The UAVs continued to buzz around him. Damn things were staying right with him—he saw a small orange burst from one; apparently they still had plenty of fuel aboard.
“Tech Observer, state your intentions,” radioed Breanna Stockard from the control bunker.
“I’m trying to lead Perpetrator in. The swarm seems to have a different idea.”
“Negative, Whiplash. I want you to divert to Emergency Runway Three. We have two chase planes moving to escort Perpetrator home.”
“Uh—”
“Not a point for discussion, Captain.”
“Acknowledged. But, ma’am, I have the swarm on me. They’re in Divert One and they want me to land.”
“We copy.”
“How’s their fuel?” he asked.
“No less than three-quarters,” she told him.
Turk knew the nano-UAVs could touch roughly a thousand kilometers an hour if they went all out. While Old Girl had been around the block a few times since she was built, she could still push Mach 2, twice the speed of sound and approximately 1,236 kilometers an hour. But if he accelerated away, he would risk losing the robot planes over the range. And besides, they were more an annoyance than a threat.
He tacked north, toward the airstrip. There was a possibility, he reasoned, that they might land with him.
“What’s going on?” asked the admiral from the backseat.
“I’m being directed to an emergency landing,” Turk said. “The B-1’s on its own.”
“What’s with these aircraft?”
“They’re following a program intended to make an intruder land if they’re in a restricted airspace.”
“They’re awful damn close.”
“Yes, sir. That’s their job.”
“This isn’t part of the demonstration, is it?” asked the admiral.
“Negative, sir.”
BREANNA DROPPED TO HER HAUNCHES BETWEEN Armaz and Rheingold. “Can we get them back?”
“The systems in the B-1Q are completely shut down,” said Armaz. “If I could communicate with them, I might be able to walk the mission specialist through a restart—it might be all we need. But at this point I’m getting no telemetry from them, let alone radio. That magnetic pulse knocked them out good.”
Breanna glanced down at the controller. Dreamland Control had just declared a total range emergency, stopping all flight operations. The problem had originated in a weapon designed to fire small magnetic pulses at cruise missiles, destroying their electronics and therefore their targeting ability. It appeared to be more effective than its designers hoped.
Breanna turned back to the computer station. “Jen, what do you think?”
“Are you talking to me?” asked Sara Rheingold.
“I’m sorry. Yes.” Breanna realized her mistake: Jen was Jennifer Gleason, who had held a similar position years before. It was a kind of Freudian slip she made only in times of stress, under exactly the kind of conditions that Jennifer had dealt with so effectively.
Ancient history.
“We may be able to take them back from the ground station,” she said. “I’m trying the overrides.”
“We’ll take this in steps,” said Breanna. “Let’s get Old Girl down first, then we’ll work on the Hydras.”
“Can Turk land with them buzzing around him?” asked Rheingold.
“That’s why he gets the big bucks.”
TURK HELD THE STICK STEADY AS THE SMALL AIRCRAFT buzzed around him. It was like flying with a swarm of angry bees in the cockpit. The tiny aircraft darted every which way in front of him. Even though he knew they were programmed to get no closer than a foot, the psychological effect was intense.
“Control, the UAVs are still with me,” Turk radioed. “What’s their status?”
“We’re working to recapture them,” the controller said.
“Do you want me to land?”
“Negative at this time. Stand by.”
His altitude had dropped to 3,000 feet. He was lined up perfectly on the runway, a long, smooth strip marked out in the salt bed a few miles away.
“Tech Observer, can you remain airborne for a while longer?” asked the controller when he came back.
“Uh, affirmative—roger that. What’s the plan?”
“Turk, we want the B-1 to land first,” said Breanna. “We have a chase plane guiding him in. We think we can take over the UAVs when he lands.”
“Sure, but you know they’re still trying to force me down,” said Turk. “They’re pretty damn annoying.”
“Do you need to land?”
“Well, ‘need’ is a strong word. Negative on that.”
“Your passenger?”
Turk glanced behind over his shoulder, then selected the interphone.
“Admiral, they want us to stay up for a while more. That OK?”
“Do what you have to do, son. As long as these things don’t hit us.”
“Yes, sir.” Turk went back to the radio. “We can stay up.”
The B-1 was still without radio communications and, presumably, the bulk of its electronic gear. About half the nano-UAVs had stayed with it, flying behind the wings as it approached Dreamland’s main test runway. Turk caught a brief glimpse of it descending, wings spread, wheels down, as he began an orbit over Emergency Runway 3. He didn’t see much: the UAVs continued to pester him, buzzing in his path.
“What are these damn things trying to do?” asked the admiral from the backseat.
“They want us to land. The controller thinks they’ll break off when the B-1 puts down.”
“What do you think?”
The question caught Turk by surprise. “Not really sure, Admiral.”
“Are we in trouble?”
“Oh, negative, sir. It’s annoying, but I’ve seen this dance before. They’re actually programmed to fly very close, twelve inches close, but they won’t actually hit us.”
“This is a preprogrammed routine?”
“The command is, yes.” Turk explained that while the nano-UAVs used distributed intelligence—in other words, they shared their “brains”—the individual planes could also rely on a library of commands and routines, which was happening then. The first versions of the Flighthawks—much larger combat UAVs originally launched and controlled from EB-52s—had made use of similar techniques.
“So if it’s programmed, won’t the enemy be able to learn it and defeat it?” asked the admiral.
“They can be programmed for the specific mission,” said Turk. “And this—it’s kind of like a football team calling signals. They know they have to keep a certain position and get a certain result, which they all react to.”
“They seem angry,” said the admiral.
“Oh yes, sir.” Turk straightened the aircraft. “Definitely pissed off.”
The B-1 landed. If that had any effect on the UAVs, it wasn’t obvious.
“Control, what’s our status?” Turk asked when five minutes had passed.
“Still trying to get the connection broken, Whiplash.”
“Maybe I can break it myself,” offered Turk. “I’ll point my nose up and go afterburners. We’ll stay over the range, so if they drop into Landing Three Preset, they’ll come back to you.”
“Negative, Whiplash. Negative,” said Breanna sharply. “You have a passenger.”
“Roger that.” Turk toyed with the idea of explaining the situation to the admiral and asking what he thought—he suspected Blackheart, who was undoubtedly listening in, would approve—but decided he’d better not.
The controller guided him through a series of turns as they did whatever they were doing from the ground station, all to no avail.
As he continued to circle, Turk guessed that the engineers were trying to figure out what would happen when he landed—would the UAVs land with him, as they were programmed to do when landing with the B-1? Or would they reform and fly on their own? If that happened, there was no telling what they might do next.
Which explained the flight of F-22s from nearby Nellis air base that were being vectored to the north side of the range. The radars that worked the Dreamland defense lasers were also tracking them.
“Whiplash Observer, how much fuel do you have left?” asked the controller.