Strike Force

Brakeman put on his helmet, locked it in place, powered up his battle armor, pulled his chest and lap belts tight, and gave Briggs a thumbs-up. Briggs put on a standard flight helmet, clipped his oxygen mask in place, pulled his straps tight, and returned the thumbs-up. “We’re ready when you are.”

“Here we go, guys,” Cross announced. “Good luck.” Briggs heard a loud rumbling and saw the bomb bay doors retracting inside the walls of the bomb bay. “Doors coming open…ready…ready…release…doors coming closed.”

The Condor aircraft dropped free of the EB-52—because it was daylight, and they rarely flew daytime missions, they actually got to watch the amazing EB-52 roar overhead as they fell free. It was the part Briggs hated most because that sudden weightlessness and the seemingly uncontrollable swaying and pitching as the aircraft stabilized itself in the Megafortress’s violent slipstream was hard on his stomach, but as soon as the Condor’s little wings popped out and the mission-adaptive actuators throughout the craft steadied it, he felt better.

“Doing OK, Brake?” Briggs asked.

“No problem, sir,” Brakeman replied. “You okay, sir?”

“I always get a little queasy at first. I’m okay.”

“Welcome to the theater, Condor,” Brigadier-General David Luger radioed from the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center Battle Management Center at Elliott Air Force Base in Nevada. “This is Genesis Two. We’ve got you about eleven minutes to touchdown. Everyone doing OK?”

“Condor One good to go,” Briggs said. “Condors, sound off.”

“Condor Two, good to go,” Brakeman responded.

“Condor Three, in the green,” responded the first commando from the lead EB-52 battleship, Army National Guard Captain Charlie Turlock. Her partner, U.S. Army Specialist Maria Ricardo, answered a few moments later. “Sorry, Condor Four had to lose some of her breakfast,” Turlock said. “We’re both in the green — Four is just a little more green.”

“Welcome to the club, Four,” Briggs said.

“Here’s the situation, guys: the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have ordered deployment, and we suspect a launch, of their ballistic missiles following the insurgent and regular army attacks on their headquarters base in Tehran,” Dave said. “Stud One-Three attacked and destroyed two of three Shahab-5 medium-range missiles in the south. We don’t know what’s going to happen with the third known -5 missile, but we think they’re going to launch it as soon as they can.

“In the north, the situation is more dynamic,” Dave went on. “The bad news first: we lost Stud One-One. We think a Russian ground-based laser got it.”

“Oh, shit,” Briggs murmured. He knew that “Nano” Benneton was aboard that flight and knew she would have died quickly and painlessly. “That has to be one big-ass laser to shoot down a small spaceplane in Earth orbit.”

“Does the name ‘Kavaznya’ ring a bell, One?” Dave asked.

“You’re shitting me?” Hal exclaimed. Hal knew the name well: he was the security officer in charge of the original EB-52 Megafortress project some twenty years earlier that was tasked to destroy the Russians’ first ground-based anti-satellite and anti-missile laser at Kavaznya in eastern Siberia.

“I shit you not, One,” Dave said. “The radar and tracking laser characteristics are the same. We haven’t pinpointed the laser’s location yet.”

“I’ve got dibs on it,” Hal said.

“You got it, One. Stud One-One did launch its weapons before it was hit, and all three SPAW missiles scored direct hits on the SA-10 and SA-12 command vehicles around the Strongbox. We know they have tactical battlefield optronic and infrared sensors, but we don’t think they’ll see you land. So far the landing zone is clear, but they know we’re coming, so be ready for anything.”

“They won’t be ready for us,” Charlie Turlock said.

“We’ve updated your tactical charts on the current Shahab-2 and -3 TEL locations, and we’ll keep you updated every time we get a new NIRTSat pass,” Dave said. “They have significant numbers of security deployed out there. When their SAM command vehicles went up it appears most of their security guards ran off — whether they were redeployed back to the Strongbox, back to the ballistic missile units, or just ran off, we don’t know, but we should assume that security around the Shahabs will be tighter than first briefed. That’s the latest. Any questions?”

“Any chance anyone on Stud One-One ejected?” Hal asked.

“Sorry, One,” Dave said. “No ejection seats.”

“Damn,” Hal muttered. “Find that laser, Genesis Two. I want it.”

“We’ll let you know, One. Six minutes to landing. Landing zone still looks clear, threat warning receivers are clear. Good luck, Condors.”