Ice Station (50 page)

Through the cockpit canopy it looked like some kind of video-game
thrill ride. The tunnel swept past Schofield at phenomenal speed, and
occasionally the world nipped upside-down as he rolled the big plane
to avoid falling chunks of ice.

Schofield watched as the barrage of tracer bullets decimated the walls
of the tunnel in front of him, widening it, smoothing it, and then
suddenly—voom!—the walls of the ice tunnel
vanished and in a single, glorious instant he saw the sky open up in
front of him.

The Silhouette burst out of the iceberg and flew up into the
clear open sky.

The Silhouette shot up into the air, almost vertical, and
Schofield looked back over his shoulder and saw that the ice shelf
that had held Wilkes Ice Station within it was indeed no longer an ice
shelf. It was now an iceberg.

An absolutely massive iceberg.

It had flipped over and Schofield saw the eroded underbelly of what
had once been the ice shelf—the thin, icy stalactites, the
glistening-wet mountain peaks—rising like spires above the new
berg. He also saw the jagged black hole through which the
Silhouette had blasted out of the berg.

And then suddenly movement caught his eye: a thin white object racing
over the ocean, heading toward the newly formed iceberg.

The missile.

And as the Silhouette roared into the sky, Schofield watched
in silent awe as the nuclear-tipped missile slammed into the iceberg
and burrowed into it. There was about a three-second delay
...

And then the nuclear device detonated.

Armageddon.

The white-hot flash of the nuclear explosion—directly beneath
the Silhouette as it shot up into the sky—was
absolutely blinding.

Solid cliffs of ice were turned instantly to powder as every side of
the iceberg containing Wilkes Ice Station and the underground cavern
blew out with the blast wave.

The blast wave shot underwater, vaporizing everything in its path,
creating huge waves of water that expanded out from the coast,
rocking the massive icebergs that lined the cliffs as if they
were a child's bath toys. Truth be told, it wasn't a large
nuclear blast—three kilotons, with a blast radius of half a
kilometer. But then again, there really was no such thing as a small
nuclear explosion.

But it wasn't over yet.

Suddenly a monstrous black mushroom cloud began to form, shooting up
into the air at incredible speed, chasing the
Silhouette as it shot skyward.

Schofield went vertical, tried to outrun the burgeoning mushroom
cloud. The mushroom cloud rushed upward. The Silhouette
screamed into the sky, its engines roaring, and just as the mushroom
cloud began to engulf it the cloud peaked and the Silhouette
shot up and away to safety.

Schofield banked the plane sharply and headed out to sea.

The Silhouette shot across the ocean, heading north. It was
dark, eternal twilight. The gargantuan mushroom cloud had just dipped
below the horizon to the south of the big black plane.

Schofield found the autopilot, engaged it, then went back into the
missile bay to check on Gant.

“How is she?” he asked Renshaw. Gant was lying on the floor
of the missile bay, looking seriously pale. Her skin was clammy, her
eyes were closed.

“She's lost a lot of blood,” Renshaw said. “We have
to get her to a hospital fast.”

At that moment, Gant's eyes popped open. “Did we win?”
she asked.

Schofield and Renshaw both looked down at her. Schofield smiled.
“Yes, Libby, we won. How are you feeling?”

“Terrible.” She lay back, shut her eyes again.

Schofield sighed. Where could he take her? A ship would be the best
option, but which—

The Wasp. Romeo had said that the USS Wasp was out
here somewhere. It was Jack Walsh's ship. A Marine ship.
It would be safe.

Schofield was about to hurry back to the cockpit when suddenly he saw
the diary sticking out of Gant's breast pocket.

He grabbed it and headed forward into the cockpit.

Once he was seated in the pilot's chair, he keyed the
Silhouette's radio. “USS Wasp. USS
Wasp. This is Scarecrow. I repeat, this is Scarecrow. Do you
copy?”

There was no reply.

He tried again. No reply. He looked down at the diary in his hands. It
had some looseleaf sheets of paper folded inside it. Gant must have
found some documents and put them in the diary.

Schofield grabbed one of the loose sheets. It read:

Design Parameters for the B-7A Silhouette

The Principal desires an attack aircraft with total electronic and
conventional invisibility, STOVL capabilities through a retrograde
thruster system, and multiple-launch BVR medium-to-long-range (200 nm)
air-to-air/ air-to-ground missile launch capabilities as expressed in
the tender lodged by General Aeronautics, Inc., and Entertech Ltd. in
response to the Principal's Invitation to Tender No, 456-771-7A,
dated 2 January 1977.

Schofield translated the jargon: STOVL was
Short-Take-Off/Vertical-Landing; BVR stood for Beyond Visual
Range, which meant missiles that could be fired at targets—and
be expected to hit those targets—at extremely long range.
“Electronic invisibility” meant invisibility to radar, or
stealth. But what the hell was “conventional
invisibility?”

Schofield flicked to the next sheet. It looked like a page out of
Entertech Ltd.'s tender. It read:

The Entertech Edge

The B-7A Silhouette benefits from Entertech Ltd.'s
experience in the field of electronic countermeasures. Invisibility to
radar—or “stealth”—is accomplished in many ways:
with radar absorbent paint, minimal radar cross-sections, or with a
sharply angled fuselage design as was done with the F-117A stealth
fighter. But conventional invisibility is more difficult to
accomplish, and so far, it has remained unattainable. Until now.

Entertech Ltd. has developed a system whereby an electromagnetic field
is created around a given aircraft creating conventional invisibility.
The electromagnetic field distorts the molecular structure of the air
around the aircraft, creating an artificial refraction of light that
renders that aircraft totally invisible to radar and even—

Schofield's jaw dropped. His eyes scanned the lines ahead and he
found the word he was looking for:

We call it a cloaking device ...

Jesus, he thought.

A cloaking device.

A system that rendered an aircraft invisible not only to radar but to
the naked eye as well. Every aviator knew that even if you were
invisible to your enemy's radar, you could never escape someone
seeing you directly. A billion-dollar stealth bomber can be
seen by a spotter out the window of an AWACS plane forty
miles away.

Schofield's mind buzzed. This was revolutionary. A cloaking device
that distorted the air around an airplane, thus creating an artificial
refraction of the light around the plane, making it invisible to the
naked eye. The crazy thing was, it just might work.

Schofield knew about refraction. It was most commonly observed when
one looked into a fishbowl. Light outside the fishbowl strikes the
water—which has a greater density than the air above
it. The greater density of the water causes the light to
refract at an angle, distorting the size and position of the
fish inside the bowl.

But this was refraction of air, Schofield thought. This
is artificially altering the density of air with electricity.

There had to be a catch. And there was.

The plutonium.

This revolutionary new system—this system that could alter the
refractive density of air—was nuclear.

Schofield searched for the relevant paragraph, found it. As one would
expect from someone trying to win a government tender, it was
carefully worded:

It must be appreciated that to effect the Silhouette's
cloaking system requires an enormous amount of self-generated power.
According to tests run by Entertech Ltd. and General Aeronautics,
Inc., to disrupt the molecular and electromagnetic structure of the
ambient air around a moving aircraft requires a total of 2.71
gigawatts of electromagnetic energy. The only known source of such a
quantity of energy is a controlled nuclear reaction—

Schofield whistled softly to himself. General Aeronautics and
Entertech had offered the U.S. Air Force a plane with a nuclear
reactor on board. No wonder they built it in Antarctica.

He put the documentation down, tried the radio again.

“USS Wasp. USS Wasp. This is Scarecrow. I
repeat, USS Wasp, this is Scarecrow. Please re—”

“Unidentified aircraft using the name Scarecrow, this is U.S.
Air Force fighter Blue Leader. Identify yourself,” a voice
said suddenly over Schofield's cockpit radio.

Schofield looked at his radar screen. He was now almost two hundred
nautical miles from the coast of Antarctica, safely out over the sea.
On his radar screen he saw nothing.

Damn it, Schofield thought. Whoever this is, he's
operating under stealth.

“Blue Leader, this is Lieutenant Shane Schofield, United States
Marines Corps. I am flying an unmarked US Air Force prototype
fighter-bomber. I mean you no harm.”

Schofield looked out the canopy to his left.

He saw six tiny dots on the horizon.

“Unidentified aircraft. You are to follow us under escort
back to the U.S. Navy carrier Enterprise, where you will he
debriefed.”

Schofield said, “Blue Leader, I do not wish to be taken under
escort—”

“Then you will be fired upon, unidentified
aircraft.”

Schofield bit his tongue. “Blue Leader, identify yourself.”

“What?”

“What is your name, Blue Leader?”

“My name is Captain John F. Yates, United States Air Force,
and I want you to surrender to escort formation now!”

Yates, Schofield thought, grabbing another sheet of paper
from his own pocket. There it was.

YATES, JOHN F. USAF
CPTN

“What is this, an ICG convention?” Schofield said to
himself.

At that moment, six F-22s swooped into place around Schofield's
plane. Two in front. Two on the sides. Two behind. They all kept their
distance, approximately two hundred yards. Their presence never
registered on Schofield's radar even though he could see
them.

Suddenly a shrill buzzing sound droned out from Schofield's
cockpit speakers.

The F-22s had missile lock on him.

Schofield said, “What are your intentions, Captain Yates?”

“Our intention is to get you back to the United States
carrier Enterprise and debrief you.”

“Do you intend to fire on me?”

“Let's not make this harder than it's already going
to be.”

“Do you intend to fire on me!”

“Good-bye, Scarecrow.”

Oh, fuck!

They were going to fire. Schofield looked frantically around the
cockpit for something to—

His eyes fell on a button on his display.

CLOAK MODE.

What the hell, you've got nothing to lose.... Schofield
hit the cloak button just as, two hundred yards behind him, the lead
F-22 launched one of its missiles.

What happened next was nothing short of
incredible.

Captain John Yates—Blue Leader—looked out through the
canopy of his F-22. In the dull orange twilight over the ocean Yates
saw the black aircraft hovering in the air in front of him, saw the
luminescent red glow of its tail thrusters.

Then he saw the white vapor trail of his own missile as it streaked
away from his wing and headed in toward the black fighter's
thrusters.

As the missile raced toward its target, a shimmering haze suddenly
descended upon the black fighter. The sight was absolutely amazing. It
looked like a shimmering, rippling heat haze—like the kind that
hangs over a highway on a hot summer's day—and it just
descended over the black fighter as if someone were lowering a curtain
over it.

Suddenly the black plane was gone.

Yates's missile went berserk.

With its initial target lost, the missile immediately began searching
for another target.

It found it in one of the F-22s flying in front of
Schofield's Silhouette. The missile shot into the
tailpipe of the forward F-22 and the stealth fighter exploded bright
orange in the dark twilight sky.

Yates was stunned. Voices shouted over his headset.

“—just disappeared—”

“—fucking thing just vanished!—”

Yates checked his scopes. The black fighter didn't appear on his
radar. He searched the sky for the black plane with his eyes. He
couldn't see it, couldn't see it anywhe—

And then he saw it.

Or at least he thought he saw it.

Overlaid on the orange horizon Yates saw a shimmering body of air. It
looked like a warped glass lens, a lens that had been superimposed on
the flat horizon, causing one short section of that horizon to ripple
continuously.

He couldn't believe his eyes.

Inside the Silhouette, Schofield was already flicking
switches.

The missile had missed him and he could hear the comments of the F-22
pilots over his own radio. The F-22s couldn't see him. It was time
to fight back.

“Renshaw! Bring Gant up here! Wendy, too!”

Renshaw brought Gant forward, into the back section of the cockpit.
Wendy loped into the cockpit behind him.

“Shut the cockpit door,” Schofield said.

Renshaw shut the door. They were now cut off from the missile bay in
the belly of the Silhouette.

Schofield flicked a final switch and saw a red warning light appear on
his computer screen.

MISSILES ARMED. TARGETING...

The screen began to flash.

5 TARGETS ACQUIRED. READY TO FIRE.

Schofield jammed down on his thumb trigger.

At that moment, the missile bay door of the Silhouette opened and the
two racks in the missile bay began to rotate.

One after the other, five missiles dropped through the missile bay
doors and out into the sky. Schofield watched as the missiles streaked
away from him and began searching for their targets like bloodhounds.