Nerve Center

“Alert the Nellis patrols,” he told Dream Tower. “I don’t want those cowboys taking potshots at me because I look like a bad guy.”

“Uh, Sharkishki, you’re clear to take off,” answered the tower belatedly.

Aboard Gal

8 March, 0811

THE STORM WAS SO THICK AND DEEP THAT IT TOOK Madrone forever to realize that the co

The ANTARES helmet had been pulled half off his head. He had become another person, his physical self another robot to be controlled.

The Megafortress lurched upward. Madrone shook his head clear and lifted the visor. Zen floundered on the deck beside him, the control lead snagged around his arm. He was trying to pull it with him as he elbowed backward from the control panels like a swimmer.

More like an upside-down turtle.

Madrone quickly undid his restraints and leaned down to punch Jeff flat in the face twice as the son of a bitch struggled to roll away. But Stockard didn’t give up, somehow continuing to push himself backward, dragging the cord with him. Anger propelled Madrone to his feet. He stopped Jeff with a sharp kick to his stomach, then stomped twice on his chest, slamming his heel into Jeff’s jaw before Stockard finally stopped, his eyes rolling back in his head as he momentarily lost consciousness. Kevin braced himself for a truly awful kick—he would beat the pulp from the bastard’s brain until the floor oozed with it. But as he started to swing forward, something held him back, a voice whispering to him from far away.

Jeffrey is your friend. He tried to warn you but you didn’t listen.

“Give me the cord, Jeff.”

Stockard, his head limp to the side, said nothing. Madrone reached down and put his fingers on Jeff’s arm almost gently as he pried the cord away.

“I’m sorry, Jeff. It has to be this way now.” He gathered the ANTARES wire into his hands, restored the plug, and wound the wire around the panel so it couldn’t be easily removed again.

Aboard M-6

8 March, 0828

THE FIRST SCORPION MISSED, SAILING ABOUT A hundred yards wide of Galatica. For a second, though, it looked like the pilots had lost control of the EB-52, and Dog thought Gal would spin into the mountains.

Somehow, she didn’t. Somehow, she began climbing again, and shook off the second and third Scorpions they had launched.

The fourth Scorpion lost its track and self-destructed.

They had two more left. The closer they got, the better their odds of nailing the plane. But McAden couldn’t get a lock to fire.

“Hang in there,” said Dog. “Je

“It’s still in native mode,” she said.

“They’re zigging. Tinsel. Damn, jamming our radar again,” said McAden. “Shit—we’re blind. I just lost them. I’m guessing they’ll dive down for the ground clutter, but I don’t have a heading. Jesus, I can’t find them. Sca

“Je

“ECMs are off,” reported McAden.

“Working on it,” said Je

“No contacts. Shit,” said McAden.

“I’m sorry, Colonel,” said Gleason from downstairs. “Without a transmission from them we have nothing to pick up.

“Be ready,” Dog said. “They’re here somewhere.”

Was Bree flying? She was this good certainly.

Bastian held his course for Gal’s last position. He pulled up the corn screen on his right MUD and hit the Dreamland reserve frequencies, punching in a combination to broadcast on all of the cha

“Rap, this is Colonel Bastian. You have to surrender, kid.”

“Daddy?”

Hey, babe, he thought. Sorry. I am so sorry.

“Captain Stockard. Stand down,” he said flatly.

“Shoot us down! There’s a nuke on the Flighthawk! Shoot us down!” said Brea

“Yes! I have them!” said Je

“I have a lock! Five miles!” a

Shoot us down.

“Colonel?”

“Fire missiles,” said Dog. For maybe the first time in his life, for certainly the first time since joining the Air Force, a tear slid down his cheek.

Aboard Gal

8 March, 0832

As MADRONE REENTERED THETA, HE SAW THE LAUNCH warning. He felt the computer tracking the missiles as they approached, winced as one slipped out of the noise and headed clean for their hull.

Another ducked downward, confused, not a threat.

Tinsel, jammers, cut left, cut right, you’re too high, easy pickings.

Accelerate, accelerate. Left, right, left, left again, fool the sticky bastard.

Dreamland lay just ahead. No one ever will go through this again. Never.

The Scorpion stuttered in the air, a half mile from the fuselage. It had him nailed, but staying on its target had exhausted its fuel. Kevin lurched to the right as it tried one last burst of speed and then exploded.

The shock wave nearly threw Hawk Three into a spin.

It was then that the other missile picked itself off the deck and nailed Gal’s extreme starboard engine.

MINERVA FELT THE SHOCK AS THE AMERICAN MISSILE tore into the power plant on the right side of the wing. She spun around, nearly pirouetting out of the seat even though her restraints were snugged.

The plane stuttered in the air, but kept climbing. They passed through ten thousand feet, the Megafortress fighting off a yaw.

Gravity punched against her chest as the plane finally lurched into an invert and then began to fall from the sky. They would die now. She’d had the seats sabotaged and there was no escape.

She hadn’t wanted to escape, not really. There had been hours to persuade Madrone, or even betray him, to simply call the Americans and surrender. But she hadn’t.

Minerva felt a twinge of regret, a small wish that her fate had followed a different path. Then her body slammed back against the seat so abruptly that she nearly lost consciousness.

This is what death feels like, she thought to herself.

Then the Megafortress rolled level, and blood began returning to her brain.

Aboard M-6

8 March, 0838

“THEY’RE BEYOND US!” YELLED MCADEN. “EAST, AT two, no, call it one o’clock. Three miles.”

“Radio the position to Nellis air defense and the rest of the net,” said Dog, calmly throwing the Megafortress into the tightest bank he could manage to pursue Galatica. “Sidewinders up. Dr. Geraldo, if you want to take your shot, do it now.”

Aboard Gal

8 March, 0840

MADRONE SAW THE MEGAFORTRESS’S EMERGENCY panel in part of his brain. The Scorpion had taken the power plant completely off, but had done only light damage to the wing itself. One of the fuel tanks had been hit by shrapnel, but the bladder material had quickly self-sealed. As potent as the Scorpion was, the EB-52’s venerable airframe had survived considerably worse.

Madrone didn’t care much for history. He dropped into Hawk Three and plunged out of Galatica’s shadow. Dreamland lay thirty miles away.

Two F-15’s approached on a direct intercept, along with four F-5’s.

The Eagles were merely a nuisance. The F-5’s weren’t even that.

He accelerated toward his target.

“Kevin,” said a familiar voice in his earphones. “You have to give up. You’re sick. It’s ANTARES.”

Geraldo.

He killed the radio.

Aboard Sharkishki

8 March, 0848

MACK TRIED TO TELL THE NELLIS COWBOYS IN THEIR F-15’s that they were getting the sucker play, but the idiots wouldn’t listen. They charged at the Megafortress and the Flighthawk that suddenly leaped from its shadow like they were ru