The pod’s transmissions continued until the superconducting coil drained its electrical energy, the voltage dropping precipitously until exhausted. The unit shut down and fell into the sea.
The electromagnetic transmissions left the unit in a spherical wave pattern, traveling at the speed of light, taking the merest fractions of a millisecond to reach the three jets flying above.
Lt. Joe Galvin’s stick trembled for a moment. He looked down at his panel and watched every light and indicator wink out, every needle fall to its powered-down position, some failing at the high peg, some at the low peg, some failing in the position at time of failure. Both jet engines flamed out at the same time. The intercom ceased working, which was why he never heard Giraffe’s exclamation of anger when the radar screen winked out as well as the missile status panel.
The latest model of the F-14 was built with hightech electronics and there had been attempts to harden the circuitry against EMP pulses, but the designers had, in effect shrugged, knowing hardening circuits meant adding weight.
The shielding had been penetrated in the first microsecond of the Firestar’s pod’s transmission. As had every electronic module in the jet. Every radar, weapon-control circuit, avionic instrument, radio, and computer. All fried to a crisp after five seconds of the electromagnetic onslaught. The engines, controlled by an onboard computer, their fuel injection regulated by powerful microprocessors, no longer had fuel injection, the chips destroyed. Both spun down, leaving the jet without electrical power — the voltage controllers on the generators gone anyway — and without thrust. The designers had never approved of fly-by-wire technology — the Tomcat’s control surfaces were moved by hydraulics, and the hydraulics were controlled by aircraft-grade cables linked to the hydraulic control valves. So for the first five seconds after the pod transmission, the F-14 Tomcat inhabited by Lt. Joe “Tailback” Galvin and Lt. (jg) Bugene “Giraffe” Fredericks continued to fly, flying deaf and dumb and blind, but flying just the same.
In the sixth second after the pulse transmission, the jet — now a thirty-five-ton glider — began to oscillate in roll, pitch and yaw. The control surfaces, although actuated by the powerful man-controlled hydraulics, were computer stabilized.
Without computer intervention in the control surfaces, the F-14 would crash into the sea seconds after catapult launch. True, the computer’s input was minor, but crucial.
Without it, Galvin’s flying machine began to vibrate, even as he aimed the jet for the sea in a desperate attempt to keep air flowing over the wings now that there was no longer any power.
Galvin attempted to correct the oscillation, reversing the stick to the right as the jet banked left, then as the overcorrection registered he tried to reverse the bank to the left again. At the same time the nose kept trying to rise and Galvin fought it with steady downforce on the stick. The nose put in its request for attention, the jet swinging to the left, requiring right rudder, then swinging to the right.
Galvin was tasting a magnum dose of adrenaline; he was young, in shape, highly trained, and the recipient of millions of dollars of flight time. The simulators at Pensacola had flown a simulation of loss of all electronics, not as hairy as this, but even so it was only done so that the students could see how hopeless it would be to stay in the aircraft. Which brought up the so-called Womb Concept in the background of his mind. Just as some televisions could flash up a small box in the corner of the screen, enabling the viewer to watch two television shows at once, Galvin’s mind played its own sideshow separate from the main track attempting to control the aircraft.
What the hell had happened to cause such a gross failure of the jet — some kind of missile hit? Couldn’t be, the wings and control surfaces still functioned. And what kind of missile flamed out the engines and turned off the power to the avionics? What to do next? The jet had no power, and no attempt at engine restart would work, not without electrical power or electronics. Besides, an attempt to restart the engines would require Galvin to dive for the deck for maximum velocity to windmill the compressors, and that would just kill them sooner. The standard operating procedure for this casualty was to punch out. The plane was obviously uncontrollable. No recovery was possible, and to try to do a water landing with this oscillating control would be suicidal.
So what could he be waiting for? Which was when he thought of the Womb Concept, as described by an appropriate lately grizzled Marine Corps flight instructor who had bailed out of three jets and consequently would never be promoted above the rank of major. Boy, the major had drawled, there’s gonna come a time when you’re gonna know your plane’s a goner, and when it comes you’re gonna cling to that stick like a newborn to his mamma’s tit, and do you know why? That aircraft can be falling apart all around you and you’re gonna want to stay in the bitch because inside, no matter how bad it gets, you feel comfortable and safe there. You control things there. Outside, you’re just a passenger, and more likely some shark’s dinner. Inside you’re used to being in charge, out there you’re a victim. And let me tell you, son, more aviators have died because of the Womb Concept than any other reason. The god damned fools know they’ve gotta punch out, the airplane’s a total, but what do they do? They stay in the cockpit because it’s warm and safe, the womb, and outside it’s cold and hard and dangerous. More pilots die from staying in the womb than any other reason, so when your time comes, and it will, just remember: Get the fuck out.
The major’s lecture seemed to reach something inside. It was either that or he remembered that the hydraulic-control system would be losing pressure any second. Without power to recharge the hydraulic accumulators the hydraulic pressure would eventually decay until Galvin had no control over the aircraft at all and no pushing or pulling on the stick would matter. And with no control, the aircraft would go sideways in the airstream and disintegrate faster than the space shuttle Challenger. As fast as he could, Galvin let go of the stick and pulled the D-ring at his crotch up to his waist and tried to count to twenty — at this level of adrenaline-induced excitement, counting to twenty might take only two seconds, maybe three, and it would take a full two seconds for the canopy to blow off and the ejection seat to kick in.
As Galvin waited he wondered whether the ejection mechanism could be knocked out by whatever had paralyzed the jet. Not that it would matter, because if the mechanism stalled or failed, the F-14 would disintegrate within another few seconds anyway.
A ring of explosive bolts blew the jet’s canopy off, the cockpit suddenly roaring with turbulence. A few heartbeats later Galvin’s seat kicked him in the ass, pushing his seat up the rails to the airflow above. A lanyard attached to the seat bottom pulled a pin in a rocket motor, launching the seat into the slipstream. Galvin’s eyes were shut tight, but if they had been open he would have seen his F-14 dive toward the sea, tumble out of control, her wings shearing off, the cloud of fuel vapor exploding in a puff, the debris from the jet raining down on the sea.
Galvin tumbled for a moment, his body parting company with the ejection seat. A few moments later his parachute bloomed overhead, the harness tightening over his crotch as the chute inflated. When he opened his eyes, he saw Giraffe’s parachute open a few hundred feet below. Off toward the horizon he saw, then heard the explosion as the second F-14 lost control and crashed into the sea — from the absence of parachutes, Vinny and Sully had obviously succumbed to the Womb Concept. And then he heard something that at first confused, then enraged him. Jet engines. High overhead, a Firestar fighter, the same bastard they’d been escorting to Cyprus, turned and flew off to the west, as if nothing had happened.