“Why?”
“Because otherwise you could defeat it by landing someplace high. Lanzas would have thought about that, and suggested it as a way out. Do you know where it is?”
“If I knew where it was, don’t you think I’d run back and find it?”
“I didn’t realize you had a blowtorch handy,” said Zen sarcastically. “Must be in the tail, where they repaired the plane. Maybe we can spoof the beacon.”
“Jeff, even if you were right and you could find a way to do that, it wouldn’t eliminate a timer.”
“Well, let’s take a shot at finding it. Check the course that Kevin programmed in. See how low he was going to go before making the attack.”
“That was the three hundred feet.”
“Probably below that triggers it.”
“Well, great, that’s an easy jump.”
If it did have a radar altimeter, there probably would be a way to spoof it, Jeff decided. He could use a Flighthawk to detect it, or maybe examine the hull for a hot spot.
Except that he didn’t have a Flighthawk. But Jennifer Gleason did.
“It’s in native mode, orbiting above Dreamland,” Jennifer told him. “I can unlock it. Can you fly it?”
“Not a problem.”
As he waited, Jeff glanced over at Kevin, slumped in his seat. Zen had grabbed and punched him hard as he leaned over him; blood curled from his nose and ear. But for some reason Jeff thought it was more than the blow that had knocked his friend senseless. The fatigue of these past days, the drugs, fear, and maybe the realization of what he’d done—they must be at least as responsible for knocking him out as Jeff’s fist.
Zen’s wrist had swollen, either from the punch or the fall. He winced, but still managed a smooth handoff of the Flight-hawk. He took the U/MF from its orbit and swung up toward the EB-52.
Odd to fly the plane from the panels without his flight helmet, almost as if he were working by remote control. Which, of course, he was. All the time.
“Blew that engine clean off,” said Zen.
“B-52’s don’t go down,” said Bree. “I can tell you stories. Major Cheshire has a whole gallery of damaged BUFFs that landed in Vietnam with half the plane shot away.”
Jeff tried infrared as he closed in, focusing on the tail section. Maybe there was a little part of the right stabilizer that wasn’t as hot as the rest, maybe not. The repair threw everything off anyway.
“Going to put the fuzz detector on full,” said Zen. “Jeff, it’s not going to make any difference.”
“Knowledge is power. Just hold us level until the tanker gets here.”
“I have an idea. Let’s break off the stabilizer and land.”
“What?”
“Let’s assume the bomb is there, okay? What do we do? We can’t eject, we can’t land. We twiddle our thumbs for the next twenty years—or twenty seconds, until the timer nails us.
Jeff nudged the Flighthawk closer. There were intermittent signals.
“I think it is in the tail. Where they repaired the plane.”
“Great. Snap it off and let’s go home. I’m getting hungry.”
“How do you want me to snap it off?”
“Shoot it off with the Flighthawk.”
“You’re out of your mind, girlie.”
“Don’t call me girlie while we’re working.”
Zen pulled up the armament panel. The U/MF was down to two slugs.
Not that he had intended on using them.
“Don’t have enough bullets, Bree.”
“Slice through it,” she said. “Fly right into it. This way we’ll be sure nothing else hits us.”
“Rap, even if I managed to do that, how are you going to land without a tail?”
“You know how many times I’ve done that?”
“Zero.”
“Hell, it was in pieces when I landed in Brazil. I’ve done it once a week on the simulator. Jeez, even my father can do it.”
“I’m not worried about him.”
“You have a better idea?”
HE DIDN’T.
Breanna decided that sooner was better than later—it wasn’t like they were going to gain anything by waiting.
As they crossed into Dreamland’s restricted airspace, she leveled at a thousand feet. The range was cleared; they had nothing but empty lake bed for miles.
Was snapping off the stabilizer better than letting the bomb explode?
Depended entirely on how big the bomb was. And where it was. And luck. And how clean a break Jeff got.
Three hundred feet was really too high to do this.
Small bomb wouldn’t do much damage. Except for the debris and shrapnel and fire.
She could land without one stabilizer. Hell, she could land without the whole tail.
Of course, if Jeff missed and somehow took out the wing as well …
“We’ll get ready to land,” she told her husband. “You have to hit me when we’re at three hundred and fifty feet.”
“Shit, Bree, we’ll roll right into the ground.”
“No way.”
“Bullshit.”
“We will if you miss and crash into the rest of the plane.”
“Bree.”
“On a ten count.”
“Fuck you.”
“With great pleasure,” she said, watching the altimeter slip through nine hundred feet.
Aboard M-6
8 March, 0930
BASTIAN HEARD DREAM TOWER CLEAR BREANNA TO land.
“I thought you had a bomb aboard,” he said, trying—and failing-to keep his voice calm.
“Probably.”
“Well, what the hell are you doing?”
“Landing.”
“Wait. We can figure something out,” he said. “Maybe we can get some parachutes into your plane.”
“No time. Relax. We’ll be okay.”
“Breanna Rapture Bastian Stockard—”
“Close your eyes, Daddy.”
Aboard Galatica
8 March, 0935
HIS DAUGHTER WOKE HIM WITH HER WAIL. KEVIN JERKED back to consciousness.
He’d fallen asleep downstairs again. He had to get up and get her, before she woke Karen.
No.
He was in the Megafortress.
Zen had taken control of the Flighthawks.
They’d take him prisoner, make him go back into Theta, have ANTARES suck what was left of his mind away.
He couldn’t let that happen. He pushed to get up out of the seat, got tangled in the restraints. He fell and rolled onto the deck.
JEFF’S HAND WAS SO WET WITH SWEAT THAT THE STICK slipped as he approached. He wrapped both hands around it, eyes and consciousness riveted on the screen.
He had Gal’s speed nailed. The computer kept warning about proximity, which was good.
A quick plunge to the right, snap off half the tail on Bree’s count.
“Okay. Ten, nine,” said Breanna.
“Jeff.”
Zen looked up. Madrone stood over him with his gun. “Seven, six.”
Jeff put his right hand up, his other on the stick. He felt Kevin pushing the gun down into the back of his neck. “Five, four, three.”
Madrone ripped the headset away. Zen took a breath, then bent the stick downward.
DREAMLAND’S EB-52 SIMULATOR WAS VERY, VERY realistic. But it couldn’t begin to approximate what it felt to lose your tail at 140 knots, 347 feet above the ground.
The Megafortress lurched upward, then flopped down like a flat stone, losing 150 feet of altitude in the blink of an eye. Breanna and the computer struggled to compensate for the ravaging forces of gravity and momentum.
She held the plane steady, but it slid sideways through the air. One of the flaps, damaged earlier by the Scorpion, flew off the plane. Something exploded behind them, kicking at the fuselage, pushing the nose upright at the last second.
They hit the ground rather slowly, at ninety-two knots. But they struck at an angle. The leading gear collapsed; the right-side gear twisted off, but remained under the plane. Gal spun wildly. Breanna felt something hot in her face, then lost consciousness.