Dale Brown - Dale Brown's Dreamland 04 - Piranha(and Jim DeFelice)(2003) (13 page)

 
          
“Kali?”
asked Zen.

 
          
“It’s
halfway between a sub-launched Harpoon and a Tomahawk missile,” said Stoner.
“It’s underwater-launched, like a torpedo. We think it can travel four or five
miles underwater before it surfaces, which makes the launching sub that much harder
to detect. It pops up, skims along the surface of the water, and hits its
target. It seems to be able to correct toward its target close in; we believe
it has an active radar phase, but we still need to gather data. That’s your
mission.”

 
          
“At
least for now,” added Jed. “There’s a debate—”

 
          
“Let’s
deal with what we’re assigned to do, not maybes,” Colonel Bastian said. Jed had
told him earlier the NSC had debated asking Whiplash to protect all shipping in
the area—a tall order, and one possibly beyond their abilities. NSC had held
off doing so—largely, according to Jed, because doing so would have stepped on
the Navy’s toes.

 
          
“Piranha,”
said Rubeo. “It’s obvious choice.”

 
          
“Not
ready for a mission like this,” said Dog.

 
          
“Piranha
is what?” said Stoner.

 
          
“Underwater
surveillance probe and weapon,” Dog told him. “I don’t think you need to know
the details.”

 
          
“We
can clean up the computer issues in a few days,” said Rubeo.

 
          
“The
mission has to start right away,” said Jed. “We were thinking
Elint
Megafortresses.”

 
          
“I
concur,” said Dog. “
Merce
?”

 
          
“We’ll
use Raven and Quicksilver,” said Alou, referring to the EB-52’s optimized for
electronic intelligence-gathering. “We deploy a mini-KH for optical
surveillance at the same time.”

 
          
“Negative
on the tactical satellites,” Dog told him. “We dong have any launch chassis.”

 
          
“We
do have satellite coverage of the area,” said Jed. “It’ll be available through
the Dreamland network.”

 
          
“If
we’re looking for really close views of something while it’s traveling, we can
take Flighthawks,” said Zen. “Straightforward.”

 
          
“What
do we do if these weapons are used?” asked Alou.

 
          
“At
the moment, just observe them,” said Jed.

 
          
“Wait—they’re
firing at civilian targets or military targets?” asked Zen. “I think I missed
something here.”

 
          
“What
difference does it make?” asked Stoner.

 
          
“It
makes a shitload of difference,” said Zen.

 
          
“There
are military ships in the region that could be targets,” said Jed. “Until now,
all of the ships that have been sunk were civilian.”

 
          
“Damn.”

 
          
“The
vessel sunk by the Kali was a merchant freighter owned by the Chinese
government smuggling weapons to Islamic extremists,” said Stoner. “The same
ship delivered explosives used to blow up a government building in New Delhi
six months ago. Still worried about civilians?”

 
          
“Yeah.
I am,” said Zen.

 
          
“We’ll
need a force briefing before we deploy.” Dog told Jed.

 
          
“Do
we operate out of Guam?” asked Major Alou, referring to the air base on the
island. “Anderson?”

 
          
“We’d
prefer not to, due to the nature of the mission,” said Jed. “We’d prefer a
sanitized site not connected to USPACCOM or any present operation.”

 
          
“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?” Danny asked with a laugh.

 
          
“That
won’t be necessary this time.”

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

 
          
Half
of the room laughed.

 
          
The
other half said, “Me too.”

 
          
“I
want to be in one of the Megafortresses,” said Breanna as the laughter died.

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

 
          
“There’s
only one flight test planned over the next seven or eight days,” said Bree.

 
          
“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 Breanna, looking at Alou.

 
          
“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.”

 
          
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. Breanna Stockard had flown the Megafortress
platform for so long, the plane and its complicated systems seemed to have grafted
themselves onto her body, and vice versa. Chris Ferris, her copilot, had been
with the program nearly as long, and had worked with Breanna through all of
Whiplash’s important deployments. The newcomer on the crew, Torbin
Dolk
, had proved his worth in Iran, and even he seemed tied
into the crew’s shared ESP. they took turns sleeping on the long flight to
South Asia, and while they couldn’t quite be called bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed, they were nonetheless ready when they finally began their
surveillance track.

 
          
Thirty
minutes later, they were bored stiff, butts dragging lower than the troughs in
the waves. Even Breanna had to fight to keep her attention focused on the
mission and the plane she was flying.

 
          
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
antiradiation
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.

 
          
The
B-5 Unmanned Bomber Platform was wide-open, a vast cloud of potential waiting
to be shaped, like the Megafortress had been when Bree joined the program. It
was also the sort of program a captain could ride to a colonelcy and beyond.

 
          
Was
that important? Was that what she was worried about?

 
          
No
way. She wanted to be promoted.

 
          
Even
though it would strain her marriage.

 
          
Zen
was due for promotion soon, and with his record no one was going to stand in
his way. That would almost certainly mean going to Washington. He hadn’t served
in the Pentagon, and for someone like Zen the Pentagon was a necessary and
expected ticket to be punched. He’d be there already if it hadn’t been for his
accident.

 
          
What
did that have to do with anything? She’d be at Dreamland and he’d in D.C., one
way or the other.

 
          
Give
up the B-5? Why? Because it wasn’t a “real” plane?

 
          
Maybe
she was worried about something else. Maybe there wasn’t room to have a
two-career family.

 
          
So
she’d do what? Quit? Play Suzy Homemaker?

 
          
Bullshit.
She was to Suzy Homemaker as Zen was to …

 
          
A
Pentagon paper-pusher. He’d never last a week there, even in a wheelchair.

 
          
“Coming
up to Cathay,” said Chris Ferris. His voice had a cackle to it, accented by the
interphone circuit shared throughout the airplane. He’d spent considerable time
coming up with an elaborate list of code words for the various coordinates on
their mission chart and, for some reason, thought they were amusing as hell.
“Cathay” was the release area for the Flighthawks. “Byzantium” was the
southernmost point of their patrol orbit; “Confucius” was the northern point.