Dale Brown - Dale Brown's Dreamland 04 - Piranha(and Jim DeFelice)(2003) (20 page)

 
          
“Firing,”
said Chris.

 
          
Breanna
held the plane against the staccato rumble, rising and sliding across the air,
standing the massive, heavy plane up at nearly fifty degrees as the engines
groaned, walking Quicksilver across the sky as if she were a dolphin skipping
across the waves. Gravity and adrenaline punched against each other barely
balancing the contrary forces.

 
          
Sex
might be better than this, but some nights it could be damn close.

 
          
Zen
pushed the Flighthawks away from the Megafortress. He had to turn the U/MFs,
then trade altitude for acceleration as the missiles came on, as if they were
pursuing fighters. The VJ-2’s were flying low, relatively straight courses.
Shooting down the small, fast-moving missiles was not an easy task: C³’s
tactics section estimated the odds at under fifty percent apiece.

 
          
Forty-three
and thirty-eight, to be exact.

 
          
The
two missiles were separated so far apart that Zen had to stick one U/MF on
each. He’d have to let the computer take one of them—thousands and thousands of
hours and experience showed it was nearly impossible to control both robots
successfully in a high-speed
furball
.

 
          
Quicksilver’s
tracking gear guessed at the missiles’ targets from their courses. The missile
arcing in from the west was flying for the tanker; the other had the cruise
ship in its sites.

 
          
No-brainer.
Give the computer the one on the tanker. It had the easier shot besides.

 
          
“Computer,
take Hawk Two. Complete intercept. Destroy target.”

 
          
“Computer
acknowledges.”

 
          
Zen
jumped into Hawk One as the plane whipped through a turn to get on the Chinese
VJ-2’s tail as it came on. There was so much electronic tinsel and ECM fuzz in
the air, the computer warned the command signal had degraded; Zen pushed away
the warning, pushed away everything but the streaking gray blur that whipped
into the bottom corner of his
viewscreen
. He had his
throttle slide at max, his stick pressed forward slightly, the Flighthawk at a
shallow-angle dive over the rear of its target. His
pipper
glowed yellow, then pulsed, then went back to yellow. He pushed his nose down
harder, trying to get his gun on the missile. The white blur of the cruise ship
illuminated the other end of his screen, the ocean swirled into blue.

 
          
He
had yellow. He had red. He pressed the trigger as the missile tucked hard
right. Zen shoved his stick to follow, his tail flying up, the Flighthawk
wallowing in the air.

 
          
A
red triangle. Zen nailed down the trigger, pushing a stream of 20mm bullets
into the rolling silver-gray blur sliding diagonally toward the right corner of
his screen.

 
          
Firing
20mm bullets at an aircraft while flying between four and five hundred miles an
hour is an iffy thing. The laws of motion get complicated; not only are you
dealing with the momentum of both aircraft, but the actions of the bullets and
gun greatly complicate the equation. A relatively small aircraft like the
Flighthawk could be greatly affected by the spin and recoil action of the
revolving Gat, even though these were reduced in the modified M61 it carried in
its nose. The bullets, meanwhile, reacted in several dimensions at once, torn
between their own momentum and that of the plane. With a target as relatively
thick as the tail section of a Sukhois fighter-bomber, the complicated physics
made a direct hit hard enough; reduce the target size by a factor of thirty or
so, and hitting the bull’s-eye became exceedingly difficult.

 
          
None
of which consoled Zen for missing.

 
          
Though
the waves were now less than a thousand feet away, Zen hung on, still holding
his nose down. The cruise ship grew rapidly into the size of a brick. He
sprayed shells at the sea, and saw the swells grabbing them. At a hundred feet,
Zen got a proximity warning, pulled up slightly, and kept firing. The splutter
of bullets sailed all around the spinning gray cylinder. Suddenly, the stream
connected. The missile shot into a somersault and then exploded. Zen yanked
back on the stick, said, “Computer, take One,” and jumped into the cockpit of
Hawk Two.

 
          
The
computer had already started to fire. Its target jerked left, then nosed up.
Zen overrode the computer, pressing the trigger though his
pipper
was yellow. The ocean suddenly was all he could see—the missile was riding
straight into the water.

 
          
He
jerked upward, thinking the ship had been saved. But even as he did, he caught
a large splotch of black in his face, and realized he was a lot closer than
he’d thought to the tanker. Even before climbing back and spinning around to
get a good view of the battle area, Zen realized the missile had survived just
long enough to find its target, slamming into the side of the vessel at five
hundred knots.

 
          
Philippines

 
          
Mark
Stoner stepped off the helicopter swiftly, ducking reflexively as the whirling
rotors whipped grit against his face and clothes. He moved quickly toward the
edge of the concrete, lugging his two Alice packs with him. The concrete ran
surprisingly smooth, though there were a few spots where men were working on
burning up roots and vines, and at the northern end a bulldozer and a buzz saw
or two were hacking down a thick row of overhanging trees. Overall, the strip
looked long, wide, and amazingly well-prepared.

 
          
The
Whiplash people had established a sensor perimeter, using audio sensors, land
radar, and optical and IR mini-cams tied by land lines to a sandbagged area
about ten yards off the southern end of the airstrip. Stoner spotted it and
began walking in that direction, ignoring the wind whipping from the wash of
the Chinook that had deposited him on the island. Captain Danny Freah, the
young Air Force officer who headed the deployment team, stood with his hands on
his hips looking over the shoulder of a Whiplash trooper as they surveyed the
array of video tubes.

 
          
Stoner
recognized the captain’s frown; he’d seen it on the face of every one of his
superiors when he was in the Navy. Bastards must be issued it the day they
graduate officer’s school.

 
          
“Captain,”
said Stoner.

 
          
“Hey,”
responded Danny. “Be with you in a second.” He leaned over his man and began
tapping one of the two keyboards. About twice the size of a computer keyboard,
it had two rows of oversized buttons at the top and several fat sections of
others on either side of the QWERTY layout. There were tiny legends on several,
but most merely had letters and numbers, like “A4” and “DD-2.”

 
          
“Impressive,”
said Stoner when Danny straightened. “Shows you the whole perimeter?”

 
          
“Yeah,”
said Danny.

 
          
“What’s
that?” One of the video screens was focused on two pieces of cloth stretched in
a clearing beyond a small pond.

 
          
“Looks
like a little village,” said Danny. “It’s beyond the ridge, down the rift,
maybe a mile, little less.”

 
          
“I
can get them moved,” said Stoner. He reached into his pack for his satellite
phone.

 
          
“That’s
not necessary. Not yet,” said Danny.

 
          
“No,
it is.”

 
          
“My
call here,” said the captain.

 
          
“No,
it’s not.”

 
          
Danny’s
eyes narrowed and his jaw set—another officer expression Stoner was very
familiar with.

 
          
“With
all due respect, Mr. Stoner, I’m responsible for security here. My call.”

 
          
“This
is my mission,” said Stoner flatly. He pushed the cover of the phone up, and
dialed his Agency liaison in Manila, the deputy station chief.

 
          
He’d
hit the last digit when the captain’s thick black hand folded around the phone.

 
          
“No,”
said Danny.

 
          
Stoner
took a deep breath and straightened his body, fully relaxed except for his grip
on the phone. If he jerked his knee up and pushed his left elbow, the Air Force
officer would fall to the ground with a collapsed windpipe.

 
          
“Let
me spell it out,” said Danny, still holding the phone. “There are no more than
a dozen people there. At the moment, they’ve made no move to come up over the
ridge, and they have no way of communicating with the outside world. The other
side of their camp is covered by another swamp. I have the only path out under video
surveillance, and I have the beach opposite them under watch as well. If we
move them, we’ll make a lot of noise and potentially a lot of fuss. It’s
definitely an option, but I’d like to hold if off until necessary. I can take
them prisoner in a half hour if need be. They’re unarmed, and they’re not
getting away.

 
          
“You
don’t know what you’re dealing with,” said Stoner. He heard the words of his
Zen master at the back of his head, telling him to breathe, telling him to
maintain the center of the burning candle flame in his chest.

 
          
“Granted,”
said Freah. “But this is the best way to proceed if we’re going to keep this
base covert.”

 
          
The
captain was a young guy, with an impressive war record. He probably also
thought he could deck Stoner if it came to that.

 
          
“Captain,
please let go of my phone,” he said gently. “We’ll do it your way—but let me
just tell you something.” He paused, waiting for the officer to let go of the
phone. Released, he brought his arm down and bowed his head—then in a flash put
his arm at Danny’s neck, fingertips precisely on the two common carotid
arteries. “Do not touch me again. Sometimes reflexes can be deadly.”

 
          
He
pulled his hand back quickly.

 
          
The
Whiplash trooper who’d been watching the video cams was standing behind him, his
MP-5 pointed at Stoner’s head.

 
          
“Good
point,” said Danny—whose pistol was out and pointed at Stoner’s stomach.

 
          
Aboard Quicksilver, over the South China
Sea

 
          
The
flames licking up from the blackened metal were surprisingly small. The smoke,
on the other hand, furled in all directions, a massive squat funnel that
stretched all the way toward the debris field where the first ship had gone
down. Zen took Hawk Two through the thick hedge of black, and gray; not even
the high-tech array of sensors on the Flighthawk could penetrate it.

 
          
“Can’t
quite get a visual,” he told Breanna. “I think she’s broken in two, but still
attached, if you know what I mean. Like a twig that snapped but it has the top
back attached.”

 
          
“Copy
that,” she replied. “Be advised they’re repeating their SOS and saying they’re
abandoning ship.”

 
          
“Hawk
Leader.” He banked as he cleared the heavy smog. A small portion of the rear of
the tanker was visible below the smoke; he came back and crossed through the
clear space, maybe eight or nine feet over the waves. A Zodiac-type rubber boat
had been set into the water and was pulling away.

 
          
“I
see the crew,” said Zen. “What’s up with that cruise ship?”

 
          
“They’re
still southeast,” said Collins. “Moving at about four knots.”