Target Utopia (34 page)

Daela Reef

T
HE LIMITED INSTRUCTION
set in the combat UAVs meant that Braxton had to continue guiding them for two minutes after the booster separation; only then could he direct them to the two ships and let them go.

Monitoring the aircraft as they climbed out from the launch area, he saw from the passive
radar sensors that the Chinese had sent fighters in the direction of the ships—and another set toward him.

There were American aircraft over the ships as well: three Ospreys. While he couldn't see it, Braxton guessed that the Tigershark would be there too, with or without its Sabres.

Which gave him a better opportunity than he had hoped for.

He set his four UAVs on course for the area over the ships, and instructed them to defend the ships against all unfriendly aircraft—a default preset that allowed the planes to use all of their programmed maneuvers to fight until there were no more contacts in the air.

“Your planes are in the air,” said Wen-lo. “Now, take us to the launcher.”

“I have to program them all first,” said Braxton. “Or they'll just fly around over the island and bring the Americans here. We don't want that, right?”

The wide-area plot showed Braxton that the UAVs would reach the area of the ships at roughly the same time as the Chinese did. That was perfect. He started to get up, then sat back down as Wen-lo walked to the door.

“I'll be right there,” he said, deciding not to leave anything to chance. He designated the lead Chinese aircraft as the primary target for the first UAV, then cleared the screen quickly so Wen-lo couldn't see what he had done.

“All right, let's go,” he said, jumping to his feet. “We have to get the Sabres loaded ASAP. The
Americans are bound to send more aircraft and other reinforcements.”

South China Sea

E
VEN THOUGH HE
was currently flying with passive sensors only, so he couldn't be easily detected, Turk could see the approaching combat UAVs thanks to the input from the Cube. There were four of them, exactly like the ones he'd dealt with earlier. They were heading straight for the Chinese J-15s.

If the Chinese saw them, they didn't react. The UAVs were also apparently using passive sensors, no doubt more sophisticated than anything the Chinese had.

Turk clicked into the Whiplash circuit to talk to Danny. “Colonel, Kallipolis has launched UAVs.”

“Four of them, right? I just heard.”

“Just a guess here, but they look like they're going to attack the Chinese.”

“Warn the Chinese that we're conducting an operation,” said Danny. “Tell them to stand off. And tell them about the UAVs. Make it clear that they are not ours.”

“No way they'll believe that,” said Turk. “But yes, sir.”

Turk broadcast the warning. He got no response.

“Listen guys, I know you can hear me,” he said, dropping the formal tone he'd used at first. “No shit, there are four combat UAVs running right at you hot and heavy. And they will shoot you down. Believe me; we've dealt with them.”

“Stop your tricks, American,” responded one of the Chinese pilots.

“I'm not playing tricks. I'm above you to the south, about twenty-five thousand feet. I know you can't see me. The four UAVs are low, they're coming from the east, and they can take you down in a heartbeat.”

“We see you south.”

“That's another flight. I'm over the ships. Those UAVs are just about on you,” added Turk, seeing the plot. “They're going to attack. They're climbing—”

“You are playing a trick.”

“I'm not.”

“Order them away.”

“Those aren't our planes,” answered Turk. “They're being run by high-tech pirates who've stolen technology and are helping terrorists. That's what this operation is all about.”

The Chinese pilot didn't answer—verbally. Instead, he turned on his weapons radar, targeting the Ospreys.

The Ospreys immediately began evasive maneuvers. Their electronic countermeasures could adequately fend off the Chinese medium-range radar missiles; heat-seekers and cannons would be a different story.

“Don't threaten our planes or I'll be forced to shoot you down,” said Turk.

“Stand down, American,” said the Chinese pilot.

A second later there was an electronic shriek over the circuit—the UAVs had fired their lasers in unison, destroying the lead plane.

T
HE EXPLOSION SHOOK
the ship so badly that Danny fell against the railing on the catwalk around the bridge.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked Achmoody over the radio.

“Robot set off one of the bombs,” replied the trooper. His voice sounded shaky. “There must have been a motion detector at the far end of the corridor that we didn't see. It blew out the entire passage.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Just egos,” said Achmoody. “The explosion put a pretty big hole in the bulkhead. We're starting through now.”

Danny had barely turned around when he saw a black cloud appear in the sky to the north.

“Turk, what's going on?” he asked.

“The UAVs are engaging the Chinese aircraft. The Chinese think they're ours,” he added.

“Tell them they're not,” said Danny. Then he had another thought. “Can you help them? Keep them from being shot down?”

“You want me to help the Chinese?”

“Yes.”

“Colonel—”

“Do it, Turk.”

“Roger that,” snapped Turk.

The Cube

B
REANNA'S THROAT FELT
as if it had turned to stone. She could barely breathe, let alone swallow. She stood just inside the inner door at the top of the Cube entrance, in front of the elevator to the lower levels. Two security aides, submachine guns in their hands, were at her side.

“Daddy, why are you here?” she asked.

“Ray said you needed help. If you don't want me—”

“Did he tell you what we need?”

“There was a text that said something about DNA coding.”

“We need Jennifer's body exhumed,” said Breanna. She hadn't seen her father in nearly five years. He looked thinner, scruffier, yet somehow younger than she remembered. Emotions were flooding through her; it was a struggle not to scream at him.

“No, you need her DNA profile,” he said. “It was analyzed. I have it here.”

He held up a small USB flash drive.

“It's part of her password,” added Tecumseh Bastian. “I know what you need it for—it'll let you
in the back door of the AI programs she worked on. All of them. Braxton stole it, didn't he?”

“You know?”

“We suspected. That's why he was fired.”

“I thought . . . he was harassing Jennifer.”

“He was. But that's not why he was fired. She's all on this disc, her DNA. Not her.” Bastian smiled, but it was a sad, wistful smile. “Over seven hundred fifty megabytes. She designed it herself.”

Breanna hesitated, then reached out her hand.

“It's password protected, the drive,” he told her. “I'm not sure which password she used. She had a couple.”

The elevator opened behind her. Ray Rubeo stepped out. For a moment Breanna felt as if she were watching them on a video screen.

“Ray,” said Bastian.

“General.”

“I brought the drive with the sequence.”

“You should come downstairs,” Rubeo told him. “I may need you.”

“It's not up to me.”

Breanna looked at her father. He still had his clearance, though after everything that had happened, Breanna didn't know whether she should let him down or not.

There could be anything on the drive.

And did she want to trust him?

What she wanted was to yell at him, to ask why he had run away, walled himself off from her and Zen and their daughter. Leaving the military she could understand, mourning Jennifer Gleason she could definitely understand, but deserting her?

Blaming her. Along with the others. That was the reason.

“We need to move quickly,” said Rubeo. “I suspect that the launch of the UAVs is aimed at providing cover as they make off with the Sabres. It's the only logical explanation.”

“Sabres?” asked Bastian.

“A lot has changed since you've been gone, Tecumseh,” said Rubeo. “We can discuss it later. I need the sequence now. Breanna?”

“I'll take the flash drive,” she said.

“It might be more useful to have your father with us,” said Rubeo. “To get past the passwords quickly.”

“All right, yes, let's go, come on,” said Breanna, turning swiftly. “He's with me,” she told the guards, and then in a louder voice, repeated it for the security system monitoring their movements.

South China Sea

T
HERE WAS NOTHING
Turk could do to help the first Chinese fighter; his plane was already fried so badly, the pilot barely ejected before it blew to bits.

But in the seeds of that victory lay the enemy UAVs' demise. They flew over the destroyed J-15's path, banking south as a group while computing
which target to hit next and how. Their course took them nearly perpendicular to Turk, and far below. He tipped his nose forward, turned slightly, and even before the rail gun was ready to fire he had locked up the lead UAV.

The Sabre rocked as three slugs sped from its nose. The UAV was a small target, but that just meant there wasn't much left for the third bullet to hit. The first shattered the main section of the aircraft, destroying the “brain” as well as blowing a hole through the main fuel tank; the second slug blew through the engine. All the third could find was a large piece of shattered wing engulfed in flames.

Gently pressuring the stick at the right side of his seat, Turk put the Tigershark on the tail of the UAV at the end of the pack. The aircraft was starting a turn to the north; Turk rode with it, staying just to the outside as he waited for the small plane to swing back in reaction to his presence. It did so, then twisted sharply, spinning its wings and heading toward the waves.

It looked for all the world as if the plane had malfunctioned into a weird spin and was out of the game. But it was just a trick—one Turk had seen on the range many times. He followed, waiting for the UAV's wings to flatten out. As soon as they stopped rotating, he fired a burst that caught it back to front, splitting it in two.

While Turk was busy following the UAV through its phony spin, the Chinese J-15s made the mistake of trying to tangle with the other two. As Turk looked skyward, he realized that the
Chinese had managed to catch one of the UAVs in a sandwich between them.

“Break off, break off,” Turk warned. “Let me get them.”

There was no response from the Chinese fighters, and no indication that they had even heard him. The lead Chinese fighter accelerated upward, trying to swing the trailing UAV into a scissors maneuver where his wingman could fire heat seekers from behind. He was doing a reasonable job of jinking out of the UAV's sights, but he hadn't accounted for the other UAV, which suddenly attacked him from the side.

The J-15's wingman fired a pair of heat-seeking missiles, but they went off course, apparently fooled by decoy flares the lead Chinese plane launched as he tried to escape. He turned hard west, only to have his right wing fly off—sheered clean by the UAV's laser weapon.

The second flight of Chinese aircraft to the west turned in their direction, riding to the aid of their comrades. Inexplicably, two of the aircraft fired medium-range missiles—crazily, Turk thought, since they couldn't possibly have locked on the targets.

If the missiles were intended to get the UAVs' attention and break their attack, it didn't work. The pair climbed east, preparing to circle back. By now it was clear the UAVs were following an order to attack the Chinese planes; they were closer to Turk's Tigershark but ignored it, even though his active radar was now telling them where he was.

“All Chinese aircraft, break east,” radioed Turk, trying to get them to move toward him and make it easier to get the UAVs. When they didn't respond, he gave them a heading and told them he would cut between them and the two surviving UAVs. But both J-15s near him continued south, toward the ships, as if they were intending to attack.

“The UAVs are your enemy,” he told them. “Not the people on the ships.”

They either didn't hear or didn't care, instead activating their attack radars to try to launch missiles on the large cargo carrier.

C
OWBOY SAW THE
two Chinese J-15s lining up for shots on the big ship.

“I have Bandit Two,” he told Greenstreet.

“Roger that, Basher Two. Firing Fox Three.”

The F-35s launched their AMRAAMs toward the Chinese planes. At roughly the same moment, the air-to-surface missiles the J-20s were carrying dropped from their wings, heading for the cargo vessel. It was a sitting duck.

Suddenly, something exploded a mile and a half from the ship, directly in the path of the missiles. One of the missiles, which had started to arc for a final attack, abruptly dove and exploded. The other veered sharply, then wobbled back toward its course.

Turk had managed to get his aircraft between the missiles and the ship, and deked one of them into exploding with a shower of chaff. But the other was still moving toward the vessel.

T
URK SAW THE
second missile move into his pipper and squeezed the trigger without a solid lock. He got off three shots, but only the first was on target, and even that barely hit, blowing a hole through the rear propulsion area of the missile. The warhead had enough momentum to continue into the cargo ship, striking it near the bow.

Time moved in slow motion. His maneuvers had taken him below 5,000 feet; his forward airspeed had dropped below 250 knots. Both the UAVs and the Chinese fighters were somewhere above and behind him.

In other words, he was dead meat.

“Come on,” he told the Tigershark, leaning on the throttle and ignoring the warnings that he was being targeted. “Go! Go! Go!”

C
OWBOY'S THUMB WAS
just about to press the cannon trigger to nail the J-15 on Turk's tail when he realized that one of the UAVs was going to beat him to it. The Chinese pilot had been so intent on getting Turk that he'd ignored the slippery UAV behind him.

A nudge left, and Cowboy had the UAV in his crosshairs.

He fired a half second after the UAV's laser burned a hole in the J-15's tail.

The resulting cartwheel of explosions warmed Cowboy's heart.

“Yee-haw!” he shouted over the radio. “Scratch one UAV!”

“Let's stay focused,” scolded Greenstreet. “There's a lot of work to do.”