The U/MF’s threat screen flashed red. The F-5’s had picked him up somehow. But it was too late for them, very much too late—he edged right, wishing the targeting screen into place, the pipper stoking red as he cut a V in the sky, Hawk One diving and then bolting back behind the Brazilian interceptor. He lost ground, the pipper turning cold black, then starting to blink, changing to yellow, then red. Madrone squeezed, and it was like the first time with Minerva, all of his fears rushing out of him. His enemy burst into flames.
He edged left, his body the Flighthawk. His maneuvers drew him parallel to the second Tiger, the pilot so intent on attacking the Boeing that he didn’t see the Flighthawk in the darkness beside him. Nor could his radar find it as it slid backward, slowing a moment to let its target get slightly ahead and below him.
Madrone climbed. He focused the Flighthawk’s IR scan in the center of his head, tipping downward to accelerate into the attack. He saw the man fiddling with his gear.
The idiot was arming his Sidewinders.
The attack caught the F-5E midships. The cannon shells smashed the turbines cleanly in half. The front part of the plane plunged down immediately, tumbling over violently. The rear, containing the engines, tail, and wings, flew on by itself for nearly a mile, a headless horseman still seeking revenge in the night.
By then, Madrone had turned his attention to the Roland defense missiles. The two Marder chassis launchers were located at the western end of the base, on slightly elevated ground. He had to dive quickly to avoid their radar, which swept out to just under ten miles. One of the launchers fired as he dove, though it wasn’t clear why exactly—the Boeing and the Flighthawks were still well outside the missiles’ range, and the threat screens were both clear.
“Captain, we are under attack,” reported Mayo, the copilot. The voice came at him from above, a terrible intrusion from the clouds.
“Stay with me,” said Madrone, concentrating on Hawk One’s threat screen.
“But—”
“You will stay with me!” he thundered.
There was no response. He checked Hawkmother’s position on the God’s-eye view—if the pilots pulled off, he would eject them.
He might just do that now.
The threat screen on Hawk One painted the coverage area of the Roland’s radar as he closed in. The French-German unit was especially proficient at finding low-flying targets, but even it couldn’t find something as small as a Flighthawk flying at only twenty feet off the ground. A second missile took off from the launcher at the right; Madrone guessed that in their excitement the crew had misidentified and fired at the wreckage of the F-5 as it fell to earth.
Or perhaps they could see him somehow. Perhaps the bastards who had tried to destroy Madrone had altered the radar on the Flighthawk, made it visible to the enemy.
It was as if an iron bar hit him in the forehead. Madrone slumped backward in the chair, losing everything.
We will destroy them, Minerva whispered. We will destroy them for what they have done to you. And we will live together, safe in our home.
Madrone felt his way back into the cockpit of Hawk One, saw the large radar dish of the Roland barely two miles away. He waited until he was within a half mile to begin firing. At his speed and range, he got no more than five slugs into the hull of the SAM launcher. But they were more than enough to destroy her.
Flames shot everywhere. A fireball from the first launcher’s missile struck the second, unarmed launcher, but Madrone decided to erase it as well.
From there it was a turkey shoot. He vectored Hawk Two in to drop the bomb while he searched for the remaining F-5Es with One. After he shot them down, he found and destroyed a flight of Mirage IIIs on the ground, and even wasted an old Starfighter that managed to scramble toward the runway to stop him.
By the time Madrone was done, the best combat squadrons of Força Aérea Brasileiria had been eliminated. More importantly, the only units in the western part of the country that answered directly to the Defense Minister—and thus would resist Minerva—no longer had planes to fly.
Dreamland
4 March, 1300
BREANNA PUSHED AWAY THE PLATE WITH HER half-eaten turkey sandwich and got up from the table in Lounge B. One of the fancier clubs on the base, Lounge B had been thrown open under Dog’s all-ranks edicts, and now served a very passable lunch, as well as offering some convenient nooks and crannies for involved couples.
Which, in theory, Zen and Bree were. Though during the past few days they had been acting increasingly “married.”
A terrible word in her book, which she equated with a range of disparaging adjectives, none of which included intimate. For the past week, Zen had consistently ignored her, claiming he was working. He’d spent all of his spare time either in the ANTARES bunker—or in that computer bitch’s lair.
Jennifer Gleason. Bree would scratch her eyes out if they were doing anything.
She knew Zen, knew he wasn’t like that. But he was human.
And he’d blown her off for lunch. She was due at a briefing with Colonel Bastian in ten minutes, or she’d hunt him down.
Or maybe not. She was being silly. Most likely he was working—he was incredibly busy, after all. Besides heading the Flighthawk Program, he was currently the only person who’d been able to achieve Theta-alpha in the ANTARES program.
Not that she’d heard that from him.
Was she being silly? Jeff had been acting strange lately, distant, quiet, not talking to her. True, Zen did get moody at times—he’d always been that way, even before the accident.
But something was definitely different now. ANTARES made him edgy, darker.
Could be lack of sleep.
“Hey, Bree, how’s it going?” asked Danny Freah, sauntering in. A very attractive woman appeared behind him.
“Hello, Danny,” said Bree, her eyes following to the blonde. As tall as Freah, she looked like an aerobic instructor even though she wore a conservative pantsuit.
Freah was married, the SOB.
“This is Debbie,” said the captain, gesturing to the woman.
Debbie smiled and offered her hand. Bree didn’t take it. “I’m running a little late,” Bree told Freah. “You see Jeff anywhere?”
“No. He supposed to be here?”
“He’s supposed to be married,” snapped Bree, storming from the room.
Dreamland ANTARES Lab
4 March, 1300
ZEN FELT THE RUSH OF ADRENALINE AS THE PLANE soared to fifty thousand feet. He pushed the rudder pedals—pushed the pedals, he could feel them, feel his feet! He hunted in the sky for his adversary, a MiG-29 somewhere below.
His feet! He could feel his feet!
He had to test this. Had to!
He stood.
Gravity slammed his head back. He fell into a void, every part of him on fire. He blanked out.
When he came to, Geraldo and her assistants were standing over him. He was still in the ANTARES lab room, but they had removed his connections, all except the small wires that monitored his heart and the chemical composition of his blood.
“What happened?” he asked.
“We were going to ask you the same thing,” said Geraldo. “I guess, I guess the MiG nailed me when I wasn’t looking,” he said.
“Our tape of the simulation showed the aggressor still out of range when you blacked out,” said Carrie.
She had her hands on her hips, her beautiful breasts thrust out. Zen hadn’t realized how beautiful she was until now, for some reason. Shy and reserved, but the kind of woman who would turn into something in bed.
“Jeff, how do you feel?” asked Geraldo, pulling over a small metal chair on wheels. The assistants customarily used the chair while adjusting the connections; its steel gleamed even in the softly lit lab.
“Uh-oh, I’m a prisoner of the Inquisition,” he joked, still looking at Carrie.