Maybe she’d been in on it.
He saw his wife crying at the graveyard, sobbing as she knelt on the fresh-packed dirt. Then he saw Christina, helpless on the gurney, head shaved, the tape for the lead shields still dangling on her skin.
She screamed like he’d never heard her. The two nurses came to wheel her away. He jumped for her, but some bastard grabbed him and held him back.
Kevin fell from the sky, tumbling backward into the jungle. He landed flat on his spine, staring up at the sun overhead. The red orb pulsated, then began to descend. He tried to get up, but couldn’t.
IT TOOK JEFF A MOMENT TO REALIZE THAT NOT ONLY had the Flighthawks defaulted to Trail One, their favored preset mode, but that ANTARES was no longer hooked into C3. When he finally saw it, he grabbed for the controller with his right hand and threw his left on the two rockers that connected his microphone with the computer.
“Command authorization Zed Zed Zed,” he said, telling the computer to recognize him. “Zero Stockard Zero.”
“Zed Zed Zed.”
“Erase ANTARES plug-ins.”
“Command unrecognized.”
“Computer: Delete the connection with ANTARES!”
“Command unrecognized.”
“Manual control, Hawk One,” he said, pulling back on the controller. The cockpit cam showed the rear of the Megafortress in the moonlight, flying above an array of jagged peaks.
Down, he thought, pushing the stick forward so hard it nearly snapped out of its socket.
HE NEEDED TO BE IN THETA NOW.
Christina’s face floated in the dim blue void before him. Her mouth moved.
Daddy, she said. Daddy.
I’m here.
It’s the computer. It took me away.
ANTARES?
Yes.
But how?
It sucked me out from inside you.
Christina?
It stole me. The computer stole me. It took me from your memory and destroyed you. That was their plan all along—to kill me by killing you.
Her eyes and mouth faded, leaving only the outline of her face. Lightning flashed behind him and he fell back in the tower. The last bits of his daughter disintegrated in front of him.
She was right. It wasn’t Livermore he had to destroy. It was ANTARES.
BREANNA PULLED BACK ON THE STICK AS THE PLANE began plummeting toward the mountain peaks. She had the yoke pressed against its stop, but the plane didn’t respond, its dive continuing.
Then, with a violent shudder, its nose began to jerk upward, and in the space of a few seconds it became a streaking roller coaster, whipping upward as the aerodynamic forces overpowered it.
Minerva was screaming next to her.
“Don’t let the plane go through ten thousand feet. No!”
Breanna grabbed the stick back, not sure if Kevin had let go or not. They whipped up to 8,500 feet, going through 8,600 and accelerating.
“Help me,” yelled Minerva. “We can’t go above ten thousand feet.”
“I have to override the flight computer,” lied Breanna, who now had control.
“Do it!”
“Computer: override course settings, override command settings. Lock out autopilot section. Authorization Rap One-One-Two.”
“Confirmed.”
“Navigation screen.” Breanna tapped the panel up and quickly hit the beacon code. In the meantime, she leveled off at 9,200 feet.
“What’s so special about ten thousand feet?” she asked after checking the plane’s systems.
Minerva didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to.
“We’re booby-trapped, aren’t we? Did you hear that, Kevin? Your lover wanted to blow you up.”
“I heard,” said Madrone.
And once more, even though locking out the autopilot should have isolated command at her console, Breanna felt the plane veer out of her control.
HE DIDN’T CARE ABOUT MINERVA ANYMORE. HE’D BEEN confused by ANTARES, the drugs, the computer, everything. Confused and tricked and used.
No more. Madrone eased back in the seat, in full control of the planes. Now that he knew what he had to do—now that his daughter had made it clear to him—he felt very calm and very strong.
He gave C3 and the Megafortress the new course, then pushed up his visor, looking across at Zen. His friend flailed at the control panel, trying to take command of the robot planes. He didn’t seem to understand that Madrone and ANTARES could override any of his commands.
Or maybe he did. Maybe he struggled to keep from feeling helpless.
“That’s enough, Jeff,” Kevin said finally. He pulled his pistol out.
“Shoot me,” said Zen.
“I don’t want to.”
“Thanks,” said Zen sarcastically.
“You’re right about ANTARES. I think you’re definitely right,” he said. “I’m going to fix it, once and for all.”
Aboard M-6
Near Dreamland
8 March, 0715
DOG WAS A HUNDRED MILES SOUTH OF DREAMLAND when one of the AWACS in the net announced that it had found Galatica.
It had had a little help—the Megafortress had turned its locator beam on.
A quartet of F-15Cs scrambled to intercept. The controllers began jockeying other elements around, lining up the defenses.
Two of the Eagles had to turn back because of fuel. A pair of Navy jets moved up to take their place. Dog pushed M-6 to accelerate, but they were at least a hundred miles from the action.
“Swinging back—shit—Rock Two has contact!” blurted out one of the F-15 pilots. “Shit! Shit! Tally at five hundred feet, two o’clock. Jesus.”
“Rock Two, clear to engage,” answered the controller calmly, authorizing the pilot to shoot down the Megafortress.
“Rock Three to support,” said the wingman, following his commander.
Dog closed his eyes.
“Break right! Break right!” shouted Rock Three. “Band—flare! God, oh, God!”
There was static.
Dog guessed that the F-15’s had just been jumped by one or both of the Flighthawks. The AWACS vectored the Navy interceptors toward the Megafortress, then announced it had lost the locator beam.
“Plot an intercept for San Francisco,” Dog told McAden softly. “Make sure it’s good.”
“Colonel, no. Stay on this course,” said Jennifer. “I have the C3 signal. They’re eighty miles dead ahead. They’re not going to San Francisco.”
Aboard Gal
8 March, 0723
MADRONE HAD TO REFUEL THE FLIGHTHAWKS. WHILE the computer told him he could make it to Dreamland from here, another encounter would push the U/MFs into their reserves, depriving him of his margin of error.
Dreamland was barely two hundred miles from here. If he squinted just right, he’d probably see Las Vegas glowing at the edge of the desert.
He reduced throttle on the Megafortress, swinging Hawk Three up toward the tail even as the automated boomer lowered the straw.
It was sneaky of Breanna to turn the beacon on; he hadn’t understood what it was until the AWACS latched on. He couldn’t blame her, though. Under other circumstances, he might have done the same thing.
It didn’t matter now, not in the least. Dreamland’s point-defense MIM-23 I-Hawk SAMs wouldn’t pick up the stealthy Megafortress until it was approximately ten miles from the base. Even with the long missile beneath it, Hawk Three ought to be able to get to within five miles before the batteries detected it. By the time they locked and launched, he would already have pickled, ending ANTARES forever.
He nuzzled the U/MF into the boom and began working through the refuel.
Aboard M-6
8 March, 0740