Piranha

“We’d prefer not to, due to the nature of the mission,” said Jed. “We’d prefer a sanitized site not co

“Deniable,” added Stoner.

“I’ve already checked into possible sites for a secure forward base,” continued Jed. “We have a site in the Philippines away from, uh, away from the population centers and sea lanes. It’s actually an old airstrip, pretty long. Just needs to be, um, tidied up a little. Remembering what you did in Turkey, I thought—”

“You want us to blow up another mountain?” Da

“That won’t be necessary this time.”

“I want to drive one of the bulldozers,” said Brea

Half of the room laughed.

The other half said, “Me too.”

“I want to be in one of the Megafortresses,” said Brea

“You have a heavy schedule with the UMB,” Dog said, surprised that she had volunteered.

“There’s only one flight test pla

“This could easily last longer,” said Jed. “I’d be thinking in, uh, the time frame of two or three months, at least until tensions die down.”

“That’s the case, you really need me. You won’t have enough trained Megafortress pilots unless you rotate in and out,” said Brea

“She’s right, Colonel. We could work around her schedule. Actually, if this lasts any length of time, we’ll have to work around a lot of schedules.”

“All right. Map out plans for a deployment,” said Dog. “I want planes over the area twenty-four hours from now, and I want them landing at that Philippines base when their shift is done.”

Chapter 3

Ghosts in the Jungle

Aboard Quicksilver, above the South China Sea

August 23, 1997, 1100 local (August 22, 1997, 2000 Dreamland

Until you actually did it, patrolling the ocean sounded like the sort of easygoing assignment a pilot and crew could do with their eyes closed. Especially a crew like the one aboard Quicksilver. Brea

Thirty minutes later, they were bored stiff, butts dragging lower than the troughs in the waves. Even Brea

All of the Dreamland Megafortresses were hand-built from older B-52’s. All had their own personalities as well as configurations, but they could be broken down into three main categories.

The general-purpose Megafortresses were essentially highly efficient bombers with the capability of acting as mother ships for up to four Flighthawks. IOwa was the leader of this class, intended to be configured for roles such as attack and long-range patrol.

The second category of Megafortress added a powerful onboard radar to the EB-52 skeleton, giving it nearly the ability of an advanced AWACS, but able to operate in an extremely hazardous environment. To accommodate the radar dome, these craft, around the forward wing area, had a prominent bulge. Though it was nowhere near as immense as the massive saucers that say atop a standard E-3 Sentry, Galatica or “Gal” belonged to this category. Her powerful radar altered the flight characteristics of the aircraft as it revolved, necessitating changes in the control computer to compensate.

The third category of Megafortress added electronic interception and eavesdropping equipment, along with a suite of ECMs that could turn a Spark Vark green with envy. These planes included Raven and Quicksilver. Their automated telemetry gathering skills were on call here.

They would record all electronic transmission from and to the Indian weapon, augmenting the data gathered by the EB-52’s powerful radar suite and the visual data from the Flighthawks. They weren’t just spy planes, however; armed with Tacit-Plus anti-radiation missiles, they could do the job of two or three different planes, protecting an attack package as effectively as a coordinated group of Wild Weasels, Spark Varks, and Compass Call aircraft.

There were other possibilities for the type. The Army was very interested in adapting the plane for the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System or JSTARS role, another mission currently filled by aircraft of the 707 type.

JSTARS E-8As, which had made their debut during the Gulf War, used Army and Air Force technology to track ground warfare units and targets; they could do for ground-attack forces what AWACS did for fighters. In theory, a Megafortress could accomplish the same thing while getting even closer to the action and delivering weapons itself. In fact, a good portion of the JSTARS technology had originally come from the Air Force’s Pave Mover and related programs, which were already incorporated in the development base of the “standard” EB-52.

Various other improvements for the Megafortress were in the works, including new engine configurations, but the program itself was now fairly “mature.” With production models ready to go, it had a certain set character to it—and, of course, it already had its own project manager, Major Alou.