Dale Brown - Dreamland

“Well, we’re not closed down yet,” said Gleason.

“No, not yet.” Jeff grabbed the wheels of his chair. “You’re blowing off the preflight briefing?”

“No, sir,” said the young scientist. She glanced back at him. “We had the discrete-burst module reengineered last night, and I’m getting it in place. I’m almost finished.”

“You did it again?”

“The last one failed the shock test after you, huh, went home.”

“You should have called me.”

“Well, matter of fact, we did.”

“I was over in the visiting officers’ hall. I didn’t feel like going all the way out to Ewen,” he added lamely.

“Anyway, I’m just about done. Everybody else is inside.” Jennifer smiled at him, then went back to whatever it was she was doing. She’d tucked her long hair up under a white smock cap; a single strand draped down across her neck, hanging down over her shoulder. Her breasts pushed against her lab coat as she leaned into the machine; he could see the outline of her nipples against the fabric.

Stop, he warned himself, rolling forward to the small room they used to brief their missions.

Everyone was there – including Breanna, who as sitting at the far end of the table talking to Lee Ong. Ong was responsible for the Flighthawks’ physical systems and acted as the ‘mission boss,’ coordinating the many details involved in the airborne tests.

So why was Bree here?

“Good morning,” said Zen, wheeling himself toward the front of the room. “Jennifer should be in shortly.”

He glanced around the room, carefully avoiding Breanna’s gaze. “Where’s Bobby?” he asked, referring to the usual pilot of the E-3 mother ship.

“Captain Fernandez has the flu,” said Breanna. “So does Kathy. I volunteered to fly Boeing in their place.”

Zen snapped his head toward her.

“You don’t have problem with that, do you?” She said defensively. “Pete Brinks is coming over to copilot.”

“No, of course not, Captain,” he said. He turned to the others. “Captain Stockard flew Rivet intercept flights in RC-135’s when she was a teenager,” he them. “Maybe she’ll entertain us with stories about eavesdropping on Russian air defenses if things get boring.”

“Maybe I’ll just roll Boeing through an invert if things get boring,” she said.

Zen felt his face starting to flush as the others laughed. He turned the floor over to Ong, then rolled along the far side of the room toward the coffeepot at the back. Coffee was on eof the things he’d all but given up since the accident, but he didn’t want to sit out at the front where Breanna could stare at him.

It was possible that the two pilots assigned to fly Boeing were actually sick. And Breanna was at least arguably the next best choice on the base to take the mission; she had a lot of experience in the large jets. But it seemed to him like a hell of a coincidence.

Not to mention the fact that he should have been consulted about who would replace the other pilots. He hadn’t seen Mike this morning, nor had he talked to Ong. One of them must have made the call.

If Zen asked – when Zen asked – undoubtedly they’d give him the same line Jennifer had used. They’d tried calling him at home, blah-blah-blah.

And maybe they had. They could have called and gotten Bree. She would have instantly volunteered. That was Bree.

So maybe they weren’t conspiring against him. Even if it seemed that way.

He hadn’t gone home last night, and in fact hadn’t gone home for the past few nights. He was, in fact, avoiding her, trying to figure out what to do – or rather, how to do it.

Ong laid out the mission succinctly, setting the overall objective. They were going to put the Flighthawk through a series of low-altitude maneuvers to simulate a low-level penetration during an attack mission. The mother ship would follow behind it, first at five miles, then ten miles, then fifteen miles, and finally twenty. The extended distances were the point of the exercise; the Flighhawks had never been successfully controlled beyond seven miles while operating in Combat One, the secure communications mode.

Breanna then stood and reviewed her flight plan. Ordinarily this was, at best, a perfunctory part of the session. But Rap gave a precise, detailed briefing that covered everything from expected wind to fuel burn to radio rescue frequencies. She even included information about simulating an airdrop launch for the U/MFs, which the Boeing could not in fact handle. Jeff could tell the others were impressed that she’d done her homework.

Tough act to follow. He put down his coffee and began wheeling himself toward the front as she finished. With all the details already presented, his job was basically to ask if there were any questions and then give then a rah-rah to hit the door with.

He didn’t feel very rah-rah, though.

“We’ve gone over the courses and the distances,” he told them, faltering. “We, uh, we have complete satellite clearance through the morning. The Devil Canyon portion at the end of the flight is trickiest, because at twenty miles we have physical obstructions between the Boeing and the Flighthawk, assuming we’re at proper altitude – which of course we will be,” he added quickly, glancing toward Bree.

She was looking at him attentively, not glaring, not accusing, just watching.

“Look, I know it’s likely the project is going to be cut,” he said, looking back at the others. “There’s no reason to bullshit you guys. You’re too damn smart. There’s no political backing for the Flighthawks. You guys have been dealing with it for a hell of a lot longer than I have.”

He noticed one or two heads going up and down, saw a few frowns. Jennifer put her hands in front of her face as if she were going to cry.

“The thing is, we’re right. I know we’re right. The Flighthawks, U/MFs, are the way of the future,” Jeff said. “There’s a lot of work to be done, as we all know, but somewhere down the line, these guys are going to be saving a hell of a lot of lives. They’re going to keep pilots from getting their butts blown off.” He laughed. “Not every pilot. But a lot of them. and this is what’s going to happen. They’ll mothball us, close us down. We’ll all go on to better jobs. Me, I’m think McDonald’s. Can I supersize that for you, sir?” he mocked.

They laughed.

“But I’ll tell you what’s going to happen,” Zen continued. “Few years from now, maybe two, maybe ten, maybe twenty – hell, I don’t know, the future. Somebody’s going to find our work on a shelf somewhere, and they’re going to realize we were right. They’re going to pull our reports out and they are going to save themselves a ton of work. Probably enough work to save one or two pilots in the process. So we have to get as much done before they pull the plug. Bastian’s going to save Dreamland,” he added, “by doing what he has to do. so we have to hang tough and do what we have to do,” Zen wheeled backward, starting for the door. “Let’s go kick some butt out there today, huh?”

Zen left them in silence, wheeling out the door before they could react. He continued across the hangar and out onto the tarmac where the modified 707, ‘Boeing,’ waited.

The Flighthawk remote systems had grown even bigger since Zen’s accident. The U/MFs had been grounded for nearly nine months while the entire project was reviewed; computer capacity had been increased on the controlling end, adding to the stored emergency procedures and routines. In the interim, and unrelated to the accident, the cooling mechanisms for the secure communications gear had been ‘improved.’ These increased the remote computer pallet from the size of a Honda Accord to that of a Chevy Suburban with a weight problem. Not only did it no longer fit in an F-15E, it was a squeeze to make the rear of the Boeing.