Air Battle Force (34 page)

“Rebecca, this is our first test,” Patrick said. “Let's let the system work so we can flush out the bugs. Let it—”

“ ‘Flush out the bugs'? How many lives are you willing to risk to ‘flush out the bugs'?” Rebecca retorted. “
This is not my job,
General! You may have spent the past several years stuck on the lake ‘flushing out bugs' in new, untested, and potentially dangerous aircraft, but I haven't!” Even angry as she was, Rebecca knew better than to talk about McLanahan's previous assignment—deputy commander of the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center at Groom Lake, now known as Elliott Air Force Base. “I train hard so I can employ operational aircraft in the most effective and efficient ways possible.”

“So you're terminating the test flight, General?” Daren Mace asked.

In response Rebecca pulled the throttles back to 80 percent power and flicked two switches on her left instrument panel to the off position—the weapons consent switch and the datalink active switch. “I've got the aircraft. The test is terminated. Get those incoming bandits, General.”

“Roger, AC,” Patrick responded. He wasted no time at all locking up the lead helicopter—but he found a few moments later that they were not pursuing the Pave Dasher, but rather flying toward their comrades at the UCAV crash site. “The bandits are no threat,” he announced. “Weapons safe.” He immediately called up their egress flight plan and gave Rebecca autopilot steering commands. She did not relinquish control of the aircraft until they were well out over the Arabian Sea.

The StealthHawk drone launched by Furness and McLanahan stayed in the vicinity until the Pave Dasher was safely out over the Arabian Sea and there was no sign of pursuit. By this time Pogue and Long in the second EB-1C had refueled on Diego Garcia and were back up on air patrol, guarding the salvage ship that the Pave Dasher used as a forward base. The Pave Dasher safely landed on the ship, refueled, and flew on to Diego Garcia.

In the meantime Furness and McLanahan continued slowly on toward Diego Garcia, flying more slowly than normal because they wanted their StealthHawk to stay in close formation. They had already been in the air for almost two days, and they were looking forward to downtime on the isolated tropical island in the Indian Ocean. But they had a few other tasks to perform first.

“Rebecca, let's see if the virtual cockpit can steer the StealthHawk into docking position,” Patrick asked on intercom.

“I don't know, Patrick. With live weapons on board, I'd rather set her down.”

“But we're not scheduled to offload weapons on Diego. We're just going in for crew rest, debriefing, refueling, and then we're off again,” Patrick reminded her. “This is a good time to test it out.”

“I don't think so, sir.”

It sounded to Patrick that Rebecca was just tired, not really objecting to a test. It also sounded as if maybe she wanted to see what else this system could do. “It'll just be to predocking position, not all the way in the sling,” Patrick pressed. “Let's give it a try.”

“You just can't take no for an answer, can you, sir?” Rebecca asked derisively. Again, to Patrick, it didn't sound like an objection. “All right, all right, do it. Just don't knock us out of the sky, okay?”

“Okay, time for the rest of the test,” Patrick announced on the command frequency. “Reel it in, Daren.”

“Roger,” Daren Mace responded from the virtual cockpit. “Hawk One, rejoin on Vampire One, left fingertip formation.”

“Hawk One beginning rejoin with Vampire One, stop rejoin.”
After a moment the StealthHawk started a rapid climb and headed toward the EB-1C Vampire.

“This is the part I can't handle,” Rebecca said.

“It'll work,” Patrick reassured her. He had to force down a bit of doubt in his own voice, but he was able to repeat, “It'll work.”

It worked better than they could have imagined. The StealthHawk climbed and accelerated until it was almost at the EB-1C Vampire's altitude, then quickly slid in until it was flying precisely two hundred feet beside Rebecca Furness's window and fifty feet below the Vampire's altitude. “I have the StealthHawk in sight,” she reported. The StealthHawk looked perfectly normal in the dawn sky, hanging in tightly in a modified fingertip-formation position. “It looks in the green.”

“Aft bay doors coming open, docking web coming out,” Daren said. He opened the aft bay doors by remote control, then ordered, “Hawk One, translate to predock position on Vampire One.”

“Hawk One translating to predock position Vampire One, stop translate,”
the UCAV responded. Then, as everyone watched on remote cameras, the StealthHawk slid back and across underneath the EB-1C.

“Oh, shit, I can practically feel that sucker under me,” Rebecca breathed.

“Steady, Becky,” Patrick said, but he found he could not talk in a normal tone of voice either.

The StealthHawk continued moving underneath the bomber until it was centered precisely in the opening of the aft bomb bay, then slowly, excruciatingly, began climbing. They could see the StealthHawk buck and burble as it corrected its flight path through the bomber's slipstream. But both the Vampire and the StealthHawk used mission-adaptive “smart skin,” and their flight-control computers were able to both smooth out and dampen out the other's slipstream and wake turbulence. The StealthHawk nosed toward a large composite material half-shell framework called the “docking web” that had been extended into the slipstream. It seemed like a millennium later, but finally the StealthHawk announced,
“Hawk One stabilized in predock position.”

“Yeah, baby!” Jon Masters shouted. “That's my boy!”

“Looks good,” Rebecca said. “Now move it back so I can see it.”

“Roger. Hawk One, translate to left fingertip position,” Daren ordered.

“Hawk One translating to left fingertip position, stop translate.”
The StealthHawk obeyed and appeared a few moments later back on Rebecca's side of the plane.

“That's good, Dr. Masters,” Rebecca said. She finally took what felt like her first full breath of air in a very long time. “Let's let it land on Diego Garcia.”

“Rebecca, I think we should try a docking,” Daren said.

“That wasn't in the flight-test plan.”

“The ship and the UCAV are doing better than we ever expected,” Daren responded. “Let's give it a try.”

“Let's stick with the plan, guys,” Rebecca argued. “We'll have lots of opportunities to dock it when we don't have live ordnance on board. If we take any damage from the UCAV and we can't jettison the remaining weapons, they'll never let us land on Diego Garcia—we'll have to ditch the Vampire.”

“Rebecca, let's try it,” Patrick said. “The apparatus is in place, and the predock join-up looked nice and steady. It'll work.”

Rebecca thought about it for a moment. Her hesitation was all the prompting Patrick McLanahan needed.

“You're clear to do a docking, Daren,” he said.

“Roger
that!
” Daren responded happily. “Hawk One, dock with Vampire One, center bomb bay.”

“Hawk One docking with Vampire One center bay, stop docking,”
the StealthHawk responded. Rebecca stared at the UCAV as it flew out of sight, and soon the strange feeling of being able to feel the little robot plane as if it were flying around her own body returned.

The StealthHawk maneuvered itself back underneath the Vampire bomber's aft bomb bay, stabilized in predock position for a few seconds, then slowly continued its climb. Now Patrick and Rebecca could both feel a tiny shudder in the Vampire's airframe, a slight vibration that couldn't be dampened out by the mission-adaptive system. “Here it comes,” Patrick breathed. “Here it comes. . . .”

Slowly, slowly, the StealthHawk climbed until it nestled inside the half-shell framework of the docking web. A powerful electromagnet activated, pulling the nose up into a latching mechanism that held tightly to the UCAV; then soft composite tubular frames extended out from under the docking web, completely encircling the UCAV. The turbulence from the web started to make the StealthHawk buck and fishtail inside the web, but by the time the turbulence got bad enough that the mission-adaptive system couldn't counteract it, the web had captured the UCAV, the turbojet engine had shut down, and the StealthHawk was pulled inside the aft bomb bay and the bomb doors closed.

“We nabbed it!” Jon Masters shouted. “It worked! We got it!”

“I don't friggin' believe it,” Rebecca murmured as she saw the StealthHawk safely back inside the bomb bay in her TV monitor. “We retrieved it.” She reached across and clasped hands with Patrick McLanahan. “General, I know there will come a time when that will be routine,” she said cross-cockpit, “but, I swear to God, that was the most nerve-racking thing I've ever done.”

“Excellent job. Thanks for agreeing to do it,” Patrick said. “Ready to finish the test flight?”

“I don't suppose there's any way you'll agree to terminate this and let us take it back to the barn?” Rebecca asked.

“We're on a roll, Rebecca,” Patrick said. “You're the aircraft commander, so whatever you say goes, but I say let's finish this test.”

Rebecca nodded, took another deep breath, and said, “Okay, guys, let's go to the next evolution—before I run out of adrenaline.”

“Roger, boss,” Zane said happily. “VAC has the aircraft, proceeding to the air-refueling anchor.”

Zane then flew the EB-1C Vampire bomber south toward a designated military operating area east of the island of Diego Garcia. A Sky Masters Inc. launch-and-control aircraft, a modified DC-10 airliner, was waiting for them with its refueling boom extended.

“Here's the big test, guys,” Daren said. To the computer he ordered, “Vampire, translate to precontact position on the tanker.”

“Vampire translating to precontact position, stop translate.”
The bomber immediately climbed until it was five hundred feet below the tanker, accelerated until it was one thousand feet in trail, then slowly climbed and decelerated until it was ten feet below and ten feet behind the boom's nozzle.
“Stabilized precontact,”
the computer reported.

“How is it doing that?” Grey asked.

“The laser radar paints an exact picture of the entire tanker, including its boom,” Patrick explained, “and measures the tanker's exact distance, speed, and altitude.”

“Isn't hitting the refueling boom with laser beams dangerous?”

“About as dangerous as shining a TV remote in your eyes,” Daren chimed in. “The laser's power reduces as the range decreases, so there's no danger. Let's do the checklists, Zane.”

“Roger. Vampire, precontact checklist.”

The air-refueling slipway door opened, and several lights were illuminated on the overhead instrument panel.
“Precontact checklist complete,”
the computer responded moments later.

“Vampire, translate to contact position,” Zane ordered.

“Vampire translating to contact position, stop translate.”
The Vampire bomber began a slow climb and a very slow acceleration. Patrick and Rebecca watched as the DC-10's air-refueling director lights—two lines of lights under the tanker's belly that told a pilot where he was in the refueling envelope—activated, ordering the receiver to move up and forward with a green light toward the lower edge of the light display. As the bomber moved closer, the green light moved forward toward the center of the light display, and another green flashing light inched its way from the lower up bar toward the center. Rebecca had her right hand poised on the control stick, her little finger automatically lining up with the “paddle switch”—a lever on the front of the control stick that would disconnect the VC from aircraft control completely and immediately.

“Coming up on contact position,” Daren said.

The boom's nozzle looked like a huge cannon pointing directly at their foreheads. “This is nutso,” Rebecca whispered. “This is crazy. . . .”

“Steady, Rebecca,” Patrick said on intercom. “Easy . . .”

The boom hove dangerously close to the bomber's radome, coming mere inches away from hitting. The boom operator grabbed it away just in time. “That was close,” Rebecca said.

“We're still moving in,” Daren said. “Almost there . . .”

Patrick wasn't sure if it was the tanker or the Vampire that did it, but the tanker abruptly seemed to pull away. The Vampire made a sudden acceleration, and as it sped up it also climbed sharply. The boom operator, not expecting the sudden movement, had to yank the boom out of the way. The nozzle seemed close enough for Furness and McLanahan to clearly see the scratches around the business end.

Just as Patrick breathed a sigh of relief that the nozzle was well clear, he heard Rebecca shout,
“Boom strike!”

“Vampire,
breakaway!
” Daren said immediately. The bomber instantly decelerated, dropping a thousand feet behind and five hundred feet below the tanker in just a few seconds. At the same instant Rebecca squeezed the paddle switch, taking complete manual control of the bomber, and flicked off the datalink switches.

Patrick turned to Rebecca and said cross-cockpit, “Are you sure the boom hit us, Rebecca?”

“Pretty damned sure,” she replied excitedly.

“No damage observed on the boom,” radioed the boom operator in the pod in the tail of the DC-10. “No observed damage to the receiver. Let me reset my system, stand by. . . . System reset. Vampire, you're cleared to precontact position.”

Patrick loosened his straps so he could lean forward and carefully look out the windscreen. “I don't see any damage,” he said. “Let's give it another try.”

“I've got a better idea—let's
not,
” Rebecca said angrily cross-cockpit. “We had a boom strike. No more refueling until we get on the ground and check it out.”