Nerve Center

“Knock it off,” Zen said. “Flight emergency. Clear Range 4B. Radio silence. Hawkmother? Hawkmother?”

Mack pulled Sharkishki level, recovering from the quick evasive maneuvers. He craned his neck back to find out what had happened to the Boeing.

Damn thing had looked like it flew right at him.

He couldn’t see it behind him. He took a breath, calming down as he leaned the MiG slightly, trying to get a fix on the stricken plane.

A black speck appeared over his left shoulder, just beyond the MiG’s tailplane. It grew into a grayish ball.

One of the Flighthawks. It dropped below his wing. Where the hell was it going?

Mack hit the throttle, goosing the tweaked engines. Even so, the U/MF missed hitting him by less than twenty feet. Shit.

“Stockard, what the fuck is going on!” he yelled.

Hawkmother

19 February, 1028

MADRONE PUSHED THE BOEING DOWN TOWARD THE edge of the range, quickly descending through four thousand feet. One of the systems warned about stress to the control surfaces, but they were well within tolerance—he could feel the problem as a slight twinge near his temples.

He’d drop to fifty feet above ground. There, the effect of the ground clutter in radar returns would render him invisible. It was low, but not so low that he couldn’t easily cut a course through the mountains.

He could let the Boeing’s control computer fly the plane as soon as he figured out how to kill the safety restraints and reset the course. They were an electrified fence, sparking his body as he approached.

When he got beyond the fence, he could get rid of the pilot and copilot. He could see their seats, but not quite reach the release.

The damn MiG kept getting in his way, despite the efforts of the Flighthawks to run interference. They were unarmed, and he didn’t want to crash into Smith, since that would cost him a plane.

Get rid of Hawkmother’s pilot and copilot first. Smith was a blowhard; he’d never be able to stop him.

Zen called to him. Madrone turned away, closing the door on him.

He reached for the fence protecting the pilots. Sparks jumped and he jerked back, lost control of Boeing momentarily. The pilot pulled back on the controls, starting to take it out of its dive.

“You’re not going to beat me, you bastards!” he shouted. A latch sat on the side of the fence, held there by twisted wires.

He could get through it, if he was willing to ignore the pain.

As he touched the latch, the metaphor changed. He grabbed not metal but the arm of his young daughter, his baby.

She cried with pain.

He let go instantly, stu

“Christina,” he said. “Baby.”

She stopped sobbing and turned her eyes toward him, raising her head. The hair on the right side of her scalp fell away, just as it had during the radiation treatment at Livermore. Huge clumps dropped to the ground.

Her neck and the side of her skull boiled. The cancer burst through her skin, purple lumps like the thyroid they’d removed.

“Christina, Christina,” he cried.

Lightning struck his eyes. His body convulsed with pain. He couldn’t save his daughter; he was helpless, useless, worthless. His tongue trembled in his mouth and tears flowed. His cheeks melted as if the tears were acid. His chest convulsed as thunder shook the universe.

Come to me, said the dark woman, her voice muffled by the distance. Come, Kevin.

Who was she? A dream of Karen? Of Geraldo? Of some primeval lover stored deep in the recesses of his Jungian brain?

A metaphor, constructed by his mind, simply a metaphor for ANTARES.

Come to me, love.

Madrone felt his heart slowing. His lungs worked properly again. He pushed his hand, and it no longer held his daughter, but the wire around the fence latch. He pulled, and the metal gave way; he pulled, and the protective circuitry that had prevented him from gaining full control of the plane flew over his head backward.

He had it now. He had the course laid out. Get past the MiG, disappear into the mountains.

Then?

He would fly to the rain forest and the dark woman. He would find peace there.

Madrone pushed the Boeing back toward the ground, then jerked her hard to the west, the mountain peaks looming ahead.

“MAYDAY! MAYDAY! FUCK!” YELLED KULPIN AS DALTON continued to struggle with the 777. They’d disengaged the flight computer and done everything else possible, but had only limited success regaining control. They were well beyond Dreamland’s borders, accelerating as they flew southwest into commercial airspace. Dalton had managed to level off at three thousand feet, but now the Boeing slipped from his control once more, shuddering as she put her nose downward.

They were going to break the sound barrier again.

And on top of everything else, the environmental controls had freaked—it must be down to fifty degrees in the cockpit. “We’re going to have to bail,” said Kulpin.

“Not at this speed,” said Dalton.

“No choice,” argued Kulpin.

“Pull, help me pull,” he said, muscling the stick.

“I’m trying.”

“We are going to have to bail,” Dalton began.

He intended to tell Kulpin to radio their position and the fact that they were going out. He needed to tell Madrone what was going on, make sure the captain was strapped in and knew what to do. He wanted to start an orderly checklist, to keep things calm and precise and absolutely orderly, as if he were a cruise ship captain practicing a routine and boring lifeboat drill. But as he opened his mouth he felt his breath catch in the pit of his chest. His body slammed back on the seat and an anvil landed on his head. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized he had been ejected from the plane, though he hadn’t pulled the manual eject handles, let alone fooled with the automated sequence.

Sharkishki19 February, 1038

THE AUDIBLE FUEL WARNING IN MACK’S EAR HIT A NEW octave as he pushed to follow the Boeing. Dalton and his copilot didn’t answer his hails on any frequency, nor did Ma-drone.

At least the Flighthawks had stopped flashing in front of him, staying in a close trail behind Hawkmother. Mack recognized it as one of the preprogrammed flight positions.

As he closed the distance between himself and the big jet, the 777 took another lurch downward and the front end seemed to break apart.

“Shit, they’re out,” he said to Zen, yelling so loud it was possible he could be heard without the radio. “Fuck. They ejected. I think they ejected. Oh, Jesus.”

He slid the MiG into a bank, searching for parachutes. The truth was he couldn’t tell if they had ejected or if the front of the plane had blown apart—it was moving that damn fast.

Knife glanced at his fuel panel. Serious problems. Even if he turned back this instant, he might have to glide home.

He couldn’t see the Boeing anymore. Sharkishki’s radar had lost it in the ground clutter, but the IR scan showed the plane plummeting toward the mountains, a half mile ahead. He glanced over to mark the position with the GPS screen on the MUD. As he pushed the button, the Boeing disappeared from the screen.

“Plane’s going in,” he told Zen. He punched the IR gear, watching for the inevitable flare.

“Mack, what’s your status?” demanded Stockard.

“I lost them. They bailed and the plane nose-dived. Can’t find it on the infrared. I’m not sure why. Shit.”

“What’s your fuel, Sharkishki?” demanded Zen.

“Yeah. I have a fuel emergency. Returning to base,” conceded Mack. “I’ll upload the GPS telemetry. Aw, shit to fucking hell.”

Raven

19 February, 1050

ZEN’S CHEST COMPRESSED AS THE BOEING disappeared from the radar display. It felt like a snake had wrapped itself around him and squeezed.