4
Lightning Strikes Again
"Shǔ nián."
"Why would contract shoppers be involved with this?" Caitlin asked no one in particular, while glancing around the room.
"They could be very effective at spreading a potential pandemic Caitlin." Michael said, pushing his glasses higher up on his nose.
"I don't understand, why would they risk their lives like that?" Dale, who was seated next to her uncle asked with concern.
"Maybe they have no choice Dale sweetheart." Branson said gently with compassion. "China's people are only doing what they're told."
Dale rolled her eyes a little. "Not unlike us." She said under her breath before the beautiful woman threw a challenging glare towards the screen at Michael.
"Who knows?" Michael said with a shrug, pretending he didn't witness Dales' dig. He would have to play nice to keep Branson Richards and the group as cooperative as possible. He would catch more flies with honey and his priority at this time was helping the President with the safety and the freedom of the people of America before those of other countries with agendas that sought to destroy that right.
"The Project Guardian boffins have just taken on the unenviable task of tracking each and every one of those contractors down and putting them on the watch list."
Nash huffed sceptically, announcing his misgivings. "What's a watch list ever done for us?"
"It's all we can do. We can't afford to tip anyone off. But I don't think it'll come to anything if we get in and out of China before they get the order to mobilise," Michael said easily as if it were really that easy.
"Yeah about that," Saint John said, lifting a finger to stay on point. "We still need to nominate a crew and do some simulated weapons training."
"I'll have to leave the crew in your capable hands and will run through a mission course with Le for your training, I'll be able to get access to some classified airspace to make it interesting." Michael said confidently, and followed with, "oh and The President wants to see you strut your stuff before you leave."
"The Lady doesn't have time to be a show pony, Michael." Saint John said in a short tone.
"Are you going to deny the President of the United States of America Saint John? I don't even think Stringfellow Hawke had the cajones to do that." Michael goaded. The truth was, that it was he that really couldn't deny the POTUS and if riling up one of the team was enough to allow Tobias to get his way, then so be it.
"My little brother would have told you the exact same thing Archangel and you know it!" Saint John said, stabbing a finger at the screen angrily. It took a lot to flare Saint John's temper and bringing up his brother in questionable context was one of them. Especially where Michael was concerned. "Besides, where do you think this is going to happen? We're not revealing .."
"Hold up, hold up." Le said lifting a hand and interceding Saint John's ireful rant. "Would our President be happy with a virtual show?" he said in a much less forceful tone.
Michael's long silence and pointed one-eyed glare prompted Le to continue. "Seriously, even if he were to be at the demonstration in person, he'd see nothing but the take off and the landing. I can send through what I'm following from the multiple camera angles and everyone can experience a live simulation as we proceed. How does that sound?"
Michaels lips curled up into a grin and he nodded his approval "Make it happen."
Later that afternoon, the team had chosen Airwolf's primary crew. Based on common sense it was the logical choice. Nash would be the pilot and Saint John would man the EDCC. Dale just didn't have enough training experience and both men were fit and had military experience.
Bright and early the next day the crew including Jo and Caitlin gathered at The Lair for their first training session.
"Gee, It's String and Dom all over again," Caitlin said watching the scene reminiscent from years gone by.
Nash gave his mother a thumbs up from Airwolf's cockpit before he slipped on his helmet.
"You can say that again," Jo agreed, thinking the exact same thing and feeling a lump form in her throat at the thought.
Le had installed an overlay program into Airwolf's systems that produced a random series of virtual battle scenes. Airwolf would always carry her base ammunition stock but could still train with virtual specialist armament programmed into the mock mission. It was something that he had panned from almost the start of the project that would replace live scenarios because it was the one thing they couldn't access before Michael came back into their lives.
With a two-part armament switch, it could only be activated with someone in both the cockpit and the EDCC and no ammunition would be discharged. The program could be deactivated the same way, and then live ammunition would come back online.
Even with the latest turn of events, the future development of Le's program could potentially aid military operations and save billions in live ammunition and infrastructure reproduction and still achieve the all-important combat practice from active platforms and even be integrated into multiple platforms to replicate complete battle scenes in the air and from the ground.
It was like a next generation computer game for the military where the console was instead the real deal, just minus the weapons and other mock-ups.
But for now, it would suit their purpose as a singular live practice simulator with the little time they had left to hone Airwolf's and her crew's skills.
Lifting off and out of The Lair, Nash felt a grin form on his face as he lowered his visor and as soon as they got out into clear air he called out. "Saint John, give me turbos."
Nash and Saint John had no idea how the virtual combat would unfold. They'd only received directives on the route and would be at the mercy of Le's unfolding computer program throughout the entire exercise.
Dropping altitude into a canyon, Nash called out, "engage rotors," as they coasted back down through three hundred knots. The pair should have known that they wouldn't get too much time to breath before having something thrown at them.
"We got a SAM on our tail," Saint John said as Airwolf alerted the crew of an incoming anti-aircraft missile.
"Ident." Nash said asking for type.
Airwolf's impressive weapons index revealed the MANPADS missile. "Vanguard II, dual band Passive Infrared." Saint John said simply as soon as the identification came up on the screen, keeping it short and sweet.
"Give me two Sunburst." Nash said with a level voice and Saint John hit the button, releasing a flare each from both sides of The Lady, their high temperature confusing the heatseeking missile as it followed one of the counter measures to the canyon floor below.
"Engage full armament." Nash said, calling up the ADF Pod and both wing and rear guns to be deployed.
Ahead, Airwolf's sensors picked up on four moving targets. "Four CAIC Z-10 ten miles ahead." Saint John said clearly.
"I detect a distinct flavour here Saint John," Nash said of the weaponry they were encountering.
"Would y'all like prawn crackers with that?" Saint John said, agreeing with an answer that came out like a question on approach to the four heavily armed attack helicopters, "Cause we're gonna be looking down the barrel of no less than sixty-four TY-90 air to airs"
"Stats?"
Saint John read out relevant weapon data:
Guidance: heat seeker
fuse: laser proximity, contact
Speed: Mach 2
Maximum range: 8 km
Maximum altitude: 6 km
"Sixty four missiles between them, you say?" Nash said absently while in deep thought over his options. He felt a little rusty, but the numbers made the choice for him.
"Yeah, plus 25mm chain guns, but they're neither here nor there," Saint John shrugged knowing that Airwolf could easily resist that calibre of fire.
"Well, we're not running the gauntlet," Nash said with a shake of his head. Knowing it would be fun to try, right now was not the time to be playing on this CPU like a cocky teenager, just start the game again if they were on the wrong end. Sometimes you also had to take on evasive measures to outwit an enemy. "We can't out fire them, but we can hustle and outrun them. Saint John, engage turbo's."
Saint John was more than happy to comply, he had no desire to be caught in the middle of a four on one dogfight with thirty-two pairs of eyes homed in on their tail.
Back at the Lair, Le was also happy with the progress and impressed with Nash for not getting his blood up for an impossible challenge. He had run through hundreds of dogfight scenario's and Airwolf thus far and hadn't survived any of them with so much ammunition waiting to be fired at them.
Nash pointed The Lady skywards and hit the opponents ceiling altitude before the other choppers even managed to get a visual on them, let alone release any of their missiles. The boys made easy work with evasion and were well out of range within minutes.
Levelling out at Mach .9, they cruised towards their virtual destination and kept their eyes peeled while they waited for the next obstacle to alert itself on Airwolf's radar.
But it never came. Airwolf's PIR sensors were all that alerted the crew to an inbound aircraft before they could even set their sights on it coming from over their right shoulder.
"Hold on!" Saint John yelled out in alarm.
With next to no time to make an evasive manoeuvre, they were almost run over. Two aircraft cruising at just under Mach 1 crossed over one another's path not more than ten feet apart.
Airwolf lurched as if she was hit by the wash of a jet "Shit! Did you feel that?" Nash said in surprise as both aircraft nearly collided at near supersonic speeds. "Amazing program!" he said in excitement as the adrenalin spiked through his body.
"Incredibly realistic!" Saint John said giving Le another favourable comment on his amazing work. Airwolf finally gave him a couple of possible idents. The Lady clearly had some trouble identifying the stealth aircraft but narrowed it down to the most likely, simply based on that very thing. "We just got swooped by an F35!" Saint John called out.
"Beautiful Lady, Beautiful Lady, this is The Sentinel." Michaels urgent voice called through the radio under Project Guardian's callsign.
"Sentinel, this is Beautiful Lady, we're kind of in the middle of something Michael what's up?" Nash asked.
"That was not part of the simulation, The President was called away earlier. He just contacted Marella to say that an F35 went missing about an hour ago after it lost contact with its squadron. Any attempt to contact Lt. Jim Smyth has been unsuccessful and the aircraft is on auto GCAS suggesting that he's unresponsive.
"Oh. That's... not ideal." Nash said, thinking of the 2019 incident where a disoriented Japanese pilot that lost his life in the same aircraft because it lacked one of those auto ground collision avoidance systems. It also made him thankful that Airwolf had similar automated safety installed.
"We haven't got long." Michael said, interrupting Nash's thoughts. "That aircraft was supposed to meet up with an OMEGA tanker but never showed. Now that we know what heading it's tracking." Michael paused for a moment, "Nash, it's heading straight for San Francisco."
"What are you asking me to do Michael?" knowing exactly where the conversation was heading.
"Defence hasn't got the time to scramble anything in the next ten minutes, you'll have to go after it and get a visual on the pilot and see if we have a ghost. Then report back for the order to shoot it down." Michael said in an authoritative voice leaving no doubt.
Nash's military experience kicked in and he swung The Lady around to pursue the Lightning.
Out running it wasn't that much of a problem. What was a problem, was whether they had enough time to find and catch up to it before they got to a populated area and it fell out of the sky all by itself and perhaps injuring or killing great numbers of people on the ground.
Nash hit the throttles and was off like a flash.
"Lord, please let Lieutenant Jim Smyth come to before we catch up with him." Saint John prayed quietly. The best outcome would be for the man to eject before they shot the jet out of the sky.
"Cancel Virtual Training Mode and engage thermal tracking." Nash called to Saint John as he flicked off the cockpit switch.
"Copy that." Saint John said shutting down the simulation from his end and appointing FLIR.
Flying from behind, it would be easier to find the F35's heat signature with Airwolf's Infrared sensors, than to try and spot a marble sized radar fix on the stealth aircraft before they could get an eye on it.
"Got her! Four miles ahead. Three, three zero." Saint John said only minutes later when the image came up on the screen.
"Visor one. Impose FLIR Image." Nash said, calling on his slave helmet to give him the replicated EEDC image for the first time.
Nash steered The Lady on track, washed off some speed and cancelled the FLIR image as soon as he made a visual on the F35.
Nearing the jet and then coming alongside, Nash peered into the neighbouring cockpit only find that the pilot appeared completely unconscious and sitting slumped in his harness.
Dialling in the radio frequency, Nash attempted to rouse the pilot. "Lieutenant Smyth do you copy, Sir?" Nash called numerous times but his hope dwindled when there was no response coming from the jets cockpit.
He made the call and radioed Michael with the bad news. "Michael. We've got a Ghost flight," Nash said mechanically.
Saint John had focused Airwolf's cameras to take a better look and record some footage to send back to Le for Michael's verification.
The minutes stretched on while the two men waited on word from Michael. "We're running out of space here," Saint John said, cross checking the GPS and ground topography radar with the edge of the desert only fifty or so miles away.
"Standby." Michael said, as he too, waited for authorisation while anxiously watching the drama unfold on the screens in front of him.
Nash positioned The Lady in behind the jet. His normally upbeat mood was sullied by the unpleasant task ahead while Saint John ran through the list of weapons that Airwolf still had onboard. They didn't have a full arsenal and only reloaded what Airwolf already had on board from when they brought her back from her Chilean desert hideaway. "Bring up a Sidewinder." He asked in preparation.
"Michael you heard Saint John. We need to do this ASAP, or we're gonna lose our window." Nash said, further pressing their urgency and feeling a wave of regret over his own words. He had to shake off the sentiment.
Michael was playing a waiting game of his own, he had no business making the final decision. It was all on the President and the Three Star General. Project Guardian couldn't allow Airwolf to be exposed and hoped that they didn't leave it too late or the jet would likely smash into a highly populated area.
Michael's phone rang. Without answering, he received the green light. "Yes Sir," he said and hung up.
A moment later, Nash lined up the Lightning through the target acquisition square imposed on his visor and flicked up the trigger guard.
"Freedom is never free. Rest easy Lieutenant Smyth." He said respectfully, before he squeezed his finger.
The Lady peeled off her course, the moment the boys confirmed the impact and they remained silent the rest of the way back to The Lair.
Michael had called Branson, Nash, and Le into Superior Securities for a debrief for later that day.
Sitting in the quiet control room, Debbie brought up Branson, Michael, Marella and Ayden, who each appeared on the wide screen from different parts of the country before leaving the New Alliance group to their devices. Jo and Caitlin, with their less active rolls, would be informed later with details that they had the clearance to receive.
"So, tell me Michael, how did you explain what happened today and still keep Airwolf a secret." Branson said, clearly very unhappy that they had to risk it all and clean up the Airforce's mess.
Nash startled at Branson's words and sat rigidly upright as he relived the experience all over again. It would take a while for him to process.
"Airwolf is still a secret is she not Michael?" Branson asked with a hint of doubt after Michael didn't answer right away.
Michael couldn't divulge all that went on between the President that the Chief of the Airforce, he wasn't there but he did know that nothing had been compromised. "Let's just say that after the scene is cleared up, that it never happened," he answered instead.
Nash scoffed, shaking his head. There was no doubt about it. They were always so good at covering their asses.
The irony of it.
"Got something to say Nash?" Michael asked the younger man, "We just saved the Airforce from having to explain why one of their F35's managed to get away from them and kill tens of, if not more innocent civilians and at the same time, we've found ourselves an ally in the General."
"Yeah well. You weren't the one who had to pull the trigger on one of your own, so forgive me if I don't share your enthusiasm." Nash said cynically.
"Look." Michael said quite seriously, "I'm not trying to trivialise what you had to do out there, but we do need to take advantage of what we gained out of it. Don't worry about Airwolf, no one knows what helped stop the catastrophe. We told them we had an experimental aircraft that we were testing. Not too much of a stretch in that airspace as you know."
"You alright there, Wings?" Saint John asked his normally extraverted counterpart.
"Just peachy," Nash answered sarcastically before the brief moved on.
Airwolf's general performance was discussed, she and her team clearly performed admirably and the crew surpassed expectation even with the training session cut short.
The next day they would head out again with new challenges. They still didn't know exactly where they were going. Just out in the desert to another pre-programmed route where they'd have to deal with multiple attacks.
Airwolf made short work of a few virtual pesky Hughes 500 gunships, destroying a virtual missile launch site with a Hippogriff, knocking out a virtual KY2000 AWACS aircraft with a new generation Peregrine, all of which Raytheon would supply them with. Saint John even got a little play time with the rear facing gun by shooting one of a couple of virtual fighter jets out of the sky after quite a challenging dogfight and then Nash finally knocked out the second one out with another Sidewinder.
While they would never be able to have all the Raytheon weapons on board at the same time, it was also unlikely that there would ever be the multiple and varied intercepts that they had to contend with on their training missions. It was proving a valuable training tool to keep the crew under maximum pressure throughout their airtime.
The following day it was wheels up for the last time in training. Nash and Saint John received the coordinates for a restricted area within the controlled airspace they had already flown in for a field exercise.
Airwolf was always most vulnerable when on the ground, so the crew assumed they would be practicing some sort of rescue operation in preparation for their mission to China.
They had both served in the Armed forces and were weapons experts. For hits and giggles, the whole Santini crew often frequented the range and also practiced combat by taking Airsoft a little too seriously to keep their eye in and their heads in the game.
Le had purposely left sending through the final data through till the last moment. They didn't have the luxury of time to put into the finer details so for the purpose of the exercise he agreed with Michael that to force them to think on their feet would hone their skills far quicker than a more thought out plan with much less risk than conventional Defence training thanks to the program.
Arriving near their final destination and after a few more artificially generated skirmishes to get them in the mood, Airwolf alerted the crew to their pin called Devils Anvil as they approached it only a few miles out. The alert in turn, signalled Le's program to send through the demographics of the area.
Finally being able to identify their surroundings in more detail, they stayed downwind of their destination and Saint John set about finding somewhere to land that would lessen the chances of being found out before they even set foot on any soil.
With the final coordinates, Nash flew The Lady to a small, level area over the ridge and not too far from their target.
Setting down gently, shutting down and keeping Airwolf on standby mode, Nash and Saint John memorised the information and armed themselves for what may lay ahead.
After tracking over the ridge, they came upon a derelict, old style radio dish and a bent over steel framed tower. Below them a building nestled into the craggy wall, the expansive rooftop deck was surrounded by a rusty handrail and to one side, there was access to the building beneath.
Threading their way cautiously through the jagged rocks and boulders, they made their way down the face of the gorge and quietly dropped onto the concrete deck.
It was clear that with its grey, weathered appearance and thick drifts of sand that lay strewn across the surface meant the facility hadn't been used in many years.
Saint John peered warily over the edge, while Nash covered him. There was no one below on ground level, revealing more of how nature was reclaiming the area with sand piled up against the walls, the occasional low scrub growing from the barren ground and a few tumbleweeds lightly blowing around the vast expanse of the gorge floor.
The surrounding structure revealed that it looked as though it had been well used for previous target practice, but they didn't really have time to take it all in when they heard a noise coming from within the building.
Placing a finger over his lips, Saint John pointed to the partially collapsed roof top entrance. The men made their way there and with the door already taken off its hinges, they didn't have to wrestle it to gain access.
Down the stairs and along the hallway, they tactically cleared the rooms along the way until hearing gunshots from just ahead.
There were people here and they were armed. Unable to speak, the men communicated through gestures and remained focussed if not a lot more anxious then they had been only minutes earlier.
The noise took them down the hall some more. As they sidestepped with their backs against the wall, Nash peeked around the corner to see a man in combat uniform blocking the direct sight of two other people who were seated in front of him.
Nash snatched himself back into the hallway and indicated two potential hostages and one armed man to Saint John.
But it was too late. A second later both men felt presence with them in the hallway, they were asked to drop their weapons, their guns were kicked away before being frisked and then escorted into the large room.
Michael and Marella sat quietly on their chairs with somewhat smug looks on their faces. The third man stood at ease and was standing alongside them with his weapon pointed to the ground.
Saint John saw a humorous side to being fooled, but Nash thought he should have known better and felt like one.
"Don't feel too bad gentlemen." Marella said rising from her chair, "Nash, Saint John. Allow me to introduce Delta Force operators, Nick, Sam and Will."
The men shook hands in turn, the two named Sam and Will - if that were indeed their names - handed Nash and Saint John back their weapons.
Nick, the team leader and the oldest of the three, made a surprisingly sincere apology "Hope there's no hard feelings?"
"Nope," Saint John said shaking his head. "I was kind'a wondering how we were going to fly into a congested city and break into a Level 4 bio lab, find our target and get out again without being detected , so I'm sort'a glad to have met you boys. It's an honour."
"No Sir, the honour's all mine, you served in Nam, that's good enough for me," Nick said not divulging that his father was one of the thousands that didn't come back.
"Ah, I see," Saint John nodded realising that these three men likely knew everything about them.
"So, what was the point to all this?" Nash asked, opening his hands to the space around them and was not quite so willing to forgive.
"Nash. You didn't think we'd let just the two of you run a complete mission in this day and age did you? That might have been acceptable in the eighties, but we're dealing with a different world now and need a much more specialised team this time around. It would be suicide without backup." Michael said, further drawing them into the scale of what lay ahead.
While Saint John and his new BFF was still chit chatting, Nash continued to take in his surroundings in more detail. The room gave panoramic views of the desolate landscape outside. Views not only through where the windows once were, because every one of them had been shot out, but also through the gaping holes that had been blown through the thick concrete walls.
Debris still littered the floor. Old computer keyboards and monitors, desks and office chairs upended. Almost everything had been left as it fell, plus the thick layer of dirt and dust that had been added to it over the years.
"What is this place?" Nash asked after taking it all in.
Rising from his chair, Michael answered. "This is where it all started. Or finished," he shrugged, "it depends on how you look at it." Leaning on his cane to turn, he looked outside.
Marella came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder, both of them remembering the day that they were both caught in the crossfire. Michael had thrown himself over her to protect her and was badly injured in the process.
"This is Airwolf's handywork, it used to be Red Star Control."
