Zen knew better than to flail against the waves, but he did it anyway, throwing himself into the teeth of the tide, pushing and pulling and swimming and dragging himself to his wife.
It
What he didn’t know was whether she was alive.
He fought against doubt, battering his arms against the rocks.
Ten feet.
But those last ten feet were like miles. The water rushed at him as if the ocean wanted to keep her for its own. Zen clawed and crawled forward, pushing toward her, until finally he touched the back of her helmet.
His fingers seemed to snap back with electricity. His guard dissolved. If she hadn’t even taken off her helmet, how could she be alive?
“Bree,” whispered Zen. “Bree.”
His voice was so soft even he had a hard time hearing it over the surf.
“Bree, we have to get to land. Come on, honey.”
Not daring to look at her face, not daring to take off her helmet, he reached into the raft, looped one hand gently around her torso, and began pulling her toward shore.
Jennifer Gleason folded her arms as the argument continued over which weapons to ship to Diego Garcia.
“Anaconda missiles give the Megafortress pilots a long-range antiaircraft option,” said Terrence Calder, the Air Force major who headed the AIM-154 program. “In addition, they can use them against land targets if necessary. You don’t have to worry about the mix of Harpoons and AMRAAM-pluses. It’s win-win.”
“Not if the guidance systems don’t function perfectly,” said Ray Rubeo.
“They’ve passed most of the tests.”
“There’s that word ‘most’ again,” said Rubeo. “Most means not all, which means not ready.”
There was no question that the Anaconda AIM-154 long-range strike missile was an excellent weapon. A scramjet-powered hypersonic missile, it had a lethal range of nearly two hundred miles. It could ride a radar beam to its target, use its own onboard radar, or rely on an infrared seeker in its nose to hit home. For long-range or hypersonic engagements, the missile’s main solid motor boosted it to over Mach 3. As it reached that speed, the missile deployed air scoops, turning the motor chamber into a ramjet, boosting speed to Mach 5. Its warhead could be fashioned from either conventional high explosives or a more powerful thermium nitrate, which was especially useful against ground targets.
The only knock against the missile was the fact that, as Rubeo pointed out, it still had not passed all of its tests. Like any new weapons system, the Anaconda had a few teething problems; in this case, they were primarily related to the target acquisition system and its interface with the Megafortresses’ computer systems, which Jennifer had been helping fix for the past few weeks.
“I think we will err on the side of capability,” said Major Catsman finally. “We’ll ship the missiles to Diego Garcia and let Colonel Bastian make the final call.”
Rubeo frowned. A smug look appeared on Calder’s face.
Catsman looked frustrated. Unlike Colonel Bastian, who sometimes went out of his way to encourage dissent on military options, the major seemed frazzled by the differing opinions on how to help reinforce the Dreamland team. Since Colonel Bastian would have the final say on Diego Garcia, whether to send the Anaconda missiles or not was more a personnel issue than a weapons decision since sending the weapons would necessitate sending maintainers and techies to deal with them.
The real problem was the fact that only one radar-equipped Megafortress was available for deployment, and there was no answer to that; Catsman knew she couldn’t flip a switch and speed up the refurbishment process. The EB-52
At least they had solved the problem of the two warheads that were missing from the projections. Rubeo found an error in the modifications that had been used to adapt the tracking program to its present use. But even that didn’t satisfy the scientist. Rather than accepting congratulations gracefully, he answered with the question: “And what else did we miss?
“The new Flighthawks will give the Megafortresses better capability,” said Rubeo, still not done arguing his point. “That’s all they need.”
“No, Ray, the matter is settled,” said Catsman. “We’ll send the Anacondas. And the new Flighthawks.”
Similar in appearance to the original U/MF-3, the U/MF-3D had more powerful engines and a control system that would let it be piloted much farther from the Megafortress. While they, too, were in short supply, the aircraft had already passed their tests and were ready to deploy.
Jennifer found her mind drifting as the discussion continued. She couldn’t concentrate on head counts and spare part contingencies; all she could think of was Dog.
He hadn’t even looked at her, or asked how she was, when he briefed the Command Center.
And he looked like hell.
He needed her. She needed him.
“I’m going with the MC-17,” she told Catsman as soon as the meeting ended. “I’ll help the technical teams. The new Flighthawks may need some work.”
“They don’t need a nanny,” said Rubeo.
Major Catsman just looked at her. Rubeo was right — the technical teams were self-contained. While she had worked on C3, the Flighthawk computer, her contributions were completed long ago.
“The Anaconda missiles also need work,” she said.
“Another reason not to send them,” said Rubeo. “And it’s not your project.”
“I’ve worked on them,” said Jennifer.
“We need you to do other things,” insisted Rubeo. “There is a great deal of work.”
“If you think you should go,” said Catsman, “then you should go.”
“I think I should,” said Jennifer. “And I am.”
Zen cradled Breanna in his lap as he pulled himself up toward the peak of the slope. Finally he stopped, collapsing on his side. Breanna fell with him, her weight dead against his body. At first he was too exhausted to think, too wiped to feel anything. Then gradually he realized where he was and who was lying on top of him.
“OK, Breanna,” he said. “Breanna? Bree?”
He lay on his back for a few minutes, an hour — it was impossible to tell how long. Clouds covered the moon then slowly slipped away. Finally, he shifted Breanna off him, sliding her weight away gently.
Far in the distance, he heard a groan.
The sound was so faint he wasn’t even sure he’d heard it at first. Then he thought it was an animal. Then, finally, he realized it had come from his wife.
“Bree,” he said, pushing up. “Bree?”
Zen rolled her onto her back, then undid her helmet strap, still not daring to look at her face. Without the ability to kneel, he had to shift himself around awkwardly until he was sitting and her head was resting on his thighs. He closed his eyes and removed the helmet, prying as gently as possible, cradling her head down to the ground.
Her face was badly bruised. Zen guessed she’d hit the plane going out, probably harder than he had.
She looked peaceful, except for the purple welts. She looked like she was sleeping.
Tears came to his eyes. He was sure he’d imagined the sound; sure she was dead.
Until her lips parted.
