Dreamland

“My team,” he shouted, twisting back.

“We’re all here!” yelled Liu. “Come on, Captain.”

A massive black cloud hung over the hangar at the other end of the field. The Delta Osprey was taxiing away from it, toward them. An APC was rumbling thirty yards away.

Da

“Captain! Captain!” shouted Liu.

As Da

Nothing but MP-5 clips.

Cursing, he kept ru

He fumbled with the taped pin as he bolted atop the APC. It was an ancient vehicle, a BTR-60P with an eight-wheeled chassis and a 12.7mm gun mounted in a turret at the front. The gun barrel lurched back, firing toward the Osprey. Da

Liu and Hernandez caught him just before he hit the ground, stumbling but managing to keep their balance as their Osprey lurched backward toward them. The others grabbed them and Da

“We’re in! We’re in!” yelped Talcom.

Bison stood near the open doorway, firing his SAW. The APC continued to fire at them.

“Shit,” said Freah.

“They got away,” said Liu. “They got off okay. Vector One.”

“Good.”

“We got the Iranian, he’s alive,” added the medic. “We’re all here. Scratch the airliner. Hangar’s gone. F-117’s toast.”

“Pilots?”

Liu shook his head.

“Pair of MiGs gu

Da

“What’d you do, Captain, try and blow up an APC with a smoke grenade?” asked Bison, turning around now that he’d gone through his clip. The rear doorway began to close behind him.

“I think it was a concussion grenade,” said Freah. “Oh, that’s different,” said Bison.

“Probably gave them a good headache,” said Da

So did the others. They must have laughed for a good ten minutes.

When the pilot called back that they had eluded the MiGs, the laughs just got louder.

Northern Somalia

23 October, 0505

“LEAD MIG HAS US SPIKED.”

“Yeah,” said Bree. She held her course steady. They had to suck the MiGs away from the Ospreys before the enemy fights saw the defenseless aircraft.

“They’re buying it. Both of them coming for us.” Brea

“Be ready with the Stinger air mines,” Bree said.

“Max range of the Stingers is three miles,” warned Chris. The Stinger air mines were the Megafortress’s last remaining defensive weapons. In place of the standard B-52’s tail guns, the Megafortress had a ca

The problem was, the air mines were short-range weapons. An enemy fighter had to close within knife-fighting range before they were effective. The Megafortress’s stealth characteristics usually forced an enemy fighter to forgo radar-guided missiles and use short-range heat-seeking missiles or ca

As long as the Ospreys got away, she thought, her fingers cramping tight on the flight controls.

“We’re in range,” said Chris. “They haven’t locked us, though. Shit. The Ospreys will be on their scopes any second. They’re going to think we’re a blip or a ghost and go for the Ospreys.”

Brea

“Switch on the targeting radar,” she said. “Lock them.”

“Rap?”

“Do it!”

“Okay, okay.” Chris worked the controls quickly, not quite realizing what Bree was up to. “They have us. They’re locked. Shit, the MiGs are launching!”

“Kill the radar. Batten down the hatches,” she said. Brea

“We’re clean. MiGs have turned. They bought it—they thought we were targeting them. Good call, Bree. Shit, I should have thought of that.”

“Take out the runway—now,” she ordered.

“Bay,” warned Chris, dialing up the final air-to-surface missile. While not optimized for runway-crashing, the large hunk of explosive molded into the front of the missile would create a rather large and hopefully unavoidable hole in the middle of the Somalian field.

“Airliner is smashed. Another plane down there, off to the side,” warned Chris.

“The runway. Now,” demanded Brea

“Launching. Gone. Good. Buttoning up.”

The radar-warning tone blipped. “Tail radar warning,” said Bree. “Here they come.”

“Air mines ready,” said Chris.

Brea

“Two MiGs within range … Stingers firing!” Chris shouted. The fire-control computer began launching Stinger air mine rockets at their pursuers, one every three seconds, sowing clouds of deadly tungsten chips in the MiGs’ flight path.

One of her “students” launched a heat-seeker toward their tailpipe. The other let go of his last radar missile.

Gravity slapped Brea

Bree recovered, picking the big plane up by its wing roots. She banked south, lost the MiGs on the FLIR as they searched to the north.

The air mines were just as effective against air-to-air missiles as they were against fighters. As the MiGs’ missiles closed in on the Megafortress’s hot exhausts, they were shredded by the air mines’ deadly debris. As the MiG pilots tried to close the distance for one last try at their quarry, they too fell prey to the silent, invisible invaders. Without warning, the tiny tungsten chips splintered turbine compressor blades, cut fuel lines, and shattered windscreens. Crippled and almost out of fuel, both MiGs broke off their attacks and headed for the closest emergency runway.