He tuned to the printed radio frequency of the tower at Kampung but couldn’t get a response to his hail; neither could Cowboy.
“Place may not be big enough to have a tower,” said Cowboy.
“It has a published frequency,” said Turk.
“Remember where we are, Air Force. This ain’t America.”
“Roger that.”
The Indonesians had apparently been monitoring the flight, for he got a warning as he approached their territorial waters. He didn’t respond to the initial hail, holding his course; by the time the controller radioed again, he was approaching land.
“I have a fuel emergency,” he answered, deciding honesty was the best policy.
“Unknown flight, you are ordered to exit Indonesia airspace.” The controller had a British accent.
“I intend to. I have a fuel emergency,” he repeated. “I am heading for an emergency landing.”
Turk wasn’t exactly sure what the controller would say; anything from a threat to shoot him down to a gracious offer of assistance was possible. Instead, the controller simply said nothing, which was just fine with him. The Indonesians weren’t about to scramble any of their aircraft after him in any event; all of the repercussion would happen after he landed.
Assuming he landed. Then again, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t care what the Indonesians did at all.
He was over their land long enough to picture himself in an Indonesian jail eating spiders and ants for dinner. It wasn’t a pleasant vision, but he soon passed into Malaysian territory, where more mundane worries took over: how far could the F-35B glide without fuel?
The airport was fifteen miles away.
“Walsh, how are we coming with that tower?” Turk asked the Whiplash techie.
“Airport is closed. Has been for months,” responded Walsh. “I’m looking at the field — pockmarked pretty bad. Rebels attacked it two or three times before they finally shut it down.”
Turk was about to say that it would have to do when Bitchin’ Betty interrupted.
“Warning,” said the automated voice. “Fuel emergency. Fuel emergency.”
“No shit, you told me that already,” he said.
“Turk, can you make it?” asked Cowboy.
“I can make it,” said Turk, tightening his grip on the stick. The runway was five miles away, somewhere in the shadows of the land ahead, unlit and unready for him to land.
Danny Freah stared out the Osprey’s side window at the ocean. There was still a full hour before dawn, but he could see the ripples on the surface without night vision.
“The submarine is no more than ten miles from us, if that,” he told the pilot. “Can we get into a search pattern?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Osprey moved into a gentle arc toward the point Turk had given Danny. No matter how advanced it was, the submarine that grabbed the UAV had to be somewhere nearby, but the Osprey lacked gear to track it. The task force with the Marine MEU off the northern shore of Malaysia had antisubmarine assets, but the nearest vessel in the task force was over six hundred miles away.
“You sure it didn’t just crash into the water?” asked the pilot. “I mean — submarine picking it up? Pretty far-fetched. For rebels, I mean.”
“Not really,” said Danny. “Drug smugglers use them off the coast of Florida and the Southeast all the time.”
“Drug dealers?”
“These are small subs.”
“A lot of money in drug dealing. Can’t see it out here.”
Danny didn’t answer. The pilot didn’t entirely understand what they were dealing with, but who could blame him? Small submersibles cost less than a large pleasure boat, but still — why would anyone spend so much money on such high tech to help a band of ragtag rebels?
Ragtag rebels who’d nearly overrun a Marine base, granted.
They’d do it if they were testing their gear. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn he was up against Dreamland itself.
But then that was why he’d been tasked out here to begin with.
“Colonel, I have no contacts anywhere within ten miles,” said the pilot. “What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Take another few circuits,” said Danny reluctantly. “If we don’t see anything, let’s go home.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you go vertical?” Cowboy asked. He’d zipped ahead to check the runway.
“No way,” said Turk. “Even if I knew what I was doing. Not enough fuel.”
“How much?”
“It’s reading zero.”
“South end of the field is beaten to shit. I’m thinking you have less than fifteen hundred feet of good cement to land on.”
“Yeah.”
“Tight but doable.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Come on, Air Force. You’re Superman.”
“Thanks,” said Turk, who was feeling anything but super.
“Come ten degrees north and you’ll line up.”
Turk made the adjustment. The Bitchin’ Betty circuit was having a stroke, warning about fuel, speed, altitude, and the fact that he hadn’t brushed his teeth in a week. None of this would be a problem, he told himself, if he could just see the damn runway. It was ahead somewhere, but even the vaunted low-light abilities of the F-35’s helmet couldn’t pick it out.
As he pushed over a cultivated field, Turk thought of using it, but by then it was too late.
“You see the runway?” asked Cowboy.
“Negative, negative.”
“Push your rudder, dude. You’re off three degrees.”
“Which way?” demanded Turk.
“Right.”
Turk eased his foot on the pedal.
In daylight, this would have been a breeze. Why the hell couldn’t he see it?
His landing lights caught a blank expanse in front of him, then a seam in the ground — the edge of the runway just to the right, as Cowboy had said. Turk started to exhale, then realized he was flying in utter silence: the engine had just run out of fuel.
Bitchin’ Betty was not pleased.
“Yeah, yeah,” he told the machine. “Watch this.”
He held the airplane in a glide just long enough to clear the worst of the holes the rebels had dug with their mortar shells. The F-35B’s undercarriage groaned as he bounced across the ripped surface. It jerked to the right as he got the nose wheel down, but held enough concrete to brake just before hitting the turf at the far end of the runway.
Down! And in one piece!
Turk popped the canopy open and climbed up out of the seat. He suddenly felt cold and wet — he’d been sweating so much his suit was soaked through.
Cowboy passed overhead, wagging his wings.
There was a light in the sky a few miles off, coming from the south — it was the Marine Osprey from the base, heading toward him with fuel and a team of mechanics to patch up the plane.
I hope they got beer, thought Turk. And a lot of it.
11
Ray Rubeo stared at the large screen at the front of the conference room and its map of the area where the UAV and submarine had disappeared. A yellow circle showing the area the submarine could be in slowly expanded.
“Ray?” Breanna leaned across the table toward him. “Are you with us?”
“Yes. You said it’s the Vector program,” he recounted, still staring. “Submarine launched UAVs. I agree.”
“The Vector program was a study for the Navy that Dreamland participated in,” Breanna told Reid. “It used the AI from Gen 4 in a sub-launched variant. The airfoils are different. Jennifer Gleason worked on both.”