Even in his earliest days as a B-52 navigator and bombardier, Patrick McLanahan never remembered moving this fast. Was it because these young guys just liked to hustle, or because the schedule was that compressed? It
Precisely at the prebriefed time, the crews loaded up the old bumpy two-gear blue school bus (at least that hadn’t changed — it seemed like the same old noisy school bus he had ridden in on the way to the B-52 flight line almost twenty years ago) and headed off. First stop was the life support shop, where they grabbed their flight and survival gear and checked oxygen masks and night-vision goggles. Rinc Seaver helped Patrick find his stuff and showed him how to operate the NVG tester, but they couldn’t dawdle because Rebecca Furness, her copilot, Heels Dewey, and the other crew were out the door and loading up. The next stop was base operations, where the crews received a weather briefing, filed their flight plans, checked Notices to Airmen, verified the maintenance status of the planes, got their box lunches from the in-flight kitchen, and took one last nervous pee.
This was the first opportunity Patrick had to take a breather and check out the other crewdogs as they made last-minute preparations before heading out to the flight line. The differences in the modern-day military kept surprising him. They made him feel a little — check that, a
Because the first thing he noticed was how young these guys were. Even though the Air National Guard usually employed veteran aviators, and this unit was definitely top-heavy with field-grade officers, these guys still looked damned young. Their slang and references — mimicking characters like Bart Simpson, Austin Powers, and Beavis and Butt-head seemed to be the big thing — made them seem younger still. They all had very short haircuts, wore perfectly clean flight suits and spit-shined boots, none of them smoked cigarettes (cigars, yes — even the women), and none of them used vulgarity routinely in conversation. They ate like ravenous wolves — all but Heels ordered two box lunches, one to eat in base ops and the other to take along on the flight — but they all seemed trim and fit, so lean, most of them, that they bordered on the anorexic.
Rinc Seaver was not typical of the new breed. While the others were chatty, chummy, and casual, Seaver was quiet, businesslike, and not very sociable. While the others had
What was it with this guy? Patrick wondered. He didn’t need to give Seaver a full-blown check ride to know he was more than competent — he was an expert in every aspect of the Bone. The other crew members in the squadron certainly didn’t resent him or resent his expertise, and it was plain that despite the crash, the feeling of detachment, of ostracism, even outright anger toward Seaver was pretty much in Seaver’s own mind. The other crewdogs didn’t resent anyone as long as he pulled his weight and supported the unit.
Furness motioned to Patrick, and they walked out into the hallway to talk without being overheard. “With all due respect, sir — this really sucks,” Furness said. Her voice was low but angry. Well, at least the
“Relax, Colonel,” Patrick said. “We take all this into account when we tally the score. But you know as well as I do that flexibility and replanning are standard operating procedure. ‘Flexibility is the key to air power.’”
Furness nodded, though her face was still rigid. “My boys will do fine, General, no matter what you toss at us.”
“That’s what I want to hear, Colonel…”
“But if I or any of my troops feel that any of this violates crew safety, I’m calling it off, and then I’ll gladly go nose-to-nose with you on who’s right,” Furness said. “Rank or no rank, no one endangers my crews.”
“My first concern is always crew safety, Colonel — but I’m also authorized to run this exercise any way I choose in order to fully evaluate your unit’s performance. That means I set the limits here, not you. I’m risking my own career by doing what I’m doing. If you squawk, you’d better be prepared to risk your career over it too. Clear?”
“No, sir, it’s not clear. Not one bit.”
“Things will become clearer to you as we go on, Colonel,” Patrick said.
Rebecca Furness squinted at the one-star general, trying to piece together what she had just heard. “General, what in hell is going on here? This isn’t about a pre-D or a check ride for Seaver, is it?”
“Don’t try to second-guess me, Colonel,” Patrick snapped. “This is my exercise. You do it my way, or you prepare to give up your command over your protest. Do you understand?” Furness had no choice but to agree. “Good. I suggest you let the game proceed, even though it might weird you out. Don’t turn your back on anything until you’re sure you have nothing to learn from it.” Furness did not argue, did not agree — she only looked more confused, although a tiny hint of intrigue and curiosity began to creep over her face. “Carry on.”
“Yes, sir,” Furness said. “We penetrate, decimate, and dominate. We never give up.”
“Ho-rah,” Patrick said, not smiling. They went back into the room, and he said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “The unit is looking real good so far, Colonel. I’m looking forward to shacking some targets today. Anything else for me?”
“No,
The excitement level began to build as they headed out to the flight line several minutes later. Security was tight, but once the security guards checked line badges and inspected the crew bus with dogs and mirrors, they seemed just as keyed up about the upcoming mission and deployment as the aircrew members. Even the young airman-first-class bus driver gave them a “Go kick some ass, sir,” as they stepped off the bus at their aircraft parking spot. In the “old days,” when Patrick pulled a crew, the “sky cops,” the maintainers, the support specialties, and crewdogs all lived in separate worlds. Even though everyone respected one another’s work and knew that they all played for the same team, they knew little about what anyone else on base really did. There was always a certain degree of ambivalence and even resentment.
Not here. It felt to Patrick like a pro football team, where offense, defense, special teams, coaches, trainers, and fans all cheered equally loudly before, during, and after every play.
Furness, Dewey, and Seaver stepped off the bus and quickly carried their gear to their plane. But Patrick couldn’t help but stop and admire the plane itself. He had a couple of hundred hours’ flying time in the Bone, including second-in-command time, plus another few hundred hours in various simulators and procedures trainers, but he looked at this one as if it were the first time he’d ever seen a B-1B Lancer.
The best phrase to describe it was “deadly-looking.” He had always used that term to describe his EB-52 Megafortress bomber, the experimental high-tech B-52 Stratofortress bomber that he had worked on and flown into combat for many years. With the Bone, however, that phrase really stuck. The EB-52 was a souped-up B-52 with a pointed nose and other aerodynamic enhancements, but it still had the bulk, the huge thick wings, and the presence of a big, lumbering bomber — the various enhancements worked very well, but they definitely looked “tacked on,” retrofitted.
The B-1 looked sleek and deadly because it had been designed that way from the beginning. Unlike the B-52s, nothing was hanging off the wings or the fuselage. All weapons were carried internally, and the wings were thin, supercritical airfoils that swept back for high-speed flight. From its long, pointed nose to its gracefully swept “lifting body” fuselage, to its thin wings, to its swept and pointed tail, it looked fast even sitting on the ground. But it was every bit as large as the EB-52, and it could do far more things.
The rising sun spilled over the Sierra Nevada and began to shine on the flight line, surrounding Patrick’s Bone with golden light. It was then that he knew his future was going to be with this war machine. He had worked on many different high-tech planes and weapons at Dreamland, but none of them had the potential that the B-1 had right now. He realized that he was looking at the new Megafortress.
Brad Elliott had created the EB-52 Megafortress. That was his legacy. This plane was going to be Patrick McLanahan’s legacy.
He quickly rejoined his crew at the base of the one-story-tall nose landing gear, and Rinc Seaver began reviewing and briefing the Form 781 aircraft logbooks, going over any recent problems and making sure all the required sign-offs were there. Patrick met the crew chief and two assistant crew chiefs, remarking again to himself
