«Well, the Public Safety folks and Quarles Gas came through again. They each had some CO2 scrubbers for work in confined spaces. So, anyway, the bunker will be outfitted with sufficient power and light for a two-week stay, at which point the sentry mothers will be instructed to put themselves under and hope for the best. If they're still alive at that point the Posleen will not have found them, which is good, but on the other hand neither did the Army so it would be a wash.»
«Sir,» said Colonel Robertson's radio operator, «the XO.»
«Uniform 51, this is Uniform 82-actual, over.»
«This is Uniform 51-actual, over.»
«Uniform 51, we have penetration to Sunken Road and Kenmore House. Estimate old town entry in five, say again, five minutes. Over.»
«Roger, Uniform 82. Am with Uniform 49 at Point Delta. Plan Jackson is nearly complete. Coordinate with . . .» His mind blanked on the call sign for Charlie company. «Coordinate with Charlie 6, over.»
«Roger, Uniform 51. This is Uniform 82.» There was a pause then the radio crackled one last time. «Nice knowing you, Frank.»
«Same here, Ricky. God will surely know his own.»
«Roger that. Out here.»
Colonel Robertson handed the mike to the RTO, swallowed and cleared his throat. «Despite all your good work, we need to get a move on,» he said, gesturing at the dwindling line.
«Yes, sir, I heard. I'm going to go coordinate some more overburden, but if you want to go chivvy some civvies, well, we work for you.»
The colonel chuckled at the weak joke. «I wish we could get some support, any support. Any distraction right now would be a good one.»
CHAPTER 35
Andrews Air Force Base, MD, United States of America, Sol III
0323 EDT October 10th, 2004 ad
«All right, here's the plan, such as it is,» said Lieutenant Colonel Augusta Sherman, commander of the Twenty-Second Tactical Fighter Squadron. The squadron ready room at Andrews Air Force Base was heavily soundproofed. The soundproofing was legacy of the days when fighters and supply aircraft thundered into the skies; the padded walls reduced the thunder to a dull rumble. In the face of the grounding of aircraft worldwide it created an eerie silence into which the squadron commander's soprano voice dropped like pebbles in a tomb.
«We know that the Posties are in and around Fredericksburg,» she continued. «But we don't have a hard fix on numbers, depth, locations or any other damn intel. Army AirCav Kiowas have fixed a route in that is out of sight of any of the landers by sneaking along with their sensor masts just above the trees. In case you need a reminder, flying in sight of landers is a definite no-no.»
She pointed to the snaking course drawn in on the map. «It's pretty close to following the Rappahanock River. But just north of Fort A.P. Hill they ran into solid Posleen forces and really got mauled by the God King's automatic targeting systems.»
She looked around the ready room at the group of blue-suited squadron pilots. Until the coming of the Galactics, American military hardware was the crème de la crème and the F-22E was the cutting edge. But with the coming of the Galactics and the Fleet Fighter Force the cream of the world's fighter pilots was sucked off into space. So many fighters were needed for the fleet that virtually anyone with a background in flying or even a strong aptitude was offered a slot.
What was left to fly the hottest plane ever developed through purely Terran technology was a ragbag group of relative losers. There was Kerman, who had his flight license suspended after putting his crop duster into a house then registering a blood alcohol level of .25. The investigator had it retaken because it seemed an impossibility anyone could fly with that much blood in his alcohol. There was Lieutenant Wordly, who spent as much time holding on to a puke bag as he did the stick, Jefferson Washington Jones, plane lover, GED graduate, a functional illiterate until he was twenty-five, whose first solo, at the age of fifty-seven, was in a jet trainer, and all the others.
And there was one antiquated squadron commander who got such a severe case of agoraphobia after one trip out of the atmosphere she could no longer fly above two thousand feet. It's not the height, General, it's the horizon.
On the other hand, they had a plane that practically flew itself and every single pilot was bound and determined to do the best job they possibly could.
«They tried sending in Predator drones, but they got mauled too. The powers-that-be hope that the combination of Terran stealth and high speeds will give us some limited survivability. It's really the only reason they produced the Echo, for a situation just like this.»
She took a sip of coffee to give an appearance of calm and took another look around the room. Most of the pilots were simply listening, taking it all in. There would be hardly time to breathe on a mission like this one, much less read notes. And the whole mission would be programmed into their birds. This was just so the pilots had some idea what was happening when they had to change the plan. Kerman picked up the sheet of paper in front of him and started to fold it, whistling quietly through his teeth.
«We're going in Nap-Of-The-Earth—sorry Wordly,» she said in an aside that produced general chuckles. «Set your terrain-following gear to hard. And we'll go in one at a time. When the point bird is lost the next in line will follow. Hopefully they will be able to avoid whatever took him out. The alternative, throwing everyone in en masse, is suicide. None of the data we have indicates that we can overwhelm the Posleen systems.»
Augusta was getting distracted by Kerman. Whatever the origami was that he was working on, the sound of the folding was interspersed across her words. And she was trying in the back of her mind to remember what the song was that he was whistling. She thought she recognized it, but she couldn't figure out from where.
«Eventually we are going to get a complete look at the Posleen-controlled area or we'll run out of planes, take your pick. We'll be continuously uplinking the take from all of our sensors, but we are going in black otherwise. We'll have to depend on our low-light gear and IR lidar for terrain avoidance and data. I realize how badly the Army needs intel, but the only way to get it is if we can survive the penetration.» There was a snort of disbelief at this last suggestion. She thought it was Kerman, who seemed to have almost completed his complicated origami.
Augusta agreed that surviving this mission would be unlikely. However, they had all signed on the dotted line and raised their hands to swear. She still intended to give them a chance to back out.
«Once we are in the basket, into the actual Fredericksburg area, I intend to go full active so we can get the max information possible.» There had been some fidgeting and quiet conversation before she said that. When the words were said, the room dropped to total silence.
«Because of the threat and the fact that we are forced to go active on sensors, I personally do not expect to come back. Given that fact, anyone who wants to bow out can do so.» She paused and waited for someone to get to their feet. Surprisingly, nobody did. She looked pointedly at Kerman but the older pilot just smiled quietly and kept whistling.
«Okay, with the exception of the first run, we'll draw lots for the order. Oh, and we're going in loaded for ground attack. If you find a juicy target, there's no reason not to pickle the bastard.»
«So, who takes the first run?» asked Kerman, slipping on a set of jet-black aviator's shades and popping the origami to full size with a flick of the wrist. He obviously felt that as the aviator with the most experience at this sort of flying it should be him.