On the frequency McKenna had assigned to his Tactical Two radio channel, Mitchell said, “Delta Blue, you can clear your port side CO2 storage tank, then open the pressurization valve between it and the fuel storage and take the pressure off the pellet feed.”
“If I do that, Beta, we may get a backfeed of pellets into the carbon dioxide tanks.”
“We worried about my bird or about one contaminated tank?” Mitchell asked.
“It means stripping the bonded skin off the wing to repair it,” McKenna told him, “and that means three or four days. I don’t want the downtime. Can’t have it.”
“Damn it, Blue! Let’s weigh the cost of the craft and the cost of a CO2 tank…”
“And lost air time,” McKenna broke in. “Delta Green is the priority now.”
“Ah, hell.”
“We need a design change so we can depressurize the pellet tank without backing into the CO2 tanks,” Munoz said, thinking ahead.
“I’m already thinking about it,” Polly Tang, the maintenance deputy, said, “but that’s future. Right now, I’ve got the schematic up on my screen. I don’t think the anti-blowback valve is the problem. The problem is going to be in the actuator that controls the valve, or in the actuator relay. You tried the redundant system, Snake Eyes?”
“Already closed, Beta Two.”
The MakoShark was flying nose high, but when he glanced through the canopy to his left, McKenna saw the coastline passing below. The South China Sea was a pretty blue, leaning toward emerald.
“All right, Delta Blue,” Mitchell said, “we can override the igniter interlock and shut down the igniter. The pellets will continue to flow.”
“And jam up the combustion chamber and nozzle,” McKenna noted.
“Maybe. Still, we can change those without stripping bonded skin,” Mitchell said.
“Give me another option, Beta.”
“Jesus Christ! What thrust are you developing?” Mitchell asked.
“One five thousand indicated.”
“Hold one, I’m calculating now,” the maintenance officer said.
On the intercom, Munoz asked, “Snake Eyes, you thinking of trying to land with an active rocket motor?”
“I want to see if Brad is thinking along the same lines. You want to get out here, Tiger?”
“Nah. I’ve been along when you’ve done worse.”
“Okay, Delta Blue,” Mitchell said. “Start your turbojets twenty minutes out of Wet Country. On the approach, we want forty per cent power on the right engine and five per cent power on the left. That should balance the power development, but you’re going to come in hot, fifty-five or sixty knots above normal. On the flareout, go immediately to a hundred percent reverse thrust on the left engine. That’ll maybe neutralize the rocket thrust. No more than ten per cent reverse thrust on the right engine.”
“And lay into the brakes?” Munoz asked.
“We’ll probably burn out the brakes,” Mitchell said. “And we’ll likely be thinking about new tires also.”
“I’m alerting the crash crews now,” Polly Tang said. “We’ll have mechanics on the runway, ready to open the nacelle and shut down the anti-blowback valve.”
“Sounds good to me,” McKenna said. “Alpha One, you listening in?”
“I’ve got a copy,” General Overton said.
“Comments?”
“It’s your call. Take your time, Delta Blue.”
“Good luck, Snake Eyes,” Amy Pearson said.
Everyone on board Themis seemed to be listening in on the conversation. Probably holding their collective breath.
Munoz spoke up on the ICS. “You just watch, amigo. In about five minutes, Big General Cartwright is goin’ to come on the air and tell us he doesn’t want any rubber strips left on his runway.”
“He’d really scream about large pieces of MakoShark, wouldn’t he?” McKenna asked.
“Let’s go back to talkin’ about smoked tires instead, Snake Eyes.”
McKenna spent the next half hour concentrating on keeping the nose high in order to bleed off speed. Munoz developed an approach pattern for them and coordinated it with the tower personnel at Wet Country.
Coming out of supersonic flight was a rattler, with the craft bobbing around her part of the sky for a few minutes. McKenna whispered nice things to her, and she finally came around and resumed her nose high attitude.
“Goin’ active, Snake Eyes.”
“Go.”
Munoz switched his radar from passive to active mode in order to check the immediate vicinity for air traffic.
“Passive,” he reported when he had switched back. “No traffic to sweat.”
They went through the turbojet start-up sequence more carefully than usual. Both engines started without problems after he put the nose down enough to get a clear airflow through the intakes.
McKenna didn’t feel any unusual tension. It would be an abnormal landing, but he had been in tighter spots.
Munoz handled the radio chores, leaving McKenna free to manipulate the throttles and concentrate on the approach to the runway.
“Wet Country, Delta Blue,” the backseater called.
“Gotcha, Blue. Give me a status.”
“We’ve got seven-zero-zero knots, angels ten, sixty miles out.”
“Squawk me once.”
Munoz turned on the modified IFF, Identify Friend or Foe, briefly to give the controller an identified blip on his radar screen.
“I see you. You’re clean straight in on ought-one. Wind is normal, meaning nothing. Barometric pressure two nine point eight.”
McKenna didn’t bother sight-seeing. He kept his eyes scanning the HUD and the instrument panel, watching for delicate imbalances that he could control with the throttles. Easing the nose up, he bled speed off by approaching stalling speed, but he didn’t want to raise the angle of attack so high that he cut into the airflow for the turbojets and stalled them out.
“Four-three-five knots,” Munoz reported. “We’re looking for about three-ten, right?”
“In that neighborhood, Tiger. Altitude?”
“On the radar altimeter, we’re showing two-five-five-zero.”
Munoz’s instrument readouts agreed with his own, which was reassuring.
The MakoShark kept lowering her tail, pancaking toward the earth at over four hundred miles per hour. The stall warning buzzer and panel light ignited once, and McKenna brought the nose down a trifle.
“Three miles, jefe.”
“Good a guess as any.”
“Hey, man! I say anythin’ about give-or-take a few feet?”
“Just checking.”
Mitchell’s numbers were just numbers. They didn’t feel right to a pilot who had learned to trust his instincts as well as his instruments. Old barnstormers never die.
“Outer marker,” Munoz reported, then told the tower the same thing.
“We’ve got visual on you,” the air controller called back.
Far ahead of Mitchell’s recommendation and two miles out, McKenna eased the left throttle into reverse thrust, beginning to counteract the rocket motor. He pulled the right throttle back to twenty per cent power, until the rudders felt balanced.
The MakoShark settled abruptly.
“Five hundred ground clearance,” Munoz said, his voice steady and firm.
McKenna nudged the nose down.
The airspeed picked up for a few seconds then began to fall off.
“Three hundred feet.”
The airspeed dropped to 320 knots. The controls felt iffy. The right wing dropped, and he brought it back up with minor pressure on the controller.
“Fifty feet, airspeed three-one-zero.”