Nerve Center (46 page)

But no bargain could be made. He crashed down against the floor, his hands flailing until they hit one of the connecting cables to Kevin’s ANTARES gear.

He hadn’t the strength or momentum to break the cable, but as he fell his weight and agony yanked it backward, pulling the ANTARES feed from its socket.

Aboard M-6
8 March, 0811

“GOT IT! GOT IT!
GOT IT! “
SCREAMED GLEASON. “NATIVE mode. Okay, okay, okay. Fuck, I have them. Fuck fuck fuck. Hawk One is in native mode. It’ll circle Dreamland. Locking in. My password. She’s secure. Shit! Shit! We got it!”

“Is it carrying a missile?” Dog asked quietly.

“Hold on. No. Shit, no. Fuck. Looking for the other. Damn—what do you mean, not on the circuit?”

“Jen?”

“The other Flighthawk! Where is it?”

“Something in Galatica’s shadow,” said McAden.

“It’s in preset,” said Gleason. “It’s native because the connection broke. I can’t get feedback until C3 is back on the line because of the codes. What the hell is he doing?”

“Colonel?”

Bastian glanced at McAden.

“Shoot her down,” said Bastian.

“Let me try contacting them!” said Geraldo.

“Shoot her down,” repeated Bastian.

Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0811

BREANNA FELT SOMETHING CLUNK AND PULL BEHIND her, as if the leading-edge flaps on the wings had suddenly extended.

They had.

She grabbed hold of the stick, barely managing to take control of the plane as it did what could only be called a belly flop in the sky. Two of the engines surged, the starboard flap deployed—Gal seemed to be having a nervous breakdown.

Breanna pulled back on the stick. The altimeter ladder shot up wildly. Minerva lost hold of her knife—it clattered to the deck, tossed there by the sudden rush of g forces.

She’d blow the plane. It was the only thing to do.

9,200—9,500—9,800—

They’d die in a second. But at least Dreamland would be safe.

“No!” screamed Lanzas, lurching toward her.

Breanna shrugged her off and closed her eyes as the altimeter nudged ten thousand feet.

Dreamland
8 March, 0811

FOR THE PAST HOUR, MACK HAD SAT IN THE MiG ON the runway, listening as the searchers continued to hunt for Galatica. He had cursed when the F-15’s closed in, realizing that he wanted to be the one who nailed the plane.

And then, miracle of miracles, it had escaped.

Only to be found by Bastian, who was targeting it.

Figured. Damn bastard hogged all the glory.

Still, from the position Dog gave, Gal seemed to be relatively close and headed this way. Resolved to get into the fight, he requested clearance from Dream Tower.

Without bothering to wait for an answer, he depressed the throttle button and moved the bar to idle. Using an old Russian Istrebeitelnyi Aviatsionnaya Polk rapid-takeoff trick, he selected just the right engine on the start panel. Knife kicked on the battery and hit the start switch, sending a whoosh of compressed air into the starboard engine. The MiG rumbled to life; he waited barely a second as it spooled up. In that second he pulled his canopy down; by the time it snugged he had started forward, rushing into the air on just one engine. Only after he had cleaned the gear did he bleed air into the left power plant, jump-starting it. The MiG shot upward.

“Alert the Nellis patrols,” he told Dream Tower. “I don’t want those cowboys taking potshots at me because I look like a bad guy.”

“Uh, Sharkishki, you’re clear to take off,” answered the tower belatedly.

Aboard Gal
8 March, 0811

THE STORM WAS SO THICK AND DEEP THAT IT TOOK Madrone forever to realize that the connection to the planes had been lost.

The ANTARES helmet had been pulled half off his head. He had become another person, his physical self another robot to be controlled.

The Megafortress lurched upward. Madrone shook his head clear and lifted the visor. Zen floundered on the deck beside him, the control lead snagged around his arm. He was trying to pull it with him as he elbowed backward from the control panels like a swimmer.

More like an upside-down turtle.

Madrone quickly undid his restraints and leaned down to punch Jeff flat in the face twice as the son of a bitch struggled to roll away. But Stockard didn’t give up, somehow continuing to push himself backward, dragging the cord with him. Anger propelled Madrone to his feet. He stopped Jeff with a sharp kick to his stomach, then stomped twice on his chest, slamming his heel into Jeff’s jaw before Stockard finally stopped, his eyes rolling back in his head as he momentarily lost consciousness. Kevin braced himself for a truly awful kick—he would beat the pulp from the bastard’s brain until the floor oozed with it. But as he started to swing forward, something held him back, a voice whispering to him from far away.

Jeffrey is your friend. He tried to warn you but you didn’t listen.

“Give me the cord, Jeff.”

Stockard, his head limp to the side, said nothing. Madrone reached down and put his fingers on Jeff’s arm almost gently as he pried the cord away.

“I’m sorry, Jeff. It has to be this way now.” He gathered the ANTARES wire into his hands, restored the plug, and wound the wire around the panel so it couldn’t be easily removed again.

Aboard M-6
8 March, 0828

THE FIRST SCORPION MISSED, SAILING ABOUT A hundred yards wide of Galatica. For a second, though, it looked like the pilots had lost control of the EB-52, and Dog thought Gal would spin into the mountains.

Somehow, she didn’t. Somehow, she began climbing again, and shook off the second and third Scorpions they had launched.

The fourth Scorpion lost its track and self-destructed.

They had two more left. The closer they got, the better their odds of nailing the plane. But McAden couldn’t get a lock to fire.

“Hang in there,” said Dog. “Jennifer, how’s that second U/MF?”

“It’s still in native mode,” she said.

“They’re zigging. Tinsel. Damn, jamming our radar again,” said McAden. “Shit—we’re blind. I just lost them. I’m guessing they’ll dive down for the ground clutter, but I don’t have a heading. Jesus, I can’t find them. Scanning. Scanning.”

“Jennifer, can you find Galatica for us? They’ve jammed our radar.”

“ECMs are off,” reported McAden.

“Working on it,” said Jennifer.

“No contacts. Shit,” said McAden.

“I’m sorry, Colonel,” said Gleason from downstairs. “Without a transmission from them we have nothing to pick up.

“Be ready,” Dog said. “They’re here somewhere.”

Was Bree flying? She was this good certainly.

Bastian held his course for Gal’s last position. He pulled up the corn screen on his right MUD and hit the Dreamland reserve frequencies, punching in a combination to broadcast on all of the channels simultaneously.

“Rap, this is Colonel Bastian. You have to surrender, kid.”

“Daddy?”

Hey, babe, he thought. Sorry. I am so sorry.

“Captain Stockard. Stand down,” he said flatly.

“Shoot us down! There’s a nuke on the Flighthawk! Shoot us down!” said Breanna. She started to say something else, but the transmission was abruptly killed.

“Yes! I have them!” said Jennifer. She fed the coordinates up to the bridge.

“I have a lock! Five miles!” announced McAden. “Colonel?”

Shoot us down.

“Colonel?”

“Fire missiles,” said Dog. For maybe the first time in his life, for certainly the first time since joining the Air Force, a tear slid down his cheek.

Aboard Gal
8 March, 0832

As MADRONE REENTERED THETA, HE SAW THE LAUNCH warning. He felt the computer tracking the missiles as they approached, winced as one slipped out of the noise and headed clean for their hull.

Another ducked downward, confused, not a threat.

Tinsel, jammers, cut left, cut right, you’re too high, easy pickings.

Accelerate, accelerate. Left, right, left, left again, fool the sticky bastard.

Dreamland lay just ahead. No one ever will go through this again. Never.

The Scorpion stuttered in the air, a half mile from the fuselage. It had him nailed, but staying on its target had exhausted its fuel. Kevin lurched to the right as it tried one last burst of speed and then exploded.

The shock wave nearly threw Hawk Three into a spin.

It was then that the other missile picked itself off the deck and nailed Gal’s extreme starboard engine.

MINERVA FELT THE SHOCK AS THE AMERICAN MISSILE tore into the power plant on the right side of the wing. She spun around, nearly pirouetting out of the seat even though her restraints were snugged.

The plane stuttered in the air, but kept climbing. They passed through ten thousand feet, the Megafortress fighting off a yaw.

Gravity punched against her chest as the plane finally lurched into an invert and then began to fall from the sky. They would die now. She’d had the seats sabotaged and there was no escape.

She hadn’t wanted to escape, not really. There had been hours to persuade Madrone, or even betray him, to simply call the Americans and surrender. But she hadn’t.

Minerva felt a twinge of regret, a small wish that her fate had followed a different path. Then her body slammed back against the seat so abruptly that she nearly lost consciousness.

This is what death feels like, she thought to herself.

Then the Megafortress rolled level, and blood began returning to her brain.

Aboard M-6
8 March, 0838

“THEY’RE BEYOND US!” YELLED MCADEN. “EAST, AT two, no, call it one o’clock. Three miles.”

“Radio the position to Nellis air defense and the rest of the net,” said Dog, calmly throwing the Megafortress into the tightest bank he could manage to pursue Galatica. “Sidewinders up. Dr. Geraldo, if you want to take your shot, do it now.”

Aboard Gal
8 March, 0840

MADRONE SAW THE MEGAFORTRESS’S EMERGENCY panel in part of his brain. The Scorpion had taken the power plant completely off, but had done only light damage to the wing itself. One of the fuel tanks had been hit by shrapnel, but the bladder material had quickly self-sealed. As potent as the Scorpion was, the EB-52’s venerable airframe had survived considerably worse.

Madrone didn’t care much for history. He dropped into Hawk Three and plunged out of Galatica’s shadow. Dreamland lay thirty miles away.

Two F-15’s approached on a direct intercept, along with four F-5’s.

The Eagles were merely a nuisance. The F-5’s weren’t even that.

He accelerated toward his target.

“Kevin,” said a familiar voice in his earphones. “You have to give up. You’re sick. It’s ANTARES.”

Geraldo.

He killed the radio.

Aboard Sharkishki
8 March, 0848

MACK TRIED TO TELL THE NELLIS COWBOYS IN THEIR F-15’s that they were getting the sucker play, but the idiots wouldn’t listen. They charged at the Megafortress and the Flighthawk that suddenly leaped from its shadow like they were running down a piece-of-shit Chinese F-7/MiG-21 impostor.

A piece-of-shit F-7 wouldn’t have jumped from 250 knots to Mach 1.2 in less time than it took for the lead Eagle pilot to curse.

Stinking Madrone. He flew straight out of Zen’s book, no damn creativity at all. Though burdened by something that was increasing its radar signal for the F-15’s, the U/MF blew past the Eagles, made a feint for the F-5’s, which threw them in a tizzy, then ducked into the ground fuzz where no one could see him.

Mack waited for the U/MF to rise up behind the F-15’s. When it didn’t, he took a guess why—the larger return was being generated by a missile or bomb.

He had his passive sensors goosed to the max, but couldn’t find the little bastard. He tucked Sharkishki lower, nudging back in the direction of Dreamland.

Guy comes this far, in this direction, has to be thinking of nailing Dreamland.

That or Vegas. Maybe they’d cleaned Monkey Boy out at the blackjack tables and he wanted revenge.

Mack might take a piece of that himself. He zipped over Interstate 15 at five hundred miles an hour. Trucks and cars veered every which way, the drivers obviously freaking.

Wimps. He had plenty of clearance, at least a good eighteen inches. Maybe even twenty.

Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0853

BREANNA PUSHED AT THE STICK, THE PLANE SWIMMING sideways in the air.

Why weren’t they dead? Had Minerva been bluffing? What could be so magical about ten thousand feet if there wasn’t a bomb in the plane.

Maybe hitting that altitude simply armed it.

Shit.

There was no time to curse herself. She’d lost an engine, maybe part of a control surface. She didn’t trust the flight computer and had no copilot. Breanna would have to do everything herself.

Assuming she didn’t blow up. And assuming Minerva didn’t take out her knife and slit her throat.

Aboard Gal
8 March, 0855

JEFF LAY ON HIS BACK, HIS HEAD FLOATING SOMEWHERE in a black ball of fur that filled the Megafortress’s lower deck. He heard Madrone grunting above him, working the Flight-hawk toward its target. He tried to push up, but pain shot through him. His chest and upper spine felt as if they had caught fire. He flopped back, overcome by the fear that not just his legs but every inch of him was paralyzed.

No, he told himself, I’m not giving up. Fight! Fight!

But no part of him moved.

THE TARGETING SCREEN TOOK OVER MADRONE’S MIND. Numbers drained off the right side, slipping into the hole where the rest of his life had already washed away.

He had to hit the second air shaft on the target, and he had to hit it just right. But that was the beauty of the Brazilian missile. It could be steered very precisely.