"Then go to a Lakers game."
"Oh, watching is such a—"
"No, no, go."
"To L.A.? I don't want to go all the way there by myself." "I'll go with you. I have a season package." "Thanks, Sleek, but—"
"Up to you. But really, you have to cut loose a bit. Relax. Slow down. I remember when I first left active duty. I was like a jackrabbit, practically bouncing off the walls. And the ceiling. I didn't know what to do with myself. Finally, I gave myself an order. Relax."
"And that did it, huh?"
"Sure. One thing Marines are good at — following orders." He smiled, then reached for the check. "Whereas you Air Force zippersuits never heard an order you didn't think was an optional request, right?"
The Megafortress shot forward, rolling down the concrete expanse toward a sky so perfectly blue it looked like a painting. The wind threw a gust of air under the plane's long wings, pushing her skyward with an enthusiastic rush. Flying might be a simple matter of aerodynamics, a calculation of variables and constants, but to a pilot it was always something more than just math. Imagination preceded the fact — you had to long for flight before you achieved it, and no matter how many times you gripped the stick and pulled back, gently or with a hard jerk, bracing yourself for the shock of g's against your face or simply rolling up your shirtsleeves for an afternoon's spin, there was always that moment of elation, the triumph of human spirit that set man apart from every other being. Flying was a triumph of the soul, and a pilot, however taciturn he might seem, however careful he was in planning and replanning his mission, savored that victory every time the plane's wheels left the ground.
Dog and his copilot, Lieutenant Sullivan, remained silent as they took the plane skyward. They hadn't flown together for very long, but the missions they'd been on had forged a strong bond between them. They had one thing above all others in common — both knew the Bennett as they knew their own hands and legs. The trio of men and machine worked together flawlessly, striding nose up in the sky, spi-raling toward 20,000 feet.
With all systems in the green, they set a course to the southwest, flying in the direction of Bacau.
"Flighthawk commander, are you ready for launch?" asked
Dog.
"Roger that, Bennett," replied Zen, sitting below in the Flighthawk bay. "I'm showing we have just over ten minutes to the planned release point."
"Affirmative."
"Beautiful day."
"Yes, it is," said Dog, surprised that Zen would notice, or at least take the time to mention it. Generally he was all business.
They turned the aircraft over to the computer for the separation maneuvers. Dog watched his instruments carefully as the Flighthawks dropped off the wings one at a time. The Megafortress continued to operate perfectly.
"Hawk One is at 10,000 feet, going to 5,000," said Zen. "Preparing to contact Groundhog."
Dog acknowledged. Groundhog was Danny Freah, who was introducing one of the Romanian units to the procedures required to interface with the planes. They planned on splitting their time this afternoon between two different units, going over the rudiments of working with the aircraft.
The Megafortress had two large air-to-ground missiles on its rotating bomb rack, but it was unlikely these would be used; even though they were very precise, there was too much chance of collateral damage. The Flighthawks, however, could provide close air support with their cannons if called in by the ground soldiers.
The focus of the mission was to provide intelligence: The Megafortress would use its J-STAR-like ground radar to follow troop movements or even vehicles, while the Flighthawks would provide real-time video of the area where the troops were operating. Though the Whiplash people could use their smart helmets to receive the video instantly, security concerns and numbers meant the Romanian troops would have to use special laptop units instead. Dog worried about their ability to receive the streaming video under battlefield conditions, but that was just one of the many things they'd have to work out as the deployment progressed.
With the Flighthawks away, he checked with his radar operators to see how they were doing. The men sat behind him on the flight deck, each facing a console arranged against the hull of the plane. On the right side, Technical Sergeant Thomas Rager manned the airborne radar, which was tracking flights within 250 miles. On the left, Technical Sergeant Jerry "Spiff" Spilani worked the ground radar. Rager had flown with Dog before; Spiff was new to the crew, though not to the job.
"Not too much traffic down there for rush hour, Colonel," said Spiff. "We have six cars in a five mile stretch."
"You sound disappointed," said Dog.
"Colonel, where I come from, we can get six cars in ten feet," answered the sergeant.
"And they're all stolen," said Sullivan.
"Generally." Spiff was a New Yorker. From da Bronx.
"Groundhog's on the line," said Sullivan, his voice suddenly all business. "Right on time."
Danny Freah adjusted the volume on the smart helmet's radio, listening as the Romanian lieutenant completed the exchange of recognition codes with the Bennett. In person, the lieutenant's pronunciation was nearly perfect, but the radio equipment made it sound garbled. The lieutenant repeated himself twice before Dreamland Bennett acknowledged.
"OK," said Danny. "Let's get some data from the Flight-hawk."
The unmanned aircraft streaked a thousand feet overhead, riding parallel to the nearby highway. Danny listened to the Romanian and Zen trade information. The Romanian lieutenant had trouble understanding Zen's light midwestern drawl, but he was able to see the video from the small plane on his laptop without any problem.
As planned, the lieutenant asked Zen to check out a road a mile south of them; they did that without a problem. Then the Romanians called in a mock air attack on a telephone substation about a hundred meters from the field they were standing in. This too went off without a hitch. The Flighthawk dipped down above the Romanian position, straightened its wings, then zoomed on the cement building, which had been abandoned some years before.
Rather than firing his cannon, Zen pickled off a flare. It flashed red in the fading twilight directly over the building.
The Romanian soldiers cheered.
I must be getting old, Danny thought. They all look like kids.
Zen pushed the Flighthawk through another turn, then dipped its wing to fall into another mock attack. The hardest part of the whole exercise was understanding the Romanians' English.
They weren't very good yet at estimating distances, but since he could use the actual GPS coordinates from the laptops as well as the Flighthawks' sensor to orient himself, finding the target wasn't particularly difficult.
After what he'd had to go through on his last mission, though, what was?
What do you do for an encore after saving the world? he mused.
It was an arrogant, self-aggrandizing thought — and yet it was true, or at least more true than false. Their last mission had stopped a nuclear war; you couldn't top that.
But life went on. There were still enemies to fight, conflicts to solve. Whether they seemed mundane or not.
There were also problems to solve and annoyances to overcome. Zen had decided to wear the MESSKIT instead of the "old" chute. It felt bulkier around his shoulders — not enough to interfere with flying the Flighthawks, but enough that he would have to get used to it.