Matthew Reilly: Ice Station

Damn it , Schofield thought. Whoever this is, he's operating under stealth .

"Blue Leader, this is Lieutenant Shane Schofield, United States Marines Corps. I am flying an unmarked US Air Force prototype fighter-bomber. I mean you no harm."

Schofield looked out the canopy to his left.

He saw six tiny dots on the horizon.

" Unidentified aircraft. You are to follow us under escort back to the U.S. Navy carrier Enterprise, where you will he debriefed ."

Schofield said, "Blue Leader, I do not wish to be taken under escort?"

"Then you will be fired upon, unidentified aircraft."

Schofield bit his tongue. "Blue Leader, identify yourself."

"What?"

"What is your name, Blue Leader?"

"My name is Captain John F. Yates, United States Air Force, and I want you to surrender to escort formation now!"

Yates , Schofield thought, grabbing another sheet of paper from his own pocket. There it was.

YATES, JOHN F. USAF CPTN

"What is this, an ICG convention?" Schofield said to himself.

At that moment, six F-22s swooped into place around Schofield's plane. Two in front. Two on the sides. Two behind. They all kept their distance, approximately two hundred yards. Their presence never registered on Schofield's radar even though he could see them.

Suddenly a shrill buzzing sound droned out from Schofield's cockpit speakers.

The F-22s had missile lock on him.

Schofield said, "What are your intentions, Captain Yates?"

" Our intention is to get you back to the United States carrier Enterprise and debrief you ."

"Do you intend to fire on me?"

"Let's not make this harder than it's already going to be."

"Do you intend to fire on me!"

"Good-bye, Scarecrow."

Oh, fuck!

They were going to fire. Schofield looked frantically around the cockpit for something to?

His eyes fell on a button on his display.

CLOAK MODE.

What the hell, you've got nothing to lose .... Schofield hit the cloak button just as, two hundred yards behind him, the lead F-22 launched one of its missiles.

What happened next was nothing short of incredible.

Captain John Yates?Blue Leader?looked out through the canopy of his F-22. In the dull orange twilight over the ocean Yates saw the black aircraft hovering in the air in front of him, saw the luminescent red glow of its tail thrusters.

Then he saw the white vapor trail of his own missile as it streaked away from his wing and headed in toward the black fighter's thrusters.

As the missile raced toward its target, a shimmering haze suddenly descended upon the black fighter. The sight was absolutely amazing. It looked like a shimmering, rippling heat haze?like the kind that hangs over a highway on a hot summer's day?and it just descended over the black fighter as if someone were lowering a curtain over it.

Suddenly the black plane was gone.

Yates's missile went berserk.

With its initial target lost, the missile immediately began searching for another target.

It found it in one of the F-22s flying in front of Schofield's Silhouette . The missile shot into the tailpipe of the forward F-22 and the stealth fighter exploded bright orange in the dark twilight sky.

Yates was stunned. Voices shouted over his headset.

"? just disappeared ?"

" ?fucking thing just vanished !?"

Yates checked his scopes. The black fighter didn't appear on his radar. He searched the sky for the black plane with his eyes. He couldn't see it, couldn't see it anywhe?

And then he saw it.

Or at least he thought he saw it.

Overlaid on the orange horizon Yates saw a shimmering body of air. It looked like a warped glass lens, a lens that had been superimposed on the flat horizon, causing one short section of that horizon to ripple continuously.

He couldn't believe his eyes.

Inside the Silhouette , Schofield was already flicking switches.

The missile had missed him and he could hear the comments of the F-22 pilots over his own radio. The F-22s couldn't see him. It was time to fight back.

"Renshaw! Bring Gant up here! Wendy, too!"

Renshaw brought Gant forward, into the back section of the cockpit. Wendy loped into the cockpit behind him.

"Shut the cockpit door," Schofield said.

Renshaw shut the door. They were now cut off from the missile bay in the belly of the Silhouette .

Schofield flicked a final switch and saw a red warning light appear on his computer screen.

MISSILES ARMED. TARGETING...

The screen began to flash.

5 TARGETS ACQUIRED. READY TO FIRE.

Schofield jammed down on his thumb trigger.

At that moment, the missile bay door of the Silhouette opened and the two racks in the missile bay began to rotate.

One after the other, five missiles dropped through the missile bay doors and out into the sky. Schofield watched as the missiles streaked away from him and began searching for their targets like bloodhounds.

The first F-22 exploded in a giant fireball. When it went up in flames, the other F-22 pilots shouted as one.

"? missile just came out of the fucking sky !?"

"? can't see him anywhere ?"

"? bastard's using some sort of cloaking device ?"

A couple of the F-22 pilots hit their afterburners, but it was no use.

More missiles shot out from the shimmering body of air that was the Silhouette . Three hit their targets right away, blasted them to smithereens.

The sixth and final F-22 tried to make a run for it. It managed to get a mile away before the missile that had acquired it?the last missile to drop from the rotating missile racks inside the Silhouette ?slammed into its tailpipe and blew it to hell.

Inside the Silhouette , Schofield breathed a sigh of relief. As he turned north, he keyed his radio again. "USS Wasp . Come in. USS Wasp . Please. Come in."

After several tries, there finally came a reply. " Unidentified aircraft, this is Wasp. Identify yourself ." Schofield gave his name and service number. The person at the other end checked it and then said,

"Lieutenant Schofield, it's good to hear from you. The flight deck has been cleared. You have clearance to land. I am sending you our coordinates now."

The Silhouette flew into the night

The USS Wasp , the Marine Corps' aircraft carrier-like vessel, was about eighty nautical miles from Schofield. It would take about fifteen minutes to cruise there.

In the luminescent green glow of his indicator dials Schofield stared out at the orange horizon. He had lifted the cloaking device and was allowing the plane to go on autopilot for a while.

The previous twenty-four hours flitted through his mind.

The French. The British. The ICG. His own men who had died on a mission that was never meant to succeed. Faces flashed across his mind. Hollywood. Samurai. Book. Mother. Soldiers who had died so that their country could lay its greedy hands on some extraterrestrial technology that never was.

A deep sadness fell over Schofield.

He leaned forward and began flicking some switches. The screen in front of him flashed:

MISSILE ARMED. TARGETING ...

Schofield quickly hit another switch.

MANUAL TARGETING SELECTED.

He maneuvered the target selector on the screen until he found the target he was looking for. He pressed the select button on his stick.

Several other option screens appeared and Schofield calmly chose the options he wanted.

SET DELAY PERIOD: 23:00 MINS. SAFETY MEASURES: DEACTIVATED.