Nerve Center

“Brazilian attaché in Vegas. Usual suspects in San Francisco. Nothing to report yet,” said Debra Flanigan, the Special Agent in Charge who handled the area.

Da

“Just for the record,” intoned Francois, “there are defense officials from fifty countries in San Francisco. Per regs, etc., unusual contacts to be reported.”

“In triplicate,” murmured Da

“Excuse me?” said Francois.

Freah nearly fell out of his chair. He hadn’t meant to actually say that. He opened his mouth to apologize, then realized it was better to stay silent—and anonymous.

“I think someone said triplicate.” Flanigan laughed. “Personally, I think two copies will do. But remember to blind-copy all the e-mails, please.”

Dreamland Range 2

10 January, 1054

WITH THE COMPUTER TEMPORARILY CONTROLLING THE two Flighthawks that had already launched from the Mega-fortress, Jeff took his hands off the controls and set them on the rests of his seat. He pressed down to lift his butt up, shifting around to get more comfortable.

Once precarious, the airdrop of the robot planes from Raven was now routine, with the computer able to handle it completely. The EB-52’s pilot nudged the Megafortress into a shallow dive as the computer counted down the sequence, initiating a zero-alpha maneuver.

“Five seconds,” said the pilot—Brea

Zen watched the instrument displays in his command helmet, power graphs at green, lift readings shifting from red diamonds—“no go”—to green upward arrows—“go.”

The simple graphics of the lift readings belied the complexity of the forces acting on the small robot planes strapped to the EB-52’s wings. The bomber’s airframe threw wicked vortices against the small craft; upon launch the robot’s complicated airfoil fought thirty-two different force vectors, all dependent on the mother ship’s specific speed, altitude, and angle of attack. Air temperature also played a role in some regimes, though the engineers were still debating exactly how significant the effect was. In any event, the computer handled the drudge work of setting the leading-edge foils and micro-adjusting the rear maneuvering thrusters as Raven reached launch point.

“Away Three,” said Zen, without touching the controls, and Flighthawk Three knifed downward, right wing angling upward to cut against the wind. “Away Four,” he said, and Flighthawk Four launched, stumbling ever so slightly as the Megafortress momentarily bucked in her glide slope.

“Sorry about that,” said Bree, but Zen wasn’t listening—he was in full-blown pilot mode now, the main display in his helmet giving him a pilot’s-eye view from the cockpit of Flighthawk One. The sitrep or God’s-eye view at the upper right showed all of the positions of the Flighthawks. It also marked out the other planes in the exercise. Pilots’ views from the other three robots were arrayed in a line next to it all the way across. A band at the bottom showed the instruments in the selected or “hot” Flighthawk. Though they had used it in combat, the interface remained a work in progress. Zen liked the helmet, since it came as close as possible to duplicating the in-the-cockpit experience. But the others on the team felt a dedicated console was preferable if more than one plane was to be controlled at a time, since the instrument readings for all of the planes could be displayed on different tubes, available at a glance. Today, Zen had the best of both worlds, flying with a scientist who monitored those displays at the next station. But the idea was for there to be eventually two different pilots, each with his own brood of robots.

A preset exercise like this allowed Stockard to work up a full set of routines for the robot planes’ C’ flight-control and strategy computer, augmenting the preset instructions and flight patterns with courses and default strategies to be implemented on voice command. Even so, a rapidly evolving situation could overwhelm both pilot and computer. Simply jumping from cockpit to cockpit—in other words, changing which Flighthawk he had manual control of—could be disorienting. It somehow taxed his muscles as much as his mind, as if he were physically levering himself up and out of his control seat into each plane. Controlling a four-ship of Flighthawks was like trying to ride four busting broncos simultaneously.

The testing program called for them to move up to eight in two months.

They’d work it out. Right now, Zen concentrated on nailing Mack. Yesterday’s mock battle had convinced him he’d never take out Mack straight on—the MiG was more capable than the F-16, and Smith could be expected to push it to the limits.

Which would be Zen’s advantage. He ducked the lead Flighthawk down to treetop level, or what would have been treetop level if there had been trees in the Nevada desert. Then he pushed down to anthill level and stepped on the gas.

Jeff’s shoulders relaxed as the rushing terrain flew by in his helmet. His thumb nudged against the throttle slide on the right stick—the Flighthawk controls featured HOTAS (Hands-On Stick And Throttle) sticks combining most of the functions normally divided between throttle and control stick. As he notched full military power, the computer warned he was approaching a ridge. It gave him a countdown; he waited, then pulled the stick back hard with a half second to spare, shooting the Flighthawk straight up.

It was a bonehead move—the Flighthawk went from completely invisible to the fattest target in the world.

Exactly as pla

MACK CHORTLED AS HIS LONG-RANGE IRST PICKED UP the Flighthawk climbing over the ridge eighteen miles away. He’d gotten by the F-l5’s so easily it was a joke, and now this. Zen had obviously miscalculated, not believing that the passive sensors in the MiG had been improved fourfold. He quickly selected one of his “Alamo” R-27 long-range air-to-air missiles. The fire-control system had been Westernized, making selection considerably quicker—one snap on the stick instead of a cross-body sequence of taps, and he had locked and launched.

Though mocked up so its performance would resemble the Russian Alamo air-to-air missile, the rocket was in fact an AMRAAM with a simulated warhead. In keeping with the theme of anticipating the Russians’ next wave of technology, its guidance system smartly toggled its seeker from radar to infrared if it encountered ECMs once locked; that made the missile practically no-miss. In this case, the “Alamo” would fly toward the target until its proximity fuse recorded a hit. Then it would pop a parachute and descend to earth.

Mack knew from experience that the Flighthawks would hunt in two-ship elements. Mack guessed the second plane would be about a mile behind the first, and when he saw a flash on the IRST he quickly kicked off his second and last Alamo.

MACK’S SIMULATED ALAMO AIR-TO-AIR MISSILES activated their radars the instant they launched, so even though he hadn’t turned his own radar beacon on, Knife had effectively given away his position by firing.

Which was half the point of Zen’s display with the Flight-hawk.

The other half had been achieved by dropping the delayed-fuse illumination flare, which Mack had hastily mistaken for the second Flighthawk.

A tiny cheat perhaps. But now Sharkishki was down to four missiles, all short-range Archers.

Not that the Vympel R-73 heat-seekers were to be taken lightly. On the contrary—the all-aspect, high-g missiles were more capable than even the most advanced Sidewinders. But they had to be fired from very close range, severely limiting Mack’s choice of tactics.

Zen told the computer to take over Hawk One. As good as C3 was, its evasive maneuvers were unlikely to be enough to evade the missiles. But he’d already accepted its loss. Jeff jumped into the cockpit of Hawk Two, which was flying a preset course with Hawk Three at the eastern end of the range. He swung the nose to the north five degrees, heading for an intercept with Sharkishki. Three, flying three feet behind Two, tight to its left wing, followed the maneuver precisely.