Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (16 page)

 
          
He
hit the voice-command button. “Attack radar transmit, target report.” Patrick
watched as the attack radar went automatically from
“standby”
to
“transmit”
and
began a wide- area scan.

 
          
“Radar transmit,
” the computer
responded. Almost immediately, the computer reported,
“Radar contact, range fifteen miles.
”

 
          
“Heads
up display.”

 
          
J.C.’s
windscreen was filled with symbols and numbers, seemingly floating in space.
Unlike regular HUDs, heads-up displays—pieces of plate glass that reflected up
from the instrument console to the pilot—Cheetah’s consisted of large banks of
high-resolution laser projectors that created threedimensional images that hung
in space. Unlike a reflected HUD system, which relied on the pilot orienting
himself directly behind the glass, Cheetah’s laser-projected images were
visible no matter how the pilot moved in his seat, and even bright sunlight or
glare on the windshield could not wash the images away. The laser images showed
an icon of DreamStar with a diamond symbol around it, indicating that Cheetah’s
attack radar was locked onto it. Columns of numbers surrounding the icon showed
DreamStar’s heading, airspeed, range and closure rate.

 
          
“Target
designate . . .” Powell said. Instantly micro-wattage laser projectors in his
helmet scanned his eyeballs, and a holographic circle and crosshairs was
projected up onto the windscreen corresponding to exactly where he was looking.
He centered the crosshairs on the icon, “. . . now.”

 
          
“Target radar lock,
” the computer
reported.

 
          
“Laser
slave to radar,” J.C. ordered.

 
          
“Target laser lock.
” A four-pointed
star superimposed itself on DreamStar’s icon. Unlike Cheetah’s attack radar,
the laser rangefinder was undetectable by any of DreamStar’s radardetecting
threat-warning receivers. Cheetah could carry a dozen laser-guided ATM-12
Cougar hypervelocity missiles, which were high-speed, nonexplosive, relatively
inexpensive guided missiles. Fired from very short to very long ranges—it had
no warhead and therefore no minimum-range requirements—the Cougar missile could
be used to attack both air and ground targets, destroying its target by sheer
force of impact.

 
          
DreamStar
was still cruising along on the same heading. He hadn’t been detected—yet. As
James drove in closer he would eventually pick up Cheetah’s radar emissions.
J.C. had to control his excitement and steady his voice to issue more commands
to the computer.

 
          
“Radar
standby.”

 
          
“Radar standby.
” The laser rangefinder
would now process the entire kill without danger of detection.

 
          
J.C.
took a deep breath. “Arm laser missile.”

 
          
“Arm laser missile, warning, practice
missile armed.”
The weapons multi-function display showed Cheetah’s ten
weapons stations, the belly-mounted Cougar missile rack illuminated with the
number 12 on it, signifying the number of hypervelocity missiles remaining.

 
          
“Launch
laser missile.”

 
          
“Launch . . . Warning! Collision warning.
Collision warning. ”

           
J.C. barely had time to react.
DreamStar had just frozen in mid-air, still on its original heading, and let
Cheetah drive right at him, chopping the distance between the two advanced
fighters from ten miles to practically zero in the blink of an eye. Powell,
with no choice, rolled hard behind DreamStar and dived past him. The computer
had processed the launch command, but Powell doubted very much if he’d ever be
credited with a “kill” with a closure rate and maneuver like that.

 
          
“God
...” McLanahan breathed. He remembered how they had used the same maneuver in
the B-52S in the past. Especially one particular B-52, his Old Dog Zero One, on
that mission over
Russia
that seemed like a million years ago. “Now I know what it feels like to
get sucked in . . .”

 
          
“He
knew
we’d try that dive on him,”
Powell said. “He was waiting for us. The minute he detected our attack radar
was off he knew we were committed. He just put DreamStar on max alpha hover and
chopped his power.” But J.C. didn’t linger on James’ maneuver. He knew
DreamStar could accelerate back to combat speed and pull in right behind him
just as fast as he had slowed down. So J.C. selected full afterburner and
yanked the nose skyward, throwing Cheetah into a nearvertical climb.

 
          
“You
mean ANTARES outguessed you?” Patrick taunted as he clung to his handlebars in
the steep climb.

 
          
J.C.
didn’t take the bait. “That was my fault. I performed like any pilot would if
he sees a bogey below him. Well, enough of that. No more predictability.”

 
          
Fighting
in the horizontal, DreamStar, it seemed, was unbeatable—but DreamStar had only
one engine and was less powerful when fighting in the vertical. In spite of
Cheetah’s weight penalties she was still a powerhouse when it came to
dogfighting in two dimensions.

 
          
“Laser
to standby. Radar to transmit,” Powell spoke into the voice-recognition computer.
It acknowledged his commands and gave presentations of his emitter and weapons
status on the displays in the cockpit.

 
          
Cheetah
was nearing the top of the altitude block when J.C. suddenly rolled her into a
wild backward loop. “I’m betting he didn’t have time to break out of that hover
and follow us up here. I’m betting he’s still right where we left him ...”

 
          
J.C.
had let the nose just barely fall through the horizon when the holographic
diamond again appeared on the windscreen. “Tally ho.” He didn’t wait for the
computer to acknowledge the radar lock-on but centered the electronic
crosshairs on the icon. “Target, now. Arm missile. Launch missile.” The
computer acknowledged.
“Radar missile
launch.
”

           
“Fox two, fox two for Storm One,”
Powell called over the interplane frequency. “Storm One descending through
forty thousand. Head’s up, partner.”

           
“Fox four for Storm Two,” came the
reply. “
Seven o’clock
,
one-half mile ...” And then the voice added, “
Partner
. Heads- up.”

 
          
Still
inverted, Powell looked to his left, and right off his tail, also inverted,
following as if it was Cheetah’s shadow, was DreamStar!

 
          
“But
I’ve got a lock-on . . .”

 
          
“On
a cloud of chaff,” Patrick said. “When you made your zoom, he must’ve popped a
dozen bundles of chaff and climbed up with you and stayed on your tail. You
just shot a Sparrow missile into a bunch of tinsel.”

 
          
J.C.
rolled wings-level and lowered his oxygen visor with an exasperated snap. “The
guy’s right
on
today.”

 
          
Patrick
checked the fuel readouts, did a quick check of his equipment and warning
lights. “Looks like forty minutes to go, J.C.”

 
          
Powell
gave Patrick a thumbs-up. “Storm flight station check, lead’s in the green with
forty minutes to joker”— “joker” being the code for the minimum fuel reserves
necessary on a normal training flight, about fifteen thousand pounds. “Two has
twenty minutes, all systems nominal.”

           
J.C. said: “He’s sucking gas. He’s
got a bigger jet, more capacity, only one engine, but half the fuel.”

 
          
“And
two kills,” Patrick shot back. “We’re not concerned about saving fuel here,
J.C. I know you’d give every drop of JP-4 we’ve got left to get one good shot
at him.”

 
          
“Then
turn me loose, let’s get to it.”

 
          
“I
want you to be the fox this time, J.C.,” Patrick said. “I want him on the
pursuit.”

 
          
“Fine,
but open ’em up this time. Let’s see what the boy wonder over there can
really
do.”

 
          
J.C.
had a point. They had really not pushed DreamStar to the edge of the envelope.
And if there was anybody who could really force DreamStar to perform, it was J.
C. Powell.

 
          
“All
right, J.C., you got it. But don’t break the bubble . . .” Patrick lined it
out. “This time lead will be the fox. We’re coming up on the southeast corner
of the area. Lead will come left heading three-zero-zero toward the center.
Two, give us fifteen full seconds—then start your pursuit. Stay heads-up.
Lead’s coming left ...”

 
          
J.
C. Powell turned hard left. Patrick had time to grab hold of his handlebars
before being squashed into his seat by the turn. J.C. stayed on the
northwesterly heading for five seconds, then rolled inverted and pulled the
nose earthward, pushing the throttles to full power, aiming the nose directly
for
Lookout
Peak
twenty thousand feet below.

 
          
Patrick
watched as the altimeter readout clicked down faster than he’d ever seen it
before. “I swear, Powell, you have got to have some kind of death
wish”—Patrick’s attention was drawn to a blinking red warning light near the
radar altimeter, which read the distance between the ground and the belly of
the jet. “Watch it!”

 
          
Powell
checked his threat receivers—no signals from anywhere. He began to level off,
pointing Cheetah toward a wide cleft in the jagged peaks below. “Colonel, if I
stay at high altitude with DreamStar he’ll hose me again. Let’s see how he does
in the rocks.” He hit the voice-recognition computer switch—“attack radar
standby,” and threw his jet into a screeching right turn, arcing around the
rugged peaks. “Fifteen seconds—he should be in his turn toward the northwest by
now.” Powell selected a flat valley in the desert, staying as close to the
rocks as possible. Patrick stared out the top of the canopy expecting the tops
of Cheetah’s twin tails to scrape along the face of those rocks any second.

 
          
J.C.
rolled out of his steep turn, passing only a few hundred yards from a lone
craggy butte. “You’re going to wait down here for him to come after you?”

 
          
“Not
exactly, sir.” He steered Cheetah into the narrow valley he had selected, set
the autopilot, then began searching the skies far overhead. “Wondering why I
selected thirty-nine thousand feet back there?”

 
          
“It’s
a higher altitude . . . better fuel economy—”

           
“Contrails.”

           
Patrick followed J.C.’s pointing
finger out the top of the canopy. Far above, they saw a thin white line against
the dark blue sky, heading northwest. “You think I never listen to the morning
weather briefings?”

 
          
“You’re
always asleep.”

 
          
“I
always manage to catch the contrail forecasts. The center of the vapor level
was thirty-nine thousand feet. That’s where we left him and that’s where he
is.”

 
          
Patrick
took a firm grip on the handlebars. J.C. had aimed Cheetah for the center of
the southern ridge of the
Shoshone
Mountains
, in the center of Dreamland’s southern
restricted area, and now was moving the throttles up to full afterburner. Ten
seconds later they were at Mach one and building . . .

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
Attack radar on . . . spherical scan . . .
radar off. . .

           
James checked in seconds over a
half-million cubic miles of airspace for Cheetah. His superconductor technology
allowed the power of a standard fighter’s nose radar to be transmitted into an
antenna the size and thickness of a playing card so that the antennae could be
spread out all around DreamStar’s skin instead of located only in the nose
cone. A thousand of such micro-miniature radar arrays made a complete spherical
sweep of the sky within two hundred miles of the aircraft. But except for
commercial and civilian aircraft outside Dreamland’s restricted airspace, the
radar scan came up negative. Cheetah had disappeared!