SOMEWHERE BELOW, A PAIR OF CLOSE-IN WEAPONS BEGAN TO
fire. Fear surged through Memon so strongly that he could not move nor breathe, not even think. Cold air invaded his chest; his heart and lungs turned to ice. He waited, unable to do anything else.
The first explosion seemed incredibly far away; he heard a light rumble but felt nothing. The second, a half second later, was like the peal of thunder when lightning strikes a tree at the edge of a yard.
The third reverberated as if it were under his feet, twisting his chest and head in opposite directions. He flew 372
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
against a console, thrown so abruptly that he felt as if he hadn’t moved at all. He lay on the deck, watching the others scramble to get up.
Only Admiral Skandar managed to stay on his feet. The Defense minister reached calmly for the phone, speaking as the ship rocked with fresh explosions. Memon wanted to get up and join him but could not; he wanted to move but found his body paralyzed. All he could do was stare from the depths of his cowardice and fear.
Aboard the Levitow ,
over India
0632
THE AIRCRAFT LURCHED IN THE SKY, THEN FELT AS IF IT WAS
going to fall out from under her. Breanna pushed against the stick, finally leveling off—the computer began compensating for the damaged control surfaces.
“Engine four—gone,” said Stewart. Her voice was surprisingly calm.
“Compensating,” Breanna told her. “Where are the other missiles?”
“One more going north. We’re clear.”
“Assess the damage.”
“Assessing. Ten seconds to first EEMWB pulse.”
Each individual system on the plane had its own shielding, but Levitow also had special deflectors—antennas that could attract the waves and disrupt their pattern—in the wings. As the techies explained it, the deflectors reduced the overall amount of T-Rays washing over the ship, making the components easier to shield.
Or, as the metaphor they used had it, reducing a hurri-cane surge to high tide.
“If you need help, we’re here,” said Bullet, the relief copilot behind her.
“Thanks,” said Breanna. “Stand by for EEMWB wave.”
END GAME
373
“EEMWB One—”
“EEMWB One what?” Breanna asked Stewart.
The copilot didn’t answer. The interphone system had been wiped out.
And so had the GPS guidance, and half of the indicators on the systems panel.
Aboard the Wisconsin , over India
0635
DOG CHECKED HIS WATCH. “SIXTY SECONDS TO FIRST
EEMWB,” he told his crew. “Jazz?”
“I’m ready, Colonel. Looks like that SA-2 is trying to lock on us to launch.”
“He’s beside the point now,” said Dog. “Let’s go to manual control. Emergency manual procedure, authorized Bastian 888.”
The computer accepted the code, and Dog reached to the bottom of the center panel to engage the hydraulic controls.
The stick felt almost dead in his hand.
As soon as they calculated that the last EEMWB had exploded, Jazz would remove their backup radio from its shielded case and plug its antenna lead to the auxiliary antenna at the side of cockpit between the copilot’s station and the radar operator. Dog and Jazz would be able to talk on the Dreamland communications network via a pair of headsets.
The Dreamland communications panel buzzed.
“Bastian.”
“Wisconsin, we’ve been hit by an air-to-air missile,” said Breanna. “We’ve lost some systems because—”
The transmission went blank, and the cockpit went dark.
Their first EEMWB had exploded.
X
Tai-shan
Aboard the Abner Read,
in the northern Arabian Sea
15 January 1998
0635
“MULTIPLE HITS! MULTIPLE HITS!”
Storm pulled off the headset. Whatever else happened today, the course of sea warfare had been changed as dramatically as it had at Hampton Roads in 1862, when the Monitor met the Merrimack, or in June 1942 at Midway, when the U.S. and Japanese fleets fought each other completely by air. A small, relatively inexpensive warship had just crippled, and maybe even sank, a large aircraft carrier, until now considered the mainstay of any great naval power.
His name would be written in the history books.
Storm sat on the jumpseat next to the holographic display, staring out the window of the bridge. He wasn’t meditating on history; he was trying to will away some of the pain. Finally, after little success, he pulled the headset back on.
“Eyes—where’s our Sharkboat?”
“They’re under way, but still an hour off.”
“All right.”
“Dreamland Fisher reports the Chinese carrier Deng Xiaoping is launching a new wave of aircraft,” said Eyes. “We have an Indian destroyer thirty-five miles south of us. We should not be on his radar, but he is moving in our direction.”
The Chinese—he’d take them out too. All he needed was an excuse.
378
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“Captain?”
“Nothing,” Storm said. “Keep me informed.”
STARSHIP CIRCLED THE WEREWOLF BACK OVER THE AREA where the Indian pilot supposedly had gone down. He couldn’t see anything, not even debris.
“Tac, how long do you want me to keep at this search?”
he asked. “There’s nothing here.”
“Head back to the Sharkboat and escort them toward us.”
“I’d like to refuel first, since I’m nearby and they’re quiet for the moment. We may not get a chance later.”
“Roger that. Come on in.”
Aboard the Levitow ,
over India
0635
BREANNA WORKED THROUGH THE SYSTEMS WITH STEWART, checking for units that had been affected by the electromagnetic pulse weapons or the missile blast. The main flight computer itself seemed fine. She had lost engine four; parts of its shredded housing could be seen from the copilot’s station. Engine three’s temperature was a few degrees higher than normal, but the oil pressure and power output were steady. Two of the compartmented fuel tanks in the right wing had been damaged; the fire retardant system had prevented a catastrophe, but the indicators showed that fuel was leaking. The last three feet of the wingtip on the right side were gone, and the control surfaces were damaged but intact.
The satellite radio, the internal communications system, and the navigation gear were all offline. The self-diagnostic on the Megafortress’s native radar—not the larger, more powerful unit installed above the wings—indicated a number of circuit problems, yet the radar seemed to be working, identifying the Pakistani flight they had seen earlier. The END GAME
379
PAF planes were in serious trouble, flying erratically and dropping altitude. They were deep in enemy territory, and their prospects for survival seemed dim.
“Recheck the weapons systems,” Breanna told Stewart.
They’d pulled off their helmets so they could hear each other. “Open the bay. Make sure everything is online.”
“Weapons?”
“Yes.”
Stewart hesitated. “OK,” she said finally. “Testing weapons.”
Breanna looked at the fuel panel. The damage to the tanks added one more level of complexity to the problem of keeping the Megafortress balanced—an important consideration under any circumstance, but especially when you were missing an engine and a good chunk of a wing. The computer was doing a good job directing the flow, however, and Breanna turned her attention to engine three, whose temperature was continuing to sneak higher.
The aircraft shook as the bomb bay doors were opened.
The increased drag cost them nearly thirty knots in forward airspeed, a huge hit. But Stewart was able to rotate the missile launcher and confirm that it was operable.