23:58 December 2nd, 2002, over the Atlantic off Florida.

The sign of peace, the handing of a goblet from the dominative force in a conversation signified the protection from said force to those who might feel at risk...

Crusader and Saracen Warfare Part Three; Ceremony by Hadrian Potter

Harry growled in annoyance and, after gently folding up the part of the dissertation he was proof-reading, stowed it in a pocket over his left knee under a map. Glancing up at the sky above him, he switched on a satellite sensor and a screen in front of him lit up. Glaring at it venomously, Harry saw his own face. For the last two days, his face had been all over the Capital's news programs and more than a few outside D.C, even national television.

Sighing with disgust, he shut down the satellite relay and relaxed as much as he could on the ejector seat. At ninety-five thousand feet, he had a view unlike any other, from a platform that was cruising easily at Mach 2.5, or two-and-a-half times the speed of sound. Ground speed, approximately two-thousand miles an hour. The MiG-25 Foxbat, 'acquired' through means he didn't discuss, was the fastest aircraft flying in America.

The aircraft was flying so fast that the journey from Andrews Air Force Base to Cape Canaveral Air Station would take less than half an hour. Fifty miles out and he could see Nassau. GPS informed him he was five-hundred miles from central Cuba, a place that would explicitly not welcome him. Against an SA-2 Surface to Air Missile, his Foxbat would have trouble evading, with a G-limit of four-and-a-half times the force of gravity, or 4.5 G, the manoeuvrability of the the State of Texas. Its only redeeming feature was altitude and a top speed of nearly as much as Donald Trump faced with an IRS audit.

"Canaveral approach on one-one-eight decimal six-two-five, this is Foxbat One, requesting approach vector." Harry radioed.

"Foxbat, Canaveral Tower, acknowledge. Descend Angels nine-five, make bearing two-one for finals and reduce speed. For approach alert Orlando on one-three-four decimal nine-five-zero, confirm."

"Tower, Foxbat."

Harry throttled back the engines to near idle. At a high Mach number the shockwave called the 'sonic boom' changed shape, and with the altitude he was holding, would only be heard on the ground as a distant rumble of thunder. With the speed he was carrying, he would have to lose it and go subsonic as he descended to lower altitudes. And not accidentally barge into Cuban airspace.

00:01, December 3rd 2002, United States Air Force Station Cape Canaveral, Florida

Touching down with a gentle thump, Harry fired the brake chute which billowed behind the immense interceptor. Switching frequencies to ground control, he was directed to taxi off the runway to the hard-standing that stood at the north end of the runway on the east side. He flew into Canaveral quite often, this would be the ninth time that he'd be operating out of the air station this year alone.

Met on the hard-standing by an HMMWV, Harry made judicious use of the throttles as he was guided to an open-sided aircraft shelter, easing the aircraft in. Ground crew moved in carefully as he shut down the engines, several of them wielding thermometers to check surface temperature of the aircraft's skin. As the engines spooled down, a hydraulic platform was raised to the cockpit sill, and a member of the ground crew unfastened the side-hinged canopy.

The air was hot and humid, as expected of Florida, even though there was a crisp wind coming in off the Atlantic. Having left Andrews Air Force Base at twenty-three thirty local time. The time was now midnight. Harry pulled off his flying helmet and, pulling his knees up onto the ejector seat, stood up and climbed out.

"I won't be flying for a good few hours yet." Harry told one of the ground crew; "But make sure she's fuelled, the chute packed and ready to go by zero-four hundred."

"Yes sir."

Harry grinned. Being a civil contractor, he got a certain amount of leeway in his dress. The khaki flying suit he was wearing had several insignias on it. One was a set of NASA observer's wings, the other a set of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wings, one above the other on his left chest, while his right shoulder had a USAF Weapons School graduate patch on it, below the afterburning sound barrier-breaking plane of the USAF Test Pilot School. People tended to notice such things.

Walking into the mess, Harry saw a familiar face at one of the tables. Sat at a laptop, with a mess of blond hair and a concentrated expression on his face, Caspar Cain, his closest, and probably only, friend glanced up. Both wizards, they both spent most of their time in the non-magical world. And both had IQ levels which would make most quantum physicists green with envy.

Caspar held a Doctorate of Science, genetics being the central subject and a Master of Science's degree in Medicine along with several lesser degrees including mathematics, which allowed him to practice as a surgeon, a police medical examiner and moonlight at several West Coast universities as a lecturer. Coincidentally, he was only a month younger than Harry, effectively orphaned, though from his own mouth, were he to meet his biological parents, he would happily shoot them both. The age difference was something Harry gave him no end of trouble about.

Scowling at his dead cigar, Harry produced another one from a cigar case and lit it with a prod of a finger.

"Man, you're going to kill yourself if you keep drinking and smoking at the rate you do." Caspar said with all the enthusiasm of a corpse. A couple-of-decades-old corpse at that.

"And the likelihood of me surviving that long?" Harry asked, walking over and flopping down onto the bench opposite him, lying down horizontally on it. His arm, broken a couple of months ago in a snowmobiling accident, throbbed slightly. His love of racing dune buggies, shooting, bungee-jumping, base-jumping, sky-diving, HALO, jet-skiing and powerboating did have its downsides, namely having at some point in his life bent or broken most of the parts of his body. It was worth it though.

Between the various extreme sports, his job, more extreme sports and pugilistic sports, he had suffered a good number of injuries, enough that his medical file was around the weight of an average doctorate by dissertation. Not that he cared for such trivial things. Living his life was more important to him.

"Which aircraft are you wanting to fly?" Harry asked.

"I think I'll stick with the Starfighter with a rocket stuck to its arse." Caspar grinned; "I get to fly right up along the sheet of flame from the rocket while you have to fly a set profile to gather data. Too boring for me."

Harry just made a rude gesture at him.

"Go and get some sleep before you finally succeed at killing yourself." sighed Caspar, closing his laptop. "I'll get preparations in hand for briefing at oh-four-thirty."

After a few moments of silence, Harry headed off to find somewhere to snatch a few hours of sleep.

04:29, Briefing Room 'Bravo', December 3rd 2002, United States Air Force Station Cape Canaveral, Florida

"And the final member of the team arrives." Caspar drawled as Harry strolled in, chewing on a lit cigar as he examined a meteorological briefing.

"Nice conditions, clear weather." Harry commented.

"Preparations on the vehicle and the payload are going at an acceptable rate with pre-launch testing and calibration likely to commence at about seven-PM tonight, at which point you can expect launch or cancellation within twenty to thirty hours." a USAF one-star Brigadier-General announced.

"Stand-by for launch at seventeen-hundred hours." Caspar commented, adding a time and event to a board behind them; "What's the status on our telemetry gear?"

"Arrives in about six hours on your VC-10 from Edwards."

"I'll fly a profile and check it, then return for the telemetry." Harry agreed, grabbing the phone. "Line. Ops, can the Foxbat be ready in six-zero minutes?"

"Copy, fuelling will take two-zero, we'll have her on the pan and ready to go by zero-five hundred hours." the line engineering officer replied.

"Thanks mate." Harry hung up.

02:39, December 3rd 2002, over the Atlantic, twenty miles off Florida

"Foxbat Alpha position is green. Climb rate stabilised at oh-two thirty-eight and forty-thousand feet to five-thousand feet per minute." Harry radioed, hand resting on the MiG's throttles.

"Star Alpha, position minus zero-three seconds, preparing to position for run in." Caspar's voice rattled over the radio.

For all jokes and adolescent behaviour, at this moment with millions of dollars worth of equipment and working with billions more, they were deadly serious. A carefully orchestrated dance, a puppet show with no visible strings, the jets moved in perfect synchronisation.

"T-minus two minutes." the perfectly calm voice of the controller.

A couple of other ground technicians reported on their modules, then it was the turn of the jets.

"T-minus one minute."

"Cameras are good, tape rolling... rolling... rolling."

"I have good responses from all telemetry, tracking in position, we are beginning run in."

Banking in, Harry heard the report, T-minus thirty seconds, then twenty. The report came that the firing chain was armed and the engines were being lit.

"T-minus ten, nine, eight, six, five, four, three, two, one – Liftoff!"

Harry gently eased the nose up, climb rate increasing to eight-thousand feet per minute, hand resting on the throttle. A poke at the radar and it was soon locked and tracking. Twisting in his seat, Harry tried to get a visual on the satellite, but the broad fuselage and the long nose prevented that. He simply switched onto instruments, ignoring the world outside his canopy and simply watching the radar tracking the altitude.

"And... climbing." he muttered to himself. "Foxbat phase two, climbing, climbing, climbing."

Hauling back on the stick, he opened up on the afterburners, the massive maws of the five-foot wide engines leaving a trail of almost pink superheated air behind him, climbing through seventy-thousand feet. At this point, a slight twist of the ailerons and the MiG rolled enough for him to get a visual on the Atlas rocket, and the NF-104, faithfully following atop a pedestal of its own burnt rocket fuel. Rolling back into position, Harry settled into the climb at twenty-thousand feet a minute.

Finally, the call of "Angels detach." came at a hundred-and-ten thousand feet, well after they'd switched on underwing oxygen supplies for the engines. Gratefully, Harry eyed the atmosphere around him before gently rolling the MiG over and beginning the descent back to earth.

"How does a few days on Daytona beach sound. Girls, sunshine and surfing?" Caspar commented, having switched onto the aircraft channel.

"Life looks good for the next few days." Harry agreed; "Klondike, anything going for your weekend?"

"A real slow few days back at base, maybe an evening out on the town." drawled the deep south accent from the E-3 Sentry. "I hear the 'gators and the golf courses ain't gettin' on, ah'm gonna see if I can bag me some of them. Chicks dig croc boots, and a guy don't turn down booty."

"A man after my own cold, black heart." Harry chuckled; "Foxbat switching to approach, see you in the bar."

"Roger that."