"Target, now. Ann missile. Launch missile."

The computer acknowledged. "Radar missile launch.

"Fox two, fox two for Storm One," Powell called over the interplane frequency. "Storm One descending through forty thousand. Head's up, partner."

"Fox four for Storm Two," came the reply. "Seven o'clock, one-half mile . And then the voice added, "Partner. Heads- up.- Still inverted, Powell looked to his left, and right off his tail, also inverted, following as if it was Cheetah's shadow, was DreamStar!

"But I've got a lock-on .

"On a cloud of chaff," Patrick said. "When you made your zoom, he mustve popped a dozen bundles of chaff and climbed up with you and stayed on your tail. You just shot a Sparrow missile into a bunch of tinsel."

rolled wings-level and lowered his oxygen visor with an exasperated snap. "The guy's right on today."

Patrick checked the fuel readouts, did a quick check of his equipment and warning lights. "Looks like forty minutes to go, Powell gave Patrick a thumbs-up. "Storm flight station check, lead's in the green with forty minutes to joker"-"joker" being the code for the minimum fuel reserves necessary on a normal training flight, about fifteen thousand pounds.

"Tvo has twenty minutes, all systems nominal."

said: "He's sucking gas. He's got a bigger jet, more capacity, only one engine, but half the fuel."

"And two kills," Patrick shot back. "We're not concerned about saving fuel here, I know you'd give every drop of JP-4 we've got left to get one good shot at him."

"Then turn me loose, let's get to it."

"I want you to be the fox this time, ," Patrick said. "I want him on the pursuit."

"Fine, but open 'em. up this time. Let's see what the boy wonder over there can really do."

had a point. They had really not pushed DreamStar to 79.

the edge of the envelope. And if there was anybody who could really force DreamStar to perform, it was JC. Powell.

"All right, JC., you got it. But don't break the bubble .

Patrick lined it out. "This time lead will be the fox. We're com- ing up on the southeast comer of the area. Lead will come left heading three-zero-zero toward the center. TWo, give us fifteen full seconds-then start your pursuit. Stay heads-up. Lead's coming left .

JC. Powell turned hard left. Patrick had time to grab hold of his handlebars before being squashed into his seat by the turn.

stayed on the northwesterly heading for five seconds, then rolled inverted and pulled the nose earthward, pushing the throt- tles to full power, aiming the nose directly for Lookout Peak twenty thousand feet below.

Patrick watched as the altimeter-readout clicked down faster than he'd ever seen it before. "I swear, Powell, you have got to have some kind of death wish"-Patrick's attention was drawn to a blinking red warning light near the radar altimeter, which read the distance between the ground and the belly of the jet.

II Watch it!"

Powell checked his threat receivers-no signals from any- where. He began to level off, pointing Cheetah toward a wide cleft in the jagged peaks below. "Colonel, if I stay at high al- titude with DreamStar he'll hose me again. Let's see how he does in the rocks." He hit the voice-recognition computer switch-"attack radar standby," and threw his jet into a screeching right turn, arcing around the rugged peaks. "Fifteen seconds-he should be in his turn toward the northwest by now. "

Powell selected a flat valley in the desert, staying as close to the rocks as possible. Patrick stared out the top of the canopy ex- pecting the tops of Cheetah's twin tails to scrape along the face of those rocks any second.

rolled out of his steep turn, passing only a few hundred yards from a lone craggy butte. "You're going to wait down here for him to come after you?"

"Not exactly, sir. " He steered Cheetah into the narrow valley he had selected, set the autopilot, then began searching the skies far overhead. "Wondering why I selected thirty-nine thousand feet back there?"

"It's a higher altitude . . . better fuel economy-"

"Contrails.

80 .

Patrick followed JC.'s pointing finger out the top oi the can- opy. Far above, they saw a thin white line against the dark blue sky, heading northwest. "You think I never listen to the morning weather briefings?"

"You're always asleep."

"I always manage to catch the contrail forecasts. The center of the vapor level was thirty-nine thousand feet. That's where we left him and that's where he is."

Patrick took a firm grip on the handlebars. had aimed Cheetah for the center of the southern ridge of the Shoshone Mountains, in the center of Dreamland's southern restricted area, and now was moving the throttles up to full afterburner. Ten seconds later they were at Mach one and building.....

Attack radar on . . . spherical scan . . . radar off.....

James checked in seconds over a half-million cubic miles of airspace for Cheetah. His superconductor technology allowed the power of a standard fighter's nose radar to be transmitted into an antenna the size and thickness of a playing card so that the antennae could be spread out all around DreamStar's skin instead of located only in the nose cone. A thousand of such micro-miniature radar arrays made a complete spherical sweep of the sky within two hundred miles of the aircraft. But except for commercial and civilian aircraft outside Dreamland's re- stricted airspace, the radar scan came up negative. Cheetah had disappeared!

ANTARES immediately suggested a data link with Dream- land's powerful ground-based surveillance radar, but James squelched that idea. Although DreamStar could integrate data from a variety of outside sources, he'd been ordered not to use them-and McLanahan could detect the link with his equipment on Cheetah. Never mind, he wouldn't nee-d outside help to find Cheetah.

A pause as ANTARES weighed alternatives to an outside data-link, then suggested a ground-map scan.

Nothing. The Shoshone Mountain range was bright and prom- inent directly below, surrounded by dry lakebeds and non- reflecting sand. DreamStar's high-resolution radar picked out power lines, roads and tiny buildings scattered all across the desert floor. Nothing moving faster. than sixty miles an hour anywhere within range.

81.

James shut down the scan. Cheetah was obviously hiding in the Shoshone Mountains somewhere, probably ridge hopping among the rocks, staying in the radar clutter as much as possi- ble. But this was supposed to be an air-to-air attack. Powell was screwing up big-time.

James mentally ordered another spherical radar sweep of the skies. McLanahan would probably direct Powell to climb out of the low-level regime, and then he'd- ANTARES broke in with its warning: "Radar contact, di- rectly below and climbing. "

ANTARES suggested a roll and a ten-G push-over to' an emer- gency descent. But just as James ordered the maneuver he heard on the interplane channel, "Fox four, Zero-One, three-niner thousand. Underneath you, Ken. " Powell had already started shooting . . .

What was happening? Why didn't he see Cheetah coming?

The questions brought spikes of pain that shot through his head and reverberated through his body. For the first time that James could remember, DreamStar had no options. The pain intensi- fied as he continued polling the database, hunting for answers- Abruptly the confusion that had lasted only a few seconds ended as DreamStar's sensors continued to track Cheetah. Sud- denly the pain in James' head disappeared and he found himself presented with a series of maneuvers.

DreamStar inverted and began a tight descending vertical roll.

If Cheetah was in a high-speed climb underneath him, would be out of airspeed at the top of the climb and would have to go inverted and begin a descent to regain lost airspeed. Now DrearnStar had the power advantage. All it had to do was com- plete the roll and Cheetah should be dead ahead and directly in his gun sights.

But as James hit the bottom of the roll the G-forces reached their peak. Air tubules in the legs of James' flight suit inflated, which helped force blood back into the upper part of his bQdy, but it wasn't fast enough. James' vision went to a gray-out as blood was forced out of his brain, then darkened completely as he lost consciousness.

ANTARES detected the elevated blood pressure and the in- terruption of theta-alpha. The computer immediately lowered the back of James' ejection seat so that his head was below heart level to improve blood flow back to the brain. Oxygen shot into A.

82 .

his face mask as he fought to regain theta-alpha. With his face mask flooded with oxygen, his breathing was slowed, making him feel light-headed.

It took a few seconds more for James to take control of AN- TARES again. He countermanded the computer's suggestion to raise the seat upright-he would need several more hard turns before he could get within firing range of his adversary and he'd be in less danger of blacking out if the seat-back stayed down.

He began a hard seven-G turn back toward Cheetah, but by then he had lost his advantage. Cheetah was in a dive at nearly Mach one.

DreamStar pulled in six miles behind Cheetah and James tried for a radar lock, but Cheetah executed a vertical scissors and darted away-even though Cheetah did not have DreamStar's sophisticated high-maneuverabilities her large foreplanes and temporary speed advantage allowed her to execute such a move.

DreamStar easily performed the same inverted vertical scissors to pursue. Cheetah had moved out to nine miles by then, and James ordered the throttle into min-afterburner in the descent to catch up. With the throttles up in the steep descent, the lighter, aerodynamically cleaner DreamStar fighter quickly regained the speed advantage.

Closure rate five hundred knots, ANTARES reported. James "heard" the stream of computer-generated reports as if he was listening to the sound of his own breathing. Range seven miles.

Action: High-maneuverability configuration, maintain speed ad- vantage, ANTARES infrared pursuit, deactivate attack radar, la- ser lock, attack, close to gun range, attack, constant AOA wing mode, maintain gun range, attack. The messages began to re- peat, informing him of altitude, closure rate, weapons status, external heating, stress factors, power demands, air-conditioning faults. James accepted ANTARES' engagement suggestions- the computer had already decided how the battle would be fought several minutes in the future-why not let it go?

Using its infrared tracker and laser rangefinder, ANTARES had predicted the moves Cheetah could make in its present flight attitude and airspeed and had devised an attack for those ma- neuvers. There were also reversals Cheetah could make, and ANTARES had computed how to defeat them. The final moves of this aerial chess game were now being played. Cheetah was making a hard left turn, but DreamStar had the cutoff angle and 83.

the power advantage. DreamStar did not need to snap over in a hard bank to make the kill-her high-maneuverability canards and strake flaps pulled the laser rangefinder onto target and held it there. Cheetah tried another hard turn, this time to the right, but the XF-34s guns were locked on solid now-Cheetah was just burning up airspeed in each high-G turn. DreamStar was flying "uncoordinated," sideways and downward at the same time- Suddenly James heard McLanahan over the interplane chan- nel: "Storm Flight, knock it off, knock it off! Storm Two, pull up! I I Ground-map radar, James immediately ordered. The phased- array radars snapped on . . . revealing a sheer rock cliff no more than a thousand feet away and straight ahead. Cheetah had flown directly at two tall buttes, diving and banking away just before reaching them. ANTARES faithfully computed the deadly news-DreamStar would impact in exactly eight-tenths of a sec- ond.

Which was like eight minutes to the ANTARES computer.

James canceled high-maneuverability mode and threw Dream- Star into a hard left bank. DreamStar's large canards and computer-controlled rudders kept her nose from pushing in the opposite direction in a hard turn, and she slipped between the twin towering buttes. ANTARES reported the data from the ground-mapping radars: DreamStar had missed the right butte by eight feet.

James cleared the left butte and rolled to the right, only to find Cheetah directly in his gunsights less than two miles away.

He quickly lined up on him, switched to his twenty-millimeter cannon to activate the gun camera and called, "Fox four, Storm Two, your six-o'clock."

"I said knock it off!" McLanahan ordered. "Storm Flight, route formation, station check. Weapons on standby. Move."

James raised his ejection seat back out of the reclined anti-G setting and activated the radars that would help keep DreamStar in formation with Cheetah. "Two has twelve minutes to joker, all systems nominal."

"Lead's in the green, nine minutes," Powell reported.

"Storm Flight, right turn heading zero-four-three, direct bea- con red five at ten thousand feet. " Powell executed the turn, and DreamStar stayed with him in route fon-nation.

84 .

"What the hell happened, Ken?" McLanahan said as they rolled out on the new heading. "You passed out of theta-alpha for a few seconds but you pressed the attack anyway. We watched you side-slip behind us right into that butte. You almost got yourself killed and destroyed-- "I had contact with the ground at all times," James lied. "I was conscious during the entire attack, except at the bottom of my loop when ANTARES took over. I had clearance between the obstructions. " Another lie-James would not soon forget the rivulets of ice and the lichens he saw growing on the sides of the rock . . . he was that close to it. If Patrick hadn't yelled out . . . "I had the last shot after passing between the buttes," he insisted, "and I processed the shot before you called-- "Save it for the debriefing," Patrick said, "and the data tapes.

Storm Flight, fingertip formation. Prepare for penetration and approach. "

DreamStar and Cheetah were now to demonstrate their land- ing abilities. Powell redeemed himself for his poor takeoff.

Keeping Cheetah in perfect balance, he guided the fighter to a pinpoint landing and stop within five hundred feet-he could have landed Cheetah on an aircraft carrier without the use of a tail hook or arresting cables. But DreamStar's landing was even better-it was as if the one hundred-thousand-pound fighter was a bee alighting on a flower. The combination of the large ca- nards, mission-adaptive wings in their long-chord, high-lift con- figuration and thrust-vectored nozzles, all controlled by the fastest "computer" extant-the human brain-and James had DreamStar stopped within four hundred feet of touchdown, a hundred feet better than Cheetah.

Hal Briggs replaced the phone in its cradle and turned to General Elliott, who was watching the landing through binoculars from on top of the portable control tower. "Those Russian birds are still several minutes from their flyby," he said. "Good thing our guys landed early-"

"The hell it is. They even knew when the test was supposed to terminate. If they had landed on time the satellite would've been right there taking pictures and there'd be nothing we could do about it." He ran his fingers through silver hair that, Briggs noted, seemed to grow thinner every year. He turned toward Briggs. "I want you to pull out all the stops, Major." The tower 85.

controllers as well as Briggs caught Elliott's ominous tone. "Do whatever you have to do to find the leak on this installation. You have an unlimited budget, unlimited resources, and very little damn time. Search anywhere and everywhere. Go off-base with federal authorities to investigate-I'll back up whatever you do.

I want answers, Briggs. Fast."

Briggs knew that at least off-base activities needed huge amounts of cooperation, hard to come by, from state and federal law enforcement. He needed some clarification, but now wasn't the time to ask for it.

Elliott thumbed the microphone on the command frequency.

"Storm Flight, taxi without delay to parking. Over."

"Lead.

Two.

Ken James had been disconnected from his fighter and hoisted out of DreamStar's cockpit. He was wheeled to an air-conditioned transfer van that drove McLanahan, Powell and him to the proj- ect headquarters, where the special flight suit was removed from James' sweat-soaked body. The two test pilots went to the locker room nearby, said not a word to each other. They were dressing when Patrick McLanahan walked up to them. "Both of you are off flying status as of right now."

James exploded. "What?" There was panic mixed in with outrage, but it belonged to Maraklov the agent, not to Ken James the pilot. Lately Maraklov had felt his alter ego taking over- this pronouncement jolted him back, some . . .

"There's a difference between evaluating the aircraft and'

pushing the limits to the danger level. You two cross it every time you fly together. I'm grounding you both until I figure out what to do about it."

"Then give me another chase pilot," James said quickly.

"Canceling all flying isn't the answer, Colonel."

"You're assuming that Powell is the problem," and he started to walk away.

"There are a dozen guys who can fly Cheetah," James said behind him. McLanahan turned. "There's only one who can fly DreamStar. Me." James realized how this sounded and tried to soft pedal . "The project doesn't have to suffer, sir. I think we can continue . . . "

"Listen, hotshot, I've got six guys training to fly DreamStar.

86 .

I'd rather put this project on hold for eight months until they're ready than risk that machine and this project. You read me?"

" Yes, sir. Sorry . - . " Six guys, eight months ... More of a shock ... time was running out ...

Meet me in my office at two o'clock, both of you. The data tapes should be ready to review by then. General Elliott might be interested in what they show." @ Patrick McLanahan was waiting for an elevator up to his office when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned irritably. "Yeah?"

"Charming," Wendy Tork said. "Next time I'll do that with a pole."

He managed a grin and kissed her.

"Long day, Colonel?"

"You could say so."

"You had an early morning go, didn't you?"

The elevator arrived, and Wendy cut off the exchange, know- ing that Patrick would not talk about his project in an unsecure elevator. She waited until they returned to Patrick's office and he closed the door. An electronic grid in the walls and floor, she knew, would activate when that door closed, which would offset wiretapping or any other electronic eavesdropping.

He dropped into his chair. "I've got two pilots butting heads.