The collective felt almost comfortable in his hand. His fingers wrapped easily around it, and damn it, this was just another helicopter whirlybird rig, as his instructor would say.
Engine panel on right.
Checklist.
Where the hell was the checklist Jennifer had given him?
“Sergeant Reagan—before you begin, please cinch your belts. The g forces can be considerable during maneuvers.”
God was whispering in his ears. With a Polish accent.
“Yes,” he said.
“Sergeant, my name is Robbie Pitzarski. I’m going to help you fly the Hind,” said the expert, speaking from halfway across the world in the Dreamland Command Center bunker. “Before we begin, let me emphasize that if you get in trouble, stick to the basics. It’s a helicopter, first and foremost. The Russians place things in odd places, but the blades are on top and the tail’s in the back.”
“You sound like my old flight instructor,” Egg told him.
“Very good. To the right of your seat, almost behind you, there is an emergency shut-down lever that connects RAZOR’S EDGE
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to the fuse panel. It has a red knob and looks rather con-torted. Let’s make sure that has not been thrown inadver-tently. It would make it most difficult to proceed.”
POWDER HAD TO SQUIRM TO GET HIS BODY INTO THE GUNner’s cabin, slamming half the gear on the way. The hatch stuck for a moment, and he nearly broke the shock-absorber-like strut getting it closed. There were grips and gauges and pipes and all sorts of crap all over the place; it reminded him of the bathroom in his grandmother’s basement apartment. Luckily, Jennifer the goddess had given him a very good paper map of the cockpit, pointing out the key shit—her word, not his. The optical sight ocular for the missile system was on the right, the armament panel was in an almost impossible to reach position at his right elbow, the delicious gunsight with its well-rounded wheels sat at his nose, her perfect hand-sized mammaries at full attention.
Jennifer hadn’t given him those. But he wouldn’t need a map to find them.
Rumor was, she and the colonel had a thing. Rank had its privileges.
But hell, she was here, and he wasn’t. Dogs got to run.
Truth was, she was so beautiful—so beautiful—he might not make it out of the kennel for all his slobbering.
With great difficulty the Whiplash trooper turned his attention back to the weapons.
THE ROTORS SLIPPED AROUND FOUR OR FIVE TIMES BEFORE
the Isotov turboshafts coughed, but within seconds the engines wound up to near takeoff speed, the helicopter straining to hold herself down. Egg took a breath, then went back over the dashboard, making absolutely sure—absolutely one hundred percent sure—he had the instruments psyched.
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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
He knew the whole damn thing. He knew it, he knew it, he knew it.
Stop worrying, he told himself.
“Very good so far, Sergeant,” said Pitzarski. His accent garbled some of his vowels, so the words sounded more like “vrr-ee gd sfar, surg-ent.”
“You can call me Egg.”
“Egg?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And myself, Robbie.”
“Cool.”
“Hey, we takin’ off or what?” demanded Powder, breaking in.
“Excuse me, sir,” said Egg. “Shut the fuck up, Powder, or I’m hitting the eject button.”
“There ain’t no damn eject button.”
“Try me.”
“Ready?” asked Pitzarski, but Egg had already thrown the Hind forward, stuttering, bouncing on the stubby wheels, bucking, pushing forward too fast without enough juice, gently backing off, revving, going—airborne, he was airborne.
TWO MEN CAME RUSHING AT THE AIRCRAFT’S OPEN BAY AS
they started to move. Danny cursed; he’d thought everyone was aboard already. He started to reach to help them but the pain in his leg hurt too much. The helo lurched forward and up and he fell against the floor. He lay there for three or four seconds, not sure if Egg was going to fly or crash. Finally he pulled himself up, struggling into one of the fold-down seats, pushing up his leg.
“Liu, wrap my knee, okay?” he said. “I sprained it or something.”
A building passed in the cabin window, replaced by RAZOR’S EDGE
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sky, all sky. Liu took hold of his leg and began poking it, not gently.
“It ain’t broke,” Danny managed. “Just fucking wrap the knee.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ligament torn?” Danny asked.
“At least,” said Nurse.
Danny looked up. Two Marines were grinning at him through their face paint. One of the two looked vaguely familiar—the gunnery sergeant who’d come on the rescue mission the other day.
“We thought you girls could use some help,” said the Marine.
“What are you doing here?” Danny said.
“I’m sorry, Cap—you looked like you wanted to pull them in,” said Bison. “So I helped them in when you fell.”
“You.” Danny pointed at the gunnery sergeant, a short man with a face like a worn catcher’s mitt. “You look damn familiar. Before yesterday.”
“Melfi,” said the sergeant. “You saved my butt in Libya couple months back. Last year, remember? You didn’t recognize me the other day.”
Now he did—he was one of the guys they’d rescued when they were looking for Mack.
“You’re gonna get in shitloads of trouble,” Danny told him. “But I ain’t dropping you off.”
“Life’s a bitch,” said the Marine.
“All right,” said Danny. “Let me tell your commander not to look for you.”
“Not necessary,” said the Marine. “Let’s just say we showed up here accidentally on purpose. Whole platoon would have come with you if they could, sir. But the major kinda figured they’d be missed. Besides, two Marines are worth a dozen Air Force fags. Hey, no offense.”
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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“Jarhead shits,” said Bison.
“Bison, give Sergeant Melfi the rundown,” said Danny.
“Call me Gunny,” said the Marine. “Just about everybody does.”
“No they don’t,” said the lance corporal behind him.
“They call you fuckin’ Gunny.”
“And they duck when they say that,” said the sergeant.
Aboard Quicksilver , over Iraq 1530
THE GEAR IN FRONT OF TORBIN HAD EXACTLY ONE THING IN
common with the unit he was used to handling in the Phantom Weasel—it dealt with radars.
The computer handled everything; it probably even had a mode to make coffee. The large flat screen on the left projected a map of the area they were flying through; the map had presets to display radiuses of 200, 300, and 500 miles out, but could zoom in on anything from five to five hundred. Radar coverage and sources were projected on the coordinate grid, each type color-coded. The screen on the right contained information on each of the detected radars. The computer could not only show whether they had detected an aircraft, but how likely that would be for any given plane in its library. Highlights of the radar’s likely function could be hot-keyed onto the screen, along with the preferred method of confusing it. Targeting data could be automatically uploaded to the air to ground missiles in the Megafortress’s belly. Under normal circumstances the plane’s copilot handled the jamming and bombing details, but the operator’s station was also fully equipped to do so. There were several other capabilities, including a mode that would allow the Megafortress’s fuzz busters to pretend to be an enemy ground radar, RAZOR’S EDGE
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though he hadn’t had time to learn all of the details.
Torbin felt like he had gone from the twentieth to the twenty-third century. Any second Captain Kirk was going to appear behind him and tell him to beam up Mr. Spock.
“You all right back there, Torbin?” asked Captain Breanna Stockard.
The equipment was blow-away, and the pilot was a knockout. Somehow, some way, he was going to make this into a permanent assignment.