Leaning closer to his port-side window, Reinhardt peered outside, trying to get his bearings. Although he could barely make out Draco or Ursa Minor, far below was an enormous, finger-shaped swatch of blue, like an inland sea. Lake Erie, if he correctly remembered the geography of North America. He was over Cleveland, with Pennsylvania just ahead. And after Pennsylvania…
Something lanced the window’s thick glass, a bright glimmer of light that stabbed the corner of his eye and made him wince. Startled, Reinhardt cursed beneath his breath and reflexively looked away. Then the intuition of a Luftwaffe fighter pilot kicked in. The sun was above him, yet the gleam had come below. A sundevil. A stray beam of light, reflecting off…
Another spacecraft?
“Impossible,” he muttered. All the same, he peered through the window again. For a couple of seconds he saw nothing except Earth far below. And then, far away yet nonetheless distinct, a tiny silver shape moved into sight, catching the light.
As incredible as it might be, he was not alone.
Radar picked up Silver Bird before Skid’s eyes did, just as he’d expected. Nonetheless, he was startled when it made a sharp ping! indicating that its waves had connected with a solid object. There had been a couple of those already, yet when they didn’t repeat, he knew that they’d been nothing more than small meteors passing through his range on their way to disintegration in the upper atmosphere. This time, he waited thirty seconds… and ping! there it was again.
Lucky Linda was above the Midwest by then, still climbing at a shallow angle as it soared over the southern Great Lakes region. For the last fifteen minutes, Skid Sloman had searched the black and nearly starless sky, praying that Goddard’s bright boys hadn’t been wrong when they’d estimated Silbervogel’s likely flight path. He’d seen nothing, though, and was beginning to wonder if everyone was wrong and the damn Nazis had sent the thing over the Atlantic…
Then he looked up, and there it was, slightly to his right and almost directly overhead, a tiny winged shape that caught the sun as it coasted across the black sky.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, a predatory grin spreading across his face.
“Lucky Linda, this is Desert Bravo.” Jack Cube’s voice sounded as if it were coming from Mars. “Please repeat.”
“Desert Bravo, I’ve acquired Silver Bird.” Skid was surprised by how calm he was. “He’s at eleven o’clock, range”—he glanced at the radar again—“approximately seven miles.”
He heard a commotion somewhere in the background. Although he couldn’t make out what anyone was saying, it wasn’t hard to imagine what was going on in the blockhouse. Then Goddard’s voice came over the wireless. “You’re still out of range,” he said, his voice clear and sharp. “Don’t fire until you’ve got a dead bead on him.”
“Affirmative, Bravo.” Like it or not, Doctor G was right. The missiles didn’t require a precise targeting, but nonetheless he had to time their release just right; once they were fired, there was no way to guide them. And he’d learned in the simulator that he needed to get within four miles of Silbervogel to have a chance of hitting it.
Even before he looked at his radar, he knew from the increasing repetition of each ping that he was getting closer. The scope told him that he was nearly five miles from target and closing. When he glanced up again, though, he saw that Silver Bird was no longer in sight. A second later, the pings abruptly ceased, and when he looked down again, he saw that the radar screen was suddenly empty.
Silver Bird had vanished.
Startled, he anxiously swung his head back and forth, trying to spot the German spacecraft, before he realized what was going on and checked his periscope. Yes, there it was, above and behind him at one o’clock. Lucky Linda must be traveling faster than Silbervogel; within seconds, it had passed the other spacecraft from underneath.
Yet his trajectory was still angled upward as opposed to Silver Bird’s descent angle. If he wasn’t careful, he’d overshoot the other craft entirely and lose the chance to target it.
“Now or never,” he muttered.
“Lucky Linda, please repeat.” Jack Cube had taken the mike back from Goddard.
Skid ignored his friend. Keeping a close eye on his periscope, he carefully nudged his stick to the left. The starboard RCRs fired, and in the eyepiece he watched Silver Bird move toward the center of the eyepiece. When it was where he wanted it to be, he braked his sidewise momentum by moving the stick back to the right, firing the thrusters on his port side.
Silver Bird was directly above and behind him. He could see the Nazi spacecraft clearly now; it looked like a little metal toy he might find in a Woolworth’s back home. He couldn’t tell for sure, but he was almost certain that it was just within four miles of his own ship.
He had two missiles, but he realized that there was no point in keeping one in reserve. If he missed the first time, there was no way he’d be able to perform the complex maneuver he’d need to retarget Silver Bird before it left his range and entered the atmosphere. Both missiles had to be fired at once.
“Target acquired,” Skid said as he reached forward to two bright red toggle switches positioned just above the radar screen. “Firing missiles.”
And then he snapped the two switches.
Horst Reinhardt watched helplessly as the other spacecraft—it had to be American; there was no other explanation for its existence—approached Silbervogel from below, coming closer with each passing second.
Frustrated, he slammed his hands against the yoke. With no fuel for his engines, he was unable to maneuver; with no guns, he was unable to fight. The Americans would have no ability to strike at him before he completed his mission, so weapons and countermeasures were unnecessary—that was what he’d been told all along. Well, someone was wrong, wasn’t he?
Reinhardt wasn’t even able to tell that particular someone how badly he’d underestimated the enemy. He was out of radio range of the U-boat standing by in the North Atlantic. If he died today, no one would know how… except the pilot who killed him.
The American spacecraft disappeared as it passed beneath him. A few seconds later, Silbervogel’s forward radar array began to echo. Looking down Reinhardt saw a small blot appear on his scope. The American was closer now, yes, but it also appeared to be moving ahead of him.
A smile slowly crept to his lips. Was it possible that the American pilot had made a mistake? Reinhardt couldn’t tell what sort of armaments the other ship might have, but he sincerely doubted that they could be fired backward. And if the enemy craft continued to fly upward as he continued to descend, Silbervogel would pass behind the American and begin its final atmospheric entry untouched.
Reinhardt intently watched the scope. The American was still below him, just a little more than six kilometers away. He couldn’t see it through either of his side windows, but it appeared to be…
Suddenly, the radar pinged three times in rapid succession, and Reinhardt looked down to see two more blotches on the scope, smaller than the first one and quickly moving away.