Sirius 3, Bayu-Unadan field, Timor Gap, Timor Sea
‘What the hell’s that all about?’ said the engineer overseeing the attachment of another thirty-foot length of drill string.
‘Fucked if I know, but I’m sure not hanging about to find out,’ said the rigger closer to him.
‘Hey, you can’t just leave.’
‘That siren says I can, mate,’ he said.
‘What about the blowout preventers?’ asked the engineer. He looked about him, confused. The day was bright and sunny for a change. The monsoon had finally ended. The drilling was progressing nicely…So what the hell was the panic about? He knew the evacuation procedure as well as anyone and the price that could be paid for dawdling. But there’d been no explosion and, up until the siren started screaming, no hint of any trouble.
‘Mate, if you want any help from me, make a decision — fast,’ said the rigger, anxious to get to his lifeboat station.
‘Okay, okay!’ said the engineer, annoyed. Snipping the drill string was the quickest way to secure the well, but it wasn’t exactly the most elegant.
The siren had been blaring for five minutes and the rig manager was starting to feel the panic rising in his chest. Time was nearly up. The weapon could burst over them at any minute and only two lifeboats had been launched into the sea that was still rolling with a heavy monsoonal swell. Two men had broken their arms in the second boat away when it dropped heavily into the trough of a wave.
Rumours were starting to circulate amongst the cooks, crane operators, IT communications, riggers, medics, technicians and others gathered on the evacuation deck. They knew what was in the sky, heading their way, yet they were quiet, orderly. The rig manager put the calm down to a mixture of disbelief and shock.
‘Let’s go! Hurry! C’mon,’ said someone as the lifeboats filled. Several rolls of plastic sheeting were thrown inside each boat to help keep the nerve agent out. There were sudden yells of concern as another lifeboat swung precariously out over the heaving rollers.
Burns turned back in on the drone and placed the circle floating on his HUD directly on the UAV. He was just outside the missile’s minimum range and the missile heads were uncaged. ‘Pick up the fucker, for Christ’s sake,’ he said aloud as the distance to the drone closed. The circle danced around the UAV, framing it, nailing it, but there was no tone in his headphones to indicate that the missile would guide itself to the target. A Fox one — guided ordnance — was not an option. Damn! And those oil fields were getting close. With its current speed of 70 knots over the water, the VX-laden craft would be within range of the Bayu-Unadan field in less than ten minutes.
Burns toggled the weapons select switch and selected guns. He saw that the armourers had had the good sense to give him a full store of ammunition for the M16A1 twenty millimetre Vulcan cannon located in the Hornet’s nose. He had 578 rounds to play with, or just over five and a half seconds worth. A half-second burst would toast the fucker. He swept over the UAV and it passed briefly under his wing. He turned to look at it, then back at his altimeter to ensure he wasn’t losing altitude. And then he saw his fuel load. Jesus! One point nine! He had fuel for three passes at the thing — max.
The nose of the F/A-18 came around sharply and the g forces accentuated the pounding in Burns’s head. He felt like vomiting. He unclipped the oxygen mask from his face and let it hang from his helmet, and then dived down at the Prowler. It shimmied in his HUD, buffeted by the prevailing breeze as it climbed and then descended. Burns kept the gun-aiming circle projected on his HUD on the UAV as best he could and then, when he was a thousand metres out, his index finger squeezed the trigger mounted on the control stick and kept it there. The Hornet vibrated and shook. Puffs of smoke exhausted from the plane’s nose as the rounds spewed from the gun’s revolving barrels. He tried to walk the tracer into the drone, leading it. But the perpendicular vectors of each aircraft combined to make Burns’ aim miss by metres. The flying officer pulled back on the stick at the last possible instant. The Hornet shot past the drone’s nose, pulling out of the dive merely ten feet above the water. Burns suddenly realised the crests of the waves were breaking above him and that he was flying inside a trough. He jammed the throttle forward, rotating it past the detent stop. The afterburners lit, punching Burns back into his seat. The Hornet rocketed skywards as a wave rolled into the space the fighter had occupied barely a spit second earlier.
Burns gagged for air. The headache at his temples was now like a vice squeezing his head and the pain was almost blinding. He swung his head round as the F/A-18 climbed and picked up the UAV tracking beneath and behind him. It was also staggering out of a wave trough. Something had happened to it. His wake turbulence had nearly knocked the UAV into the drink. Shit, of course! Wake turbulence. The pressure waves streaming off the back of the Hornet’s wings combined with the thrust of those GEs in full afterburner could flip a twin-engine Cessna on its back and send it spiralling out of control. The lightweight UAV would never be able to survive that kind of onslaught. And he could come in low and slow, line the fucker up and then, at the last instant, when the Hornet was above the drone, bang the throttle to its stops.
And then the Master Caution warning sounded — DEEDLE! DEEDLE! Trailerpark Tammy added ‘Bingo, bingo, bingo, bi—’ He punched the Master Caution to shut her up. For once, fuel was not his biggest priority. From here on, he was flying inside the Hornet’s fuel safety margin. Running dry was now a real possibility because not all the F/A-18’s fuel load was usable. He glared at the fuel numbers as if they were traitors. The KC-130 was near, but it might as well have been circling Tierra del Fuego for all the good it could do him. The UAV would be delivering its cargo to the intended target any minute and there was no time to refuel. He had to splash this thing or die trying. Burns decided against using his wake turbulence. He would use up too much of the precious fuel with nothing left if he failed. And besides, he reasoned, he’d have to take his eyes off the bandit. It would be obscured by the Hornet’s nose for too long while he lined up on it.
And then, like the cruel punchline of some sick joke, the drone began to climb. Burns knew what that meant. The bloody drone was on short final, setting itself up for the delivery of its cargo. When the UAV exploded at altitude, the VX would spread and the Prowler’s job would be done.
Burns continued to circle the UAV while it climbed, and reviewed what he and Corbet had been told about the aircraft at the briefing, hoping that another answer to its destruction might present itself. The VX would more than likely be loaded into a fuselage bay on the aircraft’s centre of gravity, or a little forward of it. As observed already, it would fly nap of the earth to avoid detection until a pre-programmed point was reached, whereupon it would climb several thousand feet and then the cargo would be atomised for maximum dispersion, most likely through an explosion. He watched the UAV clamber for height. The experts had been right about its flight plan, which meant they were also probably right about the presence of explosives on board. He checked his altimeter: 2500 feet and climbing. They were still upwind enough from the Bayu-Unadan for the VX, once atomised, to descend harmlessly to the sea. But that margin was shrinking with every foot of altitude climbed.