The Guardian Collection (End of the Sixth Age Book 2)

by Col Bill Best

  Each flight would build upon the earlier. Verify ordinary capabilities, then move on to the extraordinary capabilities that would put Guardian in a unique class of its own.

  Now, a cold sweat soaked through his shirt as he considered everything that might go wrong. Did we miss anything? Is it really ready?

  The questions were no longer academic. This wasn’t a Test Readiness Review leading to another round of developmental or qualifications tests. A real-world crisis and all the testing was over. Lives were at stake; possibly millions.

  Roger’s not a fighter pilot!

  They’d known each other for years, and Justin was enjoying once again working for his friend and mentor. He remembered when Cliff Nesmith introduced the new hires at Directed Paradigms, Incorporated—DPI—to the wheelchair-bound program manager and lead engineer. Roger was in his early sixties. After security clearances were verified, they entered the secure facility. Then Roger told them about Guardian.

  “The world’s first hypersonic plane was the X-15. They dropped it from modified B-52 Stratofortress bombers just under two hundred times between 1959 and 1968. Their record of 4,500 miles per hour—Mach Six Point Seven—still holds the record for any manned aircraft, excluding the Shuttle. A rocket engine powered the aircraft for under two minutes, then it glided to a landing. Total flight time: Eleven minutes or less.

  “Our goal for Guardian is over 7,000 miles per hour, level flight, for over an hour.”

  Justin scrambled to set up an ad hoc workstation in his bedroom as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did.

  Roger’s old, he’s crippled; the dude shakes every time he even talks about his mid-air collision!

  Is the bird ready? Yesterday’s test flight went well. The low-powered solid rocket boosters pushed the aircraft past the sound barrier. The scram jet and ion drive kicked in and thrust the plane to a steady Mach Two. Leading-edge ion shielding seemed to work okay. Ion vector controls operated as expected. The wingtips drooped down all the way to minus forty degrees, where they would add low-drag compression lift at altitudes above 60,000 feet.

  Six months. Even three!

  Just a few more months of boring, unspectacular tests. Thousands of man-hours of work wrapped around countless details, trying to keep any thread from unraveling with minor to catastrophic results. Like what happened with the Space Shuttle. Twice. High altitudes and hypersonic speeds are very unforgiving.

  Details. Even for flight testing, the micro rail gun had to be partially loaded for proper weight-and-balance.

  All of that was now academic.

  Justin slowly shook his head as he finished setting up his equipment. How did we get into this mess?

  He had his opinions. His jaw tightened at what brought them to this crisis.

  For years, United States’ leadership had pursued popularity instead of statesmanship. In an ill-conceived effort to win over enemies, America had lost not only their respect, but also the trust of friends.

  Hostile governments grew and built new-generation nuclear and conventional forces while American politicians negotiated away all but a few hundred land, air, and sea-launched nukes. After decades of fighting terrorism in regional conflicts, the country reduced military forces to save money.

  Even with the threat of North Korea and possibly Iran perfecting nuclear warheads and delivery systems, the United States backed off on developing credible antiballistic missile, or ABM capabilities. All that remained were thirty aging missiles between the West Coast and Alaska. Sure, there were some ABM capabilities in the littorals; some near-shore Navy vessels were able to intercept warheads out to a few hundred nautical miles. But none could intercept a high-altitude Intercontinental Ballistic Missile—an ICBM warhead.

  Trump had refocused on national defense, including the well-publicized addition of a Space Force. Virtually unknown was the highly classified funding to build a manned interceptor designed to circumvent treaties banning any new unmanned ABM systems.

  Has it all been too little, too late?

  The Tactical Hypersonic Interceptor/Penetrator program was born. THIP—the name was descriptive, but an acronym only a Congressional subcommittee could devise. Roger Brandon was chosen as the program manager and lead engineer. Some questioned his emotional ability to carry out the responsibilities so soon after his loss. Others, like Justin, knew that the assignment was just what Roger needed. And that he was the exact man for the job.

  And now they’re trying to lift Roger into that prototype aircraft to attempt the impossible.

  Roger, of all people…! Is he ready?

  Am I?!

  13. WE’RE GOING OPERATIONAL

  Justin’s focus returned. He stood to his full six-foot-three-inch stature, closed his eyes, and took another slow, deep breath. True, he was a happy-go-lucky player who avoided commitments. Yes, he enjoyed reporting to Roger and not having the older man’s “top dog” responsibilities and headaches. Straight up, he enjoyed the challenges. Mostly, he thrived on the dope job with excellent pay and benefits. Still, Justin could get serious when necessary. Now more than ever, he must.

  Dude, I’m a programmer, not a weapons officer!

  He opened his Multiphone out on his dresser. He had pulled the dresser out from the wall so he could project the phone’s high definition laser image onto a large section of the opposite wall. A few seconds to adjust parallax and the image became a perfect rectangle. He began the intricate process of accessing and logging into Guardian’s software back door. Roger wasn’t able to take his phone into the plane, so Justin had to be ready to communicate with him through the aircraft’s communications suite.

  World’s fastest, most expensive, ultra-top-secret manned interceptor flown by a crippled retirement-aged engineer. First time in a cockpit since losing his family. The dude’s gotta be a basket case.

  Just minutes before, Justin’s phone jarred him away from the nail-biting overtime finale of his long-awaited game between Florida State and Florida. The alert was what he and Roger jokingly called the “Bat Signal.” Its real name? The Enigma Codec, a VoIP and ultra-secure datalink they developed and proposed to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. Enigma provided a full 1,024-bit encryption with minimal latency. The National Security Administration couldn’t even track that such calls took place, much less record or decipher them. Sure, his apartment wasn’t “secure.” But the encryption might keep both of them from a doing time in Leavenworth, since even the name “Guardian” carried a security classification well above Top Secret.

  God, how was he even thinking about such things now? Justin somberly admitted, now might be a good time to think about that, too…about God. If this didn’t work, many people would soon meet Him.

  Stay on point!

  The VoIP App’s encryption will datalink through the company interface, via satellite to the aircraft, as soon as Roger boots up the avionics suite. The software’s back door was still open for testing. Once testing was over, they would close it to meet cybersecurity requirements. Of course, he’d never logged in from an unsecure computer. Well, once he logged into Guardian, his Multiphone would never again see the light of day. Classified until destroyed.

  Roger. If the call had only come from someone else. Ha, good joke! I’ve been punked!

  No. Roger had a great sense of humor, although not at anyone’s expense. He also had an uncanny ability to ease tensions in difficult situations. They’d seen more than their share of those on this project. But this wasn’t a joke.

  Almost nothing less—maybe a fire or late season hurricane—would have torn him away from the game. And certainly not from the hors d'oeuvres and the last half of the Chardonnay he was sharing with his latest lady.

  Tamika Stewart was eight years his junior and had caught every man’s eye, single or otherwise, when she joined the company as a graduate student intern. Justin had especially taken a liking to her when she admired his motorcycle. She surprised him when she asked to ride it around the
block and further impressed him by handling the beast like a pro. Justin raised the stakes by asking if she wanted to join him for a workout at a parcourse track. Tamika called his bluff and not only agreed but kept up with him. She had sealed the deal when she dropped the comment that she took life easy and wasn’t interested in any commitments.

  All that led to tonight…and interrupted by Roger. The older man’s call and micro-burst of information had left no time for questions or even so much as an explanation to the lovely, trim, athletic African American woman:

  “Justin, we have a crisis. We’re going operational, right now. There’s a nuke coming up from over the South Pole, impacting somewhere up the East Coast. We’re climbing to 38,000 feet and launching out the back of the C-17. Nose-down, the turbojet should push it supersonic for the scramjet and ion drive. I’ll try to fly it, but I need your help. You’re my back-seater. And you’ve got to take it out of the test and diagnostics mode so we can go full combat ops with the railgun.”

  Right. The aggressive Flight Test Plan called for a dozen more flights beyond the six already completed. Each flight took a large, experienced Integrated Process Team at least four man-months to prepare.

  Now a programmer and a crippled engineer…Really?

  + + +

  The C-17 Globemaster III was already well above its normal cruising altitude and continued to climb. In the cargo bay, Army Lieutenant General Rey Alvarez watched as two Airmen secured the cockpit. At six-feet-two and a solid 220 pounds, the man commanded respect. The subdued patches on his Army Combat Uniform Three included Airborne, Rangers, and several lesser known but even more respected indicators of his thirty-two-year career. The only hint of his age of fifty-four was a slight graying around the temples of his otherwise jet-black hair.

  Alvarez watched the Airmen climb down from the hypersonic interceptor secured in the cargo bay. They stepped back and looked into the cockpit at the pudgy, 60-something engineer trying to save the world, and saluted the civilian. Roger nodded humbly, then looked over at the Loadmaster as the sergeant removed all but one final strap holding Guardian into the C-17 cargo bay. Roger and the General locked eyes. Alvarez saluted as well, then leaned over and shouted above the noise to his aide. “If he pulls this off, he’ll get a Presidential Medal of Freedom!”

  Major Dyson, a short, stocky man with a Japanese ancestry, had almost completed his one-year special assignment as the General’s aide. He shouted back as they prepared to strap on quick-don oxygen masks before depressurizing the cargo bay: “It’ll have to be posthumous, sir.” Seeing that the General hadn’t connected the dots, he added: “He can’t land it.”

  Alvarez looked over at the now empty wheelchair, strapped to the wall. His jaw tensed. It takes working legs to handle rudders, brakes, and nose gear steering.

  General Alvarez had known Roger for several years in a professional capacity. Roger didn’t mention it, but Rey speculated that he hadn’t recovered from the loss of his family. There he sat in the aircraft, the one man who might give the world a last chance to prevent Armageddon. Now sixty-four, Roger’s hair showed more gray than light brown. His dark eyes and olive complexion contrasted with his khaki pants and extra-large long sleeve blue shirt. Even at this distance, the General saw the man shaking.

  The world’s most unlikely hero?

  The four huge C-17 turbofan engines continued surging at full military power as the flight crew demanded every foot of altitude before opening the cargo doors. A similar airborne launch occurred decades earlier when a massive C-5A Galaxy lowered its ramp at altitude and deployed a Minuteman ICBM in an Air Mobile Feasibility Test. Huge Apollo-style parachutes deployed to slow and stabilize the missile as it descended. Then in what was one of the most unusual tests of the Cold War, the solid-fuel missile ignited and separated from its carriage and parachutes. It proved that an air-launched ICBM could literally “go ballistic.”

  Now a C-17 had to air-launch a much smaller payload. If it could go supersonic, light the scramjet and ion drive, and pull up before cratering into the Texas landscape, it would climb and maintain an extended high-altitude manned hypersonic flight for the first time in history. Its target: An incoming ICBM warhead. But not just any ICBM—this relic from the Cold War was believed to have been decommissioned decades earlier. The shock of its existence was only matched—at least from an unemotional, intellectual viewpoint—by the amazing fact that it had remained operational for so many years. The General knew something about highly classified “black” programs. He marveled at the secret existence of a massive ICBM, years after the fall of the Soviet Union and multiple leadership transitions in Russian and the former Soviet states. The General’s eyes squinted. Maybe there actually is something legitimate about conspiracy theories.

  This particular fractional orbital bombardment system—the relic from the Soviet ICBM program—was coming around “the long way.” The launch brought the warhead from over the South Pole. Despite years of growing tensions, the launch from the Ukraine, now again under Russian rule, was immediately relayed to President Juan Garcia by his Russian counterpart Viktor Savin, as soon as the Russian military detected it. Victor also provided his best-guess targeting estimates, his profuse apologies, and offers to help. But nothing could be done. There were no ABM interceptors in the southern states.

  The Loadmaster verified that everyone was on oxygen and had wrapped themselves in coats and blankets for the two or three minutes of minus sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit they would experience at that altitude. The flight crew began depressurizing the aircraft.

  + + +

  Roger looked over the cockpit’s flat-screen monitors, familiar with every detail from both an engineering perspective and his many hours in the Simulator. Although his legs were useless, he was still very much a “hands-on” manager. He attended each test flight and spent nearly as many hours “flying” the Simulator as the test pilot. He wasn’t nervous in the Simulator’s cockpit. But now?

  Roger grasped the interceptor’s control stick with a death grip, his hand trembling. To pilot an aircraft, one last time. He didn’t fear death; that wasn’t it. But to pilot again…and especially this beast! His shirt was soaked with sweat, and he had to wipe his brow before securing the helmet. Fortunately, the helmet designed for Tim Cason, PDI’s test pilot, was a close-enough fit for the few minutes Roger would need it.

  Roger struggled to think of something else, anything, other than that last flight with his family…

  I’ll never have the chance to ask Cheryl out.

  The exorbitant hours it took to design, build, program, and prepare the Guardian prototype for testing had left Roger little time to himself. Other than attending church most Sundays, there was no time for even a casual dinner date with Cheryl Brock, the early-sixties widow who joined the church’s small group he attended Sunday evenings. Her husband had died in a boating accident a few years earlier. Like Roger, she still seemed overwhelmed by the loss. Romance wasn’t on his mind, but friendship was.

  Was…

  I’m coming home. Cindy, Frank, Susan…one way or another I’ll be with you in less than an hour.

  14. LAUNCH!

  ANavy carrier flight deck is something to behold. Each Sailor understands his or her exact purpose and executes it precisely.

  But how do you coordinate sliding a hypersonic interceptor out the tail end of a cargo aircraft? Master Sergeant Alan Drake once again verified that everyone was strapped in, alert, and wearing quick-don masks. The masks with their small tanks would provide adequate oxygen for much longer than they would need. They may have sore joints from nitrogen bubbles in the low pressure, but the pure O2 would help, and they would quickly re-pressurize once Guardian cleared the ramp and the cargo door closed.

  “Roger, you all set?”

  Roger scanned his cockpit. All screens were active. Justin should complete his link-up at any moment, but they were running out of time. Guardian had to be far away from the C-17 before they could begin. His res
ponse was curt: “Let’s launch!”

  “Flight deck, ready for level plus fifteen and open hatch,” Drake called out. Everyone on board felt the dropping elevator effect of the aircraft leveling to a more sedate angle of attack.

  “Plus-one-five degrees,” Major Burt Knowles reported. “Opening hatch.” He nodded to his co-pilot, Captain Sandra White. She ran through in-flight cargo door opening procedures while Burt maintained both altitude and attitude against the aerodynamic buffeting of the opening cargo door.

  As the hatch opened, Roger started Guardian’s turbojet engine.

  In the cockpit, Sandra nodded back to Burt: “Door open!”

  Master Sergeant Drake gave another quick glance at Roger, who swirled his finger in a horizontal “Let’s go!” circle.

  Tethered to a bulkhead D-ring, Drake stepped the last yard to the final strap holding Guardian to the C-17. He had already detached the D-ring and tied a simple knot; anything dangling at hypersonic speed would rip the plane apart. Now, he opened his razor-sharp utility knife and sliced the knot, standing aside so the loose strap wouldn’t as easily cut through him as it snapped back.

  Noise in the cargo bay was deafening. Inside the Guardian’s cockpit, it was almost enough to drown out Roger’s beating heart, now fast and irregular. The intense stress had put him into atrial fibrillation, or AFib.

  Oh, great. Just what I need right about now.

  It got worse. The sickening feeling of Guardian sliding backward and slamming into a 450-knot headwind was more intense than anything he had imagined.

  “Aw, puke!”

  Roger’s outburst came from the fact that he almost did. Only an intense focus on urgent tasks kept him from violent nausea. He lowered and locked the wingtips, raised the landing gear, and throttled the turbojet to full military power. Through it all, he fought to maintain straight-and-level. The buffeting subsided.

  “You okay, man?” Justin’s question in Roger’s headset verified that he had negotiated the data and VoIP links. It was complex, from hacking through the company's classified server, relaying through the Satellite Tactical Digital Information Link, Joint Link 18, and into Guardian’s mainframe and communications.