Thomas Hoover - Project Daedalus

The Soviet nodded gravely. That was, of course, unthinkable. There would be no going home again. Friday 9:57 A.M.

"Yuri!" Eva was up like a shot. "Lean back. Breathe." She was pushing the button that raised the huge flight helmet. As she watched, his open eyes gradually resumed their focus. Then he snapped his head and looked around.

"Shto… what happened?"

"I don't think you can handle heavy G-loads. You're weak from the wound, the tourniquet."

He straightened up, then glanced again at the altimeter. They were cruising at three hundred meters, smooth as silk. And they were burning six hundred pounds of JP-7 a second.

"Nothing has gone the way I planned." He rubbed at his temples, trying to clear the blood from his brain. "We're just buying a little breathing space now by staying down here. I think the radar noise of the choppy sea, together with all our Stealth capability, will keep us safe. But at this low altitude we're using fuel almost as though we were dumping it. If we continue to hold on the deck, we've got maybe half an hour's flying time left."

"If we gained altitude," Vance wondered, "could we stretch it enough to make Alaska?"

"Probably," Androv replied. "If we took her above fifty thousand feet, we might have a chance."

"Then we've got no choice. The only solid ground between here and the U.S. is the Kurile Islands, and they're Soviet territory."

"But if we did reach U.S. airspace, then what?" Eva asked. "We'd have to identify ourselves. Who's going to believe our story? Nobody even knows this monster exists."

"Right," he laughed. "A top-secret Soviet hypersonic bomber comes cruising across the Bering Strait at sixty thousand feet and into the USAF's airspace. One hint of this thing and they'd roll out the SAMs."

"Maybe we couid talk our way down."

"Maybe."

"There's no other choice."

"You are getting ahead of things, both of you," Androv interrupted, staring at the screens on the wall. "We still have to handle the interceptors from Dolinsk. If we went for altitude, we'd show enough infrared signature to make us an easy target during ascent. Before we even reached two thousand meters, they'd have a lock on us."

Vance glanced at the IRWR. Daedalus's infrared laser scanners were still tracking the wing of MiG interceptors, now at twenty-two thousand feet and closing.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "We've got to get off the deck soon, while we still have fuel. Either that or we'll have to ditch at sea."

"Comrade Vance, the Daedalus is a marvelous platform, but when we go for altitude, we're going to be vulnerable. There's no getting around it. This vehicle was intended to perform best at the edge of space, not down here."

"All right," he said slowly. "Then why not take her there? Use the scramjets. We may be running out of JP-7, but we have a load of liquid hydrogen. Maybe this is the moment to finally find out if this thing can burn it."

"I'm-I'm afraid. After what happened when we pulled out of the power dive, I'm not sure I could handle the G-load necessary to power in the scramjets." Yuri paused. "The tourniquet has almost paralyzed my arm. I don't have the kind of control and timing we'd need. If I thought I could-but no. I hate to say it, even think it, but maybe we have no choice but to give up and turn back."

"Not yet," Vance said. "Maybe there's one other possibility." Friday 10:01 A.M.

"They still are not acknowledging," Tanzan Mino said grimly. "We don't know their exact vector, but they will have to gain altitude soon. When they do…" He turned to General Sokolov. "Radio Dolinsk and confirm the order."

This was the moment Valentin Sokolov had been dreading. The AA-9 missile, which was carried on the MiG 31’s recessed underfuselage stations, came in two versions: the active radar homing model and the heat-seeking infrared design. He suspected that Daedalus had enough Stealth and ECM capabilities to partially defeat radar, but Stealth couldn't mask IR.

Sooner or later, Androv would have to make his move, come off the deck. And when he did, the MiGs would pick him up and it would be over.

But that was still preferable to letting Daedalus fall into the hands of the Americans. So if Androv refused to answer his radio and comply with the call-back, there'd be no choice. Friday 10:02 A.M.

"What do you mean?" Androv asked, wiping at his brow.

Vance took a deep breath. "We've got no choice. You know what I'm thinking."

"We'll need ten G's of acceleration to power in the scramjets, my friend." He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. His face was now drawn with pain, but the bleeding had stopped. Above them, Petra silently flew the plane and flashed messages on the screens. "I've trained for years," he continued finally. "Even with your inflatable G-suit, you couldn't possibly take the G-loads and stay conscious."

"What other choice is there? Either I try, or we ditch down there in the Sea of Okhotsk. Personally, I'd rather go out like a shooting star, taking our chances."

"It's not that simple. The scramjets are designed to be powered in at Mach 4.8. We dare not risk that below at least forty thousand feet. There are aerodynamic reasons. In fact, they're not really intended to be used below sixty thousand."

"Well," Vance said, "if we started our ascent at max throttle, what kind of airspeed could we capture by forty thousand? Could we achieve Mach 4.8?"

"Only if we used afterburners. Which means we'd probably have only about ten minutes of JP-7 left for landing later." He laughed sadly. "Assuming there's anywhere we could land."

"How about Heathrow? I know a Japanese banker who'd probably love to have this vehicle as collateral for a few billion in Eurodollar debentures he's being forced to underwrite. He's a friend of mine and I owe him a favor."

"You want to turn this plane over to some banker?" He was visibly startled. "We can't ignore the fact that it still belongs, technically, to Mino Industries."

"My friend's a big boy. He'll work it out, Yakuza-style. Don't worry." He glanced up at the fuel gauges. They now had twenty minutes left. Just enough to get back to the facility and give up? Or go all the way.

"Eva, what do you say. Want to give it a shot?"

"I'm game. One thing's for sure; I have no intention of going back to get ourselves murdered by Tanzan Mino. If we can make it to the other side of the world by burning hydrogen, then…"

"Maybe, just maybe Petra could help enough for you to manage it." Androv paused to collect his strength. "I don't know if you can stay conscious through the ten G's of acceleration needed to initiate the scramjets. But I know for sure I can't, not in my current state. You might as well give it a try." He turned to Eva and continued in Russian. "There's an emergency back-up pressure suit in that locker beneath Petra's main screen. See if you can put it on. You'll still probably pass out, but don't worry, the 'event' is only temporary. After we go through the hypersonic barrier, acceleration will subside. Down to three, maybe four G's."

"I'll get the suit," she said, starting to unbuckle her straps.

"Okay, we'd better get started." Vance was crossing the cabin. The nose cameras were showing the spray of white- caps directly below them. If they'd passed any fishing vessels, he mused, there were probably stories of flying saucers already going around. The passive IRWR scanner was still tracking the wing of MiG 31s, now at a hundred and thirty kilometers, approximately eighty miles, and closing. Daedalus was almost within the kill perimeter of the MiG 31s and their AA-9 missiles.

The radio crackled, something in Russian. Yuri Androv stared at the flight helmet, then looked down at the console and flipped a switch.

"I copy you, Firefight One," he replied in Russian. "Over."