'The ship,' Elliott asked. 'Your ship. The Old Dog.'
'Old Dog?' McLanahan rolled his eyes in exasperation.
'Good recruiting technique, General. I'm supposed to get excited about a plane called the Old Dog?'
'You will,' he said.
'Is this thing for real?' Briggs asked. McLanahan would have posed a similar question had he been able to speak; instead, he stood dumbstruck, staring at the massive form of the Megafortress.
They did a walk around inspection of the airplane. General Elliott let them walk at their own pace, answering all their questions.
'It can't be the same airplane,' McLanahan said finally, running his fingers across the slippery skin. 'This can't be a B-52.'
'A wolf in sheep's clothing,' Elliott asked. 'I assure you.'
Briggs entered the bomb bay and McLanahan followed him in a moment later.
'Expecting trouble, General?' McLanahan remarked. He examined the missiles. 'Scorpions!Eight… no, ten of them!On a B-52!
They've just come out with these things.
They're not even modified for the F-15 yet. And you've got twelve more on the wings. I don't believe it.'
Briggs read the lower missiles on the rotary launcher.
'HARM. What's HARM?'
'Antiradiation missiles,' McLanahan asked. 'Homes in on and attacks radar-guided antiaircraft gun and missile sites. 'He looked at Elliott, and the young man's gaze caused the general's smile to fade a bit. 'Trouble and a half, I'd say.'
'Nine-tenths of everything on the Megafortress is geared toward self-defense and target penetration,' Elliott explained.
'That has been my number-one priority. This is just a test-bed aircraft. Over the past few years, we've just kept on adding refinements to it. Building a better mousetrap, I guess. 'He patted the bomber's smooth skin. 'We're going to incorporate the data we get from our best sorties into several other types of aircraft, notably the B-1.
'Let's go inside,' Elliott said finally. 'The technicians are doing a simulated flight on the avionics right now. It'll give you a chance to see your new gear operate downstairs. 'They received clearance from the guards surrounding the huge bomber and climbed inside. Out of instinct, McLanahan immediately climbed into the left seat and scanned the instrument panel before him-his hand even positioned itself on the crosshair tracking handle as if drawn there by magnetism. Briggs, standing behind them near the aft bulkhead door leading to the forward wheel well, merely stood and gaped at the cramped compartment.
'Simple, direct, high-speed, highly accurate navigation equipment,' Elliott asked. 'Satellite global navigation, with position accuracy down to twenty feet, time down to the hundredth of a second, and groundspeed down to the quarterknot. Plus an inertial navigation system with a ring-laser gyro with heading accuracy to the tenth of a degree after twelve unupdated hours.
McLanahan rested his hands near the computer terminal, studied the keyboard and the video monitor, and then said, 'You took the second navigator's seat out. Where's he going to sit?'
'Second navigator?' Elliott was genuinely startled. 'Patrick, I just explained to you. This thing has automatic accuracy a navigator only dreams about. You can handle it yourself.
Why do you need someone else?'
'What if all this stuff is destroyed?What if it dumps?' a 'Dumps?'
Elliott looked insulted. 'You can't dump this 10 6 stuff. If you turn off all the power, the ring-laser gyro has a 1121 half-hour backup battery. Once power is restored, the gyro realigns in ninety seconds back to original specifications. And it'll take one satellite cycle-about ten minutes-for the GPS to find itself and start navigating again. It doesn't dump.'
'Well, sir,' McLanahan said, 'I don't know. 'He studied the controls on the left side and the small rack of relays and boxes behind him.
'You kept the original radar set, is that right, sir?'
'Yes,' Elliott said, looking puzzled. 'It's interfaced with the defensive weapons more, with target tracking modes and-' 'But I still have radar crosshairs?' he interrupted. 'Fixtaking capability?Wind runs?Altitude calibrations?'
'Yes, Yes,' Elliott said impatiently. 'You can still update the inertial navigation set with the radar set, and you can put a memory point wind into the system, but you don't need-' McLanahan didn't let him finish. He simply reached down to the radar controls near his left knee and, with both hands, pushed three buttons simultaneously.
The results were dramatic. Instantly, a relay behind McLanahan's ejection seat smoked and sputtered, every circuit breaker of the few remaining above McLanahan's head popped, and the entire lower deck compartment went completely dark.
'What the hell Elliott shouted.
A technician from the cockpit upstairs dashed over to the hatch connecting the upper and lower decks and shined a flashlight on the enraged three-star general.
'What happened down there?' he asked timidly.
'How the hell should I know!' Elliott asked. 'Get down here and-' 'The BNS a/c exciter power circuit breakers are popped down here,' McLanahan said calmly from the darkness.
Briggs could be heard breathing in the background. 'You'll find the BNS right TR control circuit breaker popped on the right load central panel upstairs, along with the RDPS power supply breakers number one, two, the plus six hundred volt, and the negative three hundred/negative one-fifty volt breakers down here. That smell is the left BNS control system relay. No replacement is usually carried in the spares box.
'Everything tied into the BNS radar is dead, General,' McLanahan said.
'I can swap around components and bring the radar back, but it won't bring back all the associated equipment including the inertial navigation set and these monitors and keyboard. The satellite system is still operational and it may know where it is, sir, but it can't tell you because there's no screen. I've also erased the navigation waypoints stored in the computer memory, and I'll bet the cartridge reader is dead, also. No automatic navigation.'
'God damn it!' Elliott said.
'General, may I make a suggestion, sir…'Briggs said.
'Do it and you'll be guarding a commissary warehouse in Iceland, Briggs!' the general snapped. 'Masuroki, get the damn power back on.
'But I don't…'
'Reset the power cart first before it drops off the line completely,' McLanahan offered, 'Then reset the circuit breakers. The ECM and fire-control stuff will need to be turned off and rewarmed up before you do that. That takes thirty minutes-and with all the stuff you've added, probably closer to an hour. I'll need a new relay down here.'
He made a little pause, then added, 'And a right ejection seat. And a sextant.
And a nav- 'That's unrealistic, Patrick,' Elliott said as Masuroki scrambled to restore power. 'You're not going to hit all those controls all at once like that.'
'That simulates about a half-dozen ways to overload the BNS left control relay, General,' McLanahan asked. 'A little moisture, a bad wire, some sort of voltage spike or surgepoof!'
General Elliott thought of the skimpy intelligence data Curtis had shown him-the last words of the crew of the downed RC- 1 35.The awesome power of the strange radar they had encountered… the thought made him wince in the cramped darkness of the Megafortress.
'All right, all right, hotshot,' Elliott said, exasperated. 'I guess I got a bit carried away with my toys down here. Let's get out of here.
You'll be spending enough time in this beast, anyway.
As they climbed down the ladder, Briggs turned to the general and said, 'I think you found the right dude for the job, General.
'Yes,' Elliott agreed. He was silent for a moment, then said, 'But I'm worried about exactly what the job will turn out to be.'
