Rogue Forces

Although he no longer owned the company that still bore his name—a board of directors, led by his ex-wife and business partner Helen Kaddiri, and the company’s young president, Dr. Kelsey Duffield, ran company affairs now—and was rich enough to travel the world for the rest of his life if he chose, Jon enjoyed spending time either in the lab designing new gadgets or out in the field testing them. No one really knew if the board of directors allowed him to do things like fire live MANPADS missiles or stay out on the missile range during a test just to humor him…or because they were hoping he’d get dusted by his own inventions, something that had nearly happened many times over the years.

Several Humvees and support vehicles—including an ambulance, just in case—rolled up, illuminating Jon with headlights and spotlights. A man jumped out of the first Humvee on the scene and ran over to him. “You okay, Jon?” asked Hunter “Boomer” Noble. Boomer was the twenty-five year-old vice president in charge of air weapon development for Sky Masters Inc. Formerly a U.S. Air Force test pilot, engineer, and astronaut, Boomer once had the enviable job of designing exotic aircraft spacecraft systems and then being able to fly the finished product himself. Flying the revolutionary XR-A9 Black Stallion single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane, Boomer had been in orbit more times in the past two years than the rest of the American astronaut corps combined had been in the past ten years. “Jeez, you gave us a scare back there!”

“I told you, I’m fine,” Jon said, grateful that his voice didn’t sound as shaky as it had a few minutes earlier. “I guess we dialed the emitter power up a little too high, eh, Boomer?”

“I set it to the lowest power setting, boss, and I checked and double-checked it,” Boomer said. “You were probably too close. The laser has a fifty-mile range—you were less than two when you got hit. Probably not a good idea to star in your own tests, boss.”

“Thanks for the advice, Boomer,” Jon replied weakly, hoping no one would notice his shaking hands. “Great going, Boomer. I’d say the Slingshot automatic countermissile weapon test was a complete success.”

“So would I, Boomer,” another voice behind him said. Two men approached from another Humvee, wearing business suits, long dark coats, and gloves to ward off the early-morning chill. They were followed by two more men, similarly dressed, but their coats were open…which made it easier for them to get at the automatic weapons slung on harnesses underneath. The man with the longish salt-and-pepper hair and goatee shook his finger at Jon and continued: “You almost succeeded in killing yourself, Jon…again.”

“Nah…it went exactly as planned, Mr. President,” Jon responded.

The man, former president of the United States Kevin Martindale, rolled his eyes in disbelief. A Washington establishment figure for decades, Martindale served six terms in Congress, two terms as vice president, and one term as president before being voted out of office; he then became only the second man in the history of the United States to be voted back in again.

He also had the distinction of being the first vice president ever to be divorced while in office, and he was still a confirmed bachelor who was often seen in the company of young female actors and athletes. Although over sixty years old, Martindale was still ruggedly handsome, self-confident, and almost devilish with his goatee and long, wavy hair, featuring the famous “photographer’s dream” twin curling silvery locks that automatically appeared across his forehead whenever he was angry or emotional.

“He still likes being involved in his own tests, Mr. President—the more outrageous, the better,” the man beside him, retired Lieutenant-General Patrick McLanahan, said. Shorter than Martindale but considerably more solidly built, McLanahan was as much a legend as Martindale, except only in the shadowy world of strategic aerial combat. He’d served five years as a B-52G Stratofortress navigator and bombardier in the U.S. Air Force before being chosen to join a top-secret research-and-development unit known as the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, or HAWC, based at an uncharted air base in the Nevada desert known as “Dreamland.”

Led by its audacious and slightly uncontrollable first commander, Lieutenant-General Bradley James Elliott, HAWC was tasked by the White House to perform secret missions throughout the world in order to stop an adversary from escalating a conflict into an all out war, using cutting-edge experimental technology that wouldn’t be used by any other military forces for many years—if ever.