Wraith (15 page)

Nick cringed as his T-38 bounced down Romeo Seven's decrepit runway. How would the crippled bomber handle this rough surface? During the forced capture, Dream Catcher had severed some of the hydraulic lines that ran through the B-2's bay. That meant both flight control and brake problems for the bomber. Drake had suggested that Nick land first. If the bomber crashed on landing and blocked the runway, he would have nowhere to go.

As soon as Eddie hung the crew ladder on the side of Nick's cockpit, he clambered down and raced outside with his NVGs. Looking south, he could see a trail of vapor forming in the bomber's wake. In the green illumination of the goggles, the B-2 became a shimmering dragon, weaving a serpentine path across the sky. “They're dumping gas to reduce their landing weight. That's not a good sign.”

He watched through the NVGs until the bomber touched down. The landing looked good. Drake had it right on the runway's centerline, but then the B-2 veered left. Nick waited for him to correct toward the center but the big jet just kept inching closer to the edge, and it wasn't slowing down. “Something's wrong. They've lost steering and maybe their brakes, too. If they hit the dirt at the edge of the runway, the gear will collapse. They could cartwheel.”

“Agreed,” said Eddie. “Wish there was somethin' we could do for them.”

Nick shoved the goggles into Eddie's chest. “Maybe there is.” He grabbed both sets of chocks out from under the T-38's tires and began a full sprint to intercept the B-2.

The stealth bomber still hung dangerously close to the edge of the runway. If the left gear went into the dirt, she would cartwheel, with deadly consequences for the crew. Nick could think of only one thing to do to help his friends. Even though it was a long shot, he had to try.

He carried the chocks by their ropes. The heavy rubber blocks beat mercilessly at his shins and knees as he ran, but he ignored the pain. He had to get to the pavement before the bomber passed by.
You've only got one shot at this, Nick,
he thought.
You'd better make it count.

The bomber was outpacing him. Nick made a final push, demanding every ounce of speed from his burning muscles. He reached the edge of the runway just ahead of the B-2 and lunged, slinging the chocks in front of the right main gear and then tucking into a roll as he hit the pavement. The huge left tires passed behind him, missing his body by just inches.

*   *   *

Inside the cockpit, Drake saw Nick approach from the side and then disappear under his wing. “What the . . .” Then he felt the B-2 veer away from the runway's edge, back toward the centerline. “I think we're dragging something with the right gear,” he said to Danny.

“Is that good or bad?”

“Good . . . ish.” Drake winced. “That something might be Nick.”

Danny's eyes went wide. “What?”

“Just get on the brakes with me!”

The end of the runway came up fast. Both men bore down on the brake pedals, each letting loose a tribal “Aaaaahh!” as if screaming might somehow prevent them from crashing. The bomber continued to veer right, passing the centerline again, but it slowed. Finally, just as the concrete under the nose gave way to dirt, the big jet inched to a stop.

“All right, spill it!” Walker fumed, storming into the conference room with a cup of coffee in each hand.

Danny felt the need to shrink into his chair. He'd never been involved in an accident of this magnitude before. He looked at Scott for help but the engineer had taken a sudden, deep interest in his notes. It was obvious whose head would be first on the chopping block.

“Well?”

“Sir, we're going to need some time to figure this out,” Danny said cautiously. “It's going to take a while for us to look over the data and figure out exactly what went wrong. Dr. Stone and I will—”

The colonel wasn't buying it. “Don't give me the engineer runaround, Sharp. I've seen it before!” His withering scowl panned across the faces of the contractors. “We wouldn't have to pay you guys so much if you couldn't look at a situation and figure out what was going on. Now tell me what happened out there!”

Danny looked to Scott, who was still hiding in his notes. He kicked the engineer in the shin.

Scott's head jerked up. “Ahem . . . ah, with a cursory look at the events on flight test one,” he began in an academic tone, “it appears that our computer modeling did not adequately anticipate the dynamic environment created by the airflow in the B-2's weapons bay, a problem compounded by LORA's own engine exhaust. Unfortunately, her flight control reactions, even at the lightning calculation speeds of the onboard computers, were just that—reactions. Each change in the air flowing over the drone dictated new flight control movements, but by the time the movements happened there was a new problem to react to. LORA's deviations from the recovery point became exponentially larger until she finally glanced off the side of the bay.”

“Fortunately, Lieutenant Baron had the presence of mind to digitally capture the location where we lost the chunk of the drone,” Danny added. “Without his quick thinking the recovery team would have had a devil of a time finding it.”

Walker looked around as if he'd lost something, like his wallet or his keys. “Where is Baron, anyway?”

“He's in the infirmary, sir,” said Drake. “He got a bit scratched up saving our necks.”

“Right. Remind me to give him kudos for that one. Now, getting back to the task at hand, I didn't understand a word Dr. Stone just said. Sharp, rephrase it for me.”

Danny attempted to translate. “The problem, sir, is that Dream Catcher's recovery positioning system can't keep up with the unstable air in the bay. In a normal flow of air, a reactionary system is sufficient, but in the very turbulent environment of the bomb bay it's not. In order to remain steady enough for capture, Dream Catcher would have to go beyond reactions and learn to anticipate the currents and flows around her.”

“So what you're telling me is we have an unsolvable problem?”

“Not necessarily. While the airflow in the bay will be slightly different each time, there will always be a pattern. If we had a flight control computer with the programming to learn the pattern in the first few milliseconds, it could anticipate each cycle and make a successful recovery.”

“Great, how long will it take you to reprogram Dream Catcher?”

“It's more complicated than that, sir,” cautioned Scott.

Walker turned the full weight of his scowl on the engineer. “And
you
are certainly not going to make it any simpler, so keep quiet. Sharp, what is the egghead talking about?”

Danny spoke slowly, though he tried not to speak so slowly that the colonel would be insulted. “To make Dream Catcher do what I've described would require more than just new programming. It would require several more laser range finders and a host of tactile sensors that could literally feel the air around her. Dream Catcher's current computers can't take that kind of input.”

“Don't we have a flight control computer that can handle the data feed you're talking about?”

“We do: the human brain and neural system.”

“Don't push me, Sharp.”

“What I'm saying, sir, is that a human pilot flies as much by feel as by instrumentation. It's commonly known as ‘flying by the seat of your pants,' but in reality it is a complex learned skill. A human pilot inside Dream Catcher could conceivably adapt to the dynamic environment of the bomb bay quickly enough for a successful capture. A live pilot's ability to feel the air would compensate for the lack of sensors and computing power. Lieutenant Baron gave us a hint of this by anticipating when to shut the bomb bay and grab the drone.”

Danny thought he could see an explosion building as Walker downed one of his cups of coffee and stared at the floor. “Can we modify her to accept a pilot?”

Danny nodded. “Yes, sir, I believe we can.”

“How long?”

“Four months.”

The building explosion went critical. “That's not good enough! We need it in half that time.”

“Sir, I—”

“
Sir
, nothing. Everyone between me and the president wants a result from this process and they want it yesterday. Four months is unacceptable. You'll get it back here and ready for flight test in two months or I'll make sure you and the egghead are manning a research station in Antarctica for the rest of your careers!”

“Yes, sir.” Danny shuddered, envisioning himself crouched on the frozen tundra of Antarctica, pinning transponders to the flightless wings of penguins while listening to Scott complain about everything from their accommodations to the quality of their computers. “But we'll need to decide who's going to fly it, and we'll need to decide soon.”

“Don't you worry about that, Captain, I know just the guy.”

Nick sat alone in the small cafeteria at Romeo Seven, holding a rag to a cut on his forehead and nursing a cappuccino. He sullenly picked at a bowl of stale popcorn he'd taken from a half-empty machine in the corner of the room. He knew the coffee would artificially keep him awake much too far into his sleep period, but he didn't expect that he would sleep much anyway.

The others were still engrossed in their crisis meeting. The colonel was in a bad mood, and Nick didn't want to make it worse by walking in late after his trip to the infirmary. Instead, he had gone to the cafeteria to drown his sorrows in caffeine.

He reflected on the failed mission, with its smooth progress abruptly collapsing into a series of compounding emergencies. He wondered if there would still be a place for him in the Cerberus operation or if he would have to go and hide somewhere, twiddling his thumbs and nursing his wounds, until his fake attendance at the Air University course in Alabama was complete.

“Mind if I join you?”

The voice from behind startled Nick. He stood and turned, trying not to spill his coffee in the process, and found an unfamiliar but smiling face. The man standing in the doorway wore a lieutenant colonel's rank on the shoulders of his flight suit and the triangular patch of the Triple Seven Chase on his arm. Nick shrugged. “No objections, sir.”

The lieutenant colonel approached and offered his hand. “I'm Jason Boske. But you can call me Merlin.”

Nick responded in kind, reaching out to shake the hand. “I'm—”

“Nick, I know.” Merlin cut him off. “Welcome to the Triple Seven Chase, Nick Baron. I'm your commander.”

Nick was not surprised by the revelation; he'd suspected Merlin's identity as soon as he saw the patch. He sat back down at the table and tossed another piece of stale popcorn into his mouth. “I find the command issue here a little confusing, sir. Is Colonel Walker my boss, or are you?”

Merlin took the seat across from Nick's. “Both. I command the permanent chase squadron at Romeo Seven—just the T-38s. Colonel Walker commands the Cerberus program.”

“So I fly the chase plane for you and the Triple Seven Chase. I get that,” said Nick, looking the senior officer in the eye. “But no one has told me exactly how I fit into Cerberus. Someone mentioned a report I wrote after September 11. Does that have something to do with it?”

Merlin glanced down at Nick's bowl. “I think I might try some of that.” He stood up and walked over to the popcorn machine. “So, I hear your first mission for us was a trial by fire.”

Nick stared at the lieutenant colonel's back. Had he missed the question? Or had he just ignored it? Nick let it go for the moment. “Trial by fire might be an understatement, sir. Eddie was pretty upset with me for getting Millie all scratched up.”

“He'll survive.” Merlin turned back toward the table with a full bowl of popcorn. He tossed a piece into his mouth and grimaced. “This needs something,” he said, his eyes searching the countertop. Finally he found an unmarked shaker full of red seasoning.

The commander's cavalier attitude in the face of the evening's disaster frustrated Nick. “I keep feeling like none of it should have happened,” he said. “Like I could have done something more; like I should have seen it all coming.”

When Merlin sat back down across from Nick, his eyes were serious again. “Number one: I was sitting in the control room with Lighthouse during the whole thing. You did everything you could. Number two: Don't flatter yourself, kid. Don't take on more responsibility than you can actually bear in any given situation. The damage done today was predestined by an oversight in the engineering process. Nothing you could have done was going to prevent it. Happens all the time in flight testing.”

“Really?”

Merlin bobbled his head back and forth. “Well, not
all
the time.” He turned the shaker over, dumping a stream of red powder onto his popcorn. “Point is, you should be proud of your work tonight. You flew sharp and your presence of mind in marking the point when the debris came off saved us from a second Roswell—not to mention your near suicidal effort to save the B-2. You did the Triple Seven Chase proud, kid.” Merlin popped a handful of reddened popcorn into his mouth, chewed it thoughtfully for a moment, and then nodded as if the seasoning had transformed the bowl of stale kernels into a culinary masterpiece. “Tonight's events are water under the bridge. Let's talk about something else.” He pulled the Triple Seven patch off his shoulder and slapped it down on the table between them. “The colonel tells me you want to know what all of this means.”

For the first time since the accident, Nick smiled. “Yes, sir, I surely do.”

“As well you should; as any young officer should want to know the history of his unit. Very well, then.” Merlin straightened up and cleared his throat, spreading his hands like a thespian about perform a Shakespearean sonnet. “In 1972—before you were born if I remember your file correctly—the powers-that-be decided to create a covert chase squadron, separate from the test squadrons around the Air Force. The Seventh Chase Squadron was born, with four pilots and two shiny new T-38 aircraft.”

Nick raised an eyebrow.

Merlin raised two. “What?”

“You said ‘Seventh Chase Squadron.' Isn't it ‘the Triple Seven Chase'?”

Merlin frowned. “Don't interrupt, kid. It's rude. Eat your popcorn.”

The lieutenant colonel cleared his throat once more. “As I was saying, four pilots, under the command of Michael ‘Rat' Shaw, were based at Holloman under various cover assignments. Every day they took off with the dawn patrol in their T-38s and practiced test maneuvers that pushed the edge of sanity.” He paused a moment and then cocked his head to one side. “You ever see the movie
Top Gun
, where Tom Cruise flies inverted directly over the top of a MiG?”

Nick tried to respond in the affirmative, but Merlin didn't give him the chance.

“Of course you have. Who hasn't? Well, I don't know where the Hollywood guys got the idea, but Rat and his band of misfits were doing inverted formation dives long before Tom Cruise was playing beach volleyball and showering with other guys.”

Nick cringed.

Merlin nodded. “Yeah. I know.” He waved his hand as if to banish the image. “Anyway, one of the Seventh's objectives was to test the new laser-guided bombs, and Rat discovered that the easiest method for following a bomb through its parabolic flight path was that inverted dive.” He demonstrated the maneuver with his hands, holding one upside down over the other, the knuckles nearly touching, arcing both over the table.

“Rat and his guys practiced the move on each other, with one T-38 playing the bomb, and one acting as chase. They practiced every other form of chase you could imagine, too, and it wasn't long before Rat thought his boys were ready for their first real test mission.” The lieutenant colonel scooped another handful of popcorn into his mouth, and Nick gathered from the dramatic pause that Rat's boys were not—in fact—as ready as he supposed.

“Rat sent Frank Eubanks up to fly chase on a reconnaissance drone,” Merlin continued, wiping red seasoning from his lips. “It was a lot like Dream Catcher but without all the space-age technology. Should've been a cakewalk, but it went bad. Frank was underneath the drone, checking out a loose panel, when the thing went haywire and pitched down, right into his cockpit. There was no attempt to eject. Both Frank and the drone went down in flames. The resulting cover-up was a pain in the proverbial neck. And the squadron had to shut down until the heat blew over.”

Merlin grabbed another handful of popcorn and shoved it in his mouth.

Nick took advantage of the pause. “You still haven't explained how you added two more sevens.”

“Patience, kid. Man, you Generation X people have no attention span.” In mid chew, Merlin seemed to realize that the red seasoning carried a little kick. He stood up and headed for the coffee machine, continuing the story as worked.

“As I was saying, Rat revived the
Seventh
Chase a few months later. The next test involved a laser-guided bomb, the kind they had practiced for. And, this time, Rat flew the test himself. He followed the delivery jet until it lofted the bomb and then he chased it through its parabolic profile. Just as they'd practiced, he entered an inverted dive above the weapon. This time there was no malfunction. The bomb was following its normal guidance sequence and Rat simply got too close; he failed to remember that laser-guided bombs make enormous corrections up and down while zeroing in on the laser spot.”

“I've heard about that,” offered Nick. “It's called ‘bang-bang guidance.'”

Merlin returned with his coffee, taking a long, pepper-quenching swallow before he sat down again. “Yeah, it went bang, all right. The weapon made a pitch correction and slammed into Rat's canopy. That wouldn't have brought him down with today's bombs, but we made 'em with more volatile stuff back then. The weapon exploded. The debris field spread for miles.”

Merlin set his coffee down and pointed at the ribbons on the patch. “That's why the names are written in blood red. They are in memoriam to Sideshow Eubanks and Rat Shaw.” He stared quietly down at the patch for a few seconds, as if paying his respects to the dead. Then he looked up with a sour expression. “After that, heads began to roll. With two fatal mishaps in as many tests, the squadron was a dismal failure. Everything was shut down and mothballed.

“Then, in 1984, a major by the name of Bob Windsor was faced with an ultra-classified project and nowhere to conduct the tests. It was Windsor who pushed for the secret conversion of Biggs North One, attempting to resurrect the Seventh there. He met with resistance. Those who remembered Eubanks and Shaw considered the whole idea unlucky. But Windsor annoyed his superiors until they finally gave in.”

Merlin popped another piece of popcorn into his mouth and chased it with some coffee. “Under Windsor,” he said after a short swallow, “the squadron took on an entirely new format—the one we still use. Instead of pilots taking this as a regular assignment, it's as an additional duty; something you do once in a blue moon. And there are only two T-38 chase pilots at any given time.”

“So it's just you and me?” asked Nick. “Only two, like the Sith in
Star Wars
?”

Merlin grimaced and shook his head. “Whoa, don't geek it up, kid. It is what it is. Anyway, we each have another flying job and only return to Romeo Seven as the need arises and the clearances allow. You'll be a B-2 pilot—one of these days—and I fly Nighthawks for the 8th. But we'll do these chase missions on the side.”

“But what about the name?” asked Nick, tapping the numbers on the patch with his knuckle. “You still haven't told me how it became the Triple Seven Chase?”

“Oh, right. I almost forgot,” said Merlin, though his smile indicated that he had omitted that detail on purpose, just to make Nick ask for it again. “Windsor came up with the name when he was trying to get permission to revive the squadron. That was how he got around the superstitious folk who thought the old unit was cursed. He melded the squadron's history into a name and symbol that seemed the essence of luck itself. No one could argue with three sevens, particularly a bunch of Red Flag junkies who spend half of every year in Vegas. By Windsor's account, his revival represented the third iteration of the Seventh, hence the name, and hence the motto, ‘Third Time Lucky.'” The older pilot leaned back in his chair. “So there you have it, kid, the whole story. How'd I do?”

Nick shrugged. “I don't recommend it for younger audiences, but not bad.”

“Thanks, I'll take that under advisement.”

The two looked up as Colonel Walker strode into the room. He wore his usual scowl and carried two crumpled coffee cups.

“Nick,” Walker said in a commanding voice.

Nick stood up. “Yes, sir?”

“How did you feel about your performance tonight?”

Nick stiffened. Merlin had been kind, but he feared the colonel was about to give him the verbal lashing he had been expecting. He shot a glance down at the Triple Seven patch on the table. “No one died, this time. I guess that's a plus.”

That seemed to catch the old grunt off guard. Walker looked puzzled for a half second, but then his scowl returned. “Well, it was good enough to earn you a promotion.”

“I'm sorry, sir; did you say a promotion?”

“That's right. Merlin will take the next chase mission. You're going to fly something else.”