Air Battle Force

reported. The StealthHawk looked perfectly normal in the dawn sky, hanging in tightly in a modified fingertip- formation position. “It looks in the green.”

“Aft bay doors coming open, docking web coming out,” Daren said. He opened the aft bay doors by remote control, then ordered, “Hawk One, translate to predock position on Vampire One.”

“Hawk One translating to predock position Vampire One, stop translate,” the UCAV responded. Then, as everyone watched on remote cameras, the StealthHawk slid back and across underneath the EB-1C.

“Oh, shit, I can practically feel that sucker under me,” Rebecca breathed.

“Steady, Becky,” Patrick said, but he found he could not talk in a normal tone of voice either.

The StealthHawk continued moving underneath the bomber until it was centered precisely in the opening of the aft bomb bay, then slowly, excruciatingly, began climbing. They could see the StealthHawk buck and burble as it corrected its flight path through the bomber’s slipstream. But both the Vampire and the StealthHawk used mission- adaptive “smart skin,” and their flight-control computers were able to both smooth out and dampen out the other’s slipstream and wake turbulence. The StealthHawk nosed toward a large composite material half-shell framework called the “docking web” that had been extended into the slipstream. It seemed like a millennium later, but finally the StealthHawk announced, “Hawk One stabilized in predock position.”

“Yeah, baby!” Jon Masters shouted. “That’s my boy!”

“Looks good,” Rebecca said. “Now move it back so I can see it.”

“Roger. Hawk One, translate to left fingertip position,” Daren ordered.

“Hawk One translating to left fingertip position, stop translate.” The StealthHawk obeyed and appeared a few moments later back on Rebecca’s side of the plane.

“That’s good, Dr. Masters,” Rebecca said. She finally took what felt like her first full breath of air in a very long time. “Let’s let it land on Diego Garcia.”

“Rebecca, I think we should try a docking,” Daren said.

“That wasn’t in the flight-test plan.”

“The ship and the UCAV are doing better than we ever expected,” Daren responded. “Let’s give it a try.”

“Let’s stick with the plan, guys,” Rebecca argued. “We’ll have lots of opportunities to dock it when we don’t have live ordnance on board. If we take any damage from the UCAV and we can’t jettison the remaining weapons, they’ll never let us land on Diego Garcia — we’ll have to ditch the Vampire.”

“Rebecca, let’s try it,” Patrick said. “The apparatus is in place, and the predock join-up looked nice and steady. It’ll work.”

Rebecca thought about it for a moment. Her hesitation was all the prompting Patrick McLanahan needed.

“You’re clear to do a docking, Daren,” he said.

“Roger that!” Daren responded happily. “Hawk One, dock with Vampire One, center bomb bay.”

“Hawk One docking with Vampire One center bay, stop docking,” the StealthHawk responded. Rebecca stared at the UCAV as it flew out of sight, and soon the strange feeling of being able to feel the little robot plane as if it were flying around her own body returned.

The StealthHawk maneuvered itself back underneath the Vampire bomber’s aft bomb bay, stabilized in predock position for a few seconds, then slowly continued its climb. Now Patrick and Rebecca could both feel a tiny shudder in the Vampire’s airframe, a slight vibration that couldn’t be dampened out by the mission-adaptive system. “Here it comes,” Patrick breathed. “Here it comes….”

Slowly, slowly, the StealthHawk climbed until it nestled inside the half-shell framework of the docking web. A powerful electromagnet activated, pulling the nose up into a latching mechanism that held tightly to the UCAV; then soft composite tubular frames extended out from under the docking web, completely encircling the UCAV. The turbulence from the web started to make the StealthHawk buck and fishtail inside the web, but by the time the turbulence got bad enough that the mission-adaptive system couldn’t counteract it, the web had captured the UCAV, the turbojet engine had shut down, and the StealthHawk was pulled inside the aft bomb bay and the bomb doors closed.

“We nabbed it!” Jon Masters shouted. “It worked! We got it!”

“I don’t friggin’ believe it,” Rebecca murmured as she saw the StealthHawk safely back inside the bomb bay in her TV monitor. “We retrieved it.” She reached across and clasped hands with Patrick McLanahan. “General, I know there will come a time when that will be routine,” she said cross-cockpit, “but, I swear to God, that was the most nerve-racking thing I’ve ever done.”

“Excellent job. Thanks for agreeing to do it,” Patrick said. “Ready to finish the test flight?”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way you’ll agree to terminate this and let us take it back to the barn?” Rebecca asked.

“We’re on a roll, Rebecca,” Patrick said. “You’re the aircraft commander, so whatever you say goes, but I say let’s finish this test.”

Rebecca nodded, took another deep breath, and said, “Okay, guys, let’s go to the next evolution — before I run out of adrenaline.”

“Roger, boss,” Zane said happily. “VAC has the aircraft, proceeding to the air-refueling anchor.”

Zane then flew the EB-1C Vampire bomber south toward a designated military operating area east of the island of Diego Garcia. A Sky Masters Inc. launch-and-control aircraft, a modified DC-10 airliner, was waiting for them with its refueling boom extended.

“Here’s the big test, guys,” Daren said. To the computer he ordered, “Vampire, translate to precontact position on the tanker.”

“Vampire translating to precontact position, stop translate.” The bomber immediately climbed until it was five hundred feet below the tanker, accelerated until it was one thousand feet in trail, then slowly climbed and decelerated until it was ten feet below and ten feet behind the boom’s nozzle. “Stabilized precontact,” the computer reported.

“How is it doing that?” Grey asked.

“The laser radar paints an exact picture of the entire tanker, including its boom,” Patrick explained, “and measures the tanker’s exact distance, speed, and altitude.”

“Isn’t hitting the refueling boom with laser beams dangerous?”

“About as dangerous as shining a TV remote in your eyes,” Daren chimed in. “The laser’s power reduces as the range decreases, so there’s no danger. Let’s do the checklists, Zane.”

“Roger. Vampire, precontact checklist.”

The air-refueling slipway door opened, and several lights were illuminated on the overhead instrument panel. “Precontact checklist complete,” the computer responded moments later.

“Vampire, translate to contact position,” Zane ordered.

“Vampire translating to contact position, stop translate.” The Vampire bomber began a slow climb and a very slow acceleration. Patrick and Rebecca watched as the DC-10’s air-refueling director lights — two lines of lights under the tanker’s belly that told a pilot where he was in the refueling envelope — activated, ordering the receiver to move up and forward with a green light toward the lower edge of the light display. As the bomber moved closer, the green light moved forward toward the center of the light display, and another green flashing light inched its way from the lower up bar toward the center. Rebecca had her right hand poised on the control stick, her little finger automatically lining up with the “paddle switch”—a lever on the front of the control stick that would disconnect the VC from aircraft control completely and immediately.

“Coming up on contact position,” Daren said.

The boom’s nozzle looked like a huge cannon pointing directly at their foreheads. “This is nutso,” Rebecca whispered. “This is crazy….”

“Steady, Rebecca,” Patrick said on intercom. “Easy…”

The boom hove dangerously close to the bomber’s radome, coming mere inches away from hitting. The boom operator grabbed it away just in time. “That was close,” Rebecca said.

“We’re still moving in,” Daren said. “Almost there…”

Patrick wasn’t sure if it was the tanker or the Vampire that did it, but the tanker abruptly seemed to pull away. The Vampire made a sudden acceleration, and as it sped up it also climbed sharply. The boom operator, not