The hellish scene shimmered and faded suddenly, and the previous scene returned with the bald, grandfatherly man looking concernedly down at her and two men with chiseled faces hovering right above her. One of the men said, “Hold still, sister. You’re almost safe.” There was a prick in her arm, and then she was happy, floating free down toward blessed oblivion.
Randi straightened up and looked over toward the door. The psychiatrists and a lab technician were filing through the door. “Did you guys get it?”
“Yes James, we did,” said Bullman. “Before we hashed the room with electronic white noise, the electronic surveillance system we had set up caught a faint signal. It was a miracle we picked it up at all, it was right on the edge of the spectrum covered by the ESM but it was there and we’ve recorded it. It has some strange properties, and we’re sending the records to the physicists next door. They’ll digitize it, feed it into our threat libraries and we’ll be able to monitor for it. Also, if we can feed the waveform into the computers controlling our own emitter systems, we should be able to transmit ourselves.
“Much more importantly, we’ve already figured out how to keep her, and others like her, safe and sound from any further interference.”
Randi cocked his head curiously. “And what’s that?”
“Well, James, the signal in question isn’t that much different from an electromagnetic pulse, you know that thing the scare stories have claimed would wipe out electronics worldwide. We’ve known how to defend against that for decades and the power levels are much lower here. So, building on that experience.” Bullman grinned and pulled a shiny contraption from his lab coat. “A hat made of aluminum foil.”
Recon Team Tango One-Five, Wadi Haran, Western Iraq.
“Control, we have baldricks, column advancing along the Pipeline Route. Estimated battalion force with company-level harpy cover.”
“Very good. Engage and harass.”
Lieutenant Jade “Broomstick” Kim acknowledged, the transferred her attention back to the mast-mounted sight on her AH-6J helicopter. A deft touch on the controls and the aircraft rose slightly so that the ball of the sight just peaked over the ridge. The picture hadn’t changed much, even though the column was mounted on the rhinolobsters, they were moving slowly. Well, slowly by United States Army standards, Broomstick guessed that by medieval standards they were fairly galloping along. That was excruciatingly slow when compared with the way the First Armored Division was moving up.
A long rectangle of rhinolobsters, each with its rider and a small group out in front. They’d have to be the command group. The primary subject of interest, the cream of the crop in this target-rich environment. Eliminate the command structure first, leave the combat elements floundering around without orders. It was a process the United States Army called ‘shaping the battlefield’. “Tango Leader to all Tango birds. Select Hellfire missiles, target the command group in front, ripple fire both missiles.”
Spaced out down the wadi, the three Little Birds gunner their engines slightly and lifted up still further. The column ahead was oblivious to their existence, even when the laser target designators locked into place. On her display, Broomstick could even see the designated targets starting to shift and scratch as the lasers irritated their skins. Then, a gentle squeeze on the firing button and the first of the Hellfires streaked off across the desert. Off to her left, a split second later, Tango-one-five-Bravo fired its first missile with Tango-one-five-Charlie following an instant after that. Broomstick had already selected her next target when she fired her second missile, as soon as she saw the explosion from the first hit she swung the laser to her selected victim and watched the Hellfire missile obediently switch targets. The explosions four thousand yards away seemed an almost continuous rolling thunder as the six missiles devastated the command group.
“All Tango-One-Five elements, jobs done, let’s get out of here.”
“We got a problem ell-tee.”
Broomstick looked across at the burning patch of desert where the baldrick command group had been. Above it the harpies were heading for the position of her three Little Birds, coming in very, very fast.
“Bug out, everybody bug out now. Max speed.” She rammed the throttles forward, swinging her helicopter into its high-speed position, trying to get away from the cloud of harpies that was closing on her.
“No good ell-tee. They’re faster than us.”
Broomstick didn’t acknowledge, she didn’t have to. The AH-6 could do about 180 miles per hour flat out and the harpies were closing the range. She pulled back and swung the nose round, flipping her armament selector switch to the pair of Stingers mounted on the side of her cockpit. The annunciator tone was mixed, even in the cold of a desert night, they were having difficulty locking on. It was no good, whatever lock they had would have to do. She fired into the mass of harpies, watching as one missile went through the formation without exploding, the other struck home and she saw a harpy briefly outlined in fire as the Stinger tore into it. There was another flare as well, but Broomstick had no time to congratulate herself or anybody else. She was turning away, diving, obeying the old rule, no matter how little height you have, trade height for speed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Tango-one-five-Charlie had left it too late. The Little Bird was engulfed in jets of fire from the harpies, its fuel tanks exploded and the flaming wreckage fell out of the sky to earth.
She was back in the wadi, heading away from the cloud of harpies, grimly aware they were closing in on her. “Control, engaged baldricks, command group badly hit. We are under attack by company-strength harpies, Charlie is already down. Two harpies down. Issue is in doubt. Tell others, don’t close in on harpies.”
Duty done, Broomstick spun her helicopter again and went straight at the formation of harpies pursuing her, her two miniguns blazing a long, long burst. It registered briefly that there were two piles of burning wreckage on the desert floor now and that she was alone. Bravo had gone. So had at least two more harpies, torn apart by the stream of bullets from her miniguns. Then, there was a clank and silence, she’d run out of ammunition. The harpies were on her, clinging to the airframe, tearing at it with their claws, kicking at the skin with their hooves. One was clinging to the cockpit canopy, smashing at it with its claws, trying to tear its way in. She could see the demented, screaming hate on its face, she could smell the stink of jet fuel as the harpies tore their way into the Little Bird’s structure. That was all she saw and smelt because that was when Tango-one-five-Alpha exploded.
My thanks to Surlethe for his work in writing the middle part of this section and his most appreciated inspiration and encouragement.
Chapter Seven
309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona
She was an old lady, put away in her retirement home like all too many aged family members who were just too much trouble to look after. Her age showed in so many ways, her wrinkled skin, shabby appearance, general neglect. Another few months, a year or so at most, and she would have been gone, forgotten. Only now times had changed and those who had written her off as a relic of the past now found they needed The Gray Lady again.
“What about this one?”
The AMRG clerk looked at the tail number and turned to the page in the ledger. “This one’s a good prospect Sir. She hasn’t been stripped or cannibalized yet and she was in good condition when she arrived. I’d mark this one down as a definite.”
“Do it, we’ll get a team down here to work on her. The draft notices are going out this morning.” For once in its life, the U.S. Government was beginning to move fast. The re-institution of the draft had been authorized late the previous night with the highest priority being to get the maintenance and technical support personnel who had left the services over the last few years back into uniform. In a strange way, it was almost like the job being done here, inspecting the veterans and getting them back into service. The B-52G in front of them looked like an early candidate for a return to the colors.