© Batz Goodfortune / All Electric Kitchen 1998
Shameless plug for my band of which you should you should all go out and buy my
CD
"Look I'm sorry honey. I have to do this," said Philip into the phone. He was sitting in the airbase captain's office, with the door shut, speaking to his wife. "Hopefully I won't be more than a few days... Yes alright then. Perhaps a week including travelling time... Yes Ok I'll bring back a Koala for Claudia."
He emerged from the office looking worse than he did with the pain in his groin alone. Everyone knew instinctively to give him a wide berth but someone had to tell him it was time. A quick briefing then he was suited up and on his way out to the tarmac. Helmet in hand. Before recent events he was looking forward to his ride in a Grippen but now he was apprehensive.
He was joined by Virginia Lieve on the way out to the tarmac.
"Don't worry. You'll be fine once we get in the air" she said. Philip didn't react he just kept on walking. Still sulking beyond his control.
Ahead of him were 6 other similarly suited figures. Beyond that were the shapes of at least 7 Grippen aircraft being attended to by countless ground support staff. The flight suited figures were gathered round Virginia Lake who was giving them some final words. Shouting to project her voice over the noise. They walked into ear shot.
"Now the components and materials on this flight are not only important to this mission but also to the three experimental prototypes being assembled in Australia. We don't know how they got the last transport but we hope they won't suspect a seemingly ordinary 747. Although an escort of fighter jets would be a dead give away. I don't have to remind you of how important this is. Not to mention that a lot of your friends, including me, are going to be on that plane and I'd appreciate arriving in one piece if at all possible. Now. Are there any questions?"
"What about Philip? Who gets to baby sit him?" asked Stephanie Vourhause.
"I'll do it," said Jerry Hanniford.
"Yes I know you're the sensible one Jerry but you're also one of our top guns in a fighter. I don't want Philip getting involved in a scrape unless he absolutely has to." Lake looked back and forth and then zeroed in on Lieve who was already standing next to Philip.
"What about you Virginia? You've probably got the least time clocked up in these things."
Virginia Lieve nodded. She knew her forte was in space. She had a feel for space craft which was rare. Which was why she was on this mission with Philip. So did Hanniford and Vourhause. But unlike Lieve, they had extensive combat fighter experience as well. They had started out as fighter pilots, augmenting the sky-diver fleet. Virginia Lieve had trained as a fighter pilot simply to qualify for space where she excelled. Hanniford and Vourhause had proved themselves able to fly anything that could fly but they weren't quite as skilled at intercepting UFOs in space and subsequently landed all the special jobs. Philip wasn't surprised to see that the other 4 pilots were Amelia, Anny, Chris and Suzanne. He wondered about Yuchtar but no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he saw her walking across the tarmac, flight suited with her helmet in her hand. He wondered if she would be piloting too but remembered someone mentioning she was from ground forces and in training herself. As if to answer his question Virginia Lake said: "Ah. Yuchtar. I take it you'll be joining Suzanne?"
Yuchtar growled a little.
Philip looked quizzical at Yuchtar's reaction and then at Lieve. Lieve lent into him and said privately: "Yuchtar's a pretty good pilot herself. I don't think she thinks it fair she should have to ride in the back seat."
Philip nodded.
"OK then. That's it," said Virginia Lake. "Off you go then. We leave in however long it takes to finish fuelling and crank the engines over."
The crowd began to disperse. Philip following Lieve out toward the Grippens like a lost puppy. His pain still with him. He didn't know how he would survive the long trip to Australia but he wasn't about to let it show.
"Don't we have a flight plan?" asked Philip.
"We don't need one." shouted back Lieve turning to face him and walking backward a little. "It'll come up on the computer before we take off. that way, if we don't know, there's less chance the UFOs are going to know. But my guess is that we'll hit Germany and refuel there. We've got long range tanks but they're not fantastic. The jumbo can make it in one hop but we'll either need to stop and refuel or refuel by tanker in the air. We'll decide all that on route. Standard SHADO procedure."
Her explanation gave Philip time to catch up. He walked along side."So what if I wanna go to the toilet or something?"
Lieve laughed. "Well you'll get a chance if we land somewhere but I'm pretty sure there'll be a long stretch somewhere over the Pacific. I hope you didn't have too many coffees this morning."
"No none," said Philip
"Well that 'll be a help." She stopped and turned to face him. She slightly unzipped her flight suit and reached inside. Pulling out two capsule shaped tablets she handed them to him.
"Here. These 'll make you retain water. Not so you'll burst but enough to get you through. Just remember, you'll be pissing like a fountain in 24 hours time." He took them from her but then another thought crossed his mind.
"What do you do up in space?"
"Ah! Well that depends. Depending on what they have in store for us when we get there, the new space craft might be fitted with Zero G toilets. But often than not you have to use a catheter built into the space suit."
Philip's mind wanted to ask for more details but his instinct knew he would be better off not knowing the finer details for the time being. He popped the tablets in his mouth, swallowed and continued toward the planes. Some of the noise had subsided. The sounds of fuel pumping finished and the service vehicles had begun to move off. Only the tanker servicing the 747 remained pumping. None of the engines had started yet. He expected to see a generator truck roll out to start the Grippens but the service teams were also dissipating. A few remained to help the pilots aboard and attend to any last minute requirements they might have, everyone else had left or were leaving. He saw an open transport vehicle heading out to the 747. It had a number of people sitting aboard it. They rolled up at the end of the ladder protruding from the side of the plane and began to step off. Grabbing their belongings and heading up the ladder.
Lieve selected an aircraft and waited patiently by its side with him. He watched as the 747s cargo port was closed up and the technicians responsible drove off in their service vehicle. He noticed the fuelling crew unhooking the fuel hoses from their receptacles on the side of the 747 and they too were clearing out. The tarmac was becoming rapidly more deserted and quieter. Only the generator truck remained with its umbilical attached. And as the fuel truck pulled away and off, the generator was the only major noise blowing on the light breeze. A shiver went up Philip's spine as the eeriness of the environment ate into his brain.
One of the ground support staff came to speak to Lieve. Philip didn't hear what they said but he saw Lieve nod and move away from him with the man He thought she was just moving to another part of the plane but she began walking away. She didn't leave any instructions for him so he stood where he was and made his own inspection of the Grippen. He saw there were 8 slender missiles. 4 under each of the main wings. There were also a pair of weapons pods. They looked like smaller version of the multi-vented pods he had seen on the sky-diver models. He looked into the hole of one of the ports trying to see the tip of the projectile that it contained.
"Looking for something?" came a calm female voice behind him. It was Virginia Lake and she almost startled him. He lightly banged his head on the wing as he stood up quickly.
"Careful. You might break the plane." she said smiling. "Sorry to disturb your expert inspection but Adrianna Pilgrim just informed me there's a little snag."
"Oh? How so?" said Philip trying to regain his dignity once again.
"Apparently you have a little protection clause built into your contract with SHADO." Philip stared at her almost blankly. It was common knowledge among most of SHADO's senior staff as to the details of how a lowly musician with a tendency to hack computer communications became a reluctant member of SHADO. She continued.
"If ever you were thinking of removing that safe guard, now would be the time. Adrianna, she's a love but she's concerned should anything happen to you up there. Space is a dangerous place you know."
"So what you're saying is that you want me to remove any protection I have that would prevent you from just up and killing me? Is that it?"
"Yup. That's about the size of it. Look if you think we're going to hurt you now that you've become an asset to us, I think you need to realize we're not the CIA or MI6 or anything."
"No! SHADO is quite possibly worse."
"So you still don't trust us. After all we've done for you. You ungrateful sod." Philip laughed at her as she became angry.
"What are you laughing at?" she said with her fists clenched against her hips.
"I already have."
"What?"
"I already have removed the safety clause."
"Oh" said Virginia Lake as she began to smile involuntarily. Realizing she had fallen into his trap.
"Yeah, I set the wheels in motion not long after I joined. But there's a catch."
"What catch?"
"Well the problem is that because of the elaborate scheme I worked out to protect myself, it could take anywhere from 6 months to a year before it all filters out of the system. There's no way of knowing exactly. Sorry. I would have done it faster if I could have."
"Hmm." she said rubbing her eyes. Then she looked him in the eyes as her own narrowed. "So you do trust us then?"
"It's not even that," said Philip. "As soon as I realized this thing was a lot bigger than just me. I mean I'm just a musician with a few skills that perhaps SHADO didn't know it needed, but this is really important. And it beats sitting round knowing that you guys are out there fighting to protect the planet and there's nothing I can do to help. At least this way I'm doing something. And I have my daughter to think of."
"So why didn't you just join SHADO in the first place? Like as soon as you knew. "
"What? You mean without making SHADO set me up and all that? I probably would have. But you know this was so damn fantastic that I didn't really believe any of it till it was in my face. Till it became personal. And even then it took me about a month before I could come to terms with the scale of the thing. And by then all the offers and sweeteners had been placed in front of me. I was flattered I guess. And there was the money and all that. But also there was my family. I couldn't just up and leave my job and my love for music and suddenly join the military could I?"
Virginia Lake started to speak again but Philip cut her off. "Look I realize I'm probably one of the luckiest guys in the world right now. I've got a wife who I love very much. Despite what happened last night. And I know she loves me. And I have a beautiful daughter who thrills me to bits. And I have my music, and I can help other musicians. And to top it all off I can contribute to an effort to help safe the earth. And all you people are just crazy enough that I can love you all too. So right now, the only thing I really want to protect besides the earth, is the way things are for me right now. I don't wanna die. But I don't want my daughter, or anyone else's daughter to be abducted by aliens and have her cut up for spare parts. And all the other shit they do to people. So I feel like I'm doing something for her. But she'll probably never know."
"Nice speech Mr Salisman. I'm touched. No truly. I'm touched. But we still have a problem. Just between you and me though, you've done one other thing within SHADO."
"Oh and what's that?"
"You've made yourself indispensable. We don't need you to get dead up there either. Look. I shouldn't tell you this. No-one outside the upper command is supposed to know this stuff, but in the 3 months you've been with us, you've managed to climb your way to the top of the most crucial staff list. "
"The what?"
"We maintain a list. It's a list of people who we need to keep out of harm's way if possible."
"I spoze you and Commander Pilgrim are at the top?"
"Surprisingly, no. The people at the top of that list are scientists, specialists and experts. Ultimately if something happened to Adrianna or myself, we could be replaced. Well... Perhaps Adrianna could." She smiled a sarcastic smile before continuing. "You're number 7 on the list. I'd guess you would still be about 49 without your safety clause in place. You were right when you said you had skills that SHADO didn't know you it needed."
Lieve approached.
"Anyway Philip my dear. We're just going to have to take good care of you. We need you. But we need you up there to sort out that space junk."
"Is there a problem?" asked Lieve.
"I hope not," said Colonel Lake. "You just remember to take good care of this boy. You're carrying valuable cargo here." She smiled at them both and headed off across the tarmac toward the waiting jumbo.
"What was that all about?" asked Lieve.
"I'm not entirely sure," said Philip. "I think she was trying to tell me something."
"Never mind. There's been a slight change of plan."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. We've gotta wait for a decoy. Actually several. We've got two Antinovs en route and we're going to follow another re-fuelling 747 out of here. Well actually, you and me, we're gonna stick with that 747 over there but the other's are going to act like they're protecting the fuel plane. They won't be more than 5 minutes away from us but they hope it will be enough to fool the aliens. And we'll have a ready supply of fuel all the way there."
"So no stops then?"
"Oh we might stop in Japan for a hamburger and some fries." She smiled briefly then proceeded to inspect her air craft. Philip shook his head.
She was busy inspecting the rear undercarriage when Philip noticed the Ground support assistant returning. He was juggling 3 sliver coloured aluminium flight cases. All different shapes. One looked like an industrial brief case. Another just a square box, whilst the third was thing and flat and seemed to hinge half way down its lid.
"Err Virginia!" prompted Philip.
Lieve looked up from where she was squatting underneath the fuselage but all she saw was a pair of feet and lower limbs. She limboed out from underneath the aircraft using the wheels as stability to greet the flight assistant.
"Oh good you got 'em did you. Thanks."
"I hope that's all you need," said the ground support man.
"Yeah, should be. Just put 'em down there and I'll stow them in a minute."
"Err you might only have about a minute," said the ground support man in a slightly more urgent tone. "the fueller is due to pass overhead any minute to pick up its escort. You'd better get your head-sets on. and be ready."
"Oh hell," said Lieve. "Ok I'm on the case I've gotta finish pre-flight and then we'll be ready to stoke the boiler."
"Would it help If I got in now?" said Philip with a new sense of urgency that made him temporarily forget his pain. Almost hopping from one foot to the other in readiness.
"No you can't get in yet until I've stowed all that stuff. Grippens are pretty spacious for a fighter jet but they're not that spacious."
Philip focused in on the cases laying on the ground. He knelt beside them and picked them over.
"What is this stuff?" He picked up the flat case and noticed it had a more elaborate catch on the front keeping it closed than did the others. Whilst the others were almost standard flight cases, this was an extruded aluminium shell. Virginia looked up and saw what he was holding.
"Oh that. That's yours. It's a lap-top. You can jack that into the plane's comms system. They thought you might like to study up on the latest UFO attack whilst en route. You can also plug into the database and get any other information you might need. Think of it as a kinda Internet in the sky."
"Neat," said Philip trying to subdue his enthusiasm. "What's in this one?" he said pointing at the smaller of the two remaining flight cases.
"Err that's some gadgets we thought you might need," said the ground support assistant.
"And this?" said Philip now pointing to the large case. The most ominous of appearance of all the cases. The ground support man let out a brief laugh.
"Oh that," said Lieve swinging her way under ne noise of the aircraft to snatch it up. "That my dear boy is our lunch!"
Philip seemed happy to inspect his new toy whilst Lieve made the last of her routine, pre-flight inspection of the aircraft. Philip looked up and noticed a cigar wielding female figure darting across the tarmac toward him, slightly silhouetted against the glair now reflecting from the ground. He squinted and saw it was Stephanie Vourhause and she was puffing on one of her trade-mark cigars. He expected her to run up to speak to Lieve but she ran straight to him. He stood to great her still holding his lap-top.
"Hi" she said feigning being out of breath. "Look I just wanted to say. Look I know I've given you a hard time 'n' everything but I really don't mean it."
"Yeah,I know," said Philip. Mildly coy about his response.
"Here. Have a cigar." she said as she handed one to him from one of the top pockets in her flight suit.
"I don't smoke." he said not understanding the gesture.
"I know but I'd like you to take it with you. For luck. I'd feel better if something from me was travelling with you and it was all I could thing of on the spare of the moment."
Philip nodded and accepted the cigar.
"I'll try and keep it safe."
She removed the half finished cigar from her mouth and expelled the remaining smoke. Then she grabbed him and kissed him. Nearly causing him to pass out with her cigar breath. She released him, smiled and ran off to her own plane. The ground support man who was still standing with him raised his eyebrows.
"Don't say a word." ordered Philip. "Just don't say a word."
"Don't say a word about what? said Lieve as she climbed down from the short ladder reaching up to the cockpit. But her question went un-answered as the first of the Grippens began to emanate noise. A slow, low pitched whine which began to build in both pitch and volume. She darted back up the ladder and grabbed her head-set out of the cockpit and jammed it on her head. Then another Grippen began to wind up. And another, till all 6 Grippens were beginning to spring to life. Philip looked around him as he heard the pitch of the generator truck by the 747 pitch down as if a great load had been placed on it. He noticed the intake fans on the two engines within his visual range beginning to turn slowly. Soon there came a deep and building rumbler from their direction.
"Time to go." shouted Lieve. "Hand me those flight cases."
Philip sprang into life but he didn't know which one to hand her. He instinctively handed her the one he was holding but she shook her head and pointed to the big one. He placed his lap-top on the ground and grasped the large one in both hands. He handed it to her and went back for the smaller one. By the time he turned with it she was ready for it. He didn't know where she had stashed the large case but he reasoned that if it was really their lunch, then she'd be wanting access to it. Probably in the air. And since he was a passenger, he would probably be responsible for it.
He passed it up to her and she grabbed it. Then she had second thoughts. She rested it on the tiny forward wings which jutted out just below the cockpit. She dipped her head back inside behind the front seat and messed with something. Philip Couldn't see what. The first of the Grippens was up to speed. Its engine began to make a high pitched scream typical of a jet engine. Then it boomed into a roar as the engine ignited. Another Grippen came up to speed and caused deafening harmonics as its pitch beat with that of the first Grippen. Then it too ignited and began to roar.
Philip wasn't sure if he was going to be sick or not. He could smell the burning kerosine and the noise was causing his stomach to churn. The 747 was more graceful. It too was coming up to speed but its roar was coming on gradually. Even though it was already making enough noise to obscure the noise of the generator truck which had previously been the single most noisy thing on the tarmac.
He turned back to see Lieve jump from the ladder. She beckoned him to Get up into the cockpit. His heart missed a beat as his pulse quickened. The excitement almost overcame him for a second. As he climbed up the ladder he realized he had left his lap-top on the ground. He hesitated for a moment but noticed the ground support man had already grabbed it in readiness.
Philip placed one hand on the small wing but noticed how flexible it was. He felt if he put any weight on it, it might break off. He changed his grip to the edge of the cockpit and swung one leg over. He wasn't quite sure where he should put his boot but planted it in the middle of the thick padded seat. He noticed he had a joy stick on either side of his seat and then noticed there was an identical pair up front. He hesitated as he saw the array of controls and displays surrounding his seat. He hoped he wouldn't have to use any of them. They were too confusing. There were a few flashing lights with legends on them. As his eyes darted back and forth he couldn't read them but he wondered if they were important.
He swung his other leg over and climbed in. Slipping unceremoniously down into the seat. Lieve's head bobbed over the side to him.
"This is where the boxes are." She shouted and flipped over a control panel to one side of him. Hidden behind it was a cargo space big enough for the large box.
"The other box is on the other side. You can stow your lap-top there as well." She pointed to the catch that allowed the panel to open then she locked it back in place again. Philip could see a small chrome ring which was obviously the mechanism but he wasn't sure how it worked. He didn't have time to figure it out before Lieve handed him the lap-top. Almost dumping it in his lap after having it passed up to him by the ground support man.
Next came his helmet. Its oxygen mask attached to one side with its bundle of tubes and wires. She placed it on his head and released the cable ties holding the bundle together. She pointed to a panel which had 2 sockets on it. He could see that they mated with the two ends he had leading from his helmet. Just as he was wondering if he should plug them in she was gone again. Suddenly he was alone up there but it gave him time to jack himself in, tighten the straps on his helmet and figure out how to open the cargo compartment. He stowed his lap-top and then surveyed his surroundings.
He saw a number of large grey knobs on the panel where he plugged his helmet into. One read "Oxygen". Another read "Volume". He recognised the rest as part of a communications system but he didn't dare mess with the controls. He couldn't work out why he needed to be plugged in when SHADO's standard head-sets were small radio transmitters themselves and required no wires. But as he turned the volume knob up he could hear the conversations of the others with air traffic control.
"GP 2 you are clear to taxi." came the slightly distorted voice.
He looked out and saw that one of the Grippens was beginning to move. Then he realized that the first of the Grippens had already moved off. He looked over his shoulder slightly and saw it making its way out to the runway.
"GP 3. Tower. We're ready for taxi." came a distorted woman's voice which seemed to have a slightly Scottish, American accent. Also because she said "We're" and not "I'm", suggesting that she had Yuchtar aboard. But the voice was very distorted to his ears.
He could see the flame glowing inside the engines of the third Grippen as it turned ahead of him. He could have sworn he felt the heat from it also but he couldn't figure how since it was actually a long way away from him.
A short time later the third Grippen reached the runway and he heard the voice of air traffic control again.
"Ok Wing one. You're clear for take off."
"Roger that." came another female voice. Shortly followed by the sound of three Grippens. Their engines roaring loud enough to be head distinctly over all the other engine noise on the tarmac . The he saw them. They darted out from behind the jumbo. They slipped along the runway into the distance like three darts in formation. Just as he feared they would never lift off and run out of runway, they took to the sky as one. The roar of their engines seemed an almost beautiful sound to him now as they phased and flanged into the distance until they were nothing more than specks against the mildly overcast sky.
"GP4, 5 and 6, you are clear to taxi." Came the voice of air traffic control and the whole process began again as the next 3 Grippens moved off. At about the same time Lieve climbed back up the ladder. She placed one of her boots almost in front of him and then another on the small wing he had been afraid to place his weight on. He noticed it flex slightly but also noticed that Lieve didn't seem to care too much about it. She swung her foot into her own seat in the front of the cockpit and then slid down into it.
Next it was the turn of the ground support man's face to pop up in front of him. He handed Lieve her helmet and then climbed up one more rung on the ladder. Leaning over Philip he grabbed Philip's harness and presented it to him. Its central buckle bringing together two shoulder straps and a lap sash that when buckled together would hold him in place. But the ground support man kept pointing to Philip's groin which only served to remind him of how much it still hurt. Philip didn't understand what he was getting at but after a few more gestures he realized he was sitting on the groin strap. He realized that in an aircraft such as this he needed to be strapped in from all directions.. He lifted himself and felt between his legs. Finally producing the other strap which the Ground Support assistant dutifully buckled together and tightened. Philip winced slighter and then realized that he had better get use to it. As the plane tossed and rolled, he knew it would place pressure where he would rather there was none. He heard Lieve's voice in his headset.
"Are you alright back there? "
He answered her but she repeated.
"Hello. Are you alright back there Philip my love?" Then he realized he had to talk into his oxygen mask to be heard. He brought it to his mouth.
"Yup. I'm here. And buckled in."
"OK good. Now I still have to do the pre-flight diagnostics. It's generally only a formality but we're going to let the jumbo go first, Ok."
"Yup. Ok," said Philip. Feeling more confident but also apprehensive. Part of him wished he was on the jumbo instead. Even though he knew he's always wanted to right in a fighter jet. She explained to him how the communications system worked. How he could talk only to her over the intercom. Or he could talk to all the other planes in their convoy. And even talk to air traffic control if he wanted to. But she stressed it was only in case of emergency. He agreed the he shouldn't need nor want to talk to air traffic control.
He heard the mighty engines of the 747 cargo jet pitch up behind him and he knew it was beginning to taxi. He looked at his radio and realized it had automatically cut off his ability to hear air traffic but it didn't matter to him at this point. He couldn't turn his head enough to see the jumbo taxiing out to the runway but he heard it pitch up and then caught sight of it half way down the runway and lifting into the air. Then it too was gone and there was comparative silence.
"Why aren't we going?" he said to Lieve.
"Don' t worry we can catch up." she said.
He noticed some of his displays showing a check list of some kind. Nothing made too much sense to him but eventually she declared that everything had checked out. The ground support man's face appeared at the top of the ladder again and handed him a pair of gloves. Then another pair to Lieve up front. As Philip was trying to put them on, the hand of the ground support man extended to shake with his. He dropped on glove and shook the mans hand. He was wearing a reassuring smile. Then he retracted and gestured at the canopy. There was no handle and Philip didn't know what to do. There were in fact two canopy's one in front over Lieve and one over himself. The Ground support man once again lent in and gestured toward a large blue button on one of the panels located just in front of his left elbow, back from the joystick on that side.
"Once you're moving or thrust up, it will not allow you to open it again" he shouted. "So you can't accidentally open it when you're flying along or anything."
Philip nodded.
The man saluted him and then was gone. Philip pressed the button and closed the hatch. "I'm amazed these things don't need any ground support to start them up," said Philip over the intercom.
"Yeah, it's pretty neat eh!" said Lieve. They were originally designed in Sweden when there was a threat of European nuclear war. They can be started on a pair of tractor batteries. They start up slower than most jet fighters but you can land them in a field and re-fuel them with minimal ground support. They're supposed to be able to run on domestic Kerosine as well but I wouldn't like to put it to the test."
He felt a vibration through his seat. A motor in the back beginning to spin up the turbine that would ultimately be powered by combustion. He pressed the blue button and his hatch began to swing shut. It thudded as it closed and he heard two motors engage which seemed to lock it shut tight. Lieve's canopy was still open. he felt the whine build up through the plane. The shaft of the turbine spinning quite fast now. The sound of air rushing somewhere behind him.
"Pre-head on," said Lieve. He knew it was for real now and there was no backing out. The whine became a whistle and a short time later. Lieve said: "Ok here we go" and there was a boom from behind. He felt the plane kick from the inside as the combustion ignited within the engines. His heart began to thump hard within his chest as the reality of the situation set in. He checked everything again just to make sure he was buckled in. He checked his flight suit to see that his emergency marker beacon was still in its pocket where it should be.
He flipped the communications receiver back so that he could hear the control tower again.
"The sky is yours SG7. You're clear to taxi and take off when ever you're ready."
"Roger that," said Lieve
The roar built up behind him but it seemed surprisingly quiet considering he was virtually sitting on top of the engine it self. He saw one of his joy sticks move all by it self as Lieve adjusted her own joy stick up front.
"Is your joy stick moving?" she said.
"Yes it is," said Philip.
"You can disable that if it annoys you." she said. as the engine picked up a notch.
He thought about it and realized that he might bump it by accident. He looked at the controls immediately surrounding the joy stick's mounting and saw a switched marked "dual control."
"Is it the dual control switch?" he asked.
"Yes. Just flick it." He did so and the joy stick became spongy. Re-centring it self it became motionless. There was a slight jolt as the aircraft began to move. He felt Lieve throttle up slightly again as she turned the aircraft about face and headed out toward the runway. He didn't expect to feel the bumps as the plane taxied. He didn't know if he expected the tarmac to be smoother than it was or if he expected the plane's suspension to be softer. He never felt anything like this in any other aircraft. But then he reminded himself that this wasn't like any other aircraft he'd been in.
The Grippen reached the runway and turned onto it. As Lieve turned the plane she throttled up to full burn. The engines kicked and Philip felt it in thump against his back. As the plane accelerated he was pushed further and further back into his seat. He could feel the ribbing in his flight suit automatically compensating. Squeezing him gently to help regulate his body fluids against the forces of acceleration. Gradually the plane became lighter and the ride smoother. He closed his eyes at the moment the plane left the ground and when he opened them all he could see was the seat in front of him and sky either side. His head locked straight forward partly due to the enormous acceleration but mainly due to acute terror. The fact that Lieve "Ya-hooed" loudly didn't help calm his nerves.
The Grippen climbed almost vertically off the runway. Philip couldn't tell exactly which orientation he was in but when he did pluck up the courage to peer from through the canopy to one side, he could still see only sky. He looked forward again and tried to get a handle on his situation from the controls. Studying them proved to be difficult. He couldn't concentrate through all the noise and excitement. He caught sight of the artificial horizon. Not a physical bubble but display on one of the small monitors in front of him. He concentrated on it hard and to an extent it calmed his nerves a little. Finally he could confirm that they were in fact climbing at an angle of 80 degrees. He decided next he should look for an altitude display but he realized that all this concentration was making him motion sick. What worried him worse than all of this was the thought that he might vomit and then have to spend the rest of the journey to Australia avoiding lumps of his own stomach content.
The G force slackened back to normal and he felt the plane levelling out a little. Still it was climbing but now when he peered over the rim of the cockpit he could see land. Roads and towns. Farm lands with divided paddocks like a patchwork. Conveniently the aircraft rolled slightly toward the side he was looking from. He could see the gentle curvature of the earth where it met the sky. The roar of the engine seemed much quieter now somehow and the view seemed peaceful as it swung round underneath him with the plane's changing direction. At least he was beginning to get use to is and able to enjoy it. He checked that his comms were set to intercom mode.
"How high are we?" he asked.
"You're spoze to say. What's our altitude my dear?"
"Ok then. What's our altitude my dear?"
"That's better. We're coming up on 4 thousand metres. We have to climb to 10 thousand and we're turning to cross the channel. We'll catch up with the others before we hit Dover. Then it's into French air-space. Oh! By the way. You can read all this for yourself. I've locked off the control from up here. You can still get control by hitting the resume button but as long as you don't do that, you can mess with just about anything. The altimeter is just to the right of the horizon. I take it you've found the artificial horizon? It's the big colourful display in the middle. The altimeter is the red LED read-out to the right and just below. You'll see 4 buttons. 2 of them select if you want it in feet or metres. The other 2 select if you want the on-board altimeter or the GPS data. The GPS is best but not by much in most cases."
"Why's that?"
"Well the onboard altimeter can be fooled slightly where as the GPS can't. But we have to have all this manual stuff on board in case we lose contact with the satellites."
"Is that likely to happen?"
"One would hope not. But if our receiver got knocked out in battle or there was a nuclear war or something. You know what I'm saying?"
"Yeah, well let's hope we don't fly into a nuclear war."
"I'm not planning to. Are you?"
Lieve explained where all the other important things were and Philip played with them one by one.
"Of course you can read all of this on your forward display."
"Oh is that this big screen in front of me which is currently black?"
"Haven't you turned it on yet? I thought you might have been watching TV on it or something."
"What? You mean this thing comes with in-flight movies?" Lieve chuckled.
"Not quite. But you can display all kinds a stuff on that screen. If you flip that panel down below it there's a keyboard and some other controls. But to use it in-flight you just turn it on and it should come up."
He did so and a picture of the sky ahead materialized on its colour, LCD surface immediately. It was overlaid with a kind of artificial horizon, an altitude display, two compass headings, one actual and the other relative. There were also two air-speed indicators. One labelled "Int" the other "Ext"
"What are the two air speed readings? They're slightly different."
"One is the air speed measured by the probe at the front of the air craft whilst the other is once again taken from the GPS. We take most of our readings from GPS. EXT means External. IE: GPS."
Near most of the readings were little square icons with different pictures and labels. There were also labels in two rows across the bottom of the screen. All of which, superimposed upon the background picture taken from a camera mounded onboard somewhere and facing forward. He deduced rightly that it was a touch screen. Instinctively he reached out and touched on of them without knowing what it did. The screen changed to show a page of what looked like meaningless text and nothing else. Orange on a black background like some ancient computer terminal.
"Oops." he said.
"What have you done?" asked Lieve.
"Err I touched one of those icons and there's this screen that seemed to be some kind of diagnostic display or something. Perhaps a status read out or something?"
"Ah! Ok. I don't know what you're looking at exactly but there are lots of those kinds of displays. If you ever get stuck you can hit the default button on the panel above it. Where you turned it on from. That should take you back to the main screen. Unless you re-set the default of course. And you don't want to do that."
"Oh of course," said Philip glad in the knowledge that Lieve couldn't see him pulling faces at her from behind. He hit the button and the display and it's icons returned. He surveyed the icons along the bottom of the screen and saw one labelled "Map". He hit it and sure enough a map appeared. Replacing the display.
"Wow cool!" he said instinctively "A map."
"Yeah. You've got the whole world in there. In damn fine detail I might add," said Lieve.
"I use to have this Microsoft atlas thing on a CD once like this. Does it have pictures and sound and stuff?" Lieve laughed.
"No but hit the button that says. 3D relative. Under the tracking menu."
He did so with yet another "wow" from him. The display showed a tiny picture of his plane floating against a back drop of a fully rendered 3 dimensional land map. The little aircraft even looked like the Grippen. Complete with its little forward wings. It sat on a line as if suspended on a string or a monorail. These showed where it had come from and the predicted path where it was going. He found he could zoom in and out as well as changing the viewing angle.
"We'll be catching up with the 747 any minute now. You should be able to see it on that map," said Lieve.
Philip used the arrow icons to move his view around but he longed for a mouse or a track-ball. Then he remembered Lieve saying that there was a keyboard hidden in the lower panel. He picked at it till he worked out how to click it open. Sure enough a keyboard folded out and on it was a black touch surface.
He thumbed it round looking in all directions for another aircraft. Then he spotted a small icon which looked like an effigy of a U2 Spy plane. He was disappointed that it didn't look like the 747. In fact it confused him at first. He was about to mention that there was a U2 ahead of them but then he realized this was simply how the computer displayed all other air craft.
"Damn!" he said with a little disappointment in his voice. "It would have been good if it could have shown an actual 747 on the screen."
"Ah well. You can't have everything," said Lieve.
Philip hadn't been using the system long enough to know how to drive it properly. He didn't know there was an icon that when pressed, gave an instant overhead view. But he wondered how close they were to the 747 so he swung the view to get it as close to 90 degrees overhead as possible. Then he realized they were now almost neck and neck with the jumbo. He began looking round for it but couldn't see it anywhere.
"Where is it?" he said disappointed in not being able to see it.
"It's on top of us," said Lieve. "Only about 3 kilometres in the up direction."
"Oh?" Said Philip. Then he realized what she meant and began thumbing the 3D map to get it to show him a side-on view.
"We're at 7 thousand and they're at 10. By the way. Whatever you do don't take off your oxygen mask at this altitude. "
"Yeah, I gathered that," said Philip. "My ears popped so many times I thought they were playing the 1812 overture."
Lieve chuckled as she switched over to the SHADO secure channel on her radio and began to climb a little more rapidly. Philip noticed the air-speed display dropping but it seemed to be matching the speed of the jumbo as it climbed.
"Good evening SC57 This is your friendly Grippen floating up underneath you. Hopefully in a relatively UFO, confusing manner. We'll be with you in just a few minutes. "
"How come they don't answer?" asked Philip.
"They just did. Only we picked it up as a text message via a back channel on the GPS. This the icon marked decode back channel and you should see it."
Philip scanned the icons but there was no icon there reading that. Then he realized that he had to go back to the main menu. He found the main menu icon and returned. He was presented with the head up display module and the forward view. Scanning again he saw the icon he wanted and touched it. A simple blue window opened in the middle of his view with a text dialogue on it. It read:
"Good evening SG7. How's it doing? No UFOs. No Stealth wakes that we can detect. We are not expecting trouble at this time. on auto at 10K."
Philip was slightly startled by a shadow that loomed over him. He looked up and saw the 747 blocking out the sun directly overhead. He heard Lieve throttle back to match its speed and stop climbing. They were so close Philip felt he could almost reach out and touch its underbelly. The Grippen was in fact a 100 metres from the 747 but it was an awesome sight for Philip none the less.
"How come they talked to us on text over the GPS system?" asked Philip.
"Because we didn't want to risk the Aliens detecting us having a conversation."
"But its all digital anyway. The chances of them decoding it are slim."
"They wouldn't have to decode it. They'd only have hear a transmission come from us and then a transmission immediately following from them. They might not be able to hear what we're saying but it would be easy enough for them to work out we were talking to each other. "
"But wouldn't they be able to pick up the radio from the 747 talking to what ever beams up to the GPS matrix?"
"Like you said, it's digital. They've had a two way digital stream since they got in the air. The aliens cant' tell what's going on with that or when they're talking to whom. The tanker and the other Grippens on the other hand, have been talking non stop. Real noisy. We just hope that if they're going to attack, they take the bate. and attack that. instead. A couple of UFOs don't stand a chance against 6 Grippens."
"Yeah, but do the aliens know that?"
"Let's hope not. "
"I think if the aliens are going to attack, they would have pegged us already."
"Not necessarily. Firstly, we've just come from an air base. We've never landed any obvious SHADO stuff there and for all intents and purposes it's just a normal every day RAF base. Which of course it is. We just have a couple of hangers there. "
"Well I hope so. But you know we've just had a transport knocked out and we weren't expecting that. They tried to make it look like an accident or at least a cause un known. They don't know we can see them again now."
"Yeah, and they also don't know we know they can see us. As your research proved." Lieve was countering Philip's arguments more for the sake of it. She didn't really know but she knew that Philip had been right on the money every other time."
"Look" he started abruptly. "If I were a bunch of aliens hiding out on Earth somewhere with a lot of spare time on my hands, I might just do a little statistics gathering of my own. Like watching and comparing flight paths of everything that moved on the planet. I mean if we wanted to, this is not beyond one of our little mini-computers to do. Imagine what their computer technology is like. "
"If they even use computer technology?" said Lieve.
"Yeah, exactly. They could be using some kind of organically grown brain thing. I mean we still don't know how all that stuff works do we. The thing is that if you had access to all the satellites that I think they've got up there, with the kind of resolution I think they've got, then they could have gathered a hell of a lot of information and worked a hell of a lot of stuff out about us by simple logical deduction. "
"How do you mean?"
"Well a lot of the model I made of their satellite coverage was simple logical deduction. In other words. I took a model of what we know about them and what we know they had been up to, and how the hell they managed to pull off some of the things they did right under our noses. Like they knew when to go invisible and when it didn't matter. Right to the second in some cases. That's how I worked out where their sats were. But mostly I included what mathematicians call a twiddle function into the model."
"A what?"
"A twiddle function. That' s where you twiddle the figures slightly because the actual answer would be incorrect otherwise. Simply put I thought to myself. What 'n' hell would I do if I were an alien."
"Ah! Ok. So you tried to put yourself in their shoes."
"Yah Exactly. And If I were in their shoes, especially spending all that time sitting and waiting, I would have gathered all kinds of information and built a model from which I could extrapolate any kind of information from it as I needed at any time. You know what surprises me even more? That SHADO hadn't done that themselves before now with all the information they've gathered over the years. That's what I'm going to do when I get back. I'm gonna take a chunk of super computer and start building a huge model of this entire thing. I've actually started it but then I realized that they must have satellites of their own and kinda got side tracked. But you can imagine how much they could know if they had been constructing a model. They could subtract all the civilian air craft from the model. That would be easy enough but the Military air craft would take a little time. Still it wouldn't be that hard. You can simply follow back your tracking data and then zero in on individual aircraft. What they do and where they go. Once you can subtract all that, you're probably just left with the air craft of secret military organizations. And that means you and me."
"Hmm. That makes sense, but how would they be able to track an individual air craft's movements and work out who it belongs to?"
"Plenty of ways. You could record and log all the radio communications for a start, even if you couldn't decode the radio you could certain peg it down to types of transmission. Tag and code each one and you've got yourself a profile. I'm sure that SHADO would have a profile even if they don't know what we're saying. Then there's aircraft type. There aren't too many people who use Grippens I'm sure. Certainly no-one else has a sky diver fleet. What I'm saying is that the devil is in the details. If you can cope with analysing enough detail and cataloguing it, then you can certainly build one hell of a model. "
"And you think you can build a model like that for SHADO?"
"No not exactly. SHADO have only recently been scrutinizing fine detail. But I can make a start. I can put together a model of everything we have and then set it up so that new data can be extrapolated from that model. And I"m sure we can support the information we have with information out in the real-world."
"What do ya mean, the real world?"
"I mean like news stories, technical reports, unusual problems, even maps!"
"Maps?"
"Yeah, I was reading once where some American military organization needed some detailed depth map of some harbor in Papua New Guinea. They naturally consulted their intelligence people and they didn't have the information so they went to the CIA for it. The CIA gave them back some sketchy information but it was all they had. There was just no interest in the harbor. So this enterprising guy from this military organization went into the government office in Port Moresby and bought a highly detailed civilian map for a couple of bucks. The point is that most of your intel is actually out there on public record. You don't need massive intel gathering organizations for most of this stuff you can get it over the counter so to speak."
"Ah Yeah, I see what you're getting at. "
Philip just happened to glance ahead at that point and notice a strange object protruding from a forward hatch in the underbelly of the 747. A strange disk like object. Small and black. Shaped like a lamp shade on the end of a stiff black wire. It was bending out of the aircraft with drag and was as it got closer he could see that there were tiny aerofoils on it which were directing it down wards.
"When 'n' hell is that?" He said.
"That's our communications link. Well be able to hook into the jumbo's comms system and then into SHADO's."
"What you mean we're going to jack it in somewhere on the plane?" Lieve laughed slightly.
"No not exactly. it's just an antenna. A very low power transceiver. Works at high speed within about half a kilometre of the plane. But the aliens would have a hard time picking it up. You should be able to plug your lap top in s...." She was interrupted by a voice on the radio.
"Good evening Lieve and Philip. Hope you're having a good time. Nice of you to join us. Come in the water's fine"
"Who's that?" asked Philp not aware that his intercom now extended to the 747 as well.
"Why Philip. I'm surprised you didn't recognise the voice after last night. It's me. Virginia Lake. "
"Oh hi Virginia," said Philip trying to mask his surprise and recover his composure. "What's up?"
"Oh Philip. You mean that swelling hasn't gone down yet? Remind me to rub some cream on it when we get to Australia." If Virginia could have seen Philip at that point she would have noted a decided shade of pink in his complexion. There was a long pause before Philip thought of anything to come back with.
"So where are you leading me this time?"
"Astray Philip my dear. I'm leading you astray."
"Now why doesn't that surprise me? So we're heading over to Calais then are we? Then where?"
"No we're not going through France," said Lieve. "We're going up through Belgium."
"OH? Why's that?" said Philip slightly surprised.
"Well otherwise we'd end up having to go through Chinese air-space."
"Oh?" said Philip still not understanding. "I didn't think the Chinese were all that hard to get along with these days?"
Colonel Lake jumped in. "Well that wouldn't be too much of a problem but given the circumstances. 2 Boeings and 7 Grippens and we can't tell them about it exactly. Could become tricky. Especially if there was a UFO attack."
"So where are we going then?"
"We'll take you up through Germany. Actually over Berlin. Then through the CIS. Belarus, Russia, Kazakstan, Russia again and then down around the edge of China and into Japan. We've got another 7 Grippens heading up from Pine Gap. It should look like a routine exchange with any luck. We change over in Japan."
"It's actually the second leg of the journey where we're expecting trouble," said Lieve. I doubt they'll attack us over Europe or Russia."
"So do we have enough fuel? Won't we have to go up to the tanker and re-fuel? That'd give the game away wouldn't it?"
"Don't worry Mr Salisman," said Colonel Lake. "We've got plenty of fuel for you right here."
"There's enough fuel onboard that bus for one Grippen," said Lieve.
"Ah hah I get the picture," said Philip. "So we'll sort of just drop down from Japan and into Australia then?"
"Yup. That's about the size of it," said Colonel Lake, We've got a line of Sky divers set up in the South Pacific."
"So are we really expecting trouble then?" said Philip.
"Expecting? no," said Lake. "But we'll be ready for them if they try anything." There was silence for a moment as a change of subject was in progress."
"Are you on Auto yet Virginia?" asked Virginia Lake.
"Yeah, I was just thinking about kicking back and reading a book off the head up or something? Philip's got plenty of toys to play with back there. "
"Oh how thoughtful of you to lend him your vibrators," said Colonel Lake.
Philip tried to ignore them and hope they went away. Virginia Lieve set up her heads up display to show her the text of an electronic book she was reading and Philip played with the display system in front of him. He found the weapons system and began to explore it, then thought better of it. He couldn't be sure he wasn't going to arm something and fire it. As they flew further west, they flew into darkness. Philip looked down and could see the glow of cities and towns glowing into the night. He found a display that showed him the changing time zones as they passed over Belgium and into Germany but in the darkness and only the sound of the Grippen's twin advanced jet engines to keep him company, he passed into sleep. Making up for the sleep he'd missed from the night before.
Philip awoke with a jolt. The sound of a refuelling nozzle connecting with the refuelling rod on the nose of the Grippen. It reverberated through the aircraft and reached his sleeping ears suddenly through the constant sound of the engines. The 747 had some running lights switched on and a pair of flood lights which illuminated the Grippen. They were bright in his eyes and he instinctively raised his forearm to cover them.
"Where' are we?" he asked groggily.
"We're over Germany," said Lieve. "Just short of Berlin."
Philip punched up his map display to confirm their position. He looked out the window but could see little with the lights of the 747 reflected on the canopy against the inky blackness.
"Are you hungry?" asked Lieve.
"Mmm. Yeah a bit" said Philip. "Are you?"
"Yeah I'm starved. How about opening the picnic basket hon?"
Philip twisted himself slightly enough to open the panel at his side. He rummaged around in the storage compartment till he could grip the large box and drag it out. He could barely squeeze it through the gap left after the panel rested upon his leg but he pulled it through squeezing it against him and onto his lap.
"Are these standard aircraft?" he asked. "I don't know much about fighter aircraft but these seem pretty weird."
"No they're not standard. But they were pretty radical designs in the first place. They were originally designed back in the eighties when the world was still under the threat of nuclear war. They could be launched with minimal support, use roads as runways and even be repaired on the side of the road as it were. They also happen to be one of the most stable fighter jets in the air. These were specially adapted for SHADO's use. "
"Thus the luggage compartments?"
"Yeah, something like that," said Lieve.
Philip opened the box. He was immediately struck with the sight of small plastic containers packed in rows. Many different colours but all looked like some kind of packaged drink container.
"What 'n earth are these damn things?" he asked in astonishment.
"Space rations!" said Lieve.
"Space rations?" said Philip in even greater astonishment. "I thought you would have brought some sandwiches or something?"
"I did. Your sandwiches are underneath that lot. But I only eat space rations."
"What you mean all the time?"
"Yup?"
"What do you do when you go to a restaurant?"
"I bring my own?"
"That must seem a bit odd?"
"We obviously don't eat in the same restaurants!"
"Obviously!" said Philip. "I'll have to get you to tell me where they are so I can avoid them. What one do you want?"
"Oh umm. Let me see now. Oh just give me a roast beef and salad one."
"What you mean there's one here that's roast beef... And Salad?"
"Yea!"
"Hmm. Ok. What colour is it?"
"It's a sort of dark brown. Roast beef and salad coloured. It's written on the side of the pack."
Philip scanned the selection and then found an appropriate coloured pack. Just then there was another thump from up front. The nozzle pulled away and began to retract up inside the belly of the 747. He watched it do so and noticed the aerofoils attached to the rim . They acted as a sort of kite which enabled it to be steered and guided. Now it was guided back up into the hatch in the 747 from whence it came. Philip just had time to return his attention to the box of food when the 747 cut its lights and effectively blinded him but he had already spotted the one he wanted and slipped it out. He handed it forward and tapped Lieve on the shoulder with it .
"Thanks," she said as she retrieved it. Opening the cap and popping out the plastic straw, she squeezed some into her mouth.
"Perr.. Jesus Christ!" she shouted. She spat slightly then realized where she was and refrained. "What 'n fuck is this? Fucking chocolate pudding. I asked for beef you... Oh god. Yuck."
"I'm sorry. But they turned the lights off just as I was looking for it."
"Well use your cabin light. It's mounted to the back of my seat. On a goose-neck."
Philip realized what she was talking about. He had seen it when he was in daylight but had neglected to ask what it was. It was just another unfamiliar gizmo in the cockpit to him. The fact it was mounted to the side of Lieve's seat-back made no sense to him at the time. He reached his fingers for it and felt round till he found what seemed to be a switch. He flicked it and a relatively bright light shone down the side of the seat and illuminated the cockpit floor. He bent the goose-neck backward toward him and then fixed it in position over the box. This time before handing it to her he checked the label. Sure enough it read: "Authentic home style Roast beef and 3 vegetables." He retrieved it and handed it to her in the same manner as before.
"What do you want me to do with the other one?" he asked.
"Nothing. I'll have that for desert. Mmmm. Chocolate pudding. My favourite."
"I thought you didn't... Oh never mind. Hey how 'n hell am I spoze to eat one of these mythical sandwiches with this oxygen mask on anyway?" Lieve laughed.
"We're only at 4 thousand. You should be able to breathe without it."
"Oh I see," said Philip now desperately digging for sandwiches.
Lieve continued: "Of course even if we weren't, you could still suck space rations through the little hole in your mask. There's a little hole with a cap on it that's specially designed for just such a thing."
"Err. Thanks but I think I'll try the sandwiches for now. "
"Suit yourself," said Lieve before taking a big sip of her beef concoction. "Mmmm. Yumm. "
"So how come we're at 4 thousand now?"
Leave slurped some beef before answering. "Oh you know what the Germans are like. I should know, We've just flown over my home country. Use to live right next door."
"What you mean Belgium? I hope you waved hi! to mom and dad."
After several seconds digging he finally unearthed the pile of sandwiches. This presented him with a new task. To find something he actually liked. Each sandwich was cut into triangles and placed inside a triangular plastic package. Each package had a label with its contents written on it. He was surprised to find an assortment of breads as well, even toasted cheese. He selected a salad with bean-shoot sandwich but then went back for the toasted cheese as well. He couldn't resist trying it. He closed the case and stowed it back in its hold.
He noticed that the toasted cheese container was a little different to the other. It had what looked like two zip-lock strings around it. Each had tiny yellow and black arrows along it like a police line in miniature. He swung the cabin light up to where he could see it in more detail. Unlike the other container this one was completely opaque. His salad sandwich could be vaguely seen through the translucent plastic but this was something else. It looked the same on the surface but it was as if there was something else inside besides the sandwiches. Curiosity got the better of him and he pulled the tab on the first string.
He expected it to flop open but it didn't. He inspected it further. Trying to come to terms with why it was so difficult to get into it. It felt strangely warm. Then all of a sudden it became hot. He dropped it in his lap.
"Yeeeoooch." he screamed in fright. "What the fuck?" He was trying desperately to keep it away from him in case it caught on fire.
"Oh I hear you've found one of the toasty cheeses then have you?" She laughed. All she could hear from him behind her was a series of Yelps, punctuated by random expletives. She nearly choked herself on her space ration. "Don't worry it won't burn you." she finally reassured him.
Sure enough when he felt it, it was hot but not hot enough to burn his skin.
"I should have left my damn gloves on if I had known." he said. "This had better be worth it."
When he plucked up the courage he unzipped the second pull tag and the casing flopped apart as he would have otherwise expected. Inside was melted cheese sandwiched between two relatively crispy pieces of toast. The smell hit him and it smelt good. He picked the first piece out and some of the melted cheese stuck to the inside of the container and formed string as he removed it. He tentatively took his first bite. It was hot but not too hot. Then the taste hit him.
"Damn I'm either really hungry or this is the best damn toasted cheese sandwich I've ever had.
"I think the former rather than the latter ol' boy," said Lieve. "It's actually super glue."
"What?" said Philip in astonishment. "What 'n hell are you on about now."
"It's the same cheese they use at McDonalds'. A friend of mine is a chemist. He said that there are only two molecules difference between the formula for McDonald's cheese and the formula for super glue. And one of them is colour."
None of this mattered to Philip except that he did notice how sticky the cheese actually was in his mouth. He hoped it wouldn't clue his mouth shut but he didn't care because it tasted so good at that time.
"You're just jaded after having lived on space rations so long. Your taste buds are probably all burnt out or something." He paused while he chewed another bite. "You really don't eat anything else other than space rations?"
"Nope! " said a contented Lieve on behalf of her stomach. "Well there is one other thing."
"Oh yeah, what's that?"
"Baby food."
"What?"
"You know. that stuff that comes in tins and jars and you feed baby's on. I love that stuff."
"So it's a general aversion to solid food you have?"
"Oh no not at all. I enjoy a good rusk now and then."
"Jeez and people thing I'm fussy."
Philip finished his sandwich and was left with an empty container. He noticed the inside looked like they were made out of some kind of metal. Aluminium perhaps. But it crumpled just like he expected the container to do. He scrunched it up.
"What should I do with the rubbish?"
"Oh just chuck it out the window?" Said Lieve. "No no no. I'm only joking don't do that. Store it back in the box or chuck it in the hold or something. Anyway you can't open the canopy when we're airborne."
They finished their respective foods and Philip stowed their rubbish in the hold. He didn't really feel up to bringing the box back out so he just stuffed it in the hole and closed the panel up. Then he remembered the lap top. He opened the other panel and slid it out. He found a cable and worked out how to plug it into the comms system. He booted it up and realized there was no software installed on it.
"What am I spoze to do for software on this box?"
"Just get it off of SHADONET like everyone else."
"What? How do I do that? There's no software. Just a bare OS."
"Just click on net tools and it should set it up. Then when the net comes up go to the software site and pick what you want."
"Oh I see. So I can now talk all around the world on SHADONET now? Presumably this is coming over the data link with the plane up stairs there."
"Yeah, that's right. We connect to them and in turn they connect to SHADO net."
"So can I connect to the Internet through this?"
"Yeah, apparently so. But don't ask me. I don't know anything about this shit. What do you wanna do anyway? Down load some porn or something?"
"No that wasn't what I had in mind but if you need some I can do a search for you. Actually there's a little record company I'd like to find some information on. Hey! you wouldn't happen to know if SHADO had any good hacking resources would you?"
"What? You wanna go to Australia as well?" said Pilgrim thumping her desk "We may as well all pack up and go live there."
"What?" said Frogleberg scratching his head.
She thumped the desk once again then looked at her patch worked computer terminal surprised that nothing else fell off of it.
"So what's the story again? Has this girl just gone missing?"
"Well no commander. We don't think so. We think something's happened to her. One of our people stationed at one of the universities down there said he saw her but she didn't seem to recognise him."
"Perhaps she had just forgotten about him?"
"They worked together for 2 years. They knew each other in Cambridge. They graduated together. We even scooped them up at the same time. I don't think they're going to forget each other in a real hurry."
"And you think Aliens?"
"Well it wouldn't be the first time."
"Do you have any leads?"
"Nope. Just that she went to Adelaide on furlough. And we know she's at least been there because Ben saw her, but what happened after that is anyone's guess."
"Can't our security people in Australia deal with it?"
"Well they are but every country requires a different approach. Americans are used to men in black suits stepping in all over everything and taking over. Australians are just as likely to tell 'em to get fucked. Authority there has little authority, if you know what I mean. They've got a secret service of they're own you know?"
"Yeah, ASIO. I'm aware of them. Someone in MI6 was telling me they use them as stooges." Adrianna began to smile a little as Frogleberg burst out laughing.
"Stooges? Stooges! Apparently one time a whole group of 'em got busted by a hotel manager for making too much noise on a clandestine operation. They botched it so bad that he call the police and all 20 of them were arrested. Took them 2 days to sort out the mess. By which time the hotel manager had given his stories to all the papers. Is that embarrassing or what?"
"Really?" said Pilgrim in amazement. She laughed and thumped her desk . Then she stopped laughing. Still nothing fell off her computer terminal. She scrutinized it more carefully. She picked at the mounds of electrical tape binding it together and managed to lift some of it from the corner. There was no damage. The plastic was one solid piece and she knew that she had previously broken a chunk off there when she sent it crashing to the floor and then stood on it.
"I've been had!" she shouted angrily.
"What now?" Said Frogleberg.
"This is not my computer. Someone's replaced it with a new one and patched it up to look like my old one. Someone's head is gonna get served up on a platter." She pressed her finger on the intercom. "Ford! Get yo' ass in here!"
"Err does that mean I can go."
"Yes yes yes. Go find out what happened. That's what you're paid for."
Frogleberg raised his eyebrows at Ford as he passed him in the corridor out side. Just before he walked out of range he heard Ford saying: "No commander it wasn't me. Honestly I didn't do it."
Philip had be concentrating for hours on the screen of his lap top. His concentration was broken by Lieve's voice on the radio.
"I'd like a Cheese burger and a coke please?"
"Err. Roger SG7. Would you like fries with that?"
Philip looked up as the flood lights from the 747 lit up the cockpit and temporarily blinded him. He watched as the refuelling nozzle extended on its hose from the hatch in the bottom of the 747. He saw how the fins on the end of it adjusted themselves to guide it closer to the nose of the Grippen. A rod just right of centre on the nose extended outward to meet it and Lieve expertly piloted the Grippen into it. He felt the thud as it made contact. A small vibration as a mechanism in the nozzle secured the mating surfaces and fuel began pumping.
"Whacha been doing back there Phil ol' boy? You've been awfully quiet," said Lieve.
"Oh not a real lot. I've just been poking around in a few record companies. Besides, you've been pretty damn quiet yourself up there."
"Hell no. I've been listening to an AEK CD."
"Oh right. Which one?"
"Blues are hotter than red."
"Oh you mean the new one. Cool. That's really good, that. He may not be the most prolific releaser of music but he always comes up with gems like that."
"You know Batz don't you?"
"Yeah, he's a good pal of mine. Known him for years. I spoze I shouldn't tell you this but him, Alex Cavaye and I use to be Bad Sex."
"You mean that controversial techno act Bad Sex?"
"Yup. That was us."
"No shit? Really. I laughed my head off when I heard that stuff. It was so cool how the authorities were chasing their tail trying to find out who did that stuff. Anything that can piss Marilyn Manson off has gotta be a good thing." She laughed and Philip could almost hear her grinning.
"Yeah. We were lucky no-one found out who we were. "
"So what's Batz like?"
"He's a weird guy. What can I say? Weird and fucked up in a creative sort of way. Know's a lotta shit. It's strange though. No-one could ever get him to Leave his home. I think in the end he was afraid to leave. You should have seen what we had to do to prize him out and get him to come up to Iceland. I should drop in on him while I'm in Australia. I should take the GRG to meet him. He'd freak out."
"Yeah, I'd love to meet him."
"Where are we anyway?"
"We're just back in Russia again. We've just crossed out of Kazakstan. We're on the last leg up and over the top of China. Another 3 or so hours and we'll be in Japan."
"Any sign of UFO activity?"
"Nope, not a thing."
"I still think they must know we're here. If their statistical model is good enough they could know all kinds of things."
"Hey do you think they know about the girl's rude group?"
"Could do. Could do. Hey I was just thinking about that Perters guy. That guy that almost had me killed in Iceland. Someone said he and his organization probably worked for the aliens. I wonder what information his spies gather for them. They could have quite detailed information on the GRG."
"Yeah, that's a bit of a worry. A slimy guy like that could put you off sex for life." They laughed for a moment but were interrupted by a voice from the jumbo.
"Ok SG7 my gauges here read you're full to the brim again. Should be enough fuel to get you into Japan."
"Yup. Roger that," said Lieve. "My fuel status is full as a boot. You can release now. Thanks."
The nozzle disengaged and drifted away till it was clear of the Grippen. Then it was reeled in on the end of its hose. Lieve pressed a button on one of her panels and the nose refuelling rod retracted into a safe position. The lights from the 747 faded out. First the flood lights and then the running lights. There were left in almost total darkness. Just the glow of their instruments and displays.
Philip powered down his lap top and closed it to get the cockpit as dark as possible. Then he surveyed the earth bellow. There was very little to see. Some glows from fires burning in the distance. Even though they were probably nothing more than camp fires he could tell the difference between their amber, reddish glows and that of the bright pin pricks of light that denoted towns and cities. He located the altimeter and checked their height. "6532 metres" it read. Though their exact height was bouncing around a little from second to second. The landscape was featureless to his eyes from that height and after a short time of trying to work out its contours from the glows on the ground, he gave up and decided to get some rest. With his lap-top still resting idle in his lap, he let his mind wonder and drifted off to sleep. Rocked gently by the motion of the aircraft. He would remember later thinking that riding in a jet fighter was a piece of cake.
"Yo Philip. Are you awake?" asked Lieve but she got no reply. "Philip! Wake up. It's your turn to take the wheel."
"What?" said Philip groggily as he woke up. "What Wheel? What are you talking about?
"Only kidding. We've just come of auto and we're coming out and round for the coastal run. We're nearly there. "
"Oh right." he said as he lifted his head and felt the cold drool run back from his oxygen mask onto his cheek. "Oh yuck."
"What's the matter." asked Lieve.
"Never mind," said Philip. He looked around him. It was still black outside beyond the canopy. "So where are we?" he said to himself.
He flipped on the display in front of him. Like an expert, he selected the map and zeroed in on their position. He saw the graphic representing the 747 merged with that of their own. The map didn't make much sense to him until he spotted the icon labelled "Political boundaries." He touched it. Map lines appeared showing him the boarder with China. They were awfully close to it and now rounding back out toward the sea of Japan. A sense of relief swept over him. He had not realized how much stress he had been under. Although he was only on the north west corner of the Pacific rim, and still had to travel the rest of the way down to Australia, he felt as though he was almost home. He began to realize how uncomfortable he had become in his seat. Strapped in with little room to move. Sheathed in his flight suit which was adorned with safety gear and a parachute on his back.
He moved one of his legs and realized it had partially fallen asleep. Then the other one in the same condition, kept awake only but the special design of the flight suit it self, which kept his blood circulating. He began wishing hard that he was already on the ground.
"How long?" he asked.
"Don't worry Philip my love, you'll have your feet back on the ground within the hour," said Lieve.
"What do you do up the front there to pass the time? And stop your legs from going to sleep."
"Oh didn't I show you that? Sorry. You're wearing a 10 thousand Euro suit there."
"Euro? Oh sorry yeah, you mean the new Euro Dollar."
"Yeah. You know how you plugged your helmet into that socket on the suit, and then your helmet is plugged into the consol, well that provides external power for the suit. You can set it to do all sorts of stuff. Heating, cooling, pressure fit, the whole works."
"So how do I set it up? It's actually been a little on the cold side all the way."
"Oh I'm sorry, you should have said something," said Lieve. "There's a kind of remote control in one of your breast pockets and if you look next to the coms panel there's another little set of controls which you can use."
Philip scanned the panel and realized it was a display that he had been staring at off and on during the whole trip. He didn't know what it was for but it suddenly dawned on him. The small red LED display was showing suit temperature. Above it was a large graphical LCD display. Illuminated by a fluoro back light. On closer inspection he realized it was displaying suit status.
"I have to say though." continued Lieve breaking his concentration. "You should always have your suit just a tad on the cold side. If your suit is too hot and we suddenly have to pull some Gs, you'll probably throw up if it's too hot. Use to be an old pilot's trick to play on rookies. Turn the suit temperature up a little warm then throw them around a bit and watch 'em throw up in their mask."
"Mmm. Perhaps I'll leave it alone then."
"Anyway we'll be in Okinawa soon." She was interrupted by the radio.
"This is SHADO cargo 57 calling SG7. We're about to start our descent to approach altitude. Time to bid you good night till we touch down."
"Roger that SC57. Give us a few minutes to clear our links and we'll be on our way," said Lieve. She flipped to the internal intercom.
"Ok. Philip That gives you a few minutes to pull any data off the net you still need while I get last minute nav and status uploads done."
"Oh I'm not using the computer at the moment."
"Ok no problems," said Lieve. "I'll get the status uploaded and do the cals and we'll break the link."
"The cals?" asked Philip.
"The calibrations."
Philip looked at his lap-top and decided to close it and stow it. Lieve was busy up front checking her calibrations against the 747s computers. When all the computer systems agreed with each other she locked everything back to the Grippen's control and switched out of autopilot.
"Ok SC57, we're done here. Let us know if you need anything, When we get low enough we might make use of some of that terrain down there. "
"Roger that SG7, if you're off auto we're cutting the link."
"Yup. Anytime SG7. See you in Okinawa. Bye Bye."
The cable with the antenna on it began to retract inside the 747. The Grippen could still receive information from the 747 or direct from SHADO through modulations on the GPS network but they couldn't transmit. Not unless it was an emergency. Lieve checked her instruments once more as if a car driver checking her mirror just prior to leaving the curb. Then she began to drop away from the jumbo as if she had been dropped from one of its cargo bays and launched for the first time. Philip felt his stomach sink for a short time as the plane lost altitude quickly. He looked at his altitude display and saw it dropping away fast. 7000, 6500, 6000, 5500 and then it began to slow its rate of decent.. 5000, 4800, 4600, 4500, 4400, 4350, 4300... Slower and slower till it reached 4050 metres. and remained there. Changing altitude by only a matter of metres.
Philip thumbed his 3D map so he could see the 747 also losing altitude. It was shifting slightly south west of their own position but dropping far slower than they had.
"Won't we be spotted now?"
"Well the terrain round here is makes things pretty hard to spot from space. There's often thermal ghosting and I'd assume that would effect the alien's abilities to see us just as much as us. But we're so close to base they surely wouldn't attack now."
"I dunno," said Philp. "It looks to me from this map that the support aircraft has moved further away from us than it was before."
"Well it never hurts to be on your toes but I don't think they'll try anything now. Besides they predict any attack to come in the south-west pacific somewhere. That's why we've got all the skydivers out there. And of course we can see 'em now with our..." She was interrupted by a red alert warning which rang through the radio like a car horn.
"Red-alert. Red-alert" said the voice of the SID network. A synthesized voice triggered by the array of space intruder detector satellites. "Red-alert. 2 inbound UFOs." Philip phased out as SID read out the co-ordinates.
"Famous last words..." He said.
"Shoosh," said Lieve. "No this is not us, this is in-bound from space. "
"This is SHADO control. Sorry to interrupt you SID but we have a situation here. We have two inbound UFOs and our new sensors have picked up one running in stealth mode. It's early days yet but it looks to be heading for a rendezvous with one of the incoming. The other UFO seems to be travelling too fast to make earth orbit. in fact we're not sure what it's doing. SGs and SCs in the transport fleet, I stress. This is not a problem for you as far as we are aware. "
"See," said Lieve. It's not our problem. They're probably trying that same ol' trick they've been using for years. The one you discovered."
"Yeah, it does sound like it," said Philip. "One heading out to join up with the incoming to hide the fact that there's an outgoing. It all fits. Except for that other one. Can I get tracking data on that?"
"Yeah, maybe. It depends if they've put it through the GPS net yet. What ever you do, don't switch out of radio silence mode to request it."
"Ok Roger that," said Philip. "Hell I don't believe I actually said roger."
There was no data available to them and they sat in silence as they performed their manoeuvres as planned.
"So what do we do Colonel?" The voice snapped Colonel Critchley from his daydream. A daydream in which he was pondering that very question. He had taken over the graveyard shift at SHADO HQ just over an hour earlier and now had a dilemma on his hands. He shared his problem with the command centre captain who posed the question.
"Hmm. Good question. On one hand we have a pretty much routine intercept. On the other hand we have to keep the convoy safe into Japan. "
"Well I guess you said it right there," said his number one. "It's a routine intercept and if we don't go for it, it will look anything but routine."
"Yeah you're right of course but there's something I just don't like about this. Something smells a rat and I really need the Commander here, or even Colonel Ford. He's much better at second guessing the aliens than I am. Especially in situations like this. " He rubbed his chin and pondered for a few seconds more. "I guess we can't wait around. Go for intercept!"
"Action stations!" shouted the captain. They all knew that a liberal dispatch of interceptors would have already been shot along their launch tubes and out across the lunar surface, gaining lunar altitude and positioning themselves along a trajectory assigned to them by SHADO's array of computers. The only thing missing was the authorization to attack. The captain stepped up to the command consol.
"Moon base and all interceptors, You are clear for intercept. I say again, you are go for intercept."
Each of the UFOs were assigned to be intercepted by half the 10 strong interceptor fleet. They locked their respective targets. Spread out so that if the first missed the second and subsequent interceptors would surely hit their marks. Their plasma weapons were charged and armed. Then moon base came back on-line to HQ.
"This is moon base. Intercept on the first UFO unlikely. It hasn't slowed down as yet. Its speed and course will make it impossible to slingshot and be able to make Earth or Moon orbit. It's gonna pass right through. Even if it starts decelerating now it's gonna be way off." Colonel Critchley dashed over to the command consol and grabbed the microphone.
"Are you sure Moonbase?"
"Yeah Sorry HQ. We can have a go at interception but I don't think we're gonna get close to this thing now. If we were behind it may be but not with it inbound on top of us. It's gonna zip straight through. Our guess is it's a diversionary tactic to get the other UFO through."
"Yeah Ok, Moon base. Give it your best shot. What about the other UFO?"
"Yeah that's pretty much a standard approach by the looks. It's going to..." She cut her self short. Her face on the monitor took on a more worried expression. "Damn! How do they do that? She shouted."
"Do what lieutenant?" said Critchley.
"we get all set up on a cut and dried run. We spread the net and all they have to do is fall into it. They can't possibly be able to second guess us that well."
"What are you talking about Lieutenant?"
"It looks like the second UFO will avoid our intercept."
"What?" shouted Critchley.
"Yeah, I don't get it colonel. We expected them to do and still they got through the outer defences. What I don't get is they must know we'd still get them."
"What have we got?" said Critchley slightly impatient for a solution.
"We don't have anything in Earth orbit that can get it. We're going to have to launch a sky divers. So I guess it's back to you now."
"Damn! Said Critchley. "Ok thanks moon base." He turned to his captain. "What's the trajectory termination?"
"Err. Looks like South Pacific. To the east. Top of New Zealand or even the islands. "
"What have we go in there?"
"Err. Well. Nothing really."
"Whata ya mean nothing?"
"The three skydivers we have in the South Pacific are all lined up along the Western Pacific Rim. Basically to follow the convoy down."
"Have we got anything else?"
"Yes sir, But we'll need to scramble some Hornets out of Central Australia. Since we don't have any on standby, it would be quicker to run the last skydiver in the chain toward it. Let me confirm that."
He punched up some data on a consol and consulted with the consol's operator. They nattered in hushed tones for a moment then he stood to face Colonel Critchley.
"Sir yes. It looks unfortunately like the last Skydiver has the only chance of making an intercept."
"Damn!" said Critchley. If we unzip our fly now they'll know something's up." Two of the women operatives gave him brief but obviously unimpressed dirty glances in his direction for his last expression. Critchley did not rise to it and remained pondering. Rubbing his chin and staring at the array of overhead monitors and projections screens. Displays of data and graphics.
"This is really weird." he said finally. "Look we're used to this by now. We know what their usual ploy is. They usually have an out-going UFO which will meet it. We know that this is their usual ploy for a decoy mission. So that we won't see the UFO leaving our atmosphere. But where's the other UFO. We don't see one yet. And we can see them when they're running in stealth-mode these days. So where is it?"
"I don't know sir but if we don't do something real soon, we're going to show out either way."
"Damn it you're right. Ok. Launch the closest sky diver and try and intercept the UFO But only send one."
"Right Sir," said the operative and the order was given.
Somewhere off the coast of Papua New Guinea in deeper water, a skydiver's captain slid down the narrow tube onto the platform which would slide forward and swing upward to form the pilot's chair. Then it would slip upward into the cockpit amongst the maze of electronics and hydraulics that constituted the interior of the sky portion of sky diver.
"Launch position" he said has he checked off the safeties which would allow him to fire the initial rocket engines. The entire submarine began to tilt upward to a 45 degree angle.
"Increase to launch speed and depth." commanded the captain.
"Aye sir we'll be at launch position in 10 seconds."
The captain hit the switches which would fire the engines over as soon as the electronic signal was sent by the submarine crew. He hit the "spin up" buttons which activated the pre-spin on the conventional turbines. They would begin to spin up slowly whilst still int he water. The intake and outlet vents would open soon after it left the water allowing air to rush through can ignite the burners. By the time the rocket engines had run out of fuel they would be at full speed and ready to hit the after burners which would take over. Assuming all went well. And it usually did.
The captain felt the jolt as the chemical engines fired. The submarine thrusting upwards at ramming speed would suddenly be pushed backwards by the thrust of the engines. The whole effect helping to propel the sky craft toward the surface and skyward.
The captain was pushed back in his seat. The only thing for him to do then was watch through the cockpit window to see the rippling surface, illuminated by the stars and the moon, rushing toward him at ever greater speed. Within seconds he was there, breaking through the surface and sky-7 was airborne.
The noise was intense, the process automated. He couldn't hear the vents open nor judge the condition of the jet engines coming on line. The vibration intense that he couldn't see his instruments to tell the status of the aircraft. All he could do was hang on and hope that the systems wouldn't fail him. They did not and within 15 slow motion seconds the chemical rocket engines were cutting out. Giving way to the characteristic whistle of jet engines and a far smoother ride.
Another slight jolt as the afterburners kicked in. Injecting pure kerosine into the tail mix of each jet motor causing a bright, 25 metre long flame to emit from each engine like the flame from a gas welding kit. He was forced back in his seat but still the ride was far smoother than the chemical engines had been. He checked his heading against the predicted entry termination of the UFO's trajectory and adjusted his course accordingly. Still climbing rapidly he flamed out the afterburners to avoid as much visual reference as possible.
"This is sky 7 to SHADO HQ. Airborne and on course."
"Roger that Sky 7," said the radio operator in the control room.
"What's the ETI?" said Critchley.
"Something in about 30 minutes. It's very much up to what the UFO does next. It's slowing rapidly. If it comes in and darts off easterly before sky-7 gets there, we're not going to have enough fuel.
"Damn it. What have we got east of there?"
"Nothing by the looks, sir. We can scramble some hornets out of Pearl. French Guiana. The best we could do is track it and hope it flies into one of our nets."
"Damn," said Critchley.
"Well at the rate it's slowing up I would say we're not going to face that problem Sir. Look." The operative pointed to a screen with tracking information on it. The estimated speed was dropping rapidly.
For the next 15 minutes they watched as the UFO slowed up. It had almost reached the atmosphere and was travelling so slowly that should it have pierced Earths protective layers, sky-7 still would have had to wait for it to arrive.
"What 'n hell is it doing?" shouted Critchley. "Am I seeing things. Is it actually hovering there? Has it stopped or gone into orbit or something? I've never seen anything like it."
"I think it's turning sir but slowly. It's the same kind of manoeuvre they do when they're running decoy for an out bound," said his off-sider.
"Yes but there's no outbound."
"But they don't know we know that. Surely."
"But what do they need a decoy for if there's no out going UFO to be a decoy for?" Critchley thought for a moment then he suddenly turned a shade of white. The remaining hair on his balding head seemed to stand on end as if he had placed his hand on a Vandergraph generator.
"Red alert!" he shouted. "Sound red alert. Get the status from the Grippens and make it a full organization wide red alert."
"But the Grippens won't be silent? The aliens will be able to track them."
Philip was woken from his day dream by the sound of an electronically generated cloister bell in his ear. "Red Alert" were the only words he could here. Generated electronically. and stated repeatedly. The words "red Alert" flashed vividly in red on the otherwise blank LCD screen in front of him. His heart skipped a beat as the adrenaline kicked in. Then just as panic was about to over take him the noise in his ears stopped and he heard Lieve speak.
"What the fuck's going on. Something's up. Something big time. They've got the plane transmitting status. We've just blow what ever cover we had."
Philip began looking round him as if he was expecting someone to wipe his wind shield. Panic had settled in for the duration.
"Oh fuck! Oh Shit. Oh Fuck" Were the only words he could hear coming from Lieve up front.
"Hello SG7" came the voice from the 747. "I don't know if you've noticed but we're about to get some visitors."
"Yeah, I got 'em," said Lieve. "Oh fuck. You have to be kidding. Where's the back up."
"We've got a problem SG7, they're already putting down in Okinawa. "
"What? Oh fuck. Oh shit."
"What's happening?" screamed Philip.
"Hold on ol' son, this could be a real bumpy ride."
"Yeah I gathered that but what's happening?"
"We've got UFOs incoming. They'll be on top of us any minute."
"How many?"
"This is the bad part. 4 of them."
"Oh fuck," said Philip. "Oh fuck Oh Shit. What about the other's How long will they take to get here?"
"They're doing a touch and go in Okinawa. By the time they turn round it could already be to late. And they probably don't have the fuel for a protracted battle. I'm not real good in a fighter jet I gotta tell ya. In an interceptor no problems. I might be able to hold one of them motherfuckers off but not fucking 4 of them. Fuck Fuck Fuck."
"Keep it down, down there will you, We're trying to think our way out of this hole." came the voice back from the 747.
"Philip!" said Lieve. "I don't suppose you've ever done any weapons training have you?"
"'Fraid not"
"Well now would be a good time for a crash course. I'll fire 'em. It's up to you to guide them in. It's pretty easy really. Trust me. Are you left handed or right handed?
"Right handed."
"Ok I'm turning the guidance over to your right joy stick. Hit the targeting display on your HUD. The missiles will target in on the UFOs but they might not actually hit the targets. It's your job to try and guide them in and you can hit the destruct button which is the big red one on top of the joy stick. Ok if the missile looks like being a lost cause, you can detonate it next to a UFO. It might do some damage if it's close enough. You got that?"
"No!"
"Good Ok. Weapons armed and ready."
"What if I hit the 747?"
"You can't exactly. We've all turned on our friend or foe systems. The missile will avoid hitting one of its own."
"Roger," said Philip instinctively. Trying his best to take in the information on the screen in front of him. Trying to learn how to use it in what ever time he had left.
"Why didn't we get any warning?" shouted Lieve to anyone on the radio who would listen.
"They were in stealth mode and they had a decoy apparently," said the controller on the 747 "They were probably based along the border with Russia and China all along. Just waiting."
"So how are we supposed to defend ourselves against 4 of these mother fuckers until the cavalry arrives?" said Lieve. "I take it the cavalry will be arriving?" Her voice was obviously stressed.
"I don't know" came the voice from the 747. The other Grippens were about to touch down. They're gonna be late if they make it at all. They'll probably be out of fuel."
"Shit!" said Lieve. "And we're not doin' so well for juice either. Should have guessed this would happen." There was no time for a response.
"Incoming." came the distorted voice from the 747.
"I'm on it." shouted Lieve. "You ready back there pumpkin?"
"No!" said Philip as he grasped his joystick and tried to concentrate on the screen.
"OK then. Lets Party." And with that Lieve laid over her own joystick and the plane rolled hard to the left to engage the first UFO. A few seconds later there was a blinding flash and the plane rolled immediately hard to the right. It spun around and then rolled completely over. Philip was concentrating on the shifting target and hardly noticed he was inverted.
"I'm going to loop back on it. get ready for a lock." shouted Lieve. There was no response from Philip. He saw the target behind them and trained his eyes on it so as to not miss any movement it might make.
Lieve put the plane in a steep climb with turned into an inverted loop. Remaining upside down Philip could see the target in his sites. He followed it in.
"Fire for Christ sake." shouted Lieve.
He pressed the trigger and watched it head out aimlessly.
"Keep you finger on the button," she said. "You have to guide it in." Philip fumbled for the button and had to look. He hit the detonate button instead and the missile exploded well short of its mark.
"What did you go and do that for?" she shouted as she spun the Grippen hard to the left and put it back into a 45 degree loop.
"Sorry!" shouted Philip. "I'm new to this. I slipped."
"Well at least you've made it change course. It's heading away from us for the time being. Just don't let it happen again." There was a small pause as she righted the plane but the action was on again almost immediately.
"Oh shit. Here comes the second one." She spun hard left again and rolled the plane invert. Philip was beginning to feel the effects of motion sickness but knew he had to concentrate.
"What do I do? I can't target anything," shouted Philip frantically.
"You have to select another missile. Hit the new missile button. Don't hit the new weapon button because that takes you to one of the weapons menu."
"Got it."
"Have you got a target yet?"
"Almost."
"Hurry up for Christ sake will ya. I don't know. Too many UFOs, not enough time."
"Ok I got it."
"Then fire already."
Philip's actions spoke louder than words. The missile streaked off in front o them. He concentrated on the target on the screen whilst holding down the targeting button on his joy stick. The active target painted red by a laser. The computers helping him maintain his lock. Then suddenly Lieve jolted the plane to the right. Philip lost concentration to for a second but the computer maintained his lock. Unfortunately his lock slipped off the target a little. he watched as the distance counted down but he couldn't correct his error in time. It approached zero and he realized it would miss so he hit the detonate button instead. The missile exploded close enough to the UFO to cause it damage. It spun ground-ward streaming orange plumes of smoke and debris.
"What did you do that for?" shouted Philip.
"Err Philip my love. Don't know if you've noticed but our neighbourhood aliens are back. And they've brought some friends."
He saw it on his screen, The smaller, wide view radar-like display in the top corner showed another UFO approaching. He selected another missile and attempted a lock. Surprisingly he achieved it almost immediately. The screen displaying the target-lock cross-hairs. Except it wasn't the closest UFO. He pulled the trigger and let the missile go anyway. He followed it in. Passed the first UFO.
"What are you doing?" Screamed Lieve. He said nothing. Then she saw the missile remain dead on target. The UFO exploded in a spectacular fire ball of debris. Lieve had not time to say anything she threw the Grippen to the left and dived at the same time. Philip felt as if his entire gastro intestinal tract was about to exit his mouth but he soon forgot about the feeling. A blinding flash of light and a loud bang. The plane suddenly flipping upwards. Had his digestive organs been actually on the loose, this new G-force would have easily put them back in their place.
"Fuck we're hit." shouted Lieve. "we seem to be Ok though." A short silence followed by "We've lost GPS. I've got a hydraulic warning. Must of hit the tail somewhere. "
"Are we alright?"
"Yeah we've still got a back up that'll keep us in the air but It'll be a bit sluggish." She stopped short and audibly gasped over the intercom. "Oh shit there's a UFO heading for the 747." She spun the plane round and hit full afterburners. Forcing Philip hard back in his seat like he had never felt before. They were a long way from the 747 and she gave it everything she had to get there in time.
"We're not going to make it." she said. "Come on. Come on."
"I can't get a lock." shouted Philip. Taking his voice falsetto. "It keeps wanting to target the 747."
"Damn I think the radio must be down as well or something. Don't fire. There's nothing we can do. You'll hit the 747. There's no friend-or-foe signal."
"Won't the missile pick it up and avoid it?"
"Yes and no. The missile's smart but not that... No time to explain I'll try and get a different angle."
She spun the plane slightly but they both knew this would only increase their time to the target. Still Philip poised following the cross-hairs on this screen. Trying to get a lock. Very much aware that if he slipped and launched now, he could very well destroy the aircraft he was trying to protect.
"If the radio's down, how will the missile respond to my commands?" asked Philip.
"I don't know?" shouted Lieve. "All these systems work on different radios. I don't know how much has been taken out. We can't risk it."
"But it's going to be too late."
"I know. I know." shouted Lieve back in return.
The UFO was rapidly approaching the 747. Hatches opened on the top and bottom of the 747's fuselage. Turrets extended through the openings and took up position. Another bomb-bay-like hatch opened in the bottom which exposed a rack of 4 missiles. They were all pointing forward and practically useless. Even if they fired them, by the time the missiles had turned round onto the target, it would be all over.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. There's nothing we can do." shouted Lieve. She screamed as the UFO approached the 747 and came into striking distance.
Suddenly there was an explosion. Lieve closed her eyes briefly and then reopened them to see it was the UFO that had exploded not the 747.
"Woo hoo!" came a shout across the radio. "Sorry we took so long to get here." Lieve began laughing and shouting her self.
"Yeah. All right!" she shouted. "I never thought I'd be glad to hear your voice Alien."
Phillip swung his head around as the light from an explosion behind him reflected off the surfaces of the panels in front of him. He heard the noise it made just audible over the noise of the engines.
"What the?"
"Just swatting a fly for you." came another voice.
"Hannie!" shouted Lieve. "I knew if Vourhause was around, you wouldn't be far behind."
"Oh the entire GRG are here, lover."
"Thank fuck for that," said Lieve. "We thought our radio was out. Our GPS is down, I'm just about out of fluid on the primary hydraulics. I didn't think you'd have the fuel to get back here in time."
"Yeah, we all juiced up not so long ago. You're lucky. We weren't going to bother but the tanker wanted to get drained a bit more before touching down."
"Speaking of fuel," said Lieve. "I think we might have a problem. I don't got a reading on either tank."
"You better loose some altitude girl," said Hanniford."
"I head that. I'm gonna back off and drop."
"I'm gonna come along side and take a look," said Hanniford.
Hanniford pulled up level with the decelerating SG7 and began to descend with it. Hanniford looked over the damaged tail plane and then swung underneath it to take a look at its underbelly.
"I've got a bit of bad news for you little darlin'. You've got damage to your tail plain alright but there's a bit of damage to your wing as well. I can't tell if you're loosing fuel. " She swung up and around the other side. "Yeah. Yeah. Looks like you took a plasma burn right down your right hand side. Looks like your undies might be damaged as well. I'd say you're gonna have to ditch girl."
"Oh fuck! I hate ditching," said Lieve. "Ever ditched before Philip my love? Of course not. Well now's the time to learn. When these things run out of fuel they fall faster than an Asian economy. But don't worry, we've probably got a fair bit of fuel left. With any luck we'll make it all the way..." She was cut short by a warning buzzer. Philip saw the lamp flashing on his panel too. It was a large square bezel with the words. "Fuel warning." printed on it.
"Oops spoke too soon. But don't worry we've probably got another couple of..." She was cut short by the characteristic roar of the engines bleeding away. Philip could hear the whistle of the turbines screaming easily now as everything became quieter.
"We're goin' down. Mayday Mayday. this is SG7 we're going down. " She paused and hit the on-board distress signal. "Philip. Unplug your mask from the panel. Plug your mask into the box on the enviro suit. Do it now! When I give the signal, there's a handle with a yellow rip-cord above your head. You should be able to feel it to your right a little. Grab it but don't pull it. I'm gonna try and get this plane down as low as possible until it starts to become unstable. Then you gotta eject. You got that?"
"Oh shit! Yeah, I got it."
"Oh one last thing. There's a switch on that half round cylinder type object on your chest. Press it. It's the only way they'll find you." We're over the sea but I'm gonna try and guide it back over land. Just pray we fall into Russia and not into China. Otherwise the same thing that happened to Paul Foster might happen to us. "
"Ah Ha" said a petrified Philip Salisman
"I'll follow you down as long as I can Hon'," said Hanniford.
"Passing 4 thousand," said Lieve. "I think it's 4 thousand."
"You mean you don't know?" said Philip.
"It's hard to tell," said Lieve. "All the instruments are fucked up now."
"Yes you're passing 4K," said Hanniford. "I've got you on track."
"Good luck Virginia. And Phillip." came the voice of Virginia Lake from the 747. "The rescue team is already informed and on its way."
"3 and a half K," said Lieve. "It's starting to get a little rough but we're back over dry land. We'll pull at 3K. You got that?"
"Yeah, I got it," said Philip. "Just in case we don't make it, Thanks for an incredible night last night. Someone tell my wife I love her."
"You'll see your wife again. You can tell her in person," said Virginia Lake. "You can take her some Bin97 to try."
"3 point 2" shouted Lieve. Philip's grip tightened on the rip-cord.
"Hang on to that rip-cord till you're free of the plane. The chute will open automatically."
"OK," said Philip. The modulations of fear plainly evident in his trembling voice.
"3 point one. get ready. It's starting to get unstable." Philip didn't have to be told, he could feel the vibrations bumping through him. The whole plane was beginning to buck and rock.
"3 thousand... Wait for it. Wait for it... When I count to three, pull. I'll be right behind you. One, Two three."
"Now?"
"Yes pull the bloody thing for fuck sake!"
He closed his eyes and pulled down as hard as he could toward his head. Everything that happened after that was a blur. He didn't see the canopy blow open. He didn't see his seat fire skyward on its tiny rockets. All he heard was a noise and then just the wind. The sound of the winding down engines were gone. He heard the sound of air rushing through the vent holes in his helmet. Vent holes without which would have caused lift like the curvature of a wing surface. Lift that would have easily torn his head off at the speeds they were travelling at
He felt the chair fall away from him. The buckles of his seat harness releasing automatically. For a short time there was a strange calmness. The sound of the wind all around him. He opened his eyes but saw nothing. Nothing but the blackness of the night sky. There was no sense of up or down. In fact hardly any sense at all. He wondered if this was what it would be like to be dead but then he saw a stream of light pass his vision for a second. Hundreds of pin pricks of light swirling past in front of him. He realized they were stars as he flipped around uncontrollably. Then suddenly a slight tug on his enviro suit. Then a much larger tug ripped him upward and made his stomach sink. For a time he couldn't breath. He gasped for breath. He had a supply of oxygen but the shock of his ordeal took his breath away. he felt his legs dangling into the void below as the parachute seemed to drag him sky ward. His senses could still not make anything of his orientation but his logic kicked in and allowed him to conjure up an image of his orientation.
He seemed to hang there in the inky void for a long time. His suit and helmet isolating him from the wind. His hands and legs free. He wondered where the ground was. He wondered how far he had to go before he reached it. He looked down and began to see specks of light. He lifted his visor expecting to be blasted in the face with wind but instead it was remarkably calm. He began to notice features. A surface coming toward him slowly but it still made no sense to him. It was slightly blue against the blackness with ripples like the sea. But unlike waves on the ocean, it remained steady. He looked upward and could see the faint colour of his chute. He instinctively grabbed the lines from its harness around him with both hands. A wave of terror rippled through him and was gone as he realized just how thin the threads were holding his life in the balance.
He decided to look down again to see if he recognized anything yet. In the distance he could see more lights. A town of a village perhaps. Another glow appeared and was gone again almost immediately. Another town or perhaps a house. Now obscured behind some unseeable obstacle as his parallax changed through his descent. He looked below him and at last could make out some features. Trees on a hillside perhaps. He couldn't tell how big they were but he seemed to be heading straight for them. The through crossed his mind that he may be impaled upon one of them. He began to pray for a soft landing.
The trees loomed lager in his field of view. But as he became closer he seemed to be slowly drifting over them. Drifting into a very dark patch beyond them. He couldn't see any features at all in the dark patch but he could see more trees lined up beyond that. It seemed as though the dark patch was some kind of football field. Oval in shape. Though that was its only distinguishing feature. Whatever was in there he was now heading almost to the centre of it. It was large and getting larger. It was as if he were being slowly flushed through the rim of some gigantic toilet bowl.
He could see he was beginning to descend below the line of the tree tops. He could not see much below that as he passed into the black space. Specks of features from the ground below began to emerge. Lighter patches. Square in shape vaguely stood out against the blackness. He began scanning desperately for the ground or any features. Mentally preparing himself for his touch down. He was heading uncontrollably for one of the light patches. It grew larger but still he could get no reference on its distance.
Suddenly his feet touched something and his legs folded underneath him. He crashed onto the surface and it was softer than he had imagined it. He rolled off it. like stacked up square cushions. Then he bounced slightly before hitting the hard ground and he heard a loud thud. He landed face down. His helmet hitting something very hard and jarring his neck and shoulders. His stomach and lower torso coming to rest on some hard, square raised object and knocking the wind out of him despite his flight suit. He moaned and tears left his eyes. Then he passed out.
Philip woke up. He was in some pain but nothing he couldn't deal with for the time being at least. His first concern was to get himself up and off what ever objects he had fallen on. His parachute was still attached and he could hear it rustling in the breeze. As he moved he could feel it pulling at his harness. He wouldn't be able to move unless he released it but he could not see how in the darkness. He raised himself from the objects and realized they were 2 lengths of timber. Splintered and rotting. About 200 millimetres square. Perhaps old posts of some kind. Perhaps he had broken them in his fall. He pushed himself to an upright position and felt the pain in his joints rocket through him. He groaned uncontrollably but at least he was sitting up. He back resting on the side of the soft object he had landed on. He realized it was a bale of hay. Or something similar at least. Straw perhaps.
The parachute still preventing him from moving too far out of his current position, he realized he had to first be free of it. He felt for any sign of harness cleats that would release him but he could feel nothing useful through the leather like material of his gloves. He removed them and made a mental note of where he had left them. The hardness seemed to be part of his flight suit as he felt around but soon discovered a pair of buckle-like cleats near his shoulders. He spent what seemed to be hours fiddling, prodding an poking at them with no effect. His hands began to get too cold. The air was very chilly and the metal of his hardware was like ice to his touch.
He heard something rustling in the distance but decided that it was only his parachute catching the wind somewhere. Still it sent a chill through his shoulder blades as he remembered what Lieve had said about China. He knew the story about Paul Foster's ordeal. He didn't want that to happen to him too. Suddenly his fingers found the right combination and the first Cleat fell free. He heard the rustling sound again and a mild wave of panic swept through him. He repeated the manoeuvre with the second cleat on his shoulder. It came free.
Another rustle. This time it sounded to be more distant and in the wrong direction to be his parachute. He fumbled at the first cleat on his other shoulder but it didn't come free. He tried to calm the panic now surging through him so he could concentrate on getting the cleat unclipped. It came free as he was sure he heard a definite thud in the distance. A heavy foot print perhaps. Then a snap of some branches breaking.
Panic or no Panic he tore a the last cleat to get it undone. He couldn't make it work for him. The panic had consumed him and the rustling sound seemed nearer. He heard another foot print. Quieter than before but striking absolute terror through him. He pulled himself together just long enough to work his fingers through the cleat procedure and saw the beam of a flash light streak out from the darkness in front of him. Free of the cleat and the chute he sprang to his feet. He remembered his gloves, hesitated in going back for them but the terror consumed him. He darted in the only direction he knew. Away from the flash light.
He rounded the edge of the bail. Yes it was Straw he confirmed with his hand. He made his way out into the blackness toward another lighter patch in the distance which he figured was another bail. He changed direction and even though he was silent the flashlight seemed to be following him. He geared himself up to take full flight but stumbled on another post and came crashing down. The distinctive sound of wood against wood rang out in the silence. He turned over to see the flashlight almost upon him.
"Philip? Is that you? I know you're round here somewhere. It's me. Virginia."
She was so close she could hear him panting on the ground in front of here.
"What's the matter? Are you alright?"
"Jesus H Christ!" Philip shouted as loud as he could whisper through his out of breath state. "You... Bitch."
"What's the matter?"
"I.. Thought.. You were... Some... Chinese person... Out to capture me... Fuck!" Lieve laughed. Philip caught his breath. He could see her now as the torch light reflected around him. She extended a hand to help him to his feet.
"How 'n' hell did you find me anyway?"
She shone her torch onto a small plastic card shaped box in the palm of her other hand. He could see it had a dull blue glow on a display with some buttons around it.
"Tracking device." she said. "I tracked your emergency beacon. Damn it! I had to traipse miles to find you. You could have picked a better spot to land."
"Yeah like I had a choice." he said emphasising the sarcasm.
"Come on. Get your helmet off. It'll be light soon. I need a drink."
"What? What 'n hell are you talking about? Where 'n hell are we anyway."
"We're in Russia. Come on. We'll be late."
Virginia lake and Suzanne were kicking through the wreckage of the Grippen. Their helicopter standing on the ground with its rotors roaring ready for action. Two more choppers were parked at a distance around the crash site and SHADO personnel from the crash team were checking the debris.
"Not much left," said Lake.
"Yeah this is not actually a crash as such," said Suzanne.
"How do you mean?"
"Lieve and Philip have obviously ejected. Lieve probably set the self destruct timer to try and blow the plane to bits. But it's exploded a little too close to the ground. Otherwise we'd be lucky to find bit of match stick left from the thing."
"Why would she do that? Security?"
"No not really. Just that it has less chance of killing someone if it disintegrated in the air first."
"But there'd still be quite large pieces. It could still kill someone if it fell on them."
"Yeah, but there's less chance than if the whole plane came down on them full bore with its weapons intact. Who knows what might happen then."
"Ah yes. I take your point. So is there any way we can confirm they ejected safely?"
"Yeah, well the sats had a track of them in the area until the sun came up. On the next pass they were gone."
"We got some strange report that their beacons were moving but there was too much electrical interference to track them properly from space. It could have just been noise. We have to get a tracker in a bit closer. I through if we got in here at the crash site we'd surely be able to pick up their beacons. Now I'm not so sure."
Virginia Lake kicked over a piece of fuselage. A piece of cowling she thought. From the side of the right air intake scoop.
"So when you picked up what you thought was noise, could you tell if both beacons were together?" asked Lake.
"Well yeah as it happens. That was the only thing that made us think that it was them."
"And where were they heading?"
"Well we can't be sure exactly. We only picked them up once but they were further toward the coast from here so we could assume that's where they were heading. "
"Right well we need to start asking people if they've seen them won't we. I guess we'll need someone who can speak Russian."
"Ha! It's a shame Lieve weren't here right now. She can speak half a dozen languages."
An operative came running from their helicopter. Holding her hand on her head and stopping slightly as if it would protect her should she be hit by the blades.
"Colonel. They've found one of the parachutes. There was a message scrawled on it in what looked like red lipstick. All it said was the word. Vodka."
"Vodka?" exclaimed Lake. Suzanne burst out laughing.
"I have an idea where we'll find her," said Suzanne as she headed back to the chopper. She turned to beckon Colonel Lake on. "Come on Colonel."
"What? Where are we going?"
"Vladivostok!" shouted Suzanne over the noise of the rotors.
Colonel Critchley scratched his head as he came of his break and was immediately handed a message pad with a report on it.
"Can't even walk back in here without being accosted can I." he said focusing in on the words on the message pad. He read a little of it, thumbing down a page or two with the small cursor pad.
"We didn't even get a good go at that damn UFO did we. How 'n hell did it manage to avoid the interceptors a second time? We even got 3 more interceptors up there. Where did that thing head out?"
An operative pointed to a graphic on one of the large overhead screens. Critchley followed the pointing hand and focused in. He could see that it was