Patrick McLanahan Collection #1 (177 page)

But SPEAR wasn't done. After defeating the missiles, SPEAR sent digital instructions to the MiG-29 via the fire control system to start shutting down aircraft systems controlled by computer. One by one, the navigation, engine controls, flight controls, and communications all turned themselves off.

In the blink of an eye, the pilot found himself sitting in a completely silent and dark glider, as if he were sitting on the ramp back at his home base.

To his credit, the veteran pilot didn't panic and eject—he was not out of control, not yet, but just…well,
turned off
. There was only one thing to do: turn all switches off to reset the computers, then turn everything back on, and hope he could get his stricken jet running again before he crashed into the Caspian Sea. He flipped his checklist to the
BEFORE POWER ON
pages and started shutting every system in the plane off. His last image out his canopy was watching the big American B-1 bomber bank sharply left, as if giving the Russian a farewell wing-wag, and fly off toward the northwest, speeding quickly out of sight.

No one in the Russian air force had ever run a series of checklists faster than he. He had descended from forty-two thousand feet all
the way down to four thousand feet above the Caspian Sea before he was able to get his jet shut down, turned back on, and the engines started again. Thankfully, whatever evil spirits had entered his MiG-29 were no longer present.

For a brief instant the Russian MiG pilot considered pursuing the American bomber completely radar-silent and putting a load of cannon shells into his tail—he was going to be blamed for almost crashing his plane anyway, so why not go out in a blaze of glory?—but after briefly considering it, he decided that was a foolish notion. He didn't know what caused the mysterious shutdown—was it an American weapon of some kind, or a glitch in his own plane? Besides, the American bomber was not launching any more missiles that could be “mistaken” for an attack against him. This was not a war between the Americans and the Russians…

…although he felt it certainly could blossom into one at any moment.

 

“Let's put together a debrief, then get ready to head back to HAWC, Boomer,” Patrick said after they were assured that the EB-1C Vampire bomber was safely on its way back to Batman Air Base in Turkey. His voice sounded very tired, and his facial expression appeared even more so. “Good job. The system seems to be working fine. We've proven we can control unmanned aircraft from Silver Tower. That should get us some sustainment funding for another year at least.”

“General, it wasn't your fault that the damned insurgents had a bunch of kids around when the SkySTREAK attacked, or that they loaded up that Ra'ad missile with poison gas,” Hunter Noble responded, looking worriedly at Master Sergeant Lukas.

“I know, Boomer,” Patrick said, “but it still doesn't make watching innocent men, women, and children die like that any easier.”

“Sir, we're on station, the Vampire is loaded, the SkySTREAKs are running cool, and no doubt there are more of those Ra'ads out
there with poison gas warheads,” Boomer said. “I think we should stay and—”

“I hear you, Boomer, but we've validated the system—that was the mission objective,” Patrick said.

“Our other objective was to try to control multiple bombers and multiple engagements,” Boomer reminded him. “We had enough trouble getting authorization and funding to fly
this
mission—getting approval for another mission to do what we could have done on this flight will be even more difficult.”

“I know, I know,” Patrick said wearily. “I'll ask, Boomer, but I'm not counting on it. We've got to analyze the data, prepare a summary report, and brief the chief. Let's get to it.”

“But sir—”

“Meet you back here in ten, Boomer,” Patrick said finally, detaching himself from his anchor position and floating his way toward the sleeping module.

“Looks like he took that one hard,” Seeker said after the general had left the control module. Boomer didn't respond. “It kind of shook me up too. Is the general feeling okay?”

“He had a rough trip up here,” Boomer said. “Every push into orbit has been hard on him, but he keeps on flying up here. The last push took a lot out of him, I think. He probably shouldn't be making these trips anymore.”

“It could be watching those people getting killed like that,” Seeker said. “I've seen the aftereffects of a guided missile attack plenty of times, but somehow a biochem weapon attack is…different, you know? More violent.” She looked at Boomer curiously, unable to read his rather flat expression. “Did it shake you up too, Boomer?”

“Well…” And then he shook his head and added, “No, it didn't, Seeker. All I want to do now is hunt down
more
bad guys. I don't understand why the general wanted to wrap this up so soon.”

“You heard the chief, sir,” Seeker said. “The general wanted to send the other two bombers.”

“I know, I know.” Boomer looked around the module. “The
things we can do on board this station are amazing, Sergeant, really amazing—we should be allowed to do them. We need to convince the powers that be that we can turn the Air Force on its ear. We can't do that if we pull our planes out when a little kid ten thousand miles away gets caught in the crossfire. Can't believe the general got all misty-eyed like that.”

Master Sergeant Lukas looked at Boomer sternly. “Do you mind if I say something, sir?” she finally asked.

“Go right ahead, Seeker…or is it ‘Master Sergeant' now?”

“I haven't been working at HAWC that long—not as long as you,” Lukas said, ignoring the sarcastic remark, “and I don't know General McLanahan that well, but the guy is a friggin' hero in my book. He's spent almost twenty years laying his ass on the line fighting battles all over the world. He's been kicked out of the Air Force twice, but he came back because he's dedicated to his country and the service.”

“Hey, I'm not bad-mouthing the guy—”

“The ‘guy' you're referring to, sir, is a three-star general in the U.S. Air Force and commands the largest and most highly classified aerospace research facility in the U.S. armed forces,” Lukas interrupted hotly. “General McLanahan is nothing short of a
legend
. He's been shot up, shot down, blown up, beat up, ridiculed, busted, demoted, and called every name in the book. He's lost his wife, a close friend, and dozens of crewmembers under his command. You, sir, on the other hand, have been in the force now…seven years? Eight? You're a talented engineer and a skillful pilot and astronaut—”

“But?”

“—but you're not in the general's league, sir—far, far from it,” Lukas went on. “You don't have the experience and haven't shown the same level of commitment and dedication as the general. You're not qualified to pass judgment on the general—in fact, in my opinion, sir, you haven't earned the right to be talking about him the way you are.”

“Like you're talking to
me
now?”

“Write me up if you want, sir, but I don't appreciate you second-guessing the general like that,” Lukas said flatly. She logged herself
off from her console and detached herself from the bulkhead with a perturbed jerk and a loud
riip!
of Velcro. “I'll help you download the sensor data and prepare your debrief for the general, and then I'll be happy to help you prepare the Black Stallion for undocking…so you can go home as soon as possible,
sir
.” She said the word “sir” more like the word “cur,” and that jab wasn't lost on Boomer.

With Seeker's exasperated and irate help—not to mention they didn't do very much chatting as they worked—Boomer was indeed done quickly. He uploaded his data and findings to the general. “Thanks, Boomer,” McLanahan radioed back. “We're scheduled to do the videoconference in about ninety minutes. I found out the Joint Chiefs chairman and National Security Adviser are going to sit in. Kick back for a while and get some rest.”

“I'm fine, sir,” Boomer responded. “I'll go hide out in Skybolt, get my e-mail, and check in on my girlfriends.”

“‘Girlfriends'…plural?”

“I don't know—we'll see what the e-mails say,” Boomer said. “None of them like me disappearing for days and weeks, and I certainly can't tell them I've been blasting terrorists to hell from space.”

“They probably wouldn't believe you if you
did
tell them.”

“The ladies I hang out with don't know a space station from a gas station—and that's the way I like it,” Boomer admitted. “They don't know, or care, what I do for a living. All they want is attention and a good time on the town, and if they don't get it, they split.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“That's why I always like to have more than one on the hook, sir,” Boomer said.

“Could be fireworks if they ever run into each other, eh?”

“We hook up together all the time, sir,” Boomer said. “No brag, just fact. Like I said, all they want is attention, and they get even more attention if folks see them arm in arm with another hot babe. Besides, if there's ever any conversation—”

“Wait, wait, I know this one, Boomer: ‘If there's any conversation,
you
don't have to get involved,'” Patrick interjected with a laugh. “Okay, go say hi to your girlfriends, and don't tell me how many you
got waiting for you to get back. Meet me in the command module in sixty minutes so we can rehearse our dog and pony show.”

“Yes, sir,” Boomer replied. Before McLanahan clicked off, he asked, “Uh, General?”

“Go ahead.”

“I'm sorry if I got out of line earlier.”

“I expect you to give me your professional opinion and point of view anytime, Boomer, especially on a mission,” Patrick said. “If you were out of line, I wouldn't hesitate to let you know.”

“It got me pretty steamed, watching those bastards setting up a rocket with a damned chemical warhead on it. All I wanted to do was blast a few more.”

“I hear you. But it's more important we get this program off and running. We both know we're going to catch some flak for what happened in Tehran—shooting more missiles wouldn't have helped us.”

“Maybe offing a few more terrorists would compel them to keep their heads down and hide in their ratholes for a few days more.”

“We have some incredible weapons at our disposal, Boomer—let's not let the power go to our heads,” Patrick said patiently. “It was an operational test, not an actual mission. I know the temptation to play Zeus with a few SkySTREAK missiles is powerful, but that's not what we're here for. Meet back here in sixty.”

“Yes, sir,” he responded. Just before the general logged off, Boomer remarked to himself that the general looked even wearier than any other time since embarking on this sortie to the space station—maybe the combination of witnessing the chemical weapon release and the monthly trips into space were starting to get to him. Boomer was half his age, and sometimes the stress of the trips, especially the recent quick-turn, high-G re-entry profiles, and multiple sorties they had been flying, wore him down fast.

Boomer floated back to the crew quarters module, retrieved his wireless headphones and video goggles, and floated to the Skybolt laser module at the “bottom” of the station. Skybolt was the station's most powerful and so most controversial piece of technology, a multi-gigawatt free-electron laser powerful enough to shoot through
Earth's atmosphere and melt steel in seconds. Tied to Silver Tower's radars and other sensors, Skybolt could attack targets as small as an automobile and burn through the top armor of all but the most modern main battle tanks. Classified as a “weapon of mass destruction” by all of America's adversaries, the United Nations had been calling for the weapon's deactivation for many years, and only America's veto power in the Security Council kept it alive.

Ann Page, Skybolt's designer, operator, and chief advocate, was on Earth preparing to testify to Congress on why funding for the weapon should be continued, and Boomer knew that very few others on the station ever went near the thing—Skybolt was powered by an MHDG, or magnetohydrodynamic generator, which used two small nuclear reactors to rapidly shoot a slug of molten metal back and forth through a magnetic field to produce the enormous amount of power required by the laser, and no amount of shielding and assurances by Ann could assuage anyone's fears—so he often went into the module to get some peace and quiet. The Skybolt module was about a fourth of the size of the main modules on the station, so it was relatively cramped inside, and it was crammed with pipes, wire conduits, and a myriad of computers and other components, but the gentle hum of the MHDG drive's circulating pumps and the excellent computers and communications gear there made it Boomer's favorite place to get away from the others for a while.

Boomer connected his headphones and video goggles to the module's computers, logged in, and began downloading e-mail. Even though the headphones and goggles were a pain, there was precious little privacy on Silver Tower, even in the huge modules, so the only semblance of privacy had to come down to the space between one's ears. Everyone assumed that if personnel from the super-secret High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center were on board the space station that all incoming and outgoing transmissions of any kind were being recorded and monitored, so “privacy” was a vacuous idea at best.

It was a good thing he had bothered to put on the gear, because the video e-mails from his girlfriends were definitely not for public viewing. Chloe's video was typical: “Boomer, where the hell are
you?” it began, with Chloe sitting in front of her videophone photographing herself. “I'm getting tired of you disappearing like this. Nobody at your unit would tell me a goddamned thing. That sergeant that answers the phone should be booted out of the service, the fag.” Chloe called any man who didn't immediately hit on her a “fag,” believing being gay was the only reason that any normal male wouldn't want to screw her right away.