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“This bomb is armed?”
“There is a possibility.”
“If it was armed, it would have exploded by now.”
Rubeo snorted.
“Don’t you think?” Je
“The fail-safe circuitry is dead,” said Rubeo. “Now is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“You have the experts there. What do they think?”
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“They are divided. We have steps for you to take.”
“Is it going to blow up if I do the wrong thing?” Je
“It may. It may very well go off if you do the right thing.”
“I wish you had a sense of humor, Ray. Then I would think you were joking.”
Aboard Dreamland Be
2150
STARSHIP CORRECTED SLIGHTLY AS THE INDIAN MIG TACKED
gently to the north. The MiG was still on a dead run for the Megafortress, about a hundred miles away. The two planes were closing in on each other at a rate of about seventeen miles a minute.
“Be
“Let’s find out what their intentions are,” said Englehardt.
“Sullivan, see if you can contact them.”
The pilot’s voice sounded a little shaky. Starship had flown with him once or twice, not long enough to form an opinion. He seemed tentative, but then the prospect of combat could do that the first time you faced it. Starship remembered his first combat sortie—he’d emptied his stomach as soon as they landed.
“Indians don’t answer our radio calls,” said Sullivan.
“Try again,” said Englehardt.
The Indians called the MiG-29 “Baez”—Eagle. The models coming toward the Be
The attack pattern Starship mapped out took advantage of RETRIBUTION
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that; it was unlikely that the MiG driver would know he was there until the first bullets began smashing through his fuselage.
Assuming Starship got the go-ahead to fire. While the MiGs had not answered the calls from the Be
Hawk Two was now a minute away.
“Be
“Just hang on a minute, Flighthawk leader,” said Englehardt.
“Roger that,” said Starship, throttling back.
ENGLEHARDT COULDN’T BELIEVE THIS WAS HAPPENING TO
him. He just couldn’t think.
A voice inside his head seemed to be screaming at him: Don’t blow it!
I won’t.
Don’t!
“Still nothing,” said Sullivan in the copilot’s seat. “They obviously know we’re here.”
“Their attack radars on?”
“Negative.”
Not answering their hails was provocative, Englehardt thought, but not threatening. His orders of engagement were pretty clear that he was to fire only if threatened.
On the other hand, if he let these planes get much closer and they did turn on their attack radars, it might be too late to get away.
“Be
A good, legitimate question, Englehardt thought. And his good, legitimate answer was—he didn’t know.
“I don’t see these planes as a threat to us at the moment,”
he told Starship.
“What if they’re carrying dumb bombs and are going to use them on the recovery team?” asked Sullivan.
He wants us to take them down, Englehardt thought.
Maybe he’s right. Better safe than sorry.
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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“I have a suggestion, Be
“Make it,” said Englehardt.
“Let’s move our orbit away from the ground team. See if they follow. I’ll keep Hawk Two near them, ready for an intercept.”
Good, Starship, good.
Englehardt wondered why he hadn’t thought of it—it was a simple, obvious move.
“Good. Let’s do that,” he said. “Sully, we’re going east.”
“Hey, I got something on the ground, on the highway that runs to the valley,” said Sergeant Daly, working the ground radar. “Four trucks, Humvee-sized. Moving through the passes. Real hard to get these suckers on radar with these mountains and vegetation. Yeah, all right—they’re about ten miles from the recovery area. Four of them.”
“Tell Captain Freah,” said Englehardt, the screech creeping back into his voice.
Jamu
2153
“NOTHING,” SAID DANNY FREAH. “ZERO. NO CURRENT.”
“Very good, Captain,” said Klondike. “Now we’re going to try the oscilloscope readings.”
Da
“Can we take a short break?” Da
“As long as you need.”
Before Da
“They’re about ten miles south of you,” Sullivan warned.
“Coming up that road that cuts back and forth through the val-
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275
ley. They’re hard to track because of the terrain and trees.”
“Copy that.”
Da
“How much longer before the warhead is safe to move?”
he asked.
“Three more steps,” said Klondike.
“How long will it take?”
“Five minutes, maybe. But first we have a series of tests. If we get the wrong result—”
“We have ground troops moving in our direction,” Da
“Stand by.”
Da
“Not very fast,” replied Sullivan. “Maybe fifteen miles an hour. That road takes a lot of turns and switchbacks.”
“Can you give me a visual from Hawk One?”
“Affirmative. Stand by.”
“No, I’m going to have to get back to you,” said Da
“I’ll talk directly to Starship.”
He ducked down to Je
“We have troops coming up the road in our direction. Find out the quickest way to get this thing ready to move. Then give me the helmet back, OK?”
She bit her lip, then nodded and took the helmet.
Aboard Dreamland Be
2155
STARSHIP TURNED HAWK TWO AWAY FROM THE MIGS, THEN
took over Hawk One. Slipping down toward the unit the ground radar had spotted, he cut between a pair of 3,000 foot cliffs and shot into an open valley.
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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
The jagged road twisted and turned across what looked like a dry streambed. A dozen men were riding on the backs or tops of the four vehicles, which had their lights out.
“Starship, you with me?” asked Da
“Yeah, here we go, Captain. This is a live feed.” He banked, and took another run up the road, this time from the rear of the column. “Four trucks, a dozen guys or so hanging on them. They’re moving pretty slow. About forty minutes away from you, maybe a little more.”
“Yeah, listen, take a run all the way up that road for me again, OK?”