“You know we’re not allowed to do that,” Deverill said. We’re not supposed to be here, remember? We’re ghosts.”
“Ghosts who launched cruise missiles against a country that we’re not at war with,” Annie pointed out.
“Hey, Heels, you’re preaching to the choir,” Duane said. “I’d be just as happy planting a few sticks of cluster bombs on the Russians any day. But the plan was not to descend below fifteen thousand feet or risk revealing our position in any way. If the world found out the U.S. had sent us to fly air cover for an extraction of an American spy inside Russia, it could ruin relations with everybody. Longhorns from high altitude, yes. But if we get ourselves shot down by a lucky Russian gunner with itchy trigger fingers, we violate orders and the U.S. of A. gets egg all over its face.”
“Ask me if I care,” Annie said. She switched to a prebriefed tactical channel and keyed her mike switch: “Hammer, Hammer, this is Terminator on red four. How copy?” No response. She tried several times and thought she heard a scratchy carrier tone, as if someone was keying a mike switch in response but no voice was going out. “I think that’s him, but there’s something wrong. He might have serious battle damage. We’ve got to do a rejoin on him, get a look at him, and if necessary lead him home.”
“A B-1 bomber flying formation with a MV-22 tilt-rotor? It’s kinda like the Great Dane wanting to screw the Chihuahua, isn’t it?”
“Dev, I’m not going to sit up here and watch that Pave Hammer flight get chewed up by triple-A with guys I know on board,” Annie said resolutely. She paddled off the autopilot that was holding them in their cover orbit. “Get ready to do a rejoin on that MV-22.”
“Heels, think about that first for a sec, dammit,” Deverill said earnestly. Annie glared angrily at her mission commander, but when she did, she realized that he wasn’t giving her an order, just a suggestion. Annie sensed no fear in his voice, only concern that her brave efforts weren’t going to do any good. He nodded toward the God’s-eye display. “He’s at six hundred feet going only two hundred knots. To match him we’ll have to sweep the wings forward and deploy flaps and slats, and we won’t be stealthy anymore. That also means we can’t release weapons and won’t be able to use the electronic countermeasures stuff, except maybe for the towed decoy, which we might as well not use at that point, because our radar cross-section will obliterate the decoy. We’ll be just as vulnerable as the MV-22, maybe even more so. At that speed and altitude, we’ll be burning fuel like crazy, and we don’t have a tanker scheduled to come in over the Black Sea. We may not make it out of the region. We’d have to abort to a base in Turkey.”
Annie looked at her mission commander, anger burning in her eyes — but not anger toward him. He was right, of course. She hadn’t considered any of those facts, and that made her angrier still — with herself. Annie Dewey prided herself on developing all the skills and knowledge necessary as an aircraft commander, and first on the list of skills had to be analyzing facts and proper decision-making. She wasn’t demonstrating much of that right now.
“I hear what you’re saying, Dev,” Annie said, “and I agree with all your concerns. Every one of them. But it doesn’t matter. I want to go down there anyway.”
Deverill’s face looked grim, but he nodded, slowly. She felt that he would go along, but she didn’t know if he was one hundred percent behind her, and that was important to her. Annie was quiet for a moment; then, without keying a microphone button, she spoke: “Genesis, this is Terminator … Terminator to Genesis.”
A moment later, they heard, “Go ahead, Annie. We’re secure.”
“General, you been watching our situation?”
“Affirmative,” Lieutenant-General Terrill Samson replied. He was talking to Annie via the satellite-based microtransceiver “installed” into every member of the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center. With the tiny beneath-the- skin transceiver, they could speak with each other anytime, anywhere. “Stand by one.” They heard Samson say, “Genesis to Tin Man. How do you hear, Hal?”
“I hear you now, sir,” Hal Briggs responded. Hal Briggs and Chris Wohl had the same kind of subcutaneous microtransceivers as everyone else at HAWC. “We’re in deep shit here. The plane’s pretty shot up and the copilot is dead. Looks like Trash Man lost all his cockpit displays. We need help right now or Trash Man’s liable to fly us over another ack-ack site.”
“Stand by, Hal, I’ll patch in Annie and Duane. Patch in Dewey and Deverill…. Annie, Duane, this is Samson. How copy?”
“Loud and clear, General,” Deverill said, his eyes wide with wonder. Deverill had been one of the first members of the Nevada Air National Guard’s 111th Bomb Squadron to get the subcutaneous transceiver, a tribute to his skills as a bombardier and instructor. But the technology astounded him. It was as if Samson was talking to him over the ship’s intercom. Deverill knew that they could patch a hundred others into their conversation; they could track their location, monitor their physiological status, and exchange data via small handheld computers.
“Hammer has taken casualties and severe battle damage. What do you have in mind?”
“A rejoin, using LADAR, and hope we can get within visual range.”
There was a long pause, then: “The latest satellite weather observation shows very poor weather. Definitely not ideal conditions. What’s your visibility? Any chance you’ll get a visual within a half-mile?”
“Pretty unlikely.”
“Then a rejoin is not authorized.”
“Boss, if we don’t help that flight, they’re liable to get shot down right over the rebel position,” Annie said. “The Russians might not enjoy the idea of an American special operations plane crash-landing over them — unless they shoot them down, of course.”
“And they’d be even angrier if they found out the United States was flying a stealth warplane over them,” Samson said. “Operation not approved. Maintain altitude, continue to attempt to establish radio contact, and interdict any enemy opposition to the maximum extent possible. Do not attempt a rejoin.”
“Sir, with the laser radar, we can close to within a quarter-mile easily — we’ve done it before,” Deverill said. “At least let us give it a try. If we don’t have contact within a half-mile, we’ll abort.”
“And I should be able to help with my sensors,” Briggs said. The electronic suit of armor he wore also included sophisticated infrared and radar sensors, good to ranges as far as three miles.
There was another lengthy pause, then: “Very well. Operation approved,” Samson said. “If no contact within a half-mile, abort and return to patrol altitude.”
“Thanks, boss,” Annie said. She turned to Duane and said, “Thanks for the support, Dev. I’ll only do it if you’re with me.”
Duane looked at Annie with a touch of concern — then that ever-present, cocky, Cheshire-cat smile crossed his face. “I’m with you, Heels,” he said. “I will always be with you.” Annie felt her face flush with embarrassment, and she thanked the stars he couldn’t see her pleased smile behind her oxygen mask. “Let’s go and show those Madcap Magician pukes the way home.”
“I heard that,” Briggs interjected.
“Then let’s do it, Dev,” she said.
“I’m right here with you, Heels,” Deverill said, with a smile, as he fastened his oxygen mask in place and lowered his clear visor. “Show me some of your bad-ass pilot moves.”
Annie was happy to comply. She swept the wings full aft, rolled inverted, and dove for the ground, losing fourteen thousand feet in the blink of an eye. When they rolled wings-level, they were only five miles in trail from the MV-22 and closing quickly. Meanwhile, Deverill had punched up the laser radar and had the MV-22 Pave Hammer aircraft locked on with ease. All the Vampire crew had to do was lower their electronic helmet visors, and they saw a virtual three-dimensional image of the MV-22 and showed its location when they looked in its direction, with tiny arrows showing which way to look for the target. Annie flew the rejoin as if she could see the aircraft through the clouds and darkness.