Patrick McLanahan Collection #1 (109 page)

Nancy Cheshire was the squadron commander of the Fifty-second Bomb Squadron from Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base, the home of
all of the Air Force's modified B-52 bombers—and, as Nancy reminded herself often, one of only two B-52 squadrons left in the world right now, after the nuclear decimation of Minot Air Force Base by the Russians. She was determined to do everything she could—use every bit of her flying skills and leadership ability,
whatever it took
—to make the Russians pay for what they'd done to America.

“Bobcat One-one flight, roger, radar contact,” the air-traffic controller at Eareckson Air Force Base responded. “Cleared for Shemya Two arrival, report initial approach fix inbound. Winds two-four-zero at twenty-one gusting to thirty-six, altimeter two-niner-eight-eight. Your wingman is cleared into publishing holding and is cleared to start his approach when you report safely on the ground.”

“One-one flight cleared for the arrival, will report IAF inbound. Two, copy your clearance?”

“Two copies, cleared for the approach when lead is down,” Cheshire responded.

“It's an unusually nice day on Shemya,” O'Dea said on intercom. “The winds are only gusting to thirty-six knots. We've been cleared for the approach. Check in when ready for landing, crew.”

Patrick turned in his ejection seat and looked back along the upper deck of the EB-52 Megafortress. Six aft-facing crew seats had been installed for carrying passengers—aircraft-maintenance and weapon technicians from Battle Mountain and the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada. Six more technicians were seated on the lower deck. These twelve men and women were key in accomplishing their mission. Unfortunately, their mission was on hold, on order of the president of the United States himself.

“Lower deck ready,” one of the techs radioed.

“Upper deck ready,” another responded.

“MC ready for approach,” Patrick chimed in. “Aircraft is in approach and landing mode. Sixteen miles to the IAF. I'm going to do a few more LADAR sweeps of the area before the ILS clicks in.”

“Clear,” O'Dea said.

Patrick activated the Megafortress's LADAR, or laser radar. Emitters facing in every direction transmitted electronically controlled beams of laser energy out to a range of three hundred miles, instantly “drawing” a picture of every object, from clouds to vehicles on the ground to satellites in near-Earth orbit. The composite LADAR images were presented to him on his main supercockpit display, a large two-foot-by-three-foot
color computer monitor on the right-side instrument panel. Patrick could manipulate the image by issuing a joystick, by touching the screen, or by using voice commands. The attack computer would also analyze the returns and, by instantaneously and precisely measuring objects with the laser beams, compare the dimensions with its internal databank of objects and try to identify each return.

Immediately Patrick noticed a blinking hexagonal icon at the northernmost edge of the display, at the very extreme of the LADAR's range. He zoomed his display so the contents of the hexagon filled the supercockpit display. The attack computer reported the contact as “unidentified aircraft.” “Shade, I've got an unidentified air target, two-thirty position, two hundred and seventy-three miles, low, airspeed four-eight-zero, three-five-zero-degree bearing from Shemya.”

O'Dea hit a button on her control stick. “Go around,” she ordered. The flight-control computer instantly advanced the throttles to full military power, leveled off, configured the Megafortress's mission-adaptive skin to maximum climb performance, and started a climb. “Approach, Bobcat One-one is on the go,” she radioed. “Alert Eareckson. We may have unidentified aircraft inbound from the north at two-seven-zero miles. Break. Bobcat Two-two.”

“We're looking for your target, lead,” Cheshire replied.

“Roger. We're on the go.” On intercom, O'Dea said, “Crew, strap in tight and get on oxygen. Give me a vector, General.”

“Heading two-eight-zero, climb to fifteen thousand feet,” Patrick said. “LADAR coming on.” He activated the laser-radar system, this time focusing energy on the returns to the north after making a complete sweep of the skies and seas around them. “I've got numerous bogey out there, counting six so far. They're right on the deck, accelerating past five hundred knots. I'd say they're bad guys.” He switched over to the command channel. “Two-two, you have them yet?”

“Not yet, but we're receiving your data and maneuvering to set up an orbit,” Cheshire responded. “Did you notify Eareckson?”

“Just approach control, not the units. Tell them to get everyone into shelters.” Patrick knew that it was a futile move—one or two bombs the size of the warheads that were dropped on Eielson or Fort Wainwright would obliterate Shemya Island, shelters and all. “Fire up the lasers, Zipper.”

“They're already warming up, boss,” responded the AL-52 Dragon's mission commander, Major Frankie “Zipper” Tarantino. The Dragon's
electronic laser really didn't need to “warm up,” like less sophisticated chemical or diode lasers, but the system stored electrical power in massive banks of capacitors to use during the firing sequence, and the more power that could be stored prior to the first shot, the more shots the laser could fire. “Two-two has LADAR contact, two-five-zero miles bull's-eye. I count six targets as well, but at first the computer counted seven. We may have a big gaggle of multiple contacts coming at us.”

“Checks,” McLanahan said. “I still count six. Let me know when you're in attack position.”

“Roger,” Tarantino said. The AL-52 departed its holding pattern, flew northwest toward the oncoming targets, and then began a long north-south racetrack pattern at twenty thousand feet altitude. By the time the Dragon was in its racetrack, the unidentified aircraft had accelerated to six hundred knots' airspeed and were less than one hundred miles away. “Two-two is ready to engage. I now count six groups, but I believe there are multiple contacts in each group.”

“You are cleared to engage,” Patrick ordered. “Take out the lead aircraft in each group if you can break it out.”

“Roger,” Tarantino said. He selected all six groups of unidentified returns as targets, then zoomed in on the nearest group. The airborne laser used an adaptive-mirror telescope to focus laser energy on its target, but it also allowed the user to get a magnified and extremely detailed visual look at the target. “I've got a visual, lead,” he reported. “Looks like Russian MiG-23 fighters. Each formation looks like it has four fighters in very close formation. Three big fuel tanks and two gravity weapons each. I can't identify the weapons, but they look like B-61 gravity nukes.”

Patrick called up the datalinked image from the AL-52 Dragon's telescope on his supercockpit display. “That checks,” Patrick said. “RN-40 tactical nuclear gravity bomb, the only one cleared for external carriage on supersonic fighters. Start weeding them out, Zipper.”

“Roger that, sir. Fire in the sky.” He hit his command button and spoke, “Attack targets.”

“Attack targets, stop attack,”
the computer responded. Seconds later:
“Attack commencing.”

In the tail section of the AL-52 Dragon, pellets of tritium fluoride dropped into an aluminum combustion chamber under computer control and were bombarded by beams from several diode lasers. The resulting cloud of gas was compressed and further heated by magnetic
fields until the gas changed to plasma, a highly charged superheated form of energy. The plasma energy was channeled into a laser generator, which produced a tremendous pulse of laser light that was amplified and focused through a long collimation tube through the AL-52's fuselage and directed forward. A four-foot diameter mirror, controlled by laser-radar arrays on the AL-52's fuselage, predistorted and steered the laser beam toward its target, correcting and focusing the beam to compensate for atmospheric distortion.

Even after traveling almost a hundred miles through space, the invisible laser beam was focused down to the size of a softball by the time it rested on the fuselage of the lead Russian MiG-23 fighter-bomber. Precisely tracked by the laser-radar arrays, the beam quickly burned through the fighter's steel surface on the left side just forward of the wing root. Before the laser burned through fuel and hydraulic lines under the skin, the sudden structural failure caused the MiG's entire left wing to peel away from the fuselage like a banana skin. Before the pilot or any of his wingmen knew what was happening, their leader disappeared in a tremendous ball of fire and hit the icy Bering Sea a fraction of a second later.

The sudden loss of their leader caused the first attack formation to scatter. Executing their preplanned lost-wingman maneuvers, the three wingmen turned away from their original track and started a rapid climb to be sure they got away from the ocean, from their doomed leader, and from the other members of their attack group. They had no choice but to completely clear out of the way, then rejoin using radar or visual cues or execute their strike as single-ship attackers.

The other three four-ship formations saw the first plane explode and go in. Thankful it wasn't them, they activated their electronic countermeasures equipment, tightened their oxygen masks and seat belts, and prepared to take on whatever enemy antiair weapons were in the vicinity—until the second lead MiG-23 exploded right before their eyes, moments after the first, and again with absolutely no warning whatsoever.

“Bobcat, I've got six single-ships and four more attack formations still inbound,” Tarantino reported. “I've also got a caution message on my laser. I might have just two or three shots remaining before the magnetron field strength is below safety limits.”

“Copy that, Two-two,” Patrick responded. “I'm engaging now. You
can reposition to engage any bandits that leak through.” Patrick activated his laser-radar arrays, designated the third attack formation, and, at a range of about sixty miles, commanded, “Attack aircraft.”

“Attack aircraft command received, stop attack,”
the computer responded. Moments later, when Patrick did not countermand his order, the computer announced,
“Attack aircraft Anaconda.”
The forward bomb-bay doors swung inward, and the first AIM-154 Anaconda long-range hypersonic air-to-air missile dropped free from the bomb bay. The weapon fell for less than a hundred feet, then ignited its first-stage solid rocket motor and shot ahead and skyward. By the time the motor burned out, the missile was traveling at over twice the speed of sound, and a ramjet sustainer engine kicked in, accelerating the missile to more than Mach 5. A second and third missile followed seconds later.

Now flying faster than sixty miles per minute, it did not take long for the first Anaconda missile to reach its quarry. Seven seconds before impact, the missile activated its own terminal-guidance radar—that was the first indication to the MiG-23 crews that they were under attack.

The third attack formation scattered, leaving trails of radar-decoying chaff in their wakes. The first Anaconda missile's radar was now being hopelessly jammed, and it switched guidance back to the signals from the EB-52 Megafortress's laser-radar system. The missile abandoned the third formation of MiGs and steered itself toward one of the single-ship aircraft. The missile ran out of fuel and detonated several hundred feet away from its target, but that was enough to create fear and confusion in all of the remaining attackers.

The second and third Anaconda missiles did not miss. They picked off single-ship attackers one by one as they maneuvered to get on their bomb-run tracks. “Splash two,” Patrick announced. “I count three large formations and…hell, at least fifteen or twenty single-ship attackers lining up for bomb runs. I've got nine Anacondas remaining.”

Just then he heard, “Time to bug out, sir,” on the command channel.

Patrick studied his supercockpit display—and his eyes widened in surprise as his sensors finally identified the weapon approaching them from behind. “Left turn heading one-five-zero, and do it
now,
Shade!” he ordered.

O'Dea didn't hesitate but threw her EB-52 into a hard left turn, cobbing the throttles to full military power and keeping back pressure and bottom rudder in to tighten the turn. She could hear one of their
six passengers on the upper deck retching and hoped to hell it was into a barf bag. Shade completed her turn first and only then asked, “What's going on, General?”

“Lancelot in the air,” Patrick said simply.

“Roger that,” O'Dea said. That was enough for her.

One hundred miles behind Patrick's formation of modified B-52s was a second formation of three modified B-1B bombers called “Vampires.” Commanded by Brigadier General Rebecca Furness from Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base, the EB-1C Vampires were the next generation in flying battleships, specifically designed to carry a large variety of standoff weapons into combat.

The Vampires' primary weapon was the ABM-3 Lancelot air-launched anti-ballistic-missile weapon. Designed to be an interim weapon for use against ballistic missiles until the airborne-laser aircraft weapon system was perfected, the ABM-3 was in effect a four-stage air-launched Patriot missile, using the Vampire bomber as its first-stage engine. Steered by the Vampire's laser-radar array and by its own onboard terminal-guidance radar, the Lancelot missile had a range of nearly two hundred miles and could attack targets even in near-Earth orbit.

But the Lancelot missile itself was only part of the effectiveness of the weapon; its primary deadliness came from its plasma-yield warhead. Unlike a high-explosive or thermonuclear warhead, Lancelot's warhead created a large cloud of plasma gas that instantly converted any matter within its sphere into plasma, effectively vaporizing it. Even though the size of the superhot plasma sphere was limited when created in Earth's atmosphere—the warhead was designed to explode in space, where the plasma bubble was thousands of feet in diameter and could even be electronically shaped and steered by computer control—the kill zone in the lower atmosphere was still hundreds of yards wide.