Dale Brown - End Game

Actually, Captain Stewart didn’t relish flying the Levitow, or any Megafortress, much at all. She’d been a B-1 jock and had come to Dreamland to work in a project designed to test the B-1 for conversion similar to the EB-52 Megafortress. A week after she arrived, the project’s funding was cut and she was pressed into the Megafortress program as a copilot. She outranked a lot of the other copilots and even pilots in the program, but because she was a low-timer in the aircraft, she’d been relegated to second seat by the program’s temporary head, Captain Breanna Stockard. Worse, Breanna had made Stewart her copilot.

Bad enough to fly what was still essentially a B-52 after the hotter-than-fire B-1B. Worse – much, much worse – to be second officer after running the show.

Today, though, Stewart was boss. Her nemesis had been scrubbed at the last minute due to a snowstorm in Chicago.

‘EEMWB detonation in twenty seconds,’ said Lieutenant Sergio ‘Jazz’ Jackson, who was serving as her copilot.

‘Yup.’

A tone sounded in her headphones, indicating that the weapon had detonated. Stewart hot-keyed her communications unit to tell the event commander, but got no response.

She pulled back on the stick slightly, but the airplane failed to move.

Had the shielding failed?

Only partially – her configurable control panel was still lit.

She’d go to manual control right away.

Interphone working?

‘Prepare for manual control,’ she said.

‘Manual?’ said Jazz.

Immediately, Stewart realized what had happened – she’d turned the aircraft over to the flight control computer for the missile launch as part of the test protocol, and neglected to take it back.

It was a boneheaded mistake that would cost her at least two rounds of beers. Thank God the Iron Bitch hadn’t been here to see it.

‘I mean, taking over control from the computer,’ Stewart told Jazz lamely.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said the copilot.

‘Dreamland Levitow,’ said the event controller. ‘Please repeat your transmission. I’m sorry – we were caught up in something here.’

I’ll bet, thought Stewart, not entirely convinced that Breanna hadn’t somehow conspired with them to make her look bad.

Dr Ray Rubeo, Dreamland’s head scientist, was waiting for Colonel Bastian as he unfolded himself from the Raptor’ s cockpit.

‘So how’d we do, Doc?’ Dog asked, coming down the ladder. Techies were already swarming over the Raptor, preparing it for a complete overhaul. Besides thoroughly analyzing the shielding and systems for signs of damage from the T-Rays, the engineering team was planning a number of improvements to the plane, including a new wing structure that would lower its unfueled weight by five percent.

‘It’s premature to speculate,’ said Rubeo.

‘Do it anyway.’

Rubeo frowned. ‘I’m sure that when the results are analyzed, the models predicting the impact of the weapon will be shown to be quite correct. All of the test instruments reported full hits. And,’ he paused dramatically, ‘one of the ground technicians forgot to remove his watch, and now finds that it no longer functions.’

Dog laughed. The scientist touched his earring – a habit, the colonel knew, that meant he was planning to say something he considered unpleasant. Dog decided to head him off at the pass.

‘Ray, if the full-sized weapons won’t be ready for testing –’

‘Bah. They’re sitting in the bunker, all eight of them. Though the tests are unnecessary.’

Then obviously I’m about to get harangued for more money, thought Dog, starting toward the Jimmy SUV waiting to take him over to the hangar area where he could change. Sure enough, Rubeo fell in alongside him and made the pitch.

‘If you are going to proceed with the project, Colonel, I need several more technicians to assist while the team is away.’

‘Can’t do it, Ray. You’ve seen the budget.’

‘Colonel, we are past squeezing water from a stone. We need more people.’

Dog stopped to watch Dreamland Levitow practicing touch and goes on the nearby runway. As part of a new policy at Dreamland, the EB-52 Megafortress had been named for Sergeant John L. Levitow, an Air Force Medal of Honor winner. A crewman in an AC-47 gunship during the Vietnam War, Sergeant Levitow had thrown himself on a live flare inside the hold of his damaged aircraft following a mortar hit. Despite numerous wounds, he managed to toss the flare outside of the aircraft before it ignited, saving the entire plane.

Rubeo renewed his pitch as the plane passed overhead. ‘Colonel – we need more people.’

‘If the EEMWB project gets funding, we’ll have more slots.’

‘Only if it’s approved as part of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Program, which it shouldn’t be.’

Rubeo had made this point before: The EEMWB was not a good ABM weapon, since the lead in technology would last, by his estimate, no longer than five years. And it was not selective – everything in the area was disabled, not just the target. Dog didn’t disagree, but he didn’t see that as an argument against proceeding with the weapon, which would provide a decent solution until other technologies matured. And he especially thought this was a good idea since it would help him get the people Rubeo needed.

‘We have to be practical,’ said Dog.

‘Colonel, I’m the most practical scientist I know.’

‘That isn’t saying much, Ray,’ Dog told him, climbing into the truck.

Captain Sattari felt the slight burn at the top of his shoulders as he paddled in unison with the others, propelling the small boat toward their target. The wind came at them from the west, trying to push them off course. They compensated for it as they stroked, but the boat still drew a jagged line forward.

Sattari allowed himself a glance to the other three craft, gauging his performance; it seemed to him that their boat was doing better than two of the others, and not much worse than Sergeant Ibn’s, which was in the lead.

The raft lurched with a sudden swell. Sattari gripped his oar firmly and dug at the water, stroking hard and smooth. His instructor had claimed propelling a boat was a matter of finesse, not strength, but the man had rowed every day of his life for years, and surely took strength for granted. Sattari’s chest rose and fell with the roll of his shoulders, as if he were part of a large machine. He heard the hard, short breaths of the men around him, and tried to match them.

A light blinked ahead. Ibn’s boat had stopped a few meters away. They changed their paddling and surged next to the other raft with a well-practiced flare. First test passed, thought Sattari. He reached for his night glasses and scanned around them as the other boats drew up.

Sergeant Ibn moved in the other raft until he was alongside his commander.

‘No sign of the Indian warship,’ said Ibn.

‘No. Nor the helicopter.’

A helicopter had nearly run into one of the airplanes roughly seventy miles from shore. Captain Sattari was not sure where it had come from. It seemed too far from Port Somalia to belong to the small Indian force there, nor had the spies reported one. The Somalian air force had no aircraft this far north, and it seemed unlikely that it had come from Yemen.

‘The helicopter most likely belonged to a smuggler,’ said Ibn.

‘Perhaps,’ said Captain Sattari. ‘In any event, let us proceed.’

‘God is great.’

Sattari put his glasses back in their pouch and began helping the four men on his boat who would descend to the pipes below them to plant their explosive charges. The charges they carried were slightly bigger than a large suitcase, and each team had to place two on the thick pipes below.