Mastering this and other emergency situations isn’t important just because of the danger they represent. Being able to control the aircraft through them instills a critical level of confidence in a novice pilot.
Turk felt like a newbie now. He remembered the leading edge of his first incipient spin. He’d almost panicked — almost, almost, lost it.
The trick had been to let go. Not literally, but mentally — to let go of his fear and self-doubt and trust himself, what he had been taught, what he knew he had to do.
To trust the plane.
It was an important lesson — one you always needed to relearn, especially in the face of mistakes.
But did that lesson really apply here? This was something very different. He trusted himself and his plane — but the A–10E wasn’t his to trust.
Instinct told him to try. There was no other choice.
“Tigershark, we don’t think that’s going to work,” said Rubeo.
“Too late, Doc. I’m already on it.”
He nudged the aircraft closer, trying to merge with the other plane. Turk told the computer to stop its proximity warnings, but his own sense of space held him back. He had to fight against his instincts as he lifted the wing to the left, coming up against the Hog’s.
The Tigershark jerked down as the force of slipstream off the other plane’s wing pushed it away. Turk struggled to control the plane but lost altitude too quickly to stay close. He saw the Hog moving overhead and tried to adjust, shifting to the right for another try.
Do it, he told himself. Do it.
Tap the wing. Throw it off course. Take your shot.
“What?” asked a disembodied voice. “What?”
A woman’s voice… Ginella’s, as if coming out of a dream.
“You’re going into a spin,” he said over the radio, trying to push the Tigershark closer.
“What?” asked the other pilot.
“You need to recover,” said Turk. “You’re at twelve thousand feet and dropping.”
“I… can’t.”
“You can,” said Turk. He backed the Tigershark off. “Your O-two is screwed up.”
“My… oxygen.”
“Recover!”
“I—”
“Do it!”
Turk started to move back, desperate now — he had done so much, to the point of sacrificing his own plane in a desperate attempt to save her.
He had to succeed.
He started to come back.
“Where are you?” Ginella asked.
“I’m nearby. Can you eject?”
“I… eject.”
“Eject.”
“I… I have it. I have it.”
The Hog’s wing steadied. The plane was still moving in a circle, but the flight was sturdier, more under control. Turk took the Tigershark out wider.
“I’m at — I have control,” said Ginella. “I have… control.”
The A–10 recovered, pulling out ahead, then swooping straight and level.
“Do you think you can handle a refuel?” Turk asked. “If we set a course to the tanker?”
“Yes.” Ginella’s voice was still a little shaky.
“You sure?”
“I am not walking home from here, Captain,” she snapped, her voice nasty.
Good, thought Turk. She’s back.
“I need a vector to the tanker,” said Turk, talking to the controller. “I need a vector and a tanker. And get rescue assets.”
The Hog began to climb.
“Stay under eight thousand feet,” he told Ginella. “The lower the better.”
“Copy that. You can rejoin your flight. I have it from here.”
“Just follow me,” Turk told her. “We’re going home.”
THE TINT OF SUCCESS
1
Ray Rubeo felt his legs start to give way as he reached the tarmac. He reached out and grabbed Danny Freah’s side, taking him by surprise and nearly knocking him over.
“Sorry,” the scientist said.
“It’s all right, Ray. You all right?”
“I will be.”
They walked together to the waiting Hummer, Rubeo steadying himself against Danny’s shoulder for a few more steps before his balance was back.
“Hell of an adventure,” said Danny.
“I owe you an apology,” Rubeo said, stopping before the truck. “I shouldn’t have gone to Africa.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
“I had to, though.”
Danny frowned.
“I had to know why the aircraft had made that attack. Kharon had arranged it. He was working with a Russian spy. They had someone insert a virus to infiltrate the system. I’ve worked it out in my head — they put it into the computer that we used to make sure the GPS system was properly calibrated before takeoff. They must have used one of our memory keys. I suspect the base maintenance crew was infiltrated.”
“We can look into that.”
“It wasn’t a mistake we made. I had to know.”
“We would have found out eventually.”
“I don’t know that we would have. Frankly, if Kharon hadn’t explained it, I wouldn’t have been able to puzzle it out.”
“Don’t you always say the science will provide the answer? Doesn’t everything work logically?”
“It doesn’t always.”
Rubeo realized that he had just made an enormous admission — not to Danny, but to himself.
He’d lived more than fifty years, and he was only realizing that now.
Science, logic, were still critical. Emotion was a messy thing. It couldn’t necessarily be trusted — it had ruined Kharon’s life, and the lives of the people on the ground the plane had attacked. And yet, it had been necessary, it was necessary. Because science wasn’t everything.
“We’re going to have to answer a lot of questions,” said Danny.
“I take full responsibility.”
“Right.”
“I don’t blame you for being angry. You’re right to be angry. I was foolish. But thank you — thank you for saving me.”
Danny nodded. “Let’s get some rest.”
2
Having forced the Libyan government to declare a “temporary cease-fire for humanitarian purposes,” Zongchen’s committee had accomplished something the UN and allies had been seeking for months. They immediately exerted pressure on the rebels to follow suit.
They were reluctant, until told explicitly that their aid would be immediately cut off.
An hour later the princess and the other rebel leaders issued a statement that they were “putting hostilities aside for now” and were prepared to “join fruitful negotiations.”
The Libyan defense minister boarded a plane for “consultations” with the rest of his government. Zen, Zongchen, and the others were left alone in the giant hangar, considering what might be the next step.
“The scientist who worked on the Sabres believes they were sabotaged,” Zen told the Chinese general. “I think he’ll be able to show the committee exactly what happened.”
“That would be optimal.”
Zen next spoke to the allied force commander. He wasn’t very happy with Danny or any of the rest of the Whiplash team. But given the outcome and the importance of Rubeo’s companies to NATO, the allies couldn’t afford to make a big deal about the incidents. Not that anyone, Danny or Turk especially, would be praised.
Danny was at a point in his career where this might hurt him, Zen realized; politics at the star level was intense. But he also knew that Danny was the sort of officer who didn’t care about politics — he cared about getting the job done.