angry tone. “I’m still at the ‘Lake,’ Maureen,” he said. Even on a secure radio connection, he or anyone he knew never mentioned the name “Groom Lake” or even “Elliott Air Force Base” to anyone. The top-secret weapons and aerospace development and testing facility in the Nevada desert north of Las Vegas, named after its first controversial firebrand commander Lieutenant General Brad Elliott, was always called “the Lake.”
“Did you forget, Patrick? We have a meeting in Washington in three hours!”
“I didn’t forget,” Patrick said. “I’ll be there.”
The other man in the back of the Air Force blue Suburban with him, U.S. Air Force aerospace engineer and test pilot Captain Hunter “Boomer” Noble, smiled. Everyone at the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, or HAWC, nicknamed “Dreamland,” was wired with subcutaneous satellite transceivers that allowed worldwide two- way communications — and the ability for the government to track and listen in on that person worldwide, for life — and so he was accustomed to listening to persons talking into thin air. “Say hi to the Vice President for me, General,” Noble said. Patrick nodded, and Boomer went on checking maintenance logs and reports on his tablet PC.
“Who was that, Patrick?” Vice President Maureen Hershel asked from her office at the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C.
“Boomer said hi,” Patrick said. “He’s going to fly me to the meeting.”
“‘Fly you to the meeting?’ Why is he…?” And then Maureen stopped. She had been briefed on this mission, several days ago — she just didn’t know that Patrick would be the one flying it. “You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?” she asked.
“Don’t worry. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Patrick…”
“I’ll be there,” he asserted. “Gotta fly.”
“That’s an understatement,” Maureen said. “Call if you’ll be late. See you…whenever.” And the connection was broken, leaving his reply, “I love you,” unheard except by “Boomer” Noble.
Patrick stepped out of the Suburban with his flight helmet bag and took a deep breath, barely able to contain his excitement. The early-morning air was crisp and cold, with barely a hint of a breeze. The sky was completely cloudless, as it was for much of the year in south-central Nevada. He and Boomer reviewed aircraft documents on the hood of the Suburban, signing off the various pages and transmitting the forms to HAWC’s maintenance and records computers.
“The bird’s code one and ready to go, General,” Boomer announced. “Let’s get you to that meeting.” He looked at the three-star general standing beside him. Patrick was staring at something intently. “Something wrong, sir?”
“No…no, not a thing, Captain,” Patrick responded. A huge grin spread across his face, and he looked at Noble with an unabashedly childlike expression. “Not…a…damned thing.”
Boomer looked at the object of Patrick’s amazement, nodded knowingly, and took a deep breath himself. “Yes, sir, I know what you mean,” he said. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Years ago it was known as “Aurora,” the unclassified code name for America’s first hypersonic reconnaissance plane, able to fly over five times the speed of sound; at the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center that now owned all five of the prototypes, it was simply the XR-A9 (Experimental Reconnaissance Article Nine). About the size of the SR-71 Blackbird recon plane it was meant to replace, it greatly resembled the Blackbird with its thin wings and fuselage and jet-black skin. Its official unclassified nickname was the Black Stallion, but everyone around Dreamland simply called it the “Stud.”
As they walked toward the huge craft, more and more changes were evident. There were a number of odd- shaped nozzles around the nose and fuselage. This plane had no conventional aerodynamic flight controls like flaps, elevators, and ailerons — instead, the XR-A9 used mission-adaptive technology that used microhydraulic actuators to change almost the entire surface of the wings and fuselage, making every part of the airplane a lift or drag device. Unlike the SR-71, this aircraft had four engines mounted underneath the fuselage with a movable vane in the center of each elongated rectangular engine inlet and wide exhaust nozzles.
After their walkaround, McLanahan and Noble climbed up the boarding ladder along the side of the plane. “Last chance, sir,” Boomer said at the top of the boarding ladder, and held out a small round plastic container. The flight surgeon and other fliers had recommended that all flight crewmembers take anti-motion sickness medication — promethazine hydrochloride was the most common — before each flight, whether or not you had a history of motion sickness, but Patrick had steadfastly refused. “You’ll thank me.”
“No thanks, Boomer,” Patrick said. “I’ve been airsick before, and it’s not fun, but I don’t like taking any kind of medication.”
“Where we’re going, it’s different, sir,” Boomer said. “If you don’t need it you won’t feel any differently, but you don’t want to be hurting through your whole trip. It’ll ruin it for everyone, believe me.” Patrick finally relented and took the pills. “Thanks, sir.” He held out a gloved fist, and Patrick punched it. “Have a good flight, sir. Have fun. I’ll see you on the ground afterward.”
The XR-A9’s interior was arranged in a tandem arrangement in two separately pressurized compartments, with the aircraft commander, or AC, in front, and the mission commander, or MC, in back, like the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane or the F-15E Strike Eagle. The cockpit was cramped for such a large plane, and some contortions and quasi-gymnastics were necessary to get into the cockpit seats. Patrick silently cursed the extra five pounds he had put on recently and vowed once again to get rid of his now-noticeable “executive spread” ASAP.
There was a bit of hesitation and confused expressions when Patrick got ready to step into the forward aircraft commander’s seat. “Uh…sir…?”
“I’m flying this baby today, Boomer,” Patrick said as he began to “build his nest”—arrange his personal and life-support equipment in the cockpit just so.
“I realize you’re technically qualified, sir,” Noble gently argued, “and you obviously know what you’re doing, but I always…”
“Not today, Captain,” Patrick said, emphasizing the word “captain. I’ve played back-seater long enough. I’m going to fly the hot jet.”
“But sir, the flight plan says…”
“Boomer, I’m flying the damned plane,” Patrick insisted, almost an order. “You can fly along and back me up, or I’ll find someone else to fly in the back.” Patrick had to smile at the young officer’s worried expression. “That was exactly like my dad’s expression when he handed over the keys of his car.”
“Why? Did you bend the car too, sir?” Patrick gave him a half-amused, half-irritated expression, which terminated the conversation.
Once seated, both officers found the seats quite comfortable, hugging the body like a luxury sports car. There were no ejection seats on the XR-A9—instead, it used the capsule ejection system found in the original B-1A bomber, in which the entire cockpit section separated from the rest of the aircraft and floated to Earth on six huge parachutes. Like the B-1 Lancer supersonic bomber and many fighter aircraft, Patrick found that a crewmember wore the XR-A9, rather than sat in it…
…which was a piece of cake for a young guy like Hunter “Boomer” Noble, just twenty-three years old, but problematical for a guy pushing fifty like Patrick McLanahan. But he was experienced, determined, and still in pretty damned good shape, thank you very much, and it took him only a few moments longer to get situated and strapped in than it did Boomer.
The ground technicians had already performed the “Preflight,” “Before Power On,” “Power On,” and “Before Engine Start” checklists, but both crewmembers checked them again before allowing the computers to proceed with engine start. Like all of Dreamland’s aircraft, checklists and most everything else were accomplished by computers and checked and monitored by humans — they merely prepared themselves to take over in case of a major malfunction, which was rare. Much of what the engineers did at Dreamland these days was design unmanned aircraft and convert formerly manned aircraft to unmanned ones — in fact, unmanned aircraft far outnumbered manned ones at Dreamland.
Ten minutes after strapping in, the canopies motored shut and the aircraft was ready to taxi. There was no control tower at Elliott Air Force Base — ground control and tower functions were handled by cameras and sensors that detected the position of any object larger than a rabbit for miles in any direction. Like most everything else, taxiing for takeoff was done by computers — the sensors and satellite-based navigations systems on board the aircraft were much more precise than a human’s senses, and the bomber never left the yellow taxi lines as it lined
