Strike Force

Dannon paused, but only for a moment: Nancy was fascinated with the guy’s phenomenal ability to do complex calculations in his head. “Ten-point-zero-zero-one-zero-five seconds.”

“So what’s your hurry, Huck?” Nancy asked. “You gotta relax, MC.” She patted him playfully on the shoulder, feeling the tension in his muscles. He was hopeless. “Okay, Huck, kill the suckers.”

Dannon took a deep breath and touched the green “ATTACK” soft key on his supercockpit display. “Attack commencing, stop attack,” the computer spoke, and the soft key turned into a red “STOP ATTACK” button. Seconds later they could feel a slight rumbling beneath their feet as the mirror turret in the nose of the AL-52 unstowed, disrupting the airflow around the aircraft. There was no other indication that the attack was underway — no cool science-fictiony laser sounds, no beam of light slicing through the sky, just a small blinking “L” indicator on their supercockpit displays. Seconds later the “L” stopped blinking as the computer refocused on the second missile, and then the “L” began to blink once again. Finally they heard the turbulence rumbling under their feet as the turret stowed itself.

“Missiles destroyed,” Nancy said, so calmly and self-assuredly that Dannon looked at her to see if she wasn’t hypoxic or semiconscious. “Good work, Huck.” She widened the range on their supercockpit displays to check for any additional launches. None were detected, so she sat back in her seat. “Man, I love this job.”

ON THE GROUND NORTHWEST OF

HAMADAN, IRAN

THAT SAME TIME

It was the most exhilarating twenty minutes of his life, Hal Briggs thought as he continued his run through his assigned circuit. Just one more Shahab-2 launch site, about three miles ahead, and he could head to the exfiltration point. He had destroyed about sixteen launchers and scores of other vehicles with the incredible Cybernetic Infantry Device’s weapon backpacks, and a few simply by the sheer strength and speed of the CID unit itself — and he was sure he had killed several Revolutionary Guards troops he had encountered at the launch sites or along the way by merely frightening them to death.

“Condor One, Odin,” Colonel Kai Raydon aboard Armstrong Space Station called via the secure satellite link.

“Go ahead, Odin,” Hal replied.

“You look like you’re having more fun than a human should be allowed to have, son.”

“I shoulda got me one of these things years ago!” Hal exclaimed happily.

“Well, I got a present for you, One, so don’t waste all your ammo or power — I think we found the laser.”

“Great! Load me up and I’m on it.” Seconds later Hal studied the route to the new target. It was at a military airfield about twenty miles east of the Strongbox, twenty miles northeast of Hamadan, just west of the town of Kabudar Ahang. It was a very large complex, with two three-mile-long parallel runways and one two-mile-long runway roughly perpendicular to the first. Satellite images showed a “Christmas tree” alert parking area on the north side with hangars for eight fighters; a large weapon storage area on the northeast side; and the main part of the base on the east side, with barracks and housing for several thousand personnel and ramp space for about a hundred aircraft.

“Check out the big revetment on the southwest side, One,” Raydon said. On the southwest side of the base midway along the southernmost parallel runway was a large aircraft parking area surrounded by twenty-foot-high earth and sand walls. “They made a mistake and operated the radar just as one of our recon satellites crossed overhead and got a direct bearing on it — the radar is sitting in the parking lot near that building southwest of the revetments. We got some excellent pics of the vehicles in the revetment, and I think it’s the laser. Looks like they made the sucker road-mobile. Genesis, are you looking at these pics?”

“Affirmative,” Patrick McLanahan responded from the White House Situation Room. “I’m downloading the pics to a higher-res monitor so I can zoom in and study it closer. But you could be on to something, Odin. If they made the Kavaznya laser mobile, they could set it up anywhere on earth and threaten any aircraft and any satellite with it, and it’d be impossible to locate. But I’m also concerned about them ‘mistakenly’ turning on the radar — that could be a trick to lure us into a trap.”

“We’ll be in position in about ninety minutes to get a moderate oblique ISAR shot of it,” Raydon said. “In three hours I can get a perfect overhead shot. The NIRTSats are good, but we need better resolution to be sure.”

“We’re not going to wait three hours, guys — I can be there in forty minutes or less,” Hal said. “Condor Two, if you’re up for it, I want you to finish up my circuit. Just one target left.”

“Roger, One,” Brakeman acknowledged. “I’m switching my circuit to Condor One’s…got it, I’m on the way.”