Olsen double-checked her, using the same checklist on his own screen.
“How’s the fuel supply?”
“Ten-point-one thousand pounds,” Haggar said. “We’re showing two-two time.”
“And the CO-two reserve?”
“Twelve thousand, six hundred PSI.”
“Igniter test?”
“I’m testing now. We’ve got one, now two and three. There’s four.”
“Activate igniters one and two.”
Haggar flipped the toggles for the primary igniters in each of the rocket motors. Igniters three and four were backup systems.
“The igniters are hot, Swede”
“Open CO-two valves”
Haggar opened the valves, pressurizing the solid-fuel pellet tanks.
“Done.”
“Activate throttles, Country.”
“Active.”
“Throttles at standby position.”
She pushed the outboard throttle levers to their first detents.
“Throttles in standby,” Haggar reported.
“Comp Control?”
“Punching in one-zero-zero per cent” Haggar tapped the pad in the top row of buttons that read “RKT THRST,” keyed in the one and two zeros, stored the data in Random Access Memory, then tapped the “STDBY” pad.
With another code entered into the keyboard, she turned control of the MakoShark over to the computer. The computer thought about it for nearly a second, then reported out, via blue letters displayed in the upper left corner of the CRT.
REENTRY PATH ACCEPTED
REENTRY SEQUENCE INITIATED
TIME TO RETRO FIRE: 0.18.11
“You’re eleven seconds off, Swede.”
“I hate it when you insist on precision, Country Girl” That was because the precise numbers were always available somewhere in his brain, and he felt it unnecessary to verbalize them. At a bridge table — like the ones in the dining/recreation areas of the space station which utilized lightly magnetized cards on a magnetic surface — she suspected that Olsen knew within three plays where all of the other cards were and who was holding them. She keyed her helmet microphone, “Alpha, Delta Red.”
“Go Red.” Milt Avery was tending the command station. She reported their status, and he wished them luck. They waited out the time rechecking systems — twice was never enough for decent safety margins — and tightening straps. Olsen picked up the count near the end: “Six, five, four, three, two, one.”
The CRT countdown readout went to zero.
The mild vibration in the craft’s frame and the thrust indicators on the HUD rising to one hundred per cent told her when the computer ignited the rockets.
The view of Themis in the rearview screen diminished and slid off the top of the screen as white fire encroached on each side of the screen.
The display of Mach numbers began to move, decreasing rapidly.
The burn lasted for three-and-a-half minutes, until the speed was down to Mach 20, then the computer turned Delta Red over again, heading into her line of flight, with her nose held high.
Lynn Haggar had always thought the attitude very haughty and deservedly so. She herself always felt humbled and grateful for the Fates that had selected a woman from Georgia and dropped her into the cockpit of a MakoShark.
She was also grateful to Colonel Kevin McKenna, Earth-side representative of the Fates.
Directly ahead of Conover, the red digital numerals of the Head-Up Display floated in space. His altitude was reported at fifty thousand feet above sea level and his heading at 091 degrees. The readout for airspeed indicated that Delta Yellow was cruising at a meager 650 knots. The tailpipe temperatures were well down in the green.
Below the HUD, the instrument panel provided readouts in blue digital numerals and letters, many of them duplicates of what appeared on the HUD. The eight-inch cathode ray tube was centered in the panel and repeated the imaging mode selected by the weapons system operator in the backseat of the tandem cockpit. The screen had direct visual, map overlay, radar, infrared, and night vision capability and currently was displaying the magnified (images picked up by the nose-mounted video camera.
The pilot’s and WSO’s seats were semi-reclining lounges. Conover’s seat had four-way adjustable armrests on which his forearms rested. Near his left hand were the short throttle levers, and above them, the switch panels related to engine, radio, and environmental control. On his right were the armaments, electronics, trim, flaps, and landing gear control panels. To the rear of the panels on both sides of the cockpit were the less frequently used control panels and circuit breakers. The aerospace craft’s attitude was controlled from the stubby, ergonomically-designed handle that fit smoothly into the palm of his hand.
To his left, he could see the snow-capped Himalayas, most of the peaks wreathed in misty white. The bronze-tinted canopy took some of the hard edges off the blindingly white and awe-inspiring view.
Abrams had a Creedence Clearwater Revival rendition of “Bad Moon Rising” playing low in their earphones.
Much as he hated to admit it, Conover was becoming a convert to Do-Wop’s golden oldies. There was something soothing about listening to rhythms and lyrics which were familiar enough to stay in the background. He didn’t have to concentrate on understanding words hidden between clashes of metal.
“Here’s a possible location coming up, Con Man,” Abrams said.
Conover scanned the HUD one more time, then switched his attention to the main CRT. The new video cameras allowed them a magnification of forty times normal, though at the higher numbers, the resolution was a trifle fuzzy. Their east-west crisscrossing of the subcontinent had begun to the north, encompassing parts of Afghanistan and China, and Abrams had maintained a camera magnification of twenty, giving them a screen view that was about 150 miles wide. Now, Abrams had jumped the telescopic effect, reducing the width of the coverage to several miles.’
The nose camera was at full depression, aimed downward forty degrees from their line of flight. What they were seeing was a long way ahead of them, and in this case, was across the Indian border into northern Bangladesh. The rain forest disguised almost everything, including the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River.
Conover didn’t distinguish anything unusual.
“You actually see something, Do-Wop?”
“Upper left corner.”
“Sure.”
“Here, I’ll center it.”
Abrams changed the camera angle with his controller, and a brownish swatch in the jungle centered itself on the screen.
“That’s not in Pearson’s data banks,” Abrams said.
Over the years they had been circling the globe, the MakoShark pilots had been accumulating tons of valuable information, including the location of clandestine airstrips. The data was fed into Space Command computers and retained against the time when, Conover hoped, the Department of Defense turned the 1st Aerospace Squadron loose against drug manufacturing and smuggling operations. He figured the stealth craft could put a dent in the drug trade that would shock the world and put much of it into withdrawal pangs.
During their search, they were reviewing and updating the data files on known airstrips as well as adding new information to the data base.
“Suppose Bangladesh will care if we invade their airspace?” Conover asked.
“I’ll let you know if they shoot us down,” the backseater said.
“You might try an earlier warning.”
“Chicken.”
Conover eased the controller over and went into a shallow right bank, adding a little right rudder. The MakoShark began a slow turn to the right. When the Brahmaputra River, a blue/brown scar in the green jungle, passed under, he started a slow turn back to the left so as to come back on their target from the east.