Piranha by Jim DeFelice, Dale Brown Page B

merchant freighter owned by the Chinese
government smuggling weapons to Islamic extremists,” said Stoner. “The same
ship delivered explosives used to blow up a government building in New Delhi
six months ago. Still worried about civilians?”
                 “Yeah.
I am,” said Zen.
                 “We’ll
need a force briefing before we deploy.” Dog told Jed.
                 “Do
we operate out of Guam?” asked Major Alou, referring to the air base on the
island. “Anderson?”
                 “We’d
prefer not to, due to the nature of the mission,” said Jed. “We’d prefer a
sanitized site not connected to USPACCOM or any present operation.”
                 “Deniable,”
added Stoner.
                 “I’ve
already checked into possible sites for a secure forward base,” continued Jed.
“We have a site in the Philippines away from, uh, away from the population
centers and sea lanes. It’s actually an old airstrip, pretty long. Just needs
to be, um, tidied up a little. Remembering what you did in Turkey, I thought—”
                 “You
want us to blow up another mountain?” Danny asked with a laugh.
                 “That
won’t be necessary this time.”
                 “I
want to drive one of the bulldozers,” said Breanna.
                 Half
of the room laughed.
                 The
other half said, “Me too.”
                 “I
want to be in one of the Megafortresses,” said Breanna as the laughter died.
                 “You
have a heavy schedule with the UMB,” Dog said, surprised that she had
volunteered.
                 “There’s
only one flight test planned over the next seven or eight days,” said Bree.
                 “This
could easily last longer,” said Jed. “I’d be thinking in, uh, the time frame of
two or three months, at least until tensions die down.”
                 “That’s
the case, you really need me. You won’t have enough trained Megafortress pilots
unless you rotate in and out,” said Breanna, looking at Alou.
                 “She’s
right, Colonel. We could work around her schedule. Actually, if this lasts any
length of time, we’ll have to work around a lot of schedules.”
                 “All
right. Map out plans for a deployment,” said Dog. “I want planes over the area
twenty-four hours from now, and I want them landing at that Philippines base
when their shift is done.”

  Chapter
3
  Ghosts in the Jungle
                 Aboard Quicksilver, above the South China
Sea
                 August
23, 1997, 1100 local (August 22, 1997, 2000 Dreamland
                 Until
you actually did it, patrolling the ocean sounded like the sort of easygoing
assignment a pilot and crew could do with their eyes closed. Especially a crew
like the one aboard Quicksilver. Breanna Stockard had flown the Megafortress
platform for so long, the plane and its complicated systems seemed to have grafted
themselves onto her body, and vice versa. Chris Ferris, her copilot, had been
with the program nearly as long, and had worked with Breanna through all of
Whiplash’s important deployments. The newcomer on the crew, Torbin Dolk , had proved his worth in Iran, and even he seemed tied
into the crew’s shared ESP. they took turns sleeping on the long flight to
South Asia, and while they couldn’t quite be called bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed, they were nonetheless ready when they finally began their
surveillance track.
                 Thirty
minutes later, they were bored stiff, butts dragging lower than the troughs in
the waves. Even Breanna had to fight to keep her attention focused on the
mission and the plane she was flying.
                 All
of the Dreamland Megafortresses were hand-built from older B-52’s. All had
their own