Extinction Machine

Chapter Forty-three

Dugway Proving Ground

Eighty-five miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah

Sunday, October 20, 9:56 a.m.

Colonel Betty Snider touched the lucky coin in her pocket. The face on the coin was nearly worn away from the frequent rubbing of her thumb, a habit Snider fell into when things got dicey. Lately things were more often dicey than not.

There were twelve congressmen seated on bleachers erected under a canvas awning to protect them from getting their congressional brains scrambled in the unforgiving Utah sun’s glare. The rest of the bleachers were crammed with officers of every wattage, from captains on the rise to generals who wanted to catch a last dose of reflected glory before they mothballed their uniforms. And there was a moody little contingent of snooty-looking men in off-the-rack dark suits who perched like a row of pelicans. Defense department bean counters.

In an ideal world, Colonel Snider would have had three or four more months to run her shakedowns before a party like this, but Senate appropriations committees got to call these shots. Not officers like Snider who had risen to her rank quickly twenty years ago but had since managed only a lateral slide

Even if today’s test was successful, it wouldn’t step her up to a star. She’d retire a full-bird colonel and that was that, thanks for your service.

She cut a look at the gathered faces and stifled a sigh.

F*cking bureaucrats, she thought. Best thing for the whole country would be to have the jet crash into the stands.

Maybe that would get her that star.

Down on the field the jet was beginning to taxi past the stands. The Locust FB-119 was on the very cutting edge of stealth aircraft. It was the first generation of jets to use a radical new design philosophy that did not use faceted surfaces like the earlier stealth craft. Instead, the Locust could disguise its infrared emissions to make it harder to detect by heat-seeking surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. It also had fast-adapting cameras and display panel so that the skin immediately changed its underbelly colors to match the skies through which it flew, with a lag time of point zero nine three seconds. The design would put all existing stealth craft to shame, and very likely steal the thunder from tomorrow’s air show at the Shelton estate.

This test flight should have happened eighteen months ago, but the original testing facility out at Area 51 in Nevada had been totally destroyed along with all six prototypes, a victim of the Seven Kings terrorist campaign. The setback was tragic in a lot of ways, but the silver lining was that it allowed the design team to make some important tweaks and add a few new features.

A young lieutenant came hustling over and snapped off a salute. “We’re ready, Colonel. The spotter planes report all clear and the wind is down to two knots.”

“Very well,” she said. Snider held out a hand for a walkie-talkie and accepted it from the lieutenant. “Captain Soames, we’re green to go. Make us proud.”

“Roger that,” was Soames reply.

Colonel Snider turned and gave a short address to the audience that was part hype and part sales pitch. They’d all heard it before, but they listened with varying degrees of interest, especially now that the engines on the Locust were spitting flame.

“I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen,” concluded Snider, “that you will see something you have never seen before.”

The flagman on the runway gave the signal and the Locust began rolling forward.

The jet did not look particularly aerodynamic. It was roughly triangular, with only a slight bump to indicate the cockpit. The surfaces were painted flat black and the engine roar was muted by a series of internal baffles—part of a hushed engine design that reduced burner noise by 67 percent. That alone, Snider knew, should have made the bean counters reach for their checkbooks—or would have if any of those pencil necks had ever worn a uniform.

The engine gave its soft, deceptive growl and the Locus began rolling faster down the runway. Again, this was deceptive. Because the tarmac was painted flat black and so was the plane, it was hard to judge its ground speed.

Then bang!

The jet’s nose lifted and as if shot by a cannon, the massive fighter-bomber bounded up and away from the ground, accelerating smoothly. Snider knew that by the time it leveled off at ten thousand feet it would already be at Mach 1.

“Go, baby, go…,” Snider said under her breath.

There was a sonic boom as the jet broke the sound barrier. Then the pilot put the pedal down and Locust seemed to fade into a blur that was too fast for the eye to follow.

Snider heard the first gasps from the crowd and wondered how much of her budget it equaled. Probably 10 percent. But that was okay, because the rubes hadn’t seen anything yet.

The Locust rose high and did a wide, fast circle around a big chunk of the eight hundred thousand acres that comprised Dugway. The broad, flat expanse of the proving grounds was bordered on three sides by mountains that created a lovely backdrop for the test flight.

Snider lifted the walkie-talkie. “Captain Soames, give me a low, fast pass. Take their hats off, son.”

“Roger that.”

The Locust came out of its turn at the far edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert, turned its blunt nose toward the bleachers that could not have been more than flyspecks to the pilot, and turned up the heat. The jet dropped low, scorching above the deck at one hundred feet, but punching through the still air at three times the speed of sound. It was far from the bird’s top speed, but this close to the stands it would be supernaturally fast to the spectators. Gasps turned to cries as the Locust ripped past at what appeared to be an impossible speed.

“Okay, Captain,” said Snider, “go high and go away.”

The jet rose and rolled and made an improbably tight turn. That was another of Shelton’s design breakthroughs—a combination of inertial dampeners and internal gears that allowed sections of the ship’s mass to pivot on gimbals in a way that sloughed off the stress. Snider had a masters in physics and it was voodoo to her, but damn if it didn’t work. In a high-speed pursuit, the Locust would be able to shake the tail and then whip around behind with the kind of dogfighting agility not seen since the days of the old P-51s in World War II. Agility was not considered possible for craft as big or as fast as the Locust.

Snider turned once more to the audience.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “we just scrambled four Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs to pursue the Locust. For those not familiar with the F-35s, they are single-engine, fifth-generation multirole fighters designed to perform ground attack, reconnaissance, and air-defense missions with stealth capability. In short, these birds are capable of stopping anything with wings and they’ll do it with style and an awesome grace.”

She paused, watching confusion and doubt play over the faces of the bean counters and politicians.

“We’ve asked the F-35 pilots to pursue the Locust and get a missile lock. Naturally no missiles will actually be fired. Everyone is carrying dummy warheads today anyway. Now … statistical probability gives the Locust a six percent survival rate in a four-to-one confrontation with the Raptors. Lieutenant McMasters will be happy to take your money if anyone wants to bet on the outcome.”

There were a few smiles. Not many.

Fine, you humorless f*cks, thought Snider, maybe I should take a bet on how many of you shit your pants in the next five minutes.

She raised the walkie-talkie, switched the feed to the main speakers so everyone could hear, and said, “Ground to Lightning One. Go get ’em, boys.”

Suddenly a flight of dark gray jets came screaming over the mountain ridge like a swarm of monstrous wasps. Snider was taking a bit of a risk using four combat-ready craft that had a flyaway cost of nearly two hundred million each. But she needed a lot of money to put the Locust into mass production. The Air Force had sixty-eight of the F-35s, with contracts pending for ten more. Snider wanted to piss on that contract and see Shelton Aeronautics get the big money for the next ten years’ worth of stealth fighters. If the F-35s were generation five, Snider personally regarded the Locust as an evolutionary leap forward. Generation ten at least.

The four F-35s tore across the sky, then split into two pairs, with one group flying a direct intercept with the Locust—which was coming out of its long circle—and the other group rising to come above and around for a drop-and-kill.

The Locust flew straight toward the first group and Snider heard the murmurs begin in the stands. Maybe they thought that the Locust pilots were so busy trying to figure out how to fly their new plane or maybe they thought the pilots didn’t realize the exercise began, but Snider overheard several derisive comments. The gist was that the audience thought this was going to be a very short exercise and one that was, in its way, every bit as much of a disaster as what happened at Area 51.

The four F-35s closed in like the snapping jaws of a crocodile. So fast, so hard, so certain.

“Lightning One to Ground,” began the team leader, “I have a missile lock on—”

And the Locust vanished.

It was there one moment and then it was simply gone.

Everyone in the stands gasped. They all froze for a moment and then jumped to their feet. The F-35 pilots all began jabbering at once.

“Lightning One, do you have the target on your scope?”

“Lightning Three, who has eyes on—?”

And on like that. The four F-35s split apart, turning and rising to check the four quadrants of the sky. One of them circled low to drop almost to the deck, looking for the Locust on the desert floor.

It was not there.

Then a voice shouted out in alarm. “Lightning Three, who has a missile lock on me? Who has a damn missile lock on me?”

There was a burst of squelch and then another voice said, “Locust One to Lightning Three. You’re dead, baby.”

Far above, there was a shimmer and suddenly the Locust was there. It seemed to melt out of the sky, shedding the dark blue like a chameleon stepping off a leaf. The Locust shot past the F-35 and did a neat little roll. A “f*ck you” roll, thought Snider.

Lightning Two and Four abruptly angled down, driving toward the Locust with a renewed pincer attack.

The audience yelled and pointed.

At nothing.

The Locust vanished again.

The F-35s burst through empty air and parted, rising up and away to try and find their target.

Then Lightning Four’s voice broke from the speakers. “Showing a missile lock. Goddamn it…”

The Locust blipped into view again, right on Lightning Four’s tail, six hundred yards back, lined up for an easy kill shot.

“Sweet dreams,” laughed the Locust pilot. Then he was gone again.

The crowd was yelling now. No, Snider realized, cheering.

Two F-35s in under two minutes. It was so beautiful it was horrifying. Even the bean counters were grinning like kids at a World Series game.

The two “destroyed” F-35s flew out of the test area, and Snider could swear she saw their wings droop with frustration and disappointment. These pilots were combat pros who had seen action in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. They were the kind of pilots who killed what they hunted and always came home without a dent in the fender. Now they would have to put this on their résumé. The only consolation was that these were the kinds of pilots who might be in the first full class of Locust pilots. They would want that. They would burn for that.

The remaining F-35s were watchdogging each other, changing formation, doubling back, making random turns to shake pursuit. This part of it would sell the maneuverability of the F-35 to even a hardened skeptic.

But then Lightning Two announced that there was a missile lock on him. It sounded like the words were being pulled out of his mouth with rusty pliers. The laughter of the Locust pilot did not soothe his feelings one little bit, and the Locust appeared again, momentarily switching off its chameleonic disguise. One moment it was invisible against the far mountains, the next moment it was there doing its cocky little victory roll, and then it was gone again.

“Son of a bitch,” said a voice and Snider saw that it was the senator who was the chairman of the arms appropriation committee. “Son of a goddamn bitch.”

Snider picked up the walkie-talkie. “Locust One, come out of the closet and go head to head.”

“Roger that, Ground.”

The Locust appeared again and in a part of the sky where it should not have been, clear evidence of its ability to turn and accelerate. The pilot of the last of the F-35s, Lightning One, growled something that sounded like, “You’re mine, a*shole.” Everyone laughed.

The two jets were three miles apart and high above the desert, flying toward each other at incredible speeds. This would be over in seconds.

The crowd was cheering, stamping their feet, waving hands and shaking fists. The Locust screamed toward its prey.

And suddenly the sky was filled with fire.

The blast was silent for a moment and then the shock wave of an incredible BANG punched its way down out of the sky and slammed into Snider and all the spectators. They staggered, some fell. Snider stumbled backward and would have gone down had not the young lieutenant leaped forward to steady her. Then the two of them froze, staring upward at the fireball. Flaming pieces of metal fell slowly down toward the desert. There was one piece that did not look like debris. It looked like a person. A man. Burning as he fell.

The Locust was gone.

The F-35 peeled off and angled away from the burning cloud.

Snider snatched up the walkie-talkie and screamed into it. “Ground to Lightning One—what the f*ck have you done? Who gave you permission to go weapons hot? My God!”

The pilot responded at once and his voice was clearly shaken. “Lightning One to Ground, that is a negative engagement. Weapons are off-line, repeat, weapons are off-line.”

“Then what the hell just—?”

“Ground, report hostile at eleven o’clock.”

“Identify, identify!”

“Hostile is … holy God…”

But now Snider could see the hostile. Everyone in the stands could see it.

The craft was larger than the fighters. Sleeker. Triangular.

There were no visible wings.

No visible markings. No windows. No rocket pods.

No one spoke. They stared. They pointed. They covered their gaping mouths.

For a long, terrible moment the hostile just sat there in the sky. Unmoving, gleaming like a drop of molten silver.

“Ground, permission to engage,” called Lightning One, “permission to engage.”

“Engage with what?” murmured Snider. The F-35s had flown with dummy missiles and unloaded guns. All to prevent any chance of a mistake.

The F-35 to flew as tight a circle as its design would allow, turning to meet this craft, determined, at least, to do a close flyby. Maybe catch some identifying marks. Maybe to …

To what? thought Snider.

Then the hostile moved. Not merely away from the jet that screamed toward it. The bogey rose straight up.

Straight.

Up.

Five miles above the sand, it changed direction without slowing and shot away toward the west. It moved so fast that the eye could not follow it.

All of this in front of eighty-one witnesses and twenty-six high-definition video cameras.

The last of the burning wreckage of the Locust crashed to the salty sand, sending up a dust plume that looked like a mushroom cloud.

“Colonel,” said the lieutenant in a child’s frightened voice, “what was that?”

Snider didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Everyone there at Dugway, in the stands, in the control booth, and even the pilot up in the F-35 knew what it was.

No one wanted to say it, though.

Because this was the U.S. military, and the U.S. military does not believe in flying saucers.