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added transcripts of the air battles to the computers that helped fly the plane, providing the Tactics section with better information on what to expect from the planes they encountered.
Her pilot, Captain Brad Sparks, was in some ways also a new version of the breed. Sparks had been at Dreamland as a lieutenant three years before, working briefly on the Megafortress project, where, among other things, he had helped perform a feasibility study on using the aircraft as a tanker.
He’d transferred out just before Dog arrived, promoted to a captain and assigned to a B-1B squadron.
When Dreamland began getting involved in operational missions, Sparks realized he’d made a mistake and started angling for a comeback. He’d arrived two weeks before, and already he could tell it was the best decision he’d ever made in his life.
“Colonel Bastian for you,” said his copilot, Lieutenant Nelson Wong.
“Colonel, how goes it?” said Sparks, snapping his boss’s image on his com screen. The EB-52’s “dashboard” was infinitely configurable, but like most Megafortress pilots, Sparks kept the communications screen at the lower left, just below a screen that fed data and images from the Flighthawks.
“We’ve located another warhead, very far north,” Dog told him. “It’s in a lake. Looks like the Chinese are interested in it as well.”
“Hot shit.”
“Excuse me?”
“What do you need us to do, Colonel?”
“These are the coordinates of the site. The Bennett will go north and try and divert the Chinese. I’d like you to back us up and help provide cover for the ground unit; they should be there inside of ninety minutes. How soon can you get up here?”
“Thirty minutes,” said Sparks, though he knew he was being optimistic—the Cheli was nearly five hundred miles away.”
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“Be advised that the Chinese used long-range radiation-seeking missiles against us. They look like AA-10 Alamos but have at least twice the range. We took them down with Anacondas. We have two Su-27s approaching, and we’re unsure how they’re armed.”
“We’re on it, Colonel.”
“Alert me when you’re within ten minutes.” The screen went blank.
The cavalry to the rescue, thought Sparks before telling the rest of the crew what was going on. Getting back to Dreamland was the best thing he’d ever done.
Aboard Dreamland Bennett,
over Pakistan
2345
DOG’S GOAL WAS SIMPLE—KEEP THE HELICOPTERS FROM
landing at the site. They were well within range of his Anaconda antiair missiles, but he had only two left. If he used them against the helicopters, he’d have only the Flighthawks as his defense against the Su-27s.
A much better option was to engage the fighters first, get them out of the way, and then deal with the helicopters. After telling Starship what was up, Dog turned the Megafortress in the Sukhois’ direction.
Unlike the MiG-31s, the Sukhois hadn’t followed him through his course changes. There was no question in his mind that they were heading toward the warhead site and had to be considered hostile, but he wasn’t sure if they were carrying long-range weapons like the other planes. He decided he couldn’t take the chance. His only option was to take them out before they were close enough to use their weapons.
“Range on Bandits Three and Four, ” he said to Sullivan.
“Just coming up to 180 miles.”
“Stand by the Anacondas,” Dog told Sullivan.
“Standing by.”
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“Target them and fire.”
The missiles whisked away from the Megafortress. Dog held his course, watching the MiGs continue to approach, clearly unaware of their impending doom. Only at the last second did they realize their danger, jerking desperately to the east and west as the missiles bore in.
It was far too late. The Anacondas exploded only a few seconds apart, obliterating the Sukhois so completely that neither crew could eject.
“The helicopters are all yours,” Dog told Starship. Then he dialed into the fleet satellite communications channel to tell Woods what was going on.
THE HARBIN Z-5 HOUND WAS A CHINESE VERSION OF THE
Russian Mil Mi-4, a 1950s-era transport that typically carried fourteen troops and three crew members. Though the Chinese versions were improved somewhat, the basic design remained the same, a thick, two-deck fuselage beneath a massive rotor and a long, slim tail. The aircraft were pulling 113 knots, close to their top speed, flying twenty feet over the landscape.
They were easy prey for the Flighthawks. Starship kept the two U/MFs in a trail and took control of the first aircraft, flying a head-on attack against the lead helicopter. On his first pass he raked the cockpit and the engine compartment immediately behind it with 20mm cannon fire, decapitating the aircraft. There was no need for a second pass.
The other chopper tried to get away by twisting to the west, through a mountain pass. But the pilot miscalculated in the dark. By the time Starship turned Hawk One in its direction, the aircraft was burning on the side of the mountain, its rotors sheered off by a collision with the side wall of the canyon.
“Choppers are down,” Starship told Colonel Bastian. “I need to refuel.”
“Roger that,” said Dog.
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215
Dreamland Command
1100
TO SAMSON’S GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT, RAY RUBEO HAD
left Dreamland Command to supervise some tests in another part of the complex.
Samson didn’t intend to fire him—not yet, anyway. Given the administration’s interest in the missile recovery operation, there was no sense doing anything that might possibly derail it.
Or give critics something to focus on if the mission failed.
But he did want to put Rubeo in his place. And he would, he promised himself, as soon as possible.
“I’m not here to interfere,” Samson told Major Catsman.
“I want you all to proceed as you were. But let’s be clear on this—I am the commander of this base, and of this mission. The Whiplash order is issued in my name. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Samson detected a note of dissension in Catsman’s voice, but let it slide. A bit of resistance in a command could be a good thing, as long as it was controllable.
“Update me on the process, please. Where specifically are our people? How many missiles have yet to be recovered?
All of the details. Then I want to speak with Colonel Bastian, and finally Admiral Woods.”
“There is a bit of a time difference between Dreamland and the area they’re operating in,” said Catsman.
“I’m sure Colonel Bastian won’t mind being woken to brief me.”
“It wasn’t him I was thinking of, sir. Colonel Bastian is already awake, and on a mission. Admiral Woods, on the other hand …”
Samson smiled. He had tangled with Woods several times while deputy commander of the Eighth Air Force, and owed him a tweaking or two.
“Tex Woods and I go way back,” Samson told Catsman.
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“Disturbing his sleep would be one of life’s little pleasures.”
Catsman gave him a tally of the warheads that had been recovered and a rundown on the overall situation; her briefing was, in fact, extremely thorough. And when she turned to tell a civilian at a console to make the connection to Bastian, the colonel came on almost instantaneously, his half-shaven face filling the main screen.
“General, I need to update you on a serious situation,” said the colonel from the cockpit of his Megafortress.