Air Battle Force (22 page)

Once the large elevator—which Daren thought looked like a moving city block—reached the bottom, they drove off into a parking area and stepped out so he could see the complex on foot. It was truly impressive. Except for the echo, it looked and felt like any military flight line at night, illuminated only by artificial light. The complex was enormous, stretching out seemingly to infinity. “I . . . I can't believe this,” Daren gasped. “It doesn't feel like we're underground at all, but when I remind myself that we are, it doesn't seem real. How in the world can the air stay fresh enough to breathe?”

“It's a completely passive air-circulation system,” Rebecca said. “Air from the surface vents up from the surrounding mountains through natural crevices and tunnels in the rock. We didn't have to drill one hole to get the ventilation system running. The hot air from here is cooled and dispersed enough through the mountains that the exhaust can't be detected from a satellite, so the bad guys can't guess how many planes we're launching. The complex is naturally conditioned to a temperature of fifty-five degrees and fifty percent humidity, which is almost ideal for living and working and uses about as much power as a standard four-story office building.”

“Nice—if you enjoy living like a mole,” Daren said dryly.

“Get used to it. Your squadron is based down here,” Rebecca said.

“Down here? I'm confused. You keep more tankers down here?”

“Yes, we can if we need to.” They had stopped at one of the B-1 bombers, which looked as if it had just returned from a mission. “But you don't belong to the tanker squadron. You're the new squadron commander of the One-eleventh Attack Wing.”

Daren Mace broke into a wide grin. “A B-1 squadron!” he exclaimed. “Very cool.”

“Not just a B-1 wing,” Rebecca said. They piled into an electric golf cart and drove down the aircraft taxiway. Even though brilliantly lit from above, the planes emerged from the vastness of the underground chamber like beasts appearing through a thick fog.

“This is incredible, simply incredible,” Daren said, still shaking his head in amazement. “You know, you've just made me an extremely happy man, Rebecca.”

“You weren't happy being a tanker commander?”

“No offense to the tanker toads, but I've always been a fast-mover, and I'm happy to be one now,” Daren admitted. “I've always loved the Bones.”

“Then you'll be really happy with the Vampires,” Rebecca said.

“Vampires? You named these ‘Vampire,' too, like the RF-111Gs?”

“These are what the RF-111s
aspired
to be,” Rebecca said. “You won't believe what they can do.”

“Then let's go have a look. I assume I'll be cleared to go in the plane?”

“You're checked in, and your security clearance has been entered. If there's a problem, the sky cops will stop you,” Rebecca said.

Mace was like a kid in a toy store as he stepped toward the sleek aircraft. The Security Forces officer asked to see Daren's line badge, and Daren took a few moments to talk with the young airman.

Rebecca nodded to Daren as they reached the plane. “The security units are also part of your squadron,” she pointed out. “I'm happy you stopped to talk to the young troops. Crew dogs are usually too busy to talk with the junior enlisted guys.”

“I have to admit, I'm guilty of that, too,” Daren said. “But I'm just sightseeing here—he's the one on duty.” Daren looked over the bomber. “I see a few changes right away: a much smaller vertical stabilizer, no horizontal stabilizer, and no gust-load alleviator vanes.”

“Very good, Colonel,” Rebecca said. “The EB-1C uses adaptive skin technology—‘smart skin'—on the forward and aft sections of the fuselage and on the wings. The composite structure is reshaped by computer-controlled microhydraulic actuators that can create lift or drag as needed without the use of rigid control surfaces. Same on the wings: These planes don't use spoilers for roll control or flaps for angle-of-attack control. We pretty much use full seventy-two-degree wing sweep for all phases of flight, because the smart skin is more effective in controlling angle of attack than anything else. If the adaptive-wing-technology computers fail, we need to go back to using wing sweep and the lift-and-drag devices, but the system is pretty reliable.”

As soon as Daren stepped up inside the plane, he noticed the difference. The two systems officers' positions in the crew compartment behind the cockpit were gone, replaced by racks of solid-state black boxes. “My God, this is incredible!” he said for what seemed like the twentieth time. “It seems spacious in here now compared to before!”

“Hell, we had to put three thousand pounds of fuel tanks up here to compensate for all the crew stuff we took out,” Rebecca said. “The mission-adaptive technology takes care of the rest. We've increased range and performance another twenty-five percent by taking out all the human stuff back here.”

They crawled through the tunnel connecting the systems operators' compartment to the cockpit. Rebecca saw that Daren was speechless with surprise as he looked at the completely empty space on the instrument panels. Almost all of the tape instruments, gauges, knobs, and switches had been replaced by multifunction displays—only a few backup gauges remained, relegated to lower corners of the instrument panel.

“Welcome to the electronic bomber, Daren. The B-1 was always a highly automated, systems-driven aircraft, but now the humans have been taken completely out of the equation. You don't fly this thing anymore—you
manage
it.” Still looking at Daren, Rebecca spoke, “Bobcat Two-zero-three, battery on, interior lights on.” Immediately the lights in the cockpit snapped on.

“Don't tell me you
talk
to the planes, like you talk to the duty officer?”

“That's exactly what you do,” Rebecca said. “In fact, with most missions, you don't even have to talk—the aircraft does its preflight according to the mission timetable.” She shrugged and added, “The computers are smarter, faster, and more reliable than human crews. Why not let them do the fighting and dying? The plane doesn't care. In fact, it probably enjoys not having to lug around human beings with their need for warmth and their heavy life-support systems. We're a slow, inefficient, wasteful redundant subsystem, totally unnecessary to the completion of the mission.”

“Jesus, Rebecca, you sound like some kind of Isaac Asimov robot character.”

“No, I'm doing an imitation of General McLanahan, General Luger, Colonel Cheshire, Colonel Law, and most of the brain trust here at Battle Mountain,” she responded. “Daren, just between you, me, and the fence post, the guys who run this place are the biggest technonerds you've ever met. They've all come from Dreamland, designing and building these things for the past fifteen-odd years, and their minds are in the friggin' ozone. Everything is high-tech and computerized, from the phone system to the latrines. You'd think the whole bunch of them just beamed down to earth from the Starship
Enterprise.
”

“So you and me—we're the old heads, right?”

“The HAWC guys, they've done some shit,” Rebecca said. “I'm not saying they're total neophytes. They've been in some scrapes even since I've known them, so I'm sure there are dozens of other adventures they've been involved in that I just as soon don't want to know about. There are some things you'll learn about this place, the missions that we prepare for, that'll curl your toes. But technology is the answer to everything for them. Everything has to be done by a satellite link or computer. The days of sitting down at a table, unfolding a map and a frag order, and building a strike mission from scratch are definitely over.”

“Fine with me. I'm perfectly happy to let a computer draw up flight plans and steer the plane,” Daren said. “So what do they need us for?”

“Because as brilliant and high-tech as McLanahan and his buddies from HAWC are, they don't know very much about running a flying unit,” Rebecca said. “McLanahan has recruited kids—and I literally mean
kids
—to come here.

“I think it's our job to build the squadron and let McLanahan and his egghead cronies build the machines. The kids these days know computers. As soon as they can sit in a chair by themselves, they know how to use a computer. What they don't know is organization, discipline, esprit de corps, teamwork, and mutual support. It's up to us to teach them.”

“God, Rebecca, you're making me feel pretty damned old right now,” Daren said wryly. But he shrugged and patted the top of the instrument panel's glare shield. “I'll make them a deal: If they teach me how to talk to B-1 bombers, I'll teach them how to think like a team.”

“That's what I like to hear,” she said. “Listen, there's going to be a lot of brass hanging around in the next few days. Rumor is the president and secretary of defense are going to stop by sometime in the next couple days for the nickel tour.”

“Cool. Well, this place will certainly water their eyes.”

“The general has this big project he wants to get funded.”

“He briefed me on his project,” Daren said. “It's awesome, but we've got a lot of work to do. You want me to stay out of sight, Rebecca?”

Furness looked at the deck for a moment, then back at Daren and said, “Let's just say that we've used some creative accounting practices to fund a few of the general's pet projects.”

“So you need me to play along—make like I know and approve of all the ‘creative accounting practices.' “

“Something like that.”

Daren shrugged. “I'm a team player. You got nothing to worry about from me.” He smiled at her, then nodded knowingly. “It's nice to be sharing a cockpit with you again, Rebecca,” he said. “Really nice. I miss it.”

She squeezed his hand. “Me, too, partner,” she said, smiling back. “Me, too.”

Early the next morning

A few minutes before six-thirty in the morning, an Air Force full colonel strode quickly and purposefully over to Daren Mace in the squadron lounge—Daren's de facto office most of the time—and practically snapped to attention in front of him. “Colonel Mace?” He extended a rigid hand; Daren stood and shook it, stifling an amused smile at the guy's officiousness. “Welcome to Battle Mountain, sir. I'm Colonel John Long.”

“Good to meet you,” Daren said. He looked around the room. “Is that two-star here again?”

“General McLanahan? No, sir.”

It was meant to be a half-joking, half-sarcastic remark, but this guy Long was all business here. “Then let's dispense with the ‘sir' stuff, okay, John?” Long was—contrary to his name—short, wiry, and tough-looking, with dark brown hair, beady little eyes, and a pointed nose. He looked like a bantamweight prizefighter—mean and jittery, his eyes, hands, feet, and mouth all in constant, rapid-fire motion. “We're both full birds.”

“But you
are
senior to me,” Long explained with a strange expression on his face. Then he gave Daren a conspiratorial wink and added, “But we'll dispense with the formalities when the bosses aren't around, how about that?” Then he relaxed and did away with the academy routine.

Daren finally realized with faint surprise what the bastard was doing—he was reminding Daren that, although he was senior and outranked him by time in grade, Long was the boss. Daren kept his amused smile, but inwardly he was saying, Why, you little prick. We've known each other for just sixty seconds, and you've already proven what a jerk you can be.

“As you know,” Long went on, dropping all pretext of friendliness, “there is no lead-in program for the EB-1C Vampire, so I built the training program for both pilots and mission commanders—we don't call you ‘navigators' anymore. It's a pretty tough program. Normally it takes a well-qualified officer about four months to complete the course. I hope you've been reading the tech order, Colonel.” They took a seat. “We've got you on a pretty steep learning curve.”

“I'm a fast study,” Daren said.

“I hope so. McLanahan cracks the whip pretty hard around here.”

“He seems like a nice guy.”

“That's only for the folks who don't know him,” Long said. “Once you get to know him like I do, you'll find he's really the ultimate prima donna. His only saving grace is that he wears navigator's wings. If he was a pilot, he'd be the king of the assholes.”

Daren thought about the phrase “the pot calling the kettle black” but decided not to verbalize it.

“So. Tell me a little about yourself,” Long said. It was an idle question. He immediately began fiddling with some paperwork moments after asking it, not really listening.

“Not much to tell, John,” Daren replied. “I'm just happy as hell to be here.”

“What was your last assignment?”

“Office of the secretary of defense,” Daren replied.

Long nodded, impressed. “Very good,” he said. “Which division? Plans? Operations?”

“Protocol. I was in charge of flipping slides, making coffee, and emptying wastebaskets.”

Long gave him an amused smirk and said, “Well, I guess
someone's
got to do that stuff. Where before that?”

“Beale Air Force Base, standing up the RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance squadron; I did Wright-Pat with the Air Force Research Labs, on UAV projects. Before that, deputy commander of the Thirty-ninth Wing at Incirlik. Before that, Air War College.”

“Not much operational experience,” Long observed haughtily.

Daren had no doubt that if he
hadn't
gone to any schools, Long would've criticized him for that, and it made him wonder what Long's background was.

“Global Hawk, huh? All this talk about unmanned aircraft and weapons scares me,” Long commented. “If you listened to all the brass around here, you'd think the entire force is going to be unmanned in a few years.”