Do that and even the Navy might order up a few dozen. Missouri indeed.
Dog powered back, preparing to turn the plane around at the edge of the ramp. In some ways it was more difficult to guide the big plane on the ground than in the air, since the flight computer didn’t help. Bastian found it nearly impossible to judge the clearance distance accurately, and twice twitched the control column, afraid he was about to clip one of the chase vehicles with his wings. But Bastian handled the turn expertly, stopping precisely parallel to the techies’ yellow and black pickup.
“You have time for the second flight?” Cheshire asked.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” said Dog. Then he realized she had a funny expression on her face. “Did I do that bad?” he asked.
“No, I told you, you did fine,” she said. “I was hoping to talk to you a minute.”
“Fire away,” Dog told her.
“I have to quick run over some of the numbers with Peter first, though,” she said, referring to the engineer in charge of the engine testing. “A quick check and we’re good to go.”
“All right,” said Dog. It wasn’t like he wanted to go back to his office and the mounds of paperwork waiting for him. Truth was, he would greatly prefer taking off again, even if it meant listening to Cheshire’s pitch for more resources. “Thanks, Colonel. I’ll be right back. I appreciate it.”
Dog undid his restraints and stretched his arms, watching out the cockpit windows as the ground crew gave the plane the once-over.
It wasn’t just that he preferred flying to paperwork. He wanted to master the Megafortress, just as he had every other plane on the base.
Not every plane. He hadn’t flown the two 767’s or the 777 they were testing as tankers. But he had flown every combat plane. The F-22, the modified F-16, the Joint-Service Strike Fighter, even the SR-71D spy plane with its hypersonic hydrogen engines. Flown them all, and damn well.
But something about the Megafortress kept him at bay. He could fly it, but he wanted to fly it — to master it, twist it over and around and in and out of knots. He wanted to get out on the edge of the envelope with it. The flying battleship was the future of the Air Force.
He wanted to prove he was a great pilot. He wanted to prove…
That he was better than his daughter?
The idea shot into his head like the snap vector from an AWACS controller. Dog pushed up out of his seat, squeezing out of the Megafortress’s cockpit. He didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, especially himself, and definitely not Breanna. He had other things to do than fiddle around in the sky.
Cheshire met him on the ladder down to the lower deck. “Colonel,” she said. “You’re leaving?”
“Sergeant Gibbs will be waiting. What did you want to say?”
Cheshire leaned against the bulkhead and began talking about the Megafortress project, saying that the engine tests were taking much longer than anticipated. The mechanical delays were only part of the problem. She needed more engineers — a common and justified complaint. The decision to develop the Megafortress as a mother ship for the Flighthawks was also stretching her people and the planes to the max.
“We only have the three planes,” said Cheshire. “Raven, Bear Two, and Mo. Galatica, the AWACS tester, won’t be on board until at least next week.”
Bastian nodded.
“We need at least two planes to complete the engine tests. Bear Two is needed for static tests, and Galatica still has to go through the usual flight trials. We won’t have the others for at least three weeks. The tanker program is already on hold, and the backlog on the avionics tests is thicker than a phone book.”
“The Flighthawks remain a priority,” Dog told her, guessing what she was going to suggest. “Raven has to stay with them.”
“I wasn’t going to suggest we stop using the EB-52 as the Flighthawks’ mother ship,” she said. “Though I’ve heard the control gear won’t fit in the Megafortress weapons bay once you reach eight U/MFs.”
Obviously she’d been talking to Rubeo.
“That may be a problem,” said Bastian. “That’s why we’re in business — to solve those sorts of things.”
Damn Rubeo. He was throwing every possible objection in the way of ANTARES.
“We can’t solve it if we don’t have the resources,” said Cheshire.
“Pete Rensling suggested using the 777 airframe as the ANTARES mother ship,” said Dog. “It has a huge bay, and the fuel tanks that would be needed for refueling were already part of the tanker testing.”
“That’s not a bad idea, if the wings could take it.”
“Being studied right now. If it works, that will lessen some of the burden on you. In the meantime, I’ll expedite more conversions as part of ANTARES.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” said Cheshire. She was smiling broadly. “Now how about more pilots?”
“I’m still working on that,” said Bastian. There were presently only six qualified B-52 pilots on the base; since even with the new flight computers it typically took two to fly a Megafortress, there was only one crew per plane. Two of the pilots were due to be transferred next week.
“You better be careful, Colonel. If you get any good, we may slide you into the rotation.”
“I’ll help out anyway I can,” said Bastian, smarting a bit from her tone.
“You sure you don’t want to take this run? I still need another pilot.”
“Maybe I will,” he said. “As a matter of fact, let’s go for it.”
Chapter 19
“Late, as usual.”
Danny grinned at the gray-haired woman in the white lab coat. Her frown turned into a smile, even as she shook her head and wagged her finger.
“Captain, you need a secretary to look after you,” Annie Klondike told him. She turned and began walking briskly toward the back rooms of the handheld weapons lab.
“You want the job?” asked Freah, falling in alongside. “You wouldn’t last twenty-four hours.”
Klondike shuffled toward the large room where the firing ranges were located.
“Annie, those new slippers?”
“Don’t get fresh.”
Klondike walked to a large gray box that sat in front of a series of drawer-shaped lockers. About eight feet wide and another six feet deep, the box came up to the diminutive weapons scientist’s chest. It seemed to be made of a very hard plastic material. Klondike put her palms on the top and the box began to move. Fascinated, Danny watched as the box pulled itself apart, a shallow section remaining behind the top.
“Opens only with my palm print and could withstand a one-megaton explosion,” said Klondike.
“This thing?” asked Danny. The shell material was no more than three inches thick.
“As long as it’s not a direct hit. Of course, if it was one of my bombs—”
“You do nukes too, Annie?”
“In my youth, Captain. I’m retired from that.”
“You shittin’ me?”
Klondike lowered her face, but kept her eyes fixed on him, as if she were a Sunday school teacher peering over her glasses. She sighed, then again shook her head, shuffling over to the table.
“At the moment, the Combat Information Visor must be attached to the Smart Helmets,” she said, turning her attention to the device Danny had come to inspect. “I have some hopes of miniaturizing it further, so that it can be used as goggles. I find the visor cumbersome, and I’m told some troops do not like the helmet.”
“It’s heavy,” said Danny. The so-called Smart Helmet included a secure com link and a GPS system. It could withstand a direct hit by a fifty-caliber machine-gun bullet from fifty yards — though that produced a hell of a headache. Klondike’s prototype visor added two additional functions: a long-range multi-made viewer, and an aiming screen for a specially adapted M-16.