troops would have to use special laptop units instead. Dog worried about their ability to receive the streaming video under battlefield conditions, but that was just one of the many things they'd have to work out as the deployment progressed.
With the Flighthawks away, he checked with his radar operators to see how they were doing. The men sat behind him on the flight deck, each facing a console arranged against the hull of the plane. On the right side, Technical Sergeant Thomas Rager manned the airborne radar, which was tracking flights within 250 miles. On the left, Technical Sergeant Jerry "Spiff" Spilani worked the ground radar. Rager had flown with Dog before; Spiff was new to the crew, though not to the job.
"Not too much traffic down there for rush hour, Colonel," said Spiff. "We have six cars in a five mile stretch."
"You sound disappointed," said Dog.
"Colonel, where I come from, we can get six cars in ten feet," answered the sergeant.
"And they're all stolen," said Sullivan.
"Generally." Spiff was a New Yorker. From da Bronx.
"Groundhog's on the line," said Sullivan, his voice suddenly all business. "Right on time."
On the ground in northeastern Romania
1630
Danny Freah adjusted the volume on the smart helmet's radio, listening as the Romanian lieutenant completed the exchange of recognition codes with the Bennett. In person, the lieutenant's pronunciation was nearly perfect, but the radio equipment made it sound garbled. The lieutenant repeated himself twice before Dreamland Bennett acknowledged.
"OK," said Danny. "Let's get some data from the Flight-hawk."
The unmanned aircraft streaked a thousand feet overhead, riding parallel to the nearby highway. Danny listened to the Romanian and Zen trade information. The Romanian lieutenant had trouble understanding Zen's light midwestern drawl, but he was able to see the video from the small plane on his laptop without any problem.
As planned, the lieutenant asked Zen to check out a road a mile south of them; they did that without a problem. Then the Romanians called in a mock air attack on a telephone substation about a hundred meters from the field they were standing in. This too went off without a hitch. The Flighthawk dipped down above the Romanian position, straightened its wings, then zoomed on the cement building, which had been abandoned some years before.
Rather than firing his cannon, Zen pickled off a flare. It flashed red in the fading twilight directly over the building.
The Romanian soldiers cheered.
I must be getting old, Danny thought. They all look like kids.
Aboard the Bennett,
above northeastern Romania
1700
Zen pushed the Flighthawk through another turn, then dipped its wing to fall into another mock attack. The hardest part of the whole exercise was understanding the Romanians' English.
They weren't very good yet at estimating distances, but since he could use the actual GPS coordinates from the laptops as well as the Flighthawks' sensor to orient himself, finding the target wasn't particularly difficult.
After what he'd had to go through on his last mission, though, what was?
What do you do for an encore after saving the world? he mused.
It was an arrogant, self-aggrandizing thought — and yet it was true, or at least more true than false. Their last mission had stopped a nuclear war; you couldn't top that.
But life went on. There were still enemies to fight, conflicts to solve. Whether they seemed mundane or not.
There were also problems to solve and annoyances to overcome. Zen had decided to wear the MESSKIT instead of the "old" chute. It felt bulkier around his shoulders — not enough to interfere with flying the Flighthawks, but enough that he would have to get used to it.
The Romanian ground controller called for a reconnaissance flight over a nearby village. Zen located it on the Megafortress's gr
ound radar plot. A cluster of suburban-type houses sat south of the main road, the center of town marked by a fire station and a small park. He wheeled the Flighthawk overhead, low and slow. The houses, built of prefab concrete panels, looked like the condo development he lived in back home.
They made him think of Breanna. He shut down that part of his mind and became a machine, focused on his job.
Switching on his mike, Zen described what he saw, four-sided roofs atop sugar-cube houses aligned in eight L's around the crest of a hill. He described two cars he saw moving into the complex, the row of parked compacts at the far end of the lot. He saw two people moving on the lawn below the easternmost house: kids kicking a soccer ball around.
"Very much detail," replied the ground controller. "Thanks," he said. "Next."
* * *
Up on the Megafortress's flight deck, Dog turned the controls over to his copilot and got up to stretch. In remaking the plane so that it had a sleek nose rather than the blunt chin the B-52 had been born with, the flight deck had been extended nearly twenty feet. Calling it spacious would have been an exaggeration, but the crews had considerably more elbow room than in the original.
Dog walked to the small galley behind the two radar operators, poured himself a coffee from the zero-gravity coffeemaker — one of the Dreamland engineers' most cherished and appreciated inventions — then took a seat next to the ground radar operator to see what things looked like from his perspective.
"Place looks pretty peaceful," Spiff told him. "You sure they have a revolution going on here?"
"Don't let that fool you," replied Dog.
"No, I won't, Colonel. But we could be looking at the Vegas suburbs here. Minus the traffic. Kind of makes you wonder why these people want to fight."
Dog went across the aisle to check on Rager, who was monitoring airborne traffic around them. The rebels weren't known to have aircraft; Dog's main concern was that a civilian plane might blunder into their path inadvertently. The commercial flight paths to and from Iasi lay to the north and east of where they were operating.
"Here's something interesting on the long-range scan," said Rager, flipping his screen display to show Dog. "These two bad boys just came into the edge of our coverage area."
