“You see that ledge on my side of that tight pass?” Danny asked as Starship climbed over the recovery site.
“I think I know which one you mean.”
“Any chance you could get some rocks into it?”
“You mean start an avalanche?”
“That’s it.”
“Let me take another look.”
Starship brought the airplane around and swooped toward what looked like a sheer, solid cliff. He wasn’t sure the relatively small missiles the Flighthawk held would do much.
Now that he had the idea planted in his head, however, he started hunting for a place where it might work.
“There’s a spot about two miles south of you where a bunch of boulders are piled against the side of the road,” he RETRIBUTION
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told Danny. “There are some small trees holding them back, but I think if I put the missiles there we’d get something on the road. Downside is, if it doesn’t work, I won’t have any missiles to use against the trucks.”
“Give it a shot,” Danny told him.
“Roger that.”
“INDIAN FIGHTERS ARE PASSING THE FLIGHTHAWK, STILL
coming for us,” said Daly at the radar.
“Let’s move farther north,” said Englehardt. “Let’s see how far we can bring them.”
“Should we target these guys or what?” asked Sullivan.
“They’re just about in range to fire at us.”
Englehardt started to say no, then reconsidered. If he let them fire first, could he avoid their missiles and fire the Anacondas?
He started to reach for the radio to ask for instructions, then stopped. His rules of engagement covered the situation—avoid firing except to protect the mission, and himself.
He didn’t need authorization from anyone, or advice.
If he called Dreamland Control, he’d look weak, wouldn’t he? That’s what he was really worried about.
So what was he going to do? Was there a threat or not?
Colonel Bastian had been right to bump him the other day.
He couldn’t make a decision.
Screw it.
Just make a decision. Either way. Do it.
He took a breath.
“Hold off on the Anacondas,” he said. “If they get hostile, we have a bunch of things we can do.”
“Roger that,” said Sullivan, not sounding particularly convinced.
THE COMPUTER HELPING STARSHIP FLY THE FLIGHTHAWK
beeped at him when he boxed the rocks at the side of the cliff on the weapons screen, asking if he was sure he knew what he was doing.
“Confirm target,” said Starship.
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The computer replied by turning the small aiming reticule red. Starship pressed the trigger button at the top of his stick and began dumping lead into the pile of rocks. They disappeared in a cloud of dust.
A fine mist of dirt still covered the area when he swung back, and even the Flighthawk’s radar couldn’t see whether the road had been blocked or not. Starship continued past, moving down the road toward the Indian column a few miles away. Apparently they’d heard the commotion; the trucks had stopped and the men were crouched around them and in the nearby rocks.
As Starship turned to come back north, the computer warned him that the MiGs were past Hawk Two.
“Bennett, what are we doing with those MiGs?” he asked.
“We’re going to lead them away from the ground party,”
replied Englehardt.
“Well, yeah, roger that, but they’re inside fifty miles.”
“I know where they are, Flighthawk leader.”
Starship changed course, angling in the direction the Bennett was taking. The MiGs had slowed down but were still about three miles ahead, out of range of sure cannon shot for the robot aircraft.
He went back to Hawk One, bringing it up the road. The cloud of dust had cleared. The road was blocked—but only partially.
“You seeing this, Danny?” he asked Captain Freah.
“Roger that,” said Danny.
“Good enough?”
“It’ll have to do.”
Jamu
2200
JENNIFER JERKED BACK AS THE LEDS ON THE LARGER OF
the two circuit cards in front of her began to flash.
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“Danny, I need the helmet right now!” she yelled, still staring at the lights.
Danny plopped the helmet down on her head, catching her ear in the process.
“Ray, I have blinking lights here,” she said, trying to make her voice sound calm. “What does this mean?”
“Move the helmet a bit so we can see,” said Rubeo.
He sounded real calm, she thought. But of course, why wouldn’t he?
“Jennifer, locate the green wire with the white striping at the left, and snip it.”
“Snip it? You told me five minutes ago we weren’t cutting anything.”
“The thinking has changed.”
“Why?”
“Ms. Gleason, there comes a time when you have to let the pilot fly the plane. Just cut the wire.”
Jennifer leaned over, took the narrow-headed wire cutters from the blanket where she had laid it out, and moved her hand carefully beneath the circuit board. Gingerly working her fingers against the strands, she separated the wire from the bunch.
Her hand shook slightly; she steadied the cutters against their target with the forefinger of her other hand and snipped.
Then began promptly cursing, because she had caught her finger as well.
“Jennifer?” asked Rubeo.
“The lights are out,” she said, looking at the tiny balls of blood that seemed to percolate up from the red line on her finger where she’d caught it. “The LEDs are out.”
“Very good. One more step and the warhead can be moved.”
“How good an electrical conductor do you think blood is?” she said as the small spheres turned to a large drop and oozed off her finger.
“Surprisingly good,” replied Rubeo. “I wouldn’t test it.”
* * *
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THE TERRAIN WAS SO RUGGED TO THE SOUTH THAT THE
Marines manning the observation point there couldn’t even see the landslide. Sergeant Norm Ganson, in charge of the landing team security, didn’t trust the eye-in-the-sky assessment and sent two men down to assess the damage.
“Four vehicles, a dozen guys—we can hold them off, no sweat,” the Marine sergeant told Danny.
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Danny replied. He trotted back to Jennifer, whom he found squatting next to the bomb, her left forefinger in her mouth.
“Jen?”
“We can move the warhead now,” she said, rising.
“What happened to your hand? It’s bleeding.”
“It got in the way. Can you spare anybody to attach those straps, or should I do it myself?”
An atoll off the Indian coast
Time and date unknown
IT WAS THEIR WEDDING, BUT NOT THEIR WEDDING. BREANNA danced in her long white dress, sailing across the altar of the church, into the churchyard, the walls and roof of the building vaporized by Zen’s dream. She floated on the air and he followed, alone in a white and brown world, stumbling on the rocks. The band played in a large, empty fountain, arrayed around a cement statue of a forgotten saint, his face chipped away by centuries of neglect. Every time he held his hand out to his wife, she danced farther away, moving through the air as easily as if she were walking. She lay herself down on a bench, holding her arms out to him, but when he arrived, she floated off, just out of reach.
A bird passed overhead, then another, then a flock. Breanna looked at them and started to rise. She was smiling.
“Bree,” he called. “Bree.”
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place. He felt his heart shrivel inside his chest, all of his organs disintegrating, his bones pushing inward suddenly. He wanted to say more but her look stopped him, her sadness so deep that the entire world turned black.