by Dale Brown
Zen waited until he was sure Mack was coming for him before ordering the remaining Flighthawk to try to acquire his opponent’s tail. Then he brought his full attention back to his own plight. The two planes were fairly well matched; Zen’s slightly more powerful power plants made up for the fact that Smith’s plane was a tad lighter. As long as they both had the pedal to the metal, Smith couldn’t catch him.
Then again, Zen wouldn’t be able to get away either. Nor would he be able to splash Smith, which was what he really wanted.
Duck and roll?
Smith wouldn’t be fooled by it twice.
Feint left, plunge right, swing back in a high-speed scissors, twisting around to let the Flighthawk nail Smith in a front-quarter attack.
Not easy, but also probably the last thing Smith would be expecting, since the U/MF-3’s were not adept at head-on attacks. As the Flighthawk took its shot, Zen could buck into a tight loop and come up behind him. He’d have him for dinner.
Maybe. Very hard to execute, especially with half of his attention on the Flighthawk.
Go for it.
Zen backed his power off, sucking Smith toward him. As his warner buzzed, telling him that he was about to be nailed, Zen pushed left. He counted off two seconds, then came back hard right, rolling the plane downward with a burst of speed that got him out to Mach 1.2. Knife hesitated for a second, then began to follow.
Perfect. Zen slashed through the air like a ribbon unwinding from a spool, Smith barely hanging on. Stockard opened the Flighthawk visual screen in the lower right quadrant of his viewer, and asked for a sit map—a synthetic overhead or God’s-eye view—in the lower left.
Hawk Two was too far off the pace to complete the deal.
Cursing, Zen threw the Eagle over his shoulder, sliding and spinning downward to try to buy more time. Smith managed a snap shot, but couldn’t keep him in his target aperture long enough for the SiCS system to register a hit.
“Yo, scumbag, I would have put a half-dozen slugs in your wing on that shot,” snarled Knife. “Damn SiCs.”
Zen didn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. He had to go hard on the stick as Smith dashed downward, cutting between him and the approaching nighthawk.
Nice. Though the maneuver left Smith without a shot and potentially vulnerable himself, Zen was cut off and without enough forward energy to do anything but put his nose back down and try to pick up steam. Smith was on him again, accelerating across his path just when he thought he might try to recover. Zen threw the Eagle back down, slicing down to his left and then over into another invert as Smith somehow managed to twist his F-15C onto his tail.
The two planes twirled an elaborate ribbon in the sky, at times only ten feet apart. Zen played slapstick, ducking and bobbing just enough to keep from getting waxed. Finally he managed to get into a turn too tight for Smith to stay with; his pursuer had to back off or run the risk of overshooting him and becoming the target.
At that point, Zen should have transmitted the command “Knock it off” and ended the exercise. He’d fallen below three thousand feet and was low on fuel. He had only nominal control of Hawk One. He was far outside the stated parameters of the test. Both he and Knife had been rockin’ and rollin’ for more than an hour. Both had gotten out of bed shortly after midnight to begin the rigorous preflight procedures that were considered an important part of the experiment. He had also, by the standards of the experiment if not those he personally lived by, won the engagement.
The inquiry would note all of this, in a pointed aside. But neither Zen, nor Smith for that matter, was about to give up.
Zen cut south on a direct intercept for Hawk Two, determined to get his robot escort back into the furball. He’d used his air brake to make his last slash, which had cost him considerable flight energy, and as he jinked onto the new vector he got a stall warning. He dropped lower, quickly picking up speed, pouring on the gas as he streaked toward the desert floor. The Flighthawk, apparently confused by the twists of its target, was flying toward him at roughly ten o’clock, its own speed down to four hundred knots. Zen told the Flighthawk computer to plot a fresh nose-on-nose intercept with Smith, who by now had turned back around and had the stops out in pursuit. The plan was simple, a slight variation of the one he’d originally intended—the Flighthawk would force Knife to break; Zen would come back around and nail him from the rear.
Then he’d go home. He was bingo fuel.
“I’m coming for you, Zen,” gloated Smith.
“Hawk One, cannon,” Zen commanded.
“Not locked,” replied the computer, voice mode duplicating the visual indicator. “Outside range.”
They were at six hundred feet indicated, descending at a very slight angle. Smith was right on his tail, almost in range.
“Extreme range. Cannon,” commanded Zen.
“Not locked,” answered the computer. “Outside range.”
“Time to range,” said Zen.
“Five seconds,” said the computer.
Three too many. Zen twinged the rudder, hoping Smith would think he was planning a sharp cut. Then he held steady.
Knife bought it, but only for a second. Zen could practically feel his bad breath on his neck.
“I’m coming,” hissed Knife.
The Flighthawk bar went green.
“Fire!” screamed Zen.
As the nighthawk fired, Knife broke downward. The move—dangerous as well as brilliant, since they were now only five hundred feet over the desert floor—caught Zen by surprise. Zen started to pull up, then realized Knife had simply yo-yoed beneath him and was about to nail his belly. Stockard shoved the F-15 into a hard right turn. As he did, he gave the Flighthawk a command to break off its attack.
In the next second, a shudder ran through Zen’s body, something he’d never felt before. It was like a tickle from inside, starting in the middle of his spine and flashing like lightning into every muscle. His hands and feet went cold, his toes froze. The steady roar of the big Pratt & Whitneys behind Zen stopped.
The sensation lasted a bare millionth of a second. It was followed by a hard slam and an unbearably loud screech, then silence.
The Flighthawk had sheared through the wing of Zen’s plane.
BY THE TIME THE SICS BLEEPED WITH THE HIT, KNIFE had pulled the plane onto its back, rolled level, and was trying desperately to regain altitude and forward airspeed. For a moment, he lost track of everything—his target, the Flighthawk, even the ground and the sky. Blood rushed furiously around his brain, its flow distorted by the centrifugal forces of his hard-stick maneuvers. For a second or two, Knife flew on instinct alone, his arms and legs sorting what his mind could not. They got the plane stable, kept it in the air, even pushed his eyes where they belonged.
Okay, he heard himself say. Okay. I nailed him.
The fuzz cleared and he was back in control, banking and climbing. Something big was tumbling across the sky above him. Gray foam seemed to shoot from its sides.
It took Knife nearly three full seconds to realize it was Stockard’s plane. Somehow he’d lost control and was cartwheeling across the sky.
THERE WAS NO WAY TO HOLD THE PLANE. IT DEFIED gravity and every known law of Newtonian physics, moving in four directions at once, backward and forward, up and down.
Then everything stopped, time as well as the plane. It seemed to Zen that he could pop the canopy, undo his restraints, and step out. It seemed to Zen that he could stand on the seat and walk over the fuselage and look down at the sheared wing. He’d crouch and shake his head. Straightening with a grunt, he’d walk to the other wing and step off. It seemed to Zen he would trot down into the desert, running at an easy pace across the test range, back to his bunk at Dreamland.
Just when he decided he would do that, things began moving again, spinning with the force of a tornado. Zen’s eyes fell to the yellow eject handles next to the seat. He realized he was too low and moving too fast to eject; the plane was tumbling and there was no w
ay he was getting out alive. At best, he’d go out sideways and the chute wouldn’t open and with his luck he’d fly through Smith’s wing, though that would serve the SOB right.
His arms were paralyzed and he couldn’t move anyway, and Zen took a breath and closed his eyes, ready to die.
Then there was a fierce wind around him and he realized he’d already yanked the handles.
II
The hottest stick on the
patch
One year later …
Dreamland
7 October 1996, 1930
IN THE PINK LIGHT OF THE LATE FALL SUNSET, THE desert complex looked abandoned. Four large shedlike hangars stood off to the right, beyond the long, wide concrete runway that Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian and his F-16 were heading for. A lone Humvee sat near the access ramp; another vehicle, a station wagon or SUV, was parked next to one of the hangars. There was no tower building, and in fact the only structures that seemed inhabitable were one-story dormlike buildings made of yellow bricks near the double fence. A few scratch roads, barely visible from the sky, wound across the flat terrain toward an old boneyard, or plane cemetery, at the extreme western end of the fence. Two, perhaps three ramshackle shacks guarded the old metal hulks, whose skeletons glittered red with the reflected light, as if they were still burning with the desire to fly.
If there were more desolate posts on earth, few seemed so ordinary or bland. Dry lake beds spread out before the mountains in the distance, crisscrossed by strange shadows and shapes, marks on the earth that could have been left by a race of desert giants, long since vanquished by the coming of man.
These immense hieroglyphics were actually a clue that the restricted desert and airspace north of Nellis Air Force base in Nevada was special indeed. For the shadows were manmade concoctions designed to confuse optical satellites orbiting above. Despite appearances, the base at the corner of Groom Lake was one of the most secure on the planet. Colonel Bastian’s presence was being monitored not only by three different ground radars, but by two AWACS planes flying circuits around the restricted air corridors. And while nothing much might be happening on the surface of the desert, the bunkers and laboratories below were teeming with enough activity to shame a dozen ant colonies. There was indeed an air traffic control facility; it was equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, including a brand-new three-dimensional rendering system that projected Bastian’s F-16 in a holographic display for the controller. The high-tech “tower” was located underground—beneath enough cement to withstand a ten-megaton nuclear blast_ And so was the facility it connected to, with suites of some of the most sophisticated aeronautical and electronics research labs in the country. For Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh Bastian was approaching the Air Force High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, otherwise known as HAWC or, more colloquially, “Dreamland.” The four cavernous hangars—and the facilities connected by special elevators beneath them—contained some of the most advanced aircraft and weapons imaginable.
And a few that were unimaginable.
“Dream Tower, this is DCAF Flight One,” said Bastian after keying Dreamland’s frequency on his F-16’s radio.
“DCAF Flight One, squawk 2351 and ident,” responded the tower, asking the colonel to prod the electronic identifying equipment aboard his plane. Even though the controller’s sophisticated equipment had already independently ID’d the plane, Bastian moved quickly to comply; failing to do so could result in a no-questions-asked shoot-down by one of the MIM-23 I-HAWK batteries covered by desert camo netting just to the west of the base.
The controller did not verbally acknowledge the ID. Instead, he asked Bastian to give his security clearance. “Diamond-diamond-black,” replied the colonel.
There was a pause.
“Yes, sir,” replied the controller finally. “Welcome to Dreamland, Colonel Bastian. We, uh, weren’t expecting you today or in an F-16, sir.”
“I assume you’re not asking me to change planes,” Bastian snapped. He had already begun to line up for his final approach, although technically he had not yet received clearance.
“Sir, no, sir,” said the flustered controller, who immediately cleared Dreamland’s new commander for a landing on the main runway. He added in a final aside that the weather was “desert fine.”
The Block 1 F-16A Viper or Fighting Falcon Bastian flew was an old soldier. Dating from the very first production run of the versatile “light” fighter series, the plane had been scheduled to be “surplused” under the latest round of Pentagon budget slashings. Dog had managed to wangle it as a pilot-proficiency craft for his new command. It was his first victory over the bean counters; he hoped to hell it wouldn’t be his last.
The fighter chirped its wheels appreciatively as Dog touched down. A row of lights sprang to life from the tarmac in front of him as the plane trundled toward the access ramp; the lights blinked yellow, helping to guide him toward Hangar Four, which housed transport and auxiliary craft assigned to the base. As he approached, the hangar door began to open. All of these functions were being performed by a brand-new Automated Airport Assistance computer being tested by the HAWC wizards. When perfected, the system would be able to do much more than turn on a few lights and open some doors. With minimal human assistance, AAA and its Series S IBM mainframes would be able to run routine maintenance inspections after every flight, scanning physical flight surfaces as well as avionics equipment. The system would automate maintenance procedures and, probably in the not-too-distant future, accomplish some of the work itself. The engineers envisioned a day when combat-ready versions of AAA would do the work of a hundred or more maintenance pukes, keeping a squadron in the air around the clock.
Dog wasn’t necessarily sure he’d want to see that day. Not that he didn’t want the Air Force to get maximum use of its planes and people—”bang for the buck” was the order of the day. But in his opinion, machines could only do so much. Taking away human error and inefficiency also meant taking away human judgment and creativity. To his way of thinking judgment and creativity were what made the Air Force—any organization really—work.
As he approached the hangar, a regular welcome-wagon parade came out to join the half-dozen ground crewmen waiting for him: A trio of black security Hummers zipped out from behind Hangar One. Combat-dressed Air Force Special Operations troops poured out of the modern-day jeeps, M-16A3 laser-dot-targeted rifles in their paws.
A good sign, Dog thought to himself—it meant Captain Danny Freah had gotten to the base ahead of schedule.
Freah’s sourpuss face was the first to greet him when he climbed down the ladder.
“Colonel, welcome to Dreamland.” The captain snapped off an impressive salute. Dog had known him for a little more than a year;, in all that time, he’d never seen the twenty-three-year-old African American smile.
He liked that.
“Captain.” Dog gave the detail a quick once-over, nodding appreciatively. “We’ll be having a meeting for all officers and senior NCOs as soon as I’m squared away here. Set that up for me, will you, Danny? Let’s say thirty minutes. My office.”
“Excuse me, Colonel,” said a civilian, walking slowly from the hangar. His blue shirt was open at the collar, and while his blond hair was cropped military-style, he wore a tiny gold-post earring in his left ear. “You’ll never fit that many people in your office.”
“And you’re who?”
“I am Dr. Rubeo, senior scientist.” Rubeo heaved his shoulders back like a skinny cock preening before a fight. His oversized nose dominated his bony face; though at least six-two, he looked to weigh maybe 150 pounds.
“And what do you suggest, Doctor?”
“Frankly, I would suggest you postpone your meeting until tomorrow,” said Rubeo. “Assuming it’s necessary.”
Dog pitched his arms onto his hips. “Unacceptable.”
“Colonel, let me suggest Conference Room Two,” said Freah.
Dog locked eyes with Rubeo, then slo
wly turned to Freah and nodded.
“You’ll be looking for Major Thomas, sir,” Danny added. “I can take you over to him myself.”
“Very good,” said Dog.
“Life support this way, sir,” said a young staff sergeant, indicating where he could leave his flight gear. The sergeant pointed toward the F-16’s large travel pod, lashed to the side of the fuselage. “We’ll get your bags.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” said Bastian, starting toward the hangar.
“Excuse me, Colonel.” Rubeo said the word “colonel” as if it belonged to a foreign language.
“Yes?”
“You want staff at the meeting as well?”
“I want all senior scientists there, yes,” said Dog, snapping each word from his mouth. “I believe that would include staff.”
“I don’t know about that. Most aren’t even on the base at this hour. They could be—”
“Thirty minutes,” said Dog, setting off to get out of his speed suit.
DANNY FREAH HAD FIRST MET LIEUTENANT COLONEL Bastian during the planning session for a classified mission in Bosnia. Freah, then a lieutenant, had been tapped to help rescue a high-ranking Serbian defector, one of the Yugoslavian generals responsible for military planning during the Bosnian ethnic war. As originally drawn up, Freah’s job was minor; he was heading a security team on the second helo in the backup flight. But the primary helicopters had to be scrapped, and by the time the backups arrived at the pickup zone the insertion team was taking heavy fire. Freah and his men saved the day. Danny hoisted the wounded general on his shoulders, and ran through a minefield with him to the MH-60K Pave Hawk just as the craft lifted off. The exploit had earned Danny a promotion and the right to wear a fancy medal on his dress uniform. It also got him assigned to the Pentagon, where he’d stayed just long enough to know he never wanted to go back there again.
