Nerve Center (7 page)

The helicopters and the secure weapons links and com systems were the most important part of the exercise, but other systems were being tested as well: the MiG, an Army ground-point air-defense radar, and the Flighthawks. Zen was still learning to control four planes simultaneously, apparently a lot harder than it looked.

“Two minutes,” said Ringmaster.

Mack hit his way-point at the edge of the range and prepared to attack.

Dreamland Security Office
10 January, 1015

DANNY FREAH FELT HIS EYELIDS TOUCH BOTTOM, AND only barely managed to keep from dropping the phone onto his desk as the conference call droned on. He’d gotten up at four this morning to talk to his wife on the phone. A college professor, she’d returned to New York a week ago for the new semester and he missed her badly. They’d burned three hours on the phone line, and even then he’d felt frustrated as soon as he’d hung up.

Not to mention dead tired, since he hadn’t managed to get to sleep until a little after midnight. The day’s schedule precluded any catnaps, and he’d already gone through the thermos of coffee he’d brought into the office to take the secure—and uninterruptible—conference call on security matters.

Fortunately, these briefings were held on the telephone; none of the three-dozen other participants in the conference call could see him prop his head up with his elbow.

Getting regular heads-up briefings from the special FBI unit on terrorism and espionage was a good idea. But like many good ideas, it had morphed into something bad. Originally intended to alert certain top security officials to possible activities directed against them, it now included a briefing from the State Department, and even reports on foreign diplomats traveling in “areas of interest,” the definition of which seemed to have been gradually expanded to include all of North America.

“We have some diplomatic activity in San Francisco, where the Secretary of Defense is to address the Aerospace Convention today,” said Pete Francois, the FBI’s deputy director for EspTer, as they were calling the group. “I think we have a couple of sightings in Las Vegas as well. Debra, you want to handle that briefing?”

“Brazilian attaché in Vegas. Usual suspects in San Francisco. Nothing to report yet,” said Debra Flanigan, the Special Agent in Charge who handled the area.

Danny wanted to kiss her.

“Just for the record,” intoned Francois, “there are defense officials from fifty countries in San Francisco. Per regs, etc., unusual contacts to be reported.”

“In triplicate,” murmured Danny.

“Excuse me?” said Francois.

Freah nearly fell out of his chair. He hadn’t meant to actually
say
that. He opened his mouth to apologize, then realized it was better to stay silent—and anonymous.

“I think someone said triplicate.” Flanigan laughed. “Personally, I think two copies will do. But remember to blind-copy all the e-mails, please.”

Dreamland Range 2
10 January, 1054

WITH THE COMPUTER TEMPORARILY CONTROLLING THE two Flighthawks that had already launched from the Mega-fortress, Jeff took his hands off the controls and set them on the rests of his seat. He pressed down to lift his butt up, shifting around to get more comfortable.

Once precarious, the airdrop of the robot planes from Raven was now routine, with the computer able to handle it completely. The EB-52’s pilot nudged the Megafortress into a shallow dive as the computer counted down the sequence, initiating a zero-alpha maneuver.

“Five seconds,” said the pilot—Breanna, sitting in for Major Cheshire, who was away at a defense conference in San Francisco.

Zen watched the instrument displays in his command helmet, power graphs at green, lift readings shifting from red diamonds—“no go”—to green upward arrows—“go.”

The simple graphics of the lift readings belied the complexity of the forces acting on the small robot planes strapped to the EB-52’s wings. The bomber’s airframe threw wicked vortices against the small craft; upon launch the robot’s complicated airfoil fought thirty-two different force vectors, all dependent on the mother ship’s specific speed, altitude, and angle of attack. Air temperature also played a role in some regimes, though the engineers were still debating exactly how significant the effect was. In any event, the computer handled the drudge work of setting the leading-edge foils and micro-adjusting the rear maneuvering thrusters as Raven reached launch point.

“Away Three,” said Zen, without touching the controls, and Flighthawk Three knifed downward, right wing angling upward to cut against the wind. “Away Four,” he said, and Flighthawk Four launched, stumbling ever so slightly as the Megafortress momentarily bucked in her glide slope.

“Sorry about that,” said Bree, but Zen wasn’t listening—he was in full-blown pilot mode now, the main display in his helmet giving him a pilot’s-eye view from the cockpit of Flighthawk One. The sitrep or God’s-eye view at the upper right showed all of the positions of the Flighthawks. It also marked out the other planes in the exercise. Pilots’ views from the other three robots were arrayed in a line next to it all the way across. A band at the bottom showed the instruments in the selected or “hot” Flighthawk. Though they had used it in combat, the interface remained a work in progress. Zen liked the helmet, since it came as close as possible to duplicating the in-the-cockpit experience. But the others on the team felt a dedicated console was preferable if more than one plane was to be controlled at a time, since the instrument readings for all of the planes could be displayed on different tubes, available at a glance. Today, Zen had the best of both worlds, flying with a scientist who monitored those displays at the next station. But the idea was for there to be eventually two different pilots, each with his own brood of robots.

A preset exercise like this allowed Stockard to work up a full set of routines for the robot planes’ C’ flight-control and strategy computer, augmenting the preset instructions and flight patterns with courses and default strategies to be implemented on voice command. Even so, a rapidly evolving situation could overwhelm both pilot and computer. Simply jumping from cockpit to cockpit—in other words, changing which Flighthawk he had manual control of—could be disorienting. It somehow taxed his muscles as much as his mind, as if he were physically levering himself up and out of his control seat into each plane. Controlling a four-ship of Flighthawks was like trying to ride four busting broncos simultaneously.

The testing program called for them to move up to eight in two months.

They’d work it out. Right now, Zen concentrated on nailing Mack. Yesterday’s mock battle had convinced him he’d never take out Mack straight on—the MiG was more capable than the F-16, and Smith could be expected to push it to the limits.

Which would be Zen’s advantage. He ducked the lead Flighthawk down to treetop level, or what would have been treetop level if there had been trees in the Nevada desert. Then he pushed down to anthill level and stepped on the gas.

Jeff’s shoulders relaxed as the rushing terrain flew by in his helmet. His thumb nudged against the throttle slide on the right stick—the Flighthawk controls featured HOTAS (Hands-On Stick And Throttle) sticks combining most of the functions normally divided between throttle and control stick. As he notched full military power, the computer warned he was approaching a ridge. It gave him a countdown; he waited, then pulled the stick back hard with a half second to spare, shooting the Flighthawk straight up.

It was a bonehead move—the Flighthawk went from completely invisible to the fattest target in the world.

Exactly as planned.

MACK CHORTLED AS HIS LONG-RANGE IRST PICKED UP the Flighthawk climbing over the ridge eighteen miles away. He’d gotten by the F-l5’s so easily it was a joke, and now this. Zen had obviously miscalculated, not believing that the passive sensors in the MiG had been improved fourfold. He quickly selected one of his “Alamo” R-27 long-range air-to-air missiles. The fire-control system had been Westernized, making selection considerably quicker—one snap on the stick instead of a cross-body sequence of taps, and he had locked and launched.

Though mocked up so its performance would resemble the Russian Alamo air-to-air missile, the rocket was in fact an AMRAAM with a simulated warhead. In keeping with the theme of anticipating the Russians’ next wave of technology, its guidance system smartly toggled its seeker from radar to infrared if it encountered ECMs once locked; that made the missile practically no-miss. In this case, the “Alamo” would fly toward the target until its proximity fuse recorded a hit. Then it would pop a parachute and descend to earth.

Mack knew from experience that the Flighthawks would hunt in two-ship elements. Mack guessed the second plane would be about a mile behind the first, and when he saw a flash on the IRST he quickly kicked off his second and last Alamo.

MACK’S SIMULATED ALAMO AIR-TO-AIR MISSILES activated their radars the instant they launched, so even though he hadn’t turned his own radar beacon on, Knife had effectively given away his position by firing.

Which was half the point of Zen’s display with the Flight-hawk.

The other half had been achieved by dropping the delayed-fuse illumination flare, which Mack had hastily mistaken for the second Flighthawk.

A tiny cheat perhaps. But now Sharkishki was down to four missiles, all short-range Archers.

Not that the Vympel R-73 heat-seekers were to be taken lightly. On the contrary—the all-aspect, high-g missiles were more capable than even the most advanced Sidewinders. But they had to be fired from very close range, severely limiting Mack’s choice of tactics.

Zen told the computer to take over Hawk One. As good as C3 was, its evasive maneuvers were unlikely to be enough to evade the missiles. But he’d already accepted its loss. Jeff jumped into the cockpit of Hawk Two, which was flying a preset course with Hawk Three at the eastern end of the range. He swung the nose to the north five degrees, heading for an intercept with Sharkishki. Three, flying three feet behind Two, tight to its left wing, followed the maneuver precisely.

The Army helicopters, meanwhile, reported that
they
were five minutes from their landing zone. Zen jumped into the cockpit of Hawk Four, which was just starting the far leg of an orbit near the LZ. He poked up the nose of the plane, twisting toward the target area. As he climbed through two thousand feet, he shot out a double shot of radar-deflecting chaff. He ticked the wing up again, hit more chaff, and turned his nose toward the target, giving the Army Super Black-hawks a feed of their target area over the new system.

“Good, good, good,” sang one of the Army observers.

Jeff turned Four back over to the computer and concentrated on Mack. The ZSU-23 antiaircraft guns protecting the target area wouldn’t be a problem for at least three minutes.

MACK CURSED INTO HIS MASK. THE FLARE HAD BEEN A clever trick, forcing him to waste his last Alamo.

Zen would be counting on him to waste time looking for the other Flighthawk: more than likely it was lurking near the ridge where he’d found the first, undoubtedly hoping to get behind him for a tried-and-true rear-quarter attack.

That wasn’t going to work, though, because he was going to ignore it. He goosed his throttle to dash ahead, eyes pasted on the passive IRST. Mack got two quick contacts out near the helo target area—the U/MFs, which were at twelve miles.

Damn, these Dreamland mods were good—his F-15 next-generation demonstrator couldn’t find them with its passive gear until they were within five miles, pretty much dead-meat territory.

There wasn’t much sense trying to lock them up at this point, since he had only the heat-seekers and was much too far to fire. Mack nudged his speed down. He wanted the package to come to him, and wouldn’t commit to the attack until he knew where the helicopters were. Assuming he found them soon, he’d open the gates on the afterburners for a few seconds, shoot forward, and dust by the U/MFs. From there he’d take a wide turn and listen for the growl of his heat-seekers as they found the helicopters in the chilly morning air.

Most likely he’d pick them up as his nose passed the ridge. Thirty seconds.

Forever.

No amount of Dreamland magic could uncramp the MiG’s cockpit. On the tall side for a fighter pilot, with broad shoulders and thick pecs, Mack had to poke his elbow practically through his side to get a comfortable angle on the throttle lever, whose slide seemed notched in the plane’s external skin. The handle was directly over the emergency power settings and just ahead of the flaps—he glanced to make sure he had the proper grip, not wanting to screw something up. He settled his hand in place, looking back to the front in the poorly laid-out cockpit. The Russians knew a lot about mechanics, but they were light-years behind in ergonomics.

Now here was a mistake—a Flighthawk, coming at his nose, four miles away, without its wingman.

Dumb even for Jeff; he’d prematurely committed himself to an easily deflected attack, while leaving only one plane to guard the Super Blackhawks. Worse, the U/MF was an easy shot for an Alamo, whose all-aspect targeting gear made a front-quarter shot very tempting as they closed.

Too tempting to miss. He had four of the air-to-air missiles. Even if he used them all against the Flighthawks, he could take out the helicopters with his cannon.

The Alamo practically jumped up and down on his wing, begging to be launched. Poor Jeff. He was so anxious to nail him he’d gotten sloppy. Knife pressed the trigger on his stick, launching the Alamo.

As it left the rail, the Flighthawk split in two.

JEFF FURLED HIS EYES AT THE VISOR IMAGE. THIS WAS the tricky part—the MiG could outaccelerate the Flighthawks, and if Mack played it smart, he’d just get on his horse and shoot into the clear. That would leave only one Flighthawk to get between him and the essentially defenseless helicopters.

But Mack was Mack; he couldn’t resist easy pickings. Sure enough, the U/MF’s enhanced optics view caught a flare beneath Mack’s wing; within two seconds C3 had interpreted and calculated the threat. By then, Jeff had already pulled the two Flighthawks away from each other.