Nerve Center (41 page)

Struggling to rise, Rap pushed back against the side panel, and saw Jeff sprawled on the deck behind the seats near the hatchway. The sight of his helpless body gave her strength; she managed to push up against the panel, wedging her foot down, but then snagging her bound hands on part of the rail beneath the seat. She rebounded to the floor, then pushed back upright, still hooked on.

The main monitor at the station jumped through views. Breanna realized she was seeing the Flighthawk optics.

The technician’s panel could access C3. She tried rising, but remained snagged. She pushed down, felt metal scraping against her wrist. The pneumatic hoses that allowed the chair to be adjusted had been sawed or clipped apart; the entire base of the ejection seat looked as if it had been gnawed by a metal-eating squirrel.

The keyhole-shaped clasp at the left front of the rail covering one of connectors held her. No more than an inch and a half long and a quarter of that wide, the edge seemed sharp enough to cut the thick plastic binder on her wrists. Rap began razoring the strap back and forth, twisting at it. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the handcuff began to give way.

She looked up. The screen had stopped shifting. The dark runway ramp rushed by. The Flighthawk was taking off.

Red and yellow speckles appeared around the side of the runway—gunfire. A large store of fuel exploded beyond the hangar area, and the flames burst so bright that Madrone or C3 swapped out the IR for an optical view.

Zen groaned.

Rap looked over at him, then back as Madrone yelled something. A dark shadow loomed in the main display panel. A large bird descended, claws snatching at the air. Then everything turned red.

THE FIRST FLIGHTHAWK JUST CLEARED THE C-17. THE next one, however, crashed dead into the looming hull, which had thrust itself in front of him without any warning. Madrone fell backward in his seat, stunned into disorientation.

The storm raged. He was in Theta, but couldn’t feel C3 or the robot planes anywhere.

ANTARES was an immense jungle, the vegetation cluttering, choking his mind. Minerva stood before him, naked. She reached for him, turned to fire.

He hated her. She was the enemy. She’d been sent by them to destroy him.

No.

He was in the cockpit of Hawk Three. He had the bomb strapped to the center hard-point. Takeoff had been aborted; he was dead on the runway.

Hawk One was in the air. Hawk Two had been destroyed. Galatica sat at the edge of the ramp, engines revving but motionless.

He’d die here, without revenge, without anything.

Good—Kevin wanted to die, wanted to end it. He’d be with Christina.

No—he had to kill the bastards. He wanted to see them cry as she had cried.

The attacking aircraft had crashed at the end of the strip. Even with its heavy load, Hawk Three had enough room to get in the air.

And the EB-52?

Probably not. But it would be better to die trying than to be killed on the ground.

Worst case, he’d target himself with the missile.

“Take off,” he told the bridge. “Take off.”

Pej, Brazil
8 March, 0501

THE EXPLOSION PRESSED DANNY AGAINST THE GROUND. He heard one of the other members of his team cursing in the corn set, but as he turned to see if he could spot him, a massive fireball ignited behind him on the runway. Metal rained down; Danny curled himself into a ball as a series of thunderous explosions shook the air and ground.

He thought the Megafortress and the C-17 had collided, but as he twisted around he saw the plane was still back near the hangars. It must’ve been one of the Flighthawks.

“The wheels!” he yelled over the com set. “Try and hit the inside wheels of the Megafortress.”

He flicked the sensors on the CIV, toggling from normal to IR and then starlight. He could see the top of the Mega-fortress, but to hit the tires he’d have to stand, exposing himself to the machine gun again.

The plane started to move. Danny jumped to his feet, raising his M-16 as a steam of bullets started whizzing by his head.

Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0501

MINERVA TASTED BLOOD IN HER MOUTH, HER LIP BLEEDING. The Americans were here; they were trapped.

Bullets splashed against the thick side glass of the cockpit as she pushed up onto the flight deck, half in shock. Mayo sat at the copilot’s station, frozen.

“Go!” she yelled at him as a fresh spray of bullets panged against the glass and fuselage. The panels and skin were obviously thick enough to withstand the light-caliber weapons, but sooner or later the attackers would bring heavier guns to bear. “Move!” she told her pilot.

“Colonel, Captain Gerrias isn’t aboard—”

“Just go!”

He put his hand on the slider between the pilot stations and the plane surged forward. A fireball erupted from the far end of the runway ahead.

“The other plane,” screamed Mayo, backing down the engines quickly. “The wreckage. We won’t clear the flames.”

“We must,” Lanzas told him.

“But—”

“Go! Just go!” Minerva reached over to the power console and punched the thruster so hard it nearly moved out of its retainer. The plane slammed forward, veering to the right. The flames loomed.

Better to go out in a fireball, she thought.

Gunfire rippled across the front of the outside of the cabin. The bullets made a lot of noise, but still didn’t break through the hull. Minerva saw the flames ahead and began to close her eyes, then decided she would meet her fate bravely. She thought of Madrone, who had brought her to this.

The Megafortress shuddered and there was a roar behind and below her: she fell backward against the second set of seats. An alarm sounded and she heard the plane’s computerized voice say something. For a second, she thought she could feel the flames burning her body.

In the next, they lifted off the runway.

It took her a moment to realize they were all right. She steadied her hands on the pilot’s seat, watching as Mayo raised the gear and climbed rapidly.

“Do you have a gun?” she asked him finally.

“Yes.” He reached into his vest and retrieved an old-fashioned revolver.

“Keep the plane below ten thousand feet no matter what,” she told him. “Stay on the course north. I’ll check on the others.”

Pei, Brazil
8 March, 0504

DANNY’S FIRST TWO BULLETS TOOK OUT A TOTAL OF three tires, thanks to a lucky ricochet. But as the Megafortress lurched left on the runway, Danny felt himself pushed down again, hit by the massive machine gun on his left. This time, the gun’s bullets managed to spin him around and somehow got a piece of the CIV, cracking it.

Which made him madder than hell.

Screaming, he rolled backward and began firing into the stream of red tracers. A huge ball of fire slammed into the top of his helmet, smacking him into the ground. Somehow, he kept firing.

When his clip clicked empty, he realized the machine gun had stopped.

He could feel a welt rising at the front of his head. Though a jagged line ran through the left quadrant, Annie’s visor was still working—a body lay a few feet away from the machine gun fifty yards away.

Directly above it, four hot circles edged into ellipses over the mountain pass. The Megafortress had managed to clear the C-17 on the runway.

Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0510

BREANNA’S RESTRAINTS CAME APART WITH A SNAP, slamming her hands against the seat and panel so hard, she felt something snap in her left wrist. But she ignored the pain and jumped up, launching herself across the tech station toward Madrone.

The distance was farther than she thought. She fell across the technician’s gear, grabbing Madrone’s wires and loosening them. He didn’t seem to notice, or at least made no effort to stop her. But as she squirmed to get more leverage, something grabbed her and threw her back against the rear bulkhead.

Lanzas.

“Strap the cripple into the seat and come with me,” barked the Brazilian colonel.

“He’s not a cripple. He’s my husband.”

“Do it now or you both die here.” Lanzas had a revolver in her left hand. She edged away, watching Breanna carefully as she lifted Zen up and strapped him into the seat. He seemed thoroughly out of it.

Breanna leaned toward him, intending to kiss him. The Brazilian put the pistol on her neck to stop her.

“Nice try,” said Lanzas. “Upstairs now. If you do anything, you will die. Kevin, we’re okay.”

Madrone took no notice of them. He seemed a zombie, completely oblivious.

Not sure what else to do, Breanna edged past and went up the ladder to the flight deck.

Dreamland
Secure Command Center
8 March, 0130 local (0530 Brazil)

“WE MISSED THE PLANE.”

Colonel Bastian held the receiver away from his head for a moment, not because he was disappointed with Danny—he knew stopping them on the ground was a long shot—but because he was afraid of the answer to his next question. He glanced at Major Cheshire and Captain Arjun, the two Megafortress commanders alone with him in the Mudroom. Their consoles were locked out of the secure line and they watched grimly.

“Our people?” asked Bastian.

“C-17 crew is dead. One of the Flighthawks collided with it. Two more got away with Galatica. Captain Ferns managed to roll behind some barrels on the ground before they took off, and one of the Brazilian pilots surrendered,” Danny said.

“What about Major Stockard and Captain Breanna?” he asked.

He meant to say
Captain Stockard,
but his emotions betrayed him.

“At the moment, we’re not one hundred percent sure,” said Danny. “We have Jeff’s wheelchair, but not him. Ferris thinks they hauled Major Stockard aboard before takeoff. It’s likely your daughter went too. We haven’t secured the entire base,” Danny added. “We will. Army Special Forces and airborne are inbound from Panama in Combat Talons and an AC-130. They should be here within twenty minutes. I’ll have the hangars secure by then.”

With only six men? But Danny wasn’t known for exaggeration.

“All right, Captain, thanks. I want you to search the base carefully. See if you can find evidence that Galatica or the Flighthawks are carrying nukes.”

“Nukes? In Brazil?”

“If there’s anything else we can do from our end, let me know,” Bastian told him.

The line snapped dead.

“There were no survivors from the C-17 crash. The Whiplash Team is intact and searching the base,” he told the others, filling them in on the situation. Cheshire rubbed her tired eyes and turned back toward the situation map they’d been studying before Danny’s call came through. The map showed the entire southern portion of the U.S., along with the defenses planned to stop Galatica.

Colonel Bastian picked up his stylus and traced it across the flat touch screen at his console, outlining in red the tracks General Olafson had given them to patrol. Raven and Iowa, a sister ship for Galatica named after the famous Naval battleship, would back up a quartet of AWACS planes that were forming a 360-degree radar picket around San Francisco. Besides their sensors—Raven’s Elint gear, which could detect C3’s radio transmissions at roughly two hundred miles, and Iowa’s admittedly unfinished T/APY radar—the planes would carry eight Scorpion AMRAAM-plus air-to-air missiles in their rotating belly launchers. They’d also have four standard AMRAAMs and four all-aspect Sidewinder AIM-9Ms on their wings.

The Megafortresses represented the last line of defense. A full squadron of F-15Cs, along with ANG F-16’s and F-4’s, Marine aircraft, and two Navy tracking planes manned the front lines. Meanwhile, a flight of F-15’s, accompanied by a tanker, were working south, as were planes from two aircraft carriers in the Caribbean. Surface-to-air-missile batteries throughout the Southwest and ships all along the Gulf Coast had been alerted.

In theory, it was an impenetrable gauntlet no conventional aircraft could penetrate. But Madrone wasn’t flying a conventional aircraft. He had a Megafortress, arguably the most capable bomber in the world. He also had two Flighthawks escorting him.

One Megafortress and two U/MFs against the entire U.S. military. Dog might take those odds. Surely a madman would.

Assuming it flew near top speed, the EB-52 would approach the mainland a little more than six hours from now. Nancy and Arjun, who would pilot Iowa, went over some fine points in strategy and timing their refuelings. Though he was essentially superfluous to the discussion, Dog followed it with as much interest as he could muster.

The alternative was to worry about his daughter.

“Let’s do it,” said Cheshire. She punched the kill codes on her terminal, deactivating the console, and stood.

Arjun rose as well.

“There’s one thing I want to make clear,” said Bastian, still in his seat. “If it comes down to it, if Galatica is there, you take your shot. Absolutely take your shot.”

Arjun nodded.

Bastian looked at Cheshire, whose cheeks seemed to have hollowed out. “Major?”

“Yes, Colonel, I will.”

The room’s silence felt oppressive. “M-6 will back you up,” he said. “Captain McAden is en route to fly it. We’re still hunting down a copilot.”

“Fenner should be here shortly,” said Cheshire.

Dog nodded. M-6 was so new it hadn’t completed its test flights. It hadn’t even been given a name. Configured as an Elint-gatherer like Raven, she had two Flighthawk control decks like Iowa and Galatica, though only part of the U/MF equipment had been installed.

Bastian followed the others out into the hall and waited for the elevator to arrive. When the doors finally sprang open, Mack Smith nearly knocked them over.

“Colonel, a word,” said Smith, marching preemptively down the corridor as if he were the one running the base.

“Why am I being shut out of this?” he demanded when Bastian joined him.

“What the hell are you talking about?”