McLanahan has hinted about doing some special engineering mods to the fleet. I think I’d better be—”
“Colonel, again, how about we do it
“I got a copy of the project timelines from the general. I think we can beat those deadlines,” Daren said. “We should think about bringing the engineering staff from TTR up here.”
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s no place on this base for a one-hundred-person engineering staff,” Long said. “It’s easier for us to bring the planes to TTR than it is to bring everyone up here.”
“Nah. I made visiting generals and heads of state stay in tents and trailers at Incirlik all the time — the engineers from TTR and Sky Masters can do the same. We’re the customer — they can do it our way. I should be studying the mission profiles and weapon characteristics and—”
“If you’re not completely checked out as a primary crew member, Mace, you can’t even
“I’ll take responsibility for the mission-effectiveness of myself, my crews, and my planes,” Daren said firmly. “Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”
He then handed Long a sheet of paper: the completed bold-print emergency-procedures test. He’d done it so quickly that Long didn’t even notice he was filling it out as they were talking. Long checked it carefully, but he needed only a moment to realize it was perfect — every word, even every punctuation mark, exactly in place.
“I may not have any command experience, Colonel,” Daren added, looking directly into Long’s eyes, “but I guarantee you one thing: I know systems. I eat, sleep, and dream systems. I read tech orders in the fucking bathroom.”
Long met his gaze — but only for an instant. He looked away and remarked, “Now, there’s an image I’d rather not have.” He crumpled up the test and threw it in the direction of a nearby wastebasket. “I’ve got your instructor pilot coming by soon.” He looked at his watch. “Grey better not be late,” he grumbled under his breath.
“Sorry I’m late, sirs,” Daren heard a voice say. He turned — and saw what looked like the youngest crew member in a flight suit he’d ever seen. The guy — kid, Daren thought at first, then corrected himself — set his documents bag on the dais, then quickly extracted some paperwork.
“Make us wait again, Grey, and you’ll be ramp monkey for another week,” Long warned. Apparently, Daren thought, around here being ten minutes early for a briefing was considered late. Long motioned to the young officer. “Colonel, this is First Lieutenant Dean Grey. Grey, Colonel Mace, your new squadron CO.”
Grey, a tall, lanky guy with a high forehead, very close-cropped spiky blond hair, and — of all things — a pinhole in his left earlobe for an earring, stepped over and enthusiastically shook Daren’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Grey said.
“Dean Grey? ‘Zane’ Grey — the guy that led the Air Force Academy to an NCAA championship in men’s volleyball? Cover of
“The same, sir,” Grey said. When he smiled, it made him look five years younger.
“No offense, Zane, but… exactly
“Yes, sir,” Grey said with his boyish grin. “Got my wings last month.”
“Last
“General McLanahan likes ’em young, as you’ll readily find out,” Long moaned, shaking his head wearily. “Average age of the entire squadron is just a wet dream or two past puberty. Same with all the squadrons we’re standing up around here. Now, if we could postpone the trip down memory lane for another time?”
“Sure, John.”
“Get to it, Grey,” Long ordered.
“Yes, sir.” To Daren he began, “Welcome to Battle Mountain and the Fifty-first, sir. I’m your acting executive officer. Anything you need or want, just let me know, and I’ll take care of it.” He gave Daren a card with binder holes punched in it. “I took the liberty of writing out a list of all the squadron personnel with their ratings, schools, experience—”
“Already did it,” Daren said, flipping to the pages in his personal “plastic brains” booklet. “I got the dope from General Furness. I went through the entire roster — we’ve got some stellar personnel here on the patch, all right. I also got a status report on all our present and future airframes and their mod status.”
“Excellent, sir,” Grey said. “Our mission today is a standard-flight-characteristics orientation flight for mission commanders. As you know, sir, the Vampire uses pilot-trained navigators in the right seat, so MCs need to be well familiar with all phases of flight. The standard profile for this mission is to observe, but we like to accelerate the program, so we’ll give you as much as you can handle. We’ll show you once, then have you try it.”
“We’re not going low today?” Daren asked.
“Where have you been the past five years, Colonel?” Long asked with a smile.
“We… we don’t go low anymore, sir,” Grey said.
“You don’t go low-level in the B-1?” Daren asked incredulously. “Why in the world not?”
“Well, a few reasons,” Grey replied. “The main reason is, the standoff weapons we use have a longer range when launched from high altitude — Longhorn’s range is thirty percent greater, and Lancelot’s range is almost fifty percent greater. Second, we’re stealthier and faster now — we don’t need to go low, even against pretty substantial fighter coverage or advanced SAM systems. Third, we make great use of smaller attack-and- reconnaissance drones that map out the enemy defenses pretty well, long before we go in. What threats we can’t destroy, we circumnavigate. And, of course, flying away from the cumulogranite is safer—”
“Whoa. Pardon me, boys. I was with you on the first reason, but not the last three reasons,” Daren said. “You’re already relying on a lot of technology to do the job for you. There’s no reason to hang it out even further by staying up high in a heavily defended area. We should practice going low at every opportunity. We can build a certification program. Certain equipment status and training proficiency earns a crew the distinction of going low, into the heavier-defended areas; other not-so-qualified guys can stay up high and lob in cruise missiles. And ‘safety’ seems a funny thing to be considering when we’re talking about going to war or employing weapons like this. We should—”
“Let’s concentrate on the basic flight-training program you’re going to undergo, Colonel,” Long said. “Flight characteristics for the first couple flights, then emergency procedures, then air refueling.”
“We’re not doing air refueling today
“Is English not your primary language, Colonel?” Long asked perturbedly. “You’ve got to master the basics before you do the more advanced procedures. I built this training program to get new crew members with no recent B-1 experience up to maximum proficiency in minimum time. After air refueling, we’ll move on to instrument-pattern work, visual-pattern work, and then we go into the strike stuff.” He got to his feet. “You haven’t been operational in many years, Colonel, and even when you were, you were… less than reliable.” He hesitated, looked at Grey, then made a wordless show about not revealing what he was thinking. “Do it my way, Colonel. Is that clear?”
“Sure, John,” Daren replied. Long looked as if he really,
After the protracted, uncomfortable pause ended, Grey glanced over at the crumpled-up paper by the wastebasket. “I see you passed your bold-print test,” he said. “Outstanding.” It made Daren wonder what Long did with the tests that weren’t perfect — probably kept a file to use against the crewdogs. “We have about an hour until we step, so let’s talk about local procedures before we get into discussing stalls, falls, crashes, and dashes for a few moments.” Grey handed out flight plans, kneeboard cards, target-prediction cards, and weather sheets, all organized and stapled together. “I went ahead and filed our flight plan, got the weather—”
