Then they got into the production and components testing phase, and the debugging of the programming. That was frustrating as always; it’s beyond his technical competence to contribute much in the way of specifics at that point, and all he could do was orchestrate the tests and keep everyone working at them. It’s a bit too much like Lemon’s role at that point, not that he’d ever go about it in the same style.
Then it was time for the big components’ tests. And now, time for the first test of the entire system.
The train arrives inside the hour, and from the tube station at El Paso the LSR helicopter lofts him over to White Sands Missile Range, the testing grounds that a consortium of defense companies leases from the government.
As he gets out of the helicopter McPherson reaches in his coat pocket for the sunglasses he brought with him. It really is uncanny how white the sand in this area is: a strange geological feature, for sure. Not that anyone actually visits the little national park on the edge of the testing grounds.
McPherson is carted to the LSR building on the range, and several of the engineers there greet him. “It’s ready to go,” says Will Hamilton, LSR’s on-site testing chief. “We’ve got Runway Able for noon and one, and the RPV is fueled and prepped.”
“Great,” says McPherson, checking his watch. “That’s half an hour?”
“Right.”
They have coffee and some croissants in the cafe, then take the elevator up six floors to the observation deck on the roof. Cameras and computers will be monitoring all aspects of the test, but everyone still wants to see the thing actually happen. Now they stand on a broad concrete deck, looking out over the waves of pure white dunes, extending to the horizons like an ocean that has been frozen and then had everything but pure salt bleached away. Such a weird landscape! McPherson enjoys the sight of it immensely.
Over to the north are the runways that the companies all share, crossing each other like an X over an H, their smudged concrete looking messy in the surrounding pureness. Compounds for Aerodyne, Hughes, SDR, Lockheed, Williams, Ford Aerospace, Raytheon, Parnell, and RWD lie scattered around in the dunes, like blocks dropped by a giant child. There’s a great plume of smoke out to the east, lofting some thirty thousand feet into the sky; someone’s test has succeeded, or failed, it’s hard to tell, although there’s an oiliness to the plume that suggests failure. “RWD was trying out the new treetop stealth bomber’s guidance system,” Hamilton informs McPherson. “They say it didn’t see a little hill over that way.”
“Too bad.”
“The pilot was automatically ejected no more than a second before impact, and he survived. Only broken legs and ribs.”
“That’s good.”
“RPVs are the coming thing, there’s no doubt about it. Everything moves too fast for pilots to be useful! They’re just up there at risk, and it costs ten times as much to make a plane that will accommodate them, even though they can’t do anything anymore.”
McPherson squints. “As long as all the automatic systems work.”
Hamilton laughs. “Like ours, you mean. Well, we’ll find out real soon now.” He gestures to the west. “The target tanks are out there on the horizon. We’ve followed your instructions, so they’re equipped with the Soviets’ Badger antiaircraft systems, and surrounded by Armadillo SAM installations. Those should give the plane a run for its money.”
McPherson nods. The six tanks on the western horizon, also under remote control, are little black frogs trundling south in a diagonal pattern, churning up sugary clouds of sand. “It’s a fair test.”
They wait, and to pass the time they talk some more about the test, saying things they both already know. But that’s all right. Everyone gets a little nervous when the time comes to see if all their efforts will actually amount to anything. Will the numbers translate into reality successfully? The talk is reassuring.
The deck intercom crackles as they’re patched into air control for the runways. A hangar north of the runway has opened, and out of it rolls a long black jet with a narrow fuselage.
Below the fuselage are two pods.
They’re as big as the fuselage itself: one black, one white.
Sensors. You can close your eyes, it won’t matter.
Under each delta wing, flanking the turbines: arrays of little fletched missiles.
The front of the fuselage comes to a long point, like a narwhale’s.
The rear flares out into stabilizers almost as big as the wings.
Under the fuselage, a small cylindrical rocket booster.
Understand: it doesn’t look like a plane anymore.
And those brake lights, winking in the axons…
Altogether it’s a weird contraption, appearing mole blind and not at all aerodynamic. There’s something eerie about the way it rolls to the end of the runway, turns, fires up the jets and shoots down the runway and up into the dark blue sky. Who’s minding the store? Hamilton is grinning at the sight, and McPherson can feel that he is too. There’s something awfully… ingenious about the thing. It really is quite a machine.
The intercom has been giving takeoff specs and such; now, as the RPV’s rocket booster cuts in and it recedes to nothing but a flame dot in the sky, they listen. “Test vehicle three three five now approaching seventy thousand feet. Test program three three five beginning T minus ten seconds. Test program beginning now.”
Ten of the dozen men on the deck start the stopwatch functions of their wristwatches. Some of them have binoculars around their necks, but there won’t be a chance to use them until after the test strike is made; there’s nothing to be seen in the sky, it’s a clean, dark blue, darker than any sky ever seen in OC. Nothing in it. McPherson finds that he’s not breathing regularly, and he concentrates on hitting a steady rhythm. Scanning the sky, in the area where the RPV was last seen, probably not where it will reappear, look around more… his eyesight is remarkably sharp, and un-focusing his attention so that he sees all the expanse of blue above him, he notices a tiny flaw, there far to the north.
“Up there,” he says quickly, and points. The chip of light moves overhead and then quicker than any of them can really follow it the black thing darts down zips over the boom white dunes and the tanks become orange blooms of fire as the thing turns up and fires back into the stratosphere like a rocket. Mach 7, really too fast for the eye to see: the whole pass has taken less than three seconds. The tanks are black clouds of smoke, BoomBoom B-B-B-B-BOOOOM! The sound finally reaches them. Empty blue sky, white dunes marred by six pillars of oily flame, off there on the horizon. Every tank gone.
They were shouting when the booms hit. Now they’re shaking hands and laughing, all talking at once. No matter how many tests they’ve witnessed, the extreme speed of this craft, and the tremendous volume and power of the explosions, inevitably impresses them. It’s a physical, sensory shock, for one thing, and then conceptually it’s exhilarating to think that their calculations, their work, can result in such an awesome display. Hamilton is grinning broadly. “Those Badgers and Armadillos didn’t even have time to register incoming, I’ll bet! The data will show how far they got.”
“And the pods all worked,” McPherson says. That was the crucial test, the one of the target designation and tracking. With all those things functioning, they’ve fulfilled the specs. The fact that the Soviets’ best field SAM system isn’t fast enough to stop the Stormbee is just gravy, confirmation that the Air Force has asked for the right things. The main fact is, they have a system that works.
They spend the next few hours going over the data that the test generated. It all looks very good indeed. They pop the cork on a bottle of champagne and click plastic cups together before McPherson gets on the helicopter with the data, to return to El Paso and OC.