Zen rolled his neck around on his spine, the vertebrae cracking. He’d forgotten how heavy the control helmet was. He could actually take it off, since the console he was sitting at in Hanger B was basically a flight simulator on steroids. Arranged like a cockpit and developed for the Flighthawk, its standard multi-use displays were augmented by dedicated control and sensor displays, along with banks of specific system overrides and data collectors. They’d nicknamed it Frankenstein’s Control Pod.

But if he was going to get back in the program, he had to do it right, and that meant using the helmet and the Flighthawk flight sticks. It meant sucking it up and hanging in there, kinks, sweat, and all.

Zen checked the altitude on Green Phantom, nudging up to 15,500 feet. He was five miles away, closing on One-Zero-Mike’s left wing. Though he had his left hand wrapped around Mike’s control stick, the computer was actually flying the plane in its preprogrammed orbit. Zen nudged his right hand back slightly, gently climbing.

Piece of cake. Two miles to go. He moved his thumb to the center of the stick’s oval top, keying the view screen from optical to FLIR input. The view at the top of his screen changed to a greenish tint, the world shading according to heat sources.

Driven by his preprogrammed flight plan, One-Zero-Mike began to bank. Zen started to follow, jerked his hand too hard, cursed, and then almost lost Green Phantom. The muscles in his fingers froze. He pushed the computer-assist lever at the base of the assembly, too embarrassed to use the voice command and acknowledge that he had blown it. The computer immediately grabbed the plane, putting it onto the preprogrammed course.

“Zen?”

“What?” he snapped over the headset.

“I have Colonel Bastian on the circuit,” replied Fred Remington, one of the civilians helping run the tests. “Something’s up.”

“Yeah, okay.” Zen’s pinkie stretched to click down the lever at the front base of his right stick; it automatically engaged computer control for Green Phantom. “Let me talk to him.”

“Major Stockard, do you think you can do me a favor?” said Bastian as soon as the line snapped open.

“Colonel?”

“I wonder if you have enough fuel in Green Phantom to try a rendezvous with Fort Two on Range F. We’d like to see if you can get close enough for a refuel.”

Zen glanced at the gauge. The Phantom had plenty of fuel.

But getting close to a Megafortress was not exactly easy. Even the Flighthawks had trouble.

A Phantom with JSF mods? Ha.

And forget about the plane—he’d just blown an easy run at a drone.

Zen didn’t know what to say. “You’re looking for that to happen right now?”

“Can you do it?”

“Green Phantom simulates the F-119.”

“That’s exactly the point. We want to mock up a refuel off a Megafortress. Mack Smith had some trouble,” added the colonel. “I’d like a second opinion.”

“I’m on it,” snapped Zen.

BREANNA TOOK FORT TWO OUT OF ITS ORBIT AT 25,000 feet, gliding gently on its left wing to twenty thousand smack in the middle of the range where the new exercise would take place. She pushed the big plane into place, gingerly nudging its nose so it slotted exactly along the three-dimensional flight line the computer was projecting in the HUD navigation screen. They were mimicking a standard tanker track, flying a long oval in the sky as if they were a KC-10 Extender or a KC-135 Stratotanker on its anchor near a war zone, waiting for attack planes and fighters returning from action. Neither Chris nor Major Cheshire had said anything since the colonel ordered the new trial.

Zen had said exactly four words over the radio, but the tension in his voice practically drilled a hole through her skull.

“Green Phantom, we have you at eighteen thousand feet, on beam, closure rate at two hundred knots,” Cheshire told Jeff.

The robot Phantom was going approximately a hundred miles an hour faster than it should have been. Breanna flipped her HUD plot that showed the plane approaching behind them. Its speed abruptly slowed, but Green Phantom was still flying too fast to get into the refueling cone. She resisted the temptation to hit the gas, knowing that would only make things more confusing for Zen.

“Three miles,” Cheshire said. “He’s not going to make it.

Breanna could feel Chris staring at her. She continued to hold her position.

GREEN PHANTOM JUST WOULDN’T SLOW DOWN. ZEN nudged the throttle push-bar on the underside of the one-handed stick control. The thrust-indicator graph at the right side of the screen obstinately refused to budge.

He could tell the computer to lower power. He could tell it precisely how many pounds of thrust to produce—or, for that matter, what indicated airspeed he wanted. But using verbal commands, relying on the computer—it seemed like giving up. And he wasn’t giving up. He was doing this, and he was doing it himself.

Partly because Smith had failed. And partly just because.

He tapped the glider with his finger. Finally the robot’s speed began to drop, but it was too late.

“Breakaway, breakaway, breakaway,” Zen said calmly on the interplane frequency. The “breakaway” call mandated full military throttle and an immediate one-thousand-foot climb by the tanker aircraft, and idle power and a one-thousand-foot descent by the receiver. Zen purposely used a calm tone of voice instead of an excited one to communicate to Bree and Cheshire that there was no imminent danger. When he was level, he said, “Let me try another shot.”

“Copy that.”

Tanker pukes would be laughing their butts off if this had been the real thing. Stockard pulled the computer-engage switch at the base of the stick, then gave the system verbal instructions to pull Green Phantom around. The C³ flight computer helping fly the plane was like a two-level brain. The basic level handled inputs from the stick and worked to keep the aircraft stable. For example, it knew that pulling back on the stick meant that the pilot wanted the plane to climb, and adjusted the control surfaces accordingly. This level was always on, and was very similar to what happened in a stock fly-by-wire system, such as the one in the JSF.

The upper level of the brain, which could be invoked verbally or by pulling the engage-disengage toggle that rose like a weed in front of the stick, was more an advanced copilot or even wingman. It translated verbal instructions, monitored sensors, and could plot and follow courses. It had a limited ability to plot and suggest strategy.

C³ could probably attempt the tanking demo on its own, with only some verbal prodding from Zen. But Jeff was determined to nail it himself.

If he could. Flying a remote-controlled plane under a tanker was a difficult task. Even without the odd wind eddies and vortices coming off the target plane, you were too far away. You were projecting feel and perspective literally across miles, imagining how it would be in the cockpit rather than really being there. You couldn’t feel the plane buck or sense it starting to wallow, or know just how the detent on the throttle was going to nudge under your wrist. You couldn’t slide your foot on the rudder pedal just so, moving your butt on the seat that infinitesimal inch to nail the hookup just so.

Jeff couldn’t slide his foot anywhere.

Jeff took back control as the Phantom came out of its orbit behind the Megafortress. “Pilot,” he said.

“Pilot,” confirmed the computer.

He nudged the throttle down. He was three miles behind the Megafortress, closing at a rate of roughly two miles a minute, easing in.

“You’re a little high,” said Cheshire.

“Roger that,” said Zen, stubbornly holding his position for a few seconds. The Megafortress had nudged down to eighteen thousand feet, speed nailed precisely at 350 knots.