Edge of Tomorrow (29 page)

“In the green. They can’t detect us or see
us,” Sara replied.

“This is Six. I can hear their chatter
clearly. No alarms, just normal patter,” said Syd. “Nothing on the
tac aircraft channels.”

Syd adjusted her screen view to forward so
she would be able to see their approach to the target building,
even though it was over 30 minutes away.

“We’re being pounded by search radars from
both sides of the border,” announced Sara, “but the signals are
being shunted through properly. No problems.”

There was calm chatter among the crew as they
sped toward their objective. Hatch switched to an outside
communication channel and talked to Marli, who was in charge of
mission control back in Istanbul. She had been watching the target
in real time.

“Marli, this is Hatch. Update me on the
target, please.”

“More people arrived up until about an hour
ago. No one has come or gone since then,” replied Marli.

“Thanks, Marli. Shadow-3 out,” he said.

“Looks like we have a full house,” he said on
the intercom to the crew.

Hatch punched a few keys on his console
keyboard and a live satellite view of the target appeared on his
screen. He rotated it until he had the view he wanted. He froze the
image, and using his cursor, marked the two spots on the building
where he would put his first two missiles. Then he saved the screen
to the computer’s memory. He switched to the Weapons Selection
screen and clicked on two Sledge Hammer HE missiles. All he had
left to do to complete the firing solution was to get to the
building, lock-on to it to get the distance, and the building was
history.

Shadow-3 arrived on target at 7:06 P.M. Hatch
switched to the on-board visual system.

“OK, One. Take her down to 500 feet on the
north side of the target.” said Hatch.

“Roger, Five. Going down. Status, Four?” said
the pilot.

“In the green,” advised Sara.

The pilot lost altitude and maneuvered to the
position Hatch had requested. Hatch looked at the target on his
screen.

“OK, One, give me the bird,” said Hatch.

“This is One. The bird is on autopilot,
control switching to Five,” replied the pilot.

“I’ve got it, One.”

Hatch now could fly the aircraft through his
computer system. He took Shadow-3 down to 200 feet and moved within
500 yards of the target. This attack was meant to look like a
rocket attack from ground troops. He positioned his cursor on the
building and got a distance reading and a GPS position. The
information went into the Fire Control System and the firing
solution was complete. A message on his screen told him he could
fire when ready.

He clicked on the
Execute
icon on his screen. A second, blinking,
red icon which read
Confirm
appeared on his screen.

“Here we go, people,” he said as he
clicked on
Confirm
. The
firing platform extended below the aircraft and two tubes fired
missiles, then it moved back into position, flush with the
aircraft’s body.

The two missiles streaked toward the spots
near the base of the building, the target areas that had been
selected during the earlier analysis. They hit the building, bricks
flying as they penetrated the wall, then twin explosions tore two
gigantic holes. The front of the building began to collapse in slow
motion, the roof following it.

Hatch had already selected a second pair of
missiles and they hit the building five seconds later. The building
became a pile of bricks, mortar, twisted steel, and concrete. He
flew Shadow-3 around to the opposite side of the rubble to see if
anyone was escaping the attack. No one was in sight. Although
sporadic fires were blazing, Hatch fired two missiles with
incendiary warheads into the rubble, starting a massive fire.

“How’s that look, people?” chortled
Hatch.

He took the chopper up to 1000 feet and
surveyed the damage, satisfied that there would be very few
survivors, if any.

“Looks like enough. Take the bird, One, and
head for home,” said Hatch.

Brawley took over the controls and banked to
the left, starting a climb. At that instant, the rubble exploded
like a pile of fireworks: missiles were streaking, bricks were
flying as if from a volcano eruption, ammunition was
detonating.

Three yelled, “Shit! That place must have
been an ammo dump! Haul ass, One!”

“What the fuck!” yelled Sara. “We have a skin
puncture, port side! I’ll try to isolate it!”

Syd was grasping the arms of her chair as she
watched the rolling explosion below on her screen. It looked as if
someone had dropped a match in a large bag of Fourth of July
fireworks. When Sara yelled, Syd looked up at her back and was
horrified at what she saw. There was a ragged hole about two inches
in diameter in the chopper wall to Sara’s left, and blood was
flowing out of Sara’s arm a few inches below her left shoulder.

“Sara! I can see the hole! It’s to your left.
And you’ve been hit!” yelled Syd.

“Shit! You’re right! I can feel it burning
now,” said Sara.

“You’re losing a lot of blood! As soon as we
level out, I’ll come help you!” said Syd excitedly.

The chopper pulled out of its tight left turn
and began to put distance between them and the exploding building.
As it leveled off and increased speed, Syd unbuckled herself and
moved to Sara’s chair and looked at her left arm. Her flight suit’s
arm was red and the spot was growing.

“Hatch, take over my system! I’m getting
dizzy,” moaned Sara.

Hatch quickly transferred control of the
Defensive Weapon System to his console.

“Got it, Sara! Syd, can you help her?”

“I’m on it!” cried Syd. “Hang on, Sara!”

Syd opened the cabinet door on the port side
near her chair and surveyed the contents. She needed something to
stop the bleeding. She grabbed a tourniquet and put it around
Sara’s arm above the hole in her jumpsuit, tightened it, and
secured it.

“I need to cut the arm of your suit off to
get at that wound, Sara,” said Syd.

“Bad idea. This material doesn’t cut well.
You’ll have to try to get it off me,” answered Sara, slurring her
words.

Syd decided she would have to get Sara down
onto the floor next to Chair 6 if she were to be able to get at the
wound. She grabbed a blanket from the cabinet and spread it on the
floor. She went back to Sara and unstrapped her from her chair. She
took off Sara’s headset and laid it on the desk.

“Sara, can you get up and lie down on that
blanket for me? I’ll help you,” Syd said.

“Sure. I think. My fucking arm’s on
fire!”

Syd helped her to the blanket and laid her on
her back. She unzipped her suit all the way down and helped her
pull her right arm out of the sleeve. The left arm would be more
difficult because of the tourniquet, and the pain. Syd was still
listening to the sequencing voice channels.

“This is Six. They just scrambled two
fighters to search the area for insurgents,” Syd informed the
crew.

“Lot’s of radar sweeps,” added Hatch, “but
the skin is working perfectly in spite of the hole. They haven’t
spotted us yet.”

Syd found a sealed syringe of morphine. She
stripped off her flying gloves, which were now bloody, and pulled
on a pair of latex gloves. She opened the sealed syringe.

“Sara, I’m going to give you a shot of
morphine before I try to work on your arm. We’ll never get this
suit off if I don’t,” Syd told Sara.

“No! Don’t shoot me up! I’ve got to get back
to my station!” Sara objected, her voice weak.

“No way, girl! You’re through for the day!”
said Syd as she injected the morphine.

“Need any help, Syd?” asked Hatch, looking
over his shoulder.

“No, I can handle this!
You
just protect our asses!” replied
Syd, glad she had to focus on Sara to keep herself from
panicking.

As Sara started to get even groggier, Syd
took off the tourniquet, lifted her slightly with her right arm,
and pulled the left sleeve off her arm. The blood was flowing
again, so Syd reapplied the tourniquet. The left side of Sara’s
bra, including most of the cup covering her left breast, was soaked
in blood. Blood was running down her arm. Sara raised her head
slightly and saw the bloody bra.

“Shit! Syd! I didn’t get hit in my fucking
tit did I?” moaned Sara as her head dropped back to the floor. Syd
grabbed another blanket, rolled it up, and put it under Sara’s head
to make her more comfortable.

“No, Sara! You’re hit in the arm. Your pride
and joy is still intact!” said Syd as she wiped the wound so she
could check it out. Something was still in the wound. She would
have to remove whatever it was before she could bandage it. She
took a pair of tweezers from the First Aid cabinet. She looked at
Sara, who appeared to be out now.

“Those fighter pilots are jabbering again,
Hatch. They’re climbing to 10,000 feet. Have you got them?” Syd
said, relaying information she heard on the aircraft tactical
channel.

“Got ’em, Syd. Thanks!” Hatch announced.

Syd was still trying to listen to Farsi from
the sequencing channels, while listening to the calm chaos going on
between her own crew members.

She probed the wound with the tweezers. The
wound was shallow, in the fleshy part of Sara’s arm. More blood
than damage. She pulled out an object and dropped it in her gloved
hand. It looked like a smashed .50 caliber lead slug. Fortunately,
it had lost much of its energy coming through the skin of the
chopper; otherwise, it would have done much more damage.

Probably would have been in your glorious
tit, Sara! You’re one lucky gal—if I can keep you from bleeding to
death!

She wiped blood again, sprayed the wound with
a disinfectant, and applied two butterfly bandages.

“There you go, Sara. Maybe this will hold
until you can get it stitched. Now for a gauze bandage around your
arm and see if the bleeding will stop,” Syd mumbled to herself,
since Sara was out cold.

She finished the bandaging, then retrieved
another blanket and covered Sara, trying to ward off shock. Sara
had lost quite a bit of blood.

“Hatch, Sara’s going to need a doctor as soon
as we land. She needs a transfusion and some stitches,” said Syd
calmly into her boom mike.

“I’ve already called Shirley. She’ll have the
doctor we use there when we arrive. I’ll call her back and tell her
about getting some blood. Sara’s blood type is on file,” he
answered.

Syd looked at her watch, noting that it was
5:45 P.M., or 1745 as the military preferred to call it. She was
still on Istanbul time, so she did a quick calculation and
determined that it was 7:15 local. At least 15 more minutes to get
out of Iranian air space, then two and a half or more hours after
that to Istanbul. She hoped Sara would be all right. She was
sitting on the floor next to Sara with her hand on Sara’s clammy
forehead. She checked the pulse in her neck, finding it weak.

Then she heard over her headset, “Holy shit,
Five! This is Three! We just lost the visible spectrum on the
skin!”

“I see the warning on my screen! Can you fix
it?” yelled Hatch.

“I’m running a diagnostic—trying to isolate
it,” answered Three, the Engineer.

Then Syd heard excited voices from the
fighter aircraft.

“Trouble, people! This is Six. The fighters
think they spotted something moving below them! That could be us!
They’re coming down to take a look!” she said.

“OK, Brawley! It’s still 15 minutes until the
end of twilight, but it’s pretty dark down in the shadows! Pretend
you are in ’Nam and don’t let those guys see us! The skin is still
working in the radar band, so they can’t use their radar to find
us. So, don’t let them see us! How’s that diagnostic, Three?”
queried Hatch.

Without warning, the chopper turned sharply
to the left, and started down toward the ground. The maneuver threw
Syd violently to her left, cracking her head against the chair of
her station.

“Thanks a whole friggin’ bunch for the heads
up!” she groaned into her mike. Sara rolled into her, onto her
bandaged arm. Stunned, Syd rolled Sara back on to her blanket and
checked her bandage. Syd’s head was pounding; she felt the spot on
her head, but could not detect any blood.

“I’ve isolated the problem!” yelled Three. “I
have to replace a circuit board. Hang on a minute!”

He swiveled his chair to the right and opened
a door to expose rows of circuit boards and other electronic gear.
He looked for a few seconds, then pulled one out of the rack. He
opened another, smaller cabinet above the other one and selected
the board he wanted. He put that in the slot that he had just
emptied, then closed the two cabinets.

“I have to run a check on the board,” he
said. “Give me 60 more seconds.”

Syd relayed what she was hearing: “Those
fighters have lost us momentarily. They’re turning east at 5000
feet.”

“I see them on radar,” said Hatch. “How’re we
doing, One?”

The pilot answered, “We’re in a depression
now, in the shadows; but this valley runs out in a few more
seconds. How’s that board, Three?”

“Looking good! Thirty more seconds!”

“One of the fighter jocks thinks he sees us,”
advised Syd.

“Yeah, he’s turning in our direction, closing
with an overtake of 150 knots. He must be cranking! He’ll have to
use his guns visually—there’s no way he can get a lock,” said
Hatch. “I’m locked on to him, two missiles armed. I have to shoot
in 15 seconds, Three, or we’re in deep shit!”

“Ten more seconds, nine, eight …” said
Three.

Syd discovered that she was holding her
breath. She wanted to get back to her chair and strap herself in,
but she couldn’t leave Sara to roll around in case of another sharp
turn.