Retribution by Dale Brown Page A

he had a hard time hearing it over the surf.
    “Bree, we have to get to land. Come on, honey.”
    Not daring to look at her face, not daring to take off her helmet, he reached into the raft, looped one hand gently around her torso, and began pulling her toward shore.
    Dreamland
1112, 15 January 1998
(0043, 16 January, Karachi)
    J ENNIFER G LEASON FOLDED HER ARMS AS THE ARGUMENT continued over which weapons to ship to Diego Garcia.
    “Anaconda missiles give the Megafortress pilots a long-range antiaircraft option,” said Terrence Calder, the Air Force major who headed the AIM-154 program. “In addition, they can use them against land targets if necessary. You don’t have to worry about the mix of Harpoons and AMRAAM-pluses. It’s win-win.”
    “Not if the guidance systems don’t function perfectly,” said Ray Rubeo.
    “They’ve passed most of the tests.”
    “There’s that word ‘most’ again,” said Rubeo. “Most means not all, which means not ready.”
    There was no question that the Anaconda AIM-154 long-range strike missile was an excellent weapon. A scramjet-powered hypersonic missile, it had a lethal range of nearly two hundred miles. It could ride a radar beam to its target, use its own onboard radar, or rely on an infrared seeker in its nose to hit home. For long-range or hypersonic engagements, the missile’s main solid motor boosted it to over Mach 3. As it reached that speed, the missile deployed air scoops, turning the motor chamber into a ramjet, boosting speed to Mach 5. Its warhead could be fashioned from either conventional high explosives or a more powerful thermium nitrate, which was especially useful against ground targets.
    The only knock against the missile was the fact that, as Rubeo pointed out, it still had not passed all of its tests. Like any new weapons system, the Anaconda had a few teething problems; in this case, they were primarily related to the target acquisition system and its interface with the Megafortresses’ computer systems, which Jennifer had been helping fix for the past few weeks.
    “I think we will err on the side of capability,” said Major Catsman finally. “We’ll ship the missiles to Diego Garcia and let Colonel Bastian make the final call.”
    Rubeo frowned. A smug look appeared on Calder’s face.
    Catsman looked frustrated. Unlike Colonel Bastian, who sometimes went out of his way to encourage dissent on military options, the major seemed frazzled by the differing opinions on how to help reinforce the Dreamland team. Since Colonel Bastian would have the final say on Diego Garcia, whether to send the Anaconda missiles or not was more a personnel issue than a weapons decision since sending the weapons would necessitate sending maintainers and techies to deal with them.
    The real problem was the fact that only one radar-equipped Megafortress was available for deployment, and there was no answer to that; Catsman knew she couldn’t flip a switch and speed up the refurbishment process. The EB-52 Cheli, just barely out of final flight testing, was already en route to Diego Garcia and would arrive shortly. The next radar version of the Megafortress wasn’t even due to get to Dreamlandfrom the refurbishment works for another month.
    At least they had solved the problem of the two warheads that were missing from the projections. Rubeo found an error in the modifications that had been used to adapt the tracking program to its present use. But even that didn’t satisfy the scientist. Rather than accepting congratulations gracefully, he answered with the question: “And what else did we miss?
    “The new Flighthawks will give the Megafortresses better capability,” said Rubeo, still not done arguing his point. “That’s all they need.”
    “No, Ray, the matter is settled,” said Catsman. “We’ll send the Anacondas. And the new Flighthawks.”
    Similar in appearance to the original U/MF-3, the U/MF-3D had more powerful engines and a control system that would