The computer-generated visual display out the cockpit windows showed a vast expanse of desert, dotted with tall, jagged, rocky peaks. “Here we are at the Scud-ER target at Navy Fallon,” said Seaver. “We hit two targets, but the damned squids jerked our chains and kept the emitters on and didn’t simulate a kill, so we thought we missed. Chappie is ready to spit nails because he thinks he shut down all the threats, which he did, but the Navy kept on transmitting like they never got hit, the bastards.” Chappie was Al Chapman, his dead defensive systems officer.
“Seaver…”
“Hold on, boss,” Seaver said, pushing on. “We’re yanking and banking and jammin’ and jivin’ our asses off. Everyone’s pissed at me because they thought we missed the first two targets and because I wasn’t doing enough for bomber defense. That’s bullshit too — we shacked all three targets — but…” He stopped, ashamed that he had patted himself on the back and then said something negative against the dead. He could feel the icy stares on the back of his neck and knew the others, Furness too, resented it.
“Anyway, we nail the third target. Dead-on. We fly right into a SAM and triple-A nest on the other side of the ridge. A shitload of SAMs and triple-A — the smoky SAMs are everywhere, a couple dozen of ’em. We scram left away from the trap. We’re at two hundred hard ride. I put the spoiler override switches into OVERRIDE, pop the speedbrakes and pull ’em into idle power, and start our two point five Gs pull to cornering velocity. Speed comes down nicely. Override switch back to normal, speedbrakes down. Now watch.”
The visual display showed the steep bank, with more and more earth replacing sky in the cockpit window. Seaver pushed the throttles to max afterburner and pulled the stick right, but nothing happened — the steep bank stayed in, and they dipped earthward. Seconds later the simulator crashed with a sound resembling Wile E. Coyote hitting the ground in a Road Runner cartoon.
“Seaver, I don’t know what you’re trying to prove…”
“I know why we crashed, boss,” he said. “Look: over ninety degrees of bank, airspeed slowing…”
“You cross-controlled your jet,” Furness told him. “You know you’re not supposed to do over ninety degrees of bank while TF’ing.”
“But look at the speedbrakes,” Seaver said insistently. “Just like the Powder River accident a couple years ago. Low altitude, steep bank angle, tight turn, and the speedbrakes are still extended. Sink rate builds up…”
“But you said you retracted the speedbrakes.”
“They had to be still extended, boss,” Rinc said.
Long rolled his eyes in disbelief. “So you say.”
“I know I did,” Rinc said. “Either they didn’t retract, or they stuck extended. But they didn’t retract.”
“CITS said they did,” Long told him. CITS, the Central Integrated Test System, was a monitoring, recording, and troubleshooting device on the B-1 bomber that acted like a flight data recorder. The CITS was heavily armored and designed to withstand a crash. They had recovered the stricken bomber’s CITS module, and its memory was successfully retrieved and analyzed by the Air Force.
“I think something happened, something that prevented the speedbrakes from retracting, or retracted them too late,” Rinc insisted. “The smoky SAMs were all around us — it’s possible one of them got stuck in the spoiler wells. In that case, CITS would report them retracted even though they were still deployed. But that’s the only way that crash makes any sense.”
All he saw were blank faces staring back at him hostilely.
Seaver knew his arguments were falling on deaf ears. Since he had initiated the ejection sequence and punched everybody out long after the Bone had departed coordinated flight, they were putting the blame squarely on him.
Several long awkward moments passed. Then Rebecca Furness turned to the systems officers and simulator operators behind them and said, “Excuse us for a minute, guys.”
Seaver got to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute, boss, I’m going to take a leak, and then I’m going to get all the sim data together and upchannel it to Air Combat Command. We’ll need to independently verify what we found and give this information to the accident board.”
“Save your own butt by blaming the dead, huh, Seaver?” Long said under his breath, but loudly enough for the other squadron members to hear. Furness scowled.
Seaver inwardly winced at the remark but simply said, “It happened, John. It was some kind of technical malfunction. We can prove it.” Looking about, he saw no sympathy in the faces around him.
Within a few moments, everyone had departed but Furness, Long, and Seaver. “So. You saw the flight surgeon today?” Furness asked. “What did he say?”
Seaver proudly produced a sheet of paper. “He signed me off for flying,” he replied. “I know the squadron is getting ready for the pre-D. I realize I have a bunch of training to catch up on, but I know I can get back up to speed in time to recertify along with the rest of the squadron.”
Furness examined the paper with a rueful shake of her head. The flight surgeon had given Seaver full medical clearance for flight duties, even though he was still undergoing physical therapy. The sign-off usually meant that the crew member was off all medications and was observed to be free of any apparent psychological or emotional difficulties as a result of the crash. More important, for Seaver, was the sign-off that allowed him to train for the predeployment certification, or pre-D.
The pre-D was the unit’s biggest gauge of its combat effectiveness. Air National Guard bomber squadrons were “replacement” units, not frontline combat-ready units. In the event that the bombers were needed, the squadron would be “federalized,” or transferred from the command of the Nevada state adjutant general to the Air Force and “gained” by an active-duty bomb wing. The Guard aircrews would be tasked to ferry the aircraft to the deployment base, either in the United States or overseas; and the best crews might fly actual combat missions if there was a shortage of active-duty crews. In order to prove they were ready for full integration into the active force, twice a year the squadron was sent either to Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota or Dyess AFB in Texas to undergo a grueling two-week drill to demonstrate their combat readiness.
Fail the pre-D, and you could be dismissed from the squadron. If too many crews failed, the entire unit could be decertified. The unit already had one big black mark against it — Seaver’s crash. Having even one crew fail a pre-D could bring the entire squadron down.
Furness put the paper aside, glancing at Long. “You know you’re not supposed to go to the flight surgeon or ask him for any sign-offs without asking me first,” she said to Seaver.
He narrowed his eyes quizzically. “No, I didn’t know that, boss. I must’ve filed that piece of info in the ‘Like I give a shit’ folder when the President briefed it.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Seaver.”
“But I didn’t go to the doc to ask for a sign-off — I went for a scheduled rehab follow-up. He asked me how I felt, poked and prodded, and then said I looked okay enough to go back to work. He did the sign-off. I didn’t ask him for shit. If he’s out of line with you, that’s his problem, not mine.” He looked hard at his squadron commander, then asked, “It sounds like maybe you don’t want me flying or participating in any pre-D work-ups. There a problem here, boss?”