Was the radio dead? She shook it, still not completely comprehending. She picked it back up. Flipped to talk mode, transmitted, listened.
Nothing.
“Chris, Chris,” she said, turning back to her copilot. “Hey — you all right?”
“Mama,” he said.
She laughed. Her ribs hurt and her eyes stung and all the muscles in her back went spastic, but she laughed.
“Mama,” he repeated.
“I don’t think so,” Bree told him softly. She patted him gently. Chris moaned in reply.
“Sleep,” she said. “There’s no school today.”
The storm and his enemy’s ineptness, as much as his skill and the crew’s dedication, had saved them. sitting below the cold layer of water just below test depth, waiting forever, listening to the enemy vessels pass — Admiral Balin had known they would survive. They sat there silently, packing their breaths, so quiet the sea gods themselves would surely think they had disappeared. The admiral waited until they very last moment to surface, remaining in the deep until the batteries were almost completely gone. In the foul air he had begun to hallucinate, hearing voices; if they had not been congratulating him for his glory, he might have thought they were real.
A light rain fell; they were on the back end of the enormous storm. The waves pushed the low-sitting submarine violently, but the weather that hid them was welcome.
“Every man a turn topsides,” he told Captain Varja.
Varja nodded solemnly.
The crew nodded to thoroughly inspect the vessel, but to Admiral Balin’s mind, no matter what they found, the damage was minor. At worse, a few more vents on the tanks were out of order, he still had his engines, propeller, and diving planes.
And he still had two torpedoes.
There was another carrier, and at least one large ship, a cruiser, several escorts. He would pursue his enemies until all his weapons and energy were gone, even if it meant death. For what was death but a promise of another rebirth? The next life would strive even higher after this glorious triumph of the soul.
“We will continue east, with our best speed,” he told the captain.
Varja hesitated.
“Do you disagree the enemy lies there?” asked Balin mildly.
The question seemed to take the captain by surprise. He considered it for a second, then shook his head. within moments, the submarine began to come about.
She was there, somewhere there. Zen rolled his head around his neck, trying to loosen his muscles. Flying the UMB was easier than flying the Flighthawk. In truth, he wasn’t actually flying the aircraft. He was more like an overseer, making sure the computer did what it was programmed to do.
And it always did, precisely to the letter.
The computer had a detailed and rather complicated three-dimensional flight plan worked out for the search pattern. Starting at a peak of 180,000 feet — roughly thirty-four miles high — the UMB spiraled downward across the search grid to precisely sixty thousand feet above sea level. At that point, it ignited the rocket motor and began to climb again, once more spiraling upward. Zen’s primary concern was monitoring the speed, since as the UMB dropped it began to lose some of its stability; it was hampered by its inability to use the scramjets to maintain airspeed through the “low” supersonic flight regimes.
He was the only one with real-time direct access to the plane’s native sensors; Jennifer had spent the hours since their takeoff trying to work out the problems in the link, but still didn’t have a solution. Rubeo had to content himself with the slightly delayed KH feeds; he wasn’t particularly happy and shared his displeasure freely.
They had pinned down the point where the Megafortress went into the ocean, about 150 miles west of the Chinese task force. A close examination of the debris on the water, while confirming it was Quicksilver, failed to turn up any survivors.
Or bodies.
If they’d gone out somewhere before the plane hit the water — and as far as Zen was concerned, that was the only possibility — they should be somewhere between the impact point and their last transmission location. They had now carefully mapped the entire area, and even accounted for the effects of the wind and stormy sea, but there was nothing there.
According to the computer, there was enough fuel to continue the search for another six hours. As far as Zen was concerned, he could sit here for a week.
But what was the sense of going over and over the same territory? Obviously, they were looking in the wrong place, but Zen wasn’t sure where the right place was.
Iowa, meanwhile, rode a surveillance track to the east of the battered Chinese fleet. The damaged carrier had sunk sometime during the night at the height of the storm, two of the destroyers were tied up together, apparently to help repair damage on one of the vessels. The Chinese were not in a good mood. Twice their aircraft had warned off Alou in rather abrupt English, though she had come no closer than thirty miles from the escort screen. In accordance with her orders, she moved off as directed. Iowa’s position did not affect Zen or the UMB.
“How are you doing?” Alou asked as Iowa reached the southernmost point of her patrol area.
“We’re just about done,” Zen told him.
“Nothing, huh?”
“I think the problem is we’re assuming they were flying a more or less straight line.”
Alou didn’t answer. Zen wasn’t sure what he expected him to say, but the silence angered him.
He switched abruptly into the Dreamland channel, where scientist Greg Meades had taken over com duties for the UMB team.
“We have to shift the search area,” Zen told him.
“We’re re-created the route they were flying,” said the scientist. “Based on our data.”
“Then the re-creation is wrong. If she was ducking back and forth, trying to avoid getting shot down, her path could be very different than what we computed.”
“Could be,” said Meade, though it was obvious he wasn’t convinced.
“Let’s try farther to the southwest. The plane could have swung back fifty miles, a hundred before they punched out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t have to humor me,” said Zen. He snapped the talk button off, then pushed it again. “I’m sorry. Set up a new search area, assuming they would have tried to go south as soon as they were hit.”
Danny Freah cleared his throat. “All right, listen up,” he told the eight men standing in front of the Dreamland MV-22. “We’re backup to the main team. Routine SAR mission. Latest intel is this — beacon believed from the Seahawk lost in the storm was heard, and we have a location that’s roughly a hundred miles from here. Other assets are already en route. Our speed’s going to get us there quick, though, so we may get into the mix, especially if they run into trouble. There’s a small island in the area, and it’s possible — small possibility — there may be other people there. If that happens, we’re definitely in the mix. Otherwise, what we’re doing primarily is using our eyes. Okay? Not a big deal. Just backups.” Danny paused. “You Marines who haven’t come with us before — welcome aboard.”
Danny smiled at the five Marine privates who had been detailed to fill out his squad. The oldest looked like he’d be eligible to shave in a year or so.
“A little word of advice,” Danny continued, “because I’m not really going to get a chance to give a pep talk if things get hot. I know how much everybody here, my guys especially, like pep talks.”