“Shouldn’t we wait for the prince?”

“He’ll catch up. Come on. We won’t break anything.”

The boarding ladder extended just in front of the forward landing gear, opening into a typically bare-bones Soviet-era cockpit. There were three seats on the flight deck—a swivel seat belonging to the forward gunner was mounted in front of the electronic gear racks at the rear of the deck—with a station for a radar navigator-bombardier in the nose.

At the center of the flight deck was an observation roof or “astrodome.” Behind this on the upper fuselage sat a pair of 23mm cannons; two other sets of the antiair guns were included in turrets in the belly and tail. The original model included another cannon in the nose—it wasn’t clear whether the designers had intended this for strafing or dogfighting, neither of which the plane would have been very good at. Bin Awg’s modifications had removed it; the space was needed for the updated avionics and radar gear.

Had the Badger been left completely stock, the nav’s seat up front in the nose would have seemed more than a little claustrophobic. Not only did he have to squeeze under the pilot and copilot to get into the compartment, but in the C model the forward-looking radar blocked off the view. But the prince’s updates enabled a different radar to be used and installed in the chin area; to replace it in the nose he had purchased a glass house from the Chinese, who were still making their own version of the plane, dubbed the Xian H-6. The navigator thus had the best seat in the house.

Mack pointed this out and eagerly helped Miss Kelly slide down and into the seat. She had just gotten snugged in when the prince climbed aboard, dressed in his flight gear; he wore a G suit despite the fact that the cabin was completely pressurized.

“Major, very good. And you have our guest installed.”

“Your Highness,” said Mack. “Ready to rock?”

“Yes,” said the prince, his tone slightly distant. He moved forward and took the pilot’s seat—a slight disappointment for Mack, who nonetheless slid into the copilot’s slot. The sultan’s nephew pulled out a clipboard and began working through an extremely lengthy checklist.

And working. And working. He didn’t merely turn a switch on; he found it, touched it, double-checked it against the list, made sure he knew all the positions, tentatively checked to see that all the selectable positions were indeed selectable, consulted the list, put the switch into the proper detent, rechecked it, went back to the list, nodded to himself, then penciled it off before proceeding.

Understandable for a complex dial, perhaps, but a bit much for a simple two-way toggle. Especially given the thick sheaf of procedures he had to work through.

“Can’t beat these old planes,” said Mack, hoping to hurry him along.

The prince smiled indulgently.

“We taking off soon?”

“In good time, Major. We plan the flight, then fly the plan.”

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“Well, sure.”

They’d done that earlier, actually, but the prince saw fit to do it again. He was a demon of a partier, but when it came to aircraft, there was not a more careful or conservative man in the world. Mack tried to get involved in the checklist as an ordinary copilot—though his intention really was to hurry the procedure along—but the prince considered it mostly a solo act. Mack had everything he could do to keep from nodding off until the engines finally spooled up.

As the old red dog nudged along the runway, Mack felt his pulse rate start to climb. It didn’t hurt that Miss Kelly chose that moment to twist back toward the flight deck, exposing a good portion of cleavage.

“This is it,” she said giddily.

“Yeah,” said Mack. “It really is.”

Aboard Raven, over the South China Sea

1153

ZEN SAT BACKin his seat aboard Raven, watching the diagnostics screen fly by as the prelaunch checklist for the U/MF-3 Flighthawk continued. The words hawk one ready flashed on his screen. By convention, the robot aircraft was dubbed “ Hawk One.” Each U/MF in the air was called “Hawk” and numbered by the computer system, generally by launch sequence. The green color-coded screen told Zen that everything was optimum and routine.

But not for him. For Zen was actually sitting in an aircraft twenty miles from the plane preparing to launch Hawk One. The robot’s mothership was Penn; its pilot was Starship, who had just finished the preflight check without help from Zen. Zen felt a bit like an anxious father, watching his son take his bike out for the first time without training wheels

Zen still wasn’t quite used to watching while others flew the Flighthawks. He’d never be used to it, to be honest.

Even worse, he’d lost his last protégé, Captain Kevin Fentress, over this very ocean not two weeks before.

Fentress was good, too good to lose. Zen had ridden him hard, much harder than Starship and Kick. He wanted to think it had made a difference.

Had it, though?

Maybe. Part of the reason he’d ridden him, and he had to be honest with himself about it, was that he was jealous of the kid—Fentress could get up and walk away at the end of a flight, something he’d never be able to do again.

He was jealous of Stoner too, for the same reason.

“ Hawk One away,” said Starship.

“Roger that,” said Zen, watching the optical feed. The computer showed the aircraft in good mettle, systems in the green, course perfect.

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“Looking good, Hawk One,” he told Starship.

“Thanks, big guy.”

Aboard Penn, over the South China Sea

1213

WEATHER WAS CLEAR,visibility unlimited. He didn’t even have a hangover. Starship couldn’t be happier.

Well, Kick could be back home or in the other plane. That would make him happier.

“ Hawk One, be advised we have a pair of Chinese Sukhois, that would be J-11s similar to Su-27s, coming south toward the task force,” said the plane’s copilot, Captain McNamara. He gave their bearing, altitude, and approximate speed; the figures were duped on the display. If he changed course slightly he could intercept them in roughly five minutes.

“Hold your present course, Hawk One,” said Zen from the other plane, as if reading his mind.

Starship acknowledged, though he chafed a bit. He really didn’t appreciate having a babysitter.

“Looks like they want to see how low the Aussies can track them,” said Kick. The J-11 pilots had tickled their afterburners and plunged toward the waves, riding down in an extremely low-level track; so low, in fact, that Starship wasn’t entirely sure the Russian-made fighters weren’t skipping on the water.

HMAS Maryborough was one of Australia’s finest destroyers, an American-built ship of the Oliver Hazard Perry class. Outfitted very close to the American standard, the Maryborough packed a competent Mk 13 SAM system; its SM-1MR missiles could take out a target at twenty-five nautical miles, but was arguably better at defending against medium- and high-altitude attacks than the wave-top dash the Sukhois were attempting. While it was academic—the Australians weren’t about to fire at the Chinese planes—it did make for an interesting few minutes.

“I’m amazed they’re not flaming out,” said Kick, monitoring the Chinese hot dogs from his screen. “The radar says they’re six feet above the water. They’re going to slam into the hulls of the ship if they’re not careful.”

“They’ll pull up, watch,” said Starship. They did—though a little later than he thought, the lead plane ripping so close to the Maryborough’s antenna mast that it undoubtedly wobbled in the wake.

“They’re out of their minds,” said Kick.

“Typical Chinese bullshit,” said Zen from Raven.

“Gentlemen, let me remind you we are supposed to be flying silent com,” said Colonel Bastian from the pilot’s seat of the Pennsylvania. “Please keep unnecessary chatter to a minimum. We have twenty-five minutes to the start of the show.”