Then nothing. If you were within the fatal range of the explosion, the warhead would kill you before the sound got to you.

That would be merciful. If you could consider any death merciful.

“Brad Keeler is on his way from the States,” said Marcum. Keeler had headed the team that developed the control software. “Once he’s here, we should be able to move quickly.”

“Good,” said Rubeo, still thinking of the missile strike. He saw the fires and the explosions. Bodies were pulled from the wreckage before his eyes.

Was I responsible for all that?

My inventions make war more precise, so that innocent people aren’t killed. But there is always some chance of error, however small that chance is.

Little consolation if you’re the victim.

“Something wrong?” asked Marcum.

Rubeo looked over at him. Marcum had turned off the projector.

“Just tired,” Rubeo told him. “Keep at it.”

11

Sicily

Any aircraft would have felt a little strange to Turk after the Tigershark, but the A–10 was nearly as far removed from the F–40 as a warplane got.

The A–10A Thunderbolt had been something of a poor stepchild to the Air Force from the day of its conception. With straight wings and a cannon in its nose, the aircraft was the antithesis of the go-fast, push-button philosophy that ruled the U.S. Air Force in the late 1960s—and in fact, still largely ruled it today.

The Hog was born out of a need for a close-in, ground attack aircraft. While the country at the time was fighting in Vietnam, the perceived enemy was the Soviet Union, and the early design specs anticipated an aircraft that could be used to stop a massive tank invasion across the European plains. The plane was inspired partly by the success of the A–1 Skyraider—a highly effective throwback used to great effect in Vietnam, despite its alleged obsolescence. The “Spad,” as the A–1 was often nicknamed, was powered by a piston engine. Its primary asset—beyond the tough resourcefulness and skill of its pilots—was its ability to carry a large variety of ordnance under its wings. Clean, the Spad was comparatively fast for a piston-powered plane, but it was slow compared to jets. As a ground support aircraft, however, the lack of speed was something of an asset. In the days before complicated sensors and constantly updating satellite imagery, ground support relied heavily on the so-called Mk–1 Eyeball. Human pilots flying low and slow had a much better chance of putting the era’s unguided ordnance on target than fast-movers rocketing over the terrain.

The A-X project produced two aircraft sharing the same philosophy, both designed essentially around an armor-pounding, 30mm Gatling. The A–10 by Republic eventually won out. (The loser, the YA–9 built by Northrop, became the answer to a trivia question rarely asked of anyone, including plane buffs.)

The A–10 was designed and built in an era of tight budgets, and some say that the penny pinching hurt the plane from the very beginning. It was strictly a daytime, good-weather aircraft, with effectively no ability to fight at night: a critical oversight given the evolution of war-fighting doctrine in the years that followed, not to mention the fact that war generally takes place in all sorts of weather. And many critics pointed out that its engines were somewhat underpowered from the beginning. This was important not so much because it lowered the aircraft’s speed—speed wasn’t a real factor for the A–10A—but because the power of the engines limited the weight it could carry into the sky and the endurance of the aircraft.

A series of improvements in the last decade addressed the first set of drawbacks, adding enough modern sensors to the A–10A airframe that the planes had been redesignated the A–10C by the Air Force. While the plane remained essentially the same from the outside, inside the pilot’s “office” there were new displays and a data link that gave the Hog driver access to real-time combat information. The updated Hogs could also carry more modern “smart” weapons, including JDAM, or Joint Direct Attack Munitions.

Ginella’s eight planes were a further evolution. The upgraded avionics systems were tied to smart helmets, which functioned similarly to Turk’s—the pilots could use those helmets rather than the glass cockpit. There were certain subtle improvements—there was now a full-blown autopilot, separate from the remote link—and more obvious ones: uprated power plants that allowed the planes to carry even heavier bomb loads. The Hogs were still subsonic, but they had noticeably more giddy-up when accelerating. According to the stats, they had approximately forty percent more power, but used about a third less fuel under normal conditions.

The stats reminded Turk of EPA estimates on cars—always to be taken with a grain of salt—but there was no denying that the A–10E was a more powerful beast than its cousins.

At the same time, the plane remained an easy aircraft to fly. She just loved being in the air.

Sitting at the end of the runway, Turk got clearance and ramped the engine. The Hog galloped forward, gently rising off the concrete after he had gone only 1,200 feet—a better rollout than most other aircraft he’d flown.

He cleaned his landing gear, then following the controller’s directions, flew north over the Mediterranean to an airspace cleared of traffic.

Turk’s A–10E helmet duplicated the glass cockpit a pilot saw in an A–10C, and though it didn’t have quite the customization he was used to, it was nonetheless easy to deal with. The center of the board had the familiar attitude indicator, a large floating ball that told the pilot where his wings were in relation to the world—not always something that came intuitively, especially in battle. The heading indicator just below showed where the nose was going—again, an all-important check for the senses. To their right and slightly above, the climb indicator and altimeter did the obvious; a row of clock-style gauges at the lower right showed the aircraft’s vitals.

Ironically, the least familiar parts of the pseudocockpit for Turk were the most modern. The multiuse displays had a number of different modes, which he stumbled through slowly as he made sure he was familiar with the aircraft. The data transfer system, the embedded GPS navigation, and even the status page—a computer screen detailing system problems—were far different than what he was used to in the Tigershark. He had only to say a few words to get a response in the sleek F–40; here, he had to punch buttons and think about what he was doing.

But even hitting those buttons and occasionally pausing over the screens couldn’t detract from the solid feel of the aircraft around him.

Planes had a definite soul, basic flight characteristics that they seemed to come back to no matter the circumstances. The Tigershark moved quickly. She turned quickly, and she went forward quickly. Given her head, she accelerated. This could certainly get her in trouble—a quick flick of the wrist on the stick, and the plane could pull more g’s than Turk could stand.

The Hog’s nature was completely different. She was more a solid middle linebacker than a fleet receiver. Not to say she wasn’t nimble: she could dance back and forth, even sideways, as a few minutes of experimentation with her rudder pedals showed him. But her true nature was stability. Beat her into a turn, abuse her into a dive, jab her into a sharp climb—she came back gentle and solid.

The original A–10s were designed to be reliable, predictable weapons platforms, and the changes had left that completely alone. Try as Turk did to abuse it, the plane kept coming back for more. It went exactly where he pointed it, never overreacting to his control inputs.