Dale Brown - Dale Brown's Dreamland 04 - Piranha(and Jim DeFelice)(2003) (6 page)

 
          
Assuming
taking ten Gs could be called conventional.

 
          
“Ground
is clear. How are we looking, Captain?” asked Sam
Fichera
,
who led the team developing the controls and was today’s mission boss.

 
          
“I
think we’re ready to rock,” Bree answered.

 
          
“Ready
for an engine start. Everything by the book.”

 
          
“Ready
when you are.” Breanna looked at the left corner of her front screen, where the
engine data had been preprogrammed to appear. “Computer. Takeoff engine start.
Proceed.”

 
          
“Computer.
Takeoff engine start,” acknowledged the electronic copilot.

 
          
The
two GE-built turbofans used for takeoff and low speed flight regimes whipped to
life. A detailed checklist appeared at the right side of Breanna’s screen, laid
over the endless vista of the cleared runway and the surrounding dry lake beds
that encircled Dreamland. Breanna and the computer moved through the long
checklist slowly, making sure everything was good to go. The computer could
facilitate quick takeoffs by color-coding the items—those it knew were “in the
green” or good to go were shown in green letters, problems were in red. No
caution (yellow) was permitted on takeoff; the items would be marked red
instead, and the takeoff held until the trouble was corrected.

 
          
With
the systems checked and rechecked, everything from fuel flow to air temperature
recorded, parsed, and fretted over, Breanna glanced at the static camera from
the runway to make sure her path was clean. Cleared, she loosened the brakes
and took a long, slow breath.

 
          
And
then she was off. The B-5’s engines cycled up to takeoff power and she trundled
down the runway, speed building slowly. Relatively heavy for its airfoil even
with the wings horizontal, the plane needed more distance than a B-52 to get
airborne. That would change with the new wings. Even then, the rocket engine
would probably be selected for a brief burn to make the takeoff easier, and
more comfortable for Breanna.

 
          
Though
she’d flown it several times now, Breanna’s feel for the UMB remained distorted
and distant. As he indicated speed climbed above one hundred knots, the plane
began to lift on its own. She held the stick a second too long, but came off
the ground smoothly. The slight hitch bothered her; she was still slightly
disoriented as he altitude began to climb.

 
          
Maybe
if they added some sound feedback, she thought, making a mental note to bring
it up at the post-flight briefing.

 
          
Captain
Breanna Stockard had headed the UMB project for three weeks now. It was
supposed to be a permanent job; the previous UMB director had been posted to
the Pentagon months before. But Breanna had stubbornly insisted the duty be
officially “temporary,” so she could decide if she wanted the assignment.

 
          
Of
course she did—it was potentially the most important job in the Air Force. Even
if the UMB never won approval as the follow-on to the B-2, the technology it
tested would undoubtedly serve the military for the next two or three decades.
But it meant leaving the Megafortress, and flying, behind.

 
          
Breanna’s
husband, Jeff “Zen” Stockard, had flown the aircraft on its first two flight.
His overall take on flying the plane could be summed up in one word: “boring.”
He complained it was even more reliant on its native or onboard computer than
the Flighthawk, and probably didn’t need a real pilot at all. Unlike the
U/MF’s, which needed to be fairly close to their command plane, the UMB was
designed to be flown entirely from the ground at vast distances using hooks in
the Dreamland secure satellite system.

 
          
Boring?
Maybe if you were a pilot used to taking six or seven Gs with your morning
donut.

 
          
“Dreamland
B-5 UMB is airborne and passing marker three-seven,” reported Breanna as they
reached the airspace for the morning tests. “We have green indicators all
around. I did ask for salsa music in the background, however, and it’s not
coming through.”

 
          
“Preempted
by baseball,” shot back Lieutenant Art McCourt who was flying chase in an old
but reliable F-5. “I’ll give you play-by-play if you want, Major. My Dodgers
are ahead.”

 
          
It
was far too early in the day for a game, or McCourt might really be listening
to baseball; the test pilot had a reputation for using his engineering prowess
in unconventional ways. Supposedly, he had found a way to pressurize a Mr.
Coffee and enjoyed hot, zero-gravity coffee breaks.

 
          
The
UMB continued to climb at a leisurely pace, reaching ten thousand feet as the
structural-integrity tests began. Breanna pushed her stick left and let the
plane turn into a fairly steep bank. Small sensors similar to the devices used
to measure earthquakes recorded the effect of the turn on the wings and
superstructure; one of the ground people monitoring the numbers gave an
approving whistle as she came through the turn.

 
          
“Looking
for a date, Jacky?” Bree shot back.

 
          
“Sorry,
ma’am. Structure is looking very solid.”

 
          
“That’s
what I figured you meant,” she said, continuing through the set of turns. Test
complete, and passed, she began spiraling upwards, looking at the ground
through the belly cam as she climbed.

 
          
Dreamland
sprawled over a defunct lake in the desert wilderness north of Las Vegas. Its
existence was so secret it appeared on no list of facilities or bases. No one
was ever assigned here; instead, they were given “cover’ jobs or assignments,
usually though not always at Edwards Air Force Base.

 
          
Until
recently the heart of the Air Force High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center,
Dreamland had involved a great deal over the past two years, more rapidly in
the past two months. The command had lost some of its best military people and
projects to the newly designated Brad Elliott Air Force Base, named in honor of
the former general who had lost his life in the China conflict only a few
months before. Nearby at Groom Lake, Elliott AFB was a high-profile and
prestigious command, which, though structured along traditional lines, was to
be task primarily with introducing new weapons into the Air Force mainstream.
Meanwhile, Dreamland and its high-tech facilities would remain a cutting edge
facility with a much more experimental bent—as well as its own combat team
named “Whiplash,” which operated directly at the President’s command. In charge
of Dreamland was a scrappy, forty-something lieutenant colonel who everyone
outside of Dreamland knew was in way over his head—and everyone inside of
Dreamland knew was about as can-do as any ten other officers in the service
combined.

 
          
Breanna
was just slightly prejudiced in favor of Dreamland’s director. She happened to
be his daughter.

 
          
Her
left leg began to cramp, and then
spasmed
. Trying to
loosen
te
cramp, she knocked her knee against the
lower edge of the front panel.

 
          
“Perfect
coffin,” she grumbled.

 
          
Unlike
everything else connected with the plane, the computer could not adjust the
seat; it had to be fiddled with manually, a procedure that had at least as high
a change of making things worse as better.

 
          
Breanna
tried flexing her leg as she rose toward twenty thousand feet, stifling a curse
as the muscles in her other leg started feeling sympathy pains. She banked again,
then asked the computer for the environmental panel, deciding she felt cold.

 
          
The
computer claimed the temperature in her coffin was a balmy seventy-two.

 
          
“My
ass,” she told it.

 
          
“Captain?”
said
Fichera
.

 
          
“Relax,
Sam. I’m getting all sorts of leg cramps, that’s all.”

 
          
“Too
hot in there?” asked
Fichera
.

 
          
“Negative.
I doubt it’s really seventy-two, by the way. All right, I should be at angels
twenty in one more turn.”

 
          
“We
copy that,” answered the engineer.

 
          
Both
the climb and the cramps continued in silence. Though much larger at about 170
feet in length, the aircraft handled a lot like an F-111 to about Mach 1.5 if
the F-111 was being flown remote control.

 
          
“You’re
looking really great,” said
Fichera
as the UMB hit
into the orbit over Glass Mountain just a nudge under 25,000 feet.

 
          
“Looks
good from here,” said McCourt from the chase plane. He was flying off her right
wing, separated by about a half mile in the open sky.

 
          
“All
right. Telemetry test ready?” Bree asked.

 
          
“Roger
that,” said
Fichera
.

 
          
“Computer,
begin scheduled test B-5-6A: photographic data flow. Smile for the cameras,
Dreamland.”

 
          
“Begin
scheduled test B-5-6A,” acknowledged the computer.

 
          
A
panel in the fuselage slid open, permitting a camera array from a mini-KH
satellite to see the earth. The camera sent a rapid succession of detailed
photos back to Dreamland.

 
          
“Hey,
Major, this stuff going to show up in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition?”
asked McCourt.

 
          
“Hell,
Art, we’re going straight to Playgirl. The photos I took of your in the shower
last week with the spy cam cinched it.”

 
          
“I
thought I felt a draft.”

 
          
“Data
flow under way,” said Breanna, her tone once again serious. The test was a
fairly simple affair, sending back high-resolution optical photos to the ground.
As the system was essentially the same used in Dreamland’s mini-KH-12 tactical
satellites, it should pass without much difficulty.

 
          
Which
it did. Breanna continued a long, lazy orbit around the Dreamland test ranges,
slowly building her altitude until she was at 35,000 feet. The next series of
tests were the meat of the day’s mission.

 
          
“Ready
to test engine five,” Breanna told her team. Engine five was the
restartable
rocket motor.

 
          
“Roger
that,” said
Fichera
. “We’re hot to start.”

 
          
“Three-second
burn programmed,” she said, reading off the program screen. “Counting down.”

 
          
There
was a slight hitch as the rocket ignited; the plane’s nose stuttered downward
for a microsecond before the massive increase in thrust translated into upward
momentum. This was a by-product of a glitch in the trimming program, which the
team was still trying to fine-tune. Otherwise, the burn and plane worked
perfectly; Breanna rode the B-5 up through fifty thousand feet. A soft tone in
her helmet accompanied the visual cue that they had reached their intended
altitude; she leveled off, then started a gentle bank. At the end of a complete
circuit she nosed down, gathering momentum. As the plane hit Mach 2, she
prepared for the next test sequence.

 
          
“Ready
to test engines three and four,” she said, referring to the scramjets.
“Counting down.”

 
          
The
hydrogen-fueled scramjets lit as the plane touched Mach 2.3. By the end of the
test sequence, Breanna was at Mach 3.4 and had climbed through 85,000 feet. She
continued to climb, powered now only by the scramjets.