Battle Born

“So what do you think, General?” Rinc Seaver asked.

“I think I’d hate to see the underside of this plane after we land,” Patrick replied.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause on interphone. Finally, Rinc said, “I think we were okay.”

The first target-of-opportunity message, from the SATCOM text terminal, came in a few moments later, and Rebecca’s crew broke off and took it, leaving Rinc’s sortie in the holding pattern. Patrick got a call on the SATCOM secure voice channel several minutes later: “Go ahead, Amarillo. How did Aces do?”

“Shack — no problem,” David Luger responded. “We heard about the F-15 getting fragged too. The commander of the 366th at Mountain Home wants some butts.”

“He might get some.”

“Roger that. Listen up, Muck. We got some shit happening in Korea.”

“Korea? Did the North invade? I don’t believe it! During Team Spirit?”

“No, it wasn’t the North — it was the South,” Luger responded. “Do you believe it? South Korea invaded North Korea. Happened a little while ago. And get this: no massive invasion force. Apparently, the South has been spreading propaganda and stirring up shit in the North for months, maybe years. When the South started in, most of the North’s defense network was already shut down. The civilians that aren’t hotfooting it for the South are marching on the capital, getting ready to tear the place down. Looks like it’s a South-assisted nonmilitary revolution in North Korea.”

“Hol-ee shit,” Patrick exclaimed. “I never would’ve expected that. I always thought of the North as this big monolithic Big Brother ultra-Marxist dictatorship. Who would have thought the South could ever pull off something like that.”

“I don’t have all the details, but from what I’ve read, the North was going to implode under the weight of two million starving citizens anyway,” Luger said. “But here’s the real news, Muck: the North launched Nodongs and Scuds on the South. About a dozen ballistic missile attacks.”

“Any special weapons?”

“I’m talking only about special weapons, Muck,” Dave said somberly. “The Patriots got most of them, but a few fifty-KT nukes and a bunch of bio-chem warheads made it through. The South didn’t get hit as hard as everyone thought they might, but they got hit pretty good.”

“Oh God,” Patrick mumbled. He thought about the horrible loss of life, and he thought about the three rather small but dangerously significant nuclear conflicts in the past five years, and what this world was transforming itself into as his young son was growing up…

… but what he really thought about was Lancelot, his B-1-based antiballistic missile weapon system. If Asia was teetering on the brink of a major conflict, possibly a thermonuclear war, his air-launched antiballistic missile missiles might be the secret to defending American interests in that region.

Was he thinking more and more like Brad Elliott these days? Was that how Brad corrupted his career and ultimately destroyed himself, consumed with developing a response to a world crisis no matter what the cost? Patrick shook off those thoughts. Those were questions for another time, another place, perhaps with a therapist, with his wife, Wendy, and a glass of Banff-shire Balvenie in the hot tub. Right now, he had to put his plan into motion.

“Dave, I’ve got the first two Lancelot units lined up here,” Patrick said. “I would like to talk with Earthmover ASAP.” “Earthmover” was HAWC commander General Terrill Samson’s call sign.

“You got it,” Luger responded. “You going to terminate the pre-D now?”

Patrick thought for a moment, then replied, “Call out to Tonopah and tell the squadron to get ready to copy new deployment orders. In six hours, have them land at Groom Lake.”

“What!” Luger exclaimed. “You want the squadron at Dreamland? ”

“Amarillo, I know in my gut that Lancelot is going to get a green light,” Patrick said. “From what the general told us, the 111th is going to get decertified and lose their bombers once word of this bust goes up the chain of command. Well, possession is four-fifths of ownership. I’ve got first dibs on the B-1Bs, and I’m taking them to Dreamland. You say we’ve got two kits ready to install and two more kits on the way — I’m going to install them, starting tonight. Clear out Foxtrot row for seven Bones, have the Support Squadron get some TLQs ready, and have Engineering stand by to start installing Lancelot.”

“You got it, Muck,” Dave Luger said happily. “Messages going out as we speak. I should get security clearance to recover planes within the hour. Hot damn! We’re either going to get kicked in the ass or get us a bomb squadron tonight. Firebird out.”

Patrick switched back to normal interphone and keyed his mike button: “D is back up, crew. SATCOM voice available again. Listen up, crew. We’re going to divert to a different anchor. Colonel Long, I’ll give you some coordinates to plug in.”

“Is the pre-D over?” Rinc asked.

“For now,” Patrick said. “I’ve got a reason for doing all this. If you show me something, I’ll let you all in on it.”

“I knew there was something else going down!” Rinc exclaimed. “I knew this was no ordinary pre-D. What are you planning, General?”

“Stand by,” Patrick said. He recited a series of new navigation coordinates for Long, verified them carefully, then said, “Okay, crew, listen up. Pilot, first, notify Two-Zero that you want them to stay at this orbit point after they get done until we come back and get them. Call Los Angeles Center and get them their own Mode Three code.”

“We going somewhere without our wingman, General?”

“Just tell them,” Patrick ordered. Rinc did as he was told.

“Okay, General, the steering is good to a new orbit point.”

“Roger.” Patrick had Seaver engage the autopilot. Then he set special codes in the Mode One portion of the IFF and activated Mode Two and Mode Four beacon codes. “Pilot, once you reach the reference point, give me a racetrack pattern on a southerly heading at best endurance speed, two minute legs, left turns at half standard rate. If L.A. Center or Joshua Approach gives you a warning message telling you you’re heading for a hot restricted area, I’ll give you a PPR number, but my crew should’ve already coordinated our entry. They may assign you a new Mode Three code, probably with a ‘zero-one’ prefix; go ahead and set whatever they tell you.”

“Entry? Entry into what?”

“We’re entering R-4808 North.”

“That’s not approved, General,” Long said. “That’s off limits. Way off limits. We can lose our wings and go to jail for busting that airspace.”

“Not today you won’t,” Patrick said. “Just do as I said, and hope that your ground crews set your Mode Two and Mode Four codes correctly or we’ll all be in big trouble.” The bomber immediately rolled into a turn — Patrick could feel the tension building.

“While we’re navigating to the new orbit anchor, I’ll explain what’s going to happen,” Patrick went on. “Here’s the situation: the Bones are going to act like tactical attack aircraft. No more straight and level bombing. Every target is a target of opportunity. Got it?”

“Cool!” Rinc Seaver exclaimed.

“I’m willing to give it a try,” Oliver Warren said. “It’ll be like the old F-4 Wild Weasel days — cruise around until a threat pops up, then go in after it.”

“Exactly,” Patrick said.

“We don’t have the equipment or the training for something like that, General,” Long remarked.

“We’re going to have to simulate it for now,” Patrick said. “I want to go through the motions and see what potential problems we might have. Okay: This morning we’re looking for ballistic missile launches. We can receive intelligence or reconnaissance data on the presence of mobile launchers in our area using radar planes like Joint STARS, and spot a missile launch using… other sensors, but today we have to spot the launches ourselves. Once you spot a launch, you need to cob the power and lead the missile’s flight path.”

“This sounds like total nonsense, General sir,” John Long protested. “It’s unrealistic…”

“It’s totally unrealistic, Colonel,” Patrick admitted, “but it’s the best we can do with a stock B-1B.”

“Does that mean there’re Bones out there that aren’t ‘stock’?” Rinc asked. “We got Bones that are set up for this kind of thing?”