by Dale Brown
She was obviously in trouble. The large black plane stuttered in the sky, its wings jittery as it took a wide bank above the base. The wings began to shake and it pulled off to the left, hanging in the air.
He could taste metal in his mouth. Zen pushed his wheelchair backward, tilting his head to watch as the big plane flew toward the mountains in the distance. A Phantom crossed from the south. For a second it looked as if it was going to plow right into the Megafortress. Then Zen realized it was flying about five hundred feet above the big bomber.
His accident a year ago had changed everything between them. He knew she tried. But he also knew it would only be a matter of time before she realized she couldn’t be with him, couldn’t really love half a man.
Still, he didn’t want to see her hurt.
The Megafortress continued toward the far end of the range. Zen realized there were a dozen people around him now, all staring up at the plane. Somebody said that it had lost its radio. Somebody else mentioned the Army tests and rumors about problems with Fort Two’s flight-control computer and the new power plants, and then everybody was talking. And then everyone stopped talking.
Zen cringed as an F-15 appeared from the east, angling toward the Megafortress. Perspiration ran down his back as the plane veered off just short of a collision.
How damn helpless I am, he thought to himself.
GREASY HANDS FOUND RUBEO SPRAWLED ON THE floor, his head half inside one of the computer units. Obviously the scientist had had the same idea he had.
“Excuse me, Doc,” said the senior NCO, squatting down. “What’s up?”
Rubeo backed out from under the access panel. “I’m trying to bypass the circuit breakers and feed the flight computer off the battery,” said the scientist.
Parsons nodded. It seemed to him the scientist sounded a tad less arrogant than normal, a pleasant development.
“If you let me take a look, I believe I can bypass enough circuit breakers to get the landing gear down and some of the instruments back,” Greasy Hands told him.
“Be my guest.”
The sergeant slipped in under the panel. The solid-state regulator arrays snapped into the bus. Spares were lined up in a separate section at the right. Bing-bang-boing.
“The flight-computer panel is on the far left,” said Rubeo behind him.
“Aw, we don’t want the computer, Doc,” said Greasy Hands, pulling out one of the long, thin plastic-encased assemblies. “That’s given us enough problems as it is.”
KNIFE HAD JUST TAKEN OFF ON HIS SECOND orientation flight when he saw the Megafortress jerking into a wild, uncontrolled dive. He immediately called a range emergency, trying to clear traffic as he climbed up and out of the way. Banking back as he reached five thousand feet, Knife saw the black bomber level off, in obvious distress. Neither he nor the tower controller could raise it on the base or emergency frequencies.
Following toward the end of the range from the south as another plane cleared out of the way, Knife realized Fort Two was flying on two engines, just barely hanging in the sky. Its gear was still stowed, but it gave every impression of preparing for a crash landing on the dry lake bed.
That would be a mistake. It was rapidly running out of clear ground. Even with gear, brakes, and massive amounts of reverse thrust, it would run into the massive boulders that marked the craggy start of the mountain range.
He was too far off to do anything but watch.
* * *
THE CONTROLS NEARLY PULLED OUT OF BREANNA’S hands as the plane’s forward airspeed plummeted. The landing-gear door had snapped open and the gear assemblies were trundling downward.
“Jesus,” she said. The control panels flickered back to life with instrument readings.
“Doc gave us back some electric power,” said Chris, quickly going over the flight data. “Gear have extended. Primary controls took over for the backups on the circuit.”
“I’m still on manual,” she told him. “And I’m staying there.”
“Roger that,” snapped Chris. “Our speed—”
“Sergeant Parsons says he’s going to try to get you electric,” yelped the staff sergeant, rolling onto the command deck as the Megafortress lurched almost straight down.
“I’d say he succeeded,” grunted Chris.
“All right, I’ve got it.” Breanna fought the big plane level. They were nearing the end of their restricted airspace. More importantly, she had run out of safe lake bed to land on, the ground below turning back into desert. The mountains loomed ahead.
“We’re going to have to turn ourselves around,” she told Chris.
“We’re on one engine,” he said.
She was so busy trying to hold the plane in the sky, she didn’t have time to snap back with something sarcastic.
KNIFE ROCKED THE EAGLE GENTLY ON HER RIGHT WING as Fort Two banked away from the mountain range, one of her wing tips so close it was a miracle it didn’t scrape. Her wheels were down and he doubted she was flying more than a half knot over the stall speed. But she was still in the air.
He pushed his plane through a sharp turn to get behind the lumbering bomber, now slowing and then starting to descend. He put his own gear out to help himself slow down as he pulled parallel to Fort Two. He had a clear view into the Megafortress’s cockpit. Rap’s hands were working overtime; her head bobbed up and down in the cockpit, as if she were talking to the crew.
There were, at most, twenty meters—sixty feet—between the two planes. He kept one eye on her and the other on her plane, his hands ready to jerk the Eagle out of the way.
“She’s giving us a thumbs-up,” said his passenger, Dr. Jennifer Gleason, one of the computer scientists.
“Okay, give it to her back,” said Smith, nudging forward to give her a better view.
“She’s pointing down.”
“Okay. Ask if she has full control,” he said. “Make like you’re driving a truck—”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Gleason said sharply.
Dr. Gleason was in her mid-twenties and extremely good looking, with long strawberry-colored hair and a body that would melt a polar bear. But Smith found her, like most of the scientific and engineering personnel, stuck-up.
“On a scale of one to five, she has about a three,” Gleason told him. “She only has one motor.”
“Engine.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Can she land?”
“Yes,” answered the scientist after a pause. “She, uh, she wants to loop back, I think.”
“She wants to land into the wind,” said Smith. “Oh, wait—she’s not trying to land on the main runway, is she?”
“How would I ask that?” said Gleason.
“She is. Okay. Hold on.” Smith radioed the control tower, mapping out the situation for them. All traffic had been cleared and emergency vehicles were standing by.
“She’s worried about the Soviet Kronos satellite,” he explained to his backseater. “It’s due overhead in twenty-five minutes. If she lands anywhere but close to the hangars, the satellite will catch her on the ground. She’s being a jackass,” he added.
“Why?”
“Ridiculous risk. She was ready to pancake in without gear a second ago. Now she’s flying like she’s out for a Sunday stroll in the park.”
“What would you have done?” Gleason snapped. Knife didn’t answer. He’d have done the same thing. “She’s pointing to the ground,” said Gleason. “She’s rolling her hands.”
“She wants us to make sure the gear is locked,” he said. “All right, look, do a little loop with your finger, like we’re swooping beneath her, then hang on.”
“Okay.”
As soon as Knife heard that Breanna gave the thumbs-up, he tipped the Eagle down, sailing under the large war-bird.
“Gear extended and locked,” he said.
“I gave them an okay.”
Knife pulled off, trying to give Fort Two more room for its turn as it came around t
o line up for final approach. The plane was waddling now, its lone engine straining. It burped downward, caught itself, steadied into a bank.
“Is she going to make it?” Gleason asked.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly.
SMITH POPPED UP ON HER RIGHT SIDE, EASING THE F-15E away. It would have been a hell of a lot more convenient to have a working radio, but Knife’s backseater gave them a thumbs-up. The wheels were locked for landing.
“Gear set,” said Chris. “We can trust the idiot lights and HUDs.”
“I’d rather not,” Breanna told him. “Temp’s critical in our one good engine.”
“Maybe we can get Parsons to crawl out on the wing and fix that,” said Chris.
“If we asked, he probably would.” Breanna pushed Fort Two into a shallow bank. It began shaking like hell. She eased off, gently negotiating the maneuver.
Wonder of wonders, she came out of the turn lined up perfectly with the main runway.
“You’re lucky today,” said her copilot.
“I was going to blame that one on you.”
“Two miles,” said Chris. “We’re redlining Engine Three.”
“I can glide from here,” she lied.
A very small percentage of people in the world were born to be pilots. Some fluke of genetics, some mystery of biochemistry, enabled them to fly by sheer instinct. They had some sort of sense about them, could tell exactly where they were and what the plane was doing without consulting instruments.
Breanna wasn’t one of those people. She had to work at it, struggling for everything. She’d flown umpteen hours in B-52Gs and Hs, done more than four thousand in a simulator rigged to work like the Megafortress. Somewhere buried in that experience were situations somewhat similar to the one she found herself in now.
Somewhat similar, not exactly the same. There was no way to duplicate the whining complaint of the one good engine as it dragged more than 200,000 pounds of plastic, steel, and flesh through the thin desert air.
And no way to duplicate the flutter in her stomach as she passed the point of no return.
“We’re going to make it,” Chris yelled as they came down. “Oh, yeah.”
“With extra frosting,” she said, sensing she was right at stall speed, sensing she had it, sensing the wheels were about to slap against the cement. She felt good; she was in control.
Had Jeff felt that way right before the Flighthawk clipped his wing?
The thought evaporated as the big bomber’s wheels hit against the surface of Runway One. They sprang upward, but she had it, she was on top of it, letting the plane roll as she applied the brakes gently, not wanting to blow the tires, knowing there was more than enough runway to stop safely, and in one piece.
ZEN SAT IN THE SHADOW OF THE HANGAR, EYES planted firmly on the ground as the sirens wailed. He could hear the support vehicles roaring out to Runway One as the stricken Megafortress came in. Everyone on the base was watching.
“She’s down! She’s down! They landed okay!” someone yelled. Zen rolled his chair forward to see, then followed as everyone started running toward the apron area where the Megafortress was headed.
Had they done this when he’d gone down?
No. That had been a tragedy. This—this had somehow turned instantly into a triumph. People were yelling and shouting and high-fiving. The big EB-52 was rolling free and easy.
Anyone who thought Ken James, the bastard Russian traitor, had killed this place would be stunned to see the spontaneous celebration out on the runway as Fort Two turned and taxied toward the hangars. Demoralized? Downtrodden? Like hell. These were the best of the best, and when shit went down they pulled together. Zen found his adrenaline surging as he raced with the others, caught up in the jubilation. Vehicles were all over the place, blaring horns, wailing their sirens. Two or three hundred people, all buzzed with excitement, rallied to celebrate Dreamland’s survival. For somehow, Breanna’s successful landing of the stricken plane had turned into a metaphor for the base and its future. Zen could feel it.
She was alive, thank God.
He was relieved. More than that. He did still love her. He hadn’t stopped.
The Megafortress stopped just short of the hangar area, mobbed by the crowd. The ventral entry hatch and ladder snapped open.
“Make them walk the gangplank!” somebody yelled.
They cheered as the first passenger, a staff sergeant from the motor pool, ducked out from under the plane. The President wouldn’t have gotten a warmer welcome than Breanna when she finally emerged.
Zen started to wheel forward. He was about five yards from the bottom of the stairs when Mack Smith ran up. Smith had escorted Fort Two down in his Eagle, landing moments after her.
Zen stopped. Smith caught Breanna a step from the plane. He twirled her off her feet and then they embraced like lovers.
One or two people near Zen turned and stared at him. He pretended not to notice.
He’d managed to unclench his teeth by the time she appeared before him. She was smiling, unaware of what he’d seen.
“Jeff,” she said.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” he told her as she put her arm around his neck. He realized as he pulled back that his mouth tasted of metal again.
“YOU DID A HELL OF A JOB LANDING THAT PLANE,” Breanna’s father told her a few hours later in his office. Her clothes were soaked with sweat. Between the impromptu celebration and all the debriefings, she hadn’t had a chance to shower yet. “A hell of a job.”
She felt a shudder of cold run through her body, as if the air conditioner had just kicked on high. Everything was starting to hit her now.
“I think Sergeant Parsons saved us,” she said softly. “Him and Rubeo. They figured out how to bypass the blown circuitry.”
“Funny, Parsons didn’t take any credit at all. Neither did that blowhard Rubeo. Captain Ferris says you took control the instant the computer went down. We’re investigating,” the colonel added quickly as a slight tremor swept into his voice. “There’s a possibility a spike from the Army tests disrupted your gear, but some of the engineers say they’ve had trouble with computer interfacing throwing voltage around for the past week. I expect this is the sort of thing that will take, uh, a while to work out. The planes are grounded until we have a definitive answer.”
Breanna nodded. She thought of saying something to her father, something corny, but the words stayed in her throat. She knew how he would react.
“I’ll tell you, Bree,” he started. “I’ll tell you—”
He obviously intended to go on, but the words simply died.
“You did a hell of a job, Captain,” he said finally.
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, spinning quickly and leaving his office, wanting to take no chance he would see her cry.
Washington, D.C.
10 October, 2030
JED BARCLAY PULLED HIS ARMS AROUND HIS THIN jacket, trying to keep warm as he waited outside the posh Georgetown restaurant. He contemplated going and waiting inside, but realized that his presence might inadvertently tip off any number of D.C. denizens that something serious was up. His boss, National Security Advisor Deborah O’Day, wouldn’t like that.
Barclay had spent the last two winters in New England—Harvard, to be exact—and told himself he shouldn’t feel cold at all; October in Washington was balmy by Massachusetts standards. But his twenty-two-year-old frame was practically trembling with the cold.
Finally, O’Day’s Marine Corps bodyguard emerged from the restaurant. The woman tensed as she spotted him, then gave him a disapproving frown.
“Jed, what are you doing here?” said Ms. O’Day, emerging behind her.
“I, uh—you’re going to want to see this,” he said.
He unfolded his hands to reveal a yellow manila envelope. O’Day took the envelope and moved over to the yellowish light thrown by a faux-antique streetlight. Meanwhile, her date—Brad Elliot, a recently retired three-star Air Force general—eme
rged from the building. Jed nodded at the general, who nodded back semi-affably.
“That’s the Iranian base,” Jed said helpfully.
“Yes, thank you, Jed. What the hell are you doing with this outside of the basement?” his boss added.
“It’s not classified,” he said. “It’s off the Russian satellite.”
O’Day frowned deeply at his dodge. The Russians made a limited number of satellite images available through a public European service, which, of course, the NSC had a subscription to. Primarily useful for agricultural purposes, the images did not precisely duplicate U.S. optical spy coverage—nor were they anywhere near as precise—but they were close enough. Since they were open-source, there was no prescription against carrying them off campus, as it were.
“The launchers have been dismantled,” said O’Day.
“Yes, ma’am. The image is two days old.”
“And they’re where?”
“We’re not sure. I mean, CIA isn’t sure, and the Pentagon, well, they say not to worry. But I—well, I don’t know.”
“You’re not on my staff to keep your opinions to yourself. Come on. It’s cold out here.”
“Yes, ma’am. Well, it’s difficult to be definitive. I mean, since we took our main satellite off-line for repairs two weeks ago, we’ve been cobbling things over Northeastern Africa together. Between that and the clouds—”
“Jed,” she said sternly.
“There were two tankers off Bandar three days ago. They’re approaching Somalia now.”
O’Day didn’t bother asking for any other information.
“Contact Madcap Magician,” she told him. “Have them put Ironweed into action. Whatever units they need. Fullbore. I’ll be back at the NSC in an hour.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, glancing at the general before retreating back toward the Metro stop.
