“My coat?”
“You don’t want McDonald’s?”
“Yeah!” said his daughter, running from the room as if she’d just won the lottery.
If only every political decision were so easy.
3
By the time Turk realized where the other aircraft was, it was nearly too late. He threw his wing down hard and hit his flares and chaff, desperate to get his butt out of the pip of the attacking UAV. Fortunately, the laser’s relatively small size and its need to pause and recycle between bursts meant that it had only a few milliseconds on target before he was able to dance away. Even so, the high-energy beam put a nasty black streak on the side of the fuselage, momentarily raising the temperature in the engine into the red. Turk jerked the stick and worked his pedals, trying to jink as unpredictably as possible and confuse the always logical computer guiding the UAV. Then, falling way too low to build enough speed to run away, and worried about the engine blowing up, he pulled the fighter into as tight a turn as it could manage and held on, hoping the UAV might make a mistake and turn inside him.
That didn’t happen. But when he checked the radar, he realized the enemy aircraft was gone. Somewhere in the middle of his crazy dance he’d shaken free.
“Basher Two, how’s your plane?” asked Cowboy.
“I’m OK.” Turk glanced at his panel and realized that the alert on the engine was off; whatever harm the laser had done wasn’t permanent, or at least wasn’t affecting him at the moment.
“You’re going in circles,” said Cowboy.
“Yeah, I know. I can’t locate the UAV.”
“It’s low.”
“Yeah.”
Finally, the UAV popped back onto his radar screen. It was below him, barely five feet over the trees, and running northwest toward the water.
Home?
“I’m turning to follow Bandit Two,” Turk told Cowboy.
“I have your six.”
Danny Freah gathered six men as he ran across the compound. He found another half-dozen spread out along the sandbags and shallow trench at the north side of the camp.
“We need ammo!” said the sergeant who’d taken charge. He was lying on the ground next to the Marine manning a 50-caliber heavy machine gun. “Ammo!”
Danny sent two of the men back to get bullets and waved the others along the trench.
“They’re about fifty meters down,” said the sergeant, pointing to the trees. “We just beat the first element back. How the hell did they get so close without us seeing them?”
“The water vapor off the stream that runs down in that direction casts a shadow on the IR sensors,” said Danny. “Somebody was pretty damn smart about what our gear can see.”
A bullet flew nearby. One of the Marines responded with his M-16.
“Hey! Hold your fire unless you have a definite target,” shouted the sergeant. He turned back to Danny. “If they charge, they can overwhelm us. I just polled everyone and we’re down to two mags apiece. The machine gun has ten rounds left.”
“We can ambush them from the side,” said Danny, looking across the terrain. “Get them off balance.”
“Good idea if we had more ammo, Colonel.”
“It’s coming. If they attack before that, we’ll have to make them think we do. Just enough to stall them.”
“OK.”
“I need two volunteers,” shouted Danny.
Every one of the men, including the sergeant, put up their hands.
“Just two,” said Danny.
All the hands remained.
“Pick two guys. You have to stay here,” Danny told the sergeant. “We’ll wait until the force starts moving forward, then we cut them from the side. It’ll stop them, or at least it should.”
“If you can get to the flank,” said the sergeant as a fresh volley sounded from below. “And if they don’t decide to charge you.”
4
Lloyd Braxton looked up from the screen in disgust. The American fighters had managed to shoot down one of the two Vector UAVs. The autonomous program in the surviving fighter was locked in interceptor mode, and would keep fighting the other aircraft.
That was foolish. But its next logical decision — which it would make if it concluded that the battle was hopeless — would be to return to the base it had taken off from.
That was even worse.
Braxton could override those commands, issuing new ones to direct it to the second pickup point. But if he did, his signal would tell the Americans where he was. He’d be forced to switch bases sooner than he wanted. The rebels were about to overrun the American base, but that would hardly compensate for this setback.
The UAV wasn’t ready to challenge the Dreamland technology. But that was why he wanted the Sabres in the first place.
Braxton slammed his hand on the console, then got up and paced around the small cabin. When he calmed down, he went back and gave the UAV the command to fly to another area and, if possible, fight. With that done, he hit the self-destruct sequence on the control gear, then picked up his low-chance-of-intercept radio.
“We have to move,” he said, informing the others before gathering his gear to leave.
5
Danny waited until the men came back with the ammo before setting out. His two Marines were privates nicknamed Fern and Monk — short for Geraldo Fernandez and Terry Monsuer. Fern was a recruiting poster Marine, six-four, bulging biceps, quick smile. Monk was nearly a foot shorter, and may very well have weighed less than one of Fern’s legs.
“We go south, then cut back across the ravine,” Danny told them, drawing a map on his palm. “There’s a little creek there we’ll take up to their flank.”
“Right,” said Fern.
Monk nodded beside him.
“You guys been in combat before?” Danny asked.
“Ten minutes ago,” said Fern.
Monk nodded again.
“That’ll do,” said Danny, starting out.
The Marines had night gear and Danny had his glasses, but there was enough light around the cleared perimeter for them to use their Mark 1 eyeballs and still see well enough to fight. Danny ran along the defense line, head lowered toward his chest. His mind was clear; adrenaline and the necessary excitement of battle had pushed away all of the little wounds and distractions. He could even hear well enough to discern the sound of brush moving in the distance — the rebels were getting ready to make another charge.
He found the cut and started down the hill, sliding on his butt after about ten feet. The rough stones bruised his hands and legs, but he ignored the light pain, moving across the open ground the Marines had cut to give themselves a clear field of vision and fire. He saw an opening in the trees on his right and headed for it, cutting off Monk as he ran. Four steps into the jungle he stopped — the foliage was so thick overhead that he could no longer see without switching the glasses to infrared.
“Your gear working?” he asked the others.
“Yup!” said Fern.
“Take point,” he told Fern.
The Marine grinned and moved ahead, using his night gear to guide them in a winding trail east. Danny and Monk followed. It took ten minutes of trotting and pushing through the brush to reach the point near the creek where Danny had decided they would take their turn. When they stopped, Monk held his finger up and then pointed to his ear.
Men were moving nearby.
A rifle sounded. The rebels were making their attack.