Death Orbit (18 page)

“Everything is wrong,” said the third transmission from Flight 19.5’s radioman. “Everything is strange. We are not sure of any direction. Even the ocean doesn’t look as it should.”

At this moment, another UA aircraft was landing at Banana River. Its pilot happened to be a friend of Charles, the Flight 19.5 flight leader, and he’d overheard the Sabre jets’ trouble calls.

Breaking in on the unscrambled line, this pilot radioed a message directly to Charles. “Give me your altitude,” he said. “I’ll fly south and meet you…”

This should have been a welcome message for Charles and the Sabre jets, yet it was not answered for five minutes. When the helpful UA pilot, who was presently flying in a C-130 cargo plane, sent the message again, a person that many people would come to believe was Charles himself came on the line. He said: “Don’t come after me. They look like…”

Then there was nothing but silence.

By this time, 6:40
A.M.
, the KSC controllers had notified UA command of the problem with Flight 19.5. When apprised of the peculiar situation, the first thought in many minds was that the radio transmissions were actually coming from an enemy source, in an effort to have the UA reveal its coding procedures. This was a long shot, though—how would the Cult or any other potential enemy know exactly where and when the Sabres were going or that the UA would fall for such an obvious ploy, unless there was an enemy spy at the space complex, a highly unlikely possibility. And if a spy
was
the culprit and the enemy
had
penetrated the UA’s multilevel security apparatus, then learning something like the standard combat mission radio codes would seem like small potatoes.

What was happening with Flight 19.5?

The last transmission from the Sabre jets came at 6:53
A.M.
, less than an hour after they took off. The tapes revealed the voice of Lieutenant Charles, apparently speaking to the other pilots in the flight.

“All planes close up tight,” Charles was heard saying. “If we don’t see landfall in thirty minutes, we’ll be forced to ditch…”

This message set off bells at KSC control tower. Had the level-headed Charles suddenly gone mad? Ditch six of the most valuable jets in the UA arsenal? For what?

The controllers knew immediately that some kind of rescue plane had to be dispatched and had to reach the lost Sabre flight. Just the plane to do such a job and do it quickly was anchored off the Banana River station. It was the jet-powered Seamaster flying boat, all fixed and patched after its scary encounter off the Florida Keys.

But who would fly it? This mission called for someone who could gather a crew, get out to where the Sabres supposedly were, and lead them back to base safely, and under the highest security conditions. And do it damn quickly.

That’s why when the KSC controllers asked UA command who they should send, the UA command suggested they sent Lieutenant Stan Yastrewski, the guy everyone called “Yaz.”

He was asleep when he got the call.

Having spent the night before flying shotgun in the huge Galaxy gunship and then all of the next day in post-battle debriefings, Yaz was worn out by the time his head hit the pillow on the bunk in his VAB office just a few short hours before.

The buzzing of the radiophone next to his cot intermingled with a dream he was having about watching huge waves hit a beach he’d seen many times before but whose name he could not remember. The waves were landing with mighty crashing sounds until one came in and buzzed when it hit. Then another. And another.

By the fourth one, Yaz was aware and fumbling for the phone.

It was General Jones himself on the other end. His voice sounded tired and weary—he too had been up for the past 48 hours, once again trying to stage-manage the UAAF’s latest crisis. He quickly explained the situation to Yaz, who, while still drowsy, thought for a moment that he was back in his dream. Six Sabre jets missing? Only 50 miles or so offshore? Can’t get them on the radio? Why weren’t they listening?

“Our rear ends are up to it, as usual,” Jones told him. “And you’re my best go-to guy. So get a crew together, get that flying ocean liner in the air, and find those guys—quick.”

And with that, Jones hung up.

It took Yaz exactly two minutes to climb into his flight uniform, call over to base ops, and get an air crew together. He spent another three driving like a wild man over to Banana River, where the immense Seamaster was waiting.

Six minutes after getting the call from Jones, he was standing on the dock next to the huge seaplane. Yaz was somewhat familiar with the big amphibian; he’d flown on one of its sea trials after it had been refurbished the first time. It really was a beautiful airplane, the early morning sun gleaming off its dark blue paint job as it bobbed in the choppy waters of the Banana estuary. There were many red-paint patches apparent on the fuselage, though, and especially up and down the gangling wings and around the cockpit. The Seamaster had survived its encounter down around the Florida Keys several days before in relatively good shape, considering its advanced age. However, Yaz could not get over the impression that the red paint patches looked like gunshot wounds that were still bleeding.

The crew was already aboard when he climbed through the top hatch. It would be a skeleton one at that. Just a pilot—a guy named Burns—a navigator and flight engineer. All high-tech weaponry had been removed from its flight compartment, most of it had been destroyed in the battle off the Keys. This made the cockpit seem almost too big, too comfortable. A small but visible swatch of dried blood was still evident on the flight deck floor, a reminder that one man had died and two were seriously injured on-board the plane just a few days ago.

The Seamaster’s jets were already purring when Yaz appeared; Burns had the big plane taxiing out onto the Banana even before Yaz climbed into the copilot’s chair. The seat was obviously older and less comfortable than the one he’d ridden for seven hours the night before inside the Galaxy gunship. Hopefully he wouldn’t be strapped into this one quite so long.

Burns had the seaplane up to speed and off the water within 30 seconds, a remarkable job, considering he’d only flown the big jet once before, and that had been several months ago. The huge airplane bullied its way into the sky, its long wings flapping with amazing flexibility as it clawed for altitude, its shoulder-mounted engines screaming.

No sooner were they up when Burns put the plane on its left wing and pointed the nose out toward the ocean. A quick radio report back to base ops told the air controllers that everything aboard the big plane was working perfectly.

It was now 7:05
A.M.

In addition to the huge Seamaster, there were several seaborne UAAF units looking for the missing Sabre jets.

One of these was the USS
Marconi,
a counterintelligence radio ship transmitting down to the troubled UA Florida area from the Chesapeake Bay. Actually a converted fishing trawler with a reinforced hull and an elevated superstructure, the
Marconi
was bristling with radio antennas, satellite dishes, and deck weapons, including a Harpoon antiship missile launcher. The
Marconi
was in essence a spy vessel. Its communications gear could not only send strong, clear messages from anywhere in the world, it could also listen in on radio transmissions, pull down unfriendly TV broadcasts, and, under the right conditions, decipher scrambled enemy codes on the spot. Its crew of 34 were highly trained, highly motivated members of the SSSQ, the UAAF’s version of the old Navy SEALS. Some of them had been involved in combat situations dating back to the UA’s wars against the Mid-Aks and the supercriminals of the Family of Chicago. They were considered to be among the best of the many elite units within the UAAF.

Strange, then, what happened when they joined the search for the lost Sabre flight.

The
Marconi
was about 62 miles off the coast of Cape Canaveral when the Sabre jets made their last message to the Kennedy Space Center air controllers. The spy ship was in the middle of an extensive equipment test-out before moving further south to the Florida Keys and beyond. All its radio receivers and sending gear were in perfect working condition. All of the crew were on duty and at their posts.

Because the
Marconi
was the UA vessel closest to the last reported position of the Sabre jets, the KSC air controllers made contact with the spy ship and asked for its help in locating the wayward airplanes. Had the
Marconi
seen the Sabre jets? Yes, they had. The six airplanes had shown up on the ship’s air-search radar about 15 minutes before. At that time they were heading east, further out into the Atlantic, rather than south, as they were supposed to. Had they made radio contact with the airplanes? Again, they had. The
Marconi
had sent a routine radio check to the jet fighters, scrambled and coded, and the flight leader had returned the call.

He’d reported all was proceeding normally.

This was baffling to the KSC controllers because when the
Marconi
said they’d talked with the Sabre jets, the six airplanes had already been “missing” for nearly 10 minutes, when they’d had their last radio transmission to the KSC controllers. The Sabre jets were obviously off course, yet they told the spy ship that everything was fine.

Even more puzzling was a radio transmission the
Marconi
intercepted about five minutes after their encounter with the Sabre jets. It was an order from the Sabre jet flight leader to his men to “arm all weapons immediately, form up, and descend gradually toward the target…”

So now a new twist had been added. The Sabre jets had spotted something. Something big. Big enough for the flight leader to get his men to quickly arm all weapons and go into an attack mode.

But what could it have been? What would cause the Sabre jet flight leader to do all this without even attempting to call someone, whether it be the controllers at KSC or anyone else, to report his actions?

There really was only one earthly explanation: the Sabre jets had spotted one of the Cult battleships.

It was now 7:25
A.M.

At the request of the Kennedy Space Center air controllers, the USS
Marconi
began steaming east toward the last reported position of the Sabre jets. Meanwhile, the huge Seamaster flying boat was heading for the same area at full throttle. The KSC controllers provided a secure channel through which the aerial amphibian and the spy ship could communicate. They’d made their first contact at 7:22.

The Seamaster was still about 30 miles west of the
Marconi
when Yaz reached the spy ship’s communications officer. After double-scrambling the line, the ship officer told Yaz about the last report from the Sabre jets, and how the aircraft had been ordered into an attack mode by their flight leader. The theory that the Sabres had spotted a Cult battleship was discussed briefly. Yaz was convinced that was exactly what had happened; the
Marconi’s
communications officer wasn’t so sure. If something as immense as a battleship was within 100 miles of the
Marconi,
surely its powerful, over-the-horizon, sea-search radar would have picked it up. At the very least, something in its array of sound detection gear would have been tripped. These were devices that could “hear” an unamplified conversation from 250 miles away under the right conditions. Something as noisy as a 55,000-ton battleship would certainly have been detected.

But nothing had been.

By 7:40, the Seamaster was in sight of the
Marconi.
Many members of the crew took a moment to go up on deck to see the huge flying jet boat pass over. Even among to the SSSQ combat veterans aboard the spy ship, this was a first. To a man they stood, mouths open in awe, as the immense aircraft streaked over, engines roaring, not 500 feet above them. It wagged its wings once and continued east into a thick cloud bank that had suddenly materialized out on the horizon.

It would be the last time anyone would see the huge Seamaster again.

What would be the last series of radio calls from the flying boat reached the
Marconi
at 7:55, about 15 minutes after the Seamaster had passed over the ship.

The big seajet had reached the area where the Sabre jets had reportedly been preparing to attack something on the surface. After the Seamaster had broken through some low weather, they too reported spotting a huge vessel.

“It’s enormous,” came the report from the flying boat. “It’s got to be at least nine hundred feet long. Twin stacks. With a lot of rigging on the foredeck and midships…”

The description sent the radio men aboard the
Marconi
scrambling through the computer files. The spy ship had a profile of just about every ship roaming the seas these days, including all the Cult battleships and attending vessels. But the report of this ship spotted by the Seamaster must have been in error, at least with regard to its length. Nine hundred feet was much too long for any current vessel; even the largest Cult battleship was only about 750 feet long. And what was all that about rigging and twin stacks?

“We’re in orbit at fifteen hundred feet above this vessel now,” came the next report from the Seamaster. “Previous length estimate might be a little off, but this ship is very large. Very long, with what looks to be steel girder scaffolding running about two-thirds its length. It has twin stacks far aft and an odd superstructure far forward. It appears to be very old…”

By this time, the intelligence officers aboard the
Marconi
had already completed a speed search of their computer files and had found nothing anywhere near the description they were hearing from the Seamaster. Baffled, they began a manual search, typing in bits of information they were receiving from the flying boat and hoping that their powerful computer would soon find a match. But after two minutes of this, still nothing came up.

“This vessel is heading north at twenty-two knots,” came the third radio message from the Seamaster. “We have attempted radio contact with it but have received no reply. We cannot see any evidence of Flight nineteen-point-five. No oil slicks, no sign that any combat took place here. We are continuing to circle and maintain observation…”