Piranha Read online

  Piranha

  DREAMLAND

  DUTY ROSTER

  LT. COLONEL TECUMSEH “DOG” BASTIAN

  Once one of the county’s elite fighter jocks, now Dog is whipping Dreamland into shape the only what he knows how—with blood, sweat, and tears—and proving that his bite is just as bad as his bark …

  CAPTAIN BREANNA BASTIAN STOCKARD

  Like father, like daughter, Breanna is brash, quick-witted, and one of the best test pilots at Dreamland. But she wasn’t prepared for the biggest test of her life: a crash that grounded her husband in more ways than one …

  MAJOR JEFFREY “ZEN” STOCKARD

  A top fighter pilot until a runway crash at Dreamland left him paraplegic. Now, Zen is at the helm of the ambitious Flighthawk program, piloting the hypersonic remote-controlled aircraft from the seat of his wheelchair—and watching what’s left of his marriage crash and burn …

  MAJOR MACK “THE KNIFE” SMITH

  A top gun with an attitude to match. Knife has a MiG kill in the Gulf War—and won’t let anyone forget it. Though resentful that his campaign to head Dreamland stalled, Knife’s the guy you want on your wing when the bogies start biting …

  MAJOR NANCY CHESHIRE

  A woman in a man’s world, Cheshire has more than proven herself as the Megafortress’s senior project officer. But when Dog comes to town, Cheshire must stake out her territory once again—or watch the Megafortress project go down in flames …

  CAPTAIN DANNY FREAH

  Freah made a name for himself by heading a daring rescue of a U-2 pilot in Iraq. Now, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, Freah’s constantly under fire, as commander of the top-secret “Whiplash” rescue and support team—and Dog’s right-hand man …

  Chapter 1

  Piranha

  South China Sea

  August 17, 1997, 0800 local (August 16, 1400 Hawaii)

  The ocean sat before him like an azure mirror, its surface gleaming with a light haze of silky heat. His small sloop glided forward slowly, as if too much movement would disturb the tranquility. There was no wind for the sail and he had just cut the engine, content to drift into the calm of the open sea. A man could count on one hand the number of days he might encounter such perfect peace, and as Mark Stoner gripped the rail of his boat, the Samsara, a sensation of great ease came over him, a taste of the nirvana his Zen Buddhist teachers promised would come when he managed to shed worldly desire. The moment lingered around him, vanquishing time in its perfection. As the thick muscles of his neck and shoulders loosened, the rest of his body seemed to float upward, assimilating into the universe.

  But all was not as it appeared.

  A geyser broke three hundred yards off Samsara’s port bow, the water erupting as if a volcano had tossed a fireball into the sky. The blue water furled green and black as a thick spear crashed upwards, rising quickly from the ocean’s surface. It stuttered momentarily, as if it were a fish shocked at the sudden loss of water flowing over its grills. Then it steadied and began picking up speed, rocketing north by northeast at something over five hundred miles an hour.

  “Shit,” said Stoner aloud, though he was the only one on the boat. “Hole shit.”

  Then he ran back to the cabin to make sure the recording devices were working.

  Aboard EB-52, “Iowa,” west of Hawaii

  August 16, 1400 local time

  Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian slipped the throttle the throttle forward, continuing to pick up speed as they approached the approximate location of Task Force Nirvana. The Megafortress’s forward airspeed push up past five hundred knots as the big plane shot no more than twenty feet over the ocean swells. Dog hated flying over the ocean, especially at low altitude; he somehow couldn’t shake the feeling that a massive tsunami lurked just ahead, ready to rise up and engulf him. Even at high altitude, he had a landlubber’s paranoia about going down in the water. Something about the idea of struggling to inflate and then board a tiny rubber raft filled him with irrational dread. It didn’t help that any time he thought about it, his mind supplied a posse of circling sharks to supervise the operation.

  “Should be able to see the test area buoys in sixty seconds,” said Bastian’s copilot, Chris Ferris. “We’ll have the feed of the Flighthawk.”

  “Roger that,” replied the colonel. “Zen, how are we looking?” he asked over the Dreamland com circuit.

  “Ocean’s clean,” replied Major Jeff “Zen” Stockard. Stockard was flying two U/MF-3’s or Unmanned Fighters, nicknamed Flighthawk, from Raven, the second EB-52 in the flight. The two robot planes, roughly the size of Miata sports cars, acted as forward scouts for Bastian’s three-Megafortress flight. Two other U/MF’s flown by Captain Kelvin “Curly” Fentress in Galatica, were flying above the EB-52’s as combat air patrol. The Megafortresses were spread across the water at roughly half-mile intervals, flying what would have looked like an offset V from above. Though all shared the basic Megafortress chassis, each craft was outfitted differently.

  Galatica, on the left wing, had a radar suite comparable to an E-3 AWACS. Since the powerful radar would alert their quarry, it was currently in passive mode—for all intents and purposes turned off.

  Raven, at the right of the formation, featured a suite of electronic listening devices that would rival any Rivet Joint RC-135 spy plane. A myriad of antennas picked up both voice and telemetry transmission all across the radio spectrum; the computer gear stuffed into the rear compartments provided the onboard operator with real-time decoding of all but the most advanced encryptions. A second operator commanded a suite of gear similar to that found in Wild Weasel and Spark Vark aircraft; he could both detect and jam active radar units at roughly two hundred miles. The rotating dispenser in the bomb bay included four Tacit-Plus antiradiation missiles. Launched from just inside one hundred miles, they could either fly straight to a known radar site or orbit a suspect area until the radar activated. A thick, eighteen-inch section had been added to the weapons behind their warhead. This new section had been designed specifically for the sea mission. The gear inside the area allowed the missile to use its active radar on its final leg if the target switched its own radar off. Though relatively weak and short-ranged, it was hard to detect and also difficult to jam. Once fully operational, the missile promised to make aircraft essentially invulnerable to surface ships—at least until enough missiles were used so that an enemy could figure a way around them.

  The payload aboard Iowa, Bastian’s plane, was the reason the three Megafortresses were here.

  Stuffed into Iowa’s forward bomb bay were a half-dozen fiberglass and steel container that looked like the old-fashioned milk containers once used to gather milk from cows on the copilot’s family farm. A thick ring that sat about where the handles would have been contained just enough air to properly orient the container’s “head” float a few meters below the surface of the water. Above the ring was a rectangular web of thin wires that, once deployed, would extend precisely 13.4 meters. The wires were attached to a line-of-sight radio transmitter that generated a short-rang signal across a wide range of bands. These signals could be received and processed by a specially modified version of the antennas and gear used by the Megafortresses while directing Flighthawks.

  The bottom portion of the buoy contained three different arrays, the first was designed to broadcast audible signals that sounded like a cross between the clicks of a dolphin and the beeps of a telephone network. The second picked up similar audible transmissions in a very narrow range. The third transmitted and listened for long and extremely-low-frequency (or ELF) radio waves. These devices were actually relatively simple and while not inexpensive, were considered expendable—which was why the buoyant ring was equipped with small
charges that would blow it off the buoy, sending them to the bottom of the ocean.

  In essence, the milk cans were simply sophisticated transmitting stations for “Piranha,” the larger device strapped to Iowa’s belly. Piranha looked like an oversized torpedo with extra sets of fins on the front and rear. Once in the water, the conical cover on its nose fell off to reveal a cluster of oval and circular sensors that fed temperature, current, and optical information back to a small computer located in the body of the device. Between these sensors and the computer was a ball-shaped container that held a passive sonar; this too fed information to the computer, which in turn transmitted it, whole or in part, back to the buoy. The rear two thirds of Piranha contained its hydrogen-cell engine. Pellets made primarily of sodium hydride were fed into a reaction chamber where they mixed with salt water, creating hydrogen. This part of the engine was based on the hydrogen-powered, long-endurance, low-emission motor that powered an ultra-light UAV being tested at Dreamland. The sea application presented both major advantages—the availability of water allowed the compressed, pelletized fuel to be substituted for a gas system—and great challenges—the fact that it was salt water greatly complicated what was otherwise a fairly simple chemical process.

  Rather than turning a propeller as it did in the ultra-light, Piranha’s engine was used to heat and cool a series of alloy connectors that ran through the outer shell of the vessel. Similar to a keychain or a child’s toy, the outer shell was connected in sections, allowing it to slip and slither from side to side. Using a technique first pioneered at Texas A&M, the expansion and contraction of the alloy strands moved the outer hull like a snake through water. The process was essentially wakeless, impossible to detect on the surface and almost impossible below. While there was still work to be down, the propulsion system was nearly as fast as it was quiet—Piranha could read speeds close to fifty knots, with an endurance of just under eighteen hours at a more modest average pace of thirty-six knots.

  Piranha had been developed by a joint Navy and Dreamland team; it was represented the next generation of unmanned robes of UUVs (unmanned underwater vehicles) designed for launch from Seawolf submarines. Current UUVs used active forward- and side-looking sonars and had an overall range of approximately 120 nautical miles. They moved slowly, and could cover about fifty square miles of search area a day. They were fantastic weapons, intimately connected to the Seawolf and Virginia-class boats, and were perfectly suited for the inherently hazardous missions they had been designed for, such as searching for mines in littoral or shallow coastal waters.

  Unlike those probes, Piranha could be operated from aircraft, thanks to the buoy system. Like the buoys, the probe itself was disposable, or would be in the future. For now, a low-power battery mode took it back to a specific GPS point and depth for recovery by submarine or surface ship up to 150 miles from rundown.

  The data transmitted back to the buoys—and from them to a controlling airplane or vessel ship—was considerably greater than that possible in the current-generation UUVs, thanks largely to compression techniques that had been pioneered for the Flighthawk. These “rich” signals were difficult to decode and had a short range, which limited the ability of an enemy to detect and track them. in the stealth mode, which used only the intermittent audible mode to communicate, the operator received enough information to identify size, course, and bearings of an enemy target out to seventy-five miles, depending on the water conditions. In “full como,” or communications mode, the signal fed a synthetic sonar system. This sonar was passive, and thus completely undetectable. It painted a three-dimensional sound picture on an operator’s screen; the computer’s ability to interpret and translate the sounds into pictures of the object that created them not only meant that combat decisions could be made quickly, but the operators required considerably less training than traditional sonar experts. Just as the improvements in sensor gear and computers allowed the copilot on a Megafortress to perform the duties of several B-52 crew members, the synthetic sonar would allow a back-seater in a Navy Tomcat to handle Nirvana while taking negative G’s.

  In theory, Colonel Bastian and his people were going to find out if the impressive results in static and shallow-water tests could be duplicated in the middle of the ocean, against some of the best people with Seventh Fleet could muster. The Kitty Hawk, steaming out toward Japan after a brief respite at Pearl, was the target.

  If you’re going to test a new weapon system, might as well go against the best, thought Dog.

  “Piranha Buoy in ten seconds,” said Ferris.

  “Ten seconds,” said Dog. “Piranha Team, you ready?” he added, speaking over the interphone circuit to the Piranha specialist, Lieutenant Commander Tommy Delaford and Ensign Gloria English. They were sitting downstairs in what ordinarily was the Flighthawk deck on the Dreamland Megafortresses.

  “Ready,” replied Delaford, the project leader for Piranha. Delaford worked directly for the Chief of Naval Operations, Warfare Division; his handpicked Navy team include people from N77 (the submarine warfare division), N775 (science and technology), and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.

  “I have Task Force Charlie,” said Captain Derek Teijen, piloting Galatica. “Tapping in coordinates—they’re a bit closer than they’re supposed to be, Colonel. Lead ship is barely one hundred miles away. Have it ID’s as a DDG. Carrier is sending two F-14’s toward us.”

  “Roger that,” replied Dog. He’d expected the Navy to jump the gun; in a way, it was surprising that the task force had waited so long. The new Seventh Fleet commander, Admiral Jonathon “Tex” Woods, had boarded the aircraft carrier to personally oversee the tests. While his military record was sufficiently impressive for him to be known even in the Air Force—and hated to be shown up in combined-forces exercises.

  Which in a way, this was.

  “Zen, those Tomcats are yours if they get close enough,” Dog said. “Curly, stand by for launch of Piranha system. Chris, open bay doors.”

  The Megafortress shook slightly as the large doors of the bomb bay cranked open. The sophisticated flight computer system compensated for the plane’s altered aerodynamics so swiftly Dog hardly noticed. He pulled back gently on the stick, pushing the plane exactly onto the

  dotted red line the computer put on his screen.

  “Three, two, one—” said Ferris.

  There was a loud rumble from the rear as the buoy fell into the water.

  “Device launch in twenty seconds,” said Ferris.

  “We concur,” said Delaford. “Counting down.”

  Dog pitched the big plane’s nose toward the waves; the optimum launch angle was a fairly steep forty-three degrees.

  “Tomcats are looking for us,” reported Ferris. “Ten seconds to launch—we need more angle, Colonel.”

  “Got it,” said Bastian, hitting his mark. The weapons section of the flight computer that helped manage the Megafortress projected the launch countdown in his HUD, “Launch device,” he said as the numbers drained to zero.

  “We’re off,” said Ferris. “Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house she goes.”

  Dog ignored Ferris’s attempt at cosmic relief and began to pull the plane upward. He’d had to drop fairly low to the waves for the launch, and the vision of sharks circling his dinghy returned. As they climbed, the Piranha team went through the shakedown procedure, establishing contact with the probe. They immediately began steering it toward the target task force. Traveling at just over forty knots, Piranha had already identified the ships in the group for the operators. She dove to four hundred meters, completely undetected by the screening vessels and the two ASW helicopters, which had set up a picket of sonar buoys. The operators detected a submarine operating a towed array-probably the Connecticut, a killer in the ultramodern Seawolf class, though they were too far away for a real ID or even an accurate range. Meanwhile, the stealthy profiles of the Megafortresses made it possible for them to elude the Tomcats for clos
e to half an hour, even though opening the bay doors to drop the buoy had alerted their airborne radar plane to their presence. Dog began to think they’d manage to complete the exercise scot-free.

  His copilot brought him back to reality.

  “Tomcats are on us, changing course,” said Ferris. “At bearing—shit—they’re launching weapons!” yelled Ferris, as usual far more agitated than the situation called for.

  “Evasive maneuvers. Hang on. Zen, those Navy birds are yours.”

  “Engaging,” replied Major Stockard. His voice, although relayed through a satellite system in orbit several kilometers above the Megafortress, sounded like he was in the next seat over.

  Aboard EB-52, “Raven,” west of Hawaii

  August 16, 1440

  The F-14’s had slowed to fire their long-range Phoenix AIM-54’s, but they were still closing on the Megafortresses at over five hundred miles an hour. It was clear from the way they were flying their radar hadn’t picked up the Flighthawk, which were now heading into a bank of clouds just over the attackers’ flight path. Raven began blanketing the air with a thick fog of countermeasures, confusing not just the Tomcats’ radar, but the Grumman E-2 Hawkeye feeding them data more than a hundred miles to the north. The Navy interceptors were now limited to what their Mark-1 eyeballs could feed them; which meant they had to close to visual distance. In another sixty seconds, they’d be able to nail the Megafortresses with short-range heat-seekers or cannons.

  Simulated, of course.

  Zen didn’t intend to let that happen. The U/MFs had several disadvantages fighting the sort of long-rang combat the Tomcats preferred; they were equipped only with cannons and their mobility was limited by the need to stay within ten miles of their mother ship. But in a close-quarters knife-fight, they were hard to top. Hawk One broke from the cloud bank she was sitting in as close to the canopy of the lead F-14 as he could manage, flashing across its bow like a meteor shot from the heavens.

  Or an air-to-air missile launched by an undetected fighter.