Fatal Terrain Page 6

  Red."

  "One-Two," replied his fellow hunter, Captain Andrea

  Mills. She had a slight twinge of sarcasm already in her voice,

  and Mauer almost regretted calling her-he knew she knew

  he was having trouble.

  "Come give me a hand with this bandit," Mauer said.

  "Roger, I'm on my way,- Mills replied, the sarcasm gone.

  Mills looked for every opportunity to rub her fellow fighter

  jocks' noses in the macho hunter-killer game they all relished,

  but when it came time to get down to business, she was seri-

  ous, focused, and as deadly as any swinging dick.

  Mauer switched his heads-down SuPercockpit screen to a

  God's-eye view and expanded it until Mills's fighter symbol

  aPPeared-good, she was off to the north, racing southwest-

  bound to cut off the bandit from the other major ground target

  in the area, the fighter base and Patriot missile emplacements.

  Mills was staying high, establishing a high patrol, so Mauer

  pushed his stick forward and zoomed down lower, closer to

  the bandit's altitude. He had two missiles -left, both heat-

  seekers with a max range of only seven miles, and he had to

  make them count. If the bomber got the airfield and the Patriot

  site, their forces would be left wide open to attack, the airborne

  fighters would have to find someplace else to land, and the

  fighters on the ground were sitting ducks and wouldn't be able

  to depart.

  At 3,000 feet above the ground, the hills and buttes looked

  close enough to scrape the bottom of Mauer's fighter. He kept the

  power up at full military power, speeding westbound at Mach

  1.5, searching for the bomber ... but Mills's radar locked on

  first. The JTIDS datalink transferred the bandit's position to

  Mauer's attack computer, and he again I ked onto the m r

  oc bo be

  and began his pursuit-twelve o'clock, nine miles ...

  eight ...

  HIGH TERRAIN, HIGH TERRAIN! Sharon cried into the inter-

  ___36 DALE BROWN

  corn. Mauer yanked back on the stick to crest a sharply rising

  razorback ridgeline directly ahead. Jesus, this was nuts-trying

  to concentrate on the pursuit while dodging hills and ridges

  was going to get him killed. But as soon as he lowered the

  nose again, the bandit was dead in his sights, straight ahead.

  "Arm Sidewinder," Mauer ordered. "Open weapon

  doors."

  ROGER, AIM-9 ARMED, WARNING, MISSILE ARMED ...

  WARNING, WEAPON DOORS' OPENING. As soon as the door

  opened, the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile's seeker head slaved to

  the attack computer's steering signal, saw the hot dot from the

  bandit's exhaust, and locked onto it, matching its seeker azi-

  muth exactly with the attack computer's target bearing. AIM-9

  LOCKED ON, Sharon reported.

  -AIM-9 shoot," Mauer ordered.

  AIM-9 SHOOT, AIM-9 SHOOT, AIM-9 AWAY. The smaller, fas-

  ter Sidewinder fired from the weapons bay in a flash, wobbled

  a bit as it stabilized itself in the air, then homed straight and

  true....

  Flares! Mauer saw them immediately-a line of white dots

  hanging in the sky, hot and very bright even over six miles

  away. The radar-lock square jutted sharply left as the bandit

  made its customary first left break, but the decoy flares hung

  in the sky straight ahead for several seconds before winking

  out. The Sidewinder wobbled as if it were trying to decide

  between locking onto the decoys or turning to chase the

  bomber. It decided on the decoys, then changed its mind as

  the decoys began to extinguish. But just as it made a sharp

  left turn to pursue, the bomber ejected more flares and jinked

  right, and the Sidewinder locked solidly on the new, brighter,

  closer decoys and would not let go. The Sidewinder exploded

  harmlessly a full five miles behind the bomber.

  One missile to go, Mauer reminded himself, as he turned to

  pursue. He had closed to within four miles of the bandit, and

  now he was straining hard to see what in hell it was. The

  virtual display made it easy to focus on where the target was,

  no matter which way it jinked. It was small, probably an F-

  16, judging by its size and its maneuverability, or maybe some

  experimental job....

  A cruise missile! Mauer got a good look at it as it made

  another hard right turn, heading right for the airfield-a god-

  FATAL TERRAIN 37

  damn cruise missile! No wonder it was so maneuverable-

  there was no pilot on board to get knocked unconscious by

  hard G turns. It was the first cruise missile he had ever heard

  of that ejected decoy flares, could obviously detect enemy

  fighters' and missiles' radars, and could attack multiple targets

  and even reattack targets it missed the first time around! It was

  a little bit bigger than a Tomahawk or standard Air-Launched

  Cruise Missile, but it had no wings-it was almost like a big

  fat flying surfboard. When it was straight and level, it was

  almost impossible to see.

  "One-One, bogeydope," Mills radioed.

  "One-One has a single cruise missile, and it's haulin' ass,"

  Mauer said, grunting against the G-forces as he turned hard

  left again to stay behind the missile. "I got one heater left.

  my

  C'mon in and nail this bastard if ' last shot misses." The

  time for being macho was over, Mauer thought-this cruise

  missile had beat him pretty good, and it looked as if it was

  going to take both of the F-22s working together to nail it.

  "One-Two has a judy."

  "Take the shot," Mauer said. "I'll try to nail it in the ass

  while you shoot it in the face."

  Mills didn't reply-she let her AMRAAMs do the talking.

  The JTIDS datalink showed Mills launching her first AIM-

  120, followed by her second AMRAAM five seconds later.

  The cruise missile made its usual left break-Mauer was close

  enough now to see that it was ejecting chaff decoys, trying to

  get the radar-guided missile to lock onto the tinsel-like chaff!

  But Mauer anticipated that left break, and at the exact right

  moment, Mauer launched his last Sidewinder, then began a

  right turning climb to clear the area. The Sidewinder would

  get a good, solid look at the missile's entire profile, and it

  couldn't miss.

  But as he turned, he looked to the west and saw three bright

  explosions and another cloud of smoke-the airfield was hit,

  this time with some kind of binary weapon, a fuel-air explosive

  or a chemical weapon. No one was going to be landing or

  taking off from that airfield for a long, long time.

  Mauer got visual contact on Mills's F-22 high and heading

  in the opposite direction. Just as he began his climbing left

  turn to join up, he heard Mills report, "Splash one bandit-

  but I think he got the Patriot site and the airfield first."

  38 DALE BROWN

  Good job, Scottie, Mauer told himself angrily-the F-22

  Lightning, the best fighter ever to leave the ground, beat out

  by a robot plane. Shit, shit, Shit!

  He saw Mills wag her F-22's t
ail back and forth, clearing

  him into right fingertip formation. Might as well let Andrea

  lead for a while until he got his composure back, he was too

  angry right now to make any decisions as flight lead.

  Just then, Mauer's heads-down display blinked-another in-

  bound bandit had been detected by the AWACS. Mills rocked

  her wings up and down, the signal to move out to combat

  spread formation to get set up for the intercept, then started a

  thirty-degree bank turn to the left toward the new bandit. She

  was the only one with missiles now, Mauer thought forlornly,

  so he slid out to wide-line-abreast formation and got ready to

  back up his leader on this intercept. He was backup now, he

  thought, just backup. The bad guys were three for fucking

  three....

  "Three for three, General," Patrick McLanahan said matter-

  of-factly. "The Wolverine autonomously located four prepro-

  grammed targets, attacked three, reattacked one, and was on

  its way to nail the fourth one before the F-22s got it. Pretty

  good hunting, I'd say."

  "Unbelievable," Samson finally muttered. "I don't believe

  what I just saw." Even in the EB-52B Megafortress bomber's

  wide cockpit, Lieutenant General Terrill Samson's big frame

  barely seemed to fit-his shoulders were slightly slumped, his

  knees high up on the instrument panel. Terrill "Earthmover"

  Samson, a former B-52 and B- I B bomber pilot and wing com-

  mander, was commander of U. Air Force's Eighth Air Force,

  in charge of training and equipping all of the Air Force's heavy

  and medium bomber units. The Air Force general was in the

  modified B-52's left seat, piloting the experimental bomber.

  Copiloting the EB-52 Megafortress was Air Force Colonel

  Kelvin Carter, a veteran bomber pilot and a former EB-52 test

  pilot at HAWC, the High Technology Aerospace Weapons

  Center. Retired Air Force Colonel Patrick McLanahan was

  seated behind and to the right of Samson in the aft section of

  the upper crew compartment in the OSO, or offensive systems

  officer's, console, and to McLanahan's left in the DSO's, or

  defensive systems officer's, seat was Dr. Jon Masters, presi-

  FATAL TERRAIN 39

  dent of a small high-tech satellite and weapons contractor from

  Arkansas.

  The EB-52B Megafortress was a radically modified B-52

  bomber, changed so extensively from tip to tail that now its

  size was the only sure point of comparison. It had a long,

  pointed, streamlined nose that smoothly melded into sharply

  raked cockpit windows and a thin, glass-smooth fuselage. Un-

  like a line B-52, the Megafortress's wingtips did not curl up-

  ward while in flight-the plane's all-composite fibersteel

  skeleton and skin, as strong as steel but many times lighter,

  maintained an aerodynamically perfect airfoil no matter how

  heavily it was loaded or what flight condition it was in. A

  long, low, canoe-shaped fairing sat atop the fuselage, housing

  long-range surveillance radars for scanning the sea, land, or

  skies for enemy targets in all directions, as well as active laser

  antimissile countermeasures equipment and communications

  antennae. The large vertical and horizontal stabilizers on the

  tail were replaced by low, curving V-shaped ruddervators. A

  large aft-facing radar mounted between the ruddervators

  searched and tracked enemy targets in the rear quadrant; and

  instead of a 20-millimeter Gatling tail gun, the Megafortress

  had a single long cannon muzzle that looked far more sinister,

  far more deadly, than any machine gun. The cannon fired small

  guided missiles, called "airmines," that would fly toward an

  oncoming enemy fighter, then explode and scatter thousands

  of BB-like titanium projectiles directly in the fighter's flight

  path, shelling jet engines and piercing thin aircraft skin or

  cockpit canopies.

  The most striking changes in the Megafortress were under

  its long, thin wings. Instead of eight Pratt & Whitney T33

  turbofan engines, the EB-52 Megafortress sported just four air-

  liner-style General Electric CF6 fanjet engines, modified for

  use on this experimental aircraft. The CF6 engines were qui-

  eter, less smoky, and gave the Megafortress over 60 percent

  more thrust than did the old turbofans, but with 30 percent

  greater fuel economy. At nearly a half-million pounds gross

  weight, the Megafortress could fly nearly halfway around the

  world at altitudes of over 50,000 feet-unrefueled!

  The Megafortress was so highly computerized that the nor-

  mal B-52 crew complement of six had been reduced down to

  four-a pilot and copilot; a defensive systems officer, who was

  in charge of bomber defense; and an offensive systems officer,

  40 DALE BROWN

  charge of employing, the ground and anti-radar

  who was in also acted as the reconnaissance, sur-

  attack weapons and who er. The OSO's and DSO's

  veillance, and air intelligence offic EB-52, facing

  stations were now on the upper deck of the

  forward; the lower deck was now configured as an expanded

  avionics bay and also included a galley, lavatory, and seats

  and bunk area for extra crew members who might be taken

  aboard for long missions.

  "Jon's only intervention was to redesignate the first target

  again so the Wolverine could reattack," McLanahan pointed

  out. McLanahan was not nearly as tall as Terrill Samson, but

  he, too, was broad-shouldered and powerfully built-he just

  seemed to fit perfectly in the EB-52 bomber's OSO's seat, as

  if that's where he always belonged: it was as if McLanahan

  had been born to fly in that seat, or as if the controls and

  displays had been sized and positioned precisely to fit him and

  him alone-which, in fact, they had. "The upgraded missile

  has a rearward sensor capability for autonomous bomb damage

  assessment. With a satellite datalink, an operatOr--either on

  the carrier aircraft, on any other JTIDS-equipped aircraft in

  the area, or eventually from a ground command station

  thousands of miles away-could command the Wolverine to

  reattack. " I I Samson re-

  AMRAAM ,

  "That twenty-G turn, evading the

  marked, his voice still quivering with excitement, I%. . it was

  breathtaking. it looked like a cartoon, some kind of science-

  fiction-movie thing." fact," McLanahan said.

  "Not science fiction-science I jets instead of

  "The Wolverine has thrust-vectored contro

  conventional wings and tail surfaces, and a mission-adaptive

  fuselage controlled by microhydraulics-the entire body of the

  missile changes shape, allowing it to use lifting-body aerodY-

  namics to turn faster. In fact, the faster it goes, the tighter it

  _just the opposite of most aircraft. All moving parts

  can turn

  on the missile are driven by microhydraulic devices, so a sim-

  wristwatch can

  ple five-hundred-psi pump the size of my

  over ten thousand psi-the-

  power three hundred actuators at
<
br />   oretically we can maintain control at up to thirty Gs, but at

  that speed the missile would probably snap in half or the pres-

  arheads. But no

  sure might cook off the explosives in the w

  uilt can keep up with the Wolverine."

  fighter or missile yet b

  Samson fell silent again in amazement. McLanahan turned

  FATAL T ER RAI N 41

  to his left and looked at the man seated eside him and a ded,

  "Good job, Jon. I think you watered his eyes."

  "Of course we did," Masters said. "What did you expect?"

  He tried to say it as casually and as coolly as McLanahan, but

  the excitement bubbling in his voice could not be disguised.

  Unlike the other two men in the cockpit with him, Jon Masters

  shared only their dancing, energetic eyes and boundless en-

  thusiasm-he was as thin as they were broad, with a boyish,

  almost goofy-looking face. Jon Masters, the designer of the

  incredible AGM-177 Wolverine cruise missile along with doz-

  ens of other high-tech military weapons and satellites, was

  aboard to watch his missile do its stuff, in case anything went

  wrong, he could also abort the missile's flight, if necessary.

  That was also a Jon Masters hallmark-rarely, if ever, did the

  first operational test of one of his missiles or satellites work

  properly. This test appeared to be a welcome exception.

  McLanahan commanded the EB-52 bomber into a right turn

  back toward the exit point to the RED FLAG range. "A little

  professional modesty might help sell a few Wolverines to the

  Air Force, Jon," McLanahan pointed out. McLanahan, retired

  as a colonel from the Air Force after sixteen years in service,

  was now a paid consultant to Sky Masters, for which he per-

  formed a number of tasks, from test-pilot duties to product

  design.

  "Trust me on this one, Patrick," Masters said, slouching in

  his ejection seat and taking a big swig out of his ever-present

  squeeze bottle of Pepsi. "When it comes to the military,

  you've got to yell it to sell it. Talk to Helen in marketing-

  her budget is almost as big as the research-and-development