'Give me the leg brief, Linds,' Franken said.
'I don't feel so good….'
'The leg brief, me,' he ordered sternly. 'Right now.'
The voice got her attention, and the discipline and routine got her mind off her churning stomach. 'First heading one-nine-five, leg time twelve minutes fifteen seconds, auto TF descent,' Lindsey recited. 'Level-off altitude two thousand feet… set and verified. The SA-10 site at SAM is our first threat. I've got only air traffic control search radars up now.'
At the initial point, Franken issued voice commands to the EB-52 Megafortress's flight computer, and the big aircraft responded-it started a ten-thousand-foot-per-minute descent, automatically retarding the throttles to keep the airspeed under the red line. All he had to do was monitor the computers, keep up with his ears as the cabin pressurization changed, and watch out for floating objects as the fast descent created some negative Gs, almost like being weightless. Franken kept an eye on Lindsey-if she was going to hurl, it would be now. But she was wearing her combat face now, and nothing would interfere with it-he hoped.
The pilot's side of the instrument panel had three sixteen-color multifunction displays (MFDs) that showed the route of flight, flight instruments, engine instruments, and system status readouts; Franken could switch between the displays with simple voice commands. Three more MFDs in the center instrument panel had fuel, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, threat, and weapon status readouts, with conventional backup instruments and gauges underneath. The mission commander's instrument panel was dominated by a supercockpit display, a huge one-by-twofoot computer screen that showed a variety of information, all selected by the mission commander and controlled by voice commands or by a trackball on the right side. Two more MFDs on either side of the supercockpit display showed systems readouts and warning messages.
Their course was depicted on Lindsey's display as a roadway, with the road as the computer-recommended altitude. Symbols showed known and detected threats and obstacles. Two large upside-down green cones either side of course represented the search radars in eastern Libya, with the 'roadway' threading precisely between and underneath the edges of the cones; more cones represented Egyptian and naval search radars. Colored symbols all along the Libyan coastline represented the location of known antiaircraft threat sites, but so far none were active.
'Our first threat is an SA-10 site, two o'cloak, forty miles,' Lindsey reported. 'We should be underneath it in five minutes. We've got two Egyptian Roland sites at eleven o'clock-search radars only. We should be outside detection range. Egypt also has a Patriot site at extreme range, nine o'clock, fifty miles-we should be well clear. No fighters detected yet. LADAR coming on-our course is clear so far. We might have Libyan fighters at three o'clock, seventy miles-they're moving pretty fast, but they don't have radars on so we can't identify yet.' Lindsey kept up a constant litany of reports and observations. Although Franken had all that information right in front of him as well, it was reassuring to hear Lindsey reciting it all-two pairs of eyes scanning the instruments was always better than one, especially when the action got hot and heavy.
The computer-generated 'road' started to rise up to meet the aircraft depiction on their navigation displays, so both crew members monitored the level-off carefully. They performed a fast terrain-following system check, verified that everything was working normally. They were over water right now, forty miles off the Libyan coast. The Libyan coastal air defense sites were all around them, but right now they were quiet-no radar emissions at all.
'Want to step it down, Bud?' Lindsey asked.
Franken studied the threat display. They knew the position of the nearest SA-10 site-it just wasn't transmitting yet. At two thousand feet, they were right at the edge of lethal coverage at this range. They could descend well below the missile's engagement envelope, but then risk being heard from the ground. Only government and military aircraft were allowed to fly at night over Libya, and a big plane like a B-52 flying low to the ground well away from an airport would certainly attract attention. 'Let's leave it here for now,' Franken replied. 'We'll give it a few minutes and then-'
Suddenly a female voice from the threat warning receiver spoke: 'Caution, search radar in acquisition mode, nine o'clock, thirty-seven miles, Patriot SAM.'
'The Egyptian Patriot got us,' Lindsey said. 'If the
Libyans detect the Patriot system fired up, they'll fire up their own radars.'
'Stepping down,' Franken said. He hit the voice command button on his control stick: 'Set clearance plane to one thousand.'
'Clearance plane set one thousand feet, pitch mode auto TF,' the flight control computer responded. Just then the computer reported, 'Warning, Patriot SAM tracking, nine o 'clock, thirty-six miles… Patriot SAM acquisition mode… warning, Patriot SAM tracking, nine o 'clock, thirty-five miles…'
'Dam it, he got us, he locked on,' Lindsey reported. 'Let's step it down to five hundred feet.'
'Caution, Patriot SAM acquisition mode…' But that brief lock-on, just three or four seconds, was all it took for the Libyan air defense sites to be alerted. 'Caution, SA-10 SAM at ten o 'clock, thirty miles, acquisition mode.. warning, SA-10 SAM height-finder at ten o'clock, thirty miles…'
'Trackbreakers active,' Lindsey verified. 'Let's take it down to two hundred.'
'I didn't expect to be flying hard TF so far out,' Franken said. 'Here we go.' He issued commands, and the big bomber rumbled down until it was two hundred feet above the Mediterranean Sea.
'SA-10 SAM in acquisition mode,' the computer reported.
'He knows we're out here, but he can't find us… yet,' Franken said. 'Linds, where are those fighters you saw earlier?'
Reeves activated the laser radar for a few seconds. 'They're on their way now,' she said. 'Three aircraft headed our way at six hundred thirty knots, twenty-nine thousand feet. Less than six minutes out. No identification
'Not exactly burning up the program here, are we?' Franken deadpanned. 'So much for the stealthy approach. We might end up fighting our way in.' There was no response from Lindsey-and when Franken turned to find out why, he noticed Lindsey vomiting into her barf bag. He reached across and grasped her shoulder. 'You okay, Linds?'
Her eyes were wet with tears-obvious even in the dim red glow of the EB-52's cockpit. 'I… I don't know,' she said weakly. 'I'm…'
'I need you, Linds. I can't do this without you.'
'I'm so scared,' she cried. 'My stomach… I don't know if I can do this.'
'Lindsey…' He waited a few moments while she retched in her bag again; her trembling fingers dropped the bag somewhere on the center console. She was so rattled that she couldn't refasten her oxygen mask. 'Lindsey, listen to me-'
'Warning, airborne search radar in acquisition, three o'clock, forty-seven miles, MiG-25,' the threat computer reported.
'I… I can't do this,' Lindsey sobbed. 'I'm sorry, I can't-'
'Listen to me, Lindsey-listen to me!' Franken shouted. 'If we turn around, the Libyans will chase us all the way across the Mediterranean Sea. When we run out of missiles, they'll shoot us down. We might make it out-but our guys on the ground probably won't. We have to keep going. Do you understand?'
'I don't know if I can.'
'You have to!' Franken said. 'There are three guys on the ground who won't stand a chance unless we help. But I can't do this alone, not even with the computers.' He grasped her shoulder tightly and shook it. 'You've got to hang in there, Linds. Just think of this as a simulator ridea very, very intense simulator ride. Okay?'
It didn't look good at all. Lindsey's head lolled back and forth, slowly at first, then faster, as if she was looking for something. She started to pull off her left flying glove. 'Here,' Franken said. 'Go to town-and then let's get to work.' He pulled off his right glove and passed it to her. She barely got it up to her face before the torrent quickly filled the black Nomex glove. Franken couldn't believe that tiny little stomach of hers still had anything left in it to regurgitate.
Reeves was hunched down, her head almost between her knees, her hands holding on to the eyebrow panel for support, as if she was going to puke right on the deckFranken thought she might pass out. But to his relief, Lindsey pulled her oxygen mask up to her face, fumbled and finally snapped the bayonet clip in place, then took several deep breaths of pure oxygen. Her right hand disappeared onto the right console, and soon her supercockpit display started dancing as the displays changed with everincreasing speed.
