"Uh, yessir… I understand, sir."
"Now, you get the Kestrel armed and on the road to Vanden-berg. I'll get you another backseater. That is all, Commander."
And with that, the line went dead.
Monaghan looked at the receiver for a few moments, then dropped it on the hook. That air-crap general gave a new meaning to the word prick, he thought. But who the hell cared— maybe this had been overdue for a long time. He scratched the red stubble on his craggy features and leaned back in the swivel chair. It groaned under the load of his husky body.
Leroy "Mad Dog" Monaghan had been the bane of the United States Navy for twenty-six years. But despite their ongoing efforts to bust, court-martial, or muster him out, he always managed to beat the odds one last time. Indeed, there were times it seemed he led a charmed life. Such as:
While executing a routine landing on the carrier America, Monaghan's A-4 Skyhawk snagged a defective arresting wire, causing it to snap at the anchor joint. The unleashed cable sailed across the deck and wrapped around the Skyhawk's landing gear like a bullwhip, just as Monaghan tried to "bolt" from the ship and take off again. The deck crew watched in horror as the lassoed Skyhawk plunged over the edge, only to see Monaghan's rocket-propelled ejector seat pop up from below like a high infield fly. His chute deployed, and Mad Dog came floating gently down on the carrier deck — standing up. After a few stupefied moments, the deck crew burst into spontaneous applause.
Then there was the time he flew cross-country as a passenger on a TWA jetliner, en route to a naval aviation convention in Washington. After knocking down a long series of in-flight cocktails, he fell asleep with a lighted cigarette in his hand-unintentionally igniting the madras sport jacket of the gentleman in the adjoining chair. Roused from his inebriated sleep by the screams of his fellow passenger, Monaghan instinctively tossed his drink on the smoldering jacket to douse the flames-remembering too late it was the remnants of his 100-proof vodka stinger. The madras jacket went up like a torch, and pandemonium broke out on the plane until a flight attendant was able to spray the sport coat with a fire extinguisher. Woman screamed. Children cried. Men swore. Smoke everywhere. Emergency landing. Ambulance to the hospital. Police called. When the clothes of the olive-skinned victim were finally cut away in the hospital's emergency room, the doctors discovered a tiny .22-caliber revolver hidden in his jockey shorts. Fingerprints were taken, and it turned out the victim was a wanted member of Iran's Islamic Jihad Shiite terrorist group. He'd been part of an Air France hijacking three months earlier, which had ended with four innocent deaths at the Beirut airport. Monaghan went from facing a personal injury lawsuit to instant hero.
And the list went on and on. His entire naval career had been a balancing act between disaster and glory — fueled by his unending quest for the perfect party and his unmatched skill as a pilot. More than once he'd been asked if Mad Dog was his call sign or true Christian name.
Leaving the hangar office, he walked toward the Kestrel just as the LTV engineer approached him.
"How're we doin'?" asked Monaghan.
The gangly, middle-aged engineer shoved a small screwdriver into the sleeve pocket of his coveralls and grumbled, "Sidewinders are loaded and we're going through systems check now. My crew has started to attach a Phoenix to the right pylon."
Monaghan nodded.
"Say, if you don't mind my asking," asked the engineer, "this whole deal seems a little screwy. Why were seven engineers yanked out of the factory this morning and flown up here from Dallas with no explanation? I thought we were months away from a live fire test."
Monaghan looked up at the technicians working on the Phoenix installation. "Schedules change. But never mind about that. Just make sure these honeys work when I pull the trigger."
The engineer bristled. "They'll work, Commander. I've slept with these babies for three years, and I know what they can do. They've got redundant systems, independent/dependent guidance and lock-on, vectored thrust, and anything else you want to name. They're state-of-the-art. You just get 'em in the ballpark and turn 'em loose."
Monaghan nodded. "Okay, okay. Don't get your feathers up. All I'm trying to say is that it's real important they work the very first time. You might even say somebody's life depends on it. Catch my drift?"
The engineer's eyes bulged in their sockets. "Are you saying this… is not a test?"
"I didn't say anything, including what I just told you. Got that? Just make 'em work the first time. Okay?"
The engineer gulped. "I promise you, Commander. They'll work the first time. I, uh, better check on the Phoenix."
"Right," concurred Monaghan.
The man from LTV climbed up the scaffolding over the Kestrel's right wing and huddled with his technicians. Every few seconds one of the techs would stick his head up and look over at Monaghan, then go back to the huddle. When they broke up the men from Texas went back to work with a grim intensity.
So who cares if they know? though Monaghan. It's my ass going upstairs. Besides, if this turns into an honest-to-God shootin' match, nobody's gonna keep that under wraps for very long.
He began walking around the spacecraft, making another visual inspection for the umpteenth time, and wondering if he would actually have to ride this thing out of Vandenberg atop a Titan 34-D rocket.
The Kestrel was a small experimental fighter plane designed to operate in a space environment. It had been named after the smallest member of the falcon family — a feisty little bird also known as the sparrowhawk.
The Kestrel's airframe design resembled that of the shuttle in many respects, but there were some major differences. It was much smaller than the shuttle, even a little smaller than an F-15 Eagle fighter; but like the shuttle it had a low-wing configuration, meaning that the fuselage rested on top of the delta wing. The cockpit had tandem seating — one behind the other — for the pilot and weapons system officer (WSO). The weapons systems were too complex for a pilot to cope with while maneuvering the spacecraft; therefore all the weaponry was controlled by the backseat WSO. Located behind the two-seat cockpit were compartments for the hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide fuel that was used by the spacecraft's single main engine and the network of pitch and yaw thrusters. The main engine could be used for changing altitude while in orbit, maneuvering, reentry, and, in some situations, pursuit of enemy spacecraft, while the pitch and yaw thrusters allowed it to whirl and spin in any direction.
Because it would operate in the vacuum of space, the aerodynamic configuration of the spacecraft was designed for reentry — not for atmospheric maneuvering like a conventional fighter plane. In space, sleek aerodynamic designs were unnecessary, but even so, the designers couldn't help themselves and gave the spacecraft a rapier look.
Like the shuttle, the Kestrel used elevators on the trailing edge of the delta wing; but instead of the single vertical tail stabilizer, it had dual rudders on the upturned " winglets'' at the tip of each wing. The control surfaces of ailerons, rudders, and elevators were, of course, useless in space and would only come into play during the Kestrel's atmospheric reentry, approach, and landing.
The Kestrel's heat shielding was a little different, too. The shuttle used a network of thirty thousand fragile silica tiles to protect its aluminum skin from the friction heat of reentry, whereas the Kestrel used a process developed by Lockheed that bonded a solid layer of reinforced-carbon-carbon shielding di-recdy to a thin film of asbestos felt, which in turn was bonded to the spacecraft's titanium skin. This bonding gave the spacecraft a more "seamless" heat shield than the shuttle, which was always in danger of shaking loose some of the delicate tiles during launch or reentry.