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Part VI
March 7th, 2001
AIR COMBAT
At four minutes to intercept, First Lieutenant Eric MacDonald checked his computer carefully. This would not be an old-fashioned air-to-air engagement from the last century. His second generation F-86, Ultra Sabre, was in level flight at 30,000 meters and flying at just under 1600 meters per second. Eric knew there wouldn't be any visual contact with the enemy planes, other than the floating projected display in front of him. He allowed himself the luxury of wondering, for just a second, how he felt about that. Despite the detachment, it remained up to him and his Flight, three other pilots, to interpret what their displays told them, manage their weapons and aircraft, and avoid tactical mistakes that would negate their air superiority.
The old F-22 Raptors flown by the enemy were deadly aircraft with sophisticated radars and long range missiles. If he mismanaged his engagement, Eric knew he could end up as an exploding fireball arcing across the desert sky.
He glanced quickly out the canopy to his right to check on his wingman and the other two Ultra Sabres with them. The daytime sky at 30,000 meters is a deep indigo, and Eric felt a moment of awe as he glanced at the slim, black jets. As they hovered nearly motionless against the dark sky, sprinkled with the brightest stars, he had to look away from the intense glare of the sun reflecting off their canopies. The steady, powerful exhaust of the scramjet engines glowed fiery blue and revealed crisp, geometric, scintillating patterns of shock diamonds behind each engine. Looking down, he was amazed how strong the curvature of the Earth seemed from only 30 kilometers altitude.
Eric listened to his own craft, reassured by the gentle hums and drones that filled his cockpit. The quiet hush and the star-filled sky made him remember, with just a little sadness, that early morning, nearly four years ago when he sat on the balcony of his newly rented room and watched the early morning stars crowned by Venus rising. That was a time when he really wondered what ever would become of him.
Then, as he glanced back at the jets, mere meters away, he sensed an almost spiritual feeling. These beautiful, sleek aircraft, he thought, soaring high in the stratosphere, these elegant machines of high flight would soon become dark angels of death. What a far cry from being a Shuttle jockey in Lompoc.
At that moment, a holographic display appeared before Eric and floated above his lap. He snapped out of his day dreams.
Eric spoke quietly to his flight. "I see three groups of three Raptors at bearing 020. Altitude 19,000 meters."
His wingman, First Lieutenant Dhiren Vakkan confirmed. "Range, 466 kilometers. We'll engage in 180 seconds. All AIM-77s are now armed."
In the floating display in front of Eric, he observed four more Sabres emerge from the west. "I see our friends from Aviano have arrived." He looked at the blue fuzz balls in front of him, closing fast, and squinted once, opening a radio channel. "This is MacDonald. Flight Leader, Light Sabres. We have acquired you."
"Roger. Harper here with the Penguins. Ready for some target practice?"
"Todd Harper?"
"Yes, sir."
"This is Eric, over."
"Aha. The cat wrestler. I remember you."
"Actually, Derek Miller did the wrestling."
"Yeah, but you kicked its ass. Hold one.... Okay, I see nine. Poking along at Mach 2.5. Climbing above 20,000 meters."
"We're armed and ready to engage, " Eric said evenly. "Let's do this by the book."
Over the next two minutes, computers planned every detail of the engagement. The enemy craft were prioritized and targeted, and the flight profile of all the Sabres was computed in every detail and coordinated amongst them all on a secure network. At least, that was the plan.
At ten seconds to engagement, the air burst went off automatically dimming Eric's canopy for an instant, and the enemy Raptors turned towards their opponents with remarkable instinct, dropping their radar cross sections to almost zero. One by one, six of the red dots floating in front of Eric disappeared. "Second solutions!" Eric raised his voice only a little. He knew that, often, the enemy would launch a fuel-air bomb to disrupt communications and radar. That meant that the pilots who best interpreted their displays when the air settled and selected a second solution would prevail. He launched his radar proxies to get additional returns from the Raptors.
Eric focussed on the three remaining red dots as they broke off and moved towards the Penguins. He blinked twice then looked up to see his missiles launch. Two exploding white contrails, one from each side of his plane, zoomed into the distance and curved left slightly. Two more from his wingman followed behind. By turning to engage the Penguins, the enemy radar profiles were sufficient to generate a firing solution. Meanwhile, the other two Sabres in his Flight had separated and climbed away to provide cover. Eric listened to the radio chatter.
"Splash two Raptors. Anyone got the third?"
"Negative."
Four explosions appeared below and in front of Eric. His Sabre started to roll slightly as the computer changed course, and the display in front of him confirmed metal and fuel exploding as four of the Raptors below were disintegrating. He quickly glanced across the lower edge of the canopy and confirmed. Eric refocused intently on the shimmering display floating in front of him. There were three Raptors unaccounted for. Then, suddenly, he saw them and blinked off two more missiles.
Vakkan came on. "You took one and three, I took one and two. Best shot available."
"Got it," Eric grinned. The confrontation would soon be over, he thought.
"I'm painted!" a new voice shouted.
"Who's that?"
"Tyler. I'm painted. I have no solution."
"This is Harper. Blink in your countermeasures!"
"No time! Three seconds! It's too late!"
"Tyler, listen up. Go sub."
Eric knew that this was a command to let the Sabre over-g Tyler's body and take the pilot into unconsciousness. It was the only way to avoid a hit. He watched two blue dots in front of him splay apart as Tyler and his wingman went into sub-flight. At that same moment, two of the remaining Raptors turned into yellow, dissipating balls.
The engagement was over.
Within seconds, they were moving away from the engagement region at nearly two kilometers per second, and the lone remaining Raptor turned and started a dive in the opposite direction.
Time to head home to Izmir.
The dusty, aging courtroom was poorly lit, cold and stale. Despite the fact that it was mid 21st century, Turkey had hardly made it out of the 20th century. Only the presence of humans in the room seemed to give it any warmth and energy. Eric did his best to get comfortable as the JAG prosecutor approached him. The JAG officer was a Colonel, bearded, gruff and slightly disheveled. But there was a twinkle in his eyes that told Eric the lights were on upstairs.
"Lieutenant MacDonald, I have here a transcript from the afternoon of September 17th, 2050." He handed Eric a vid-pad. "Do you recognize this transcript?"
"Yes, sir. It was taken as we engaged nine enemy Raptors on that date."
"And were you the senior officer during this engagement?"
"Yes, I was."
"Do you see the track along the edge with event times?"
"Yes sir."
"Please tell us how long it took, from the time you first assessed a flight of three Raptors heading towards the Penguin Flight until you fired?"
"It says here, 931 milliseconds."
"Do you believe that to be correct?"
"I believe so," Eric answered.
"Later, after Lieutenant Harper's Flight downed four Raptors heading towards you, you also fired on three other enemy craft. How long did that decision take?"
"It says here, I took 893 milliseconds."
"Now," the JAG officer said, "Please tell the court here how long it took Second Lieutenant Grant Tyler to fire on the Raptors which he has testified that he identified."
"The log here says 2.630 seconds."
"In your estimation, Lieutenant MacDonald, is that an acceptable standard of performance?"
Eric knew this was coming. He knew it was coming ever since he discovered that Tyler's wingman, Scott Kelso had died when one of the Raptors was able to get off a shot and force them into sub-flight. If he criticized Lt. Tyler's performance, leading to a guilty verdict, he very likely would never board a starship in Space Command, which was led by Major General Thomas Tyler. But if he excused the performance, then everyone who would ever fly with Lieutenant Tyler would be at risk. Eric had thought about this moment for weeks.
"Air combat is a risky and dangerous activity. Lots of things are going on. Distractions. Explosions. People die in dog fights."
"Please answer the question, Lieutenant."
"I have never seen acceptable standards published," Eric said.
The JAG officer leaned over and asked for the vid-pad back. "I see. It says here that your wingman, First Lieutenant Dhiren Vakkan's average times were 950 milliseconds. It also says that Lieutenant Todd Harper's average times were 1013 milliseconds. Now, I ask you again, give me your assessment of 2.630 seconds."
Eric looked across the courtroom and saw the intense glare in Lieutenant Tyler's eyes. It was time to take a stand. He sighed, looked straight back at Tyler and spoke evenly. "That was on the slow side."
"On the slow side. Tell me, Lieutenant, how far does an AIM-77 missile travel in 1.7 seconds, the difference between 2,630 and, say, 930 milliseconds. "
Eric squirmed in his chair. He knew exactly what the JAG officer was driving at. "About, um, 10 kilometers."
"Now look at the vid-pad here and tell the court what would have happened had Lieutenant Tyler launched his own missiles at, say, roughly 930 milliseconds."
"I would say that the enemy jet that shot down Lieutenant Kelso would not have gotten off a shot."
"And Lieutenant Kelso would not have died in the engagement, is that right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"Thank you Lieutenant MacDonald." The crusty JAG prosecutor turned to the defense attorney and smiled. "You may cross-examine."
As Eric waited for the defense to step forward, he looked straight ahead. He could feel the intense hate coming from the bristling Lieutenant Tyler. He'd made the commitment. There was nothing else to do but carry on.
Lieutenant Dhiren Vakkan sat next to his friend, Eric, in the Officer's Club and observed quietly as he sipped on his own beer. Eric was deep into his fourth whiskey, neat, and on the verge of losing his composure.
"He deserved what he got," Vakkan said.
"I know. That's not what I'm frelling pissed about."
"You had other plans, of course. Starship duty."
"Yeah, that sure as hell ain't gonna happen now." Eric finished off his fourth jigger and slammed it down hard.
"I'm not letting you drink another one of those, arkadas."
Eric tapped his fingernails on the table and reached over for his vid-pad. "Yeah, yeah. Here, look at this."
WASHINGTON, D.C. The U.S. DOD announced today
that the second generation starships Schirra,
Slayton, Shepard, and Glenn are nearing completion.
At 20,300 metric tons each, these ships are twice
the mass, twice as fast, and four times as
maneuverable as the previous starships Lovell
and Haise which were originally designed for
peaceful exploration of nearby stars.
Major General Thomas Tyler, director of the
U.S.A.F. Space Command said in a briefing today
said that crews are being selected this month for
onboard training and that these four ships
would launch for the Kuiper belt "sometime
early next year."
The General added that "Nothing has been heard
from the ET ships that attacked the Lovell and
Haise three and a half years ago, and no one
knows why. We're going to go out there and get
some answers."
It is rumored that these starships are armed with
second generation weapons, including directed
energy proton beams and extremely powerful
gamma-ray lasers.Vakkan slid the vid-pad back towards Eric and shrugged. "That's dangerous stuff. It might be that none of those new ships is ever seen again."
"Nonsense," Eric said as he looked up at his dark skinned wingman. "They're armed to the teeth. Two Tokamaks. Their magnetic field strength is fifty times was the Haise had. They're gonna kick some ass."
"And you want to be onboard. For the right reasons, I hope."
"For all the right reasons," Eric said adamantly. "In fact, two hundred and sixty very good reasons."
"And General Tyler? He's not a forgiving man, you know."
"Nope."
"But, damn it! You did the right thing."
"Yeah. The right thing. Keep telling me that. Over and over. Another drink?"
"Not for you, sir. I'm escorting you back to the Q," Vakkan said as he yanked on Eric's arm.
"Gonna tuck me in?"
"Yep."
"Gonna loan me your Teddy Bear?"
"Nope."
Eric slept restlessly, Nearly delirious from the whiskey, his mind stumbled down tunnels that led to nowhere and got smaller and smaller. He dreamed of fires and choking smoke, dead bodies and screams. He dreamed of Laurette in a short, white bathrobe, but it wasn't really her. Her vague form morphed into the face of Chandler who reached out for him, but something invisible was holding her, and no matter how hard she struggled, she couldn't touch him. He dreamed of the towering Major Forney yelling at him, but the growling sounded like a wild cat. He dreamed of a deep, black sky filled with slim, beautiful jets against blue and red stars. Then they exploded into yellow spheres until the sky was filled with flame.
He woke up in a sweat.
Unable to sleep any longer, he put on his jeans and shoes and walked outside. The night was quiet, and a light October breeze made him shiver. The night sky in Turkey was the deepest black, unfettered by city lights or pollution. The Milky Way arced overhead from horizon to horizon and reminded Eric that even if he somehow made it to another star, it would be the merest of baby steps. And somewhere, out there, was still floating the body of Lieutenant Harris.
He wondered to himself about what his wingman had said. Did he want what he wanted, with all his being, for the wrong reasons? Doubts zigzagged through his mind and stuck at him like hot pokers. The only thing he knew was that he would follow his heart and his destiny.
If nothing else, he promised himself that.
Copyright 2001 by John
Martellaro, All rights reserved. Quantum Threads banner
artwork by Tracy Haynes.
About the Author
John Martellaro lives in Colorado at 2,800 meters above sea level with a Ph.D. wife and two cats, Nikki and Data. He holds a B.S. in Astrophysics and an M.S. in Physics. His hobbies, include amateur astronomy, downhill skiing, bicycling, and listening to piano solos. His personal Macs are a B&W G3/400 with a flat screen Studio Display and a blueberry iBook.
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