steady.
“Everything’s in the green over here,” Daren said. “One of the Wolverines was shot down, but the other one is still in its patrol orbit and has about half of its submunitions. We still have two Wolverines and six Lancelots. You did good, Mugs. You handle the jet well.”
“It’s easier in real life than the missions we have in the simulator,” Lewis commented, taking a swig of orange juice. “It’s like a big video game, except I’m controlling a four-hundred-thousand-plus-pound supersonic jet worth billions of dollars instead of a little game controller. Sometimes I forget we’re in a combat zone.”
“Oh, it’s real enough — never forget where you are or what you’re doing,” Daren cautioned her. “The minute you get complacent, something will jump up and bite your ass.” An alert beeped in his helmet, and he immediately switched his multi-function display to a wider view of northern Iran and then zoomed in on Tehran again.
“More Shahab-3s heading west?”
“We got missiles inflight, but they’re heading east-northeast toward Tehran. The bastards are shooting at their own people! Looks like Nancy will be getting some shots in today too.”
“Missile contact, Hamadan, heading northeast…second missile in flight, same heading!” Air Force Reserve First Lieutenant Greg “Huck” Dannon shouted excitedly. Dannon was an experienced B-52 copilot, but like many of the crews at Battle Mountain, this was his first operational mission. He got his nickname because he looked like all the drawings of Huckleberry Finn anyone had ever seen, and appeared just as young. “I…we should…I mean…”
“Relax, Huck, relax,” the AL-52 Dragon’s aircraft commander, Air Force Brigadier-General Nancy Cheshire, said, straightening up in her seat as if just awakening from a nap. The veteran pilot was some sort of bionic crewdog: even though crewmembers were allowed to wear headsets while in high-altitude cruise, she always wore her flight helmet, gloves, and cold-weather jacket; always kept her oxygen mask on except when drinking water (and only water) and always kept her clear visor down; never ate any meals on board, and never had to; and never took a nap on board an aircraft, and never had to. “Let the systems do the work — you need to keep calm and monitor everything carefully.”
Cheshire was the commander of all of the Air Battle Force’s modified B-52 bomber fleet at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base, a grand total of six planes — all of which were involved in operations near Iran — plus a steadily growing fleet of eight QA-45C “Hunter” unmanned stealth bombers undergoing final flight tests at Dreamland before becoming fully operational. Cheshire, a soft-spoken and very laid-back test pilot turned wing commander, was the first female test pilot at Dreamland before being chosen to command the Air Battle Force’s B-52 bombers at Battle Mountain.
Although she was checked out in every aircraft under her command at Battle Mountain, plus every aircraft that had been flown at Dreamland for the past ten years, her favorite aircraft was by far the AL-52 Dragon. This Dragon — the only one that survived the American Holocaust and the Air Battle Force’s counterattack over Russia — was the latest variant of the B-52 bomber tested at Dreamland and deployed at Battle Mountain. Originally a test bed aircraft only, the Dragon carried only one weapon, but it was one of the most powerful weapons ever fired from an aircraft: a three-megawatt plasma-pumped electronic laser. Steered by an adaptive-optics mirror system in the nose, the laser beam fired from the Dragon had a maximum range of about three hundred miles and could attack and destroy or disable targets in space, in the sky, and even on the ground.
“Make sure the computer has designated the targets…there, that’s what that symbol means, remember?” Nancy prompted her mission commander. “Do a quick scan for any other threats — don’t assume the computer will always pick the right targets. A fighter a hundred miles away always has priority…”
“A fighter? Where?”
“Just an example, Huck,” Nancy said patiently. Man, this guy was skittish — he either needed a few more combat sorties under his belt, or a roll in the hay. “The targeting computer is programmed to go after ballistic missiles first, but if a fighter is nearby, even if it’s a long way away, it’s a bigger threat in my book. You also want to make sure it hasn’t designated any friendly aircraft or missiles. The system is good, but it’s not foolproof. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“A simple ‘yes’ is good, Huck,” Nancy said. She was only in her early forties, but these young kids in the force today made her feel much older sometimes. “Okay, it looks like the coast is clear, and the Dragon has the two top priority targets. This indication”—she pointed to the upper left corner of Dannon’s supercockpit display—“tells you that the targeting laser has already locked onto both missiles and has measured them and the surrounding atmosphere for attenuation compensation. Dragon does that automatically but not continuously unless you tell it to. Will it fire the main laser automatically?”
“No…I mean, yes, because we’ve given consent and…no, wait…”
“You had it right the first time, Huck: no, it will normally not fire the main laser automatically,” Nancy said, starting to lose a little patience. She always insisted on flying with the most inexperienced crewmembers, but sometimes their inexperience and nervousness-induced dumbness aggravated her. “Man-in-the-loop, remember? You have to have consent, pre-attack checklist complete by both crewmembers, targeting lock either manual or auto, and give the order to fire. The only exception is with failure of both supercockpit displays or with other kinds of serious malfunctions, when the Dragon shifts to self-defense mode. The system will…”
“Uh, ma’am, shouldn’t…shouldn’t we attack now?”
“What’s the missile flight time remaining until impact, Huck?”
Dannon checked his display. “Uh…one minute forty-one seconds.”
“Correct. And what’s our range to target?”
“One hundred ninety-three nautical miles.”
“Good. And what’s the speed of light?”
“One hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second.”
“Correct. And how long is a typical laser engagement?”
“Six seconds on an intercontinental ballistic-missile-sized target — a little less with a tactical ballistic missile — plus turret rotation and mirror focusing time. About ten seconds total.”
“Good. So how long will it take for our laser beam to hit and destroy the Shahab-2, assuming it was an ICBM-class target?”
Dannon paused, but only for a moment: Nancy was fascinated with the guy’s phenomenal ability to do complex calculations in his head. “Ten-point-zero-zero-one-zero-five seconds.”
“So what’s your hurry, Huck?” Nancy asked. “You gotta relax, MC.” She patted him playfully on the shoulder, feeling the tension in his muscles. He was hopeless. “Okay, Huck, kill the suckers.”
Dannon took a deep breath and touched the green “ATTACK” soft key on his supercockpit display. “Attack commencing, stop attack,” the computer spoke, and the soft key turned into a red “STOP ATTACK” button. Seconds later they could feel a slight rumbling beneath their feet as the mirror turret in the nose of the AL-52 unstowed, disrupting the airflow around the aircraft. There was no other indication that the attack was underway — no cool science-fictiony laser sounds, no beam of light slicing through the sky, just a small blinking “L” indicator on their supercockpit displays. Seconds later the “L” stopped blinking as the computer refocused on the second missile, and then the “L” began to blink once again. Finally they heard the turbulence rumbling under their feet as the turret stowed itself.
“Missiles destroyed,” Nancy said, so calmly and self-assuredly that Dannon looked at her to see if she wasn’t hypoxic or semiconscious. “Good work, Huck.” She widened the range on their supercockpit displays to check for any additional launches. None were detected, so she sat back in her seat. “Man, I love this job.”
It was the most exhilarating twenty minutes of his life, Hal Briggs thought as he continued his run through his assigned circuit. Just one more Shahab-2 launch site, about three miles ahead, and he could head to the exfiltration point. He had destroyed about sixteen launchers and scores of other vehicles with the incredible Cybernetic Infantry Device’s weapon backpacks, and a few simply by the sheer strength and speed of the CID unit itself — and he was
