Someone was trying to talk to him through the radio headphone in his helmet, but Hunter wasn't in the mood for conversation. He had places to go, things to do.
He looked over his shoulder and saw that the airstrip to his left was unoccupied. He gunned his engine, steered onto the hard tarmac, and a moment later went screaming down the runway.
This was very strange. Hunter really did feel like he was part of this machine. His hands seemed to be melded to its controls, his brain to its flight computer. He didn't even have to think about doing what he was doing. The F-16 was essentially the same flying machine he'd built back on Fools 6—from memory. If he didn't know how to drive this one, then he didn't deserve to draw another breath.
A flick of the stick, a push of the throttle, and he was airborne. The electricity rippling through his body turned into a lightning bolt. He hadn't felt this way in a very long time.
The airplane threw itself into the air. Hunter booted full throttle, which engaged the plane's afterburner and shot him forward with bone-crushing acceleration. He pushed back on the tail and was immediately going nearly straight up. In ten seconds he was already a mile high.
At thirty seconds he was passing through 25,000 feet. Only then did he level off and take a breath.
His ship's clock told him it was 0430 hours. There was nothing but darkness all around. He clicked on his cockpit light, unlatched his map case, and found a folder within marked Operations and Orders. He tore open this envelope; inside was a single piece of yellow paper. These were his orders. He was to connect with the large aerial convoy that had just left the airfield. He was to ride escort for it to Rota, Spain, and from there "engage in combat operations against any Soviet units found on continental Europe at the discretion of the local commander."
World War Three…
The words suddenly popped into his head. Though he arrived in the seventy-third century suffering from near total amnesia, some of Hunter's memories had returned to him in bits and pieces, some coming hard, but others very easily. First and foremost, he knew he was an American. He knew he was a soldier, a pilot. Some kind of national hero. But he also knew that he'd fought in a great war as a young man, several lifetimes ago.
That conflict was called World War Three. And for some reason, here he was, fighting it again.
He headed east, out over the water, streaking above the snow clouds, the storm in full retreat behind him. A bare hint of the sunrise came off his airplane's nose. The sky above was clear, filled with chilly stars. His first job was to catch up with the hundreds of airplanes belonging to the massive convoy that had taken off before him. He figured he was about five minutes behind them at the most.
His orders gave two radio frequencies, both UHF, that the convoy of refueling tankers, jet fighters, and AC-130 gunships would be using during the long flight across the Atlantic. Getting a communication link going was essential if everyone wanted to make it to Spain in one piece. He punched the first frequency into his radio set, adjusted the volume, but heard nothing. He tried the second frequency, but again could find no chatter between the dozens of airplanes.
This was strange.
While he was sure that the air convoy would be flying under the cloak of radio silence for the majority of the 2,000-plus mile flight, with this many planes in the air, there were always a few last-minute radio calls back and forth. From air traffic control to the departing airplanes. From one plane to another. Or, at the very least, one last weather report. But all Hunter could hear in his helmet headphones was static.
He pushed his throttle ahead. The engine roared in response. He scanned the skies ahead of him. The planes in the air convoy would be flying without their navigation lights, but the sky was quickly getting bright, and he was surprised that he couldn't see at least a few silhouettes of the last few planes to take off. But even though he had tremendous eyesight, the sky in front of him held nothing but scattered clouds and fading stars.
Very strange…
He went up to 30,000 feet, a mile above the convoy's assigned altitude. Sometimes it was easier to find something in the air if you were looking down on it. Hunter scanned the huge expanse of sky before him again, still he could not yet see the tail end of the convoy. He read his orders again. They included his heading, altitude, and so on. He compared the numbers on the yellow sheet with what his navigation computer was telling him. Everything checked out. He was where he was supposed to be, at the right speed, going in the right direction. Yet from what he could see, he was the only one in this very big, empty sky.
He tried the radio again. Nothing on the first frequency.
Static on the second. He turned the UHF tuning knob through the entire range of frequencies the radio was able to receive. He heard nothing on any of them.
He checked his flying orders again, double checked them, then triple checked them. He was heading in the same direction as the hundred or so planes in the air convoy; they'd all received the same orders. The sky should at the very least have been filled with contrails, so many planes were supposed to be up here, but for as far as his eyes could see, his was the only aircraft.
This was getting very weird. He booted his throttles, and in an instant, doubled his speed. He felt a double sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier and was soon driving the F-16 at 1,000 mph-plus. He held this speed for exactly thirty seconds, which by his calculations, would have put him right where the air convoy's location should be.
But all this did was use up his extra fuel. The sky around him remained empty.
He was just about to consider turning around and returning to the base when his radio suddenly came alive with voices. It was immediately horrible. Screams of panic and fear were pouring out of his headphones. He could hear the sound of explosions, too, and of jet engines failing, airplanes going down, people dying.
It was obviously the convoy, and obviously it was in big trouble. The entire concept of radio silence was out the window as Hunter could hear dozens of voices in the cacophony. They were screaming altitudes and positions of other aircraft. He had no doubt what was happening: the convoy was under attack.
But where were they?
If nightmares are a conglomeration of a person's most acute fears, then Hunter was suddenly living a nightmare. The most helpless feeling any soldier can have is to hear his comrades dying and know there is nothing he can do about it. That's what was happening to Hunter now. He flew on and on, desperately looking for the convoy, but he still could not see them. He flew for another ten minutes, twenty, then thirty. He flew for more than an hour, and not once did the cries go away. If anything, they grew in intensity and desperation.
It was only when he met the sun that the voices began to fade away. They went out not with a bang but with a whimper. One last pilot, helpless as someone was shooting him down, leaving a message for his wife and kids that was cut off in midsentence. His voice was replaced by static, and then nothing at all.
Hunter found the convoy a few minutes later. It was scattered across the next ten square miles of ocean. Every plane reduced to debris floating on what looked like a sea of red aviation fuel. Or was that blood?
There was no piece of wreckage bigger than a few feet across. The planes in the air convoy had been the victims of an ambush. Hundreds had been killed. But how?
Hunter had his answer a few moments later. Sitting about five miles east of the vast sea of debris was a warship. A very big one.