Stephen Coonts - Combat

“So what do you do then?” Hamud asked innocently.

“Then,” Eric shouted, thrusting his right arm up, index finger pointed toward the ceiling as if he were signaling a charge, “we have ourselves some real fun.”

With growing reluctance, Lieutenant Colonel James Mann glanced down at his fuel gauge. In his sixteen years in the United States Air Force, he had never seen that particular indicator dip so low. Drawing in a deep breath, he struggled to control his emotions as he pressed the PUSH TO TALK button. “Quebec Seven Nine, Quebec Seven Nine. This is Tango Eight Four, over.” After releasing the PUSH TO TALK button, Mann stared out of the cockpit of his F-16, vainly searching the night sky as he waited for a response from the KC-10 aerial refuelers using the call signs Quebec Seven Nine.

After what seemed to be an eternity, Mann called out without bothering to use call signs. “Does anyone out there see anything that looks like a tanker?”

At first no one answered as five other pilots craned their necks and searched the black sky that made their isolation seem even more oppressive, more ominous. Finally, Mann’s own wingman came back with the response no one wanted to hear. “Boss, looks like someone missed the mark.”

Rather than respond, Mann flipped through the notes he had taken during their preflight briefing. When he found what he was looking for, he glanced up at his navigational aids. The coordinates, the time, the radio frequency upon which they were to make contact with the tankers all matched. Everything was exactly as it was supposed to be. Everything. Yet, there were no KC-10s out there waiting to greet them with the fuel they would need to complete their nonstop flight to Saudi Arabia.

In the midst of checking and rechecking all his settings on the aircraft’s navigational system, another voice came over the air. “Colonel, I’ll be sucking fumes in a few. Maybe it’s time we start making some noise.”

Mann didn’t answer. The deployment of his unit was part of a major buildup in southwest Asia in response to threats being directed against the Saudi government. With the exception of conversations between themselves and the aerial tanks, strict radio listening silence was the order of the day. The arrival of the air wing that Mann’s flight belonged to was meant to be a surprise to the local despot. “We’re going to come swooping down on that little shit,” their wing commander told his pilots at their final briefing, “like a flock of eagles on a swarm of field mice.” Now, as he peered out into the darkness, Mann accepted the horrible fact that the only thing he and his companions would be swooping down to was the cold, dark Atlantic below. Even if the tankers did show up in the next few minutes, which he doubted, there would be insufficient time to go through the drill and refuel all of the aircraft in the flight. Some, if not all of them, would have to ditch.

Faced with this awful truth, Mann prepared to issue an order that went against his every instinct. “Roger that,” he finally responded with a heavy sigh. “Everyone is to switch over to the emergency frequency following this transmission. Though I know some of you will be able to go on for a while, I don’t want to make it any harder for search and rescue than it already is. As soon as the first plane goes in, we’ll circle around him and maintain as tight an orbit over that spot as we can. Acknowledge, over.”

One by one, the other pilots in Mann’s flight came back with a low, barely audible “Roger.” With that, the Air Force colonel gave the order to flip to the designated emergency frequency and began broadcasting his distress call.

Even before the last aircraft belonging to Lieutenant Colonel James Mann began its final spiral into the dark sea below, frantic efforts to sort out the pending disaster were already under way. When the Kansas National Guard KC-10 tanker failed to rendezvous with Mann’s F-16s at the designated time, the commander of that aircraft contacted operations. A commercial pilot by trade, the tanker’s commander was less concerned with the operational security than he was with the lives he knew were in the balance.

Back at Dover Air Base, from which the KC-10 had been scrambled for this mission, a staff officer pulled up the tasking orders on his computer screen that had dispatched the KC-10. As the pilot of the tanker continued to orbit at the prescribed altitude, over the exact spot he had been sent to, he waited for the operations officer to confirm that they were in the right spot. Unable to stand the tension, his copilot broke the silence. “That yahoo back in Dover better get a hustle on or there’s going to be a lot of unhappy Falcon drivers out here with nowhere to land.”

From behind them the navigator glanced down on a sheet of paper he had been making some calculations on. After checking his watch, he cleared his throat. “I’m afraid it’s already too late.”

Both the pilot and copilot of the KC-10 turned and looked at him. In return, the navigator stared at the pilot. “What now, sir?”

The commander of the tanker had no answer. Without a word he looked away.

When he reached his workstation to begin his shift, Eric Bergeron didn’t bother to sit down. Posted in the center of his screen was an international orange sticky note. The reliance of some members of the 401st on such a primitive means of communications caused the young hacker to chuckle. Even in an organization whose whole existence centered on keeping a sophisticated communications network functioning properly, there were many who didn’t trust it. Of course, Eric thought to himself as he pulled the note off and read it, after seeing what people like the ones he hunted down could do, he really couldn’t blame them.

From his little cubicle next to Bergeron’s, Bobby Sung leaned back in his seat until he could see around the divider. “I see you’ve been zapped by the overlords.”

Waving the sticky note about, Eric nodded as he gathered up a notebook he kept next to his computer monitor. “Yes, I have been summoned.” In the parlance of the 401st, the overlords were the operations officers, the men and women who assigned the Cyberknights their missions, which the knights themselves referred to as quests. The orange sticky note, reserved for use by the operations section, indicated that this was a priority mission.

“Well then,” Sung stated as he made a shooing motion with his hands, “begone with you, oh wretched soul.”

Bending over, Eric contorted his expression. Then he did his best to imitate Dr. Frankenstein’s deformed assistant as he limped away, grunting as he went, “Yes, master. Coming, master.”

In a small briefing room tucked away in one of the numerous casements that sprouted off of the long internal tunnel of the Keep populated by the unit’s operations section, Eric met with several members of the staff as well as some outlanders. The conniving officer was no less than the chief of the unit’s operations section himself, Major Peter Hines, a name that caused him much grief in an organization with more than its fair share of irreverent cynics. He sat at the head of the long, narrow table in accordance with the military protocol that the regular Army staff stubbornly clung to.

Seated to the major’s right, along one length of the table, was the Queen of the Wizards, a title bestowed upon Major Gayle Rhay, chief of the intel section. To her left were the outlanders, outsiders who were not members of the 401st. They wore the typical bureaucratic camouflage that all visitors from Washington, D.C., favored, dark suits and tightly knotted nondescript ties. Farther along that side of the table was an Air Force colonel. That this senior an officer was placed to the left of the pair in civilian attire clued Eric to the fact that the outlanders were pretty well up there on the government’s pay scale.